Nova War

The torture, in particular, had been terrible. His flesh betrayed no visible evidence of damage, but he couldn't deny the reality either of the pain he'd felt, or of his own screams of agony.

It wasn't until later that he learned the ambrosia being fed to him was a different concoction than that fed to Dakota, for it numbed him and blurred his thoughts without stealing them away entirely. It seemed the Bandati wanted his mind relatively clear so that he could tell them everything they needed to know about the protocols.

They hadn't yet realized Dakota was the truly indispensable one.

In the meantime, his i

His thoughts slowed as he drank, and he then collapsed to one side, filled with a sense of false bliss.

They had not come for him that particular night, but he didn't lack for nightmares to bring him awake in the dark, heaving with terror.

He dreamt he was back on the shores of Fire Lake, back on Redstone, watching his friend Sal scream at him in terrible fear. Corso couldn't make out what he was saying, but Sal kept pointing upwards. Corso knew he didn't want to see whatever it was Sal was pointing at, because he knew with the inevitable logic of dreams that whatever it was, it would be the worst thing imaginable.

But in the end he looked up, because he had to, and because it was a dream. And overhead, the sun was tearing itself apart in an act of cosmic self-immolation.

Vast loops of burning gas arced across the sky, before falling down on the world of Corso's birth like a burning scythe.

He woke in panic, but saw only the shadows of his cell, and the lights of distant towers outside. The next several days had crawled past with interminable slowness.

Corso was not aware of any specific point during this period at which he began talking to himself. At first he rationalized his behaviour; surely someone was listening by means of hidden microphones. To simply discard him here made no kind of rational sense, so he talked as if addressing an unseen audience.

He also tried to attract the attention of passing Bandati, most of them barely visible as mere specks in the distance. He enjoyed no more luck in this venture than Dakota did, so he vented his rage on passing cargo blimps, shouting entreaties and threats until his throat grew sore and his voice hoarse. Then he would crouch silently by the door-opening while the hours dragged past, always aware of the ambrosia pipe close behind him, waiting until the hunger and thirst became unbearable before crawling back into the greater darkness at the rear of his cell to fill his stomach.

He would then slip into a half-vegetative state for the next several hours, content merely to watch the sun crawling across the sky, if he didn't simply doze off meanwhile.

Corso grew increasingly haggard and wild-eyed, and his crouching on the lip beyond the door-opening and ranting at the silent towers beyond became something of a habit. He would yell out about his willingness to cooperate, all in return for the Freehold's involvement. His voice ranged from an angry shout to a bare mumble; yet it seemed no reply would ever be forthcoming.

In his more lucid moments, he began to feel as if he were splitting into two distinct individuals: the one who roared at the skies until his voice cracked, and the other, more rational one that recognized he was fast losing an already tenuous grasp on reality.

The growing conviction he would live his remaining years isolated and naked in this tower-cell did nothing to alleviate his fear. He had awoken one evening to a dim red glare that flickered against the frame of the door-opening, quickly followed by a muffled explosion that echoed briefly between the towers. As the glare faded, Corso crawled over to watch as an airship of a kind he hadn't seen before opened fire on a train of cargo blimps winding its way through the canyons of the city.

Unlike the blimps, this newcomer appeared to be occupied, for he could just make out tiny winged figures moving around inside the gondola suspended beneath. He watched as some of the blimps were rapidly reduced to ragged and burning ruins, and sent tumbling in flames to the river ru

As he continued to watch in amazement, a second airship of similar construction appeared around the side of his own tower, lights constantly blinking in patterns along the rim of the gondola suspended beneath it. This newcomer came under instant attack from the other aircraft, before retaliating with missiles that left pale, hazy trails of exhaust as they flew towards their target. The first airship meanwhile veered away from the blimp train and out of the line of fire, moving back around Corso's tower until it was out of sight.

It came close enough to his cell for him to see individual Bandati within the gondola frantically working to put out the fire caused by a missile strike. One of the gas bags was aflame, and as a consequence the whole craft was becoming increasingly lopsided. As it lost height rapidly, it looked like it might spill its passengers out into the air at any moment. Corso watched till it slid out of view, and continued to stare out into the darkness, unable to shake the conviction that he'd witnessed something of overwhelming significance. The final straw had come two days later when Corso woke to find himself once again strapped onto a pallet, and back in the torture chamber. For a while there, he'd had reason to believe the intermittent torture sessions were over; after all, he'd been left undisturbed for several days in a row, now.

Clearly he had been mistaken.

Dakota was there too, and they yelled out a brief exchange of information before seemingly unending pain descended on them both. Once more Corso offered his cooperation, framing each statement carefully in the dim and distant hope his black-eyed tormentors might actually understand a single word he was saying. But there was little evidence they understood his answers any more than he understood their questions.

When he woke back in his cell early the next morning, wild-eyed and bedraggled, his mind fusty from the drugs they'd used to knock him out again, he knew he couldn't take any more.

So he decided to climb out of the window and escape.

Below his cell there were three platforms visible, all bedecked with haphazard-looking buildings. The closest projected to one side, but at least thirty metres down; so in order to get to it, he'd have to climb sideways around the tower for about ten metres before even starting to work his way downwards.

The second platform was positioned directly below him, but further down and partly hidden beneath the first. If he lost his grip, landing on it shouldn't be too difficult. Surviving the drop was something else.

Below both of these, Corso was just about able to make out the outside edge of a third platform, visible only because it was significantly larger than the two above it.

From studying other towers nearby, he could discern no regular pattern to the location of these jutting platforms. Sometimes they appeared to be clumped close together like barnacles, while wide stretches of intervening wall remained entirely bare. He thus came to the conclusion that any individual Bandati could simply construct a platform on the side of a tower wherever he chose to; the reasons for doing so remained opaque – unless these random protrusions were, indeed, nothing more than the sites for dwelling-places.

For long, tense minutes he stared down at the closest platform, slightly to one side, then began testing handholds on the rough grooves that almost horizontally encircled the tower's circumference in a shallow spiral. All the time, the same thought kept ru