Clematis

Meaning: Ingenuity, cleverness (named for ability to climb up walls and trellises. Never fails to find its way up difficult terrain, often engulfing its surroundings once it has taken hold)

Art by Taylor Mead

There's something magical about looking over your shoulder and seeing nothing but air.

No matter the weather, this high it would be crisp. I could breathe easier up here, enjoy the freedom. Up here I could forget my past, my present… everything. After a deep, refreshing breath, I looked down.

Ten stories above the city, the people below looked like nothing more than a sludge-filled stream, a dark smudge flowing between the flurry of color that was the Light Festival. It was the biggest festival of the year, bringing people from every corner of the kingdom. It often filled the streets from sunrise to sunrise with noise and raucous behavior.

The perfect distraction for an impossible heist.

I returned my attention to my climb. I had to get to the top floor before the sun set if this was going to work. I’d been making good progress, especially after I got past the golem limit. They could only float so high, and apparently 5 stories was the limit. As I put one hand above the other, I grinned to myself. The first few stories had been the most difficult, but that also made them the most fun, dodging around the golems, keeping just out of their sight.

Like playing cat and mouse with city guards, only the golems were smarter.

I'd had to start at that moment before dawn when there was almost no light. This helped with the human guards that patrolled the base of the tower, holding up lanterns that damaged their ability to see much past a few feet. That combined with their obvious boredom and complacency made them easy to evade.

The difficulty came with the golems. Crystal sphere’s partially encased in clay, they had been enchanted to roam the area around the castle and relay the images they saw back to a control room nearby. They usually patrolled opposite the human guards, creating a tight net of security. But, humans being imperfect and golems stuck in their spells, it was difficult to keep things perfectly synced. So tiny little windows of opportunity arise, if you know how to exploit them.

And Dan did.

I'd been skeptical when he first approached me for this job, but I knew that look. It was the nervous energy of excitement. The animation of passion.

"Come on, I know you love a challenge." He'd said, giving me that award-winning smile that had melted the knees of any woman he directed it at. Well, this woman wouldn't be so easily swayed.

"A challenge, not an impossibility." I countered, curling up in my cushioned chair. "No one has ever even infiltrated the tower, let alone cleared it out."

He gripped the arms of the chair and leveled his gaze at me, simultaneously caging me and wrapping me in his scent. Cloves and dust.

"That's why we're going to be the first."

Pushing down a blush, I held his gaze.

"Do you remember what happened to the last crew that even committed a crime close to the tower?"

Pursing his lips, he pretended to think about it. "I believe they were drawn and quartered."

"Exactly. They don't mess around when it comes to the tower, and I very much like being alive and in one piece." I pushed out of the chair, forcing him to step back as I went to the window and watched the people wandering around below our clocktower. He followed me, settling on the other end of the window.

"Doesn't it make you wonder what's in there?"

"Wonder, maybe. Not enough to seek answers."

"What if I told you that what's in there could change our lives forever?"

I glared at him. Of course he had some kind of intel. Watching him for a moment, that sparkle in his eye told me that I wasn't going to get the information out of him. But still, he truly believed this was possible.

I folded my arms. "And what makes you so sure that this plan will work?"

"Because we'll have you."

Now I clung to tiny chips in the stone surface of the tower, thirteen stories above the city. The others would be below, waiting for me to complete my part of this madness.

Three stories to go.

Two.

One.

I paused at the top of the tower, resting on the edge of a stone wall that rimmed a roof terrace. No one here. Just empty benches and an open hatch.

Shaking out my hands, I crept into the hatch and down a bright staircase. My goal lay on the eleventh floor, but I couldn't help but glance in every room I snuck past.

Empty.

Every.

Last.

One.

What the heck are they keeping in this tower if there's no one here? I'd personally seen people walk in and out of the tower's front doors. So where do they go?

Why was this so much easier than it should be?

Pausing on the landing of the eleventh floor, I listened once again, only this time I could hear the soft hum of a conversation.

Into the hallway and all the way down, I peered into an open door. The control room, exactly where Dan said it would be. Unfortunately, this was also where the conversation was coming from.

Digging into my pouches, I pulled out a small bottle and tied a scarf around my mouth. Shaking the bottle, I uncorked it and rolled it into the room as it began billowing a light smoke.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Soft thuds as the two people fell to the floor. Knowing I only had about an hour before they woke up, I hurried into the room and glanced over the panel. Reviewing the mental image I had of the schematics, I pressed a few glyphs and the images from the golems all changed from the ground around the tower to purple sky.

I slipped back to the staircase and continued down the stairs. Three more floors and I heard the light scuff of footsteps on the stone. I froze.

Silence.

Three soft owl hoots echoed along the curved walls. I returned the sound and continued down the stairs to meet Dan and the others. We were now on the sixth floor and before us stood a door fitted with one of the most difficult locks that had ever been created.

Kik, our locksmith, whistled. "That's a beautiful lock, right there."

"Would you stop admiring our hurdles and get to it." Our final member, Joal, growled.

"Y'know, this is why I am the locksmith," Kik said, unrolling a kit filled with tarnished tools. They were old-fashioned, but he swore by them and had yet to be proven wrong. "you have no appreciation for beauty."

I shifted closer to Dan so I could keep my voice low. "So, what are we going to find behind this door?"

He glanced down at me with a stifled grin. "You'll see soon enough."

I scowled at him. He gave a tight chuckle and returned his gaze to Kik. It took Kik ten minutes to open the door. The longest I'd ever seen him take on any lock.

As the door swung in, a soft, blue glow spilled onto the landing.

Dan walked in with no worry to additional traps. Hopefully his intel is good. I followed him in, shivering.

The room took up the entirety of the floor, a forest of pure white pedestals before me. Each had a different gem on them, enchanted, if their shimmer was anything to go by. The sound of each step the four of us took skittered along the floor and died a few feet away. After a moment, I realized that the throb in my ears was actually a single, sustained note. It was almost a humming sound and it seemed to be equally loud throughout the room. I picked up my pace to catch up to Dan, resisting the urge to grab onto his arm and hug it like a frightened child.

Before us, at the very center of the room, stood a large, rough-hewn crystal. It seemed to be reflecting the blue glow, pouring in through colored windows. Wait, I hadn’t seen any windows on my climb. Where was the light coming from?

Stopping next to Dan, I returned my focus to the crystal. Up close it was hazy, but still I could just make out something inside.

No, not something. Someone. 

"Dan, what is this?"

His gaze almost shot through the crystal to the figure inside.

"This is going to change our world."

A shiver ran through me at the reverence in his voice. Since I’d known him he’d never been much for religion, but this… this he searched with the yearning and devotion of the most earnest believer.

"That didn't answer my question." I said, watching him pull a runed charm from his pocket.

"Careful not to mix the different colors." He said, motioning for the others to start collecting the gemstones. He turned back to the crystal and held the charm against it, muttering something I didn't understand. "This crystal is a prison for a very old and powerful being. Ever heard of the Cloud Prophecy?"

A slight crackle emanated from the crystal.

"Yeah. What does that have to do with this?" I asked, rubbing my arm. The crackle turned into a loud cracking.

"This is the one it warns against."

"What?!"

With the sharp crash of a mirror shattering, the crystal crumbled away, leaving a shivering figure in the center. Dan climbed into the chunks of crystal and bent next to the figure.

"It's alright. We're getting you out of here." He voice was soft, tender. A moment later he scooped them up and returned to me.

The 'old and powerful being' was a little girl.

I looked to Dan in shock, but before I could say anything more, a keening wail filled the building and shook my bones. An alarm.

"Time to go, kids.” Kik said, throwing a bag over his shoulder.

"We WILL talk about this when we get back." I said to Dan. He nodded as we followed Kik and Joal back to the landing and down the stairs. The rush of footsteps had us ducking into a door two levels down, crouching into the darkness of another empty hallway.

“Hurry! We need to check the Chamber!” A panicked voice said, rushing past the door and up the stairs. Another set echoed up the steps.

I looked over at Dan. The little girl had buried her face in his shoulder as he held her close, murmuring words of comfort under his breath.

The click of a tongue brought me back to Joal. He motioned with his head and we followed him down the stairs, moving as quietly as we could, pausing only long enough to verify that no one was below us. The people that had gone upstairs surely would have noticed the empty chamber by now. We needed to hurry.

“Somebody find them!” A man shouted. I could hear the edge in his voice, an acute fear.

What had we done?

A man appeared seemingly from nowhere before us. He barely had time to register our presence before Joal knocked him out.

“Out the front door!” Dan said, redirecting us. “Disappear into the crowds!”

I could hear the men from before thundering back down the stairs as I pushed through the front door. Snatching one of the cloaks Dan had stashed earlier, I wrapped it around myself, pulled up the hood and slowed my pace to match the crowd.

When we got back to the clocktower, Dan would owe all of us some answers.