Marcus Blaze's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Marcus reached the far wall and stopped short. The floor ahead was gone. Fire had eaten a wide gap between him and the glowing doorway. He looked down. The drop fell into black smoke and broken beams. He could not jump it carrying the captain. He could not leave him either. The captain stirred against his chest. "Put me down," he rasped. "Throw me across if you have to." Marcus shook his head. A man this hurt would not survive the landing. He needed another way over. He scanned the room. Against one scorched wall stood a tall cabinet, its green paint blistered but its frame still whole. Rose gold handles gleamed on its doors. Marcus set the captain down and ran to it. He shoved. The cabinet slid, then tipped. He guided it forward until it fell flat across the gap. It bridged the drop, just barely. The wood held. Marcus lifted the captain again and stepped onto the cabinet. It creaked under their weight. He crossed slow, eyes on the doorway ahead. The bridge groaned but did not break. He reached the far side and set the captain down against the wall. The doorway was not a door at all. It was a ring of stone, taller than Marcus, carved with strange marks. Inside the ring, blue light spun and folded on itself, never still. Sparks crawled along its edge. Marcus had never seen anything like it. He did not know where it led. Behind them, the tower shifted. A section of ceiling crashed down onto the cabinet bridge, snapping it in half. The pieces fell into the smoke. There was no going back now. Marcus looked at the spinning ring, then at the captain. The old man's breath came shallow. His lips had gone gray. "Whatever's through there," Marcus said, "it beats burning." He hooked his arms under the captain and lifted one last time. He stepped into the light. Cold hit him like a wave. The floor vanished under his boots. For one long moment he fell through nothing, holding the captain tight. Then sand. Marcus landed hard on his side. Salt air filled his lungs. Waves crashed close by. He blinked and saw a battered wooden house on stilts, its paint peeling, its rails cracked from storms. The tower was gone. The fire was gone. He lay on a cold beach under an open sky. Marcus pushed up and turned to the captain. The old man lay still on the wet sand. His chest rose once, shallow, then barely at all. The wound had soaked through his coat. They had escaped the tower. But the captain was dying, and Marcus did not know this place, or where to find help.