Foiled Plots and Near Escapes
The spire-builders foresaw many possibilities, in those early days. They foresaw ideological dangers to the towers' mission: that apocalyptist factions would oppose their continued operation, that the tower administration itself could seek to terminate their duty early, that the spire-keeper themself, deranged by power, might turn the towers' power on itself.
There are things Ser Glorie knows, part of her own mission in the princess's defense, about the history of the spires; and what she knows is that, like a library, all the towers' capabilities are arrayed simultaneously. That the tower-builders partitioned and apportioned the authority to use them carefully. Sparingly. If there ever was such a thing as simple off switch for the whole system of towers, the builders put it carefully behind a specific authority; and then, for eternity, entrusted that authority to nobody, inaccessible. And there are several such, fundamental accesses too threatening, too demanding of a trustworthiness that could not be guaranteed through the system's long life, and so walled up.
She is sure the other knight felt and understood what she, too, did: a red and rage-fingered touch to the roots of her longevity, a threat of summary death. An off switch, which the ancients withheld for ever — or should have.
But there has always been a Fool, and as much as it is easy to fall into thinking that the world began with, and is encompassed by the towers' life, things came before. The towers, magnificent synthesis that they are, are made of elements and mechanisms that already existed, however much larger they were writ for this. The immortality of the towers' keepers had forerunners; and the bone-deep, inescapable safeguards built into them, those immured controls, were not intrinsic to the technologies — they were part of the tower-system's design. It follows, then, that a tower-builder precursor immortal — a test subject sacrificed to eternity — might not be subject to them....
That would make the Fool both terrifying and tragic; a weak point in the towers vastly more plausible and exploitable than the mirage of the princess's assassination, and alive — alone — for not simply longer than the princess, but the entire consecutive lives of the monarchical menagerie within her head.
Ser Glorie soothed the Fool's hands from the keys of apocalypse, and watched wet red animal terror clench around her counterpart's lungs, and knew: this is the worst case. This is the incitement to chaos. The unpredictable human explosion she has been preemptively defusing, channeling into a embarrassing fart of a futile insurrection, is unfolding now behind the traitor knight's eyes, a writhing panic-dragon of a thing, daring anything because it has everything to fear.
The cultist tower-keeper still imagines they are here to stick a knife into the princess and cackle a misguided manifesto as she bleeds; they are no longer in control. Ser Glorie fears that nobody truly is; chaos reigns.
She fears; she fears that her immaculate protection of the princess is not enough. She fears that now she needs to protect the Fool, and she may not succeed.
For the first time in their tripartite eternity, Glorie fears death. Not her own, and not her official charge's; no, one that, should an assassin actually succeed, she would correspondingly have to live with. One she fears she would never find any way to endure.
"Fool," says a silky voice on a dim nighttime staircase, and the Fool pauses her steps.
"Marry," she says wearily, "'tis knight, and yet wakeful."
"A night to still a Fool's tongue," the knight says, eyes fever-bright and smile twisted.
"Ser knight," the Fool says, dredging up some semblance of glee in mock reproof. "Though silent be the mouth set to better occupation, my motley virtue I saveth for to marry, i'faith!"
"Thou time-hollowed witless prattler," the knight says, and the Fool watches a dim gleam tremble from end to end of a poised blade as the clutching hand stealthily moves; "thou serpent, thou toxin, thou world-ender—"
"Thou," the Fool says, "speaketh overmuch," and as the knight lunges, she skips sideways, sticks out a foot, and brings round an elbow to encourage a body in motion to continue past the intended limit; "hey nonny nonny, clodhoof!"
The traitor knight, tumbling face-first down the stairs, makes no coherent reply; only a final crash, a terrible wet noise, and silence.
"Sic semper," Ser Glorie murmurs coldly, in the dark.
"And now you act," the Fool says, above her suddenly wild heartbeat.
"Fool," Glorie says, gentle, "th'art not my charge. Threat to you neither compels my blade — nor demands evidence for it. Come now; we must see to the princess."
Two steps down brings the Fool a clear eyeline to a newly unbreathing form at Glorie's feet; a long blade of her own; a quiet cloth already wiping its length.
"Her Highness—" the Fool croaks.
"Has nothing to fear." The knight's teeth flash in the dimness. "Don't you know, jester? She is master of the spire. I am ceremonial; she has never needed me."
When they enter the throne room, true enough, the princess is standing proud and unharmed; the traitor tower-keeper barely standing before her, conspirator's knife dangling forgotten in a slack hand. The crown burns atop her head, an eye-twisting halo, focusing all the long dynasty's contemptuous rage, for once coherent, like a lens. Beneath the beam of palpable attention, the Glass Knife cultist withers and backs away; at her silent wish, the spire's glass unfurls roselike to the night wind outside, until an insensibly retreating foot, reaching back for further floor to retreat to, meets only air; and then, a considerable screaming distance later, sea.
"Where is our Fool," the princess demands, crackling with ozone and brittle fury.
"Holding her own," Glorie says. "I am superfluous!"
"Still thine tongue," the Fool snaps at her, finally, but before she can muster eloquence, the princess has advanced, and Glorie had gently propelled her forward with a warm hand to the small of her back; meeting confusedly in the middle, pressed into an embrace, the princess's cheek against the top of her head.
Glorie, distant, murmurs something quiet about making sure of the other; the Fool is only sure that she has, once again, left.
