To Live Or Die At Lorelight Academy, page 24
I drop the poker, one hand on the knife, the other hand flying to the creature’s arms as they trap me. I try to lift them—try to free myself.
The thing is strong.
Or maybe I’m just weak.
Not quite strong like bear.
I free myself for a moment, enough to do a quarter turn on the ground and avoid a slamming claw plunging into my rib cage. The crystals crowning the creature’s knuckles spark against the stone floor, and I try to leverage myself out of the grip.
It traps me again.
This time, the claws find my neck.
It wraps its hand around the flesh of my neck and I strain hopelessly.
Then the creature begins to squeeze.
My vision swims.
I see only darkness, shadows, and silhouettes.
And yet my vision still swims.
I try to gasp for air, and I’m struck with the sudden horror and regret that I have never taken a full breath and filled my lungs, and truly appreciated the ability to do so. I want nothing more in the whole world.
One deep breath.
I can’t compute the sensation.
“I’ve always been able to breathe! It’s not fair!” a frantic part of me complains as the grip tightens and sparkling stars join the wavering vision.
The creature moves, raising its other claw.
I have to try.
I have to try.
The knife. I have a knife.
I plunge the knife in the vague direction of the creature’s falling arm. It catches in its forearm and the creature recoils, its grip on my neck loosening ever so slightly.
I try to take a deep breath.
Like wind through tightly packed reeds, it isn’t enough.
It’s a struggling, wistful bit of air. That’s all I get.
I free the knife and bring it up blindly to stab at the arm around my throat.
The creature, arm mangled, catches my wrist and wraps it with a death grip like the one on my throat.
The knife clatters to the floor.
I’m pinned. One hand trying desperately to free the claw around my neck, the other stuck to the cold, unforgiving floor of the Eustace Grievance Madrigal Building for Introductory Magical Theory and Controlled Practicals.
A centuries-old building.
A fortress.
A castle and place of scholarship.
Now a tomb for many.
Soon a tomb for me.
My vision swims and wavers further now. My head is forced to the side, not staring the attacker above me head-on. Instead, my cheek is forced to the cold, black stone and my vision locked straight ahead.
The stars in my vision begin to outnumber the darkness.
Soon, though, I know the darkness will win.
Phantom lights.
Pretty, though.
Dancing.
Dancing?
I’m dying. I must be dying.
I must be.
I’m hallucinating.
Near-death hallucinations.
That must be it.
Because the dancing lights coalesce even as they flood my vision, and take a strange shape.
They become forms and figures, strings of decorative lights upon the walls and between the pillars, a glorious chandelier in the air. And the lights become people. And they’re still dancing—but now they’re people dancing.
And then music.
And then…
“Not interested in joining the hunting party for the Prince Regent?” a voice asks behind me.
…What?
“No,” a voice in front of me answers. I see the speaker. I see her dancing flats, and the hem of her dress just inches in front of my eyes.
“Bitches on the scent,” the original voice says, and the woman in the dress, still made entirely of the lights of strangulation, shifts her weight in displeasure.
“I’ll assume you’re remaining in hunting metaphor, rather than derogatory wordplay.”
“You do me a kindness, then.”
“Say…who’s that?” the male voice asks.
The woman pauses, and though I can’t see her face, I see her dress move again.
“It’s a young boy, a student, by the looks of it.”
“He’s not having a good time at the dance.”
“Of course not. He’s—well, you know.”
“I’ve seen this before,” the male voice says with a silky confidence. “Some boys just can’t talk to girls. That’s all. Paralyzed. Speechless. That’s likely it.”
“Hmmm,” the woman says, and I can hear her smiling.
Why are you smiling? Help me!
“Hmmm, no, I don’t think that’s it,” the woman says. “See the thing atop him? See the crystals?”
“I do, now that you mention it.”
My vision is truly wavering, now. Hallucinating is bad enough. But when even your hallucinations begin to tunnel to black? That’s death. That’s death. That’s death. That’s death. That’s death. That’s death. That’s—
“Look familiar?” the woman asks, from far away.
“Never seen them in my life,” the man says.
“Liar.”
“Me? Never.”
“Help,” I plead. But I can only do so mentally. Sounds can’t pass through my throat.
“Well, I recognize him. Though only barely. I think I’m going to step in.”
“Should you?”
“No,” the woman sighs. Then she lowers down, and I see her face. Ghostly white, lined in silver, made of the shapes and impressions of a swimming vision. “He has to do it himself, or…well, we’ve seen that future.”
“We have. Eustace, I’m bored. Let’s dance.”
“Not yet. Also, I thought you hate dancing?”
“It’s preferable to watching someone get strangled to death,” the male voice pouts. “Seems like a decent chap, too. Terrible. Just terrible.”
The glowing woman looks at me, then her eyes flick somewhere else.
I’m fading now.
I’m nearly there.
I can tell.
“A fire poker,” the woman says after a moment that feels like an eternity, and a voice that comes from very far away. “Do you believe that?”
“He certainly tried.”
“He certainly did. Is, rather! Is trying…they have indoor duels in here, you know. I’ve fought many. And they keep all the equipment in that room over there. He’s so close. Just a few doors away.”
“A few doors and the other side of a dance floor.”
“Still,” the woman says, and her sympathetic expression warms me, just a little. Here at this cold end. “Perhaps he made it to the armory.”
“Eustace…”
“Perhaps he went down the other hall first, and found a suitable weapon. A sword.”
“Eustace, is this too far?”
“Perhaps he never went to the armory at all! Perhaps someone just dropped the sword.”
“Eustace…”
“A dropped sword,” the woman says, looking the man in the eyes.
“Please,” I mouth.
“This is partially your fault, you know,” the woman adds.
“I know,” the man sighs.
My lungs are burning. Screaming.
“So this I shall do,” she says. “And perhaps a bit more.”
“Words only, after this,” the male voice says. “Promise me.”
“Fine.”
“And sparingly few words at that.”
“Fine.”
“Then perhaps…perhaps it went as you said,” the male voice says.
“Very well,” Eustace’s sparkling vision says, leaning in. “It’s a small thing. Just a dueling sword. A particularly trustworthy and elegant one.”
“Eustace, I think we’re running out of time.”
“Someone dropped their sword. And they dropped it close…so close, that the boy could crawl forward with his fingertips, and just barely…”
I spread my fingers as far as they will go, eyes stricken, locked in the knowing and suddenly soberly intense glare of the spirit.
My fingertip grazes against something.
A new material. Not the spiraling iron of the fire poker. A grip. A hilt.
It’s just barely…
“Shame,” the male voice says with slight disapproval. “He can’t reach it. Pointless, to make it out of reach.”
“He can reach it,” the woman says intensely, and I can feel her gaze boring into me.
“Come on, come on,” she mutters.
I can’t see her anymore, though.
I can’t see anything, anymore.
“Did you mean to leave it just out of reach?”
“No…no I did not.”
Please, I’m so close.
“Can I just…nudge it?” the woman asks.
“Only words,” the male voice warns. “You promised.”
The woman makes a discontented sound.
I’m so close. So close to the hilt.
I keep scraping it. Scraping it with my fingertips. I’m so close. I just need to…
I need to be just a little stronger.
Reach just a little more.
Just a…little.
With the last burst of my energy, I move my trapped wrist a quarter of an inch. Maybe less. And I spread my fingers and reach.
They curl around the hilt.
I can’t even see it.
Just feel it.
My hand tightens on it. My wrist is trapped. Leverage is hard.
But I can force it. I can force it.
I twist my wrist, and press forward with what little strength I can.
The tip of the blade finds resistance near the creature’s head, and I push.
There’s a howl, and a scream.
The creature’s grip loosens and, muscles burning, lungs crying out, I press just a little further. The creature screams again, and I pull the barest bit of air into my lungs. With every bit of effort and strength I have, I drive the weapon in my hand forward, driving it forward and forward and forward as I get more and more air, more and more freedom, more and more leverage.
My vision returns.
The spirits are gone.
I drive the weapon forward until I can drive it forward no more, meeting the hard edge of the wall.
My swimming vision returns, and soon my eyes adjust to the darkness and I take my first real breaths in what feels like forever.
I have a sword.
They…they gave me a sword.
It’s a long, thin dueling rapier, with an engraving of calligraphy scrawled down the length of the blade, though it’s too dark to read it. My hand grips the hilt, fingers trembling and wrist weak and shaking beneath a cuff-shaped guard. The tip of the blade extends outward, sinking into the eye and skull of the Infected that nearly killed me.
My muscles are weak. Shaking. Vibrating involuntarily.
I pull the rapier free and the Infected sinks back against the wall.
There is more rustling in the empty space beyond. More Infected.
Don’t waste it!
Go now!
Keep going!
I barely have the strength to rise to my feet.
Somehow I do, though.
On shaking legs, I stagger forward.
I have questions.
Questions I want answered—if I’m still alive to ask.
The northeast corner is some unknown distance away. But I keep in line with the wall, and follow it, quickly and quietly as I can.
Medical office.
Medical office.
I just have to make it to the medical office.
I just have to make it.
I just have to make it.
I just…have…to…
My hand closes around a door handle. There is no more space on the second floor beyond me. I’ve followed the wall all the way to the corner. This is it. It has to be it.
I turn the handle and pull, and let myself inside.
I throw open the door to…some office.
Which office?—What do they do?—What’s inside?
—I have no idea.
But there’s no Infected inside, and I’m not getting strangled, so that’s double points right there.
I shut the door and squeeze my eyes shut, breathing in deep. Blissfully deep.
And I come face-to-face with…
…a skeleton.
“Mother…FUCK!” I blurt.
Fake.
Fake.
It’s fake.
Sheeeeesh.
I prod the mannequin lightly in the ribs with my fingertip, and the wooden bones dyed white clank against one another, held together by small, clear strings.
I recognized it, almost immediately. We had one in the library. No real human remains are bleached so brightly white a person can see them in such a dark room.
“Okay,” I mutter to myself, catching my breath for what feels like the thousandth time today. “Either I’ve found the medical office, or the office of someone with disturbing hobbies.”
A few moments with the flint and steel later, and two lamps are lit—one central lantern at the top of this low-ceilinged room, and another on a desk tucked into the corner. The skeleton has a counterpart I didn’t see in the dark—one who stands on the opposite end of the room and demonstrates skinless human musculature with fearless accuracy.
“Pardon me for screaming earlier, gentlemen,” I say with a nod, and scan the room.
The office has cabinets that cover almost all of the walls, with pull-out drawers on the bottom halves and cabinet windows on the top. All made of the same smooth grey wood. It makes the bleach-white bones of the demonstration skeleton stand out starkly against the greyscale wood and stone, and the red muscles and blue veins of the other figure is the most color in view.
The desk itself seems regularly used, with a tower of stacked leather books with unremarkable brown covers.
At the far end of the office, opposite the desk, the rectangle opens up into a pentagon-shaped secondary room.
One thing at a time, I decide, and start searching the immediate surroundings.
The drawers contain instruments and support tools for basic medical care. I find the aforementioned medical tape, as well as a soft fluffy material currently compressed within canvas packaging. I open one, and the material explodes out like I’ve freed a trapped cloud. I think it’s to pack wounds.
I grab three of the small packages of the stuff.
I’ve brought a small bag with me—nothing the size of our canvas bags, but something lightweight enough to store whatever I can find for Farah. I tuck the three wound-packs and the roll of medical bandage into the bag.
Forceps, scalpels, and other surgical instruments lie in a drawer closer to the floor. They have the mild dust of unuse on them. I guess if something is so bad that surgery is to be done, it’s not going to be done here in Yoostie’s token medical office. The one exception to this is a particularly ancient-looking bloodstain at the center of the room. That couldn’t have been a fun experience for whoever that blood came from.
There are plenty of materials here, and I’m faced with a problem:
There is such a thing as “too much stuff.”
Farah and I need to stay smart, need to stay creative—and we need to be able to conceptualize the tools at our disposal to solve the problems before us. At first, I thought, The more tools, the better.
But if we have enough tiny odds and ends that we can’t keep track of them all, we’re likely to either forget about some, or not be creative enough with the ones we do have.
We have a dozen knives from the Lounge kitchen, and with the lacerating claws of the Infected, I can’t imagine needing a scalpel for anything.
You say that now, but wait until you need an appendectomy mid-fight.
With a sigh, I put the forceps and scalpel into the backpack.
I open a few more drawers. I find some repeats—three drawers each contain the same organized layout of medical bandages, wound-packing materials, and other odds and ends for common injury and ailments.
I’m about to give up and assume all these bottom drawers are the same when I find a pair of wooden splints meant for broken bones.
It’s exactly what Farah needs, and yet not at all what we’re looking for.
This is how you heal a broken bone.
You make sure it heals right.
Over time.
Over months.
We don’t have months. Not in any real sense. We need to act. We need to find something that takes advantage of Lorelight’s magical nature.
On that tune…
The far end of the room calls to me.
The pentagon-shaped section.
There’s something there. I know it. It feels like magic. Maybe it’s the number of walls. The five even facets. Scholars see the math of magic in nature. They can’t help it. I see it, too. It’s one of the reasons I thought I belonged at Lorelight, back when I had different expectations about what my experience here would be like.
The rapier still hangs at my belt. There’s a sheath there, too. I don’t know when that showed up. I don’t remember it appearing, and I certainly didn’t put it on my waist where it is now.
Strange how we react to the unknown.
I think fear is natural. It isn’t always helpful, though I’m sure there’s a good reason we’ve developed the way we have. Part of being a civilized society, or even a moral person, is knowing when to be afraid of something, and when to embrace the unknown and give it a chance.
When Burta came here from Ternia, she learned firsthand just how badly some people treat those they don’t understand. It hurt her. Deeply hurt her. And Burta’s had a rough life. I know of plenty of things she’s gone through that would crush anyone else’s soul. Her experience coming from Ternia is one.
That’s why it’s important to question that fear of the unknown and the different.
Sometimes it’s what a person needs to do if they really want to be a kind soul.
I want to be a kind soul.
I hope I am.
I hope I’m open to the unknown and the different.
But all that doesn’t mean the unknown isn’t scary, sometimes.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t strike deep.
And the appearance of the talking figures and the sword at my hip is, ironically—maybe, or fatefully, I’m not sure—an unknown of a variety I wasn’t prepared to face:
