Puk still propped Kali up, her cheek against his with one arm wrapped around her. The other had slipped into her bag.
Sorry, Kali.
He tossed her aside, yanking the dagger from the bag, and leapt forward. He jabbed first into Thom’s ankle, then again into his calf.
Thom yelled in fury, falling backward onto his ass while blood gushed from his two wounds.
Meanwhile, Kali’s head had slammed into the cavern wall again and her eyes fluttered open. She slid a short way down the wet steps, but caught herself and mumbled, “Huh?”
One stalk rotated to look at Kali while the other stayed locked on to Thom, who was preparing his fireballs again.
“Down!” Puk shouted.
Kali mindlessly obeyed and a fireball soared over her head, once again dissolving fruitlessly in the water beyond.
The second whizzed past Puk, who nimbly dodged to the left, slipping on Kali’s blood and nearly careening over the edge back into the pool of water. But he retained his footing and propelled himself forward, stabbing the dagger into Thom’s right leg a third time.
Thom yelped, and did not retain his footing as well as Puk had. He slipped in a streak of his own blood and crashed into the pool of water, sinking down to the coins below.
Wish I coulda got those coins.
Puk turned on his heels—nearly slipping again—and said to Kali, “We gotta get outta here right now.”
Still disoriented, she nodded her head and ambled up the steps behind him.
They fled the grotto with haste, disappearing into the crowded maze of tunnels that comprised Myrisih, and Puk was thankful they had not led their pursuer to the inn earlier.
Kali clutched the wound on her head and Puk held the bloody dagger aloft as they slipped in between curious yet unconcerned individuals. Right now Puk was focused on getting them far from Thom and out of immediate danger; he would worry about tracking down a white mage shortly.
“What the hell just happened?” Kali asked, following dutifully with each twist and turn he took.
“We just beat a mage, I think,” he answered with a grin. “And you thought we couldn’t pull something like that off! Ha!”
“I have a gash in my head,” Kali said. “I might die of blood loss.”
“You won’t die of blood loss,” Puk assured her. “But even if you do, hey—we still beat a mage!”
“Ever the optimist.”
They rounded a corner and tore through the Mass, circling around toward the tunnel system that would lead to their inn. Puk had been keeping one stalk trained behind them, watching the path for any sign of Thom, and so far they were still in the clear. The mage had fallen into the center of the grotto’s pool, and with three gaping holes in one’s leg it was assuredly an uneasy task swimming over to the steps. Puk believed they were safe.
There then came the familiar rumbling in his stomach, and he suddenly started to speculate whether finding a white mage or a bathroom was the higher priority.
He asked Kali, “Just how much does your head really hurt?”
CHAPTER XIII
IN A LOOP
Seven years earlier, when they were twenty-one years old, Kali and Lissia Shiar were at drastically different places in their lives, both figuratively and literally speaking.
Kali, much to her chagrin, still found herself living at home in her parents’ inn. She was making small moves to get her own trade business up and running, but it was taking more time and energy than she anticipated. No matter how much she dedicated to the cause, it still wasn’t enough, and so eventually she grew complacent.
For a long time, she was stagnant, and stagnation became comfortable. But soon Seroo’s Eye buzzed all around her, and she was numbing to it. And that numbness slowly turned into an itch, exacerbated by her sister’s departure.
Lissia had spent the last four years at home as well, devoting a majority of her free time to studying as many different linguistic, historical, biological, magical, and countless other -ical texts in preparation for her interview and exam to be anointed as a vaulted scholar of the Repository.
And she had succeeded.
When she returned from her trials, she was positively glowing, expressing to her family how titillating the tests had been and how well she believed she’d performed. A few weeks later, she received the letter informing her she was to be accepted into their ranks.
Hearing the news was like a punch in the gut to Kali.
In the back of her mind, she always knew her sister would be accepted. Over the years she’d seen how diligently Lissia was working toward her goal, and there was never any doubt she’d eventually succeed.
Still, the news came as a shock.
She shared in the pride her parents felt, and she loved her sister. She wanted Lissia to thrive and flourish no matter what. Yet she recognized that a part of her—a small part, barely there at all, yet still a part—was resentful.
Resentful of her for accomplishing her goals while Kali still floundered with her own.
Resentful of her for making a name for herself while Kali still felt like nothing.
Resentful of her for being happy while Kali—
She stopped herself. She wasn’t unhappy, necessarily. Not really. Maybe “unfulfilled” was more appropriate.
And more palatable.
There was a seed inside Kali. A tiny, bitter seed. One that she strived to ignore, to let it wither away and die and be forgotten.
But when her sister began preparing in earnest for the trials, that seed was watered a little bit.
And when her sister learned her application to travel to the Repository for testing had been accepted, that seed was watered more.
And then when the news came that Lissia would be a scholar, the seed nearly drowned.
All the while, Kali wished for that seed to starve. Because really, she was happy for her sister—how could she not be?—but nonetheless, she was still stuck in the same routine, trying in vain to get her trade business up and running. To become the traveling merchant she always wanted to be.
Her jealousy watered the seed. Her failures watered it.
The only solace she found was that, in all honesty, she knew it wasn’t Lissia she was angry with. It was herself.
Once Lissia had settled in and been comfortably living in the Repository’s dormitories for three months, the family wanted to pay her a visit. The Shiars hired a wagon to take them from Seroo’s Eye to the looming tower down south. Kali would’ve preferred taking a vacation to the oases in Nawa, but alas.
When they arrived, Kali had to concede that the place was impressive.
The Repository was a hulking tower looming high in the sky, blotting out the sun. Given its centript construction, it was built out of the typical adobe bricks then plastered over. Carved into the plaster, spiraling around the building starting from the bottom, was a history of Herrilock written in Carsuak. Kali couldn’t tell if the tale reached the tip-top of the tower, her vision blinded by the sun, but if it did, she couldn’t fathom the amount of planning that had gone into not only the construction but also writing out the painstakingly detailed story. What blew her mind even more was that the tower extended even further below ground, with several floors of dormitories and other amenities for the scholars who lived and worked there. She had never seen a man-made structure so enormous; the only thing comparable in size was Seroo’s skull.
A greeter stood outside the front entrance, which Kali found peculiar. She was a centript woman with pink and green jewels affixed to her carapace, official colors of the Repository. She was laying curled up on the ground, a common practice among centripts since their bodies were not configured to sit in chairs, and she instantly shot up at the sight of approaching visitors. The woman rose and curved her long insectoid body into an S-shape.
“Hello! Welcome to the Repository,” said the woman in perfectly-pronounced Commonspeak. “We have scholars ready to assist you on every level of the facility, as well as plentiful clear signage fo
r self-guidance. But may I ask what knowledge you seek, so that I may direct you to the proper area?”
Botro explained they were Lissia Shiar’s family and that they had come to see her.
The woman chittered in excitement. “Lissia is our freshest recruit, but she’s an incredibly bright woman. I can see her going far here,” the centript said. Botro and Knyla both beamed with pride for their daughter.
Hearing how well her sister was doing sent a pang through Kali’s gut. The reaction startled her, and she was immediately uncomfortable with it.
The friendly centript woman told them they could find Lissia on the third floor, and Kali tried to swallow the unwanted and unwarranted resentment as she entered through the stone doors with her parents. It was a sharp lump in her throat.
Inside the Repository was just as impressive as out.
Upon stepping indoors, they were instantly surrounded by endless shelves of books towering from floor to ceiling. The shelves were constructed from the same material as the building itself and were actually a part of it, sprouting out of the floor like weeds and burrowing into the ceiling above. It reminded Kali of centript hive cities such as Yspleash and Lyukashi. Everything was interconnected and immovable. Designed with such clear, unwavering purpose.
She didn’t see any other visitors. The only people she spotted as they twisted through the shelves to the staircase was another centript with the scholarly jewels and a man wearing loose-fitting robes of the same colors, pink with green accent stripes on the edges. More scholars, quietly tending to their affairs.
The family sauntered past the opening upward to the second floor and continued to the third. The staircase spiraled endlessly above them, dizzying Kali as she stared up at it. She nearly tripped over a step, mesmerized.
The third floor looked identical to the first, and it was no wonder why scholars were stationed on every level of the building. Finding the correct floor was a difficult enough proposition, let alone tracking down the exact tome one sought.
All the walls and shelves were the same dull tan color of the adobe, with no splashes of color anywhere aside from the scholars’ clothing and jewels. The drabness suddenly weighed on Kali, and she imagined that being so utterly surrounded by a single dull color for hours on end every single day for their entire life must certainly take some sort of toll on a person’s mental well-being.
But her sister was bright and cheery at the sight of her family. Lissia was wearing the expected pink-and-green robes, and her long, white hair trailed down in a braid over her left shoulder. She went down the line, hugging each of them in turn and planting a gentle kiss on their cheeks.
As she pulled away from Kali, she said, “It’s so great to see you all! How was the trip here?”
“Boring,” Kali answered with a wry smirk. “Too much sand.”
“Yeah, you’ll get that in a desert,” her sister grinned.
“Oh, did you learn that here?”
Their parents insisted she tell them all about daily life in the Repository. Her new routines, how she was liking the place, who she had become friends with. Their father was especially interested in how the food tasted.
“C’mon, you can find out for yourself,” Lissia told him. “They’ve got a fantastic cactus salad, actually.”
Botro’s face scrunched up at the suggestion of eating a salad for lunch, especially after a long journey.
Kali and Lissia both laughed at his expression, and Lissia said, “Don’t worry, you can get grilled lamatka strips in it too.”
“How about just a lamatka steak?” he asked, raising his eyebrows up and down devilishly.
“I’m sure that could be arranged. The menu is surprisingly extensive.”
“Well, let’s go!”
They followed Lissia back down the stairwell, beyond the first floor and underground to the scholars’ quarters.
For lunch, Lissia ordered the aforementioned cactus salad (minus the lamatka meat), Botro had his steak with whipped potatoes and sautéed mushrooms, and Knyla ate a plate of various smaller dishes which included thick cubes of grilled cheese and a fresh salad of diced herbs and tomatoes tossed in oil. When it came time for Kali to order, she declined. She had a bite to eat before leaving home and the sunlight on the trip had further sustained her.
During lunch, the four continued their conversation about Lissia’s new scholarly lifestyle. She admitted to them that visitors were few and far between—the Repository wasn’t precisely meant to act as a typical library, with patrons coming and going frequently, but rather a collection of the world’s knowledge on any and all topics imaginable.
Its scholars were there to not only aid the guests they did receive, but also further academic research both on subjects that they personally found interesting as well as ones requested by other professionals across the country. Lissia had been spending most of her three months holed up in the tower reading up on poisons and potion-making, something that had once fascinated her as a child when she thought she might want to become a white mage, before her interest dwindled.
“You know what’s really fun?” Lissia asked. They all urged her to spill it. “One of the books I’m reading for my research is from a collection of forbidden books that we have here, locked away on one of the lowest floors. Not for public consumption.”
“You guys have a bunch of books no one’s allowed to read?” Kali said, amused.
Lissia nodded, her face split by an excited grin. “Texts written about the most dangerous topics are preserved for the sake of their knowledge, but outsiders aren’t allowed to read them. That would ruin the purpose of them being forbidden. But scholars are able to access them. Let me tell you, some of the poisonous concoctions described in this book are truly vile.”
She giggled just thinking about them. Relegated to laughing over poisons. It was evident how much she was enjoying her new life here at the Repository, where she could read and learn to her heart’s content.
With the meal concluded, Lissia showed them her modest apartment, decorated sparsely but with a few mementos from Seroo’s Eye, including a smaller recreation of the Shiar’s Slumber sign that hung above the inn’s entryway. Their father beamed with joy.
But as Lissia took them on a tour of the facility, that seed in Kali’s gut began to fester and rot, no matter how desperately she wished it away.
Her sister’s success was real, and tangible, and she was engulfed by it. It was inescapable.
She thought about her mild accomplishments, the biggest of which was probably making her first solo trip to the border cities along Vanap’s Peaks. Pitiful, in comparison to all her sister had achieved in the same stretch of time.
That rot made her feel small, and useless, and ashamed.
Kali now sported a pounding headache to match the one Puk had been complaining about all day. They were quite the duo.
As it turned out, there was indeed a sizeable clinic in one of Myrisih’s many offshoot caverns. Two impressively large domed structures connected by an enclosed hallway; one half was where patients were examined, and the other was a dormitory where the handful of busy white mages lived. A white mage’s housing was always connected to the clinic where they worked in case of an off-hours emergency.
She once again found herself stunned by how normal Myrisih was in some respects, having a well-stocked and -employed mage clinic.
Upon arrival, it was clear to her why that was the case.
The clinic was packed with tons of unfortunate souls aggrieved by everything spanning from run-of-the-mill illnesses to more extreme cases such as severed limbs. The types of people who frequented Myrisih likely needed medical attention on a regular basis, in addition to the regular needs of those who lived in the city full-time and required medicine or other treatments.
In her mind, she told herself to stop being so surprised by everything here. There was clearly a lot in the world she didn’t have the faintest clue about. The Repository was a monument to that fact.
She speculated over what her sister knew about Myrisih, if anything. Were there texts written about it at the Repository? Perhaps tucked away in the secret, forbidden section? Would Lissia have been similarly taken aback by the existence of a clinic here, which, in retrospect, seemed very obvious? Did she know the location of Myrisih, all its odd port rules, the layout of the Mass?
Was Kali just ignorant?
Why am I still always negatively comparing myself to her?
The stark self-awareness caught her off-guard and was swiftly dismissed. She had other, physical, things to worry about.
The clinic was one of two in Myrisih, as the front desk worker at their inn explained to them. Coincidentally, the other was located fairly close to the grotto where their brawl had occurred, and they both deemed it the more likely place for their assailant to end up. It would take a lot of time and dedication for Thom to walk all the way to this other clinic with three holes in his leg. They felt they were safe here for the time being, though getting out as soon as possible would be nice, on the off-chance Thom showed up in search of them.
Her case was deemed less urgent than others, as the wound in her head was thankfully not deep and the bleeding had slowed to a stop, so she and Puk sat in the waiting room.
Others amongst them included a mold-ridden centript, a battered man with rough bruising all over his face and neck, an ujath with what appeared to be intense burns on her left side, and many more who squirmed uncomfortably in their seats.
Spit and Song (Ustlian Tales Book 2) Page 28