by S T G Hill
Ellie made her decision. She leapt forward, towards her door. She grabbed it and pulled it mostly shut.
As she did, she looked out into the hallway. Ewan lay on his back, his green robes smoldering and torn.
They locked eyes for a moment and he nodded at her. Go.
All the other students from her floor lay on the floor in various heaps. Some of them groaned. Others rolled over onto their stomachs and started crawling towards the opposite teledoor.
She paused with the door open a crack. She still couldn’t see his attackers, so they must’ve been standing by the teledoor at their end of the hallway.
She wanted to help him. She started opening the door again.
Ewan shook his head.
“Is that all?” he said.
He didn’t push himself to his feet. Snarls of blue-white electricity danced over his body and down the walls and floor, lifting him up.
The last Ellie saw before she closed the door was Ewan gathering a ball of lightning in his hands and hurling it away.
The woman attacker laughed as he did.
The door sealed itself and then all the sounds from the hallway became mercifully muffled.
“They’re Errants, aren’t they?” Sybil said.
She thought she recognized the word from some lecture, or maybe from one of her text books, but couldn’t remember.
And it wasn’t the time to do any deep thinking on the subject.
Ellie shook her head, “Maybe? I don’t know what those are. Actually, I didn’t even get a look at them.”
She leaned back against the closed door. I should go out there. I should help. I can help.
Ewan couldn’t take them alone.
But even with all this excitement she wanted nothing less than to sink down with the door at her back and sleep for a few hours. The exhaustion dug into her bones.
She did start sliding down against the door, then.
“What do we do now?” Sybil said.
Ellie closed her eyes. Just for a second, she thought. Just long enough to clear some of the fuzziness out of her brain.
“Ellie?”
She knew that she couldn’t go to sleep. She didn’t want to sleep.
Her body didn’t give her any choice in the matter.
Sybil’s voice grew distant, as though from the end of a long hallway. Everything went all fuzzy and warm in the most insidiously good way.
But I have to get us out of here, Ellie thought.
Then Sybil grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard. A scream accompanied the shaking.
Chapter 13
Ellie swam up through darkness. Someone kept screaming at her, shaking her.
Then something slammed hard enough against the door to knock her away from it. She landed on top of her clothes, strewn around the floor.
Sybil grabbed her and shook her some more, “Ellie! They’re trying to get in!”
Ellie shook her head, still all foggy.
Then the door glowed. It went a deep cherry red at first, then right in the middle, a white dot appeared and started to spread.
The air around the door shimmered like a mirage. The heat of it washed over them, so hot that Ellie instantly broke out in sweat.
“They’re going to get in!” Sybil said.
Now or never, Ellie thought. She hauled herself to her feet using the footboard of her bed.
Then she walked, although it was more a stumble, over to the blown out window, careful not to step on the glass.
“What are you doing?” Sybil said.
“Getting us out of here,” she replied.
Ellie looked back at the door. That white dot in the center spread outwards. A pair of jeans resting on the floor nearby ignited.
Smoke started pooling up near the ceiling.
The heat grew until the sweat on her arms and forehead evaporated as soon as it came out.
Sybil squeezed her eyes shut and held her hands out towards the door. She mouthed something.
A chilly torrent of air launched from her outstretched palms.
When it hit the door, the hot steel hissed. For just a second, the bright, white-hot metal cooled to a light cherry color.
Just for a second, then it returned. The heat washed over them again.
Sybil squeezed her eyes shut hard, the whisper a constant mutter.
Ellie turned back towards her desk and the window above it. She held out her hands and willed a way out.
Energy rushed down her arms. Some, but not much. If it had been a torrent in that fight with Thorn, it was now a trickle. Nowhere near enough.
“Ellie!” Sybil said, “I can’t stop it!”
Someone on the other side must have sensed their resistance. A shockwave of pressure blasted through the room, throwing Sybil back against Ellie. They both tumbled against the desk.
“It’s so hot!” Sybil cried.
We’re going to cook, Ellie thought. Actually, it felt like the cooking had already started.
She tried again, gritting her teeth together and biting down until her jaw ached. Open, she thought.
The door started to melt. Liquid rivulets of molten steel ran down onto the floor, lighting little fires where they touched.
“Ellie!” Sybil screamed.
The raw panic of her friend’s voice touched something inside of her. Her own growing panic joined it, woke her up.
It woke up whatever lurked inside of her.
A terrible splitting sensation filled her chest, as though trying to spread her ribs apart. Then that trickle turned into a torrent once more.
Open, she willed, crooked and forked lines of power glowing beneath the skin of her forearms.
A seam appeared in the air in front of them. It broadened and spread into a sharp-edged rectangle.
Her desk was no longer visible. Now it was only the courtyard between the two dorm halls at night.
Despite the intense heat and the fear, Sybil still said, “How did you do that?”
The door buckled behind them. Ellie grabbed Sybil by the shoulder and pulled her bodily through the breach portal.
The relative coolness of the evening air made it feel like they’d stepped into a freezer.
They both turned around and watched the breach portal collapse on itself. The door of her room burst open at just the last instant. Long enough for Ellie to catch a glimpse of two figures standing on the other side.
Ellie realized then that she probably should have taken them farther away, but in the panic upstairs she’d been focused solely on just getting them out of the building.
As soon as the portal disappeared, the energy within her snapped off. She fell to her knees, only avoiding a face-plant into the concrete courtyard by virtue of Sybil catching her by the shoulders.
That really is the last of it, Ellie thought. She felt burnt out. Crisped up like a blown lightbulb.
“Come on, we have to go,” Sybil said.
She was right.
The attack wasn’t limited to Vine Hall. Most of the windows on Bramble Hall were also shattered. People screamed within.
Spells lanced quickly back and forth through the halls of both buildings, blowing out walls and even shaking the courtyard.
“Help me, I don’t think I can stand up,” Ellie said.
Sybil took one of Ellie’s arms across her shoulders and the two girls hobbled away.
“Where…?” Ellie said.
“Magister’s Hall,” Sybil said, “It will be the safest place.”
“No. Thorn. Find Thorn,” Ellie replied.
“Magister Cassiodorian and the other teachers will be able to stop this. He’s still a student,” Sybil said.
Ellie didn’t have the energy to explain. Or the strength to do much more but stumble along with Sybil as a living crutch.
She hated how vulnerable she felt, and how helpless. Especially since her entire body tingled with that sense of danger.
“Thorn!” Sybil said.
“We have to
find him,” Ellie managed.
“No, he’s here! See?”
Ellie levered her head back, the muscles threatening to give out at any moment. A spray of her hair fell across her eyes.
Through that curtain, she saw him. He came running down the winding path that led to the dorms, still maybe a couple hundred feet away.
Then Ellie felt the air shift behind them.
“You better be right about this,” snake-voice said, “Because we could’ve been draining all those kids right now.”
Sybil screamed again, and lurched in panic. They both tumbled against the concrete path. Ellie stuck out her hands and hissed when the hard surface scraped against her palms.
For the first time, she got a look at their attackers.
She’d been expecting monsters, especially from the voices. Though she found what she saw instead more frightening.
They were just people. Two people. A tall, thin man and short girl pretty in a tomboyish way. Maybe in their 30s.
They both looked gaunt, as though something had drawn the life out of them. Their eyes looked sunken and beneath their street clothes they both looked far too thin.
“We’ll get so much more if she’s the one,” the woman said.
“How will we know, Marta?” the man said, furrowing together his long, thin eyebrows.
They spoke as though Ellie and Sybil weren’t even there.
Marta, the woman, shrugged, “We try and kill her.”
“Easy enough,” he replied, “But which one is she?” He looked from Sybil to Ellie, still frowning.
“Just do both of them,” she said.
Marta clapped her hands together and closed her eyes. Then she slowly drew her hands apart. They glowed. Sparks and shocks of energy ran in jagged lines between her palms.
The air crackled with power.
The man simply held one hand out, as though he intended to blast them with a thought.
Ellie closed her eyes and willed for her own energy to come back. Even just trying made her bones ache.
Come on, come on…
She couldn’t get much more than the tiniest trickle.
Sybil shuffled closer and pulled their bodies together.
“How very sweet,” the man said. Then, “Hey!”
An encompassing and gentle hand scooped Ellie and Sybil off the ground and carried them off onto the soft grass of the meadow next to the path.
“You need to leave,” Thorn said. He stood on the path, hands stretched out to his sides. His clothes fluttered in the invisible winds of the power encircling him.
“Another mouse!” the man said.
Ewan, Ellie thought, I hope you’re all right. Please be all right.
“Take him quickly,” Marta said.
“But that is not as fun,” the man said, “If he is the mouse, then I am the cat. The cat always has his fun.”
Thorn took advantage of their distraction. He raised his hands up above his head. Ellie followed the gesture. Her stomach clenched.
The sky darkened from normal night to an inky blackness. High above them, sooty clouds roiled and seethed. Little spots of light appeared here or there where tongues of lightning forked.
The air reeked of sharp ozone.
He’s got them, Ellie thought, even as she struggled up to her feet and helped Sybil do the same.
“Have your fun later,” Marta began.
Her hair started to stand up. She cut herself off and looked up.
It would’ve been funny if not for the circumstances.
Thorn flung his hands down and the sky tore open. A massive thunderbolt slammed through the air.
Marta and the tall man threw their arms up just as the bolt crashed down on them.
The ground shook at the impact. A shockwave spread out, flattening the grass and nearly tossing Sybil and Ellie off their feet again.
It was so bright and so fast, Ellie didn’t have time to cover her eyes. She squeezed them shut against the pulsing purple smear that her vision became.
The pressure of it pushed in against her eardrums, deafening her momentarily. She staggered, but kept her feet.
Her vision cleared first, the blotches receding to the edges of her sight. Then hearing came next, although a high-pitched ringing lingered.
She gasped. Sybil did the same a moment later. She reached out and grasped Ellie’s wrist.
The bolt had left a blackened circle of destruction. Except for the in the very center. There, Marta and the man stood, unblemished. They lowered their hands and the protective shield that had guarded them from the thunderbolt collapsed.
“Deal with him quickly,” Marta said.
The man clicked his tongue at Thorn and waved an admonishing finger. “Bad mouse.”
Then he waved one hand through the air casually.
It was like a giant backhanded Thorn. Ellie and Sybil cringed at the sound of the magical fist colliding with him. He flew through the air and hit the grass on the other side of the path, sliding several feet before coming to a stop.
“Thorn!” Ellie said, lunging forward.
Sybil held her wrist tightly.
“We have to go,” she said, “We have to go get more help. We can’t do anything if they beat him this easily.”
“No,” Ellie said.
She scrunched her eyes shut and tried to call on her power.
It didn’t work. Even just trying sent a wave of aching exhaustion through her bones. She would’ve fallen over if Sybil hadn’t caught her by the shoulders.
The man advanced on Thorn. He cracked his knuckles and then rolled his head against his shoulders to crack his neck. He started to whistle an aimless, cheery tune.
Thorn rolled onto his side. He reached out with one hand and made a fist. Glowing bands of energy encircled the tall man and began lifting him into the air.
“You have good energy, for a mouse,” the man said, apparently unperturbed.
Thorn flexed his fist. Even from this distance, Ellie could see the snarl of effort on Thorn’s face.
The bands tightened, glowed brighter.
The man lifted his arms away effortlessly and the magical bonds shattered, spraying shards of golden light into the air that dissolved before they touched the ground.
“Yes, good energy,” the tall man said.
“Ellie, we have to go, now!” Sybil said. She tugged hard.
Ellie tore her eyes from the confrontation.
Then they ran.
She felt weirdly mad with Thorn. It kept running through her thoughts even as they ran over the rolling, grassy meadow towards Magister’s Hall.
If he hadn’t fought me earlier, I’d have had the energy to save him! Why did he do that?
Of course, some part of her knew that she had attacked him, not the other way around. She just hated feeling so helpless. She’d been helpless all her life. At least until a few months ago.
And she didn’t want to return to that.
Incredible colors burst in the night air, exploding like deadly fireworks.
Something glowed a hot white behind them so bright that it momentarily cast their fleeing shadows against the now daylight-green grass.
She wished she still had some energy. If she did, she could try that trick that Magister Cassiodorian did, instantly teleporting them across the field.
Scratch that, she could just open another breach portal right into the main lobby of the Magister's Hall.
But Ellie didn't think she could manage to create even a single spark. It was only by pure panic and adrenaline that she didn't plant her face in the grass.
Sybil tugged her along, keeping a clamped grip on her wrist. "We have to go faster!"
"...can't," Ellie managed to pant.
The last time she'd felt this sort of burning in her lungs was freshman gym class, when a mean broken down phys ed teacher named Mr. Martin made them run wind sprints because they were two minutes late coming from the locker rooms.
"Ellie! They're still just rig
ht behind us!" Sybil said.
"In front, actually."
Sybil gasped and stopped short. Momentum carried Ellie two more lurching steps and then she fell down into the grass.
That short woman, Marta, stood in front of them with her arms crossed. She tapped one index finger against her upper arm.
This was the closest Ellie had seen one of their attackers so far. From a distance, Marta had looked quite pretty. But this close, there was something wrong about her.
Her cheekbones stood out too much, like they wanted to cut through the skin. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken and surrounded by dark circles. Her hair was frazzled and dry.
She reminded Ellie of nothing less than a witch out of some old story, albeit one dressed in modern clothes.
Ellie couldn't be sure, but she also thought that Marta's eyes were a bright, violet hue.
Marta smiled, showing how her gums had receded from her teeth, making them look too big for her mouth.
Sybil gulped in terrified breaths of air. She drew her hands back and then flung them out at Marta, screaming out, "Go away!" as she did.
A bright white horseshoe of energy exploded from her outstretched palms, faster than a speedball pitch. It left a streak of white in its path.
Marta caught it with both hands. Then she crushed it like it was an under-inflated beach ball. Little tongues of electricity flicked out from between her fingers and then they too disappeared.
Sybil stared for a second. Then she cast another spell. Or tried to, at least.
Marta lifted one finger, "Be still."
Sybil froze mid-cast, her mouth open and her hands like claws at her sides. She started to tumble forward, but some invisible force grasped her and held her upright.
"A good effort," Marta said, "But not enough."
She walked forward casually. Sybil stood like a statue, only her eyes able to move. They trembled and flicked around in a wild, all-consuming panic.
Ellie started pushing herself up, her fingertips digging into the soft and cool earth.
Marta planted one booted foot on the small of Ellie's back and shoved her back down. Then she sniffed the air, her nostrils flaring.
"It's you, isn't it?" Marta said.
"Probably not," Ellie replied.
"No, it is. I can smell it. I can almost taste it in the air. Your power is different from theirs," Marta took her boot off Ellie's back and crouched low, "I'm glad I'm the one who found you; it means I can have a taste before we hand you over."