The Crystal College

by Nathaniel Sullivan

  But a dark thought hit her mind, and she turned to the healer, not bothering to hide the accusation in her voice. “You,” she said. “You took him, didn’t you?” It was the most likely option she could think of.

  Yet the healer did not appear as a man caught in a lie. He simply shook his head, and spoke firmly. “I did not take him. If it will help you find some measure of peace, think what you desire. But I had nothing to do with Nandor’s disappearance.”

  Nix let out a frustrated noise, and seized her coat from the counter. Then she spun on her heels and made for the door.

  “Where are you going, girl?” The healer called after her.

  “I’m going to find Nandor! Obviously! You may be willing to let your friend vanish and pin it on your god—but I’ll not partake in your delusions of mistaken false comfort! No! I’m going to find Nandor, and learn the truth!”

  “Girl—Nix!” the healer shouted as she opened the door. “Don’t be a fool! He was a dead man anyway! Dead! You can’t spend your life trying to save the dead! You can’t!”

  But she ignored him, and slammed the door shut. The chill air of Froj surrounded her, and suddenly she felt very alone.

  A small, vulnerable young woman, by herself on the streets of a chaotic war-torn city.

  Perhaps the healer was right.

  Perhaps she was being a fool.

  But she knew she had to try anyway.

  Chapter 3: A City on the Verge

  Why do most people never live their true life? Why do most people never become who they were meant to be—the person they envisioned becoming since they were small children—their best selves.

  In my experience, there are a multitude of reasons. Primarily, most people would rather live in denial. They would rather perpetuate their suffering for a short-term gain rather than work for the benefits of long-term improvement. It is easier to say that it is hopeless. It is easier to say that it can’t be done. Why work for an unachievable task?

  It is this which ruins most lives. The perception of hopelessness. Giving up before even beginning.

  —The Journal of Nandor

  The remaining city guards tried to maintain a measure of order in Froj, but it was a lackluster success. Opportunists still looted, and workers did not bother to go to their jobs. Taverns and inns and businesses of all sorts were either packed and headed out of the city or bared-up tight. But at least there were not open murders on the streets.

  It was by no means a safe place to travel, but it was better than it had been the night before… the night that Froj had lost the battle, and with it, any promise of owning a piece of the Green Forest.

  It was just as Nandor had predicted—the rich were packing up, with hired mercenaries to guarantee them safe passage. They were headed to one of the other cities where the bounty of the Green Forest would be reaped and harvested for the wealthy—either Winfrost or Norda.

  Froj was to become the backwater city—the city where the poor, the ill, the wounded, the unfortunate and the weak would be forced to fester. Of course the shrewd and the rich would flee, just as a rat jumps from a sinking ship.

  It was an uncertain time. With the death of Lord Viken, and no direct heir to replace him, leadership was lacking. The surviving generals and advisors did not wish to take his place as lord—they were either shamed from their defeat or fleeing to another city. Viken had many daughters, but none had been granted the right to be his successor, as he was waiting on a son to give his blessing to.

  As best as Nix could tell, it appeared that only the civic guard captain was keeping the city from falling into utter chaos. She did not know the man personally, but perhaps he was one of the few good souls genuinely trying to keep the peace. She found herself thankful that such a man existed as she searched for Nandor.

  But it was hard to look for a man who there was no sign of. By all rights, Nandor should be dead, or lying on the operations table back at the healer’s home… it made no sense that he was gone, but she refused to let the confusion overwhelm her journey.

  Nandor had always been a focused man—a man who accomplished his mission by not letting anything else blind him on his path. She promised herself that she would be the same. But she had nothing to work from—nothing at all. No trail, no leads, not even a good guess. So she wandered the streets senselessly, like an invalid trying to find her way home.

  All day she wandered through the city. She observed strange sights, tried to ask any guards if they had seen Nandor, or a body that resembled anything like him, but she was either ignored or told to find shelter until the city had settled.

  It was probably wise advice.

  She knew that there were those who might look to take advantage of her in the uncertain times. But she simply clutched the dagger on her belt tight, and continued searching onward. She was not totally defenseless, and anyway, her life seemed to matter little in comparison to her goal.

  She knew Nandor was somewhere—it was just a matter of finding him.

  Marr did not take him up into the heavens—that was nonsense. There had to be a real explanation, and she would not rest until she found it.

  ***

  The day was drawing to a close, and she found herself standing before the entrance to the Crystal College. She did not know why. Perhaps instinct had kicked in, and subconsciously told her to seek shelter for the night, or perhaps her feet had simply carried her to the place she was most familiar with.

  Either way, the wide stone bridge was underneath her, leading up to the crystal gates. Spiraling towers from the lead headmasters rooms were visible from the outside, but little more. She approached slowly, the cold, humid air drawing steam from her breath. She hugged her coat tight around her body to trap in more warmth—a necessity in the uncertain times. The power in the city underworks were set to low, making the chilly mountain city even colder than normal with no heat or pressurized steam to fog and entrap heat.

  With a violet gloved fist, she knocked on the gate three times with all her might.

  There was no response. Perhaps everyone in the college had fled. Most of the kids and headmasters came from wealthy families. Wealthy families could afford to bribe their way into a safer city.

  But if the college was abandoned, she would not know what to do. She had no other home to go to.

  It was eerily quiet. No bandit or opportunist was brave enough to try to rob from the college. Although the college wasn’t particularly well-defended, the elemental magicians and mystics were renowned for having terrible powers. Powers to burn men alive or make them lose their minds—these were exaggerations, largely, but the commoners and low-born were still fearful of ancient tales.

  She knocked again, and eventually the door creaked open.

  A timid looking man peaked through the gate, holding a sword. She recognized him, but he didn’t recognize her.

  “Dobry?” she asked, finding it strange that he was the one guarding the gates. He was slender, pale, and almost sickly-looking. He might have been a good scholar, but he was no guard.

  “Do I know you?” Dobry snipped back, still holding his rapier defensively.

  “I’m a student of the college!” Nix huffed, “You should at least recognize me!” She fumbled to undue the buttons on her coat around her neck, and then pinched up the shimmering blue bow tied to her blouse, “See?”

  Dobry examined the bow with a critical eye, then, convinced, he nodded quickly, “Okay, okay, come on in…”

  She walked within the college walls and sighed in relief. Standing behind Dobry a man held one of his hands to a powerful elemental conductor, powered by a central fire. So, Dobry was just the face, not the guard… It made much more sense now.

  If someone had broken passed the feeble Dobry, they would have faced an elementalist flaming them with fire. Even if he wasn’t a powerful elementalist, it was still a good deterrent.

  “What’s it like outside the college walls? Is the city safe?” Dobry scampered up to Nix’s side, sudden
ly eager to question her further.

  She walked to the large central fire, and removed her gloves to warm her fingers. “It’s safer than it was last night, but still, I wouldn’t call it safe,” she replied.

  Dobry sat with her beside the fire on the crystal bench. “Do you know what happened at the war over the Green Forest? Did we truly lose? Did Lady Mikja and Lord Grimbone join forces and betray the agreement?”

  Nix nodded gently at his questions, and then closed her eyes at the memory. “It was over fast. Nandor tried his best to have the cities split the forest in three equal parts, but Mikja and Grimbone lied during negotiations. I think they might have planned it from the beginning. I think our city was doomed from the start. They always intended to betray Lord Viken, and Nandor just made it a little more convenient.”

  Dobry looked to the ground, taking in the news with a heavy heart. “Then Froj… our city… it’s true. We will die.”

  Nixie shifted her gaze to the small man by her side, and gave a sympathetic look. In another situation, she might have tried to comfort him, but she had enough worries of her own. “Are any of the headmasters still here?”

  The young scholar shrugged, “Some. A few.”

  “What about Grandmaster Forojen?”

  “Yes,” Dobry replied immediately. “He has not abandoned us. He is not at the college, but in a meeting with Viken’s daughters and wives. I think headmaster Benjfrost is with him. They are trying to determine what is to be done with the city. Who will rule.”

  Nix managed to feel some measure of reassurance. If Grandmaster Forojen Dorgenja was still working to save the city, then all hope was not lost. He was a powerful man. Perhaps he could somehow make the best of the grim situation.

  Dobry did not share her thoughts. “We have no heir to the city. No leader, no green forest, nothing. It’s hopeless.”

  “If that’s how you feel, you can always flee like the rest of the rich lords and ladies,” the elementalist guarding the gate snapped.

  Dobry shook his head. “I have nowhere to go. I did not get to be a scholar by my patronage. I have no family. No riches. No city would let me in.” He looked around the crystal buildings. “This is the closest thing I have to a home.”

  “Me as well,” Nix said softly.

  “So the poor and the misfits are now the guardians of the crystal college? Ha!” the elementalist laughed sadly. “Perhaps our city is doomed.”

  Nix asked them both if they had seen any signs of Nandor, or anyone carrying a body, or anything strange at all that might somehow explain his disappearance.

  They hadn’t.

  She sighed, put on her gloves, and wished them well in their vigilant guard. Then she climbed up through the blue crystal street to the lower student housing, and found her small one-room abode two floors up.

  It was a cozy place—draped in colorful and extravagant cloth that she’d stolen from the market in what felt like a lifetime ago. There was a standing shower and tub for cleaning, and a slightly altered Froj-styled nest for a bed. Blankets, covers, feathers and wool lined it to keep out even the harshest of cold. She discarded her first and second layer of clothes, and then curled up in her nest, and closed her eyes.

  It was a comfortable home for a small person such as herself, but she felt no comfort on that day. She might have cried, but it seemed as if all the tears had already been drained from her eyes, so, instead, she dwelled on her failures, and, after a long time, slept.

  The death of Nandor plagued her dreams.

  The cuts to his leg, arm and waist, the sword lodged into his spine…

  His face was thin and his body was shivering. He was unnaturally pale.

  She tried to hold onto him, but his body vanished from her arms, fading into the air and then up into the sky.

  Then she awoke in a cold sweat, and cried.

  For the first time, she realized that even if she somehow found his body, Nandor was truly dead.

  Nothing could bring him back.

  Chapter 4: Poor Stewardship

  Can objects absorb their surroundings? Does the stuffed bear hugged by a frightened child ever become more than a simple object? According to my research, such an influx of emotional transfer may shape more than people. Well-loved or particularly hated buildings, trinkets, baubles and figurines have been reported to almost “come alive” with energy, according to attuned mystics such as myself. We can sense what the walls have heard. We can feel what the child hugging the stuffed bear once felt.

  But is there any more to this power? Can objects ever actually “come alive” in full? Certainly, there are robotic beings that are arguably, “alive,” but they require mystic energy to run in the first place.

  And some bots, even require a full human soul, draining an entire body into a terrible empty husk for the sake of a mechanical slave. A terrible, unnatural practice. Yet, it does cause me to wonder, what would happen if a soul was transferred into an “alive” object? Would it, too, become more than it was? It is a question I cannot allow myself to answer. For as long as I am here, I will never tolerate the transfer of human souls at the college. The risk is too great. The monstrosities it inevitably creates are too terrible. I have seen what happens to Jack-Bots with human souls. To warp a human’s energy into a mechanical creation, with no pumping heart to guide it, can only result in horror.

  It is never pretty.

  — Grandmaster Forojen’s Public Studies

  Humans are strange creatures, the Jack-Bot thought, dragging the sled up the streets. So fragile, so misunderstood.

  Odd to think that I used to be one of them…

  It had a large task in front of it, and it knew it. Perhaps an impossible task.

  From the outskirts of the plateau where the battle over the Green Forest had commenced, it had observed the brief war through a binocular lens.

  It had observed Nandor’s duel, and critiqued his flaws and poor swordsmanship with an inner monologue of its own.

  Too aggressive… Oops! No, too slow. Ah! There—nope. Bad, bad form. He should have blocked that! No! No, well, I suppose it was just his shoulder, nothing too bad… oops! Never mind. That was his leg. To the bone. Yikes. Oooh! That was his stomach—bet his spongy insides felt that! What’s he doing? Why can’t he get up? Oh, right, humans bleed. They feel pain. Funny. I suppose he’s lost then… wait… he’s getting up? I guess he’s quite a strong human. Oh—he’s charging? What’s his plan? He is too slow to win the duel. Poor programing—I mean training. Wait—did that sword go all the way to his central nerve? His spine? And he’s still going? Wow. Impressive. I bet even a clank-bot would have fallen from that blow. Oh! Wow! And he’s plunging his sword into Lord Viken! Good on ‘em! Jolly good thrust! All the way to the hilt! Nice! That will be one dead human! Goodbye Sir Viken! Ha!

  Oh… I suppose Nandor will be dead too though. That’s a lot of blood… how… indecent…

  From then it had decided that it would do it’s best to repair Nandor. Nandor had helped it, after all, and the least it could do was repay the debt it owed him.

  After retrieving suitable organs from another somewhat… unwilling… human, the bot had scanned the environment of the empty field, trying to find where Nandor’s body had gone. It followed the trail of his blood to the steps of a nice home, dragging a sled and a bucket filled with ice and a fresh liver behind him.

  Then it set to opening the door in the best way it knew how. It pulled up its left arm, detached the saw and replaced it with gentle metal prongs suitable for probing. Then it undid the lock, and swung the door open.

  Nandor was lying inside. His body was sprawled across an operation table, and he was still breathing faintly. The bot looked around the room, and saw no one else.

  It shrugged, and walked up to Nandor.

  “My friend, I have plans for you…” it chuckled, patting the man’s shoulder with a metal hand. “Never fixed a broken human before,” it admitted to the unconscious man, “but I think it can be done�
�� just need some replacement parts, some welding with bones to metal, perhaps something else, but I’ll figure it out. I’ll put you together like a broken puzzle if I have too!”

  A soft moan from the nearby kitchen caused the bot to turn its head. A girl was lying on the ground, cradling her head. The bot took of its top hat and lowered it in shame. “Poor, poor stewardship. The female can’t even be bothered to properly tend to her damaged mate. She wiggles and wobbles on the ground instead. Disgraceful.” The bot turned back to Nandor, and unceremoniously rolled his body onto its sled. Then it grabbed Nandor’s bag full of gear just in case they would need the extra supplies. “Let’s get you out of here, Nandor. I can take far better care of you, I assure you. Far better…”

  The bot dragged Nandor in its sled out the door, and locked it back behind them.

  “We’ve got lots to do, Nandor! Lots to do…” It grinned eagerly, looking down at the dying man. “This is going to be fun. You humans are born far too squishy and brittle. I’m going to make you so much… better.”

  The flaming eyes burned brighter on the bots face, and it reattached it’s saw to prepare for the worst. “But first, we’ve got to get out of this falling city…”

  Chapter 5: Back at the College

  Although there are minor settlements elsewhere, the Clockwork Cities are the largest dwellings of humans in the Crystal South. The three cities dwell on three different resource-rich mountain tops, overlooking the Paradise Valley.

  One thing that all of the cities have in common, is a struggle to supply enough food. There has not been a green forest nearby in over a decade. Ice fields produce little crops, and animal farms themselves have to be so wide and so vast that they are barely manageable, in order to allow the animals enough room to graze, dig up old preserved plant matter, and grow. Hunting can only substitute for so much, and prey animals are few and far between anywhere near the city lands. As the hunters say: “It is predator vs predator anymore,” Wolves grow larger and hunt bears and bears grow bolder and fight wolves. Worse monsters prey on them all.