Sacrifices

by Mercedes Lackey

  At the end of the corridor, Muirin turned left again and dragged Spirit through a doorway. From here, Spirit could glimpse the Cold Kitchen—a wall of brushed steel refrigerators and walk-in freezers, with sinks and prep areas lining the other three sides. The room Muirin had brought her to was lined with wooden shelves holding industrial-sized cans and boxes. She could make out a few familiar images in the dimness. Who knew Crisco came in twenty pound cans? she thought dazedly.

  “This place is like a maze,” she said in exasperation.

  Muirin shrugged. “They have to store the food somewhere. Now spill it. I know my way around the Young Gentlemen’s Wing, but you sneak about as well as an elephant in tap shoes.”

  For Muirin’s benefit, Spirit quickly summarized what she’d already told Addie, then went on. “There have to be other kids here who don’t want to grow up to be the minions of a Dark Lord, Murr,” she said. She’d meant to bring this up in the Library, but she hadn’t had time. “It’s getting really bad really fast—I don’t know what Doctor A is testing for, but we have to stop him. We have to find out who’s on our side—or who could be—and we don’t have much time. The dance is in two days. Loch’s seeing Doc Mac tomorrow—he needs to get him to help.”

  Muirin snorted rudely. “Doc Mac’s going to need some time for his head to stop spinning first.” She looked at Spirit. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re really in. I’ve spent the last two days lying my head off to Anastus, Mark, Teddy, and Madison about how nobody believes your conspiracy theory. That’s going to buy you a little time. Not a lot.”

  “Depends on if they believed you,” Spirit says. She didn’t ask Muirin how Breakthrough had come to believe she had a conspiracy theory. They knew she’d asked to see Doc Mac after the not-an-accident on the firing range. And before she’d known how high the stakes were, she probably hadn’t been careful enough. (Careful enough would have involved never coming to Oakhurst in the first place.)

  “I have years of practice at lying to everybody,” Muirin said grandly. “Come on. We better get back out there to complain. And yes, before you remind me, I’ll pass your suggestion on to Loch. Although if you’re thinking of having the student body rise up en masse and declare that it’s Spartacus, you’re going to have a long time to wait, if you ask me.”

  Spirit only wished she didn’t think Muirin was right.

  * * *

  Despite what Ms. Corby had said about their rooms being ready “in just a few hours,” it was almost midnight before Spirit could sit down on her new bed in her new room and look out her new window. Second floor. Not quite in the same place on the wing her old one had been, so there was a nagging feeling of wrongness when she looked out.

  She didn’t know how the Housekeeping staff had gotten everyone’s things moved (it’s easy; all you need is a little magic, she thought bitterly) but they were here. And neatly arranged—too neatly, as if it had been done by demented mice from the Bizarro Disney universe. Every article of clothing neatly folded, all the bathroom stuff perfectly arranged on the shelves, all the school supplies organized and neatly put away, though not in exactly the places she’d kept them. When she’d opened her closet door and seen every pair of shoes she owned lined up in a neat row, she’d wanted to cry. This was worse than having her room torn apart. This was having it put together the way someone else thought it should be, as if they were trying to erase Spirit completely.

  She wondered if that was what Mordred really wanted—a bunch of mindless robot zombie minions who would do exactly what he ordered them to and never give him any trouble. (Not like he’d given Arthur. That was for sure.)

  She wondered if Mark and Ovcharenko were totally down with that. Not to mention Madison Lane-Rider. A post-apocalyptic wilderness didn’t seem as if it would involve many fashion opportunities somehow.

  She glanced at the clock. Midnight. The witching hour. (Ha.) Forty-eight hours from now the Spring Fling will be over, and if we’re lucky …

  She wasn’t sure what outcome she should hope for. She’d told Muirin just a few hours ago that things were getting bad fast. She’d had no clue what “bad” was. Now that they’d all (even Muirin) been moved, there were two Breakthrough Security guards on the floor. She wasn’t sure even Muirin could sneak past them, since the guards had probably been chosen on the basis of their Gifts. Muirin had said once that she couldn’t be fooled by anyone else’s illusions, since that was her own power.

  Not that she’d probably have to sneak in and out, even under the new rules, Spirit thought with a sigh. She’d like to wish Muirin would stop playing along with Breakthrough, but dangerous as it was, stopping would probably be even more perilous. And if she hadn’t been doing that all along …

  They wouldn’t know the world was going to end.

  Yeah, the world’s going to end, but morning’s still going to come, and god help me if I don’t show up for breakfast, she grumbled. She’d never felt less like sleeping in her entire life, but she grudgingly put on her pajamas and got into bed.

  The mattress felt different, too.

  * * *

  Guinevere, High Queen, sat like a statue on the bare back of one of the famous white horses that had been her dowry on the day she had wed Arthur. Only the knights of the Table had ever been permitted to ride them, for they were bred to carry kings.

  The Table was broken, and the King was dead.

  The Dream was dead.

  No! she cried silently. Arthur’s Dream shall be reborn! It lives now in the hearts of men and women of good courage!

  And someday it would be reborn in stone and law once again. The shining city on the hill would rise more glorious than before. Camelot would rise from the ash and gall of the Black Serpent’s betrayal.

  It had been Candlemas when the Black Serpent first revealed his mad ambition, Eastertide when Arthur had returned from Armorica to offer battle, Hallowmas when the evil was run to ground. In her mind, Guinevere gave the Great Feasts their ancient names: Imbolc, Ostara, Samhain. But the Old Ways were fading as the New Religion grew strong. Someday they would be but a dim memory, lost with the magic that was the silver gift of Arianhrodd to all who shared her blood. Guinevere gazed at the rune-scarred trunk of the Dungeon Oak as the wind blew soft and cold over her skin. “Herein lies imprisoned the traitorous son of the Great Bear: Mordred Kinslayer the Accursed…”

  Imprisoned, but not dead. Trapped, please, Jesus and Epona, until the stars grew dark, but not even The Merlin’s great sorcery could slay a necromancer with Death’s ichor flowing through his veins. And in his last moments unentombed, Mordred had struck out at the one man with the power to be his jailor for Time and all Eternity. He had cast a spell to bind The Merlin to the body he now wore until the end of time.

  All of Arianhrodd’s children knew that the mortal flesh was merely a garment to be worn for a span of seasons, while the eternal spirit journeyed forever onward, reborn again and again. To trap someone within the toils of eternal death was a cruel vengeance indeed, but that had only been a part of Mordred’s intent. With The Merlin gone, Mordred would have no enemy to thwart him on the evil day he broke free—if that day came.

  But he had reckoned without the implacable will of she who was the spirit of the land itself: Guinevere, sorceress and Queen. She had pledged herself and Arthur’s knights, pledged all who had loved Camelot, to eternal vigilance.

  On the day Mordred broke free, they would be waiting …

  * * *

  “Showtime,” Loch murmured in Spirit’s ear as he passed her in the Refectory at breakfast. She grimaced wryly. She couldn’t manage to work up a real smile.

  Thursday.

  When she’d checked her mailbox this morning, it had contained six separate emails from Maddie about how they should behave on Friday, all with urgent pleas that the Dance Committee set an example and make the Macalister High kids feel welcome—not that an example would really be necessary, since once again Maddie had sent the emails to the entire s
chool, so if anybody didn’t know how Maddie thought they should all behave, they had to be illiterate. There’d also been an email from Madison Lane-Rider about the fabulous designer gowns they were all going to be so privileged to wear (and Spirit had been right: they weren’t going to get to choose their own—their dresses would be delivered to their rooms this afternoon). After all that, the Morning Motivational Message would have had to be something epic to make an impression. And it was. It had also been about as subtle as an Acme Anvil: all about how weakness, indecision, and cowardice were the enemies of greatness, and the “leaders of tomorrow” rooted out those qualities in themselves and didn’t tolerate them in others. An Oakhurst alum led by example and inspired by deeds. Spirit had found herself whistling “Oakhurst We Shall Not Forget Thee” ironically as she’d headed off to shower. Assuming you could whistle ironically, of course.

  Her flash of good humor had faded long before she arrived in the Refectory, and while she was waiting on the serving line, she heard half a dozen rumors about the testing, from the one she’d started herself, to one saying everyone got an additional Gift from a School they didn’t already have, to the testing gave you a vision of your own death, to one saying nobody remembered what happened during the testing. The last one should have been easy enough to check—at least a dozen kids had already gone through it—but nobody was talking.

  By the time she got back to her table, the doors had been barred, and that meant everybody should be here, but the tables were still half empty. At least twenty kids were missing, and a few minutes later Ms. Corby came in and read off a set of names (different than the ones that had been posted) of kids who were supposed to be tested. And good luck with that, Spirit thought. She was starting to guess what was going on.

  Her first class proved her right. There were supposed to be thirty kids in Systema class. There were seventeen. Ovcharenko could count as well as anyone could: he glared at them and stalked out of the gym. About ten minutes later, Mia Singleton showed up to lead the class. She made a point of saying tomorrow’s class would be canceled so they could all “rest up” for the Spring Fling.

  By lunchtime, it was clear the student body of Oakhurst was in open revolt. Everybody was spooked by the new tests, rumors about what had really happened when the library in Radial got trashed had finally made it back to Oakhurst, and having two-thirds of the student body summarily relocated without warning had been the final straw.

  Muirin and Loch weren’t the only ones who knew all the school hiding places. Anybody who’d ever wanted to make out, grab a smoke, or just get fifteen minutes of privacy knew at least three places they could do that. Anybody who didn’t want to hide outright found somewhere to be that they weren’t supposed to be, even if it was just in the back rows of the wrong classroom. And with their schedules having been changed almost daily over the last three weeks, nobody was really sure who was supposed to be where—even half the teachers.

  The security staff roamed the halls all afternoon talking to each other on their radios and wandering in and out of classrooms as they tried to track the missing students down. Add to that the fact that anybody who’d been called for testing that day was either recovering in their room or recovering in the Infirmary (so anybody Security couldn’t find might be legitimately sick, hiding, or just in the wrong place), and by the end of the day, the entire staff was looking as if all of them wanted to shoot somebody.

  None of the students were particularly sympathetic.

  Spirit wanted to think her classmates were preparing to rise up and throw off the chains of their oppressors (or at least stop letting Breakthrough push them around), but she knew better than to really hope. Oakhurst would load them all down with sugar tomorrow night, there’d be a dance, and by Monday they’d probably all go back to being good little sheep. (Most of them, anyway.)

  Still, the thought of a rebellion was nice while it lasted.

  * * *

  Spirit stared at her prom dress in disgust. It was gorgeous.

  The blue satin was the exact color of her eyes. The boned bodice had a spray of tiny rhinestones swooping across the neckline and then down to her left hip. It fit tightly to the waist, then it ballooned out into a short tulip-shaped skirt over a huge silver crinoline. The dress was strapless, but it came with a short-sleeved shrug in glittery white swansdown. There were even accessories to go with it: a pair of silver sandals, silver pantyhose, and a headband with an enormous blue-and-silver flower at one side.

  She’d look like a fairy princess.

  She’d feel like a …

  Spirit shuddered. She’d rather wear the dress Muirin had made for her first dance, even though everyone had already seen it. She’d rather wear a garbage bag.

  She didn’t think that would go over well.

  She sighed and hung the dress in her closet, resisting the urge to just toss it on the floor at the back. And slam the door. And never leave her room again.

  It was weird. So many things about Oakhurst Academy should have been, well, nice. (In another universe, one where her family wasn’t dead.) But everything—the riding lessons, the dances, the laptop and all the fancy toys, the luxurious dorm room—was somehow … empty. It had been, even before she’d known the truth about Oakhurst. Everything here was like the Sunday Services: it looked good on the surface, but it just left you feeling empty and dissatisfied.

  Goblin Fruit, Spirit thought, thinking about the Rossetti poem Dad had loved to quote. “Their offers should not charm us, Their evil gifts would harm us.” Oakhurst gives us all the things that ought to satisfy us. And they don’t, because none of them is really what it looks like. So they want us to want … what?

  She didn’t want to think about the answer to that question, even though she was pretty sure she knew it. What Oakhurst—what Doctor Ambrosius—what Mordred—really wanted was for them to want other things. Not friends, but flatterers. Not knowledge, but control. Not wisdom, but supremacy.

  And anybody who bought what Oakhurst was selling would find out that all those things left them as empty as the fake “good” things had. And then what was left?

  I don’t want to be able to think about things like this, she thought despairingly. I don’t want to have to think about things like this.

  She’d wondered how Oakhurst had changed her.

  This was how.

  She drew a long shuddering breath. There was nothing to do but go on. “In the midst of life, we have our homework,” she said aloud. It was supposed to be a joke, even if a lame one, but her voice was rough and wavery. She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. They want me to give up. They want me to think there’s nothing I can do but give in. So I won’t.

  It was cold comfort, but it was all she had.

  Aside from—of course—the usual fun-sucking assignment.

  Because tomorrow’s Systema had been canceled (although today they were told it was being replaced with a one-hour Yoga Class, on the theory yoga didn’t leave bruises), they’d all gotten extra “homework” today. The new, improved History of Magic Class (which Spirit thought of since Madison Lane-Rider had started teaching it as the “All The History of Magic Breakthrough Wants You To Know Class”) had been given an extra research paper to do, on Arthurian survivals in contemporary culture. Madison had urged them to make it a personal document, drawing on their own experience—as if that made an eight page paper due the day of the dance any less of a grind. It was just another way for her to try to get into their heads, Spirit guessed. Still, she had to turn in something. Something that didn’t talk about Fee, or her family, or her past, because she was damned if she was going to hand over everything she loved to Madison Lane-Rider for her to gloat over.

  She sat down at her desk and opened her laptop. She thought longingly of plugging in the Ironkey and pouring her heart out to QUERCUS, but … she didn’t quite dare. Their secret chatroom and the portal to the real Internet had been safe up until now, but that was before Breakthrough had done all those “
upgrades” to the school intraweb. Maybe they’d done it because they suspected someone was getting through the firewall. Maybe they knew. Clairvoyance and precognition were Gifts of the School of Air: it only made sense to assume Breakthrough’s magicians had any Gift she knew about. Too bad I don’t actually have either of those Gifts, because then I’d know what their limitations are. And I don’t know anybody who does, either. Not well enough to ask.

  “Well you’re—” Well you’re gloomy tonight, she’d been about to say, but she stopped short when she heard the shots. Gunfire, somewhere outside—and the only people who were outside at this time of night were the Breakthrough drones.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d heard shots after dark. The story going around the school was that the security people were still hunting that “escaped tiger”—and maybe they really were hunting the Palug Cat. (That was what the thing she’d seen was—it had to have been. Mordred had mentioned it specifically: “Have not the Palug Cat and the Boar of Triath returned to the world? Did not the Green Knight himself come to our court?”) Or maybe they were hunting the Boar of Triath, whatever that was. Or maybe they were just practicing for taking over the world.

  If they were shooting at anything else, she didn’t want to think about it.

  TWELVE

  She worked on her History paper until late—it was a lot harder to come up with eight pages of something if you were trying not to give anything personal away—and then logged into Chat. She signed off again a few minutes later—the girls were all going on about their dresses, and it turned out all the boys had gotten custom tuxedos. Nobody was talking about the testing, or about having had all their rooms reshuffled. It would be nice to think everybody’d suddenly developed a sense of caution, but she’d seen too much stupidity in Chat to believe that.