by wildbow
“Say what you will, but a bulk of the student body is young. Two sixteen year old boys, no prior experience with war, violence, sieges, plague, or any of that, they were put on guard duty, they slacked off, went for a walk. Around the time the fog was lifting and the nobles left, they were out for a smoke or to, uh, enjoy a degree of privacy you don’t get with a couple hundred students in one building. They didn’t make it back.”
“That’s a damn shame,” I said.
“Ammo’s good, we’ve still got a small few experiments in reserve to throw at any attackers, if we need to buy time to get organized. Things were stressful for a bit, back there, but I think we sense that we’re through the worst of it.”
“Everyone’s working together? No dissent at the bottom?”
“Might be a nice thing about being actively at war with a common enemy,” Davis said. “Keeps us focused and working together. No dissent at the bottom.”
“Red and I do what we can about the troublemakers, ensure they’re busy and content,” Bea said. “There’s some minor drugs going around, made in the labs, but so long as it doesn’t impair anyone or get in the way of things being done…”
“Sure,” I said.
“Going by the rounds of questions you’ve asked before, you’re going to ask about resources. Our overall supplies are good,” Mabel said. “We’re fairly well stocked. Not enough to create an army or brew another batch of the fog you used to limit access to the city below, but food, feed, water, medical supplies, a variety of supplies that would let us do one-off experiments, we’re good.”
“Good,” I said, a little unnerved that Mabel had paid that much attention to me. “Ongoing projects?”
“Some gas, some warbeasts, some stitched, more than a few parasites. More to keep us busy than to turn the tides,” Junior said. “A lot of it translates to the next phase of things.”
“Good,” I said. “Non-Academy projects?”
“We dug up schematics for boats. Two weeks to make our first departure, once we’re good to go. That’s assuming nothing more burns down, the stitched are available, and the schematics hold up.”
“Then we’re good?” I asked. “Questions? Needs, desires?”
“I’d be a little more at ease if we didn’t have enemies under our roof, but I’ll manage,” Davis said. “I have to ask. Are you good, Sy?”
“I’m… managing,” I said. My hand went to my wrist, where the shackle had been removed. I rubbed my one wrist with one hand, then switched to do the same with the other. “Can you guys dig up some cuffs or shackles? I think we’ll all feel a bit better if we limit the damage I can do.”
“I’ll get right on that,” he said. “Where do you two want to set up shop?”
I looked at Jessie, then at Davis. “Here?”
“Sure, Sylvester,” he said.
I remained with Jessie, dropping my bag of clothes beside hers. Together, we approached the window. There was a chair set next to it, with someone else’s old cup of tea resting on the sill, a half-inch of tea sitting in the bottom, gone bad.
Together, we sank into the chair, Jessie sitting on me as if to pin me down in place, to make up for the lack of chains.
“I’m glad you’re connecting with Lil,” I said.
“So am I,” Jessie said.
Her attention turned to the world beyond the window. The main building had a great many lights on within. The light and shadow suggested that they were all gathered at the long tables.
Late-night debates, hashing out the terms by which they would surrender.
“It’s been almost a day and a night since we faced off against their nobles. I can’t tell if I’m surprised or very much not surprised that they’re being this stubborn,” I remarked.
“I’m not surprised,” Jessie said. “But if I went by gut feeling—”
“You don’t really do gut feeling much. You do precedent, miss Jessie.”
“If I did, just this one time,” she said, snuggling in closer to me, nestling into the gap between my shoulder and arm and where the back of the armchair curved in around us, “I would say that they’ll decide before dawn.”
“So their humiliation isn’t as visible as it’d be in stark daylight,” I said.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s where my gut feeling was founded,” Jessie said.
“It’s where mine is, you dingus,” I said.
“You’re the dingus, doofus.”
“You’re the doofus…” I said. I trailed off. We had company.
One of Davis’ subordinates, with chains and manacles. I rested my head on Jessie’s shoulder while she directed the fellow in how to arrange it. My left ankle and my left wrist were shackled. The shackles were attached to the iron grille that framed the window, bolted securely into the stone of the wall.
“D’you need anything else?” the fellow asked.
“Blanket?” Jessie asked.
It was less than a minute before he returned with the blanket.
When he left, Jessie and I were left alone in the room, sharing a seat with a view, a blanket draped over our laps.
It seemed almost as if the black wood and plague had consumed Hackthorn after all. The wind blew and it stirred clouds of dust and settled smoke like it would have stirred up the aftermath of black wood. The city below was empty, without any lights on.
“It’s beautiful, in a desolate kind of way,” I said.
“I have to admit, I don’t get much out of the sights,” Jessie said. “I’ve spent far too much time looking out windows for the past couple of days.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I should have grabbed a book before getting comfortable,” she said. Rather than pull away, she curled up against me, her head settling against the back of the chair, her nose brushing my shoulder.
“I’d like to think I’m more interesting than a book,” I said.
“You’re very much more interesting than a book,” she said. “Enough so that it can be tiring, I admit. I might have to conserve my strength.”
“Well gee whiz, sorry,” I said.
I felt rather than heard her soft laughter.
“What if I don’t say anything? Does that make me less exhausting to be around?” I asked.
“Then I’ll be bored,” she said. “I’ll be left to dig through old memories, sort out more recent ones to make sure I didn’t miss connections, and anticipate tomorrow. A night of mental filing.”
“Well, just proposing an alternative…” I said.
The arm that encircled her middle shifted position, my hand tugging on the side of her blouse. It pulled her collar away from her neck, revealing one of the scars from the caterpillar implant. This one formed a line from the nape of her neck and extended just a little ways over her shoulder.
I kissed it.
She kissed the side of my face.
My free hand moved, and my free hand didn’t need to roam, explore, or find their place to find what they were looking for. My memory was shot, and there were countless things I didn’t remember like I was supposed to, but I knew where Jessie’s scars were beneath her clothes, and my fingers traced the scars. At the stomach, in two places, at the chest. Fingers brushed against fine fabric, tracing the lines.
Her hand moved up and down the left side of my body, before reaching up to my shoulder and finding a place there.
Distant footsteps approached, drawing closer. We didn’t move to hide what we were doing, but the positions we held weren’t such that anyone would raise an eyebrow, unless they saw us in motion. We were still, while a group of students with guns passed through the sitting room of the boys’ dorm.
“You alright?” one asked.
“Very good, thank you,” I said, smiling.
They moved on, heading into another hallway, carrying out the rest of their patrol.
Jessie’s fingers touched my lips. “Nice smile.”
“You’ve seen it often enough.”
“Not like this,” she
said. “Not so devastating.”
“You keep using that word. Are you being flattering for once?”
“I flatter you plenty, but with that damaged, devastating brain of yours, it’s in one ear and out the other,” she said, her voice soft.
“Hmm. I think you’re trying to get a lie past me with distracting words in the middle of the statement, there.”
“Maybe.”
She kissed the side of my face. I turned my head to face her and kissed her properly.
My fingers traced the lines, until her hand found mine and held it.
I broke the kiss.
“So that’s the famous, devastating Sylvester kissing, is it?” she asked.
“I’ve kissed you before. Also, don’t think I don’t notice you pushing that button over and over again, because you know I like it.”
“It’s our word,” she whispered in my ear. “Our wanted poster, our inside joke.”
I squeezed her hand.
“Kiss me again,” she said.
I did.
“I’d forgotten just what that was like,” she said.
The wind whistled outside. The voltaic lights overhead buzzed as the structure flexed and the wiring was jostled.
My blood ran cold.
“Jessie,” I said.
She squeezed my hand, not making eye contact. “It’s nice, forgetting and being reminded.”
“Jessie, what’s going on? Did you drop a fourth memory?”
“Shh,” she said. Fingers touched my lips.
I knew Jessie as well as I knew anyone. I could see it, hear it, feel it in the way she pressed against me.
“More than four.”
“Shh, Sy. Please.”
“More than ten?”
She moved her fingers and kissed me again.
I only went with it because I needed to get my thoughts in order. I could feel my heartbeat thudding like it was trying to break free, and I could feel hers doing much the same.
As she broke the kiss, she moved her head, so it was beside mine. Not facing me, not facing the question.
Words caught in my throat as I tried to organize them.
“How bad is it?” I asked.
“Hmm,” she made a noise, as if she was mulling it over.
I waited for the response, and she didn’t provide it.
“Jessie, I know I probably deserve it, I know I’ve teased you and everyone else that matters more than I’ll ever be teased in return, but don’t leave me hanging on this one. Can you just explain?”
She was silent.
My heart pounding, my throat a lump more than it was an airway, I shifted position.
Jessie had fallen asleep.
“That’s not fair,” I said. My voice broke with the sentence. “And I know I more than deserve that too.”
I shook her. It didn’t rouse her. I slapped her lightly, then a little harder.
I raised a hand to hold it near her nose and mouth, so I could feel if she was breathing.
I waited.
The lump in my throat swelled, and I had to cough to keep from choking on it.
“Jessie,” I said.
I felt the breath on the back of my hand, and I barely felt better at that.
My voice was barely audible to myself, “Jessie, I refuse to let you pull this fast one on me, okay? You’re not going to leave me hanging for hours now, waiting to see if you wake up as you. You don’t get to do that. Not when we’re so close to everything we’re trying to do.”
“It was always a war of attrition.”
I closed my eyes, wincing.
“You’re operating with little time, holding the position of power. They’re operating with very little power, but they have time on their side. It might not feel like it to them, as they starve, as they want for water and proper rest, but as pride compels them to negotiate their surrender among themselves before they extend it to you, they’ve been whittling down a clock with your collective deadlines on it.”
“Infante,” I said.
The figure loomed before me. A pillar of a man. A monolithic entity. He stared down at Jessie and I. He wasn’t wholly the Infante, and he wasn’t wholly me either.
“Not now,” I said.
“These things are never convenient,” he said. “The most important moments of clarity and decision come when you’re most pressed by circumstance.”
“Not now,” I said, quieter. Then, abruptly, realizing that I was losing ground, I writhed my way free of the chair and of Jessie, pushing her back into the seat to keep her from tumbling to the ground. I stood, and my wrist and ankles jerked with the chain that connected me to the wall. I roared the words, “Someone! Anyone!”
He stared at me.
“Lillian!” I called out.
He turned his attention to Jessie.
If I lost ground here, if I snapped like I had before, and if I ended up working against everything I’d been trying to do… If, somehow, in a warped perspective, I found myself justifying horrible things and the greatest of betrayals, what would I do, when only Jessie was in arm’s reach?
If Jessie was still there.
“No,” I said.
“The only way you don’t have to see her eyes open and not recognize you, is if they don’t open,” the Infante said.
“That’s—no, that’s bad logic. That’s not sensible at all.”
“You’ve seen a lot of death without even blinking, but one blank look with nothing behind it nearly destroyed you the first time. It would be a question of self preservation.”
“Anyone!” I screamed the words. “Help!”
How were there no patrols close enough?
“Can you really endure it?” he asked.
“I have to,” I said. “Clearly. I—whatever you’re representing right now, whatever thought processes and fears… I’ll concede the battle here. You can have this win. I’ll compromise, I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“Oh, Sylvester,” the apparition spoke, reverberating to the core of my being in a way that nothing in reality ever had. I now knew that the countless nightmares and fragments of madness, the dozens of figures, the visions of the world breaking down had never stopped—they had only found a singular, indomitable form that would stampede through my being in a way I couldn’t ever stop.
“There was never going to be an ending where you didn’t,” he said.
Previous Next
Root and Branch—19.15
Multiple guns cocked, the sound stirring me out of the deep well of darkness and poisonous thoughts.
You’re going to need to open your eyes now, the voice said. It wasn’t the Infante’s voice anymore.
I kept my eyes closed.
“Please put the guns down,” I heard Lillian. Then, more insistently, “Please.”
“You shouldn’t go near him, Doctor. Not when he’s like this.”
“It’s okay,” Lillian said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or the others. “It’s okay.”
I waited, tense. I felt like I needed to vomit, and the smell of blood was rich in the air.
“Can you look up at me? Is this Sy I’m looking at right now?”
I nodded, then realized I’d meant to answer the second question. Maybe the fact that I hadn’t looked up at her made it the right answer by process of elimination.
It didn’t make much sense, but very little made sense anyway.
“Open your eyes, Sy. Look at me,” she said.
I didn’t want to.
Open your eyes, the voice said.
I opened my eyes. Twelve students with guns were gathered in the sitting room. Fray stood in the background, her arms around Ashton. Gordon was close by, half-turned away, with Hubris next to him. Jamie was there too, in a chair by a bookshelf, his arms around a book so large it hid him from belly to the tip of his nose.
He was so small. He was so thoughtful, so funny when he stepped out of his usual space, and that was something mostly reserved for me.<
br />
I knew part of the reason he hid was that I couldn’t remember him, and there wouldn’t be anything to see if the book was moved. It was the same for Gordon. They were too far behind us. Too many months and years separated him and where he was from where we were now.
Lillian was just a few feet away from me. I was avoiding looking at her, postponing reality.
Look at her, the voice instructed.
I looked at her, then looked away just as fast.
“What happened?” Lillian asked. Her voice caught midway between ‘happened’.
Answer her.
“Jessie—” I started. My voice caught. I raised my hand to my throat, saw it drenched in blood, and dropped it away and out of sight, as surely as if I’d just raised a blazing torch to my face.
“Sy,” she said, and it sounded like she might burst into tears, just by the way she’d said it. “You said that if you were with one of us that you’d be okay.”
“Jessie fell asleep,” I said. My voice was hollow. “Then I wasn’t with any of the Lambs.”
Lillian looked so damn sad, as she took that in. I couldn’t meet her eyes. I didn’t want to look at any of the rebel soldiers with guns, either. My eyes kept moving from face to face in the crowd of figures that occupied the sitting room. The Snake Charmer and Percy were watching intently.
I was cold. It was summer and I was cold. I wasn’t wearing a shirt, I realized. I glanced around to see if I couldn’t spot it. I saw Jessie lying very still in the armchair. I saw streaks of blood on her and the chair and averted my gaze.
“Sy,” Lillian said, her voice very quiet.
I could tell from her tone. Whatever she was going to say, it was going to be a hard one. The silence had a heaviness to it.
“Should I give the order for them to shoot you?”
Alright then. Not the hardest question she could have asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.”
“Did—” she started. She stopped, clenching her jaw very intensely for a second, almost as if she was trying not to vomit. She turned her head and used the heel of her hand to wipe at one eye.
“I don’t know,” I answered her, pre-emptively.
“You don’t know if you killed Jessie?”
I opened my mouth and closed it.
That would be one of the hard ones.