To live or die at loreli.., p.38
To Live Or Die At Lorelight Academy, page 38
When Lulana turns back she isn’t looking at me. She’s staring down at her neck, leaking blood.
“No,” I moan. “Please…please.”
Yin-Gata—I have to assume it’s her, though now I’m praying it’s someone else—doesn’t look at me.
She just glances down at the blood from her neck that now drapes her fingers.
And then…then the claw moves back across her neck, and her skin winds itself together again.
With a now familiar cadence, time moves backward.
Lulana is un-killed.
My jaw hangs open.
She stares at me all the while.
Then she takes a deep breath, and approaches me.
She isn’t really looking at you. This is just the pattern of time. It’s a coincidence. It’s not real eye contact.
Then she speaks, staring right at me.
“Who are you?” she asks.
I look around.
“Me?”
A smile quirks at the woman’s lips.
She nods.
“Yes, you.”
“We can…interact?”
“For now,” she says. “For a few hours. And then I’ll die again, and then a few seconds after that, we’ll have more time. What’s your name?”
“William Seong.”
“Lulana Yin-Gata,” the woman tells me, inclining her head.
“Lulana Yin-Gata,” I whisper, like a prayer.
Her eyebrow rises.
“Are you a…student?”
“…Yes,” I answer at length.
The Archscholar’s face feels like home. She seems just as kind, smart, intelligent, and wise as her journals would lead me to believe.
I hope that’s the case—I hope it’s enough.
“I’ve heard of you.” I nod, unsure of where to begin.
“I…just used your journal to perform an amputation the other day,” I say quietly. “And then another one to attach the Simulacrum Semicorpus. I need your help.”
“I see,” Lulana says slowly.
“I…I read your thoughts on Sampson. He’s…he’s done something horrible.”
Yin-Gata blanches.
“I know.”
I fill her in.
I tell the Archscholar everything—from the moment they killed Philip, to finding and mercy-killing Scholar Russ, to the moment Farah and I went our separate ways and I found her here on the third floor, and everything in between.
I also include a few details from before and “around”—like how we were diverted on the road by the Regent’s soldiers, and how even now, at least one battalion of hippogriff knights waits outside the barrier and gates.
She hasn’t heard Sampson’s ravings and speeches from her bubble. Something about how the Anastrophe works, I gather. I summarize Sampson’s ravings as best I can, including the vague mentions of a “deal” with the Regency and, even, an “army.”
When I mention this part, Lulana looks toward the Infected third-year student who will, in about a half an hour of subjective time, kill her.
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” I tell her.
“Why does the Regent need an army? He already has one.”
She’s asking aloud.
We’ve been talking for several hours now. Most of it background, and now we’re actually trying to solve some problems.
Emphasis on “trying.”
“I’m just a guy who got caught up in this,” I tell her.
Lulana smiles at this.
“Done a pretty good job, I’d say,” she tells me.
I look up from the crossbow.
It’s gotten loose, and I’m making some repairs. Mostly just tightening screws and winches.
“I’m alive,” I concede. “Besides surviving, I haven’t accomplished much else.”
“You made it to me.”
I grimace, and immediately regret it.
The truth comes out, plain on my face.
Lulana gets the message, and her smile fades slightly.
“You were hoping I’d be of more help,” she says, looking at me, and then down at the ground.
Behind her, her killer looms, yellow-reflective eyes dancing from unknown light sources in ultra, ultra slow motion.
Deep breath.
Should I have gone with Farah? Have we split up and accomplished nothing because of it?
Should I have convinced her to come with me, only for us to find Yin-Gata trapped like this and realize we have no other choice but to confront Sampson?
“I might not be of much help,” Yin-Gata says slowly, “but this will be.”
In her palm is the Anastrophe.
Seeing it is surreal.
It’s just air.
Warbling air. But it’s got such a presence it’s unmistakable.
“How do I use it? I don’t understand why it’s useful if you can’t change anything.”
Lulana nods, understanding.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” she tells me. “The Anastrophe reverses time and causality. It sets the clock backward—events happen backward. But you can’t think of it like—you stay in one place and time moves backward.”
As Lulana thinks on how to explain it to me, I find myself hearing the idiosyncrasies and explanatory techniques she uses in her journals.
“Pretend you are deep underground, in a small pocket of soil just barely big enough to stand in. You’ve got a shovel with you, and you’re digging like a mole through the earth. You can dig in any direction you want, but you can’t dig backward. With every step you take, the walls around you and behind you turn from soil to stone. You can dig forward—but you can’t dig to the side. You can look behind you, but the tunnel is already made. You’re not going to find anything different.”
I nod.
“Now…pretend there is a pocket in the earth similar to the one you started in. But it’s on the other side of the wall of stone. It’s a fresh digging space, but you can’t get to it because the corridor around you is made of stone. You only have a shovel to dig through the dirt ahead.”
I nod again.
“The Anastrophe is a pickaxe,” the Archscholar says. “It lets you dig through the walls on the sides of your tunnel. You break down the wall, and go digging to the tunnel next door. And you start earlier in the tunnel this time.”
“Going from the end of your tunnel to the beginning of another one…going back in time.”
“Right.” Yin-Gata nods. “If you break through the wall, and you make it to that other digging space, you can use your shovel to dig a new path.”
“Change the future?”
“Right.”
I frown, and look again at Yin-Gata’s killer.
“So why—”
Lulana is already nodding, anticipating my question.
“Imagine you take your pickaxe, and you start to tunnel through time,” she tells me. “And you almost make it to your digging space where you can carve a new path. You’re just a few feet away, but you don’t quite make it. You’re left with this diagonal connecting tunnel that doesn’t quite connect your tunnel to the new one. Imagine the other tunnel is right there, agonizingly close to you. Just on the other side of a few feet of stone.”
I follow.
“And then imagine this thing stabs you in the back, and slits your throat,” she says quietly, nodding toward the Infected.
“You didn’t finish making the tunnel,” I breathe.
“Correct.”
“So you’ve made a…”
“I’ve made an interesting corridor between two paths,” she tells me. “And I can exist in this corridor without needing to move. But if I continue through my original tunnel…”
“…You’ll die.”
“Precisely.”
An idea occurs.
“If…I can finish the tunnel, I can go back and make sure you don’t die, then?”
Lulana shrugs. “If you can dig a tunnel and change the way things go, you can prevent a lot of things.”
This sends me thinking…thinking broadly.
“Why hasn’t someone gone back and…saved the King a couple thousand years ago? Prevented the Regency? Changed any number of things?”
Lulana shrugs. “Some pockets of time can’t be returned to. Also, by all accounts, sometimes the Anastrophe just doesn’t work.”
That raises an eyebrow.
I’ve read Lulana Yin-Gata’s journals.
I’ve spoken with her.
“Just doesn’t work,” is not in her vocabulary.
She must be able to read my expression, because she smiles, slightly.
“Surely there are rules,” I press.
Yin-Gata nods. “Without a doubt.”
“You can’t figure them out?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Damn.”
“I’d sure like to,” she mutters.
We sit for a long moment, and consider.
Finally, Yin-Gata speaks.
“But it’s working now,” she says finally. “I just didn’t get a chance to finish. I think the way ahead is clear—you have to take the Anastrophe and prevent this all from happening.”
“Does it use…Resonance?”
Lulana shrugs. “I don’t think so. Is that your affinity?”
“I think,” I laugh. “I was late to orientation.”
“As we have established. I think, William, you’ll have to try regardless.”
“I can start…I can start now, go back to the attack. Save you. Then you can…use it…or…”
Lulana is looking at me sympathetically.
“Maybe,” she says politely. “But here’s the problem. Why do you need me if you can go back to the attack?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just can’t imagine that I’m capable of using this thing.”
A part of me thinks Lulana is going to reassure me. Tell me that anyone can use it. That there’s no difference between her using it and me using it.
“It takes an absurd amount of power,” Lulana says instead.
“The chances of you being able to use it are nigh impossible, but I don’t see what other choice we have. Even I struggled to extend it past a few meters. There are other places of power in Lorelight, but for an Archscholar to use the Anastrophe in a place of power, and not even make it all the way…I doubt you’ll be able to use it.”
“But…”
“But it’s our only hope?” she asks, and I nod.
Lulana only shrugs. “I’m not going to close out the option, but…no, the likelihood of you being capable of using the Anastrophe is low enough that I do not consider it a feasible option.”
“So…so then, what do we do?!” I ask, pleading. “You have to use the Anastrophe, but you can’t use it unless I use the Anastrophe to save you. And if I can use it to save you, then we’re golden! So then what can we possibly do?”
“Well, we only have one option,” Lulana says sadly. “Because I’ve already figured out what the only reasonable avenue is, and I just wanted to live a little while longer.”
I feel my face go cold.
“What do you mean?”
“There is an incredibly slim chance you’ll be able to use the Anastrophe. And we’re in a situation where our choices are slim versus zero. So I’ll take slim. But for you to use the Anastrophe, that means time moving forward again. So I’ll have to resume…digging my tunnel.”
“You mean the tunnel where you get your throat slit and bleed to death?!” I ask incredulously.
“And then give you the Anastrophe, yes. So you can take your shot with it.”
“I…”
My heart feels heavy.
I’m sad about Lulana—sure. But as tragic as that is, I can’t help but see the greater tragedy. That we were so close to finding the tool we needed to stop all of this. It almost makes it worse. Getting so close, and then it’s not quite enough.
But it is what it is.
I’ll take slim chance of victory over zero, too.
I nod.
“When?” I ask.
Lulana glances back. “This next round,” she says. “I’m ready.”
She shakes her head, and laughs, and wipes a tear away. “Not really,” she adds.
“We can wait,” I tell her. “If this is hopeless, I have a friend who’s—who’s going directly to Albright herself. I can try to find her, you can stay here in your time corridor. We can figure something out.”
“Directly to Albright?” Yin-Gata asks with a frown. “To confront Sampson?”
I nod.
“Brave friend.”
“She’s pissed off.”
“Rightfully.”
“Agreed,” I allow. “Though I wish I’d convinced her to come with me here. Maybe she’d think of a way out of this for you.”
“I wish the same. I doubt Albright is defenseless. Sampson went to great lengths to prepare for this. If Albright Tower is his bastion, it’s likely booby-trapped, guarded, and more.”
I let out a deep breath.
“You think it’s…you think she won’t make it?”
Lulana gazes up at me. “Correct. I think she won’t make it. I think it was foolish. Justly motivated but, again, it is not realistic.”
She smiles, eyes going unfocused.
“Still, I suppose that’s our plan, too.”
We say nothing.
The Infected will, in the flow of time, cut Yin-Gata’s throat.
My heart sinks.
She’s right about our plan. Right about Farah’s plan.
Being right isn’t always a “good” thing.
Lulana’s killer is diving in. Our time is running out.
For this round of time, at least.
Though Lulana is convinced this is the last round for her.
“Good luck, William,” Lulana says. “Hopefully you can find me in a time where we’ve never met, and you can tell me you saved us all.”
She smiles sadly, and I don’t quite have the emotional wherewithal to mimic the motion.
“In fact,” Lulana says with a cocky smile, “if you ever see me, and I don’t remember you—tell me that this happened, and tell me that Beuford Wring smeared dogshit on my dress.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“Who’s Beuford Wring?”
“Someone I grew up with. He smeared dogshit on my dress once.”
“Apparently,” I say slowly. “Are we…are we gonna do this…then?”
She nods.
We sit in silence for a while.
“Just a couple minutes,” she says, taking in a deep breath.
“You sure you want to do this?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “You can do this, Will.”
“You said I can’t,” I shoot back. I’m nervous. I’m horrified. I don’t want to lose Lulana Yin-Gata.
“Well, you probably can’t,” she admits.
She smiles.
“But don’t let that stop you.”
I shake my head in disbelief, and let out a scoff.
“Okay,” she breathes. “Here we go. Better draw that sword. When time kicks up again…I don’t know what’ll happen. The thing that slits my throat might come after you.”
I do as she says.
“I wish I could save you,” I say quietly.
But Lulana isn’t listening. She isn’t capable of listening. Or anything else. Anything other than the events which have already happened to her. She’s trapped again, drawn back to her place in the cycle, flickering and disappearing, only to reappear at the edge of the veranda, running from the Infected chasing her.
Goodbye, I think, as time resumes, and—
A thought occurs.
A thought occurs.
She bleeds, but…
Does she actually die?
“No!” I scream. “Wait!”
But Lulana can’t hear me.
She cries out, stabbed in the back, and turns.
The claw drags across her neck, as has happened so many times before.
Things are different now, though.
New territory is made.
Causality, for the first time in this bubble in a long time, treads new territory.
Lulana staggers toward me, hands on her neck, eyes wide.
The claws through her chest plunge outward, and Lulana sinks to her knees.
I rush forward, ready, and with the movements of every Infected in the room memorized at this point.
I kill Lulana’s own killer, and move to kill another to the side as screams echo down the corridor I came from.
I rush to Lulana’s side, and slide to my knees.
Blood is rushing from her neck and chest.
“I’m a friggin’ idiot,” I tell her. “I could have saved you! I could have saved you from bleeding out, if—”
Lulana’s eyes go wide as she puts the two together. She tries to speak, but her mouth doesn’t make any sounds beyond desperate croaks.
She thought she would die immediately, too.
She didn’t think she’d last even these few seconds.
I press my hands around her neck, clamping as hard as I can. It’s difficult—they’re already slippery and wet with blood.
“No, no, no,” I stammer, trying to stop the blood. “I could have…I could have gotten medicine, I could have—”
More color bleeds from Lulana’s face, and her eyes roll to the back of her head.
“No, no,” I sob. “Please—”
The Anastrophe is in her palm, and she pushes it toward me. I ignore her. Behind me, Infected shriek as they chase the students from earlier down the way I came. Should I have left Lulana to die, and tried to save them instead? Is everything just fucked? Just absolutely fucked?!
Lulana Yin-Gata’s chest rises and falls in shallower and shallower motions.
No, no.
I wipe tears and blood from my eyes.
There’s so much blood.
I grab the Anastrophe with one hand. It feels solid in my grip, dense, and weighty.
I keep the other clamped on the Archscholar’s neck, just in case, somehow, it’s making a difference with the bleeding.
I don’t think it is.
I shut my eyes, and try to reach into the depths of magic.
The Anastrophe is vague.
Far away.
It feels close to me, yet so far away.
Like…
…like an eleven-year-old boy standing on a cliff, who sees a ship miles away at sea.
