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 Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:05 pm
[1 of 6] Day 1: This world rejects meWord Count: 1890The campus looked no differently upon his absence. Long towers loomed high overhead, and stared down through the mists at their sole living legacy. In that moment, their timelessness weighed heavily upon him, and he realized how vast a thousand years looked to the few mere months he went without a signet ring for entry. Scholomance looked past them toward the highest rings of Saturn, sharp in their peak overhead, and dim through the thinning veils of mist that pervaded the area. The faint orange returned and tinted the air perspective. In those heavy seconds, he made his decision to move onward, and Scylla's reminders about martyr-makers danced about at the back of his mind.
His signet ring, he found, fit perfectly to his middle finger now, despite the discrepancy in ring size. He considered it a perk of magical influence. Even with its larger size, the ring similarly unlocked the complex mechanistic lock that barred access to the Scholomance towards for those long months, and within, he smelled the old mustiness of chiseled stone and desiccated tapestries. Scholomance caught his breath for the giddiness it incited in him.
"Blaine," he called into the echoing chamber. He could not stymie the excitement from his voice. Perhaps the tremble in clear timbre would rouse the old knight from hiding. "Blaine, where are you? I haven't recovered my signet ring, but I borrowed another." Heeled footsteps sounded as Scholomance paced through the entry area, past vaulted ceilings and red maple desks. Cold white lights bloomed at his passing. Soon, shadows of arches and columns crawled up the wall and leaned onward to watch the knight walk. "You mocked me for it, but I still found my way in.."
"And lost your arm." Blaine stood with the stillness of marble at the top of the first landing. He remained in front of the desk where Scholomance initially recovered his ring with the help of a fellow knight. Scholomance remembered it well. "I stand by the Code's appraisal, Scholomance. You flounder. You're useless. You're not worth the time I spend on you and yet... " He breathed deeply through his nose. "And yet you are here - serving your duty as its knight. So, how many I help you this time, Scholomance?"
All excitement faded from him when faced with the same droll, spineless objections that Blaine raised toward him. "You can hang yourself for starters. The Code hasn't spoken so ill of me since. We dug out that corrupted piece from the wreckage of the old Academy and did away with it. If you accept the Code's appraisal, then you acknowledge that I am the knight of Scholomance here and I am the one in charge of this facility. Now, if you're done posturing, we have work to do." Scholomance crossed the vast marble walkway toward the stairs, stepping over intricate inlaid symbolism struck into the floor. He mounted the first stairs, limping at first, until he stood eye-to-eye with his predecessor and waited for the other man to falter.
Which he did - he always did.
"Very well." Blaine bowed his head and stepped aside, waiting for Scholomance to ascend further into the tower. "As you are the knight, there is something that I must bring to your attention."
"What is it? Be quick." Scholomance offered no pause in his gait.
"Do you remember the creature that afflicted this place in the summer?"
"How could I forget? You two made quite the pair," Scholomance responded dryly. Three fingers met the banister in the long ascension.
If Blaine intended a rebuttal to that quip, he kept it to himself. "It returned. It's not quite as powerful as before, and I believe I've devised a way to stop it. To banish it from the campus. I still need to make a few minor adjustments and come up with a new power source for the experiment but I expect that overall --"
"You don't mean to tell me that you're going to destroy your friend? You two got on so well together! I'd hate to see you lose your only playmate. But since you're so insistent… Where did you find it? What was it doing? And how are we going to evict it from campus without calling in another force of people? I'd rather avoid that nonsense - especially if the Wonder invites the Negaverse like last time."
Blaine hesitated, then ushered Scholomance to pause by resting a hand on the knight's shoulder. Scholomance did not turn to look the old knight in the eyes, and Blaine saw no need of it. When he spoke again, he did so with an unplaceable sorrow. "I followed the creature while you were away. I was more careful this time; I didn't want to risk anything more. The whole venture took most of the months since your disappearance from campus, but I think I've followed the creature to its source.
"Sometimes it leaves behind residual energy. The easiest way to explain this is it manifests like a mist - like Zalmoxis sheds off its hooves. On most nights in Scholomance, you can't see it because of the native fog enveloping the environment. We had a few days of clear skies not long ago, and I was finally able to see this mist from where the creature trailed about, and I followed it back into the Ossuary. You remember it, don't you? You said I took you there once before, and I couldn't remember it. I have a hunch about that lapse of memory, too.
"When I went inside, I heard it scream, so I didn't have much time to investigate. I did see, however, that the misty essence drifted toward the back of the Ossuary where you fell through that hole in the floor. I imagine that long trail led straight to the box you found as a squire - the box full of bone dust. And if that's the case, then perhaps that malignant presence somehow took control of me and lured you down there. Maybe you opening the box weakened it somehow, which would explain why it didn't influence me again until it emerged as that creature. My guess is it bided its time since its release from that box, and it waited and fed on Scholomance's regeneration until it had enough strength to manifest itself.
"According to my theory, when you opened that old box, Scholomance conferred upon you more power so that you could fight it. It acts like an infection on this place - it's a mess of old unrest and malice that congealed into this sentient form that attacks our campus. It must have forced me to attack you that day, which would explain why you came about with a headache."
"You gave me that box when I became a Knight. I threw it into the lake. I'm not going scuba diving for a piece of driftwood."
Blaine shook his head. "It's back in its place at the bottom of the Ossuary. I don't know how. The creature must have relocated it somehow."
Scholomance sighed, and halted all advance through the stairs. He half-turned to regard his ghostly ancestor, who now stood to the height of his shoulder on the previous stair. "Let's assume it's all true. What does this have to do with a way to stop it?" Blaine proved a brilliant scientist at times, he knew, but Scholomance himself lacked the patience for the man's often long-winded dissertations. Admittedly, however, his explanation of events fit neatly with the disconcerting events surrounding his ascent to squire. Similarly, it tied the creation of the monster to that strange time, and gave a physical origin to its campus patrols.
Blaine managed a smile, skittish as it was. "If we have the box, we have the source of its power. And if we have the source of its power, we can manipulate how the creature manifests. Think about it - this box is the source of the curse over Scholomance if I'm correct. Assume we retrieve it. I've been working on a contraption at the top of the tower which would be able to distill this malicious presence into a different form, a form that we can better surmount, but I need a source of power for the machine and I need the box of bone dust that you found last year."
"Why can't you just use the Code? ******** sack, that wad of toilet paper powers the whole place through these glass tubes," he finished, gesturing toward the walls where brilliant blue light climbed up the fluted glass. "We used it for Zalmoxis. Unless the damned thing is running out of steam, I see no reason against using it."
"But I do." Blaine spoke urgently. "You must understand that if we use the Code piece as the power source, then we risk exposing it to the malice. We risk spreading this creature's influence further - and we both lack the thaumaturgy to cleanse the very source of this Wonder. We have to use something else."
Scholomance bit back a laugh. "Batteries?"
"Please, Scholomance. Take this seriously."
The younger knight sighed. Turning fully upon his ancestor, he sat atop the next step and slumped forward in thought. The long trail of his bone coat dropped to the next stair, and the next, as the fabric relaxed in its new position. "So we can't use the Code piece, and batteries aren't an option. If it has to be magical in nature…" My first thought is to contract for the use of some of the Negaverse's energy orbs. Otherwise, transcendence might offer some kind of a solution, but I have no idea how to transcend on my own. No one does. There's no exact pattern for it.
Unless I'm thinking too deeply into this. "What about a starseed? Will that work?"
Blaine's countenance grew stormy. He considered the option for several long minutes before his expression smoothed and even lit into another smile. "Yes. Yes, I think it would. I could tap into the energies of your starseed --"
"I'll see if I can get an officer to pull one for me --"
"Wait, what?" The two knights asked each other in unison.
"You first," Scholomance urged.
Blaine smoothed the brilliant stripes of his long coat. "I was just saying that I could tap into the energy of your starseed to power the device with minimal strain. Provided you're of sound constitution, that is. The machine won't take much to run, and that ties the malice to a much less dangerous source."
"Yes, of course. Why endanger the Wonder's source of power when you can endanger the Knight's source of power instead." Scholomance stared flatly at Blaine. "So that's our solution? Or should I ask an officer to rip out someone's starseed, pop it in this little reliquary I got from your forays into friendship, and bring it back here as a magical battery?"
Blaine's forehead wrinkled with worry at the idea. "No, no, this is much safer. No one needs to die for this. Your starseed will power the device without trouble. All we need is that box from the back of the Ossuary."
"Which I am to fetch, being the sole responsible party here." Slowly Scholomance heaved himself to his feet. "Fine. I'll sally forth on this fetch quest and we'll meet back here once I have your box of bullshit. I'll warn you that I'm liable to be cranky when I return. I don't much like being in close quarters to dead things. No offense, Blaine." The living knight started down the long steps, and bade his ancestor adieu. "I'll be on it first thing tomorrow morning, when the trail's fresh."
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:05 pm
[2 of 6] Day 2: I did what you wanted me toWord Count: 1062The walk to the Ossuary was short, brisk, and full of apprehension. Mist began setting in much earlier than Scholomance expected, and thus his fitful sleep in the Infirmary was cut short by his ancestor's urgings. After a quick breakfast of cold oatmeal, Scholomance followed the long, recently-paved, path towards the smallest and most controversial building of the lot. Saturn garnered a burgeoning warmth, he noted, when Earth plunged itself into a chill. That was, perhaps, the sole comfort to the day's work.
The knight noted the unduly long span of time it took him to ring around the great Observatory, and wondered if the campus always felt this large. He never paced from one side of the campus to the other before, and certainly not with an obstinate leg. The humid air left him in better shape than before, so Scholomance kept his complaints to himself. Soon, his target destination peeked outward from behind the Ossuary wall, and Scholomance steeled himself for further frights and inquests.
When he first arrived at the old doors, he hoped that the locks proved sturdy and thoroughly rusted shut against his advances. He wanted to simply try the door, find it unmoveable, and then give up the plan altogether. Within himself, he debated whether having this creature around was really such a detriment - especially considering that it caused the knight and his ancestor little trouble after its initial attempts to break out. So what if it wandered the campus? Maybe the pair could invite it to tea and find out its sob story. Maybe it would simply fade away after so long a time, and arise as a problem for the next knight to deal with. Though, likely, the next knight would face him as an ancestor.
No, perhaps he needed to address this creature now.
Scholomance tried the doors and found them willing to allow entry. The same royal blue that pumped through the rest of the campus now fluted through the doors, and granted freedom of movement. When the knight entered, he found much of the same sights he initially recalled - the grandiose collection of bones across the gable roof, forming an imaginative creature to look upon new entrants; long, shallow drawers and cabinets lined each wall that he could find, and a series of posts that sported unlit candelabras. The light of day filtered through the few windows he found and allowed more of a glimpse than he had in his initial visit. Of course, he found it in the same caliber of otherworldliness in its pregnant silence. He listened, ears strained, and found nothing more than the quiet company of the dead.
This time, he approached the center of the Ossuary's first floor and found the candelabras compliant. They lit slowly but assuredly, and soon the cold light spilled through the space. He grasped one of the wrought-iron lamps in his sole hand and held it just above eye level for his descent. Again, he found a few bones strewn about in callous disregard, and a few drawers open to display nothing in their confines. The place looked nearly untouched despite his restoration of the other campus buildings.
Scholomance proceeded with more grace than in his first tour of the place. Surefootedness delivered him through the many meandering corridors, and careful attention paid to the labyrinthine layout assisted him in his travels. He understood, then, when he wound his way through a full circle and found himself at the start. The early sun lent him some directionality when he located one of the few windows. His search progressed with little hindrance.
As he descended the stairs, however, he heard the scathing gasp of a dozen voices. Scholomance froze, straining against the silence for some indication of whence it came. It sounded again - closer, this time - and even then, Scholomance could not determine its location.
He found no reason to linger; either the creature knew he was there or it didn't. They followed the same path - in time, it would find him. Scholomance started down the stairs with urgency - he remembered the spinal composition of the monster, and how much he loathed to face the basic fear it instilled within him - and the knight fled through the ever-narrowing corridors as quickly as his legs could take him. Hallways wound, bones mounted, and tables barred exits. He clamored over what he could. His hand grew cold and clammy with desperation beneath his glove, and his white-knuckled grip formed an indelible impression of the candelabra in his skin. Over another mound of interconnected bone he crawled, and he crawled between its zenith and the ceiling.
He froze when he felt breath on his neck. It was cold, astonishingly so, and Scholomance found no energy within himself to move. A long, skeletal hand swept out of the ceiling and over his face, and he could only watch. Soon a separate ghostly hand pressed against the small of his back, and the knight felt the bones of the old digging into his stomach. The creature whispered something beyond his scope of tongues and laughed, and soon Scholomance felt no more of its interference.
Moments passed while his blood rushed back into his extremities. Scholomance abandoned the candelabra altogether, as it wedged in the pieces of bone, and pulled himself the rest of the way through the narrow passage. He slid out and landed on the same broken bone lattice as before. Naturally, it gave way and dumped him out into the alcove below.
Groaning, Scholomance wrenched himself from the dusty floor. He spent little time looking over the closet-sized room; he recalled the box well enough to find it in the exact place that he left it. On the counter sat the amateur box, and the lid still sat open from when he first touched it. Inside was the mound of bone dust that Blaine referenced; briefly, he wondered whose it was. Maybe Blaine's, he wagered, or maybe within that box rested the dust of every ancestor he ever had. Scholomance could not guess.
He could not linger, either, as his nerves pressed him to leave that place. He shut the box without further hesitation and tucked it under his arm. No ghost came running to stop him this time. While ominous, he moved on - their plan bade them no time to dally.
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:06 pm
[3 of 6] Day 3: I don't believe in your institutionsWord Count: 1818After he gave the box to Blaine, his ancestor squandered the rest of the day on his long-winded optimizations. Any attempts to speed the process ended with Blaine's obstinate objections, which led the pair to an even less productive impasse. Scholomance learned to abandon the notion of expedience and accepted the day as finished. He was running out of vacation days.
The next morning was broached by Blaine's tepid excitement, and Scholomance parted with the prospect of breakfast to follow him. While the trip from the Infirmary to the Observatory proved short and straightforward, the path to Blaine's chosen workspace was not - the ghost urged Scholomance to reach the very top of the Observatory, where the great glass telescope looked out toward an indifferent sky. Scholomance seethed at the matter, but Blaine diffused the situation with promise that the paths were repaired. Another mark of his regenerative visits, the knight supposed.
They reached the top of the tower just past noon. By then, Scholomance's leg ached terribly with overuse, and his arm groaned much the same. Smoking did him no favors, he found, as he struggled to catch his breath. Conversely, Blaine looked fine.
Scholomance grew more nonplussed at this.
"Well, we're here," Scholomance huffed out. "Now how in these blue hells am I supposed to get back down?"
Blaine cajoled him smartly. "You won't have to. Once we're finished here, you should be able to return to Earth without issue in the same way that you came in. By my estimations, the whole experiment should only span a few hours."
"A few hours… That must sound like nothing to you," Scholomance huffed out in the stairwell. After a short break, he straightened up. "Alright, let us in. I should like to see what you took all day to finish."
"The path of knighthood is a lifetime affair, Scholomance. You shouldn't be in a rush to complete it like it's a list of tasks. The wonder grows with you, and you grow with it - this tradition takes lifetimes upon lifetimes of support from wonders and knights." Blaine paused, and smiled softly against the door. "Sometimes I forget that you've not had the traditional knight training. I should have explained that to you earlier."
"Blaine, I don't think I could possibly explain the notion of 'vacation time' time to you, so will you please open the door? I'm running out of it, you see, and shitty things happen when I do." Like my GM gets restless. And my coworkers get restless. You know, the ones I've had a spotty record with since the Negaverse decided my s**t needed wrecked.
"Of course. I'm sorry for keeping you." Blaine drew his fingers down the front base of the door and a symbol unrecognizable to Scholomance illuminated the portal. Soon the door itself grew translucent, then turned to a simple pane of glass. It parted down the center and drew into the walls, much like sliding doors of current day. Blaine stepped inside first.
When Scholomance followed, he witnessed the grandiose arching dome of the very heights of the Observatory, where countless feverish etchings along the walls described an ancient cosmos. Each star marked into its walls glowed faintly, flickered with a dying hint toward the building's original purpose. In the center, reflecting each brilliant star cluster dashed across the dome, stood the great telescope itself: all glass and gold fixtures comingled to construct a series of lenses and joints. Fluted tubes interwove for a power lattice supporting the great machine, though no familiar blue light coursed through their hollow confines. The stars above, through the great slat in the roof, trembled at their respective echoes. He wondered, then - if he looked through Scholomance's telescope, might he see the myriad wonders and worlds scattered across the galaxy? Might he see more - further, perhaps, into the history of this old war?
"Scholomance, over here." Blaine beckoned him closer with a pull of fingers, and offered a glass balloon armchair with renewed leather seating. Some holes and cracks still remained in the material over its ages of use. "You wanted to get started straight away, yes?"
While he cocked a brow at his ancestor, Scholomance said nothing in response. His fatigued legs carried him at least that far - to the balloon chair sandwiched within a U of three glass tables - and he sat upon the inviting leather. The chair seemed the proper height for him, though he thought the construction was odd. He leaned back and his crown brushed the top of the chair's construction. "So tell me about this process. What am I letting you to do me to power this thing?" He watched Blaine hawkishly, expecting an answer.
Behind him, Blaine toiled with glass accoutrements and sorted thin tubing. "It's fairly straightforward, you will find. We cannot tap into your starseed directly, but its power touches your whole body. That much is plain in how you have gloves on your hands, shoes on your feet, and a mask on your face - all granted to you by your birthright of Scholomance. If your starseed did not touch every part of your body with its power, we would not see such a display. That is the working theory."
"So what do you plan to do with that theory? Spit it out, Blaine. I'm not patient enough for pulling all the answers out of you."
Yes, I know. You have no appreciation for earned information. You expect everything given to you without effort. Blaine rounded the tables and appeared before Scholomance with long tubes in one hand and a small maple box in the other. "We won't need much power for this experiment. These conduits in my hand," he paused to show the tubes, "constrain the amount of energy we'll take from your starseed. According to the research of some of my predecessors, the body houses ley lines for magical energies. All I need to do is find one of these ley lines, tap into that part of your body, and the energy should flow freely."
Scholomance continued to watch him. "You're talking about blood. Blood as energy."
"Yes, precisely. Even for all our differences, you catch on quite quickly. If only we were in a more traditional arrangement… I could've taught you more." Blaine leaned inward and started on the unbuttoning of Scholomance's coat. The living knight waited, and in time, Blaine peeled back the double-breasted coat to view the billowing dress shirt beneath the traditional garb. This, he found, needed no removal - after Scholomance slipped the coat, the sleeves on the dress shirt proved unconstraining enough to roll up a sleeve and administer the needle-ended cannula in his shoulder. A grazing thumb activated the old magic in the device, which affixed the tubing to his arm. "Most excellent. Now…"
Blaine paced away from the younger knight and spun a set of rings affixed to a column on his workstation. The smooth rush of air confirmed that the device still worked, and Blaine left Scholomance's line of sight. He heard the workings of a mortar and pestle, the pouring of liquid, the clarion sound of glass against glass. He yearned to watch, but kept to his chair.
"Blaine, I don't think it's working." Scholomance craned his neck to examine the cannula and found it empty. It hung from his arm implying gravity would carry his blood; was something preventing the needle from its transfer?
"Patience, Scholomance. I haven't started it yet."
The living knight breathed a sigh and looked to the stars overhead. Saturn's rings glowed brightly with the whispered breaths of atmosphere, and he watched them as they clamored at the stars. He wondered if the science tales of space dust prevented any wonders from marking that terrain as their own. He daydreamed about a possible life on the rings themselves, perhaps with one of the very center ones as a conveyor about the entire planet. He considered shopping malls, delivery stations, incoming and outgoing gateways that allowed access into Saturn itself. Perhaps lustrous parties, of which only the richest and most powerful denizens could attend, occurred on the outskirts of those very rings. Or, perhaps they stood as barren and empty as science would have him believe.
Scholomance dozed, though he knew not how long it lasted. He woke when he felt a peculiar coldness in his shoulder, soon accompanied by a burning. Like cold fire, something ate away at his veins. It spread quickly down his arm, across his chest and through his torso. "What's going on?" The knight sat forward and craned his neck for another look at the cannula. It appeared a solid black. It appeared an iniquitous, lightless black that dared not spare a reflection for any of their surroundings. The whole of the tube remained stuffed with such darkness that Scholomance could not tell if it carried from or into him. Stark panic set in. "Blaine!" He shouted with vitriol.
"Scholomance," the other knight answered coolly. Slow footsteps brought him into Scholomance's field of vision. He stood, as ever, with his fingertips pressed together over his chest. They pointed now toward him.
"Get this out of me." His voice lacked the power to carry threat now. Scholomance struggled to sit up, to raise an arm, to try to wrench the needle out by its tubing. He felt weak - immeasurably so. He felt duped and derisive and damaged all the same. Putrefied and violated. What small kernels of trust he built with Blaine shattered when he found himself unable to remove this blackened concoction.
Blaine's voice fell to gentle tones. "No."
"Blaine!" He exclaimed again in half-torment, half-anger. He drowned in the cold fire. The black sludge drew him under waves of pain so exquisitely sharp that he often lost muscle tension.
"Good luck to you, Scholomance. I hope you do not have as long to wait as I did." Blaine flashed a subtle smirk, then turned from the scene altogether.
No. Through the dress Shirt, Scholomance watched his veins lurch against his skin and turn dark with their heavy load. Pain immobilized him. "You think that killing me will cast you out from here? Do you?" A long flare of agony cut him off. Scholomance wrenched in his seat against exhausted muscles, his drained system collapsing against the incoming material. Part of the tube looked empty; he urged himself to survive at least as long, if only through pure, unadulterated bitterness. "What the hell is this?"
"You can figure that out." Scholomance heard the door slide shut.
"Blaine! You worthless sack of s**t…" Scholomance gritted his dentures until they cracked beneath the pressure. Even then, he found no modicum of relief against the surging waves of pain. Minutes passed, and the agony only worsened. Finally, his body granted him small reprieve in blacking out.
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:06 pm
[4 of 6] Day 4: All your lies piled up around youWord Count: 375Quote: Saturn's rings like rocky minuets
Play their quiet dissonance over the sky.
"This is not for you," they say.
You start to recite the swollen phrases
The distended stories of old
Those curt tales of your worth
Of your expertise.
"This is not for you," they say.
The old radio inside your head
Cutting with each song, each sound
Each sordid sonance that never said a word.
A breath, a step, a beat
And it all comes closer.
Saturn's rings like rocky minutes
Play their quiet dissonance over the sky.
"This is not for you," they say. He woke.
He woke, and pain found its own rhythm in his body.
He woke, and the rings overhead stared on, sliding over the top of him like ice.
His heartbeat sounded in his ears. It urged him upright.
He tried to sit up, but his limbs hung heavy against the chair.
He coughed into the silence.
Finally he rose.
His legs wavered, feather-light in their muscle tremble.
He breathed sharp and a laugh sounded. It was his. Pain-giddy, he remembered.
Scholomance wrenched the needle from his arm with a tug of the cannula. The world reassembled itself. Recollection pulled thoughts, sparks, senses into the canvas of reality. He remembered time and place. He remembered the box.
The box --
The knight turned, lattice-black, and saw the empty maple container. No bone dust lingered in its confines. Mucus hitched, and he swallowed.
It wasn't mucus.
No, no.
Something wasn't right.
Something
wasn't
right
.
.
.
Slowly he started to like the way his hands trembled. A brimming energy beat within his chest, rattled his bones, and reminded him of the monster. The pain was its namesake. He knew the sound but couldn't place the words. Chaos wasn't right. Malice was closer. He drew a breath and tasted static ozone on his tongue. He tasted blood and fever.
We all have a star in our heart,
and two curled fists
to keep it ******** he wanted to taste a star on his tongue. He wanted to taste a thousand years. He wanted to taste vindication.
Blaine. Where are you?
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:06 pm
[5 of 6] Day 5: I can take it all awayWord Count: 2383Blood became a constant companion in his methodical searches. First it warmed his upper lip where it caught between new shadows of growth, then it cooled his lip and chin as it descended to the old stony tiles. It kept time like clockwork in its constant drip, drip, dripping against the steps. The noise of it, of his labored breathing, of his groaning steps, funneled through the old stuffy hallways. He felt his pulse in his ears where blood pooled out of the holes. His head throbbed, and he blinked away veining darkness from his vision. Scholomance wondered, briefly, if he was still alive.
Soon he decided it didn't matter. It didn't matter because Blaine still crawled through the dusty, desiccated ruin that was the Scholomance campus. Blaine, the vapid coward, saw fit to use him as a filtration system and kill him in the process. Maybe the old knight never hoped to cleanse the place at all. Maybe he only used the source of malice as a murder weapon, as a last effort to exonerate himself from the wonder by replacing his presence with the latest deceased knight. Still, it did not matter. Still, Scholomance would pursue him - even if he died in the process. The thought of seeing Blaine's stark terror at the end of his life brought the faintest of smiles to his exhausted demeanor.
So he walked. The innumerable stairs down to the core of the Observatory no longer dissuaded him. Pain grew so potent and systemic that it hardly mattered how much or how little he moved. Sometimes he rested his three remaining fingers on the top of the banister, but touch no longer registered in his digits. He considered it a boon that he no longer felt the phantom of his right arm. If nothing else, Blaine helped him that much.
When he broached one of the walkways surrounding the long plummet to the bottom floor, Scholomance hummed a tune that carried considerable distance. The clear timbre of his voice touched each of the halls, peered down hallways and prodded old walkways for signs of the ghost he sought. His footsteps kept a semblance of a beat.
Scholomance paused only when he heard the faintest tremble of glass. "Run or hide, Blaine. It's all the same to me."
Nothing answered back. The knight continued his slow search by descending more stairs. He thought the disturbance came from one of the eastern catwalks and started down one of the offshoot hallways. Great vaulted ceilings passed overhead in stonework and expensive archways. The eye of Scholomance gazed down upon him. Soon, Saturn's twilight drifted through its numerous rings and cast a sullen gleam down upon the old building. The knight had not yet walked outside to face the pending sun.
"Have you thought about how you taste?" He paused, smiling, and heard no response. "No? I'll guess for you." Scholomance licked his lips, tasted blood on his tongue and ash in his heart. "I'll bet you taste like loneliness, Blaine. Like failure. I'll bet you taste more bitter than my deepest regrets after a shitty lay. I'll bet you taste like a bad batch of skag, like dishwater, like gutter slime. I'll bet you taste like the Code's every scathing assessment of me." He paused again, and heard no answer. "Are you trying to play possum, old man? Do you think that will stop me?
"Tell me. What was it like when you died? I think… You must've gone the way of Caesar. Stabbed to death by your every subordinate. Oh, but you lack his potent fame, his well-earned glory. You are no emperor, Blaine. You're a coward, and a hack, and a traitor to your one ******** job."
"You'll never find it, Scholomance. Leave this place or die. I mean it."
"Ahhhh," Scholomance half-moaned on the first sentences coming from his ancestor. He turned, arched his back against one of the great stone support columns, and jutted his hips outward in a backward slouch. His ribs strained against skin under the billowing shirt. "Now he speaks. I'm curious. Do you really think that assassinating your protege is going to win you a place in the reincarnation game? Because I think it's going to win your starseed a place between my teeth. Wait, I can make it more exciting. How about I just stick with my gums? I wonder how that must feel…" Scholomance pulled the half-mask from his face, and wrenched both upper and lower dentures from their respective holds. He flashed Blaine a smile, raw and red, and received none in return.
The visage of Blaine faltered somewhat. "It's nothing personal, but --" The ghost gritted his teeth. A huff escaped him. "There's no other way to go about it. The only way I can be released from my duties and reach the Cauldron is if you die and take my place as ancestor. I'm sorry, Scholomance, but I've been subjected to this role for too long --"
But Scholomance allowed him no further time to speak. In a quick twist of his torso, the knight passed through his ancestor and the visage dissipated like smoke. Scholomance drew breath deep, closed his eyes, waited for the faint tones of old life to reach his olfactory senses. He found nothing but stale stone and sharp copper. Finally he replaced his dentures. "You're a bag of hot air with no payoff, Blaine. I can't even get high off my ancestor's vapors. What good are they, I wonder?" He resumed his search.
Blaine's disembodied voice followed Scholomance relentlessly. No matter the location, no matter the speed, his sonance always reached the younger knight's ears. "You don't understand, Scholomance, you can't possibly understand. You don't know what it means to spend even a week alone. Spending years in this place, it… You just can't imagine. All my life I was surrounded by people - people I didn't want, people I did want, people I couldn't have - everything was about people. All of my duties demanded that I meet with people. Even research, even the most solitary of our research attempts, involved a team of people. I could never be alone. The IO followed me everywhere. Even when I left this place, I was never truly alone."
"Ooh, I bet you never spanked off with all those people watching. Poor Blaine, I bet your balls were all wadded up with that much retention." Scholomance whipped his hand through the air around him, searching for the source of the noise. Nothing responded afterward.
The descent to the base of the tower demanded an hour and a half, and by the time Scholomance reached the old marble floors, his legs collapsed beneath him. The beleaguered knight spilled across the floor in a heap of bone and billowed clothing. He huffed several staccato breaths and watched his breath fog against deep blue inlays. The veins on his lone hand looked desperate to tear through the skin and leave his body altogether; with the constant pain accompanying them, Scholomance wished they did. Soon, blood from his nose overtook his breath and he cast ripples across claret with every respiration.
"Scholomance." Blaine stepped over splayed legs, crouched near the knight's trembling hand. "You're dying. The malice is killing you. Your body is shutting down. Abandon this nonsense - what peace would it bring you to know you found my starseed? Think. You're a clever man. You must understand the folly of this path."
"What do you know…" Scholomance sputtered, and coughed wet metal. Slowly his hazel gaze tracked to Blaine's features. "What do you know of folly? You spent your entire life in the service of Scholomance. You and all your cohorts and coworkers and," he coughed, "concubines. The Code never told you how much of a suck-a** knight you were. No, that honor belongs to me."
Blaine did not rise to response at first. He continued to study the brittle mess of his protege, and while his features remained largely stoic, a modicum of concern identified itself in how he clasped his hands together. "I'm afraid you're wrong. In all these months we've known each other, I never saw it of import to tell you about myself. I felt that… If I were to confer parts of my life to you, you would never trust me."
"Trying to kill me didn't help your case."
Blaine hushed him gently. "I can't tell you much about my predecessors anymore - those memories are long gone - but I remember feeling immensely inadequate by my own measure. Each knight of Scholomance inherits a small council that assists in daily operations, and mine spared me no quarter in their opinions. I was the knight that failed Scholomance, that ruined it. I was the one that lifted the ban on revivification and condoned its research. I was the knight that squandered our connections and resources on a dream that never came to fruition. Remember when I led you to Zalmoxis, Scholomance? When I told you that this horse was my last and greatest project? I failed my goals and failed the wonder. I failed you, too - my only protege."
"Touching." Scholomance sputtered another mouthful of blood. Slowly, shakily, he hauled himself to his knees. "But you're not exactly carving yourself a path to redemption. Please, Blaine, continue - feed me more of your shitty sob stories so I can feel good about myself when I swallow down your sorrowful little soul." His first steps tripped over themselves, but soon Scholomance fell into rhythm with the help of marble-hewn walls.
The ancestor faltered. "You don't know what you're about to do. You can't know. We weren't made to consume souls, Scholomance! This isn't a part of research, there's no value to it, there's no use in exploring it! If you do this, you will betray this wonder as thoroughly as…"
Scholomance shuffled to a halt unsteadily. His back faced Blaine. "Go on."
"You'll betray Scholomance as I betrayed you."
"Oh, very good! Blaine van der Linden put it together at last! I'd clap, but I don't have two hands. What a shame, what a pity."
Again he resumed his downward spiral. Far beneath the ground floor lay the piece of the Code, he knew, and he could rationalize no better place for storing an ancestor's starseed. Past the long undulations of staircases stood the barrier, and once he burned his magic on its passage, then he recognized a further climb into the tower's bowels. He remembered it well, he remembered it for Kafka's every intimation for the tower and the pit. Perhaps Blaine dug the trench. Perhaps Blaine cowered in his burrow far beneath the earth and placed the bid for a piece of Code to buy a shred of dignity for his life's affairs. Scholomance knew he could not touch Blaine's soul if it lay behind the iron curtain, if it lay in the basin pool where the Code piece sat undisturbed.
But, he imagined that he would not face such a conundrum. Further he traveled through the bowels, and each step begged more of a bloody trail than the last. His extremities quaked uncontrollably now, and his heart beat in time with hummingbird's wings, and his vision spoke of stars more than stones. He knew not whether he could muster a cast of magic, but he doubted that the pain carried much of an effect anymore. Already his nerves reached their limits, and cramps sprang anew in muscles he barely remembered. Still, he marched.
Still, Blaine pleaded. "You're wasting your energy. Lay down and die in peace."
Scholomance loosed a shuddering, exhausted laugh. "How? You tried to kill me, Blaine. Where is the peace in that?" Another handful of staggering steps, and he reached the great barrier that formed the floor of the inner sanctum.
Another rasping breath, and Scholomance's hand closed over the spinebone whip endemic to his Wonder. "You know… If you really wanted to win me over, if you really expected me to just lay down my life and die, you could've at least offered me a b*****b. Missed opportunity, Blaine. Missed opportunity." The whip cracked harsh against the ground, the building unbound in deep, sightless paths and endless walkways. The barrier broke apart into etched steps that led deep into the abyss of the tower.
And past that darkest sanctum, beyond the curl of the iron curtain, Scholomance found the innermost vault in which the piece of Code lay protected. Fluted glass carried its brilliant energy up the full half-mile of tower and lit the place in fleeting blue flickers. Scholomance's eyes demanded several seconds to adjust. The Code's familiar glow painted the iron curtain's pattern against the wall in faint strokes, and the fluted veins of Scholomance burned the rest away. Its knight stood before the basin, black-stricken with pain and malice, and he searched in deep desperation for a hint of Blaine's starseed.
It has to be here. There's nowhere else for it - that coward would trust no other location but the one that houses the Code. His sole hand slapped the iron curtain, and its heavy drape swayed under his touch. Part of the lattice broke and struck the floor in a resounding crunch. "You hear that, Blaine!" He shouted toward the ceiling. "I'll find your ******** starseed!"
But Scholomance himself knew that he was running out of time. As he walked, the last strength in his muscles gave and scattered him upon the floor once more. Stars ate away his vision until he looked through a narrow tunnel for answers. Even his finger grew numb from the loss of blood, and all sound whisked through a hollow, distant radio before reaching his ears. His harried breaths filled his entire body. His searching hand found the intricate stonework marking the base of the pool, they climbed up edges and curves and sharpened reminders --
He touched warmth. He touched heat, and he pried at it until his fingernails split against the force and at last the chunk of gem broke loose from its fixture
And he could not
stay
awake
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Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2016 9:07 pm
[6 of 6] Day 6: Swallowed up in fireWord Count: 951Scholomance roused into deep darkness. Far below the surface, he lacked a means of knowing time, and the blue radiance of the innermost vault chased away any thought of night. His initial attempts to rise mustered too little strength; he could not yet wrench himself from the floor. As consciousness filtered to him in steps, he came to recognize an ink splatter right near his face. No - not ink --
He rose to his feet slowly, and dizziness nearly dumped him into the corrosive pool in the basin. He caught himself on the rim of the fixture shortly before disaster occurred, and straightened up only when he felt his vision return. The walk to the surface was a long one, he knew - one better undertaken with shifts and rest. The wonder retained no hospitality in his restoration, however, and he knew that parched tongue and empty stomach would nag him into climbing the quarter mile of steps. Scholomance spared a last look at the black mass on the floor before he left for the vault steps. He cared little for what it was, what it meant. Symbolism ceased to have any import when he fell so far behind the basic necessities for life, and faced a long road requiring another magic cast before he could find some relief.
Scholomance felt the immense trail as a series of endless halls and unknowable steps, a journey of clinging to the broken tusks of statues for support, of hauling himself along banister bars to claim yet another foot of progress. When he could will his legs to listen, he chewed through the distance much more quickly - but invariably his legs trembled, then weakened, then threatened to collapse. Much of his body functioned in that same way, and Scholomance could only attribute such weakness to the darkness that Blaine cast into him --
Blaine. Scholomance paused, desperate, against one of the old, crumbled doorways. Against the rubble, he brought into existence the old reliquary that he reclaimed from his ancestor. Inside, the liquid glowed iridescent at him, taunted him with a single starseed awash in its contents. Satisfied, Scholomance replaced the lid. Blaine would plague him no further if he could make the last stretch.
The stairs grew longer with each passing hour. Scholomance knew not how long he spent below the surface of Scholomance, but he could guess it in his bones. Muscles quavered with pain, bones groaned under their loads and Scholomance found himself unable to speak, to stand up straight. Half the time, his vision refused to grace him through the blood loss. He crawled blind through sullen catwalks, through open doors and high archways. The journey was unkind to him as well; often he found rubble blocking his path, or shattered glass where he needed to walk on hands and knees. The pain meant little more than a breath of life now, and he relied on its fleeting sharpness to anchor his consciousness.
When he crested the last steps, Scholomance sprawled across the marble floors of the ground level. He laid eye-level to the clawed feet of desks, of chairs. He watched the scattered paper that obscured the great sigil carved through tile. The cold lights blazed to life and cast shadows into the great vaulted ceilings, and Scholomance looked for sunlight's fight to illuminate the place. Darkness looked back at him through the windows. He felt sick, then, though nothing more could come out of his body. He slept.
Dreamless sleep offered him respite. When he woke, milky twilight filled the hall. It echoed up the staircase, touched its fingers to the tables, and peered unabated through the rotted curtains of the old establishment. He felt renewed for it, and struggled again to his feet. The desks provided ample leverage for balancing his weight. His body shook terribly, he knew, but the doors stood a handful of meters away, and if he could make it, the lake was maybe thirty yards --
He broached the door, and it yielded for its knight. The eye of Scholomance followed him in his passing. Uncertain steps delivered him across the broken lawn where new growth sprang in fits and starts. He passed one of the ancient, broken terrariums. Grass and and mud and stone gave way to river-smooth pebble.
Scholomance collapsed into the river rock. Exhaustion overtook him. The reliquary fell from his hands when he summoned it, and it jutted askew from its stony bed. He looked onward, then, across the still lake, toward the timid fingers of twilight that spread from the horizon beyond the trees. As he rolled to his back, he watched the clear rings of Saturn ignite with the sun's brilliance and cast tepid shadows from the ancient buildings. No fog obscured them.
He knew the lake was corrosive. He knew in the same way that he knew the basin water was corrosive. He knew he could simply throw Blaine's starseed into the lake and know no more of his wretched hauntings, but his body would not move. He almost exceeded his remaining strength by scratching the dried blood from the new growth on his upper lip.
I need a shave, he thought as his eyes closed. And a ******** shower. And food, and water, and I want to sleep for at least half a year. That would be nice. But this will all end soon, won't it? Blaine, you old b*****d…
Twilight burned away in the sun's blaze. Soon it crested high in the sky, lord of its dominion, and all shadow cowered beneath the rooftops. And even when the sun dropped low on the horizon, the knight did not move.
Solos span 1/1/17 through 1/6/17; posted at once due to IRL constraints.
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