Measureless Magic #1, Ch. 12

I know I've been slow on this lately, since I've been focusing on Book 5 editing and I've been ill and had some personal stuff to deal with. Thank you all so much for your patience. :) I'm hoping to have two chapters for you next week & going forward.

Chapter 12

Sometimes it is necessary to fly into the storm, if the threat is big enough, but you must stay within sight of the isle. Do not rely on your homing device. If you lose sight of Marynth, your odds of returning are less than one in ten.

• Handbook of the Guardians of Marynth

I’m touching a dead body.

The realization made Ravel jerk his hand up and back away, although others came forward immediately to take his place, checking for a pulse, checking for breathing, trying to shake the dead boy and wake him up. A girl, who had worked as a lifeguard at her nursery’s pool, even tried something she called “chest compressions.” Apparently, if it was done correctly and you got lucky, violently shoving down on someone’s chest could make their heart start back up.

It didn’t work.

The body remained still and lifeless.

Dead.

Any lingering hopes that Ravel had that this was all some elaborate plot died with the boy.

You can’t fake that. Not in any way I know. And… that was a real person. I remember him. I remember him trying to convince his friend to go into the archway. He had the hiccups for over an hour. I may not know his name, but he’s not an illusion or something.

Ravel cleared his throat. “Does anyone know his name?”

No one seemed to.

Dee, still sitting beside the body, turned over the medallion lying on the boy’s chest. “Marat Yak-Moose, it says.”

Ravel nodded and reached out a hand. “I’ll take it with me. We should get it back to his family.”

Dee gave him an incredulous look, but fumbled the medallion off the body and handed it over. 

Ravel accepted it absentmindedly, tucking it into one of the many “pockets” on his armored vest, right alongside the slats. His mind was already elsewhere.

I should go into the next room. Try to figure it out. I can’t wait around. I was one of the first to make it through the last section. Maybe I’m good at this? 

He’d barely taken a step forward, however, before a burst of exclamations distracted him.

On the far wall, another column of silver squares was unfolding itself, much taller than the one that had delivered the colorful lumps earlier. Even stranger, when it reached full size, it didn’t begin folding itself away, not completely. Only the front of the box opened, leaving the other walls and the top and bottom of the box intact.

Inside was an elderly woman.

She was tall for a woman. Her face was wrinkled, and skin sagged from her biceps where they stuck out of her odd dress. The layered skirt was normal enough, at least for someone working a sedentary job, but the short sleeves were weird. You’d typically only see those on swimwear or athletic apparel. The neckline was too low, also. Perhaps it was meant to show off the intricate tattoo that graced the woman’s sternum: an intricately detailed circular design surrounded by a swirl of dots. 

Her profusion of jewelry and overstuffed backpack did nothing to make her look more cohesive.

Ravel couldn’t have said who among them was the first to rush forward. Perhaps there was no first. Maybe everyone moved together, even if their shouts and screams were less unified.

“Get us out of here!”

“How could you do this to us?!”

“Please! Please, my sister-”

“I’ll kill you!”

“I can’t be here. I need-”

None of them reached the woman. She looked up at them with an expression of mild surprise. She twitched a finger and a pair of shimmering walls flickered into place on either side of her, keeping back the screaming crowd. 

She stepped out of the box, then looked around the room. Her eyebrows rose. Ravel saw her mouth move, but he heard nothing. 

The woman seemed to realize it. She frowned and shook her head, and the noise dulled as abruptly as if it had been shut behind a door. Not silenced, just pushed back. When the woman spoke, however, her voice was perfectly audible: “There. That’s better. Can’t work in all that racket. Well, tell me quickly. Where’s the break?”

Ravel didn’t hear anyone answer, but he wasn’t the only one who looked toward the dead body and the busted faucet on the floor nearby. 

The lady followed their eyes. “Oh, water. That explains why the castle didn’t wait until you left to get this fixed. You’ll need water. Any chance I can convince you to calm down? Keeping you all back is wasting a lot of magic, and there’s not much available here.”

Even if Ravel couldn’t hear most of the responses people made to that, he could see how angry her words made everyone. He could feel how angry it made him. He glared, hands pressed up against the wall. Beside him, another boy threw his body against the translucent pane with no effect. Others were kicking or punching the barrier.

For all the good it did.

The woman ignored them. The walls moved, pushing the teenagers aside, clearing a path to the metal gadget, and the woman moseyed over. She stepped over the dead body and lifted the faucet off the ground. She turned it over in her hands and peered at the backside of the device, where a scrap of wall was still stuck to the metal. 

“Mmm, yeah. Shoddy work, there. Someone didn’t properly define their adhesion runes. It looks like the generative elements are still in place, though. Could be worse.” 

The woman moved quickly, never pausing. Her hands moved with smooth confidence as she etched a network of glowing symbols onto the back of the piece of metal. 

People continued to shout questions at her as she worked, but many soon gave up. The woman’s magic dampened the screams to little more than whispers, and she didn’t react to their insults or their questions.

Except… the woman’s breath seemed to be coming quicker and quicker. Maybe the insults were getting to her, after all? Freaking her out? She never seemed to react to any individual comment, though. Plus, her hands never never shook, and her pace never changed. 

I don’t think she’s panicking. Is she hurting somehow? What’s going on?

Finally, the woman slapped the faucet back against the wall and twisted the knob, nodding in satisfaction when water poured out cleanly and stopped at her command. “There. That’ll… do.”

She pushed herself back to standing, chest heaving. The dead body had been just behind her as she’d worked, but she’d ignored it steadfastly. She looked at it now, face puzzled, before lifting her gaze to the crowd. “Did one of you take his medallion?”

Ravel pulled it from his pocket held it up defiantly. The woman gestured at him. He swallowed and spoke, his voice suddenly audible. “Yeah. I did.”

“Good.” The woman nodded at him. “Hold onto that.”

Then she stepped over the dead body and started walking back to the shining chamber she’d arrived in.

“You’re just going to leave?!” Ravel shouted. “You could help us! Are you really hurting too badly to help us at all?”

The woman paused. “It’s not…” Her breath hitched. “It’s not the pain.” Another breath. “If I stay, it’s dangerous for you.”

“Why?” Ravel asked.

The woman shrugged. “Castle likes me-” there was a hitch in her breath “It knows it can count on me for these little odd jobs. And I-” another hitch “-need more magic than you. If I stay, the castle might flood this area with magic to save my life.”

Ravel hesitated. A magic flood would be a near death sentence for him. For all of them. But of everyone in the room, he was the only one who’d regained the right to talk. He… he couldn’t waste that. “It might? Even with all of us in here? What does it want us for?”

The lady gestured at her tattoo. “I wouldn’t bet it wouldn’t. It knows I’m useful. Have any of you proven yourselves yet?”

“I don’t even know what you mean by that,” Ravel said. “Please. I understand if you can’t stay long, but please help us. We just got trapped here yesterday. We don’t know what’s going on. We’re dying and we don’t know why.”

The woman flinched. She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “Infinite skies. Yesterday? You’re that new?”

Her eyes lit on the untouched pile of lumps. “That’s why you haven’t…” She sighed, then took a deep breath and began speaking with an odd cadence, pausing every few words for another deep breath. “Alright. I can spare a minute, probably. That’s food, first of all. You can trust it. It’s not poisoned. Castle wants you alive, until it doesn’t.All edible without cooking, at least until you get out of the stable area. We… are in the stable area, right?”

“I don’t know!” Ravel said.

The woman sighed, leaning on the wall, dripping out a few words between gasps that were coming closer together.  “Most of the castle doesn’t stay still. The rooms shift around, each one with its own magic level. There are patterns, sometimes, but not always. The only area that doesn’t do this is the one you new kids start in. It’s the safest part of the castle, and the lessons it teaches are pretty straightforward."

Ravel met Dee’s eyes. This is safe? This is straightforward? He could tell those words alarmed her as much as him.

The woman had her eyes closed and her hands clenched. She swayed as she took slow steps back the way she had come. Her breaths were coming faster now, almost between every word she spoke:  “What else? Uh. Don’t damage the castle on purpose. Be wary of strangers - some of them will try to trick you into damaging it. Don’t try to escape. Don’t try to communicate with the outside. Don’t ever stop trying.”

“Don’t stop trying what?!” Ravel shouted. “What should we be trying to do?”

“Anything. Everything. Move forward. More magic. Better magic. Castle likes effort.”

“And if we do that, we’ll be safe?” Ravel asked.

The woman had reached the box. “No. Just… safer. Good… luck. I need to go. I’m sorry.”

With that, she stepped inside the box, her muscles sagging.

She turned just enough for Ravel to see her regard them with a terrible sadness before the reflective squares hid her from sight.