Chapter 77. Purple Crescent Shapes
“Do you think Firgl will be able to help?”
“He is the Librarian, and collecting random knowledge is his whole reason for being here. If anyone will happen to remember a random fact that might help us, it’s him,” Minnelil said. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I said. The wind sounded like wind, not like screams, and the air was crisp and clear. I had to keep lifting my boots high as there was more snow everywhere.
The skeletons were only huddling in their massive cluster, instead of plowing snow like they usually did. Clickens wrenched itself off my hands and went to poke at the them. I watched it swat at the skeletons for a while, but continued walking. A handful of snow went into my boot. “How come no one else wears boots in here?”
Minnelil grimaced as her foot sunk, pulling up a slipperful of snow as she took the next step. “Usually the slippers are enough. They’re soft and comfy and part of the wizard uniform.”
I stomped ahead, boots crunching through the snow. “The problem with this place is that everything is too soft and comfy.”
“Few people on the outside would call the study of death soft,” she said, waving a hand at the ice, the snow, and the tar-black stone surrounding us everywhere.
I scoffed. “I bet you’re going to dry your socks with magic once we get there.”
“Of course, otherwise my feet would stay cold.”
I glanced at her and she smiled. “Fair. Can you do my socks too?”
“Students,” Firgl rumbled. He stood in a white nightgown that reached down to the floor and a white see-through hat on his head, holding a book. “I was about to retire for the night. Will you find what you’re looking for?”
“I would actually appreciate your help, Librarian,” Minnelil said, bowing slightly. “Unless it’s too much to request at such an hour.”
“Nonsense. I see you brought your friend again,” he said, tucking the book under his arm. “If it’s a bed you’re looking for I won’t be able to help you.”
Minnelil flushed bright red and I felt my scalp start to itch as well. “Um, no! We’re looking for information about some landmarks and precise details about the Velonean and Kertharian border.”
He leaned against his solid oak table, making it creak under his weight. “Hmm-m, I see. We carry a copy of the Tenorsbridge public archives, including old and new maps. Maybe I will be able to help.”
“You’re really okay staying up and helping us with some random stuff in the middle of the night?” I asked. “We can come back later.”
“Nonsense,” he said again. “I am a nocturnal creature. I like reading through the night when I can really sink my teeth into a book.”
“Not literally, I hope.”
He pouted, the blunted tusks jutting out from his mouth. “No, that would be unacceptable. I have other snacks.”
“Ahem,” Minnelil said, rolling her eyes. “Where did you say your village was, Lina? We’re looking for landmarks that we could use to figure out exactly on which side of the border she was born on.”
“Ah, I heard about the issue. Borders and nameless villages. A difficult puzzle at the best of times,” Firgl said. “But you came to the right place. We will try.”
Minnelil nodded and looked to me, gesturing for me to speak.
“Near the east border, in the middle of a forest. I don’t think the village ever had a name, but I can try to figure out the place from a map. There was a small lake and a river?”
Firgl stood up and walked toward a bookshelf, but stopped. “East border? Does this village still exist?”
“No,” I said. Minnelil grabbed my hand and I squeezed her hand back.
Firgl continued to the shelf and pulled three large volumes from it. They were bound in leather and looked heavy enough that I couldn’t have carried all three at the same time. “So focusing on the maps before the Kertharian war. The current maps show only a wide empty gap where the forbidden zone around the border is. Unfortunately for our current endeavour, the forests of the eastern border weren’t considered interesting even before the turmoil our neighbors visited upon us.”
The tusks made it hard to understand all the long words he kept using. This place had turned even an orc into one of them. I wondered if I would catch it eventually as well. “Okay,” I said.
“Maybe it’s for the best. If we can match some landmark to your memories, it will stand out that much more clearly.”
I had been thinking about something for a while. “Right, but won’t they claim that I just pointed to some random thing on the map save my ass?”
“They will try,” Minnelil said. “But we went through this already. Disputing your word would come with risks. If things got messy and loud, wrong people might speak up. Getting caught with an outright lie would be extremely awkward for them.”
“There were a lot of soldiers there,” I muttered. At the end of the day, the war happened only a couple of years ago, even though it was a lifetime for me.
“Exactly. As you said yourself, it might be enough to make Lombarte’s side flinch.”
“So, let us begin, then,” Firgl said, opening the first book. “Cartographer’s Journal, Eastern Velonea, Volume One.”
Firgl tapped his tusk with a claw. “How about the Dusk Grotto?”
“Not well known outside of the orc community,” Minnelil said. “I suspect her village hadn’t heard of it.”
Firgl ran a finger down the map, claw making a scratching noise on it. “The route of the Great Teratome Migration?”
“Amazingly specific wizardly phenomenon,” Minnelil said. “Claiming their village would have cared or known being anywhere near the theorized path would be a reach.”
“Hmh.”
I sat back, twiddling my fingers. Firgl and Minnelil pored over the maps, mostly ignoring me. She looked like a toy sitting next to him. Firgl’s green biceps were wider than Minnelil’s head. She could have made a small skirt out of his hat. She probably wouldn’t have, though, as it was really very see-through. I flushed at the mental image.
Firgl snapped his fingers, startling me. “The villages that… were lost in the war had a memorial graveyard established near the border. We might at least learn of a name or get proof that the place existed.”
“Would that help?” I asked. The thought made me sick. Would they all be there? Mom, dad, Taum, everyone. My breath wheezed.
Minnelil looked at me, frowning. She kept rubbing her left index finger between the fingers of her other hand.
I set my jaw, panting and feeling like I was going to suffocate. “Just say it,” I squeezed out.
“There was some effort to honor the people lost. The graves might have information about the residents,” she said. “Birthplaces, ages, names. Did you have grandparents in the village?”
I shook my head. “They were dead already. We took flowers to the…”
“Maybe you could find their grave?” Firgl asked. “The border area is forbidden, but you could request a permission.”
Darkness encroached from the corners of my vision and I stood up. “I need to go,” I said, stumbling as I bumped my foot on the chair leg I couldn’t see.
Minnelil and Firgl shuffled behind me, but I couldn’t make out the sounds properly as my blood thundered in my ears. If I ever saw Lombarte, I would kill him. Or die myself, preferably right now. I couldn’t breathe. Minnelil wrapped an arm around me. It had happened enough that I recognized the gentle touch, the thin forearm. At least it wasn’t Firgl’s forearm.
“Lina,” she whispered.
“Don’t say it like that,” I whispered back. She sounded like my mother. I didn’t know if she did.
“This was too much. A bad idea. We’ll go. Firgl, thank you for all the help.”
“If you need me, I’m here,” he rumbled. “Take care.”
This was worse than it had been back in the orphanage, and it had been bad. I had woken up every night screaming. The sound and smell of the fireplaces had made me think I was back in the village. “I can’t take it,” I gasped, stumbling forward. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see anything, just dark.
“You don’t need to,” Minnelil said. Her mouth was next to my ear. “I’m here. You’re here.”
“What if I’m not?” I asked.
“Come, sit down. I don’t want you falling off from so high.”
“I can’t see,” I said, testing the ground with my foot. The planks had ice on them, slippery and cold.
“I figured as much. Here’s the wall. I’ll put your hand on it.”
My hand landed on an unpleasantly warm and smooth surface. Like a pane of glass warmed by a fire. Could I really lean on it without it breaking?
“There we go. I’m next to you. We can stay here for a moment.”
The air smelled of the cold. The hint of mold was still there, somewhere in the background. It had never smelled of mold when I had been home. “I haven’t thought about all that in a long while,” I said slowly.
She wrapped her arms around my head, pulling me to her chest. Her robe was coarse against my face, but she was warm underneath it. “No one blames you for it. I’m so sorry they are putting you through this. I rarely get angry, but this is monstrous. They don’t even know.”
“I’m nobody,” I muttered. She was about to say something, but I cut her short. “I am. To them. That’s how things work.”
“It doesn’t make it any less horrible.”
Light was returning. The cloth of her robe had a criss-cross pattern, threads woven tight. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed, patting my head with her hand. I unclenched my fingers. It hurt for some reason. I had dug my nails into my palms, leaving purple crescent shapes on my skin. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “That’s not the point. They can be monstrous or not, but if they come after me, they’re going to pay.”
Minnelil kept patting my hair. We sat pressed against the black wall next to the library door. The platform was empty, the wooden planks spotted with ice. No one else moved anywhere, only the field of skeletons down below swayed lightly in the wind. It was late, but I didn’t feel sleepy. Dead tired, ready to lie down on my face in the ice and stay there, even when sleep wouldn’t come. “We need to go back,” I muttered.
“I’ll get you back to the dorm,” Minnelil said, standing and pulling me up with her.
“Why do you, though?” I asked. She walked next to me, supporting me with her arm across my back, hand under my arm.
“What do you mean?” she asked, eyes looking forward. Her nose was small and round, like the nose of some animal. Not like Marcus’ potato or Frederik’s wedge. Its tip moved up and down as she spoke.
“You’re an elf. You have your own people and your own problems. You’ll outlive me by centuries. Unless I get myself killed even sooner. Or you.”
“Get me killed?” she asked. “I like to think I can take care of myself.”
“Everyone thinks that way,” I said, keeping my eyes firmly forward. “I’m trouble. I see things that aren’t there. If I get angry I might hurt someone really badly, and I’m so damn angry, all the time.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she said.
We walked ahead, taking the stairs carefully. I worked my fingers open, trying to straighten them, even though it still hurt.
“But…” I said after a while. “That’s it?”
“Yeah. You are trouble, I grant you that. Maybe I’d like a bit of trouble. Maybe some things are worth it,” Minnelil said, stopping. She looked up at the black ceiling and the wind, slippers sinking into the snow. “It’s lonely here.”
“Hmh,” I said.
“I’ll tuck you in once we get there,” she said.
“Could you sleep with me instead?” I said, then blinked. “I mean, in the same bed.”
“I know what you meant,” she said, but her face was red all over.
“Thanks,” I said. I was so tired I don’t know what I had meant, or what to respond. Now that the ward wasn’t holding back the Null, the pressure of the school was getting to me. I didn’t remember when I had been held by someone for more than a moment, slept next to a person. Would I actually even remember how to be or would I shatter into tiny pieces?
“I don’t want to be alone either,” I said.
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