The night passes before my unclosing eyes. When I sense the first graying of day, I tell myself to rise. My single thought has writhed and burrowed deep, unearthing nameless filth and strange debris. It has given me a thread of hope, a sliver of purpose. But it is enough.
Some time after my first will to rise, I sit up. I find my feet. My body aches–my back, my hips, my legs. There is pain behind my eyes.
I enter the room. Bron is asleep in the armchair, Nyasha upon the couch. If Bron had not pushed the bookshelf in front of the door, if I could move it without waking them….
Bron’s body is heavy, his arm hanging limply over the edge. I have never seen him so deeply at rest. I am almost at a loss to remember ever seeing him so much as lounge on a sofa.
Nyasha stirs a little, turning to get comfortable. She fits nicely on the couch. I’ve never seen her in a house, only in the Medical Sanctuary and the wilderness. Somehow, I’ve conceived her as some sort of wild creature, like the street kids that roam the poorer Sections of Jalseion, yet here I can almost imagine her in the kitchen, helping her mother with breakfast.
I’ve been told young women do such things.
If I were a kind person, I would let them sleep. I would return to my room and wait for them to wake.
“Get up, you two! Wake up! Do you plan to sleep all day?”
It gives me cruel pleasure to scream at them. I have been unable to sleep; why should they?
Bron is awake in an instant. He takes in the room, the time, my demeanor in a moment. He waits for my next demand. Nyasha sits up, bleary-eyed and sour.
“We’re going to the Imperial Library.”
Nyasha yawns. “Now?”
“Why?” Bron asks.
“Why? Isn’t it obvious? The central question–the only question that matters–is, why did magic disappear? I will discover the answer. All other pursuits are petty digressions. The history of mankind has fundamentally changed, and we are fools for moving on as if it does not matter. The Imperial Library is the largest collection of research in the world. That is where I will begin.”
“Maybe someone has already figured it out,” Nyasha says.
“Doubtful. I am perhaps the foremost living expert on the nature of magic. Someone here in Thyrion deeply desired my knowledge. I am essential to understanding what has happened. There is a possibility it can be reversed.”
Bron nods. I don’t know what it means, whether he agrees or whether he simply accepts that he must. “It is a good plan,” he says. “In a few days, we will make our way. First, we must–”
“No! Now! We go now, today.”
Bron bows his head meekly. Nothing makes me angrier. “The city is tearing apart at the seams,” he says. “I heard it yesterday. There have been skirmishes. There may be civil war in the streets soon.”
I laugh. “War? It’s a Thyrian pastime. I don’t care.”
“It’s not safe.”
“The mountains weren’t safe.”
“Exactly. We met with trouble in a place no one lives. Tens of thousands live here in fear and turmoil. Give me a day to determine the best path, find the places the army has secured.”
“Nyasha, you know the city. You show us the way.”
She rubs her face. She’s exasperated? “We’ve done this all before.”
It takes me a moment to understand. “These aren’t the Burnt Mountains.”
“No. I knew that path better. I’d listen to Bron.”
I look from one to the other. They have no necessity to move. I do. We are separated by a gulf. “Bron, move this bookshelf.”
He looks at me, thinking in his slow, slow way.
“Now, Bron.”
“I won’t let you go.”
I begin to move it myself, awkwardly. I close my eyes with the strain, letting my emotions rush up against my closed lids.
“Calea, stop.”
I turn on him. “No!” I scream. “No! I won’t stay here.”
“I can stop you.”
I have never heard such words from him. They are firm, like a hand gripping my wrist. I can barely whisper my response. It is cold and low and sharp. “You will not.”
There is much more I want to say, but I see he understands. More than anyone else in the world, I think he can understand when he wants to.
He meets my eyes. There is pain in them. I drink it in. It resonates with me. Though I am filled with sorrow, it longs for more and drinks deeply of whatever fount of suffering I find. He steps forward; I step back. He holds up his hands. “I will come.” More words are on his lips, and I wait, looking into that face that seems to reflect my agony. Very softly, they come: “We cannot keep living this way.”
“I know.”
Yes, I know.
* * *
We raid the apartment, despite Nyasha’s mild protests and Bron’s reluctance. It offers little enough, though we restock some food and acquire a few other supplies.
The sun simmers just above the broken teeth of the cityscape when we reach the street, rodents scurrying from us. Men look down on rats and insects, but they survive when man does not. Religion, and even science, tell us that bettering our nature is necessary to improve our lives; perhaps, however, it is necessary to be degraded to thrive in disaster. Perhaps the vermin shall rule the earth.
So run my thoughts as I tromp down the street, not quite balanced. What am I but a rat, but a beggar, but half a woman pretending to choose the righteous path? Revive magic, save the world! A vile lie, but a lie I embrace. I will play the hero. I will act the just judge, knowing I am swayed by every desire and petty petulance.
I need the Library so I can hide.
And so I walk as fast as I can. My thoughts outrun me.
* * *
The path isn’t straight. It never is.
I don’t know why we turn and weave. When I demand an explanation, Bron gives some excuse about soldiers or rubble or how some man who used to repair government radios said something I don’t bother to listen to.
I am feverish in my haste. I hardly notice the city changing. I look up and find myself surrounded by destruction. Next I rise from my thoughts, a plaza, darkened by fire, but mostly intact. I have learned to walk long distances the past weeks, and I mean to put my experience to work.
Nyasha is skittish. I notice that much because she is like a fly hovering over me, darting one way, then the next. “I can’t believe it,” she whimpers, looking at how the buildings lie flat on their faces. How wrong she is. It doesn’t take effort to believe what’s right in front of you. The problem is most people ignore reality for some imagined version in their head.
I let the thought go–I dare not apply it too closely.
At noon, Bron forces me to eat. We sit in the collapsed structure of some government office, out of sight of the street. I can tell it is a government building by the reams of paper carpeting the floor.
We have seen a number of people, scavenging, repairing, sitting silently in the street as if waiting for something. They watch us. Sometimes they shout at us, warnings and questions. No one tries to stop us. That is one helpful thing about Bron’s bulk.
“How much longer?” I say, finishing the crackers we found in the apartment. Nyasha is searching through the papers. It’ll turn up nothing. Ninety-five percent of government work is useless, and the other five percent won’t be found in a place like this. I know. I was part of Jalseion’s ruling class.
“I don’t think we’ll make it today,” Bron says. “The destruction’s getting worse. You say the Library’s in the Central District. That’s near the well.”
“It’s only a city. We should be there any minute.”
“They had u-trains to move people,” Nyasha says, looking up. “And buses in all the streets. Papa said there used to be bicycles everywhere until ten years ago or so.”
Cars replacing bicycles. Because the battery became smaller and more efficient. In another ten, the world would have been changed forever. And I would have been responsible.
It decided to change without me.
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