I sense the move before I see it. My first knife leaves my hand just as it begins. The commander falls, the pack of batteries going down with him. My second knife lodges deep into the abdomen of the man beside him as the first man hits his knees. I rush in, barreling with all my weight into the third, smashing him against the wall. He’s dazed. I have a moment to grab the batteries–but the remaining soldier has already taken them. I lunge for him, but a hand grasps me from behind. The soldier with the batteries retreats from the room as I turn to face my attacker. Though dazed, the third man is flailing, trying to keep me busy and perhaps land a punch. He tries to pin me and I let him, using his momentum to my advantage. I force him around, press him to the floor, and choke him out. It takes no time, too much time. I should have pulled my third knife.
A solid weight slams against me. Slippery hands grasp my throat, knees press into my back. His grip is strong but slick, and I pull my head free, forcing my elbow behind me with all the force I can manage. It connects solidly. I gain my moment and scramble away.
I turn, lifting my knee. It slams into bone. I kick with my other foot. Solid contact. He falls to the floor with a squeal of pain. Only then do I realize who it is I’m fighting. It’s the commander; my borrowed shoes have dug into the knife wound. The knife itself has fallen out, apparently.
I take a second to breathe. It’s a mere moment. I have to contain three men or I need to leave them and return to Calea. They are incapacitated for now, I decide, one unconscious, one twice beaten, and the last pale-faced in the corner. My aim was good.
I hear her scream. Perhaps I’ve been hearing it, but it finally registers. A spike of panic lacerates my insides. I am already at the door, in the hall. Calea is writhing. I see a form racing away in the darkness. I throw my final knife, but it is too far and I am moving too fast. He escapes.
Calea is screaming, holding nothing back. It is full of pain and anger. I see the wound in her side first, a nasty, bloody gash. Her hand is pressed against it in agony. I retreive towels from the bathroom in her lab. She has quieted a little, but she is cursing, mostly at me. Nothing coherent, just vile, hateful words. I place the first towel against the wound and press firmly. She intakes a painful breath before swinging her arm at me.
“Stay still,” I command.
“Let it bleed, let it! Let it run, let it spurt, let me die!”
I know why she is saying such things. It is not the pain. In a little bit, she will tell me it does not hurt. I see what is missing. I saw it at first, but it was not the most pressing matter. Her leg and arm have been stolen. The stubs glisten with blood. The limbs were removed forcibly, the grafts cut through.
The last soldier–he took my knife from the commander’s body. My knife did this.
I let her wear her tongue out against me. I place another towel on as the first soaks through, and then another. The flow is slowing. I need to move her as soon as I can, but where will I take her? It is a long way over dangerous ground to anyone who might have the skills and resources to help.
“Why won’t you let me die?” she cries. “You’ve failed. It’s over. Now or in a few hours, I die. Let me die. There is nothing left.”
I do not resist. I change the subject. “What will they do with your limbs?”
“Who cares? Study them, wear them, hang them on a wall. The world is ended because of me. Let me die with it.”
“It’s not your fault. Thyrion doesn’t have the resources to destroy a well, and they certainly didn’t do it to get to you.”
“Quiet! Idiot! Fool! Someone destroyed it. Someone did it. Who else? Thyrion is covered in blood, from beginning to end. ‘Red as blood, red as blood, the Thyrion soldier comes.’ They are taking everything with them, all the resources, all the ideas, all the brains they lack.”
“I’ll get you out of here, and when you’re better, you can move to another well.”
I am putting her into a fighting mood. Her words become less emotional, more emphatic, as she argues. “You think this is the end? If they control who has wells, they control who has power. Will they let me live quietly near some backwater pool of a well? No! And I wouldn’t. I will be free to work and to use magic. But Jalseion is dead and the idea of Jalseion is dead and I am dead. You are lying to yourself and to me. Everything I have has been taken from me. You started this journey by coming to find me–you should end it. Take your knife and finish it.”
I stand up, leaving her to press the wound. She is half a woman, covered in blood, and as pale as a corpse.
“Coward!” she shouts. “Leave me then! Run away! Bodyguard, hah! How have you ever protected me? Weak, stupid, useless!”
“If any magic remains, could you use it?”
“The Well is empty!”
“If any remains below, a puddle or a small spring, could you use it to save yourself?” She would have to be quite close to sense a source that small.
“It doesn’t work like that. Magic is brute force. It doesn’t heal. It doesn’t perform miracles. It burns and moves and smashes.”
“You can use needles of fire to close the wound.”
“You are getting desperate, Bron.” But I can tell she is considering the possibility.
“I will see that you live.”
“Then why do you not take me back to the city? How would you find this hypothetical magic, anyway? Go down into the Well?”
“Yes.”
“You want to see me die, then. This Well is the deepest on record. How would we get down? Fall?” She grimaces from pain as she speaks; I think she humors the conversation because it keeps her mind busy.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why not the city? Don’t I have a better chance of surviving the trip to the city?”
At first, I do not know if I will answer her. Perhaps I am wrong. What does it matter if I am? “You will not make it, because you will not try to make it. You will give up. You think there is nothing left for you.”
She watches me carefully. “And the Well?”
“If there is magic, there is hope for Jalseion–for you.”
She looks at me from behind her mask. “I would rather stay here.”
“You don’t really have a choice. I’m the one carrying you.”
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