[size=150]Chapter 31: When Something Matters[/size]
___Having found the strength to think about the past few minutes, Portunista now recalled a fact that gave her hope.
___“Watch,” she murmured to her subcommander; the wisplight floated over to the gap.
___Both of them tensed for the fusillade. But nothing happened.
___She smiled as, almost playfully, she bobbed the wisplight in and out of the gap. No rising whine; no crashing devastation.
___She looked at Gaekwar; his own smile mirrored hers. “Any movement?” he asked her once again.
___Now as she danced the wisplight in defiance of the generators, Portunista finalized her plan.
___“Hsst! Hsst!” she called, trying to avoid the sensors. Seifas’ head appeared around the corner, further down the stairwell. “Poo!” she mouthed, and gestured to the juacuar. Moments later, Pooralay edged into view.
___“Tape!” she mouthed, while miming a pull and a strip. The thug held up the roll.
___“Throw it!” she instructed him with mouth and mime. He sighed and glanced quite pointedly toward the wall-gap; but he did as she asked.
___The tape traversed the distance without trouble.
___Pooralay’s eyebrows perked; but Portunista gestured for him to retreat to safety.
___Sliding over, Portunista quickly gave a kiss to Gaekwar’s cheek; he rolled his eyes at this.
___Then she whispered once again: “Now, watch.”
___She had been studying some new jottings, from Gemalfan’s disciplex, practicing in secret during Hazyslope—she didn’t like for others to see her failures when she practiced.
___Now, into the gap, she jotted one wide plane of Silveraire.
___Gaekwar nodded as she moved the mirrored surface. As expected, no attacks.
___“Great, Commander! Let’s get moving!” That is what he began to say and do; but she stopped him.
___“They still will respond to sound,” she murmured. “And I can also deal with that,” she added, watching his confusion. “But—I won’t be going past. I am going in.”
___Sighing in exasperation, Gaekwar tried to argue; but she looked him firmly in the eye and told him: “Hush!”
___He blinked, and closed his mouth. She continued:
___“I am the brigade commander; this is my expedition; and this is my responsibility. I came here for this laboratory, and I will possess it. I wish…” She felt her lower lip starting to tremble, so she bit it. “I wish that I had taken your advice. But I didn’t—so, here we are. I know now how to defeat it; and I am going to do it. I won’t go off my head—but neither will I let his body lay in that room overnight! So.” She paused to smother several types of anger… “I will take care of both those problems now. I hope,” she added.
___“If you’re so set on going in, then let me do it. You’re the co—” But he silenced, at her look.
___“That’s right,” she said. “I am the commander. And, I am the maga. I can do this; you cannot. I am the one who put you all in danger; and I will be the one who will take care of what I’ve done. So, when I go to do that, if I gesture to you, you run on past behind me, go downstairs, and put our supper on the fire,” she wryly smiled. She knew what his expression meant, and so she continued: “If my plan goes wrong, you run anyway! I will fall into the room, and draw the generator fire, and so you should get safely past. Then you can do what you want,” she finished. “For I will be dead, and so no longer Commander,” she did not explain—but it wasn’t necessary. Gaekwar got the message.
___She thought that maybe he would argue…then she saw him, in his eyes, reevaluating her.
___“As you command,” he finally complied.
___She didn’t peck him on the cheek again. That had been appropriate, before: one last thanks for helping her, by being who he was. Now that time was past. She was the commander, he was the subordinate; and both of them, to their surprise, were comfortable with that. She grasped his forearm, receiving and giving strength.
___Then she stood and moved away from him, over to the stairway’s outer wall. It wasn’t far; but she wanted him to understand that she would do this by herself. She waved for him to go back up the stairs, away from her.
___She didn’t want his lungs to crumple.
___One deep breath, to steady herself. And then she realized, she didn’t need much steadying—which, a corner of her mind ironically reported, was a pleasant change of pace…!
___Then she jotted an Airebelle around herself.
___A deadly silence fell.
___The echoes from the stone, the bare caress of moving air, even sounds from Gaekwar that would normally be imperceptible…all were gone.
___Only sounds within the belle remained: the beat of her heart, the saliva she was swallowing, her shallow rapid breaths.
___The silence of a living grave.
___The belle redirected all the air it contacted, to the Puria. No sound could enter—and so no sound of hers would reach the laboratory.
___But the redirection worked both ways: if she moved the belle, then its inner curve would inescapably scoop a vacuum.
___The way that she had burst the heads of aasvogels.
___Beads of sweat were trickling down her skin.
___Gemalfan’s disciplex had not revealed the answer to this problem. But it must be something simple, for she knew this was a common Cadrist jotting. Air must enter, to replace the air departing. But the silence mustn’t be defeated…
___Shutting her eyes, she felt the shape of her intention. She had made the sphere complete, but—there was something strange…
___Opening her eyes, she looked and saw the stone wall of the Tower to her left. Interesting…There was real though ephemeral elemental Aire, mixed with raw materia, intersecting and extruded through that wall to form her sphere. What would happen if she took a tiny step away…?
___She had bound her jotting on the second button of her shirt. She risked the tiny step, the belle moving in conjunction.
___With a softly smacking pop, the left side of the belle failed, rupturing the minor vacuum already accumulating.
___She deeply breathed, in relief; the fresh air tasted good.
___She continued edging rightward, discovering she could still maintain her bind despite the leftward rended hole. What would happen when the belle’s surface touched the inner wall…?
___It flattened to fit the shape.
___Well! Inspired, she felt around more closely. The rending when she’d moved had been extensive; more than she had first detected: behind, below, and to the left—wherever the belle had been jotted through the Tower stones.
___Very interesting. She could now be sure she wouldn’t smother or explode—the aasvogels’ necks must not have moved enough to overcome the seals around their moving heads.
___However, all these gaps would be about as silencing as the columns holding up an outdoor temple!
___She knew she shouldn’t have to jott the belle again at every step. What was the solution…?
___The belle’s flattened shape, along with its persistence where unrent, provided her the clues. A few moments more of experimenting, and she found that she could use the bind to fix the gaps by re-extending her intended shape.
___She stepped ahead, altogether off the stairs, and then repaired the shape behind her. Good. Now there would not be another new gap; unless she leaped into the air! Crouching—she tested—only pooled the belle, around her in an arc; and standing up again allowed the belle to resume…its…
___—her skin pulled all directions!—her eyes evaporated!—her eardrums stretched to bleeding! her breath yanked from her lungs! which seemed to help a little bit, though now she couldn’t breathe…!
___She cursed herself: her crouch had scooped her atmosphere across the inner surface of the belle; standing had decreased the pressure drastically!
___Don’t drop the belle! she commanded herself. There had to be a way around this—but she never would find it if she didn’t face the pain. If she collapsed unconscious, the sphere would vanish; so her pride and body would be bruised, but nothing worse.
___Probably.
___The belle could be ripped by accident, without destroying its existence overall. So…
___Reaching to the left with her intent, she…erased…a minor hole.
___The recompression nearly brought her to her knees; she gulped the air until she could gain her control.
___But, now she was prepared.
___She stepped, with just the slightest quavering in her chest—behind the screen of Silveraire.
___Then she turned to face it.
___It mirrored her reflection.
___She looked nervous.
___She expected that she wouldn’t hear a warning whine of charging energy; but she thought the plane of Silveraire, although as thin as atoms, would reflect the first few bolts—and not be kicked aside the way a wisplight would.
___Then a surge of fear: she should have checked to see her shield would hold before she stood behind it—!
___she thought of Jian, lying dead—because of her.
___She stood in place.
___A quarter minute ticked away.
___She was still alive.
___She started to breathe, finding she had held her breath while waiting. Despite a subsequent dizziness, she held her concentration. Firming her expression—she reflected grim determination now, she gladly saw!—Portunista beckoned Gaekwar.
___She watched him on her jotted mirror, as he trotted past behind her, feeling him deform the belle like a bubble.
___She saw worry in his eyes.
___She could understand that.
___Now, next: turn and jott a second plate of Silveraire, to her right, her throat vibrating strongly to produce a tinkling glassy sound, as she smoothed the mirrored surface with her palms—
___—she gasped! pain!!
___—head rocking, pounding blows!—heart leaping into her teeth!
___She ground her teeth, biting on her fear. The shocks were not yet physically harmful. And they quickly ceased. The Silveraire in the gap had warped and bulged, twisting with the pounding of her mind. But it had held.
___This time. For the bursts of one brief moment.
___Her sweat hit stone in spatters. The sensors must have heard her after all! Or, maybe they’d heard Gaekwar running past, and then hair-triggered afterward when she started percussive jotting…? She’d hoped the hole she had put behind her for a vent, would not emit enough—
___Damnation! The hole!
___She had placed it on her left, because she had been facing down the hallway at the time. It must be turning as she turned—yes, she felt it, to her left but pointing down the stairway as she faced the Silveraire—closer to the gap! And so, of course, when she had turned to jott the silver on her right, the hole had pointed toward the silvered gap—in line with every generator!
___Blind her eyes…she was such a cretin!
___…did she even have the faintest clue what she was doing…?!
___She could leave, she thought as she sealed the sphere, erasing a new hole behind her. She could think it over, get some food, get some sleep, maybe even pass the deadly opening once again to sleep upstairs…up in the room and bed of Qarfax—who was more clever than she was after all…
___…leaving Jian to lie alone, where she had killed him with her pride…
___In the Silveraire, her nose now wrinkled, in determination…had he ever seen that, too…? what would he have thought of it…?
___Now she saw a snarl.
___Qarfax would not win.
___The maga took a step, closer to the furious destruction that would burst her innards to pieces…
___Portunista smiled, however. What could the pentadarts do to her that was worse than the pain she already felt inside?
___There. She felt the belle making contact with the edges of the gap in front of her. She pushed, expanding her intent, until the sphere had sealed the gap.
___Now let’s see if they can hear me! Portunista wryly thought…
___Firming her resolve, she jotted to her left: another pane of Silveraire.
___No vicious shocks.
___And now for one last panel, overhead.
___The effort nearly swamped her…her vision wavered…her binds would vanish—leaving her staked naked to the sight and sound—
___She bore down hard upon her bindings.
___They steadied.
___Four large planes of Silveraire; one large Airebelle; a wisplight, too…at least she was long familiar with that…!
___Three jotting types, six binds to hold, between one slip of concentration and her life.
___She held it all, counting slow to sixty, steeling her intentions and resolve.
___She could do it. She was ready.
___Portunista closed her eyes…
___…and slowly stepped again.
___A corner of her mind observed that she had thrown her arms out wide, in automatic reflex, mirroring the balance she maintained. The Airebelle would follow without a problem, bound upon that second button of her shirt.
___But, she still had five more bindings that she had to move…at the proper angles…at the proper distances…not the smallest gap allowed to let a sensor find her body…stay the proper shapes—keep them in existence—
___she was losing balance—! straw of towers wobbling—!
___—she threw away her wisplight bind, and seized the shields—!
___They held.
___Barely.
___Sweat was falling from her hands. But she didn’t care. She paused to swallow, breaths and other beatings in her body filling all her hearing…
___She stepped across the threshold of the gap within the wall.
___Now the sensors all would have their firing arcs upon her.
___She told herself the situation hadn’t really changed. Two or three, or even one, would doom her to a frightful death; so what did all five matter?!
___More precisely—something mattered to her more.
___She stood some moments, still; regripping on her fear and concentration, feeling as if sensors were caressing her, watching for her to uncover, waiting to embrace her…
___She very nearly laughed. She very nearly killed herself by laughing.
___She truly was besotted, wasn’t she? Her weakness was so pathetic, it amused her. Jian was dead—only honor and revenge remained for her to take, however far she could.
___And she would!
___Her binding grip was sure as frozen diamond, as she stood upon the solid puddle she had melted when she pushed the wall into the laboratory. She now rotated, half a turn; sealing then re-rending her belle, until she faced the wall-gap once again.
___Whistling up another wisp, she snapped her head around to send it soaring toward the door on her left. The dazzling Silveraire reflections didn’t break her concentration; still, almost instinctively, she altered the wisp’s intensity, remembering how that had felt when it had dulled before by accident.
___Very satisfactory…One more jotting might be more than she could manage—but she didn’t need another.
___She would defeat the Cadrist now!
___Planting her wisp in place, she walked with her ungainly binds, following the wall inside the laboratory. Only two or three more steps—and now she stood beside the door!—a little disappointed not to see a matching plate, but that was fine—her plan allowed this possibility. She was certain it would work…
___her mind exploded.
___—hundreds crashing, ricocheting reflective surfaces, still transferring fractions of kinetic force onto the fragile mirrors—
___She shrieked inside her soundproofed bubble, first in pain and fear, and then in anger—Why…?! What had she done wrong?! She was going to be plastered onto this stupid door—!
___She bit down on her scream, converting it into a growl, as storms of pain and force threw water droplets flying off her face, her hair, her hands. Intuitively, she dropped the wisp and Airebelle, to redirect her focus on the floating sheets of almost-nothing set between the onslaught and her death.
___Darkness and the sound now crushed against her mind and body both.
___Four bound jottings, and she dared not drop a one—nor could even try to jott another—muscles cramping and spasming, arms refusing at first to obey, then drawing inward from their splayed positions, feeling for the handle, praying to whatever might be listening that it wouldn’t be false like the hall-side of the door—!
___The handle worked.
___She wasted pushing at the door in crumbling panic, feeling her mind ripping with the shields—no, she had to pull it toward her…! Had she reasoned this correctly—?!
___She had!
___The landing and the narrow tower hallway; not a jungle.
___She needed light, but dared not jott.
___“LIGHT!” she roared. “I need a torch!—blast your bleeding eyes!” She cursed and shouted, concentration strained and failing…
___She might run now…through the door…run away, and escape and live…
___—no —she refused —Jian was still in this room, where she had killed him with her pride
___—and she—was going—to win—!
___Portunista stood in place, bearing the pain that he had borne, defying the room’s defenses to kill her, crying out for light…
___A torch curled blazing around the corner, bouncing off a wall, skittering down the floor.
___Good enough.
___Nearly vomiting from the effort—slowly and precisely Portunista tore a sticky paper strip, dropped the spindle afterward—stuck the tape onto a breeches-leg, fingers wet would drench it—
___Slowly and precisely she unbuttoned one belt-pocket, bending down her head to see, straining in the mix of strobing flickers orangish bluish white—sodden clinging hair now stranding, funneling the sweating salt into the burning corners of her eyes—synaptic shocks eroding her control, foretasting the final agony, her body being smashed from deep within would be relief compared to this—!
___Slowly and precisely, she carefully dragged her dripping fingers up across the inside of this smallest of her pockets…
___…lifting out the follicle of Qarfax.
___She placed the hair between her shaking lips—wiped her trembling hands upon her shirt, her breeches, on the door, anything to dry them…
___the pain was irresistible—
___—against her will, she stumbled forward, through the door, sobbing with the single fleeting moment of relief—unconsciously, she tried to drag her shields—
___—which couldn’t follow through the doorframe—
___—three silvers slipped and vanished—
___a single warning—she collapsed, the right—a bolt, nicking her head in passing, spinning her around…everything was spinning…her brain throbbed nauseating…hold the final silver, but it shattered her intention, raking shards across her mind…all striking round her, blasting searing chips of stone…they couldn’t get to her, she was in the doorframe lee…but they ate away the stone, had torn the door apart already…she was screaming through her teeth and couldn’t stop, they heard her screams, relentlessly they sought her blood and body—
___…but she…was going…to win…!!
___The hair hung from her lower lip…she seized and pressed it to the sigilpanel…
___The sigils worked.
___She had told the generators, that she was their master.
___Her keening faded with the echoes of the blasts, leaving only gasping with relief.
___She wiped her left hand one last time upon her breeches, pulled the tape from where she’d placed it, twisted round to face the panel—
___—and taped the hair, onto the sigils.
___It had worked. She had won.
___…no, it wasn’t over yet.
___She scrambled to her feet, and charged into the laboratory, whistling wisplights everywhere. There, along the quarters and the center of the round room’s ceiling, hung the generators, pestles resting on internal gimbals that allowed rotation.
___Her throat was hoarse; but she didn’t need her voice to do this jotting—only her aching jaws and raspy tongue.
___She hammered every generator to pieces—with her own pentadarts.
___Now, it was over.
___She forced herself to deeply breathe, regularly, in and out.
___“It’s safe!” she shouted—or tried to shout. “Come on up!”
___“Hmph.” Pooralay snorted from the gap behind her. “D’pends on whatcha callin’ safe…”
___“Better leave the hair…” she told him.
___“ah-duhhh,” he mumbled, pressing sticky strips already. The other men were entering the room.
___She had to sit. The scarred and pitted wall, between the gap and door, felt good to lean against.
___“Not to be a next-day general, ‘ista,” Gaekwar said, “but why not tape the stupid hair onto the panel first?”
___She shook her head…needed a drink so badly…water would do…mead would be better…aasvogel blood was almost worth considering at this point…
___“It only would have opened onto the nesting grounds again,” explained the maga. “The hallway and the laboratory needed to be linked, before the panel could affect the generators.” She wondered in her calm exhaustion what the other door looked like, so many kilopaces distant. It probably simply opened onto normal space, and thus was still intact—unlike this door! The tesser would be on the entry-side, of its special doorframe. The other portal-side would end up here, inside the laboratory’s doorframe edge, an inch or so away from—
___She closed her eyes. Trying to puzzle this out any further, only made her head hurt worse. A thought drifted across her mind, however, and she opened her eyes again, looking to the floor.
___The floor in front of the frame, inside the room, was stone—and covered with sigils.
___She allowed her eyes to drift as well, showing her what they would…a thin stone parquet covered the laboratory in plating, and every plate was sigilscribed. Except where she was sitting. When she had smoothed the vitalized blocks of stone, having pushed them into the room, she had covered up the sigils under the gap in the wall—mostly forward, but left and right a little, too. And then she had stepped from that new layer, onto the uncovered floor, when she had moved in front of the door.
___Of course. That was why the pentadarts had fired. Qarfax had anticipated a mage might hide from sight and sound.
___She weakly cursed her deep stupidity. She only had needed to step through the door, into the hallway—not too far, to avoid detection by the generators through the gap instead—and then they would have ceased their firing.
___Assuming, she reminded herself, that she had thought enough ahead to leave her shields behind. Her shriek of rage and fear had not been helpful, either. She was too exhausted even to laugh; still it was bitterly funny: she would have been much safer, if she could have shut her mouth a few more moments…!
___Well, a win was a win.
___She closed her eyes again, unable to stop the gently welling tears. Behind her eyes, she saw Jian moving, still alive, stumbling, rolling, crawling on the sigiled floor, drawing death down onto him with every move he made. He hadn’t had a chance.
___And, it would have been her…
___She wept again, softly, too depleted to prevent imagination from providing detailed picture-feelings: this is what Jian must have felt—as he had struggled, carrying death away from her, so that she wouldn’t have to share it…
___how had he done it…? how, without screaming…?
___“About bloody time,” she heard the Krygian’s muttered satisfaction. She didn’t have to open her eyes and turn her head to know that he was standing near the blasted chair behind which Jian had tried to find a final hopeless chance.
___“I seriously suggest you shut up now,” Gaekwar softly warned him.
___Let Seifas stab the fool, she decided. She didn’t have the energy to kill him yet herself…and, she had decided not to kill him, anyway, earlier, minutes ago, hours ago…hadn’t she? Yes, before Jian had smashed through hopelessness, answering her cry, saving her from death, after he should have died…
___He wouldn’t be jumping out of the darkness, on the razored edge of victory, this time.
___She needed a drink; she deeply needed water. Maybe she wouldn’t cry again, even later sleeping in a dead man’s bed.
___No. She wouldn’t cry again. Never again.
___She raised her hand to wipe her eyes.
___“ow,” she heard.
___A corner of her mind observed that she had recently exhaled, and that if she didn’t soon inhale she would be passing out.
___Another corner thought that passing out would be just fine.
___Another corner firmly vetoed any notion of passing out! But neither had she yet inhaled.
___Another corner calmly noted: her tears had now been sucked back into her eyes, perhaps because her lids had opened wider than they should. The trails of moisture felt to be freezing solid. Bracing; but uncomfortable. On the other hand, now she wouldn’t have to wipe her tears away…
___Another corner told her where the mumbled “ow” had come from.
___Another corner tallied all this up, and so concluded: her wits had finally cracked. The voices must be beginning now. Her troops would dress her in a long-sleeve shirt, tie the sleeves behind her back, and haul her in a wagon looking for any honorable way to be rid of her—feeding her until then with a long and cautious spoon.
___“—eyes of the watcher by night…” Seifas murmured in reverent terror. This did not make Portunista feel any better. She tried to bat away the hope that gripped her throat insanely.
___“It…it isn’t possible…” Dagon sounded throttled, too. She followed his voice and his scuffling feet, as he backpedaled into the wall with a thump.
___She scraped her head around to her right—not to her left, not to where she couldn’t bear to look, but to her right. The stones of the wall passed under her faintly itching nose; then the wall planed off into a gentle distant curve.
___There was Dagon. She could bear to look at him. She wanted to see his face.
___She wondered if her face looked that distraught.
___She had to breathe. She had to know.
___She chose to look.
___Continued right, around to what had been her left. She passed her eyes across the other men. She didn’t care to see them; she could see them any time she wished. What they thought, wasn’t important.
___Except they also saw what she was seeing; demonstrating she was not insane.
___Jian was standing to his feet, behind the sharded chair.
___His face had not been harmed.
___His arms and chest had not been harmed.
___His curly sandy-colored hair, which caught the wisplights’ glow so well, had not been harmed.
___His shirt…that was harmed. It hung in tatters off his chest.
___He shook his head as if he’d just been dunked in icy water; but unlike herself, no sweat was oozing from his body.
___Another corner of her mind was noticing that his chest had plenty of much the same hair as his beard…
___Jian removed his shirt, the red of which seemed black as blood within the bluish light; and started laughing quietly.
___“So much for that, I guess,” he said, and gently laid the shirt upon the shattered chair. “I hope I won’t be needing that again, anytime soon…!”
___She inhaled, rawly.
___He turned toward her sound.
___“Hey there, Portunista! I am so glad you’re okay!! I was worried, for a minute. Aww…” he looked around, in regret. “The lab’s a wreck.” He sighed apologetically. “I’m awfully sorry. Almost looks like all those aasvogel thingies packed themselves in here with Tumblecrumble for a fight! I know you were hoping that you would find something useful in here…But,” he added, in good cheer, “who knows! I bet you still can find a lot in here worth keeping! But, let’s start tomorrow morning—’kay? I’m hungry.” He walked to the mouth of the wall-gap.
___She followed him with her eyes.
___“I’ll go start the fire, okay?” Jian suggested helpfully.
___And then the man who should have been a dead man left the room.
But the scratches on Seifas’ back are now explained: he got those fighting the aasvogels.
Though if she has to juggle