Chapter 44: Chapter 42 – Keep It Together

Nym could hardly hear the chaos over her heart pounding in her ears. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. There was an explosion somewhere through the smoke and they all paused to tremble for a moment before continuing their trek from the center of the hall. Loria was in front of her, stepping her bare feet around debris and looking about ten-thousand times as put together as Nym felt. Penny had a sweaty hold on her hand, and both of them were probably only keeping up because Vince was herding them forward from his spot in the rear of the group.

The seminarian was probably even better put-together than Loria. Nym had been shocked to hear him volunteer for their defense – she wasn’t sure how his Gift, with whatever it did to the air, would protect them – but sure enough, as soon as the Headmistress poked a hole in her pocket of space for them to travel through, a cloud of thick smoke had begun to billow out, punctured through the middle by a tunnel of clear air. There was a strange density to the smoke, something that muffled the sound beyond its limits. So, despite the chaos just beyond it, the cloud around them left her feeling oddly isolated from the battle, though her inability to see the source of the noises left them no less frightening.

She felt a tickle at the top of her spine, and Professor Jericho’s voice spoke into her mind, “This message can only be heard by Academy staff.” That was obviously not true, but she figured their inclusion in Cliff’s plan added them to the contact list. “It has come to our attention that one of the terrorists is attempting to collapse several pillars throughout the hall and bring the building down around us. This is not tolerable, and we have dispatched four parties to shore up specifically chosen columns. Assisting them is top priority after protecting and evacuating non-combatants. Hundreds of lives are on the line. Goddess protect you all.”

Nym shared a grim look with Penny. “I wish we had our PMTs,” the other girl muttered. It was barely audible over the sounds of fighting through the smoke.

“My aunt talked about this once,” Vince said from behind them. “She said that there’s growing sentiment among the magepriests that we’ve begun to rely too much on PMTs – so much so that we’re completely helpless without them.”

Nym looked over her shoulder at him. “Your aunt?” She blinked, turning towards the front of the hall. She couldn’t see it through Vince’s smoke, but she knew the Hierophant was out there, protected under a dome of metallic energy.

“Loria,” Vince continued louder, raising a finger off to the side. Their leader stopped her movement, turning towards him. “One of the terrorists is off to the left. He hasn’t stepped into the smoke, but he’s prodding at its edges with his gun, testing it.” Nym blinked. The fighting in the hall was concentrated by the Hierophant and near the front entrance. They’d been sent to this column because was the furthest from both of those places, hopefully limiting the danger to them, the only group without a professor. She squinted in the direction Vince had pointed. She couldn’t see anything, but it was his smoke, after all.

Loria turned to peer through the smoke. “How far?”

Vince blinked, frowning off into the smoke. “Twenty-five feet, give or take. We’d probably be able to hear him if not for my smog.”

Loria nodded and looked at Nym. “That’s within the range of your Gift, right?” She blinked, nodding after a second of thought. It would be rough going in a forest, but this hall was built on a solid foundation – once she got through the hardwood, it wouldn’t be hard to reach out. “Good. Give yourself a five foot radius, reach up and crush everything you can. Break his legs, if possible, or at least slow him down.”

“Hold on–” Nym started, but before she could voice her concerns, Loria was looking at Vince again.

“Anything on the ground between us and him?” she asked. Vince shook his head. “Nym, whenever you’re ready.”

Nym started to sputter something, but when she saw the look on Loria’s face, her eyes squeezed shut. Break his legs? Sure, she’d used her gift to fight, but– Another booming explosion, closer this time, and her eyes opened. “Okay,” she said, falling to one knee and placing her palm on the ground. “On the count of three.” She reached out with her Gift. Sure enough, once she got past the wood flooring, it was a solid block of hardened dirt, just about the easiest medium for her to reach through. “One. Two.” She sent a tendril of power in the direction Vince had pointed, seizing a whole swath of earth. “Three.” She pushed, and there was a sudden sound of wood flooring cracking through the smoke. She couldn’t see it, but she felt earth snapping upwards like a bear trap, and she felt resistance. She’d hit something.

At the same time, Loria took off in a sprint, dashing silently into the cloud of smoke. With her Gift, she crushed the earth together, grinding whatever she’d grabbed in a fist of stone. She pushed as hard as her Gift allowed her, and for a moment, she was glad Vince’s smoke was obscuring her view, or else she might’ve hesitated. The moment ended with a crack of gunfire, and her heart leapt into her throat. Penny gasped beside her, squeezing tighter where she was still holding Nym’s hand.

“She’s fine,” Vince said. There was another burst of gunfire, and he winced.

Before Nym could ask for an update, Loria came limping out of the smoke and back into view. She was holding a gun, and her face was pale.

Penny was the first to swarm her, shoving her small frame under Loria’s arm to bear some of her weight. “Are you alright?” the squirrely girl said. Nym was slower to react because her eyes were fixed on the gun.

Two bursts of gunfire, and her friend came back holding the gun. “Did you–” she started, and Loria cut her off with a nod. Nym swallowed, staring into the smoke beyond her friend. For a second time, she was glad that she couldn’t see beyond the smoke.

“Come on,” Loria said, “we’ve got to get to the pillar before the explosions start.” She turned, pulling out of Penny’s support and continuing into the tunnel of smoke.

“I guess we don’t all need PMTs to fight,” Nym muttered. Vince gave a mirthless laugh, and they followed behind their leader.

***

“So, um,” Penny started as they all stared up at the pillar. “What are we supposed to do?” The marble column stood central in the opening in Vince’s cloud, extending up into the smoke above. Nym’s eyes searched for the explosives apparently stuck to it, but whatever the terrorist's Gift’s function, they were invisible to her eyes.

“You heard Cliff, same as the rest of us,” Loria explained. She was still holding the gun. In any other situation, the contrast between her formal wear and the jet-black firearm would have been comical. As it was, it just made Nym nauseous. “Wait for the explosions, then use your Gift to suspend the pieces of the column in the air. Nym will fuse them back together, and it will hold.”

“I know, I guess, but he – he said the whole building would collapse, right?” Penny said, her eyes glued to the hunk of marble in front of her. “I don’t think – my Gift – it can’t–”

“I’ll be quick,” Nym said, trying to sound a lot more confident than she actually felt. Honestly, she had no idea if she’d even be able to fuse the pillar back together. In theory, Cliff’s plan made sense. Her Gift more or less made solids malleable to her will, but she’d never actually used it to just stick stuff together, like he was suggesting. “You won’t have to hold it for long.”As soon as she got the column back together, Penny wouldn't need to use her Gift anymore.

Penny turned to Nym, looking wholly unconvinced. Her Gift was capable of suspending everything that passed through a plane, and Cliff more or less wanted her to stretch that plane up the length of the column. They’d tested the limits of their Gifts, of course, and Penny’s limits were a function of the amount of weight she had to hold, the speed it was moving, and the amount of time she had to hold it. The column wouldn’t have much speed, but a solid pillar of marble was heavy, and that was to say nothing of the weight of the ceiling pushing down on it.

“Quiet,” Vince suddenly said. The three women turned to him as he stepped up beside Loria. He was squinting into the smoke. He spoke in a low voice. “Give me the gun. Three of them are coming towards us, into the smoke.”

Loria turned to scan the smoke, but, unless she could see something Nym couldn’t, there was nothing but a blanket of white. The gun went from her hands to Vince’s. “Plan?” Loria whispered.

Vince raised the gun, sighting down its barrel. “I can see through my smog. They can’t.”

Loria nodded, turning to Penny and Nym. “Lie down.”

“What?” Penny said. “Why?”

Nym grabbed her roommate by the arm, tugging her towards the floor. “They’ll have guns too,” she said before Loria could. “I don’t think they’ll just let themselves get shot without shooting back.” Penny made a frightened noise, but she went down without another word. They huddled at the base of the pillar, watching Vince as he lined up his rifle.

The seminarian grimaced and pulled the trigger. Without the buffer of the smog, the gunfire was loud and fierce, booming around the little pocket of space around the column. He fired three shots before swiveling on his heel, lining up again and firing two more shots. Before he pulled the trigger for a sixth time, bullets started tearing through the air above her. Two hit the pillar, and bits of stone rained down on them. Nym grabbed onto Penny, moaning a wordless cry of fear as they shielded each other’s heads with their arms.

Vince stumbled in place, and the barrel of his rifle fell for a moment before he lined up again, firing five more quick shots. Another pause, and the gun fell limply to his side. “They’re down,” he said in a strained voice before falling heavily onto his rear. His free hand pressed itself shakily to his side.

Loria was the first on her feet, dashing over to kneel beside him. “You’re hit?” she asked, taking the gun from him and setting it off to the side. Nym scrambled upright, and Penny was just behind her.

Vince lifted his hand from his side. It was slick with blood. Penny gasped, and Nym swallowed back bile. “It’s fine,” he said. “I think the bullet went all the way through.” His hand went down again, though Nym could see that blood was soaking into the dark cloth of his vestments.

“Fine?” Penny cried. “You got shot!”

“She’s right, Vince,” Loria said. “I’m not sure if fine is the correct word.”

“Okay, maybe so,” the seminarian replied with a strained smile. “But I’ll live. Go back to the pillar – that’s why we’re here, after all.” He shifted his weight, wincing as he looked around into the smoke. “I’m going to pull back the smog. I think we’re clear, and I get the feeling that we should see what’s going on throughout the hall. Plus, it’s kind of hard to focus on my Gift right now.”

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“Of course,” Loria said, scooping up the discarded firearm in one hand. She paid Penny and Nym a hard look. “He’s right about the pillar. We have no idea how long until things start exploding.”

“Won’t be long now,” Vince said as the smog started to dissipate around them. “The fight has stabilized enough that if the terrorists don’t act soon, they’ll be overwhelmed.” Nym blinked – it had only been a a couple of minutes since they’d left the security of the Headmistress’s bubble, but she supposed things moved quickly on the battlefield.

With Vince’s covering smoke gone, sight and sound of the battle returned. Nym’s eyes widened as the chaos of the battle slammed back into her. She spotted clusters of people huddled behind toppled tables and railings as throngs of teachers and guests fought the black-clad terrorists around them. The floor of the banquet was pockmarked with holes where spears of stone had been pulled through the wood flooring. Flaming projectiles shot through the air, igniting the curtains and wall-hangings that dangled at the edges of the hallway. It was difficult to tell at first glance, but her instincts told her Vince was right. Wherever she looked, the teachers seemed to be pushing the terrorists back. The midair fight between the Sentinel and one of the terrorists was over, though platforms of ice were still suspended above them. As for the battle at the front of the hall, it was difficult to assess. The haze of that fight had begun to spread, and even looking in that direction sent her head aching. She hoped that was a good thing.

Loria smacked her back suddenly, jolting her from her observations. “Heads up, Nym. Bigger things to worry about.”

“Right,” Nym replied. “Sorry.” She spun towards the pillar, pressing her hand on the marble. Doing her best to ignore the shouting, gunfire, and explosions around her, she reached out with her Gift to get a feel for the material. Frowning in concentration, she probed the marble. She was surprised to find that, rather than a single large piece of stone, the column was actually a stack of identically-carved disks of stone that had been slotted on top of each other. There was a hole in the middle of all these columns, and a thick bar of metal shot up through the middle, like a spool. Someone had fused the slabs together on the surface to make it look like a single, giant trunk of marble, but the fusion was only superficial, and the gaps remained beneath. Experimentally, she poked at that gap. Normally, she used her Gift to twist and tug whatever she was manipulating. This time, she instead willed the pieces to merge, and she was shocked by how easily they did so. In the back of her mind, Nym felt a pang of frustration – somehow, Cliff knew her Gift better than she did.

She looked away from the pillar, leaving her Gift probing its depths but pulling back her concentration. Penny was beside her, similarly focused on the marble in front of them. While she was looking into the pillar, a pair of people Nym identified as teachers had joined them. One was speaking to Loria in hushed tones while the other tended to Vince’s wound.

Noticing her attention, Loria frowned at her. “Is something wrong, Nym?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s just–” She wanted to complain about the tension of waiting for the Cliff’s prediction to happen, but the words died on her lips when a hundred explosions suddenly rocked the banquet hall. The chaos of the fight was suddenly drowned out by the thunderous peppering of booms of various sizes, like a fireworks display going off all at once. Her eyes shot up, and she was momentarily blinded by a plume of flame. Then she shockwave hit them, threatening to knock her to her knees.

She felt the marble cracking through her Gift, and next to her, Penny shrieked. Her jaw clenched, and she started sticking pieces of marble back together. The next few seconds stretched to an eternity as she felt Penny’s Gift straining against the tons of stone suspended in the air above her. At first, it felt like trying to reassemble a shattered pane of glass by lining up the shards – too slow. Her frustration boiled, and instead she seized a handful of chunks of marble with her Gift and simply told them to combine. It worked, and they came together in a slightly-misshapen whole.

It was still too slow. She felt the metal spool at the center of the pillar starting to warp, and she lost a chunk of marble as Penny’s Gift began to fail. Faster. She moved as quickly as she could with her Gift, climbing up the column as she fused the marble back together. With the last shreds of her focus, she pushed up, trying to take some of the weight off Penny’s Gift. She didn’t know if it was helping, but it was better than doing nothing – her Gift was losing sight of more and more pieces of rock as they fell away from Penny’s suspension, and she didn’t know how many more could be lost before the pillar would collapse outright.

The column threatened to buckle, and Nym leaned her full weight into her Gift, streaking up the pillar with as much strength as she could muster. Suddenly, instead of marble, she felt the plaster ceiling, and beyond it the metal scaffolding of the building. She blinked, and tugged her Gift back down into marble, searching for cracks. It was warped, and there were chunks missing, but the marble was once again whole.

She took a deep breath, stumbling backwards from the pillar as she pulled back her Gift. Her eyes shot up and down the marble, and she was waiting for a new chorus of cracks to appear. A second passed, and then another. No new cracks. It seemed like it was holding. She fell back, sitting down hard as her eyes darted around the room. Near the front of the hall, she could see the last remnants of a tear in space. The terrorists had attacked the Hierophant through it – whatever it was – and if it was closing, she guessed that they were retreating. She also spotted where several other columns had crumbled to the ground. Looking up at the ceiling, she swallowed, expecting the building to give out at any second. Seconds passed, and, though the building continued to groan as the last ripples of the wave of explosions rocked through it, there was no avalanche of sound as the ceiling gave out and the room collapsed.

In fact, in the wake of the explosions, things seemed to be oddly quiet around the banquet hall. A quick scan of the hall made it obvious why. All the black-clad terrorists had suddenly collapsed where they stood, falling to the ground.

Someone grabbed her under the armpits, pulling her upwards. She struggled in surprise until she realized it was Loria. A teacher was beside them, pulling Penny to her feet. Nym’s eyes widened when she saw that blood was leaking out of her roommates nose and mouth – she’d overexerted her Gift.

“Good work,” Loria said. “We should be going, though, I don’t know how–”

She cut off, and Nym felt a tickle at the top of her spine. “Guests, Teachers, Students. With that final round of explosions, it seems that the terrorists have retreated. Thanks to the heroic efforts of our teachers and students, the worst case scenario has been prevented, but we do not know how long the building will hold before its structural integrity is compromised. Please evacuate from the banquet hall as soon as possible. If you are capable, please help the injured on their way out of the hall.” There was a pause. "And please ignore the collapsed figures on the ground. It seems they were constructs, controlled by one of the other terrorists. Now that they are gone, the dolls wearing black should be no threat." Nym blinked. Constructs? Sure enough, none of the black-clad terrorists – dolls, she guessed, not people – were moving. Before she had a chance to think about that, she saw a distortion of space at the center of the room as the Headmistress's isolated bubble rejoined the rest of the banquet hall. “We–” she sputtered, “we survived.”

Loria still had a grip under her arms, and she started tugging her towards the hall’s entrance. “We did,” she said. “If you want to keep it that way, let’s get out of here before the whole building comes down.”

***

She hadn’t realized how much she was sweating until she came out into the cold evening. Another surprise was the number of aches up and down her body. Apparently, she’d gotten pretty banged up in the chaos of the attack, and she hadn’t even realized it.

As soon as they stepped outside, the professors had carted off Vince and Penny to deal with their injuries, leaving Loria and Nym to limp their way over to the mass of students, milling about outside the banquet hall after evacuation.

Jenna found them almost immediately, wrapping them both in a tight hug that sent a chorus of pain across Nym’s ribs. “You’re okay,” she said, stepping back to look them over. “Where’s Penny?”

“Um,” Nym replied numbly. Her mind was still about fifteen steps behind, somewhere inside the marble pillar, patching up holes.

Thankfully, Loria was on top of things as usual. “One of the teachers took her – I think she pushed herself too far with her Gift.” She paused. “Vince got shot, too.”

“What? Shot?” Jenna cried. “Is he okay?”

Loria shrugged, her eyes unfocused, and Nym realized that her team’s commander was not quite as put together as she seemed. “I think he’ll be fine,” Nym offered.

“Right,” Loria said. “Sorry. I’m a bit–” She cut off with a frown, like she couldn’t exactly explain how she was feeling. Nym understood.

Jenna looked between the two of them for a moment before shaking her head. “As long as he’s okay. Come on, the others are by the front.” She inserted herself between the two of them, wrapping them each with an arm and supporting their weight as she led them into the crowd of students.

Just as they’d left them, Cliff, Thalos, and the others were near the Headmistress. Despite the fact that the danger had passed, Thalos still looked absolutely terrified, sitting on the ground with his knees tucked to his chest. Cliff, on the other hand, had an antsy look about him as he tried to listen in on the professors' hushed conversation. He was distracted from his eavesdropping at the sight of them, and only a chiding look from Jenna stopped him from wrapping the three of them in a hug. “They’re hurting,” Jenna explained, “and in shock. No hugs.” It was a little hypocritical, considering she’d just about bruised Nym’s ribs with her own hug, but she was too dazed to make a point about it.

“I’ll bet,” Cliff said with a chuckle. “I’ve got to tell you, just standing there – it was a – but, well, I don’t have to tell you about–” He shook his head. “I was watching you guys, when I could see you through the smoke. And I saw the column after things settled down. You did a real bang-up job.” His eyes jumped between Loria and Nym. “Penny’s okay?”

“She hurt herself overexerting her Gift,” Jenna explained.

Cliff clicked his tongue. “I was afraid of that,” he muttered. “Still, she got the job done, right? Saved a hell of a lot of lives with it.”

Nym frowned at that. It would have been nice if he had warned them about his fear – but then, would it have changed anything? They still would have gone to hold up the pillar, even with the added risk. Maybe it was better he didn’t warn Penny, as the warning might have only stretched her nerves even thinner. Still, if he knew there was a chance the strain would be too much for them– “Hey Cliff,” she said. He looked at her, his eyebrow going up. “How could you be so confident that we'd pull it off? I mean, even with your Gift – I didn’t know if I could stick things together. How can you trust me when it’s the first time I even tried something like that?”

Cliff blinked. “That’s simple,” he said with a shrug. “My Gift let’s me know things better than most folk. Thanks to its help, I know what your Gift can do. But more than that, I know what was on the line, and I know you. It’s easy to be confident when you know so much.”

She blinked, and she suddenly had the feeling that, somewhere in what he’d just said was the core of Cliff’s personality. Before she had a chance to consider this, though, a murmur rippled through the crowd, and she turned to see a throng of magepriests coming towards the Headmistress. The Hierophant was at their head, flanked on either shoulder by the Sentinels. The blue-haired one looked a little worse for wear, but the other – as well as the Hierophant herself – appeared to have been completely isolated from the chaos of the fighting.

“Your Holiness,” the Headmistress said with a bow of her head. “I’m thrilled to see you are alright. I’m not sure it means much, in the wake of such a disaster, but I’m deeply apologetic that there was such a lapse of security on my watch.”

The Hierophant waved a hand in front of her. “Esmer, please, none of that.” She stepped close to the Headmistress, grabbing both of the older woman’s hands in hers. “If anything, it’s I who owe you an apology, as I was clearly the target of these terrorists. Honestly, I leave Crestfall for the first time in years, and this happens–” She cut off with a frown and a shake of her head.

“Be that as it may,” the Headmistress countered, “as soon as you stepped foot onto my Academy grounds, your safety became my responsibility.” There was a pause as two of the most powerful people in the country looked at each other, then the Headmistress sighed. “But I suppose we could go back and forth on this forever. Is there anything specific that you need? Otherwise I would like to get to organizing our response.”

The Hierophant’s eyes drifted across the student body, dazed and watching the conversation. “The apology was part of it,” she said. “And next, another apology, for stealing away one of your professors.” She pulled away from the Headmistress, turning suddenly to look beyond her. “Templar Roose.” A moment passed, and the Apprentice Couriers’ exhausted-looking advisor popped out of the crowd of teachers. Dried blood caked his face, his hair was a mess, and his vestments had been torn to pieces and hung off him like shredded rags. Still, Nym was happy to see that he appeared uninjured.

The Hierophant watched him as he drew close. When he was only a step away from her, he took a deep breath, and the exhaustion vanished from his posture, replaced with granite determination. He fell to one knee in front of her. “Your Holiness.”

The Hierophant reached into her robe, pulling forth a medallion. It shined in the evening sunlight, and she held it over Roose’s head. “Templar Roose, the Cry of the Damned, are you ready to carry out your duties as a sword of the Church?” As she spoke, the weight of ceremony descended on the crowd, and her words carried around with supernatural purpose. By the time she finished her question, there was not another sound to be heard.

Roose’s words rang with similar insistence. “I am.” He raised his hands, gently pinching her medallion between his fingers.

“I, Hierophant of Gaeon and seat of the Church in Marifond, the inheritor of the Goddess’s will, order you to pursue those that would threaten me and risk the peace of the realm. Track down the enemies of the Church and, like a rapier of Gaeon’s light, pierce the very heart of night.”

“Yes, Holiness.” When he said those words, a ripple of magic shot out from the medallion, carrying over the crowd like wave across water. And as he rose to his feet, Roose seemed to be transformed. It was not a physical transformation, but as he stood, she saw little of her exhausted teacher. In his place there was something like a hunting dog. No, not a dog, she decided. A weapon. A sword, pointed squarely at the terrorists who had attacked the Harvest Dance.

Without another word, he turned and started walking. As he passed by Nym and the other Apprentice Couriers, he paused, and for a moment, the tired teacher returned. “I heard what you did in there – good work,” he said softly. “Give my apologies to everyone else. I don’t believe I’ll be able to return to class anytime soon.”

Nym blinked, but before she could think of how to respond, he had already returned to his long walk alone, headed wherever he had to go to accomplish his mission. Everyone in the crowd watched as he slowly shrank into the distance.

"Finally," the Hierophant said, pulling the crowds attention back. "A small favor from me to you all, to hopefully ease your weariness slightly." She raised a hand above her. A shining mist billowed out from her palm, carrying out the crowd and sprinkling down on them like a flurry of pearlescent snowflakes. "My Gift will allow you all to sleep soundly tonight."

"A fine favor, indeed," The Headmsitress responded reverently as the crowd stared up at the twinkling magic in awed silence.

The weight of the ritual persisted, broken only when a loud, angry creaking emerged from the banquet hall.

As one, the entire crowd turned to watch the now-evacuated banquet hall finally collapse under its compromised structure. The sound of buckling wood and fracturing stone filled evening as the building crumbled in front of them.

“Well,” Cliff muttered darkly when the sound of the destruction had faded. “Wasn’t this a hell of a way to end the Harvest Festival?”