“Please,” I cried, “I can’t go back. I can’t. Don’t send me back.”
Harriet’s lids fell onto his cheeks. He sighed when he looked back at the gate. As we walked outside, it screeched and locked itself behind us.
Harriet had a proud look on his face, almost adoring and while he kept a calming presence, my head burned through. The tears had stopped.
“Officially, the gate is now of paper instead of stone but the vintage way should still work.”
I looked at him puzzled, following his gaze.
It was gigantic.
Black stones and tree trunks were woven into each other, surrounded by an iron frame. They showed signs of axe-wounds and fire damage. In the middle, an orb was floating. Its toxic glow spewed to all sides. Perhaps poison.
“You seem desperate enough to try. If you succeed, you have earned your right to stay and not even the council can take it away from you. The rules of Tholome Di Centi revealed themselves as unchangeable,” he said, gave me a nod and stretched out his hand toward the orb.
My gut decided to grab for it since I had nothing to lose.
It pierced my fingers with ice until they cooked with heat as I came closer to the core. I would have opened my mouth in pain but was worried that the last bits of my strength would escape with my breath. I had endured worse and didn’t let go of the sphere. When the heat vanished, dreadful moments of my life flashed before my eyes as if I was reliving them.
Storming through the memories forced upon me, I knew what I would see: The tight grip around my wrists. First, with hands, then, with a rope. Behind me blared laughter, but it was a different kind of pain.
I clenched my knees and fell to the ground. The last thing I saw was the inside of the gate mixed with vanishing shadows of my memories.
“I finally made it,” I said, and passed out.
3. Moon-Face
Light beamed through the white linen curtains of the infirmary. I awoke with a fizzle in my ears and noticed Professor Harriet sitting at a table nearby.
When I struggled to get up, a woman, dressed as white as the curtains, rushed to my side. She must have been a nurse even though her attire confused me. Blue was a nurses’ colour. Had always been. But no more. Urai’s rules did not apply here.
“Slowly, slowly,” she whispered and helped me sit upright.
“It worked,” the Professor said and sent her away to get me a meal. The first in two days. The anticipation gave me strength, I straightened up.
Please, let it be anything but dried beans.
After Harriet lit a cigarette he handed the box over to me but I declined since I only smoked on occasions. It gave off a nutty odour instead of the sweet Sosden smell I knew.
“You fainted as soon as you passed through. I suppose many did, those who entered through Tholome’s lock. I didn’t know what to expect, but the gate accepted you. That’s what really counts.”
The nurse appeared with a tray in her hands and the odour of onion soup made me drool. He smiled at her without showing his crooked teeth.
“Myrn knows how to work her spells. Her soup will make you jump by the time you’re done,” he said.
Struggling to understand his words, my confused face spoke for me.
“I imagine you have a lot of questions. I will answer as many of them as I can. After your meal, of course.”
Indeed, I had an infinite amount of questions. They all whirled inside my head. Before I dug into the soup, I had to ask, “So, I made it? I can stay?”
By nodding, Harriet launched the feast.
As I gulped down the last bits of broth, the control over my limbs came back. My vision cleared up again, and I stretched my body, nearly hopping out of bed. Myrn's onion soup had a greater effect than anticipated and energized me from within.
I focused my eyes on Harriet and forgot the questions that rushed through my mind just a few minutes ago.
“I’ll start. Does that sound all right?” he ruffled his paperwork.
I jerked my head and leaned in, glimpsing my name on the sheet.
“Tholome’s lock is an ancient protection tool. It’s designed to read your past, to see if you should gain access. It hasn’t been used for over a hundred years. Some tried, of course, with no success,” he explained.
“Why did it let me in then?”
Professor Harriet shrugged his shoulders. “You tell me. It’s the first time I’ve seen it. I didn’t expect it to work right away.”
He lit a cigarette immediately after putting out his current one and proceeded. “Even though the refuge was reformed, the spirit remains. It’s above every other law and can’t be altered. Over time, the council found ways to open the gate manually but nothing changed. They can’t ban you from the campus now, the gate will open every time you touch it.”
As much as I strove for progress, I was glad the ancient rules still applied. Northern traditions seemed more rational and useful.
“Will they try to get rid of me anyway?” I asked.
“No. At least not for a while,” Professor Harriet smiled. “I smoothed things over and filled out the paperwork while you recovered. You’re incredibly lucky.”
It relieved me to be alive after passing the gate, but Harriet chuckled and I sensed that he wasn’t talking about entering through the lock anymore.
“What about my grandfather?” I asked.
The Professor laughed out loud. “Grandfather? I didn’t know Gerogy had descendants or a woman. He was my first Professor and my Tutor after I graduated. As a student, you wouldn’t imagine that the teachers have lives beside academy duties. I don’t. But now I know that others do.”
He sighed, put out his cigarette and leaned back with crossed arms. “It’s like he knew you’d come,” he added.
“How so?”
“He left too many coins in his vault. It belongs to you
