Chapter 11

None of the students died, although it took several days for all of them to be fully healed; there were so many more wounds than healers able to treat them.

They were told in home room the next day by an uncharacteristically serious Ms. Lopez that there had not been one group of riders, but two, and the Night Patrol had not at first realized this. That explained why it had taken so long for outside help to reach the dining hall.

The riders themselves had gotten away, though two had died. The two that Cadmarius had fought.

This was, apparently, a very unusual event at the school. While wanderers from other worlds showed up repeatedly, such a large group was very rare.

“As such,” Ms. Lopez said flatly, “We’ll be instituting tighter curfews until this large group has been caught and sent back to wherever they came from.” They would be escorted by teachers and Night Patrol as soon as dusk hit to the dining halls, and then they would be escorted back to their respective dormitories. They were not allowed to leave their particular floors until morning bell, at which point they were to go straight to the dining hall for breakfast, and then to class.

“We’ll be eating out on the campus green,” Ms. Lopez continued over the groans of the students, “Until the windows have been repaired.”

The sword found this new schedule much more to his liking. Every moment of the day he knew where he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing. It was clear he was the only one who felt this way, so he didn’t say anything to anyone else, especially not Arthur, who was incensed by the curfew despite the fact it hardly affected him at all.

“I mean, how long is this supposed to last?” He asked.

“But…you can’t leave your room regardless,” the sword said, puzzled. As he understood it, Arthur was locked into his room right after dinner, and only released for breakfast and classes. Even more restricted than the other students.

Arthur made a face, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

This did not make much sense to the sword, but he didn’t try to understand further. Sometimes asking more questions just made things worse.

And Arthur had been in a bad mood ever since the battle. The sword wasn’t sure why, though it seemed partly it was because he had still gotten in trouble despite his claims of self-defense.

“I told you to stay put,” Cadmarius had said in his slow way. “Ignoring instructions is very bad, Arthur. You have to be better.”

So the sword went about the next week feeling even more distant from the rest of the class than usual, as the curfew made everyone grumpier, and the sword himself more at ease.

It was the sixth, or perhaps the seventh night of the new state of affairs, and the sword was spending his evening in the usual way. Not sleeping of course, he still had no idea at all how to sleep, and when it happened, it snuck up on him without warning. Just staring out his narrow window, watching the different colors of the night that were the narrow tree and its leafed branches swaying in the night breeze.

Someone knocked on his door.

He ignored it.

This had happened a few times, but it was just a student who had gotten the wrong room, looking for their friend elsewhere on the floor. No one was looking for the sword.

The knock game again. “I know you can hear me, open the door!”

A whisper. Pitched so that it was impossible to tell who it was.

But they sounded certain.

The sword stood up, and opened the door to find Arthur waiting for him, holding a glass container, sides obscured by condensation.

“Let me in, quick!” Arthur said, and the sword stepped aside. Arthur took a moment to peer once more out into the hall, which was very empty, it must be quite late at this point. Then he shut the door quickly, bracing his back against it as it clicked shut.

“Whew! What a rush!” He said.

“Uh, what are you doing here?” The sword asked.

“I’m bored,” Arthur said. “And desperate.”

“Does talking to me make you less bored?” The sword asked.

“Oh absolutely,” Arthur said, “It’s similar to talking to inanimate objects, but you at least talk back, and I’ve already conversed with everything in my own room.”

“But…you’re breaking the curfew,” the sword said, “we’re not supposed to do that.” Even as he said that he remembered that Arthur generally did not seem to take the rules as seriously as he did, unless of course Cadmarius made a special point to force him into obeying them. So he probably really had just gotten bored, and had wanted to go somewhere else.

But that raised another question he couldn’t answer as easily. “And how did you get out? I thought your rooms were warded.”

Arthur grinned, moving to take over the sword’s single chair, placing his glass box onto the desk, shoving aside the sword’s untouched pile of homework. “Trade secret,” he said. “Want a dumpling? I cadged a few extras at dinner. They’re pretty good even if they’re cold.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“Figured you’d say that,” Arthur said agreeably, and popped a plump dumpling into his mouth.

“This curfew is intolerable,” he said between bites. “No one’s even seen one of these lizards. They probably all just went home after they couldn’t find any treasure. I heard its usually just bandits who take a wrong turn on a mountain road.”

The sword asked, “How do they get home?” It was a question that had been bothering him for many days, although he had not asked it of anyone.

Arthur ate another dumpling.

“Cosmology bores me,” he said after he’d swallowed. “I used to have other people to worry about that stuff.”

The sword didn’t say anything, but something about his face clearly portrayed his confusion.

Arthur ate another dumpling, and didn’t quite finish chewing before he started talking again. “We align with some worlds, some times. When we do its at places like Crossroads. We must be aligned with the lizard world. Probably for a few more weeks and then it’ll be some other set of weirdos who wander in.”

“But…” the sword was confused, but decided it was better just to ask what he really wanted to know. “Does that mean I can go back?”

Arthur froze, the next dumpling halfway to his lips.

The sword had seen a number of smiles, manic smiles, terrified smiles, smiles of relief, of hunger.

He would categorize the smile Arthur gave him as he carefully put the dumpling back into the container as the smile of a man who was about to die. “No,” Arthur said quietly. “No it doesn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because no one really knows how alignment works. What worlds are adjacent to which,” Arthur said in the same quiet voice. “And there’s too many of them. Earth is probably close to at most twelve other worlds, the odds those twelve are one of yours is…small.”

The ferocious need that had siezed the sword let him go abruptly, leaving him feeling wrung out and dirty.

Blunt.

Rusted.

Brittle.

Arthur ate his dumpling, and some of the usual acidity returned to his voice. “I don’t think even the gods really know how it works. Oh they always say they do when I ask them, but do you really think if they could grab people from any world they wanted whenever they wanted they’d actually choose to summon pimple faced tweens?”

“I guess not,” the sword said, though he had the feeling this was the kind of question that didn’t need to be answered.

Awkward silence between them, but before it could go on too long, Arthur said, “someone’s at the door.”

“It’s another lost student,” the sword said disinterestedly. “It’s happened a lot this week. That’s who I thought you were at first.”

But unlike all the previous times this had happened, there was no knock at the door. Instead there was a rasping sound, and a small white envelope appeared in the crack between door and floor.

The sword walked over and opened the door, but there was no one on the other side. No one in sight in the hallway either.

He closed the door and picked up the envelope. On the back was written a string of even, neat letters that he recognized as his name.

“At last, something interesting!” Arthur said. “What does it say? Come on, tell me. Especially if it’s a love letter.”

The sword returned to his seat on the bed, and opened the letter. It was short, but he still had trouble putting the first few words together.

“It’s a love letter isn’t it?” Arthur said. “I knew it. Girls love a bit of personified violence, and here you are, a literal weapon in human flesh. Maybe she has a friend? [Demon Lords] are pretty bad too, you know. Maybe the social pressure of watching you two engage in a passionate affair will lower the decision making threshold a few points.”

“I don’t know what it is,” the sword said.

“Huh?”

“I can’t read it.”

“What, still?”

“…Yeah.” The sword looked away. He found his reading lessons particularly annoying, and hard to pay attention in. He didn’t want to see what Arthur thought of that.

“Well shoot man, I can read, hand it over.”

“You just want to find out if it’s a love letter.”

Arthur grinned, stretched out his hand. After another moment, the sword handed the letter over.

Arthur flipped the piece of paper over and read the whole thing at an astonishing pace the sword couldn’t even imagine matching. Then he flung the paper back to the sword and let out a whoop so loud it made the sword flinch.

“It’s an invitation!”

“To what?”

“A party! A real party! At last, something interesting!”

“But…the curfew.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Who cares about the curfew? You’ve been invited, we have to go.”

“Who invited me to a party?” The sword asked, puzzled.

“I don’t know, but this is an invitation with your name on it. Starts in an half an hour out back behind the practice yard. We’re leaving in ten!”

“I don’t want to go. It’s against the rules.”

In the end, they went to the party.

It was a terrible mistake.