by B. T. Narro
In the bright morning sun, the master chemist’s hair seemed more gray than usual. Steffen remembered there being streaks before. But now it seemed that half his head was covered, and the gray was closer to white. His charcoal-colored skin seemed to shine, and that’s when Steffen noticed that he was smiling.
Maybe I’m not in trouble?
Jack wrapped his arm around Steffen’s shoulders. “This is the young man I was speaking of,” he told the crowd of chemists. “Steffen was sent to the Slugari colony with Terren and the others, and Terren has already informed me what plants were found thanks to Steffen being able to recognize them.” Jack removed his arm and whispered, “Sit down with the others.”
Steffen practically ran to the rows of wooden bleachers ahead of him as the master chemist continued.
“The caregelow does exist,” Jack said proudly, “and we have the seeds to grow them on our own now.”
The crowd applauded, and that’s when Steffen found Marratrice at the top row. She looked to be seated by herself.
He smiled and plopped down next to her, relieved not only to be behind everyone, but to see her again.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, leaning over for a hug. “You’re sweaty.”
“Sorry.”
She grinned, her front teeth coming down on her lip thanks to her adorable overbite. “I was just teasing you. I don’t care.” She brushed her red hair behind her shoulder, and then Steffen saw the bandage on her wrist. There was one on her ankle as well.
“What happened?” he asked.
But Jack Rose was talking, and Marratrice seemed to be listening.
“I’ll tell you later,” she whispered. Her tone seemed grave, as if the injuries were far worse than they appeared.
Steffen let it out of his mind for the moment.
“The Slugari have given us many different seeds,” Jack announced. “Each will be planted among the other crops, and just like usual, no students will be allowed to pick the plants. The instructors will take care of them. When they’ve grown big enough to melt and use for potions, we’ll initiate experiments. I know we’re all excited to see if the rumors are true about the caregelow plant, but please remain patient and don’t go into the crop fields or you’ll receive a severe punishment.”
With his breath back to normal and his body calm, Steffen realized how hungry he was. He hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast, and there was something about the aroma coming from Marratrice that reminded him of strawberries.
But then Jack said something that shattered every feeling but fear.
“Steffen will now come back down here and tell us about the Slugari colony.” Jack was first to applaud, everyone soon following suit.
Steffen tried to come up with an excuse, but he realized there was no talking his way out of it. They did deserve to hear about everything he’d seen. Except for what happened to Vithos. I can’t discuss that with a crowd. I don’t even speak about it with Reela.
When the applause stopped, Steffen realized he didn’t know where to begin.
Standing beside him, Jack asked, “You know their language, right? You know Slugaren?”
“Not that well,” Steffen answered. But apparently his voice wasn’t loud enough. Jack pointed to the audience and turned Steffen to face them.
“Tell them, not me,” he said.
“I don’t know it that well,” Steffen repeated, louder this time.
Someone in the back stood. “I can’t hear you,” the student complained.
“Shout it,” Jack told Steffen.
“I don’t know Slugaren that well!” Steffen yelled.
There was a heavy silence. Steffen felt an itch on his cheek. He scratched, hoping this wasn’t going as badly as it really seemed.
“Terren already told me that the Slugari didn’t allow you to take notes,” Jack said. “But do you remember what plants they had and if they really used the caregelow’s light to feed them?”
“I do,” Steffen answered.
Jack pointed him to the audience. “Tell them.”
“I do!” Steffen yelled.
“You do what?” Jack asked.
“I know most of the plants they had,” Steffen said, “but there were some I didn’t recognize.”
Jack forcefully turned him to the audience. “And speak louder,” the master chemist said, now somewhat frustrated.
Steffen felt embarrassed that he couldn’t seem to remember this simple instruction. He found himself having trouble thinking as he tried to focus on projecting his voice, already forgetting the question he was just asked.
Everyone’s eyes were on him, judging. It felt like his skin was peeling off. It had been slow at first, but now it was coming undone at an alarming rate. A burning sensation came with it that seemed to be a cross between shame and fear.
“What was the question?” Steffen yelled to the audience, his voice cracking.
He felt Jack’s hand come onto his back. “It’s alright, Steffen. You can tell me everything later and then I can pass on the important information to the other instructors. Go sit back down.”
At first, Steffen was too embarrassed to move. He’d completely failed. But somehow he managed to get his feet unstuck and return to the benches, joining Marratrice once again.
How is it possible that I feel ready for battle but speaking in front of hundreds of people terrifies me?
“It wasn’t so bad,” Marratrice lied.
Still, Steffen appreciated her saying it. “Thank you.”
Steffen remembered with a gasp that she’d been taking care of his rat, Leonard. “I’ve been so busy I forgot,” he whispered, half to himself.
It looked as if Marratrice had heard him and even knew he was referring to Leonard. Yet, she now seemed to be avoiding his gaze, her head pointed toward her lap.
Steffen was confused. “Is something wrong?”
But a shout from Jack Rose stopped her from answering.
“It’s time for conditioning. Everyone up. Let’s go!” Jack kept yelling as the chemists grumbled and made their way to the base of the stadium.
Steffen was concerned that his lack of food would cause his body to be sluggish. But a few minutes after they started running, Steffen realized that he was in far better shape than the last time he was at the Academy. While everyone else was huffing loudly, Steffen simply felt hungry.
He noticed Marratrice was the only student of hundreds who was still sitting on one of the benches that wrapped around the circular stadium. She was talking with their teacher, Chemist Leandra.
She must be too injured to run, Steffen realized, now extremely curious about what could’ve happened to her within the walls of the Academy. It wasn’t as if battle training for chemists involved duels. They did train with swords, both attacking and defending, but they never fought each other with the same ferocity that Steffen had seen among the warriors when they trained.
Jack started choosing chemists at random to answer hypothetical situations in regard to a battle. He told the men and women what potions were available on their chemist’s belt—a new invention since the threat of war. Then Jack would describe the scenario.
Worn around the waist, the belt had four small straps for glass vials, allowing chemists to carry four different potions into the field while keeping their hands free.
There were one hundred and fifty chemists per grade and three grades in the school. Steffen always had taken battle training with his small class of twenty-five, but every chemist student and teacher was here at Redfield with him now, and it seemed that all the teachers were content to let the master chemist treat this like a class.
Or this could be a test. Maybe Jack just wants to see how the teachers are doing with us.
Steffen liked his teacher, so he felt even more pressure to answer correctly when Jack called on him to answer the next hypothetical scenario.
“Steffen, the only vial you have left is filled with a fire potion.”
He smiled
with pride. The fire potion was something he’d come up with, showing it to the master chemist during one of their meetings before Steffen was sent north to look for the Slugari colony.
Unlike Steffen’s growth potion, Jack remained enthusiastic about sharing the discovery with the other teachers.
And he must have done so while I was gone for him to bring it up now.
Jack’s biggest worry about the fire potion was students accidentally hurting each other with it instead of Krepps. Steffen figured there’d been training to help prevent this.
If so, I need to catch up. He’d never had much control over the fireball he could cast shortly after drinking the golden-red concoction.
“You’ve gone too far,” Jack continued, “and now you’ve been enclosed by fighting in every direction. A warrior falls beside you. The Krepp who cut him down has you as his next target. What do you do?”
“Drink the fire potion and shoot the Krepp with the fireball,” Steffen answered. “While he’s stunned, I grab the fallen warrior’s sword and kill the Krepp. Then I retreat to the recovery building where I can restock potions.”
The recovery building was the designated location during battle where the injured were to be brought. A team of skilled chemists would take care of the injured, while other chemists would replenish potions for those on the front lines.
When Steffen first learned about chemists being involved in battle, he couldn’t understand what a chemist was supposed to do against an enemy with a sword. But after his experience fighting on the Fjallejon Mountains and within the Slugari colony, he realized that war was far from one-on-one combat, and there was plenty a chemist could do.
But Jack didn’t seem to like his answer. The instructor’s eyes were slits and his mouth bent downward, looking as if he was having trouble figuring out what to say.
“Wouldn’t the fireball from the fire potion kill the Krepp?” a student asked.
Steffen waited for Jack to answer, but he was silent.
Is he waiting for me to tell the student about the Krepps’ tough skin? Then Steffen felt his heart flutter as he realized something. No one here knows that a fireball isn’t enough to kill a Krepp.
“The Krepp who came back with us, Zoke, he was struck by two fireballs from Tenred mages and he lived,” Steffen told his schoolmate.
A wave of murmurs spread along the line of students. Some of the teachers watching from the benches stood and expressed their surprise.
“Were they weak mages?” Jack asked in a hopeful tone.
“No. I saw their fireballs. Each was about the size of my torso.”
“You must’ve seen wrong,” a student blurted.
“I didn’t. Zoke jumped in front of one to save me. When I close my eyes, I can still see it barreling toward me.”
“Did Terren see this?” Jack asked.
“No,” Steffen answered, realizing then that it might be harder than he thought to convince them of the truth. “But I wasn’t the only one to witness it.”
A silence fell upon them. Steffen looked to the teachers seated along the benches. They were huddled together, whispering to each other.
Meanwhile, Jack had a hand on his chin. He was studying Steffen with a fierce gaze.
“Terren will confirm the toughness of their skin,” Steffen said. “Or just touch Zoke next time you see him.”
Actually, that’s a terrible idea, Steffen realized right away. He couldn’t imagine Zoke taking kindly to strangers touching him. But it was too late to correct his unfortunate suggestion. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.
“Quiet!” Jack raised his arms to get their attention.
The teachers along the benches were last to quiet down.
“We’re stopping for now,” Jack continued. “Meet in your usual classrooms after lunch. You’re dismissed.”
Sneaking glances, students around Steffen seemed as if they had questions they weren’t sure they wanted to ask him. But Jack called him over before any did.
He put his arm around Steffen’s shoulders to turn him away from everyone passing by them. “I would like to speak with you later, Steffen. Come by after lunch. I’ll tell Leandra that you won’t be there for her lessons.”
He nodded, and then Jack joined the group of those leaving.
Steffen hoped Marratrice hadn’t left yet. Luckily, she’d been slow to descend the benches of Redfield. He caught up before she made it out of the stadium.
She showed him a smile, but her pain was evident along the bend of her red lips. Steffen noticed her limp next.
“Can I help?” He offered his arm.
“I’ll be fine,” Marratrice said.
“Will you tell me what happened?”
She looked over her shoulder at the students to her side. Turning back, she lowered her voice. “I’ve done something terrible.”
Steffen didn’t believe that she was capable. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
She made a fist. “It’s not nothing!”
Her burst of anger surprised him enough to take a step away from her as they walked abreast. I’ve been back less than a day and my insensitivity already has offended someone.
“What happened?” Steffen asked, trying to sound apologetic.
Her gaze was locked to the dirt below their feet. “Your rat Leonard…he’s dead. I killed him.”
“You killed him?” Steffen blurted, realizing only afterward how loud he’d been. His voice had caught the attention of a few others walking by.
“I’m so sorry, Steffen.” Marratrice looked as if she was about to cry. Or more accurately, it seemed as if she’d already shed many tears from this and was only now able to hold them back.
She stumbled, falling to her knees. With both palms flat on the ground, she looked content to stay there for a while.
Steffen was trying to figure out how he felt. This news about Leonard had done little to upset him, making him realize that he was more concerned about Marratrice than anything else.
“What happened?” Steffen noticed then that she had started to cry. He tried to help her up, but she wouldn’t stand.
“I never weep like this. I’m so embarrassed.” She made no effort to hide her face, but she did wipe away the tears quickly before they ran down her cheek.
“Was it your fault?” Steffen asked.
When she became silent, he realized the question was too blunt.
“I mean,” he corrected himself, “it seems like you’re blaming yourself, but was it really your fault? Why’d you kill him?”
His new question seemed to upset her even more, for Marratrice took in a shaky breath and then let out a loud wail. Still, she seemed reluctant to stand.
“I don’t know what happened,” she managed between tears. “Bastial hell, I never cry like this.”
Steffen wondered what he should do. She seemed to be in need of consoling, but he wasn’t sure if it was words or an embrace that would help. So far, his questions had only made her react worse. So he decided to try a hug.
He knelt down and put his arms around her stomach, pushing his cheek against her back—it felt awkward with her being on all fours…like he was squeezing a dog. Still, he stuck with it.
“It’s alright,” he said. “I’m not mad.”
It was the truth. He’d completely forgotten about Leonard anyway. How could he hold a grudge? But he did need to know what happened.
“What could’ve caused you to kill him?” Steffen let go and stood back up. His awkward embrace hadn’t improved her mood.
“He’d always been so mellow,” Marratrice said, her voice unstable, as if the words were wobbling their way out. “So I’d been opening his cage to feed him. But yesterday he attacked me. I think he wanted to kill me.” She shook her head. “I know it doesn’t sound possible. I mean, what kind of rat wants to kill a person? But he wouldn’t stop biting me, even when I kicked him. My roommate heard my screams. She came to help me, but we didn’t know what to do to stop Leonard from trying to
bite me. He obviously wasn’t afraid of us. So we…” Her hands flew to cover her face. “It was so terrible!”
“Unrelenting aggression…this must be a side effect of the growth potion,” Steffen realized. “He was calm because of a powerful psychic spell from Vithos, but it must’ve worn off.” Steffen didn’t know enough about psyche to be sure that was correct, but now wasn’t the time to speculate. “Was your roommate hurt as well?” Steffen asked.
“No, fortunately. The rat was only after me.”
Blind rage, another side effect. “Anything else Leonard did that was unlike other rats?”
“I don’t know…” Marratrice muttered to the ground.
Steffen studied the side of her face to find her eyes squinted. He decided to put himself in her position. What would he have done if Leonard had attacked him and showed no signs of stopping? How would he have killed Leonard?
“Did you feed him a sleep potion to stop him?” Steffen asked.
“No.” Marratrice seemed as if she wanted him to keep guessing so she wouldn’t have to say it aloud.
Steffen was quiet as he thought. A terrible image came to mind. He couldn’t even suggest it. His stomach was starting to turn in on itself. His appetite was gone.
Finally he managed to whisper, “You killed him with your feet and hands?”
“We had to.” Marratrice started to weep again. “He was biting me so hard. We had to stop him.”
Leonard was huge. The thought of crushing the rat was too much for him to consider, so he decided not to.
“I’m truly sorry,” he said.
“Me, too.” Marratrice wiped away her tears. “Do you want to come by and get his cage?”
“I will, although I’m not going to be buying any more rats for experiments.”
“I think that would be wise.”
Chapter 11:
STEFFEN
By the time lunch service was open, Steffen’s appetite had returned. After waiting in line and receiving his food, he found Zoke sitting with Alarex. It was impossible not to notice the shirtless Krepp amid the dining hall packed with Humans. Zoke was the only one with dark gray skin and a long head that nearly came to a point at its front, just like a lizard’s.
