Chương 39: Chapter 38 - Memento

I was in a crypt. No. It was… different. The walls weren't single large slabs of stone. Here, a variety of rocks were used as misshapen bricks, altered only enough to give them stability, and the walls went beyond the light I had with me, creating a black tunnel that seemed to stretch into nothing. It wasn't a crypt. It was a hallway. But it looked familiar— Stupid. The place was familiar. I knew it well and the darkness didn't bother me. I walked past heavy doors set in thick wooden frames.

Their number and the sound of my footsteps were the only ways to mark my progress. The smell was rank. More oils. More incense. I would have to do something. The work was hard enough without choking on fetid air. I reached a door, as unremarkable as the uncounted others I'd passed, and turned to it while pulling out my key. There was only one, and it was utterly mundane. Nothing more was needed, and wasting time and energy was a sin against genius. I had work to do.

I unlocked the door and ducked to avoid knocking my head against the lintel. The gesture was automatic. I passed into the room, put the key and the lamp I had with me on the shelf by the door, and picked up the matches. This was how the work began—a routine homage to an inevitable weakness. I needed light. I would go to each lamp in turn. Remove the chimney. Turn up the wick. Light it. Replace the chimney, and adjust the wick. Move on to the next. There were a dozen of them, spaced out around the room.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. I started where I was, with the lamp that sat on the shelf by the door. The extra light revealed more details. There was the key, a small pile of documents, a pen I had abandoned the day before, and the space where the matches would sit. Lighting each lamp revealed more of the room. There were tables covered with books. There was a blackboard covered with chalk spell diagrams. There was more chalk on the walls.

I felt a stab of irritation as my eyes passed over the marks. I needed more blackboards. You could never get an exact circle on rough stone. I went around the walls of the room. Behind me, in the center of the room, was a table I only saw out of the corner of my eye. Its wooden legs and top were made out of the same heavy wood as the doorframe. The chains that hung loose from the sides were made of the same thick iron as the latch. My journal was there. I would get to that. So was the tiny motionless body.

An eagerness consumed me, making my next inhale feel thin and inadequate. I forced myself to calm down. I would get to that too. As I lit the sixth lamp, I saw the skull—a gift from the only mentor who'd understood me. It had no jaw. Some of the more delicate bone around the nasal cavity had crumbled away. The front two teeth were missing. The first tooth on the right was cracked and jagged. My mentor had used the skull himself for his contemplations. He didn't know who the skull had belonged to.

He said it was better that way. It could be anyone. It could be everyone. Memento mori. I smiled when I saw it, as I always did. Memento mori, indeed. We would see. Then, I stopped— No, he stopped. We stopped. Having my head crushed by the stones that made up the walls could not have made it hurt more. How many was I? I picked up the skull with my right hand and turned it over. On the underside was an oval hole. Foramen magnum.

Inside it was a piece of paper that had unrolled enough to fit itself to the sides of the hole. I lifted my left hand and bit down on the pipe I had brought to my mouth. My teeth clicked over the curved black stem.

"Huh," she said. I said. We said.