Red Jack

by Alex Linwood

  “Mama,” was all the little girl could get out between hiccups.

  Portia sighed then stood while holding the little girl’s hand. Portia kept her close as she looked around again for a parent. Portia checked the sun. It was still at least an hour from setting, high enough in the horizon that she felt it was okay to try to find this girl’s home. She had time. And the oncoming darkness was even more reason for her to help the little girl.

  They walked together hand-in-hand down the street. The little girl’s crying gradually subsided until she was only hiccuping occasionally. Portia looked down at her. “Do you see your mother anywhere?” The little girl looked all around herself then shook her head no. They continued this routine for several blocks, prompting Portia to wonder if they should circle back and try a different direction.

  When they reached the end of that block, and there was still no sign of the child’s mother, Portia decided they should head back to the starting spot in case the mother was there waiting for them. To her disappointment, there was no one where she had originally found the girl.

  They tried searching in a second direction. Again, no luck. Portia hoped the girl wasn’t intentionally abandoned. She looked down at the care taken to mend the girl’s clothes and didn’t think it was likely, but she grew up as an orphan, amongst other orphans, and knew how quickly things could change.

  Just as they were about to turn around and try a third direction, a woman came running down the street, frantic, her eyes glued to the little girl.

  “Justine!” the woman exclaimed, grabbing the little girl and swooping her up into a bear hug. The woman kissed the little girl all over her face until the girl was giggling and laughing, while the woman had tears of happiness.

  The woman stopped fawning over her child, seeing Portia for the first time. “Thank you, thank you so much. She thinks it’s a game to run. I usually catch her in time,” the woman said apologetically. “Let me reward you.” She was digging in her pockets and pulled out a few coppers.

  Portia could see the woman was poor. She doubted she had any extra money. Any reward she gave Portia might mean not eating that night. Portia could not accept money from someone in that position. Besides, it felt good to prevent any child from being an orphan. No one should have to endure that.

  “No, I won’t accept it,” Portia said firmly. She pushed the woman’s hand with the coppers away, giving her a smile. She walked away quickly to prevent any further attempt at persuasion.

  “Thank you again,” the woman called after her.

  Portia waved over her shoulder as she was walking away. Checking the sun again, it dismayed her to realize how late it had become. She increased her pace to a jog to get home .

  The sun was just setting as she reached the front door of Elyas’s home. She bounded up the steps until she came to an abrupt halt, noticing the front door was not latched. It was slightly open. An ominous sign, since Elyas himself had always cautioned her to keep the door shut and locked when she was home. The Warrens were not safe, he told her, and she was not to get careless, no matter that nothing bad had happened yet. There was always a first time—and he wanted her prepared. Portia’s heart dropped at the sight of the open door. He would never have been that careless.

  She pulled her dagger from its sheath and gingerly pushed open the door. It creaked while it opened, revealing a dark interior lit only by a fire. The kitchen table was turned onto its side, and at least one chair lay smashed on the floor. Legs stuck out from behind the overturned table. Portia realized the legs belonged to Elyas. A bitter taste of metal filled her mouth and she looked up to see that Mark was standing over him, his back to her, his arm raised with a knife.

  Elyas must have heard the door. His legs twitched as he yelled to Portia, “Run!”

  “No!” she yelled, shoving the door inward and running into the kitchen. Mark whirled to see her, and she recoiled in fright at the sight of him. A large scar ran diagonally across his face, just missing his left eye. It puckered, red and angry. His right hand held a dagger, but his left hand was missing two fingers. But the worst part of all was the look he gave her—it was full of hate, rage, and promised violence. This was not the Mark she remembered.

  “Hello, Portia,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Deyelna misses you.”

  Chapter 10

  “Mark,” Portia said, “what happened?” Her heart broke just looking at him. Could she have shielded him if she had stayed?

  “Life happened,” he said, turning to fully face her. “I’ve come to bring you back. Deyelna is getting impatient, and you’ve been gone for far too long.” He held up his hand that was missing the fingers. “Somehow she thought that hurting me would bring you back. But you never returned.”

  Portia wanted to vomit. Mark getting hurt was her worst fear—and she had let it happen. Portia shook her head. “I’m not going back. And you shouldn’t either. You don’t have to… you could stay here in Coverack. Or anywhere. You can get away from her.” She said the last part with the plea in her voice.

  Mark glared at her. He clenched his jaw and strode towards her stiffly. “I have no choice. I have to go back. And I’m not going back alone.” He raised his hand and created a beam of light that shot out from it, hitting the ground at her feet, smoke bursting from the wood on impact. The smell of burning wood filled the air. Portia jumped back and ran into the room adjoining the kitchen, hiding behind a large overstuffed chair. The light beam followed her, Mark controlling it as he walked towards her. She had never seen Mark do that magic before. From what she had learned from Elyas, it was clear that his magic pool was much stronger than hers.

  The beam hit the overstuffed chair, and it burst into flames. Portia scrambled back. She conjured Mark’s light mote magic and used her new skills to send them careening around the house, around Mark’s head, and towards his eyes. Mark stumbled in surprise.

  She used the light motes to harass and herd him to the front door. He resisted and wildly struck out with his light beam. Portia only just managed to avoid it as it passed over the walls and across the ceiling. She increased the number of light motes until all of Mark’s energy was concentrated in batting them away from his eyes. Once she had Mark in the opening of the front door, she ran up to him and kicked his chest with all her strength. It sent him tumbling outside and down the front stairs. Portia wanted him as far away from Elyas as possible. She tried to use the light beam she had seen him create while continuing to send the motes swirling around his head, but her light beam was not nearly as strong as his. She managed to touch him with it, but his skin only turned pink. He easily scrambled out of the way.

  Mark shook his head to clear the light motes, cursing at Portia under his breath. He formed another beam of light. Portia redoubled her efforts—she had to stop him from aiming it at her. She looked around in desperation and saw a loose cobblestone kicked to the side of the street. While keeping up the light motes, she ran and grabbed the brick, quickly turned around, ran to Mark, and hit him on the head. His light beam stopped. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell to a crumpled heap on the street. Portia breathed heavily, still holding the cobblestone. She watched to see if Mark was breathing. Relief flooded her when she saw his chest rise. She hadn’t killed him .

  She looked around and didn’t see anyone else on the street. Portia didn’t want Mark murdered, no matter what he had done, so she dragged him by the heels to the alley that was thirty feet away and tucked him behind several bags of refuse.

  She ran back into the house to see to Elyas. Her heart pounded when she saw the pool of blood surrounding him in the kitchen. She should have finished Mark off sooner and been back here to take care of him. “Elyas,” she said as she fell to her knees next to him, trying to find where he was bleeding so she could stop the flow. “Don’t leave me.”

  “You can’t stay here,” he said, so quietly that she could barely hear him.

  “Don’t talk. Save your energy,” she said. His tunic was
soaked in blood. She felt around frantically for his wound to staunch the bleeding but had a hard time finding it. There was too much blood to see clearly. He shook his head slowly no and grabbed one of her arms.

  With surprising strength, he pulled her close. “Go… to the Academy. Don’t run… not again.” He pulled her even closer. “Promise me.”

  Portia nodded, tears filling her eyes. She grabbed his hand with both of hers and pulled it to her cheek. “I will… just don’t leave,” she said. “Don’t leave.”

  Elyas’s eyes closed. His hand relaxed in hers. Portia sobbed as he died on his kitchen floor.

  Portia didn’t know how long she had stayed in the kitchen. She remembered staggering out carrying her bag and a small bag of personal possessions Elyas had kept. She didn’t want to leave it for the thieves. She had checked inside, and it was mostly small objects from his daughter, Chenna, but it didn’t feel right to let the neighborhood scavengers get them or toss them in the garbage if they were deemed not valuable on the black market.

  She went to the linen shop and walked straight to the back room. She stripped off her outer clothes without a word to the shopkeeper, instead taking the bloody garments to the dyeing vat and tossing them in. It was late enough that all the girls were gone. Portia was grateful they didn’t have to see her like that or know of anything that had happened.

  She poured cold water on her clothes. The blood streamed off the material in the clear blue water. The shopkeeper came to stand alongside her and watched her work, waiting for her to speak.

  Portia couldn’t even bring herself to turn and look at him. She felt numb from the inside out. The only sensation was a tingling on the top of her head and the ache of her hands in the ice-cold water as she drew the blood out. Elyas’s blood. Her tears fell into the vat. “They killed him,” she finally said.

  “Him? Elyas?” the shopkeeper asked, pain and shock in his voice.

  Portia couldn’t bring herself to say anything further, nodded, swallowing the huge lump in her throat. “Oh, Elyas.”

  Portia knew the shopkeeper and Elyas had been boyhood friends. They made fun of each other to Portia, but she knew behind the jokes there was a deep affection. She felt even worse that she had robbed a person of someone they loved.

  “Who did it?” the shopkeeper asked, concerned, as he glanced towards the curtain leading to the front.

  “Mark… but not really Mark. He was under someone else’s control,” Portia said, and she stopped, realizing that the shopkeeper had no idea who she was talking about. It would be better to not say too much. “Someone from my past life. I won’t be working here anymore. It’s better for you. And it’s better for me. I can’t stay.”

  The shopkeeper nodded, bringing fresh linens over to Portia to help squeeze the water out of her now clean clothes. “You’ll be missed, child. I know Elyas was happy having you there. He rarely talked about his daughter, but we all knew how hard it was for him without her.”

  Portia nodded, trying to concentrate on her clothes and not think about what had just happened. It was overwhelming. It hurt so badly, she was amazed her heart could still beat.

  The shopkeeper walked to his desk in the back, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small sack of coins. He grabbed several from the bag and returned to Portia, placing them in the sink where she was working. “Take these. Don’t tell me where you’re going. But I’m sure you could use this for a caravan ride or food, no matter where you will be. Elyas would have wanted you to have it.”

  “Thank you,” Portia said, turning to the shopkeeper to grasp his hands in thanks. He gave her an awkward hug, patting her gingerly on the back.

  Portia took a deep breath and then returned to her task. She shook out her damp clothes and put them back on with some difficulty since they caught on her skin and on her underclothes. It was uncomfortable to wear them this way, but at least they would dry. If she shoved the wet clothes into her bag, they would mildew and be ruined. She needed them for the trials.

  She turned to see the shopkeeper staring at her. “Even I would not force you onto the street in wet clothes at night. You’ll get sick. And if you get sick, Elyas will blame me, dead or not. Hang those clothes up to dry and rest here for the night. Good luck to anyone running through the Warrens looking for you tonight. I doubt we have to worry about them until morning. Leave then.”

  Portia had to agree with the shopkeeper. Leaving in the middle the night was foolish. And she was so tired, she didn’t have the energy to argue. She took her outer clothes off again and hung them up while the shopkeeper pulled a goose down-filled pallet off the shelf and unfolded it, laying it on the shop floor. He threw down two heavy blankets on it, then he left through the curtain to lock the front and shutter the windows.

  Portia lay down on the pallet and pulled the heavy covers over her. She shut her eyes, quickly drifting into a troubled sleep. She did not hear the shopkeeper pull out his chair and sit on it, feet propped up on the desk, a wooden rod across his lap, ready for anyone who might try to break in that night.

  Her nightmare came back that night, stronger than ever. This time, something was lurking in the pitch-black void of the rent in the sky. She struggled to make it out in the dream but could only see gray and black shadows moving in the void—enormous shadows. She awoke, heart pounding and sweat drenched. For a moment, she forgot where she was and looked around wildly. Her eyes met the shopkeeper’s concerned eyes as he still sat watch from his chair. “Nightmare,” she said, not wanting to explain more.

  He nodded then motioned for her to lay back down. It was still dark outside, too early yet to leave. She did so and fell quickly back to sleep, grateful he was there.

  In the morning, she awoke to the smell of cooking bacon and eggs. Her clothes, now dry, were folded in a pile next to the pallet. She dressed quickly and wandered over to where the shopkeeper was cooking over the small fire in the back. The girls had not arrived yet for work, and the sun was still below the horizon, only a hint of pink and orange foreshadowing where it would appear.

  The previous day’s events came back to her in a rush. She swallowed bile at the thought of Elyas’s death, as well as all that Mark must have gone through after she had left. She wished that Deyelna had never become a part of the Black Cats. Before she was leader, it had never been that ruthless.

  Portia accepted a plate of food from the shopkeeper and ate ravenously. She didn’t know what time the trials started that day, nor was she even sure where she was supposed to go exactly. She was anxious to get going and get to the Academy grounds early. She didn’t want anything, no small detail, to get in her way of getting in. Now, it wasn’t just for her but also for Elyas. She wasn’t going to waste the opportunity he had gotten her.

  She said goodbye to the shopkeeper and left before the girls arrived for work. The streets were empty, the dew heavy on the ground. She was grateful she did not have to spend the previous night outside hiding from Mark.

  While walking to the Academy, she pondered what magic she should use for the test. She wasn’t sure of the significance of her being able to do more than one family type of magic. She didn’t want to ruin her chances of getting into the Magic Academy, so thought she should choose one, and only one, to use. Mark’s magic with lights, motes, and beams was the one that she was most familiar with. It made the most sense to then use that one. Hopefully, it would be enough. She didn’t know if they gave second chances if you failed the first time.

  By the time she reached the outside edge of the Academy grounds, the sun was fully up, and the streets were crowded with students, hawkers, and others. There were visitors from all over the kingdom jockeying for a spot close to the gate and talking in excited whispers. Everyone was anxious about the day’s events to come. Parents pushed children clutching their Academy acceptance letters towards the gate. She pulled her acceptance letter out of her bag.

  Portia got in line, jostled by the surrounding crowds. When she got to the gatekeeper, he took h
er acceptance letter, scanned it, and handed it back and motioned for her to follow the others into the grounds. There were Academy staff everywhere on the grounds. They were easy to pick out in the crowds—all of them wore dark blue robes. They guided applicants in one direction and parents in another. This was a test for the applicant’s eyes only.

  The first hurdle for Portia and all the other applicants was a physical. Colored orbs were flashed in front of her. She was timed on how quickly she called out their color. The test seemed easy, but she saw at least one applicant turned away when they could not get the color correct. He had burst into tears, but she could not stay to see what happened since one of the Academy staff members pushed her towards the next test.

  The next test was a group endurance test. Cones were set out on the lawn a set distance apart. They were instructed to run between them from one line of cones to the next at the sound of the official horn. The intervals between the horn blasts would get smaller, but the runners still had to reach the goal cone before the next horn sounded. If an applicant was too slow and didn’t reach the cone in time, they had to leave the test. The others would continue until no one was able to run fast enough. Portia lined up with a group of five other applicants. A staff member motioned for her to drop her bag along with the other applicants’ bags beside the test field. She refused. She could not afford to lose anything that was within the bag. She would pass while carrying it, she thought, gripping her fists at her side, determined. The staff member shrugged and let her go on.

  The officiant held up her hand to start the test. She got in the ready position along with all the others. The horn sounded and they raced to the first cone. They were all so overeager that all six got there long before the horn made its second noise, and they had to wait for it to sound again before running to the next set of cones. As the test continued and the horn sounded over and over again, it became more difficult for Portia to keep up. She wasn’t the first to drop out, thankfully, but she did not make it in time after eleven soundings and was motioned off the field by a referee. She stood there, hands on knees, panting. Luckily, she had done well enough to pass the test. She was motioned into a final group gathered before the main Academy building.