Dodging a vicious kick aimed at his kidneys, he collided with sacks of potato flour and sat down hard kicking up a white cloud. Sarn sneezed as he threw himself out of the way of a fist. He hit the ground rolling then sprang to his feet and seized a crate. A large man buried a fist in his makeshift shield, and the crunch of wood drowned out the breaking of bones. The man screamed and writhed as he tried to free his hand. Small metal balls rained from a fist-sized hole in the crate and rolled around on the floor.
Sarn backed away from the trip hazard they represented and pushed a heavy barrel between himself and a man missing both of his front teeth. The fool kicked the barrel and screamed as it belched black powder in his face.
A metal ball whizzed over Sarn’s shoulder and ricocheted off Gray's collarbone. Sarn looked around for his son and saw the boy scrounging more balls from the floor. He dove behind a tower of boxes and caught his thieving son.
“I need you to run right now and stay out of sight.”
“But I’m helping.” Ran held up the slingshot, “and we’re winning.”
“Where are you, boy?” The voice came from the opposite side of the crate tower to Sarn’s right.
He jumped in front of his son, and Ran ducked behind a wine cask. The metal ball in his son's hand glinted in the lumir light as Ran vanished into the shadows. Sarn toppled the tower of crates nearest the voice. A muffled groan signaled he'd hit his target.
Maybe Ran's right. Maybe we are winning. More projectiles sailed past as Sarn knocked over several barrels. The more obstacles he threw into his attackers’ path the better. Maybe they’d buy him enough time to escape.
A shape shimmered into existence, and Sarn stared at the ghost boy. What was it doing here? It lobbed handfuls of metal balls and kicked, sending plumes of flour to drift in the air.
Sarn rubbed his eyes, but the specter remained. No one reacted to it. Am I hallucinating its help?
The ghost tossed a door handle at a skinny man, and it struck the man's knee, stopping his charge. The man went down clutching his injured leg, and the sight proved the ghost was real and helping.
A leather strap wrapped around Sarn’s throat choking him. He cursed his inattention as he struggled to free himself.
“I got him.”
The speaker dragged Sarn into a cleared space. As the noose tightened, Sarn scrambled for a hold on the leather. But a hand fisted the strap right behind the buckle, digging it into the nape of his neck. Sarn tried to work his fingers under the belt, but they slipped off its smooth curve. He kicked out, and his foot hit something solid. A grunt and a curse indicated his blow had landed on target, but the belt kept tightening, choking off his air supply. A board slammed into the backs of his knees, and he buckled.
For a moment, Sarn remained suspended by the strap alone until the arm holding it lowered. His knees hit the cold stone followed by his belly and chin. Magic shot out cushioning his fall, but it slid off the belt. Something about it defeated even the magic’s nimble fingers. Why was that? It was another mystery, but he already had too many of those.
A weight settled on top of Sarn, flattening him. Dinner plate-sized knees land on either side of his lean hips. His arms were jerked behind his back and lashed together. Sarn struggled, but hands seized his ankles and bound them too.
“Death’s too good for you.”
Hot breath stirred the hair on the back of his neck. Sarn went white with horror and thrashed as he gasped for air. The noose contracted again and his vision swam.
“Ease off, we don’t want to kill him, just incapacitate him. Do you know how much they’ll pay for someone like him?”
A hand flipped Sarn's cowl back and jerked his head up.
“Look at those eyes—like a pair of emeralds in the sun.” Gray shook his head. “They’re more vivid than any on sale in the flesh market.”
“Is that where we’re taking him?” asked one of Gray’s cohorts.
Gray let go of Sarn. “Oh no, he’s worth his weight in gold to the right buyer.”
“Cause of his funny eyes?”
“No, because of his age. Most boys like him never reach adulthood. You’re going to make us a fortune. It won’t bring Beku back, but your suffering will ease her raging spirit.”
Gray patted the back of Sarn’s head, and his magic locked on.
Fix acquired; his magic chirped as Gray’s icon changed to one Sarn could follow anywhere.
The stupid fool had signed his own death warrant. Now to get out of the whole being sold into slavery thing—again. Last time, he was twelve and unprepared. This time, he had magic and a son with nimble fingers. The belt contracted again, reminding Sarn he wasn't in control of the situation—yet.
“I asked you a question. Answer it, and you might earn some leniency. Who knows how long you’ll be our prisoner before we find a buyer for you.”
“What question?” Sarn choked out as the belt loosened.
“How did she die?”
“I don’t know.”
It was the truth but not the answer they wanted to hear. Leather creaked as the belt tightened again.
Sarn's lungs sobbed for air. Black spots danced before his eyes swelling with each passing second. Just a little more and there—his pants tore, and both his bare knees pressed into the ground. A connection sparked, but Sarn ignored it as he sent his magic searching for his son and found the watcher instead. There was no time to figure out what connection it had to the men slowly killing him. So he sent his magic out again, seeking that one bright pinpoint in his dimming awareness.
I must find my son and keep him safe. Nothing else mattered right now. Eventually, these fools will lock me up somewhere, and I'll escape. But Ran must stay safe and out of sight until then, and that was a tall order given his son’s inquisitiveness.
Magic spread out in concentric rings, plunging his awareness deep into the mountain’s roots instead of fanning out across the ground. No! Sarn fought it, but his magic refused to obey him. A cancer gnawed at Mount Eredren somewhere nearby, and his magic sped toward it. His map unfurled and tried to get a fix on it as that feeling of impending doom washed over Sarn. He was a mote adrift in its wrongness, and his world was fast-fading to gray.
Eam’meye erator, whispered a voice in his head.
Unclean, shrieked his magic as it recoiled from the cancer and bounced off a ponderous consciousness, waking it. Mount Eredren stirred, then it roared.
Sarn clung to consciousness by a suffocating thread, and it frayed as the mountain juddered and the noose tightened. Gray’s questions had become an insistent buzz in his ears interrupted by the cracking of stone.
The ghost boy’s startled eyes met Sarn’s until an invisible force tore at its garments. Ran shouted. The ghost flickered and unraveled. Everything was happening too fast, and there was no stopping it. The ground heaved, and Sarn’s world faded to black as an image of a thirteen-pointed star burned in his mind's eye.
I've seen you somewhere before, haven't I? The question pursued Sarn into limbo. Time had finally run out for everyone.
“Stop it!” Ran shouted dragging Sarn back from the edge.
The boy moved with a spider’s grace over the quaking ground. He darted in front of Sarn and fired his slingshot, striking the man holding the belt right between his eyes.
“Let go of my Papa!”
As the big man toppled, the belt loosened. Magic flooded Sarn, pulling him back to consciousness. His map tried again to form, but something blocked it. Thankfully, Mount Eredren calmed and stopped its quaking.
After he wedged his slingshot into the waistband of his trousers, Ran glared at the men staring at him. Metal balls clinked in his pockets as his nimble fingers slid the slack through the buckle.
Sarn dragged in a grateful lungful of air as the magic receded from his chest, and he flirted with unconsciousness for a moment.
“Breathe, Papa.” Ran patted the back of his head.
Sarn attempted a nod then gave up when white fire sho
ok its cage, fighting to break out. Not again, he had neither the wherewithal nor the inclination to deal with two types of magic. One was already plugged into the mountain causing problems. If he lost control of the other, he had no idea what it would do.
“Ran?”
“I’m here.”
Ran patted Sarn’s shoulder and walked around until he came into view.
“I’m okay. Are you okay?”
Sarn nodded. He rolled onto his side breaking his connection to the mountain and stopped the flow of information to his inner cartographer. He also shoved the map out of sight, so a detailed rendering of his immediate surroundings stopped competing for his attention.
Annoyed at the interruption to its map-editing session, his magic poked brilliant green fingers at the bindings at his wrists and ankles. Both were fashioned from natural fibers, so the knots fell apart with a little help from his son.
Free but too damned tired to move, Sarn pillowed his head on his arm and just lay there catching his breath. Beneath him, he sensed Mount Eredren settling back into its interrupted slumber. Sarn made sure no bare skin touched the stonework so the mountain stayed asleep. One glimpse into its mind was scary enough.
Ran leaned into Sarn and his magic spun a protective emerald bubble around them.
“Who is this boy and why’s he calling you ‘Papa’?” asked one of his attackers.
“’Cause he’s my Papa.”
Ran squared his shoulders and turned to face the men.
“I’ll admit you’re the spitting image of him but how could you be his son? You’re too old.”
Gray bent as he considered the boy. Ran returned that scrutiny with interest.
“Am not. He’s my Papa.”
Ran folded his arms over his chest and glared at Gray.
“All right little mouse, how old are you?”
“Four,” Ran held up four fingers and wiggled them. “And I’m not a mouse.”
All the men heaved belly laughs at that.
“You look too old to be four,” the large man Sarn had kneed in a sensitive spot commented. The guy still had one hand cupped around his groin.
“’Cause I’ll be five soon. I’ll be five on March—March—” Ran trailed off unable to recall his own birthday. He glanced at his father for the answer.
“Fifteenth,” Sarn supplied, remembering the day his world had changed forever.
“Look, kid, I don’t know what he’s told you, but you can’t be his get. He’s not old enough to be your father.”
“He is my son.”
Sarn managed to sit up, but dizziness forced him to plant his rear and wait. Perhaps his son was right. Adventures should take place after breakfast and fights too. Since all the men’s attention had riveted on his pint-sized savior, and his magic had the boy well protected, he could rest for a minute.
“Yes, he is. Papa’s twenty.” Ran held up ten fingers and then ten again before continuing. “Uncle Miren’s fourteen.” The boy flashed ten fingers then folded six of them out of sight. “And I’m four.” Ran ended his demonstration by waggling his four remaining digits.
“You can’t be four. My son was your height when he was twice your age.” Gray shook his head at Ran. “Kid, it ain’t bloody likely you’re his son.”
“No papa was sixteen when I was born,” Ran corrected. To further clarify his point, he held up ten, then six fingers.
“How did you know that?” Sarn stared at his son in shock. Miren had promised to teach Ran to add and subtract, but those lessons had stalled at 1 + 1 = 2.
“People talk,” Ran shrugged as if to say, and I listen.
Embarrassed, Sarn shook his head. Ran was a sponge soaking in everything around him. He had to watch what he said from now on.
However, the exchange set the men off again, and their laughter echoed off the walls. Wiping tears of mirth from his eyes, Gray directed his next question to Sarn.
“Is the boy Beku’s son?”
“Yes, she’s my mama.” Ran’s face crumpled, and he turned it into Sarn’s shoulder. “But she went away and didn’t come back,” Ran said to his boots. “Do you know where she went?” Ran looked up at the men with hope shining in his eyes. His grief pinned the five men in place rendering them speechless.
The sight broke Sarn's heart. He hugged his son. “You still have your uncle and me. We’ll always be there for you.”
Ran nodded and sniffed. “I know.” The boy transferred his hopeful gaze to his father. “Can we go see mama someday?”
Sarn kept the ‘no’ building in his soul caged behind his teeth. Ran was his son now, his alone. Beku had given up all rights to the boy when she'd disappeared. Anger tightened a noose around Sarn's neck choking off any further words. Death would be too pat an end to the whole tawdry affair. No, Beku was out there somewhere, and he refused to search for her. He held his son close to his heart and let the question hang between them, unanswered.
Gray extended a hand to Sarn, but not a truce since the men had yet to claim their pound of flesh.
Sarn ignored the hand and stood up on his own. Once he was vertical, his son looked up at him with a plea in his green eyes and his thin arms rose for a pick-up. Sarn scooped his son up and Ran settled against his chest. Murders, kidnappings, death threats, hauntings, spies—what would life throw at him next?
“How did you know my name? I’ve never seen any of you before,” Sarn asked cutting right to the heart of his confusion. He backed up until a five-foot tall wall of undamaged boxes separated him from the fivesome. His heel struck two metal balls sending them rolling.
“How did Beku die?” Gray’s eyes narrowed on Sarn.
“I told you already. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.” Sarn rubbed slow circles on his son’s back. Ran deserved a little coddling after the morning they’d had.
“Liar!” Tree Stumps for Limbs pointed an accusing finger at Sarn.
“I can’t lie. The thing lighting up my eyes won’t let me.” Sarn gestured with his free hand and all eyes riveted on his Fates-damned face.
Gray and his friends’ stares bounced between Sarn and his son taking in their uncanny resemblance. Ran smiled, radiating approval at the men’s response.
Tension thrummed through Sarn stretching his spine rigid as a pole. More than anything, he hated to be stared at. His second attempt to replace the cowl succeeded since his son’s attention had drifted to the destruction they’d caused. No little hands interfered this time, and he relaxed when shadows veiled most of his scarred face.
Tree Stumps for Limbs drew himself up to his full height—an impressive five-foot-eleven to Sarn’s six-and-a-half-feet. “Liar! She wouldn’t leave the Lower Quarters without you.”
“Yeah well on that day she did.” Sarn struggled to cover his son’s ears perking up at the mention of his mother. Ironically, he’d been planning to leave her and take Ran with him again. But she’d disappeared before he could say anything.
Jealousy reared its ugly head. Sarn shoved it down. Beku’s whereabouts were no longer his concern. Neither was the identity of the person she had stepped out with on that fateful morning. Sarn shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”
“I know,” Ran said, speaking for the first time since the subject of his mother had come up. “You were sleeping. I was too.”
“Yeah, I was your mattress.” Sarn poked his son’s belly causing the boy to squirm. Then he refocused on Gray and company. “Why did you think I had something to do with this?”
Gray folded his arms over his chest. “Four years ago, I stopped by to say hello and to check on the current crop of Foundlings. I found the place all but abandoned. A couple stragglers told me a shocking story about a picnic.”
Sarn recalled the June Sunday in question. Butterflies had flitted between flowers, and a three-month-old Ran had batted tiny fists at them. He glanced at Ran and marveled at how much the boy had grown.
“What does an outing four years ago have to do with this?”
Of co
urse, Gray ignored his question. “Imagine my surprise to find out Beku had gone to this picnic on the arm of her newest boy toy. Beku—the woman hadn’t gone outside in two decades. But she went outside with you.”
“Two decades?” Sarn repeated, staggered by the implications. He’d known Beku was a shut-in, but how could she stay below ground for so long without going crazy? A whole bunch of odd things tumbled together to form an ugly whole.
“Do you know what agoraphobia means?”
Sarn shook his head.
“Fear of wide open spaces.” Gray paused and debated something.
“Ag-or-a-pho-bi-a,” Ran repeated breaking the word up into its composite syllables. “Fear of wide open spaces—what are wide open spaces?”
“The meadow is one.”
Ran repeated the word again. “Mama had this ag-or-a-pho-bi-a?”
“Yes.”
Ran’s face clouded again portending more questions. “Am I sick with ag-or-a-pho-bi-a?”
“No, you don’t have any phobias.”
“It’s a sickness,” Gray interrupted.
“It is?” Sarn and his son asked in unison.
Gray’s comment wrapped cold dread around Sarn. And its grip tightened with every word the man said. “It’s a disease of the mind—where the fear lives. It makes its den in bad memories, and it feeds off them until there’s nothing left.”
Ran shivered at the vivid description and his anxious eyes fixed on Sarn again. “Did the phobia kill mama?” Ran uttered the word ‘kill’ as if he knew what it meant.
“Oh, I think it did,” Gray said before Sarn could answer. His gaze skimmed over Sarn’s body, scanning him from head to toe.
Sarn returned the glare with interest. His cloak drew its two halves together blocking Gray’s assessing stare. Ran wriggled until his head parted it and he could see out.
Sarn’s heel encountered a solid object. Glancing over his shoulder, he glared at an inconvenient wall. The fight had moved into a storeroom, and Gray and company blocked the only exit. Panic surged, but Sarn hammered it down with logic. Escape was always possible with a little ingenuity.
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