Endless Flight

by A. C. Cobble

  Instead, they delayed in Northport. They spent their days resting, practicing the sword, the Ohms, and hardening their wills. Amelie practiced some minor healing on Ben’s wounds, and while he would always have scars from the fight, the sharp stab of pain faded away. It was tender, but he could live with that. For sword practice, he was able to move about without fear of tearing open his stitches.

  Word came that the siege had begun in Issen. The messenger said Amelie’s father was putting up a stout defense. The Coalition was reported to have four times as many men, but Lord Gregor had his walls. A siege could last for months.

  When she first heard, Amelie wanted to rush immediately to her father’s side. After discussing it with Ben and Rhys, she realized that without an army at her back, there wasn’t much she could do. It was unlikely they’d even reach Issen with the Coalition completely encircling it. Getting captured outside of the city walls would just make it worse for her father and everyone inside.

  She needed an army, and Lord Rhymer was in no position to provide one. They didn’t know who else to turn to.

  ***

  A week after the battle, Ben and Amelie were returning across the square from another fruitless discussion with Lady Towaal. The woman was buried in ancient paper and artifacts. She had no advice she was willing to give the two young folk. She just turned it back on them, asking them what they wanted to do.

  The square had a scattering of people rushing about trying to finish their chores before they lost the last light of day. It was growing colder and a light dusting of snow had fallen the night before. It still clung to the cobblestones and coated the eaves of the rooftops like a light froth on a freshly poured ale.

  Ben imagined in better times the square would be filled with young people escaping from their parent’s clutches and congregating with their friends. The sounds of laughter and children getting into innocent trouble should be filling the space. Now, no one had time for that.

  Ben meandered along, lost in his thoughts, until Amelie clutched his arm.

  “Ben,” she hissed, “is that…”

  He followed her look and saw a slight figure darting ahead of them and vanishing down a narrow side street. He knew that brisk, determined stride.

  “Meghan,” he muttered.

  “Should we get Towaal?” asked Amelie.

  “We’ll lose her if we do,” replied Ben anxiously. He started toward the street Meghan went down, pulling Amelie behind him.

  “Is this a good idea?” worried Amelie. “She betrayed us, Ben.”

  “She did, but she’s my sister and was your friend,” he responded. “Maybe it wasn’t her, maybe some other way they found out. Maybe she had a change of heart.”

  “She could have men with her, or worse, a mage,” argued Amelie, jogging along behind Ben as they hurried to catch sight of Meghan.

  Ben felt Amelie’s sense of foreboding. Meghan showing up here was unexpected. He doubted she could have found them without help, but he had to know. He had to know why she betrayed them.

  “You should get Towaal. Tell her we saw Meghan,” suggested Ben.

  “If this is a trap, you can’t go in alone,” snapped Amelie.

  They reached the street Meghan went down and Ben peered ahead into the shadows. The sun was setting, and the narrow streets of Northport would quickly be plunged into darkness.

  “If this is a trap, we need Towaal,” rejoined Ben.

  “I’m going with you,” demanded Amelie.

  “Fine.” He sighed.

  “There!” exclaimed Amelie, pointing. They saw Meghan just in time to see her turn down another street, crimson cloak fluttering behind her as she walked.

  “She’s not being very circumspect,” mentioned Amelie.

  Ben nodded. Meghan wasn’t trying to hide from them with that cloak, he was sure of that.

  Several more blocks and they were trailing half a block behind her. Ben slowed their pace to follow from a distance.

  Half a bell, they followed Meghan’s cloak through the thin crowds. She never once looked back, which eventually made Ben doubt she knew she was being followed.

  “What if this isn’t a trap,” he wondered.

  “Then I’m going to knock her head for tattling on us at the Sanctuary,” grumbled Amelie.

  “And if it is a trap?” Ben smirked.

  “Then I’m still going to knock her head,” snapped Amelie.

  Meghan turned and entered a long building. They stopped. They were in the warehouse district of Northport and the streets were nearly empty.

  “If I was going to set a trap for someone, I’d do it here,” stated Amelie. She fidgeted, looking up and down the rough street.

  Ben agreed.

  “Let’s move around back,” he suggested. “No sense in walking right in and making it easy on them.”

  They dodged through a narrow alleyway cluttered with crates, barrels and other debris. Near the back of the warehouse, Ben spied windows high up, under the eaves of the roof. They’d be opened in the summer to get a cross breeze through the big structure, he guessed.

  Silently, he pointed at them. Amelie looked around then waved him forward. A stack of broken and rotting crates leaned against the wall at the end of the alley. They appeared to have been there for years, sitting out in the weather.

  Ben walked up to the boxes and shook them gently. The pile barely moved under his hand. He glanced back at Amelie and shrugged. They would either be able to climb up the pile and access the window above, or they would come crashing down with a huge amount of noise then land in a pile of broken wood. Either way, there was no chance he was going to walk in the front door of the warehouse. The pile was the only other option.

  He knelt down to boost Amelie up, and she started scaling the stack, grabbing loose planks and hauling herself up and over each crate.

  Ben followed slowly. Amelie was smaller than him. Just because the structure didn’t collapse under her weight didn’t mean he would make it. Concentrating on listening for any ominous sounding creaks, he crawled up the pile. Watching Amelie above him, he wasn’t paying close enough attention to where he was putting his hands and earned himself a nasty splinter from a broken piece of crate.

  Muttering under his breath, he sucked on his hand, trying to draw out the sharp spear of wood. A bit more carefully, he continued upward.

  At the top of the pile, the crates shifted dangerously under their weight. Ben and Amelie moved slowly to not jostle the stack and send it all crashing to the ground.

  They found the windows under the eave were shut. Ben examined them and saw they were loosely fit. He could see a simple catch through a gap and drew his hunting knife. Wedging it into the gap, he jimmied it along to push against the catch, springing it free. Then he pulled the window open.

  “You learn that from Renfro or Rhys?” whispered Amelie.

  “Heard about it in a story,” he explained.

  Peering into the dark warehouse, he couldn’t see much, but saw there was a second floor to the place.

  He sheathed his knife then wiggled into the open window. He promptly fell half a man height down to a dusty wooden floor. He froze, worried the thump of his fall would alert someone.

  Nothing happened.

  Amelie came in after him and he helped her down more gracefully.

  They were in between two head-high rows of nondescript ceramic jars. Ahead of them, Ben could see the second floor ended in a loft. Down below, on the main floor, there was the flicker of light.

  He met Amelie’s eyes and held a finger to his lips. She nodded then followed Ben as he crawled forward, inching along the dusty board floor, and prioritizing silence over speed.

  Glancing over the ledge of the loft, he saw Meghan in the middle of the floor. She was still in her crimson cloak and was facing an armed man. The man had three more companions seated at a table behind him. It looked like they had all been playing cards and drinking. The men wore no identifying marks, but Ben was certain who th
ey were, Sanctuary men.

  “What do you mean you haven’t seen them!” demanded the man.

  Ben pulled back so he could no longer see the people below. He could still hear.

  “I think I was clear. I haven’t seen them,” retorted Meghan angrily. “I’ve checked every inn in this damn town. They aren’t staying at any of them. They must be staying in the keep. It’s the only other option. We can’t take them in that place, so the best chance is to draw them here. I’m not sure how else I can explain that to you, captain.”

  Ben and Amelie looked at each other. They’d been certain it was her, but hearing her voice after so long brought everything that happened in the Sanctuary crashing back. The last time they heard that voice was minutes before she betrayed them.

  “I’m sick of this waiting,” snarled the man. “How can you have not seen them! How can they have not seen you!” His heavy boots thumped on the stone floor of the warehouse. He sounded like he was pacing back and forth. “If you were in the square all day like you said, then I am absolutely sure you would have seen them, or they would have seen you. I’m starting to doubt your loyalty.”

  “No one would have even known they left if it wasn’t for me, captain,” retorted Meghan sharply. “And don’t think you can threaten me by casting dispersions about my loyalty. The mages know what I did and where my allegiance lies. I don’t really give a damn about what you think. Until a mage tells me differently to my face, we’re doing this my way. I don’t want Initiate Amelie, I want all of them. We do it my way, we take them all at once. You heard the same orders I did. I’ve had just about enough of your shit.”

  Ben lay on his back, listening. Involuntarily, his hand gripped his longsword. Hearing his sister say in her own words that she betrayed him was almost too much.

  The captain snorted. “Whatever. I’m done playing these games. If you are as loyal as you say you are, then I can only assume you are incompetent. Either way, I’ll let the mage deal with you.”

  “There’s no mage here…” Meghan stopped.

  Ben and Amelie exchanged a silent look. Both, curious, rose up slowly to peer back down over the edge.

  A new woman was standing in the torchlight. She was dressed finely and had a jewel-pommeled belt knife hanging on her side. She had to be the mage.

  “I-I…” Meghan stuttered. “What are you doing here?”

  “How do you think we knew to come to Northport?” chided the guard captain. “Ignorant girl. You think we just happened to choose this city? We’ve been following the mage’s instructions this entire time. We brought you to help finish this without having to expend her. She is not pleased with your ineffectiveness.”

  “But my plan will work!” objected Meghan. “We heard there was magic used during the battle. Certainly they are here. I just need more time to find them.”

  The woman, the mage, stared back at Meghan then tilted her head. Ben’s breath caught. The woman’s face was brilliant white, porcelain white. Her lips were painted blood red, her checks blushed, and perfect black eyebrows arched over stark, dark holes. She was wearing a mask, he realized, a porcelain mask. The rest of her head was covered by a dark hood.

  Unspeaking, the woman circled Meghan, tracing a finger across the back of her bright crimson cloak.

  “I thought you were…” Meghan swallowed visibly. The taint of fear laced her voice. “I thought you were going to Whitehall when you recovered.”

  The woman didn’t answer. She gripped Meghan’s chin and turned her head to look into her eyes. Briefly, she held the look then released Meghan. Meghan’s hand shot up and rubbed where the woman’s fingers had pressed into her flesh.

  The porcelain-faced woman nodded to the captain. The man grimaced and yanked out his belt knife.

  Meghan’s eyes popped wide open. She shouted, “No!”

  It was too late. The captain took two quick strides forward and plunged his dagger into Meghan’s side. Again and again, he punched his knife into her. Blood soaked her dress. Ben watched in horror as his sister slumped in the captain’s arms. His feelings toward Meghan were complicated with her betrayal, but some part of him always hoped they had been mistaken.

  Whatever her crimes, he certainly didn’t want to see her stabbed to death in front of him. He remembered when he was just a little boy and she was the one person in Alistair’s house who was kind to him. A sick feeling coursed through his body. He shut his eyes.

  Amelie elicited a tiny whimper and the porcelain-faced woman turned upward. She stared into the darkness where Ben and Amelie lay motionless. They were frozen, scared to breathe.

  The soldiers, noticing the mage’s look, stood at the table and gripped their weapons while the captain dropped Meghan’s body to the stone floor. He stepped delicately back from the growing pool of blood that surrounded her.

  He looked at the woman.

  She returned his look and made a sharp gesture with her hand.

  To his men, the captain barked, “Prepare the bowl for a seeking. We should have enough material for one more. The mage will confirm where exactly Initiate Amelie is and we will go and finish this.”

  He paused, also scanning the darkness above. “Before we leave, search this place from top to bottom. Make sure we don’t have any lurking rats.”

  The porcelain-faced woman sat at the soldier’s table while they bustled about. She stared silently at the scattered food and drink they’d left beside their cards.

  While the men were banging and rustling around pulling out supplies, Ben and Amelie slithered backward very carefully. Ben hoped the sounds the soldiers made would cover any inadvertent scuffs. Staying still wasn’t an option. If the men searched upstairs, there was nowhere to hide. If the mage could magically locate them, Ben wanted to make damn sure they weren’t sitting in the same building.

  After a nervous minute, they were standing back at the window. Ben hoisted Amelie out then crawled after. Every fiber in his body was screaming at him to hurry.

  On the boxes outside, he looked back at the slatted-wooden window and thought about closing it. Surely the soldiers would suspect someone had been there if he did not, but the risk of a squeak or creak was too great. The soldiers would know someone had been there, but they wouldn’t know who.

  Scampering down the boxes, Ben winced at each little sound they made. Luckily, the men inside didn’t hear anything.

  Once on the ground, he and Amelie set out at a fast jog.

  Between breaths, he asked, “What is a seeking?”

  “I don’t know, but I can guess,” she replied.

  He picked up the pace and they sped around startled strangers who, still nervous from the demons, watched them pass into the darkness.

  It was full night and the streets were sparsely lit. Ben knew they were leaving an easy to follow trail for anyone who had the inclination, but if this mage could seek them out somehow, it was pointless to try hiding. Both of them knew without needing to say it—they had to find Towaal. Quickly.

  ***

  Darting across the square, they headed to the darkened library building.

  At Towaal’s request, new guards had finally been posted there. The two men tried to move to block the door. Ben and Amelie flashed past them.

  “Thanks. We know where we’re going,” he shouted as they blew by.

  The men stood, startled.

  Careening through the stacks and bashing into walls in the pitch-black building, Ben and Amelie burst down the narrow hall into the Librarian’s private room. The Librarian’s former room, Towaal had claimed it as her own.

  She owlishly glanced up at them from a notebook, a single lamp lighting the small space.

  Panting, Ben and Amelie both started talking at once.

  Towaal held up a hand and frowned, clearly sensing their panic but obviously not understanding a thing they said.

  Ben glanced at Amelie and nodded for her to tell it.

  “We found Meghan, or maybe she found us,” she began, “but she
’s dead. Killed by Sanctuary soldiers and…and a mage. A woman wearing a white porcelain mask.”

  “You’re certain she’s a mage?” asked Towaal, jumping to her feet.

  “She must be,” assured Amelie. “They spoke about her doing a seeking. The captain said she would be able to find me. Do you know what a seeking is?”

  “I have not heard of a seeking,” said Towaal, shaking her head, “but we should assume what you heard is correct, they will be able to find you. We’ve known this day would come.”

  Amelie nodded, still catching her breath.

  Towaal darted around the room, gathering up documents and books.

  While she worked, she barked out, “Why did they kill Meghan?”

  “Meghan was supposed to be bait in a trap for us, I think,” answered Ben. “They were upset she hadn’t found us yet.”

  “Describe this woman’s mask?” she asked next.

  Ben did, detailing the creepiness of it. He then asked Towaal, “Who is she?”

  The mage shrugged. “I am not aware of any mages at the Sanctuary who wear a mask of any type, much less the porcelain one you describe.”

  Snatching up a final book, she queried, “You said the soldiers were getting supplies for this seeking. What did they get?”

  “We were sneaking away,” said Amelie, “but before we lost sight, I saw a bowl, a small wooden box, a golden dagger…”

  “And a red-colored vial,” finished Ben, frowning.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered Amelie.

  “What?” demanded Towaal.

  “The vial,” Amelie quaked. “It could have been blood.”

  “And?” replied Towaal curtly.

  “Mistress Eldred had my blood. Could she have tracked me here with it?” asked Amelie.

  “It’s possible,” allowed Towaal, a grim expression stealing across her face. “There is a theory that has floated around through the years…It doesn’t matter. They tracked you somehow. We need to go. We need to get Rhys.”

  “Rhys—” started Ben.