by J. S. Morin
He worked at the gag in his mouth, trying to dislodge it. Were he to manage that trick, the correct time would be “now,” and he would worry about other consequences as they came up. As it stood, the gag stubbornly refused his efforts, and he could not get his shackled hands close enough to hook his thumbs in and pull at it. He would have to settle for a blast of raw aether and hope that he did not immolate himself as the gag caught fire.
That little trick was something he would save until all was quiet. Outside the cell, he could still hear people on the streets, and the constables trying to keep them away from his cell window. There were a lot of angry people out there, he knew, and in this case at least, the constables were on his side; no escape plan would be worth its weight in feathers if he got dragged out by that mob and killed first.
He was roused from his musings by footsteps approaching from down the cell block. Kyrus was no expert on the subject, but it was more than one person, and fewer than a dozen. He got a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach; nothing good had come down that corridor of late.
He was pleasantly surprised to see that it was the jailor and two men armed with crossbows. Well, he was not pleased to see them so much as the lovely young lady they had brought to see him.
“Oh, Kyrus,” Abbiley gushed after she saw him, disheveled, unshaven, and trussed up in his cell. She was carrying a bowl of something steaming. He also noticed that she was still wearing the jade dragon they had bought only yesterday.
“One word out of you and you will find two quarrels in your throat,” the jailor threatened as he unlocked the cell door. Kyrus’s eyes were drawn to the ring of keys he carried. “I do not care if it is Acardian or witch gibberish, I shall take no chances. You will get fed, and that is it.”
One of the armed men loosened his gag, and then both took up positions on either side of him, weapons leveled, as promised, generally at his throat. Abbiley hurried over and knelt down next to him, then started spooning stew into him. It felt wonderful in his mouth—too hot perhaps, but the first food he had tasted in nearly a day—and knowing that Abbiley would still come see him felt even better. The look in her eyes was haunted and worried, but she was scared for him, not of him.
“Kyrus, are all those awful things they said about you true,” she asked.
Kyrus shook his head between mouthfuls.
“You are a witch, though,” she stated rather than asked.
Kyrus bobbed his head a bit from side to side, to try to indicate that it was not so clear a distinction. Kyrus was quite mindful of the “no talking” edict and fully intended to carry on a whole conversation via head gestures if he had to.
“So you did magic, but you are not a witch?” she asked, trying to piece together a story from the vague hints he could give.
Kyrus smiled and nodded. This seemed to be working.
He was hungry and devoured whatever she spooned to him, but too late, he realized that his conversation was likely to last the duration of the stew. As the final spoonful made its way into his mouth, the jailor intervened: “That is enough, we are done here.”
Kyrus quickly concocted a new plan. Firehurling was supposedly quite dangerous, and he had never tried it, but it was supposedly about the simplest form of magic. He could take out the two armed guards first, then the jailor. Then he could either use Rashan’s spell, or get Abbiley to retrieve the keys from the jailor’s body. After that, he would blast a path out of the jail and out of the city, and he and Abbiley could live as outlaws until Brannis read up on enough magic for him to set them up in a comfortable lifestyle out in the wilderness. After a time and a better understanding of magic, maybe he could insinuate himself back into society, not in Scar Harbor, but perhaps in Harvin or Udur—someplace where they were still under the rule of Acardia but not so close to home. He could use magic to rise in the social ranks and do well in business—whatever business he chose—and raise a family in wealth and privilege. He could teach his children magic, and they could become the secret ruling class in the kingdom, using magic to take over and institute laws against punishing people for witchcraft.
Abruptly, Kyrus’s planning was cut short by the gag being stuffed roughly back in his mouth and Abbiley being led from the cell. As the door was locked behind him, Abbiley turned to look at him one last time.
“Do not worry, Kyrus. I am sure this will all work out somehow. Oh, and do not worry about Ash. I took him home with me until this all gets figured out.”
* * * * * * * *
Kyrus bided his time the rest of the daylight hours. The fervor of the crowd outside had waned when it became apparent after several hours that the constables were not about to allow them to storm the cell and drag Kyrus out. It was not the type of crowd that would storm a prison without the tacit approval of the constables. They were the sort who liked to make a lot of noise and hope that someone else would do the whole “taking the law into their own hands” bit, lest they end up in a cell of their own.
As near as Kyrus could tell, by nightfall, all that were left outside were a pair of fresh constables who had replaced the ones from earlier. They carried on a bit of idle conversation but otherwise proved to be uninteresting; no news of the rest of the trial or his sentence, no dropped hints of lackadaisical jailors or loose bricks that Kyrus could use. He was beginning to think all the storybooks he had read were going to prove useless.
He steeled himself for what might prove to be the riskiest thing he had tried in his life, and began to draw in aether. Then he started to let it out right into the leather cord of the gag. Slowly at first, then in increasing amounts, he warmed, then heated, then practically boiled the leather.
Hot. Hot. Hot. It is not burning. I am!
Kyrus twisted and squirmed and could smell his own singed hair, and quickly stopped the flow of aether, instead unloading it into the door again. Tears streamed from his eyes as the burning hot cord pressed into the back of his neck, where he had tried to focus the heat. Eventually the heat died down and became tolerable, and Kyrus breathed a sigh of relief.
Well, that was one of the worst ideas I have ever had.
He was still locked up and gagged, and now his neck hurt where the leather rubbed against burned flesh.
Time to see how picky magic is about pronunciation.
“Hmnk wrru uhdhdh poguruh bnnuh dhdhguh vnk rvrurugnuh,” he mumbled, mimicking Rashan’s gesture of pressing his hands together and making little circles as he rubbed them together.
At first, he thought he felt something weird happening to him, but soon he realized that it was the aether building inside him with no release. He heated the doors some more to let the pressure of the aether escape him.
Kyrus knew that the magic did not care one whit about the words themselves or how he spoke them. It was more a matter of the shapes they made in his mind. But Kyrus was new at this, and the words and gestures were meant to create the right thoughts. He did not know the spell well enough to skip to the end results and just cast it knowing how it was supposed to go.
Kyrus tried the spell again, this time focusing on trying to hear the words correctly in his head, even if his mouth was getting them wrong—due to entirely forgivable circumstances.
Having nothing but time on his hands, Kyrus kept trying over and over as each attempt failed. He began wondering if he would be better off just trying his plan of “blast everything next time someone unlocks the door.”
After what, by his count, was his thirty-fifth try, he was distracted by noises outside. In the clear night air, he could more clearly hear the two constables guarding him and the scant few noises of the streets.
“Mind if we have a word with your prisoner?”
The male voice came from outside, not far from Kyrus’s window.
“No visitors. Please step ba—”
The constable’s voice was cut short.
“Hwp—” a muffled voice began, but got no further.
Kyrus heard two bodies slump to the ground.
He was not sure what had transpired outside his cell, but he was leery of it. Too many people had called for his death earlier in the day for him to trust that a random stranger was less a threat to him than the men guarding his cell.
“You in there,” the voice called.
Kyrus looked up to see a face peering down at him through the bars.
“Are you really a sorcerer?”
The owner of the voice had a darkly tanned face covered in salt-and-pepper stubble, and he wore a black knit cap pulled low.
Kyrus heard the word “sorcerer” instead of “witch,” and festival bells rang in his brain. That was the Kadrin term for a witch! Kyrus decided to take his chances with the user of the term less associated with public burning. He nodded enthusiastically.
“Get the back of your head as close to these bars as you can,” the stranger instructed.
Kyrus struggled up onto the plank bed and stood straight, turning his back to the window.
“Kohtho ilextiumane veeru,” Kyrus heard from behind him.
Suddenly the gag was loose in his mouth. He quickly spit it out, trailing a wad of saliva with it, and worked his stiff jaw to loosen the muscles. He turned to see his benefactor just inches from his face.
“Thank you,” Kyrus said. “Are you planning on getting me out of here?”
Kyrus did not ask what had befallen the constables. At that moment, he did not want to know.
“Burning through that gag was about the most I can manage,” the man said. “If you are really a sorcerer, now is the time to prove it. Same words I just used, and hold your fingers as close together as you can without them touching.”
The stranger then demonstrated the gesture. Kyrus was relieved to find that someone had discovered a spell for casting while shackled.
“Focus on these bars, and once they melt through, we can pull you out.”
“Kohtho ilextiumane veeru,” Kyrus repeated as he put his fingers close together.
He drew aether and felt it flow like an arrow straight to the point in the bar he directed it. It glowed orange, but Kyrus accidentally touched his fingers together and the spell faltered.
“You must keep your fingers apart or it will never work,” his would-be rescuer told him. “You get more power from having them closer, but touching ruins it. Find a way to get it done without ending the spell so soon.”
Kyrus tried again, this time with his fingers far enough apart that he could have put his nose between them, had the shackles allowed him that much freedom.
“Kohtho ilextiumane veeru,” Kyrus repeated.
The aether flowed again. The bar turned a reddish-orange, but did not seem to be melting.
“They need to be closer than that,” the man said. “I am surprised you can heat it at all like that.”
Kyrus looked down and brought his fingers much closer. He was no longer watching where he was aiming, but he kept the aether going the same place it had been, so he was hopeful it would still be heating the bar.
He heard a hissing sound and looked up, trying not to move his fingers. He saw the reddish-orange bar turn a bright orange, then white, then become a puddle. Then the puddle started to boil off.
“Great Melethaw, Lord of Seas! What did you just do?” the man said.
Kyrus was not well versed in nautical expletives, but he recalled that Melethaw was one of the ancient Garnevian gods. It did not tell him much about his rescuer, but at least he was classically educated. Or possibly a cultist, Kyrus thought, keeping himself honest. There was no use overlooking unpleasant possibilities.
“I did as you asked,” Kyrus answered. “I kept my fingers closer together.”
“Well, hurry up and do the same to the other three. I had thought we would be at this for some time, but it seems I underestimated you.”
The stranger left for a moment as Kyrus repeated the spell thrice more.
His rescuer soon returned with his companion. Kyrus could make out little in the darkness outside, but the second of his rescuers seemed rather a large man. He also noted for the first time that there appeared to be a light rain falling outside. It hissed and steamed as it hit the spots where the iron bars of the cell had once been.
“Get close and we will haul you out,” the first rescuer instructed him, stepping aside so his stone-faced companion could appear at the window to grab him.
“One moment,” Kyrus requested, and began another spell.
“Denek iliaru estatta pogulu benna tetga fenex refleragna,” he chanted quickly, finding it much easier without a gag in his mouth.
As he completed the hand-rubbing gesture, he felt a strange tingling throughout his body. Without warning, he fell through the plank bed he had been standing on. He stopped when he hit the dirt floor, not understanding why it felt solid while all else passed right through him. As planned, the shackles fell right through him as well, crashing onto the plank, which was now at thigh level—and actually within Kyrus’s incorporeal thigh. As an unexpected bonus, his clothing fell through him as well.
Quickly dismissing the magic once he had a chance to step clear of the cluttered mess he had just made, Kyrus hastily dressed himself, and climbed back onto the bed. He reached up with his arms and carefully out the first hand’s length of the window, avoiding the still-scalding ends of the vaporized bars.
The larger of his two rescuers grabbed his hands. Kyrus braced a foot against a wall and tried his best to angle his head so it would go through without touching. With a sudden heave, Kyrus was pulled through the window, scrambling up the wall with his feet as best he could to avoid banging his hips and knees as he went through.
Despite taking a slight battering and scorching both his shirt and pants, Kyrus was little worse for the wear on the other side. The falling rain felt good, even cleansing. He saw his two accomplices in the jailbreak. The leader was a lean, hard-looking man of middle years and much obvious hardship. He had the gleam in his eye of the type of person Kyrus avoided sharing the same side of the street with, even in daylight. The one who had pulled him through the window resembled nothing so much as a wall of person. Tall, wide, and solid, he seemed to be the epitome of what an ambitious wall aspires to.
“Thank you,” Kyrus said.
He was unsure what else to say. His two rescuers were dressed all in black and had just murdered two men who were, even now, spreading pools of blood beneath them. It was not exactly in the “knights in shining armor” mold of rescue, but he supposed he made for a poor maiden. While he regretted that the two constables had to die for him to be free, he was feeling a rather large surge in whatever organ regulates self-preservation, and was willing to overlook it, considering they seemed rather likely to be preparing him for a similar fate.
“What now?” Kyrus asked. It felt like a safe, noncommittal question.
“We have somewhere to get, come on,” the leader said, beckoning with one hand. The other he kept against his side, likely concealing whatever blade had been used on the dead constables.
“Where are we heading?” Kyrus asked.
“The docks,” the leader said. “We are going to get on a ship and get far away from Acardia. You seem like you could use a new place to live. I have a place for you.”
Kyrus’s mind skipped a beat. He had never been more than a week’s travel by carriage from Scar Harbor. Golis was a long trek by his mind, and a fast rider could make it in less than a day.
“Can I stop at home and pack a few things?”
“We have the time for it, but no. Your house turned into something of a gawking curiosity, since you left a light on. We saw the glow on our way over here. Even at this hour, folks are likely to notice us if we got near the place. You get a fresh start, lad. Not everyone gets so lucky,” the leader told him. “Now move. Of all the places to discuss this, there are few worse than right here.”
The l
eader took him firmly by the arm as they slipped away down a side street, taking a long, winding route through the city’s worst neighborhoods to avoid notice. Kyrus supposed his new companions were like mountain guides, those curious folk who could walk up nearly sheer surfaces and who were essential companions for explorers seeking the safe ways through the Skelton Peaks. In this case, they were guiding him along the safe passes through the city. He supposed it was a bit of an unfair comparison, since in many ways, the safest path was a knife’s reach to either side of them, and moved with them.
Not needing his eyes to guide him, Kyrus slipped into aether-sight to check for pursuers and ambushes along their path. He mostly kept watch behind them, more worried about pursuit once his escape and associated murders were discovered than the prospect of being accosted in an alley while being escorted by two murderers, one of whom was apparently a minor sorcerer.
“There are a half dozen men around the next corner on the right, headed this way,” Kyrus said.
The leader did not question how he knew but quickly backtracked them to a side street. They made a circle of the block in the opposite direction and kept moving. They could hear a number of voices; apparently some sort of young ne’er-do-wells were gadding about and causing trouble. Kyrus supposed that on this occasion, he ought not be one to judge.
Twice more on their route to the docks, Kyrus altered their course to avoid bystanders. The leader seemed to take it in stride, but Kyrus got the sense that his larger companion was a bit skeptical of how he was getting his insights. He hoped that the leader was in firm control, lest he end up with another witch hunt to flee from.
Their immediate destination was a vacant warehouse near the northern side of the dock ward, close to the piers. Kyrus warned again of a number of men on their path, but this time, his warning was brushed aside.
“They are with us,” the leader informed him. “Everyone,” he announced quietly, once they were close enough that everyone could hear his low tone. “This is Mr. Kyrus Hinterdale. He is coming with us.”