Ancients

by Riley Keene

  “Yes, you do. This is my thanks for saving my life.” Detlev pushed the parcel across the bench to Elise. “Make it count, and don’t let the guards take it away. It’s not easy getting supplies like that in here. I get the feeling you’re going to need them for more than just this.”

  Elise peeled the packaging away, revealing a handful of clean bandages, a small glass bottle of antiseptic, and a few small bundles of herbs she recognized as medicinal. She breathed a sigh of relief. Even without proper facilities, she could get Ermolt in fighting shape by the afternoon. Maybe she could even ensure there was no infection.

  “I do suggest you let him get some food first,” Detlev continued. “And get him back to a cell where you can patch him up properly. You won’t need to save as much for your friend,” He looked over at the door they’d disappeared into. “They’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone she fought them hard enough to warrant such a beating, so they’ll patch her up themselves before she’s back out here again.”

  “You made the right call, encouraging her to go,” Ermolt said. He coughed and swallowed hard. His good eye swiveled around to focus on Elise. “Their questions didn’t make any sense to me, but they said they’d let us go when they get what they want.” He turned his head, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “They weren’t rough on me when they were questioning me. It was when they were done that most of this happened.” He gestured to his face. “This was just for show. To scare her into talking.” He groaned, touching his swollen brow.

  “Get some food,” Elise said. She reached over and grabbed Athala’s tray, pulling it towards her so that she could add the remaining apple to the leftover gravy of her own meal. “You still need your strength. We’ve got a busy day of bandages and salves ahead of us.”

  When he started eating, taking slow and pained bites, Elise looked over at the door Athala had been shoved through.

  Athala was her charge. Elise was supposed to protect her. If she’d fought, maybe they would have taken Elise instead, and left Athala alone. But then Ermolt would have suffered, as Athala didn’t have the skills to patch him up.

  And what if they’d taken both of them? Would Ermolt have been able to take care of himself? She watched the barbarian shovel another handful of biscuits and gravy into his mouth, the oily substance dripping down his chin and onto the front of his shirt. He was sitting upright alone, and that was good, but it was painfully obvious that without Elise’s help, he would take days to recover from his ordeal.

  With a heaving sigh, Elise accepted that maybe Ermolt and Detlev were right and she made the right choice. She just hoped Athala would be alright.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The guards led Athala down a hallway that seemed to house the administrative areas of the prison. There were very few prisoners and only the occasional guard. The doors here were simple wooden affairs, some with locks.

  The procession finally stopped in front of an open door and the female guard shoved Athala sideways into the room. Athala caught a glimpse of the two male guards taking up stations by the door, but the woman walked away. A thread of fear caught in her throat at the thought of being left alone with the two guards who had threatened her. Instead, after verifying that Athala wasn’t going to try to fight, they closed the door and left her alone.

  The room itself didn’t look like it belonged in a prison. It looked like a fine sitting room, with a few cushioned chairs and low tables nearby. There was a writing desk in one corner and a bookshelf in another. Near one wall there was a small wood stove with a nice tea set atop it.

  The walls had been painted a deep green color, though the floor was the same cut stone blocks as the rest of the prison. A closer look at the wall revealed they were also the simple cut stone of the prison beneath the paint. Whoever this room belonged to, they wanted it to look noble. The effect made it feel more like a thief’s den, where fine stolen furniture filled a cheap space.

  When she was sure she was alone, Athala’s nerves gave way to curiosity. She crossed the room to the writing desk, wondering if she could find some hint as to what they wanted from her. The book on the desk gave her pause. She felt an eerie tingle on the back of her neck as she recognized it instantly.

  Athala snatched the book off the desk. It was one of her research books from her pack. It contained the various notes, concepts, and Draconian symbols related to an experiment she’d been working on recently. She’d been trying to discover ways to alter the standard magical detection ritual—like the one she had used to divine the location of the spell they were after—to make it more descriptive. It was a complex project and one that she feared would be ultimately fruitless without rendering the ritual too complex to be usable in the field.

  What unsettled her was the notes written in the margins in a strange hand. Athala’s own notations for spell casting were her family’s methods as she had learned them, and differed from those taught at the Wizard Tower. It meant that whenever her notes got into glyphs and sigils, technical explanations, or descriptions of hand motions, it was little more than gibberish for anyone not of her family. Whoever had made these notes had found a common reference somewhere in them—possibly her reference to the standard magical detection ritual itself—and was using it as a conversion factor to slowly translate and decode her notes into the more common notation.

  She tried to brush off how nervous this made her. Athala understood the academy’s notation and could see that the progress was genuine. It would have eased her mind if whoever was working on her notes had failed to understand her cipher. She knew she wasn’t the world’s most intelligent wizard, and that anyone with an adequate education would be able to keep up with her. But in the back of her mind, she’d always felt so much farther above everyone else. She flipped through some more of the pages, and every notation felt like a fresh humiliation. Athala was embarrassed of her own pride.

  The door at the far end of the room opened, landing heavily against the wall. Athala instinctively flinched, tossing the book back onto the desk as though it weren’t her own property, as though it was more right for it to be on the desk instead of in her hands.

  A man entered the room, striding right passed the door as it swung back shut behind him. He looked around the room quickly and focused on the obviously-disturbed book on the desk before finally looking at Athala.

  He was well-dressed, wearing a fine merchant’s suit instead of anything resembling a uniform as she would have expected from anyone who actually belonged in the prison. His hair was longer than was professional in such an environment, but not an unfashionable length.

  His skin was also pale, and while he was not unattractive, smaller flaws commonly associated with the merchant class detracted from his appearance. The gray hairs on the sides of his head were sparse enough that it did not yet look distinguished, only stressed. He had a double chin and sunken eyes, revealing poor eating and sleeping habits. These were things Athala had seen in her father when she was young, and were things she expected to see in her brother the next time she was allowed to return home.

  “At last,” the man said, his mouth oozing into a smile as he approached, “my favorite author. You have provided so much interesting reading material for me.” He gestured to the book. “This one appeared to be unfinished, so I must know the ending. Care to fill me in?” His tone was a question, but he didn’t stop to let her answer. “But where are my manners. I am Ingmar Aldmann. I’m the,” he hesitated, “Deputy Warden of this facility.” He let the words hang as though there were a threat hidden in them, though if so, Athala didn’t hear it.

  “I’m sorry,” Athala said, since no other response came to mind. She looked back down at the book on the desk. “What did you want with me?”

  “Ah, my apologies. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have new prisoners in my presence. ‘Deputy Warden’ is a nice way of saying that I’m Auernheim's resident interrogator. And interrogator is really a nice way of saying something else entirely, but ho
pefully it won’t come to that.” His lips peeled back from his smile, showing his teeth. “You will be quite unhappy if it comes to that.” Once more he let the silence fill the room as though it was a threat.

  “I’m sorry,” Athala said again, unsure of how else to react. “I’m really not sure what you want.” She picked the book of her notes back up, mostly just to give herself something to do with her hands. “Did you have questions, then?”

  Ingmar’s expression shifted quickly between a sequence of frustration, confusion, and amusement. “Yes,” he said at last, “I do have questions, especially about your studies. But we’ll get to those in a moment. Let’s start with you. Who are you? Where are you from?”

  “Well,” she said, flipping the book over twice in her hands, lengthwise. “You probably already know that my name is Athala Dohn, of the Dohn merchant family.”

  “I believe I would know if a member of the Dohn merchant family were in my prison,” Ingmar said, chuckling to himself. “To the point, I believe I would know because they would be leaving much faster than you will.”

  “The Dohn family you’re referring to of are distant cousins of mine.” Athala resisted the urge to hug the book to her chest, realizing that the instinct to hide behind it was childish and would not help. “Arnfried Dohn was my great-grandfather’s eldest brother, so the relation is mostly academic at this point. We’re still attached to the family, but only slightly more so than other partnered merchant families. My family—and by that I mean my brother—handles the alchemical products the Dohn family distributes and sells.”

  “Ah, I see. And you’re wandering around the sewers of Khule for,” he paused, “what reason, exactly? Exercise? Thrill seeking?”

  “My brother and I had a, um, falling out.” Athala shifted the book to one hand. She let it fall to one side against her hip where she lightly tapped the cover against her prison garb. “It was, ah, something like creative differences. I got sick and...” the thumbnail of her free hand picked at the cuticle on her ring finger. “Well, my brother wanted to focus on the family business.”

  Ingmar crossed to one of the padded chairs. He didn’t sit, but instead just stood next to it and crossed his arms. “Alright. So, your research notes. You’re experimenting with magical detection spells?”

  “Yes,” she hesitated, puzzled. Why would he ask that? The book she held in her hand, the one that he had just spoken about reading, was proof enough of that.

  “And what progress have you made?” he prompted, once the silence made it clear she didn’t intend to continue.

  “Well, enhancements to the standard magical detection spell are not terribly viable. The original creator probably did the same calculations I’ve been doing.” She shrugged, moving the book back in front of herself, abandoning her cuticles to pick at a worn place on the edge of the cover.

  “Trying to get more information out of the spell is almost impossible. The required energy is exponentially higher for every bit of information added to the spell, and so would require either multiple ritualists, or specially-designed facilities. And the rate of increase is so severe, it might not be doable even in ideal circumstances. I’ve made some progress folding in modern advancements to increase the range of the spell, but if there’s a way to enhance the spell further, I don’t have the information necessary for it.”

  “And so, what, you think the spell in those ruins could help you with that?”

  “Well, not specifically. But, I mean, you never can tell what effects you could derive from something that ancient.”

  Ingmar’s face contorted with what could only be described as rage and Athala swallowed hard, looking away.

  “How about you be honest with me, Dohn?” Athala looked back at him to protest, but he had started across the room towards her and the words just fell away. “There’s no way that spell—that specific spell—could be used for something so benign. What are you really after?”

  “I only just located it when I made my modifications to the ritual, I mean.” Athala backed away until she was against the wall. She looked down at her feet. “I don’t know what that spell specifically does. I just thought it was interesting. Once the range of the magical detection spell was optimized, it stuck out as something huge. No one knew about it or could explain it, so I thought I’d investigate.” She shrugged, risking a glance up at him.

  “Oh, I’m sure,” Ingmar said, his smirk matching his tone. “All of this asking around and nobody told you about the sanctum? Nobody told you what kind of power you were approaching?” He stepped in towards her, uncomfortably close. “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Anything I did find out didn’t matter.” She pressed herself farther back into the wall, trying to put some space between them. Athala held the book against her chest, her forearms tensed and ready to strike him with it if he got any closer. “I had already decided to go for the spell before I talked to anyone.”

  Ingmar sighed wistfully and backed away from Athala, just enough to give her room to breathe.

  “I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to go through this, Athala.” Without warning he ripped the book from her grasp, snatching it away before she could react. “I’m going to ask nicely one more time.”

  Ingmar leaned in close and Athala could smell his breakfast as clear as if he’d eaten it in front of her. He’d had eggs with a bit of sausage, and a glass of liquor. Something heavy with juniper. Ingmar pressed her book against her chin, making her head roll back against the wall. “What did you want that spell for, and what does it have to do with this research?”

  “N-n-nothing!” Athala stammered. “Why does it matter?”

  “Did you do something?” he snapped, leaning in closer to her. “Did you do something to the spell? Why doesn’t it work?”

  “D-do you mean the missing runes?” Athala perked up slightly. “You’re trying to get the spell, then?”

  “Yes,” he snarled, moving in closer. Athala’s momentary joy was ripped away as he loomed over her. “I don’t know how you did it.” He enunciated each word carefully. “But you will tell me what you did, and how I can undo it.”

  “It’s possible,” she began, trying not to flinch as she straightened up, matching his height. Their noses were practically touching. “It’s also possible that if you don’t understand, it’s because my notes are a bit beyond your level.”

  One moment she was standing, and then another her head was bouncing off the floor. He hit her. Not only that, he hit her with her own book.

  Athala backed up against the wall, drawing her legs in to protect her belly. She raised one hand protectively, fresh memories of Ermolt’s bruised face in her mind. Ingmar tossed the book onto the table, letting it land flat with a bang.

  “I had hoped you wouldn’t force it to be this way.” He pulled open a drawer and began pawing around within, the sound of metal implements clinking together. “Or, at least, that’s what I’m supposed to say.” He produced from the drawer a thin knife and a hooked instrument. “But really, it’s no skin off my back. Only yours.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Elise wasn’t surprised when Athala was unceremoniously shoved back out into the mess hall just after the cooks stopped dishing out supper, just like Detlev had said. In preparation for her return, Elise had ensured she and Ermolt had gotten the same table as that morning, and so Athala managed to find them with relative quickness. Unlike Ermolt, Athala returned alone, walking by herself with no visible injuries. But it was clear that she had not been unhurt.

  The black-skinned wizard looked pale and her gait was unsteady. She groped the edge of tables as she passed, without concern for the men and women who glared up at her when her hand came within reach of them. Her sackcloth prisoner tunic had spots of blood on it, and she had large circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t slept in days.. Athala’s hair was a jumbled mess as though it had been rinsed sloppily. There were some flecks of filth that still clung to it, and as she got closer, Elise could
tell it was dried vomit.

  When Athala huffed out a sigh and settled into her seat, Elise could smell the sickly-sweet odor of an alchemical potion on her breath. That explained the lack of wounds, then.

  Athala looked over at Ermolt and was visibly surprised by his improved appearance. Elise was proud of her handiwork. Most of his bruising had faded to an awkward yellow, and the swelling around his eye had diminished greatly. There were some bandages wrapped around his hands and arms, and one on the side of his neck. All of them were slightly reddened, but overall he did look much better.

  “Are you alright? What did they do to you? Do you need any help?” Athala only put her head down on the table. With worry furrowing her brow, Elise slid her food tray over in front of Athala. The tray containing the combined leftovers of Ermolt and Elise’s dinner. Tonight’s slop was a bit of overcooked pasta with a ‘white sauce’ that essentially was just the ‘gravy’ they had with breakfast. On the side of the tray, carefully placed so it didn’t touch anything else, was a fresh orange. The surprisingly vibrant color contrasted with the muted tones of the rest of the meal.

  The smell of food hit the wizard’s nostrils and her head came up sharply. With both hands, Athala dug into the meal with a voracity Elise had never seen, forgoing the wooden fork on the side of the plate. Usually the wizard picked at her food as if she weren’t hungry, and preferred fruits and vegetables to unknown lumpy white substances. The day’s activities must have worn her out.

  After a moment, Athala came up for air. “I’m... I’m alright,” she responded between bites. She looked over to Ermolt. “Did you have to talk to the, er, what did he call himself? The Deputy Warden?”

  “Yeah,” Ermolt said, grimacing at the title. “He’s a mean piece of work.”

  “He’s a wizard,” Athala said around a mouthful of pasta. “He’s been rifling through my spell books and research notes, trying to figure out how to get the spell we found.”