“And if he sounds an alarm?”
Jaren winced inwardly, realizing he probably shouldn’t have mentioned the emeralds. Even in hushed conversation, he could have been overheard by an aspiring informant, looking to improve his living conditions. Especially if this Salvatori were that informant. If nothing else, the slip had no doubt added fuel to Reit’s opposition.
Jaren could appreciate his friend’s reticence, and even understand his point of view, but he still held out hope. Reit ran his fingers through his night-black locks, his jaw set stubbornly. He shot molten glares as they debated quietly. He argued his objections doggedly. But never once did he invoke his authority as el’Yatza,as was his right, and issue an unequivocal “no”. The mage couldn’t help but respect him for that.
After a long pause, Reit said, “There is something different about him. I noticed it when they first brought him in here.”
“What? I didn’t notice the guards treating him any differently.”
“I don’t know,” Reit admitted. “It’s not any one thing I can place. Just a feeling. Take the ‘official’ story is that he attacked a granite mage, for one. Look at him. You don’t get wounds like that fighting a granite. And that’s assuming you even survive.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Jaren said. He knew it was best to let el’Yatza convince himself, but Jaren couldn’t contain himself. “There were bits of glass surrounding his eye that were thinner than anything I’ve ever seen before. And the pellets in his hip and torso? They could have been granite-made, but they were far too uniform to come from anything but a mold. Yet they were too long and pointy to be shot from a sling, and there were no wood slivers in the wounds left behind by arrow shafts. Then there’s the—”
“Alright Jaren, enough,” Reit said, cutting him off. “Bad enough you make me question my judgment without you also subjecting me to one of your endless, scholarly dissertations.”
Jaren’s mouth moved of its own accord for a few more moments before he was able to rein it in. When he’d finally composed himself, Reit continued. “He can come with us. How far, I haven’t decided yet. But he’s your pet project, my friend, and if I get even the hint that he means to betray us...” His voice trailed off as he glanced meaningfully over at his brother, sleeping peacefully a few feet away.
Jaren understood him perfectly. They’d all been friends since youth, and had been through everything together. Girls. Magic. Rebellion. And still it baffled Jaren how Retzu could be so categorically different from Reit. It still amazed him how a man as witty and honorable as Retzu could have ever joined the Silent Guild, let alone become one of its most decorated—and deadliest—members.
Chapter 3
The next morning found Sal feeling much stronger. His joints still ached somewhat, protesting the instant he made to stand, but even that was fading rapidly. Jaren, however, was taking no chances. Restraining him as soon as he was up, Jaren’s fully green gemstone eyes ran over Sal’s wounds, then the rest of his body, with a scrutiny that Sal found almost uncomfortable. Finally, Jaren nodded his approval; not a clean bill of health, but apparently a step in the right direction. Sal, on the other hand, felt that he could at least hold his own if another cell boss decided to come looking to him for a handout.
But as luck would have it, he didn’t get the chance to find out. Breakfast came and went without incident. Sal was able to enjoy his grey-green sludge in peace. More’s the pity. Thankfully, a single ration of the stuff was only a few mouthfuls, so he was able to finish quickly, dealing with the taste after it was already down.
As he drained his bowl, Jaren offered his portion. “You need this more than I do,” he said. Before Sal could protest—either by voice or by vomit—Jaren said, “You can eat it, or I can pour it down your gullet. I’m not going to eat it anyway, so you may as well save your strength.” The look in his gemstone eyes brooked no argument. Left no choice, Sal grudgingly accepted the bowl, trying his best to ignore the quivering in his stomach.
“If you gentlemen would excuse me?” Jaren said a little too cheerfully, and walked over to the cell bars.
“Where’s he going?”
“To feed,” Reit said, pausing over his bowl to scowl after Jaren in envy .
“Lucky minta’hk,” Retzu grumbled around a mouthful of slop.
Sal stared bewilderedly. “Then why did he give me his bowl?”
“He’s an emerald,” the twins said in unison.
Whatever in the heck that means, he grumbled silently. Glancing once more at Jaren, now standing with his eyes upturned to the sun, Sal glumly returned his attention to the bowl.
As was swiftly becoming the routine, the remaining three sat down after breakfast to let their food-and their complaining bowels-settle. Neither brother seemed much in the mood for talking just yet, so Sal turned his attention to Jaren, still standing by the bars and staring straight at the sun. “Must’ve been here a long time,” he said to himself. “Gonna burn his eyes right out of his head.”
“Beg your pardon?” Reit said, finally stirring, though more out of discomfort than out of interest.
“Jaren,” Sal indicated his friend. “I said he looks like he’s been here a while.”
“Three weeks, maybe four. He came just a few days after I did. Treason, officially.”
“Treason?” Sal looked sharply at Reit.
“Oh yes. Treason Against The Highest, same as me, though my circumstances differ slightly. Not terribly uncommon. Around here, any form of original thought could be considered treasonous, and may the Prophets help you if you speak out openly against the Highest. You’re lucky if they don’t run you through on the spot.”
“I take it that this ‘Highest’ is your ruler?” Sal meant it as an innocent question, but what he got was far from an innocent answer.
“No man rules me,” Reit snapped. “I was born free, raised free, and I’ll die free. The one thing in this life that a man can truly call his own is freedom, his ability to determine his own place in the world.” He suddenly grew quiet, trying to contain his emotions. His voice adopted a keen, deadly edge. “The Highest may bear the Crown of the Mainland, but I’ll be damned if I’ll ever bow the knee to him.” He leapt to his feet and stalked off, mindless of the prisoners ducking out of his way.
“Don’t mind him, mate,” Retzu said, still reclining on the dirt floor. “He’ll cool down and be back to his...’cheery’...self in no time. He’s just a bit sensitive about certain issues. Being in here certainly don’t help matters much.”
“Issues, huh?” Sal left it at that, and decided that a change in direction was in order. “What about you?”
“Me? I have no issues,” Retzu laughed. “Every day can be filled with sun, if viewed properly.”
Sal was doubtful, but wasn’t going to take that tangent. “What I meant was, why are you in here? Does it have anything to do with his charge?”
“Murder, mate,” Retzu said, winking mischievously.
Sal kept his face carefully neutral. “Did you do it?”
“No, which is precisely why I’m in here. ‘Insubordination’ is my charge, though the definition may fit it a little bit loosely. My guild, the Fellowship of the Silent Blade, dispatched me to eliminate a certain target. When I refused, I was summarily stripped of rank and immunity, and left at the mercy of the Mainland Courts.”
Silent Blade? “You’re an assassin,” he said with an odd mixture of awe and revulsion.
“One of the best.”
“But you refused a mission. Why?”
Retzu lazily looked over at Reit, leaning on the side wall that was not stacked high with bodies. “You might say... the target presented a conflict of interest.”
“Reit?!?” Sal hissed incredulously, to which Retzu only cocked a crooked grin. “But why would they assign you your own brother?”
“Oh, a number of reasons,” the rogue stated scholarly, and proceeded to tick them off on his fingers. “My rate of success, most notably. I’ve neve
r lost a mark. Then there’s my willingness to take on the hard jobs. I’d never turned one down. I also don’t get personally involved. Well, normally, anyway. And there’s the fact that I hold a position of trust with my mark, making him an easy kill. Ball it all together, and you’ve got one dead resistance leader. Until I tell them ‘no’, that is.”
“Resistance?”
Retzu quirked a sidelong glance at Sal. “Either you really ain’t from around here, or you’re an exceptional liar.” With that, Retzu fell silent, and nothing Sal did rekindled the conversation. He passed the rest of the day that way, taking turns watching his brooding brother and staring at Sal, as if to puzzle him out, leaving Sal to do the same.
***
Dirty bodies scattered as Reit stalked. Some did so out of self-preservation. Some did so out of deference to his station, as even foreign royalty is royalty all the same. Some did so for… other reasons.
“Prophets keep you, el’Yatza,” muttered one such dirty body, giving voice to that reason.
Silently, he cursed Salvatori for his suggestion that the Highest ruled him, but then he swallowed the curse and rebuked himself for it. It wasn’t the man’s words that had set his ire ablaze, nor even stoked it. It was simply one more symptom of the overall problem. The Highest was the problem, as was el’Yatza.
“They do adore you,” Jaren said as he sidled up next to Reit, joining him in his stalking.
“Fool’s fortune,” Reit grumbled. “They adore the idiotic notion that I’m their savior. They practically see me as messac’el Himself, and all because I’m too stupid to sit down and play the good little peon for the Highest—who is a man just like any other, by the way, flawed, faulty, and dealing life and death with the whimsy of a three-year-old. These people see me as a hero for defying that wretch, as the Hand of the Crafter, when I am nothing of the sort. I’m simply my own man, nothing more.”
“And yet, it is a rare thing for someone to be their own man,” Jaren argued, however casually. “Even those that follow you are not truly their own men. They are yours.”
“But I don’t want that!” he hissed. “I didn’t want it in Aitaxen, I didn’t want it in the Mandible, and I don’t want it now! I want them to think for themselves, not to expect me or anybody else to think for them.”
“I know, my friend, I know,” the emerald said sympathetically. “But you had an uncommon man to father you, as did I, and they kept uncommon allies. We were taught to think for ourselves. Most of these people were not. They’ve lived their entire lives under the tyrannical rule of the Highest. They know nothing more! He has commanded their loyalties, and those of their fathers, for countless millennia. The people of the Norwood Isles were spared that—not all if it, I grant you, but enough that we can understand the value of an opposing opinion. We can value the education that is denied most of the Mainland. We can understand the meaning of true sacrifice—that which is offered, rather than that which is required of us. Before these poor souls can think for themselves, they must have someone to show them how.”
Reit harrumphed. He couldn’t dispute the truth of his friend’s words, but he had no intention of agreeing with him. “They could follow you, let you teach them,” he offered crossly.
“Perhaps, but I’m not el’Yatza,” the mage jibed gleefully, his mirth only fed by the curse it elicited.
***
The distant clanking of metal on metal broke Sal from his thoughts. Dinner time already, he thought mournfully. Turning, he found Retzu already grabbing up bowls. With Sal’s stomach already lurching in anticipation, he wondered how Retzu could be so eager to swallow such foul gunk.
Conversation that night was casual, if muted, full of stories about old friends and past conquests. Even Reit joined in, to Sal’s relief. It was just like Retzu said—the brooding young man was back to his “cheery” self. If he had offended Reit, the guy seemed to have gotten over it pretty quickly. Sal was content to listen as the trio spun their yarns, joining in only when necessary, and even then keeping his stories vague.
Through an effort of sheer will, Sal held back from asking questions about their world. He needed them a lot more than they needed him at this point, and he didn’t want to risk their hospitality by letting it slip that he was from another world. True or not, he thought the prospect insane enough without giving his new friends a reason to agree with him, and possibly dump him because of it. So he just sat back and soaked in what meager details he could without digging for more.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand the culture; that part was easy. This Schel Veylin—”It means ‘City of the Vale’,” Jaren had said when Sal gave him a puzzled look—was a feudal society. The people were allowed access to only the most basic technology and education, and lived in an almost medieval state, an obvious tactic to keep the populace subservient. If he had to guess, he’d say that he’d been transported back to the days just before the European Renaissance—with winged horses, of course. But as bizarre as that idea was, it did have its advantages. It meant that he was quite possibly the smartest man alive, and that had to count for something.
Again, Jaren ordered Sal to bed early in the night, and again sleep took him quickly, his friends standing guard over him long into the night. Or so it had seemed.
In the small hours of the morning, Sal woke to an insistent voice, urging him softly awake. He blearily opened his eye to find a pair of dimly glowing orbs staring back down at him through the darkness. All thoughts of sleep were banished by three words.
“Can you run?”
Sal quickly—and quietly—got to his feet. Standing, he was able to make out three shapes, ill-defined in the darkness. Jaren’s emerald eyes flared brilliantly, and Sal felt the strangest sensation, as if his entire body was covered with crawling, biting fleas. Reaching up, Jaren tugged the bandages from Sal’s face. He blinked as his once maimed eye adjusted to the light of Jaren’s eyes, then to twilight once again as the mage stopped doing... whatever it was he was doing. As his eyes dimmed, so did the itching sensation, only to be replaced with a feeling of energy and strength that he hadn’t felt since finding himself in that prison cell.
Before he could ponder this further, Reit stepped close to him and whispered in his ear. “We may need you to fight,” he said by way of explanation. Somehow it didn’t sound like a request. Sal nodded reflexively, and then wondered if his friend had even seen it.
The foursome made their way to the bars, where another pair of green orbs blazed from outside the cell, sizing up one of the bars. Three more emerald mages were spaced out around the courtyard, each peering into the darkness before them.
The man examining the bar finally grasped it, pulling it away with a rusty snap, and then turned to one of the adjacent bars. Jaren stepped up and took hold of the other, his eyes catching fire as his hands touched the metal.
“Magic,” Sal croaked, watching in breathless horror as the mages went about their work. Remembering the itching sensation, his skin began to crawl again, but for a very different reason. “Real magic! I thought you were talking some kinda third world superstitious mumbo jumbo, not the real thing! Whatcha gonna do next... summon us up a couple demons to take care of the guards?”
Jaren spat an oath. He turned quickly, grabbing Sal by the shredded lapels of his Navy SEALs uniform and pulled him close, flaming green orbs boring mercilessly into natural. “You have some serious misconceptions about magic, my friend. Demons?!? Only a fool dabbles in the things of the Abyss!” With obvious effort, Jaren released him and turned back to the bars, his eyes flaring as he took hold of the nearest one. Touchy, to say the least, Sal thought. But by the look of the mage on the other side of the cage, Sal could tell that Jaren had let him off easy. The other guy looked like he wanted to tear Sal apart.
“Well, then, how do you explain what you’re doing?” he asked, suddenly unsure of himself.
Still offended, Jaren spoke through clenched teeth. “By virtue of the power vested in my soulgem, Eme
rald, I am wielding the natural forces of this world. I am manipulating the vitality in this metal bar, accelerating the natural aging process to the point where the metal weakens and fails. There is absolutely nothing spiritual about it. And I’ll thank you to remember that! Mysticism—what you seem to mistake for magic—is expressly forbidden by the Prophets, named as unnatural and an abomination in the sight of the Crafter.” With a quick turn of the wrist, he snapped his bar, and turned back to face Sal. The menacing look was gone from his face, replaced by a stony resolve. “Don’t ever let me hear you utter such blasphemy in my presence again. Ever.”
Magic, natural? That’s a new one. Wonder what Chaplain Mathis back home would have to say about that.
The inmates behind them continued to snore, apparently thanks to the other three mages spaced out along the bars. “Manipulating the natural sleep process?” Sal speculated. Jaren glanced askance at Sal, then gave a curt nod of confirmation. He may have got that one right, but the idea of magic still didn’t seem real to him.
“The guards?” Sal prompted, by way of changing the subject.
“We’ve got another emerald covering the guard shack,” the mage outside the cell said softly as he snapped his bar. His voice was barely warmer than Jaren’s.
“Just one, Tavin?” Reit questioned as he stepped through to freedom.
“Resources were committed elsewhere, el’Yatza,” the mage said apologetically, bowing slightly as Reit straightened before him. “I had only four others at my disposal that could be here in time.”
Retzu stepped out next, followed by Sal. As Jaren stepped through, Tavin dropped to one knee, bowing his head in respect. Sal noted the greater deference to Jaren instead of Reit. Sal wondered if Tavin wasn’t Jaren’s apprentice.
Jaren brought him to his feet. “No time for that now. Tell me how you got in.”
“The safe house,” he replied, turning his blazing emerald eyes to the sleeping inmates within the bars.
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