Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  “That’s creepy,” Madison said. “So, if it was as cold as you claim—”

  “Madison,” he interjected almost impatiently. “They rushed me and Rae to the medical wing after we came out. She’s in worse shape than I was by far, and she’ll probably be there overnight while she recovers. She was close to having hypothermia, and they had to use magic just to bring her body temperature back up to normal before they could even start healing her.”

  “Wait, does that mean you’re a Sworn?” Madison asked, suddenly curious how far Warren had advanced. “Is that what that ring means? That you’ve cultivated your skills to a higher level?”

  Warren actually laughed at the idea. It wasn’t deep and hearty, like laughter between old friends, but it was still a genuine laugh of amusement. “No, no. I’m nowhere near that level of skill, although my experience does lend me a few advantages—like being able to scout outside the walls from time to time. This ring”—he held up his hand as he spoke to show off the gold ring on his finger— “means that I’m part of the Class. It’s also just that it’s my personal ring. I figured Burris was working in the kitchen today, and he owes me a bit of a favor. I sent it with her just in case Erin didn’t make it in time before they shut everything down and cleaned up for the night. Even if she had shown up after hours, he still would have given her the basket regardless of the rules or what time it was.

  “By the way, I should probably warn you that it’s not exactly commonplace for people to talk about what they go through during the test. Everyone goes through something different, and it changes from person to person. From what I’ve gathered, it’s often a really personal thing, and it’s usually some form of obstacle or a personal challenge they have to overcome. It always shows the strengths and weaknesses of the one who is being tested. Knowing what someone goes through during the trials would give you a huge clue about the inner workings of their mind, so it would give you an advantage in beating them. Some people are willing to share what they face there, but most won’t even talk about it. At best, they’ll just tune you out if it comes up during a conversation.”

  “Ahh . . . Wait a minute. That doesn’t sound right at all. If it’s something that’s supposed to be so deeply touching and personal, why did Davion just invite you guys in? And why do the instructors bother to watch at all? Doesn’t that mean that now you and Rae and Davion all have had a glimpse into my psyche?” If what Warren was telling him was true, neither of those things added up or made much sense. It meant that all that crap he had seen wasn’t just for decoration: it had actually meant something; and, not only that, there isn’t anyone who could tell him what it’s supposed to mean because no one was supposed to ever see it but him! I kind of wish now that I had paid closer attention while I was in there.

  “Ah . . .” Warren ran his hand through his short, brown hair and glanced up at the trees.

  Madison couldn’t get a clear look at his face, but from what he could see, the young man looked both worried and slightly apprehensive. It was clear that he didn’t want to say the wrong thing now that he had just more or less explained himself into an awkward situation. On one hand, he was basically admitting that he had witnessed something that was essentially taboo. However many years he had spent at K’yer Utane had ingrained into him the principle that he shouldn’t speak about what happened in the testing room whether it was his own or other people’s experiences. Yet, after all that, he had witnessed someone else’s first hand—with someone else, at the invitation of an instructor, and against the person’s knowledge or wishes. Madison could only imagine how awkward it must have made him feel, so he gave him time to puzzle it out.

  “I don’t know,” Warren answered after a long, silent pause. “I don’t know why either of us were invited in, and I don’t know why Davion chose to bring us there or even watched it himself. It’s not against the rules, but if you go into someone else’s test, it has to be at their invitation. You can’t just walk in on someone in the middle of a trial. You have to be invited in—that’s how I’ve always been taught that the magic works. Without being specifically asked to enter, you shouldn’t even be able to cross the threshold while someone else is using the room.”

  There was a rustling beside them, and Erin suddenly sat up and extended two fingers. “Two days,” she said softly.

  “Ah, yes, there’s that as well,” Warren said thoughtfully. “I had forgotten about that . . .”

  “What?” Madison asked. He had specifically avoided asking about why two days had passed here while he was in the room since it was likely to upset the girl, but he wasn’t going to let Warren trail off and be elusive with his answers again. He had already had enough of people avoiding his questions and giving vague responses. He had been almost floored when Davion asked how long they had been gone, and Erin responded with two days, but the so-called instructor had casually accepted it, so he had assumed it was an expected side effect of the magic. “Is that not normal?”

  “Yes and no. For a Novice, someone who has never been in before, it’s unheard of. The first time usually lasts minutes at most. The magic sort of has just enough time to examine you before it spits you right back out again.

  “The next couple of attempts last longer, of course, but . . . If you want to pass from Novice to Class, you have to enter there again for a second test. It’s much different from the first time you enter, and it tests you in different ways. It’s a longer, harder test that is grueling in different ways. You also enter again when you want to promote from Class to Sworn and then again from Sworn to Guardian.

  “The magic is designed to know when you’re ready for the next progression and when you aren’t. It might show you part of the test if you go in too soon, but then it might not as well. It depends on whether or not it decides if you can handle it. The testing room isn’t supposed to be deadly, but it can be in rare cases. That’s why it’s designed that way. It’s also why instructors or other students are sometimes invited in . . . just in case there’s a chance of death involved.

  “So, is it unheard of? No. But most people don’t spend two days in there until they’re testing for Sworn. I think the longest that I’ve heard of a test taking while I was here was three days, and that was when Randall passed about six months ago.”

  Erin nodded somberly as if it was a serious and well-known fact. Then, as if suddenly remembering she had something important to do, she bounced to her feet and pointed at Madison. She shuffled over to him and began making shooing motions.

  He watched for a moment, slightly amused. She began growing irritated after a moment, and he and Warren shared a look before breaking out into laughter. He didn’t want to make light of the situation. He had definitely heard and learned more than his fair share, but he also knew that he was better off at this point relenting with his inquisition and taking some time to absorb everything he had learned. He felt like he had a fairly-keen grasp on the subject, but that didn’t mean it had all been absorbed yet.

  He stood up slowly and dusted himself off in an overly-dramatic fashion. “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” he sighed, stretching lazily. “Time to go. You need to finish the job you were given and all that jazz. I get it.”

  Warren held up a hand in a parting gesture, clearly understanding the situation. “I’ll take care of the basket and meet you in the dorms later,” he said.

  Madison nodded and allowed himself to be escorted back up the hill and through the lines of strangely-colored trees, Erin practically pulling him along by his wrist.

  -----

  By the time they finally reached the men’s dormitory, he was grateful for the fact that he and Erin would soon be parting ways. It wasn’t that her presence was exactly grating on him, but she refused to let him take his time and learn his way around. He had a rough idea of where they had gone, but by the time they re-entered the grey-stoned building and had taken several twists and turns, he knew that finding his way around tomorrow would require as much guesswork as it would have to
day.

  It was already getting late in the evening, as the sun had apparently set while they were eating, but they passed by several groups of people along the way. Without fail, they all stopped and turned to watch as she pulled him along, unrelenting in her pace. There was a chorus of whispered comments and gawking eyes everywhere he went, and he wasn’t exactly comfortable with the attention.

  Eventually, she pulled him down a long hallway and stopped outside of a plain wooden door, indistinguishable from any of the others on the hall. He had no idea how she knew it was the right one, but she finally let go of his wrist and pointed, indicating that he should go in.

  “Ah, thanks . . .” he began awkwardly. She looked up at him for a moment and then walked away without so much as another word or gesture.

  He pushed the door open to the room, and it opened as soundlessly as the one to Davion’s office had. The silent operation of hinges must have been a hallmark of the place because he had yet to hear one make even so much as a squeak. Madison sighed as he stepped inside and found a long, stretched-out, rectangular room. There was a small wooden step up just inside the door and then nothing but a hard-wooden floor that was filled with beds every few feet. It was like he had stepped into a classroom, but there were beds instead of desks. There were no windows that he could see, but there was a dim amount of light anyway, apparently provided by some strange form of smokeless torches that lined the walls.

  Magic. More magic. Always more magic. Madison sighed again.

  Almost all of the beds were already occupied, so he crept around as silently as he could until he found one that was empty. He actually passed from that first long room and into another that was identical to the first before he found one that was open. It was crammed back in the corner, a long way from the door, and there was a guy snoring loudly in the bed next to it. He sat down on the edge of the bed, which was roughly larger than a twin, and grimaced as he realized how hard the thin mattress was.

  After he passed through the first connecting doorway, he realized that it hadn’t really mattered which door Erin led him to. The rooms were all connected from the inside, effectively forming one long chain of rooms filled with beds. He guessed that the opposite side of the hall was the same as well.

  So, I guess this is it. This is where I’m going to be ‘for a while’ or until they decide to let me go. Where in the world am I? Madison leaned back in the bed and was pleasantly surprised to find that the pillow wasn’t nearly as hard as the mattress underneath him was. How am I even supposed to survive this place? This world? What did I even do to end up here? That witch said that this was some form of punishment, but I can’t imagine doing something that would warrant this. I’ve basically had all modern conveniences stripped away along with everyone I’ve ever known or loved. I’ve been dropped into a world where someone tried to drown me, someone else tried to enslave me, and now someone else probably wants to use me—but only after pushing me through some weird, ambiguous form of training.

  Madison didn’t know that last bit to be true, but it was still a fair guess based on what he had to go on. He knew that they were a ‘failsafe’ and that they were, more or less, a ‘school.’ That had been what Davion and Warren had called it. He knew that he had been tested for something, but no one could tell him what it was other than the fact that it was for some type of aptitude. Back home, people test for aptitude with stuff like SATs and job-placement exams. They want to find out how well you can plug numbers into equations, how motivated you are as an individual, and whether or not you’re reliable. You fill out a questionnaire and pencil in little bubbles and have someone tell you what your future will be. And this place? They dropped me into a room with more psychological questions than Freud could invent answers for, put a sword in my hand, and pushed me into a fight. What the hell are they trying to figure out?

  Madison stared up at the ceiling of the dimly-lit room, his face twisted into a scowl. Every time he started thinking about his situation, he wavered between feeling desperate, confused, anxious and outright pissed off. Truthfully, he didn’t know how he should feel. He had never been one to have strong emotional reactions to anything, but that wasn’t exactly the case here. Part of the reason was that he was simply so overwhelmed by everything that he couldn’t decide whether he should explode in anger or fall apart in tears.

  So, he did nothing. He was doing everything he could to just take things in stride and roll with the punches. The first sequence of events entering this world had left him dazed, confused, and out of his mind. He hadn’t had time to process anything. If he had, he probably would have gone insane just thinking about the impossibility of it all. Now, however, he had time. He had nothing but time, according to these people, since they weren’t planning on letting him leave. He would use that time to figure things out.

  CHAPTER 6

  Madison woke up a few hours later. He hadn’t even really been trying to fall asleep, but his body must have known what it was doing, and despite the short amount of sleep, he actually felt fairly refreshed. There wasn’t any type of clock that he had seen, but his internal alarm and the guy snoring next to him told him that it wasn’t morning yet. He had been waking up at the same time for years, often going on an early-morning run, but he knew it wasn’t that time yet.

  He padded to the closest door and stepped out into the hall, relieved to find that his suspicions had been correct. He exited from the sleeping room much farther down from where he had entered, but he was certain that it was back into the same hallway.

  Well, Madison thought, stretching, if I have time to kill, I might as well learn my way around. I also need to find some clothes . . . He was still wearing the pajama pants that had been put on him while he was unconscious, and they were starting to look a little worse for wear. I could also use a shower. He tentatively sniffed himself as if that would tell him whether or not he needed to bathe. He hadn’t realized it before now, but he was starting to smell. He wasn’t to the point of being offensively ripe yet, but he knew that he would be after another day of strenuous exercise. I don’t guess this world has deodorant, do they? he thought glumly. What did they use before that to cover up the smell of body odor? Perfume? Flowers? Then he remembered where he was. Probably more magic. I wonder who I have to ask for a spell that makes me not smell like a sweaty horse or a pile of shit for a day.

  Getting out of the hallway and back into the main building was also fairly easy. It was everything that came after that gave him trouble. He had sped through the different twists and turns the night before while being pulled along by Erin, and there was no way he was going to be able to mimic those exact movements. He remembered the last two turns, which he executed in reverse, but after that, he was lost.

  Eventually, however, he exited out and onto a small, stone-paved patio. It was fairly tiny, with a few planted trees, decorative planters filled with flowers, and a handful of wooden benches and chairs placed around a raised fountain that took up a large portion of the available space. He hadn’t realized how warm and stuffy it had been inside, and the cool early-morning air felt good against his skin as he stepped out onto the rough stone pavers. He glanced up and realized that he had a perfect view of the stars, though the moon was nowhere in sight.

  Probably too close to dawn, he lamented.

  He stared up at the night sky for a while, studying the stars and trying to make sense of them, but he couldn’t find a single constellation he recognized. There were certain constellations that were always visible in the sky year-round back home, so he had still been somewhat hopeful that he would see one of them now. Anything that would give him a bit of confidence or faith that he was even so much as still on the same world he had left would have been a blessing. He only had a small, framed view of the night sky, so there was still hope, but a nagging sense of doubt told him not to hold out too much optimism.

  He walked over to the fountain and studied it for a moment. There was a life-sized statue in the center, although it
wasn’t spewing water, that depicted some type of mythical creature that looked like a cross between a human, a faery, and a serpent. It had the long and thick body of a massive snake for his lower half and a normal human’s body for its upper half. It had two faery-like wings that would probably be twice as long as its arms if they were fully extended, and it was holding a net in one hand and a trident in the other.

  I think it’s a Naga? Madison racked his brain as he worked up everything he could remember from the Art History class he had taken at university. Although, I think only one culture ever depicted them with wings like that . . . It was a remarkable piece of artwork, and certainly not one that he would have expected to find here. He studied the statue for a little longer as if he were trying to commit it to memory. Something about it seemed familiar, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. It could just be that nagging sense he sometimes got when seeing something that looked familiar and then assuming it was something else, but he didn’t think that was exactly it. Something about it pulled a memory that he should have been able to recall yet couldn’t quite place. Eventually, he just gave up. He had passed the class with excellent marks but forgotten almost everything since then. There wasn’t exactly a daily need for someone who was well-versed in the deities of alternative civilizations in the warehouse where he worked.

  A sudden rippling in the water drew his attention away from the artwork and to the water in the fountain itself. The waves spread out from a point somewhere near the center and spread outward until they bounced off the edge and then slowly disappeared. Once they were gone, the glassy, sheet-like surface returned, and it was impossible to tell that the water had ever been disturbed at all. He thought it was rather strange for the water not to be circulated, and wondered why it wasn’t—until he remembered that they probably didn’t have the technology for that. I wonder if there is a magic spell that makes fountains spew water? Or is that too mundane? Actually, no one has really explained what type of magic there is and isn’t. Can they pull rabbits out of hats? Or just teleport people around to random places and heal them? Madison made a note to ask Warren about it when he saw him next.