Death Flag

  A ripple broke the surface again accompanied by a small splash, and Madison caught sight of golden scales as a fish darted away. No way. How can a fish live in there when the water isn’t circulating? He stood still and watched, and sure enough, several fish flitted up to the top of the pool before disappearing back down into the murky depths. He assumed it was the same one at first but then realized that it wasn’t after two came up together, and after standing there and watching them for about fifteen minutes, he was convinced that quite a few were swimming around in there. There were subtle differences in their color or the shape of their fins that made them distinguishable from all the others. They were all golden-scaled, with brightly-colored fins filled with blues, and pinks and shades of red, and apart from their golden scales, they reminded him of larger versions of the betta fish he had once kept as a pet back home. It was about as low-maintenance as a pet possibly could be, and it had been something of a conversation piece in his dorm room at one point in time.

  I wonder how deep this fountain is? He stepped up to the fountain and leaned forward, peering into its depths, but try as he might, he couldn’t see the bottom. All he could make out was a dark well devoid of all light. Once the fish disappeared away from the surface, even they weren’t visible.

  He suddenly yawned, and it was like breaking himself out of a trance. He glanced up at the sky again and noticed that it was just starting to turn a bit lighter.

  I guess I better try and find my way back . . .

  Just as he was about to step back into the building, the door opened outward instead.

  “There you are!” Warren exclaimed as he stepped outside, a note of exasperation in his voice. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. If I hadn’t passed one of the eyes in the halls who was able to tell me where you were, I never would have thought to check out here.”

  “A what?” Madison asked. “An eye?”

  “Eh . . .” Warren suddenly looked uncomfortable, as if he had somehow slipped up and said something he shouldn’t have. He sighed and said, “Well, I guess it’s not a big secret. The eyes are like the watchers around here. They keep an eye on everyone and everything that goes on around here.”

  He definitely didn’t remember passing by anyone or anything on the way here, but he had been a bit turned around and focused on finding his way out of those damned twists and turns, so it was possible that he had missed them entirely—though he didn’t think it was likely. “That’s . . . strange?” he answered a bit skeptically. He didn’t necessarily dislike the explanation, and Warren hadn’t given him any reason to distrust him—in fact, he had been the most forthright with any amount of information so far—but he trusted his memory as well. “Like a hall monitor? They’re keeping tabs on everyone?”

  “A what?” Warren asked, curiosity written on his face. “A hall monitor?”

  “Yeah like in . . . Never mind. Wait, what do you mean ‘eye?’ That’s a nickname, right? You don’t mean . . .?”

  Warren nodded as if confirming what Madison assumed. “They’re a type of concealed magic used as protection. It wouldn’t do to have someone or something running around we didn’t know about. You wouldn’t notice them unless you were trained in detection arts, but trust me, they’re just about everywhere. You should assume that you’re being watched at all times. It does . . . ah . . .”—Warren reached up and scratched the back of his head—“They keep people honest. If you know what I mean.”

  Madison didn’t like the idea of someone spying on his every move, but he also assumed they had something better to do than keep tabs on him twenty-four seven. It would be a boring and sad state of affairs for whoever was watching him if that was the case. Yet, this was important information to know if he was going to have any hope of escaping this place. He hadn’t completely made up his mind yet, and he didn’t know how he was going to accomplish it, but the simple fact that someone told him that he couldn’t do it made him want to do it—even if for no other reason than to prove them wrong. There was also the other little problem he had to take care of: finding a way out of wherever this world was and getting home.

  So, someone is always watching anything and everything I do. Big brother 101. Got it. “Yeah. I understand. You said you were looking for me?” Madison switched subjects.

  “Oh. Yeah!” Warren exclaimed as if suddenly remembering why he was there. “Ryder asked me to come find you. Said he wanted to meet with you to go over some things before the day started.”

  “Who?” Madison asked. He absolutely hated being out of the loop on anything, and these names and concepts were constantly being thrown at him like he was supposed to know all about them.

  “Ryder,” Warren answered. “He’s one of the Guardians of K’yer Utane. You’ve already met Davion and Sherrie. Ryder is the last of the three that’s likely to show up.”

  “But there are more? You said that Sherrie was the older woman who was there before the test?”

  Warren nodded and turned back inside the building. He headed off in some seemingly-random direction, and Madison was forced to keep up as they talked. “Yeah. But I wouldn’t let her hear you say that about her,” he cautioned.

  “The age and time thing again?” Madison asked with a groan. He was going to get old having to avoid that topic if everyone was super sensitive about it like Erin had been every time it came up.

  Warren chuckled a little. “No, not that,” he answered dismissively with a wave of his hand. “Have you ever met any woman who was happy to talk about her age? Much less one who was actually older?”

  Madison laughed a bit. “I guess you have a point there.” I guess women hate talking about their age no matter what world they’re in. I wonder if they still gossip the same way here as they do back home?”

  “But, as a piece of advice,” Warren continued, “she’s one of the most powerful people around. She doesn’t look like much, but don’t let her fool you. She’s a Guardian for a reason, and that alone mean’s she’s powerful. From what I’ve heard, she’s the most powerful practitioner of magic the academy has seen in centuries.”

  “Yeah, you said something similar last night.” Damned magic again. Madison grumbled under his breath a bit, but he didn’t actually say anything else. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway.

  “Anyway, she’s been around about as long as anyone. No one really knows exactly how old she is, and no one has ever seen her use any flashy spells, but—”

  “So, no one has ever asked?” Madison queried, interrupting Warren.

  “What? Asked who what?”

  “No one has ever asked her how old she is,” Madison repeated skeptically. He was stating the obvious, but that was sometimes necessary in order to get a point across. “And no one has ever actually seen her use any powerful magic. But everyone just assumes that’s how it is because everyone else says so.”

  “Well, I guess,” Warren agreed begrudgingly. “But she’s a Guardian, so—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get it. But who is this Ryder? And why does he want to see me?” Madison asked, switching topics again. Warren didn’t strike him as a particularly-dense person, so it was entirely probable that he was just playing dumb as a means of avoiding his question. He should have known better than to just assume things because everyone else said it was true. That was just foolish.

  “Ryder is . . . Well, he’s one of the Guardians that’s typically at K’yer Utane.”

  “You’ve said that already,” Madison said impatiently.

  “He’s one of the most powerful people you’ll probably ever meet. Honestly, I don’t know why you’d want to meet anyone stronger than him. He teaches a few of the classes from time to time, so there’s a pretty good chance you’re eventually going to have him as an instructor. He’s a master swordsman, actually—one of the few in world, or so I’m told.”

  “If no one is ever allowed to leave, how would you know?” Madison asked pointedly.

  Warren skewed his mouth from side to side, but he
didn’t answer directly. Instead, he said, “Like I said before, we’re not completely shut off from the rest of the world here. Anyway, he acts as an instructor in weapons training, but he also teaches a few of the more mundane aspects as well on occasion.”

  “More mundane?”

  “Yeah.” Warren stopped outside of a door that was remarkably similar to the one he had visited yesterday. There was no standing statue of armor outside this one, only a simple woven rug covering the stones that formed the floor. “Anyway, this is it. Good luck. And let me know what happens,” Warren said, turning and leaving.

  Madison looked at the simple wooden door and sighed. He might have been forthcoming with a lot of information yesterday, but he seems to be holding back quite a bit as well. I don’t think he’s lying about anything, but he’s definitely not telling me the entire truth either. He glanced both ways down the long hallway as if he were deciding whether or not he should actually go inside. Finally, however, he reached up and knocked twice.

  “Come,” a cold voice immediately answered from the other side.

  Madison pushed the door open and silently stepped inside. The room shared a layout similar to the one he had been in yesterday with Davion, but there were also a few differences as well: bookshelves lined the walls, there were several small tables, and there was a heavy desk against the far wall, but the similarities ended there. Unlike Davion’s, this office was completely orderly. As far as he could tell, there wasn’t a single scrap of paper out of place, and he very much doubted that he would find a speck of dust on any of the shelves. Everything seemed to have an appropriate place and had probably been painstakingly arranged. Light was beginning to steam in from a large window on the far wall behind the desk, and there were several artificial sources of light in the room as well, keeping everything unnaturally bright. There wasn’t much of a view that Madison could see from where he stood, just a small, grassy area with a few trees and some flowers, but he could tell that the sun was just starting to come up over the horizon.

  He turned his attention to the man sitting behind the desk. He was clean-shaven with high cheekbones and slightly-sunken cheeks, and there were dark circles under his eyes that made him look as if he had been up all night. He had jet-black hair that was pulled back in a ponytail, and he was wearing a simple black shirt that clung close to his torso. He studied Madison with a pair of piercing eyes in the same way that a raptor might its prey as he entered the room, and Madison knew at a glance that he was being sized up. Hell, I probably already have been.

  “I’m Madison,” he said, stepping into the office. He assumed that the door would swing shut behind him in the same mechanical fashion that all the others seemed to around here. “You wanted to see me?”

  “That’s correct,” the man answered coolly. “I understand that you’re going to be training with us for a while.”

  “So I’m told,” Madison replied shortly, fixing his gaze on Ryder. He hadn’t exactly been given a choice, but he didn’t have a better option or a plan of escape at the moment either; so, for the time being, he might as well go along with whatever it was that they wanted. But that didn’t mean that this guy was going to get away with intimidating him.

  Ryder held Madison’s gaze for a moment and then held up a small object in a gloved hand. “You will need this,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Madison let his gaze fall and saw that he was holding up a small ring, much like the one Warren had shown him yesterday, but instead of being gold, it was a simple dull-bronze color. Madison crossed the room and took the ring from him.

  Ryder watched him with that same piercing glare as he rolled the ring around a few times in the palm of his hand as he examined it. There wasn’t anything special about it at all. In fact, as far as he could tell, it wasn’t anything more than a cheap, poorly-made trinket.

  “This is supposed to identify me as a student at K’yer Utane.” Madison already knew the answer since Warren had explained it to him a bit yesterday, so it wasn’t really a question, but he made the statement anyway. He was hoping that he might be able to use it as a conversation starter so that he could draw some information out of Ryder. If this man was supposedly powerful enough to be ranked as a Guardian and one of the best swordsmen in the world, who knew what kind of power he might have. He might even be powerful enough to beat the witch that had cast him here. Sadly, it looked like he was going to wind up being as much of a hardass as Davion was.

  “That’s correct,” Ryder answered without ever taking his eyes off of Madison.

  “Warren explained it a bit to me yesterday during my crash-course,” Madison continued, subtly encouraging the other man to provide any bit of an opening. “But I doubt he went over everything.”

  Ryder sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. “You have a question,” he stated. “You should ask it instead of simply hinting around at it.”

  “Alright,” Madison began. “How was your trip?”

  “Productive,” Ryder answered without missing a beat. “Was there anything else?”

  Madison’s mouth actually hung open for a moment before he was able to catch himself. He opened and closed his mouth once, as if he was going to say something else, but thought better of it instead. He had been hoping to catch Ryder off-guard with that question, but it apparently wasn’t going to work. When Warren had explained the power rankings to him yesterday, he had mentioned that only Sherrie and Davion were currently in K’yer Utane. That meant that Ryder must have been somewhere else yesterday and only just arrived today—or sometime during the past several hours while he had been sleeping.

  This man is too damn cool. And I hate this feeling of being watched—of being judged.

  “If there’s nothing else,” Ryder continued before Madison could collect his thoughts enough to ask another of the thousand burning questions he had, “then I’ll see you again later today. You will meet me in the training room an hour before noon. Understood?”

  “No,” Madison shot back as quickly as Ryder had before.

  “What about that do you not understand?” Ryder asked, the tone of his voice turning a little chillier—if that was even possible.

  “What and where is a training room, and when is noon?” Madison asked. “I doubt I could even find my way to the bathroom at the moment, and I seemed to have misplaced my pocket watch somewhere along the way.”

  Ryder actually cracked a bit of a smile, the first sign of emotion Madison had seen since he entered the room. Rather than warm his demeanor at all, however, it actually made him look all the more sinister. “I’m sure you’ll manage,” he answered, not bothering to provide any more information or explain further. “Dismissed.”

  Madison knew that the conversation was over. That was the same way Davion had sent him off yesterday. But, just as he reached the door, Ryder said, “Try not to get yourself killed before then.” It was in the same straightforward and practical tone of voice, but Madison would have sworn there was a taunt hidden in it somewhere.

  Madison didn’t even pause. He swung the door open and stepped out into the hallway to find Warren waiting for him. That’s it? That’s all he wanted? He couldn’t just send the ring and message with someone else? He looked down at the piece of jewelry in his hand. There wasn’t anything special about it at all. As far as he could tell, it was just a simple metal ring that looked like it was on the verge of tarnishing any day. The oil fittings on a thirty-year-old lawn mower were probably worth more. No. He wanted something. He wanted to meet me in person. But why?

  “Well, that didn’t take long,” Warren observed.

  “And you’re clearly one for stating the obvious,” Madison snapped. “Ah . . . Sorry. Something about him bugs me.”

  “That feeling that you’re a bug pinned against the wall for observation?” Warren asked. He didn’t seem to have been phased by the sudden outburst, and if he had, he didn’t show it.

  Madison nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

 
; “You’ll get used to it,” Warren laughed as he turned and started down the hall. “I think we’re going to make it just in time for breakfast if we hurry a bit. I need to head back to the dorms to get you set up with a few things first, however.” He gestured to Madison’s still semi-nude state.

  “Like a pair of clothes?” Madison finished for him, clearly understanding what the other meant. ‘I don’t know. I was getting sort of used to this. I imagine all the ladies would love it!”

  Warren snickered and shook his head but didn’t argue with him.

  Madison followed along quietly for a time. He was doing his best to keep up with the maze of hallways and doors so that he could learn his way around. He had thought before that he had a fairly-decent sense of direction, but this building had proven impossible to learn so far. No matter how much he tried to anticipate the next turn, it was almost always something different than what he had imagined it would be.

  Before long, they entered back into the same hallway that Madison had departed from that morning. Considering that every hallway and almost every door looked the exact same, he was only really able to identify where they were based on the fact that there was a group of men leaving the long sleeping room just as they arrived. Yawning and in various states of dress, each had that universal just-woke-up look about them, and they only cast him and Warren sleep-filled glances as they trudged past, likely on their way to breakfast.

  “Now we really have to hurry,” Warren remarked. “This way.” He shuffled to the middle of the hall and then turned into a room Madison hadn’t noticed before. “This is more or less the supply room,” Warren explained as he began gathering things together. He dropped what appeared to be a footlocker at Madison’s feet and began throwing things in. Warren moved around the room with a practiced haste, disappearing in and out from behind shelves faster than Madison could keep up with. Every time he passed by, he dropped in a few more things and moved on for more.