Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  Madison knew that he was supposed to be one of the most powerful people here, that he often trained people, and that Ryder had been away until this morning. But he didn’t know anything else. Truthfully, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter who Ryder was. What mattered was that Ryder might be able to help him achieve his own goals. If this was someone who could train him, who could teach him how to get stronger and survive in this world, Madison knew he had to pay attention and learn what he could. If this was someone who could make him understand how he knew to fight that wraith, what that whole testing scenario meant . . . if this was someone who could give him answers, he had to listen and pay attention.

  Yet, Ryder wanted to wait, so he was going to wait. He had entered into some sort of strange combination of an impromptu staring contest and a silent game, and he’d be damned before he lost either one. He focused on Ryder and let everything else fade away: the fatigue, the fear, the homesickness and the sudden burst of emotion it brought with it. He pushed it away until it was all gone. It was as if a giant pit had opened inside of him and swallowed up everything, and when it was done, there was nothing left. Just an empty void with Ryder standing at the center.

  Then Ryder took a step forward and punched Madison in the center of his chest. Madison had just enough time to register an image of Ryder in front of him before he felt the blow connect, and he went flying. He was thrown backward off of the mat and across the training room where he landed on his back before skidding to a halt.

  Holy . . . Madison sucked in several short breaths, staring up at the ceiling. What the hell was that? He lay exactly where he was for a moment and then sat back up, causing the world to spin around for a moment before snapping back into place, as if his reality had to adjust to the simple motion of sitting up. He tentatively touched his ribs with one hand and sucked in a larger breath, testing how much his lungs would hold and what would hurt.

  He forced a grin onto his face and pushed himself up to his feet as he ran through a mental checklist. Nothing broken. Can almost stand up straight. Can breathe, but oh crap, that hurts. He rubbed at the spot on his sternum where Ryder’s fist had connected as if that was somehow going to make it stop hurting and feel better.

  “Ow,” he said, limping forward until he was back on the edge of the map. “Do that again.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ryder dashed across the mat and swung an underhanded punch at his stomach. Madison had just enough time to tense up and start to jerk out of the way before the blow connected. What little air was left in his lungs was instantly forced out, and he doubled over from the pain. He stared down at the training mat as his vision swam around him, fighting down the urge to hurl up his breakfast everywhere. Somehow, he didn’t think Ryder would take too kindly to having someone vomit syrupy, half-digested food everywhere, so he choked it back down and started sucking in shallow breaths like his life depended on it—and it sort of did. He expected that they would heal him up again if something serious were to happen, but he wasn’t certain they could bring him back from the dead if something went too far or an accident happened. Actually, he was pretty certain that they couldn’t. Warren certainly would have mentioned necromancy.

  After several long moments, he wiped the sweat out of his eyes and pushed himself back to a knee and then eventually rocked up onto his feet again. “I thought Randall was fast,” he gasped out quietly between breaths. But this is a whole different level.

  “You left the void,” Ryder said calmly, once again returning to the center of the mat. “That’s where you were, wasn’t it? Dancing in the nothingness.”

  “I . . . guess?” Madison answered, hunching over and holding his stomach as a wave of nausea threatened him again. “I wasn’t thinking about anything when you first”—he waved his free hand as if that was explanation enough for Ryder attacking him—“if that’s what you mean.”

  Ryder leaned forward a touch, and in a slightly-mocking tone, he said, “You should be grateful for this, you know. It’s not often that I see to someone’s testing personally.”

  Madison stared up at him, once again forcing himself to stand upright, but he didn’t respond.

  Ryder continued. “Let’s go ahead and get a few things straight: I don’t trust you, I don’t care how you feel, and if I tell you to do something, you do it as if your life depends on it. Got that?”

  Madison nodded once and grunted his assent. He felt like he should have some type of witty comeback, but the pancake threatening to crawl up his throat stopped him from saying anything.

  “Let’s skip the rest of the bullshit then. Davion and Sherrie coddle the new people too much. Sherrie especially. It’s been a while since we’ve taken in anyone older than a child, so I’m sure you’re going to take a lot of extra special attention. Over the years, I’ve learned that people pick up some nasty habits as they get older. They get set in their ways and refuse to change or to learn.

  “Now, trust me when I say this: Everything I do is for your benefit. You might not see that now or understand it, but you have to believe it is.”

  “You ask for trust but refuse to give it,” Madison observed, no longer able to remain silent.

  “That’s correct,” Ryder answered, his voice short. “That’s not going to be a problem for you, is it.”

  He turned the sentence into statement instead of a question, but Madison wasn’t going to disagree with him either way. “Nope,” he answered, a flippant tone entering his voice again. “I’m just curious when we’re going to get started. That’s all.”

  “If you have a question, ask it,” Ryder insisted.

  “If this is the testing, what was that testing room?” he asked. He figured that was the most likely answer he was going to get. What was the point of everything he had done there if he was just going through this practice run of being a human punching bag?

  Ryder clasped his hands behind his back and took the same stance he had before while they were waiting. “The Room of Trials is a testing ground. Its magic responds to you in the way you need most and with whatever challenge you’re most ready for at the time. It’s true that we use it as a means of marking progression from one rank to another, but those ranks are mostly just names and titles. Long before you ever become Class, Sworn, or even a Guardian, you’ll have reached those levels of strength on your own. If you enter before you’re ready, it will push you in a way you need most to help you progress the fastest.”

  “That’s why it’s personal to everyone who enters,” Madison said, putting two and two together with what he had just learned and what Warren had told him. “It could be anything inside that room.”

  “That’s correct,” Ryder confirmed.

  “Then it’s also up to me to figure out what everything there means,” Madison observed, stating the next obvious conclusion. “I need to learn why everything is there.”

  Ryder shrugged noncommittally. “Or it might mean nothing at all.”

  Madison’s brow furrowed together as he thought about that. ‘Anything’ actually could mean nothing. I’m going to have to be careful about reading meaning into things while I’m there that might not actually mean anything at all. But that means that this is something entirely different. What he’s doing now is a test, but not the same as that one. If that room was showing me what I need to get stronger, that means Ryder is looking for something else. That same feeling he had experienced earlier in Ryder’s office returned, and he once again felt like a bug pinned against a wall. Ryder is studying me. But why? What does he want to know that he’s not going to come right out and ask? No, it’s because he doesn’t trust me to be honest. He said so himself.

  “Alright. Thanks for answering my question,” he said honestly.

  Ryder nodded his acknowledgment, a slight bowing of the head that was almost imperceptible.

  Madison figured he might as well be satisfied with what he had learned. He had already suspected that it was something similar to what Ryder explained, bu
t now he had confirmation. There was a chance that Ryder was lying to him, but Madison believed him for some reason. Ryder had asked that he do that much, and Madison was going to give it a fair shot. After all, if this man wanted him dead, he was fairly certain that he would be already.

  “What next?” Madison asked, already tensing up in anticipation of Ryder’s next attack.

  Ryder held out a hand, gesturing toward the entrance of the room. Madison followed his hand and realized that there was a woman standing there as well. He had seen this person before, and it took a second for the gears to click into place and for him to figure out where.

  “Sherrie,” Ryder continued, “wanted to take part in this testing as well.”

  “Sherrie,” Madison began derisively, “declared me to be a waste of time the moment she laid eyes on me.”

  “Pah,” the woman spat as she stepped into the room, although she didn’t approach the training mat. “I wasn’t wrong either.” She eyed him in the fashion that a toad might a fly just before it was eaten. Madison was getting used to that look when dealing with Guardians. Perhaps that was some special talent they developed along the way.

  “Alright, well, I’d ask why you’re here if I’m a waste of time, but I doubt you’d give me a straight answer anyway, so let’s just get on with this.”

  “Such impertinence,” she said reproachfully.

  She casually waved a hand at him, and a ball of fire sparked from her fingertips and soared toward him. Madison was already tensed up since he had been expecting something of that sort, so his reaction speed was slightly faster than it had been when Ryder first attacked him. Plus, that ball of fire didn’t move nearly as fast as Ryder’s fist. He jumped to the side, dancing toward the center of the mat, and he felt a rush of heat as the ball of flame sizzled past. He followed it with his eyes as it streaked behind him and disappeared into a poof of dark smoke just before reaching the far wall, and he turned back to look at Sherrie just in time to see another ball of flame headed in his direction. Once again, he jumped out of the way and watched as is zoomed past him.

  Now that he knew it was going to happen, however, he didn’t bother watching a third time. He knew that more were coming, so he set about dodging them. Within the span of a minute, there were burn marks on his shirt and pants, and a few places were completely burned through in large, fist-sized holes where they had caught fire and burned up before he could swat them out. Dodging them wasn’t the problem. They weren’t nearly as fast as Ryder, and as long as he paid attention, Madison was fairly apt at predicting where the next series of attacks would come from.

  The problem, as he soon learned, was that Sherrie wasn’t really trying. He jumped out of the way of two fireballs that were just beside one another, letting them soar past him as he had all the others, and as soon his feet touched down on the training mat again, he caught a blast of fire directly into his face. He felt the horrible heat before it hit him, but there was nothing he could do to avoid it. The fireball crashed directly into his face, and it was like having his head dunked into a pool of water except that it was scorching hot and hurt like hell. Even as the first blast exploded, and he felt a second and third strike him in his midsection. He was already off-balance from his previous dodge, and the three consecutive hits pushed him back, causing him to stumble around blindly for a second before falling over flat onto his back. He immediately wrapped his head up with his hands and began swatting himself as he started rolling around on the mat, doing the only two things he could think of to extinguish that many flames at once.

  “Do not hurt my mats,” Ryder warned. Madison felt a kick connect with his midsection a moment later, forcing him to roll over several times, off of the mat and onto the hard floor.

  “Pah,” Sherrie spat for a second time.

  Madison stopped thrashing about wildly after that. His nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of smoke, and the skin around his face, neck, and his stomach felt like they were burned. The skin was tight, raw, tender, and he was suddenly extremely aware of how cool the air in the room was. It felt like stepping into an airconditioned room after a day at the beach with a fresh sunburn. He blinked away the shock for a moment and began rubbing his eyes, hoping to clear away the tears that had formed there as a side effect of the smoke.

  The cooling sensation grew stronger, and Madison suddenly realized what was going on. He stopped rubbing his eyes and bolted upright. Sort of. His movements were slow and lethargic, and he heard a snap and the crackling of ice as it broke free from his legs and shattered against the stone floor as he sprang up.

  “What the hell?!” he cried out, stumbling back and swatting at his legs at the same time, trying to break away the crystallized ice that had formed there. He wasn’t going to be caught off guard again, so he made sure to keep his head upright and his eyes open for any more spells she might throw at him. They burned like hell and threatened to close up against his will, but he forced them open and kept an eye on her through his tear-filled, blurry vision.

  Sherrie studied him for a moment and then hoisted up her skirts and strode across the room until she was directly in front of him. Madison rose up straight and hurriedly wiped the tears out of his eyes so that he could see again. He wasn’t sure what was going on, and he wanted to be ready to react as quickly as possible no matter what she threw at him this time. She stood on her tiptoes and looked him directly in his eyes, her face so close to his own that he could feel her breath against his face and the freshly-charred skin there.

  “What are you?” she asked after a moment, finally backing away without dropping her gaze. “Who are you? What are you?”

  Madison looked over at Ryder as if he was going to give him some sort of clue for how he was supposed to answer, but the other Guardian just looked at him with the same expressionless gaze as always. Finally, not knowing how else he was supposed to respond, Madison just shrugged. “I’m Madison,” he said, somewhat hesitantly. Ouch. Mental note: talking hurts with a burned face.

  She grabbed ahold of his wrist and roughly turned it over, peering at the bandage there as if she could see what lay hidden underneath. She jerked her gaze back to his face and studied him for him a moment longer, her gaze narrowing in intensity, and then she abruptly dropped his wrist, turned around, and stalked out of the room. Just before leaving the room, she turned to Ryder and said, “You were right.” Then she disappeared without another word.

  Madison watched her leave and then turned to Ryder again. He was about to ask what that was all about, but Ryder had already walked off the mat to where he left his jacket and was in the process of rolling his sleeves back down around his wrists. Madison took this as a cue that they were finished, so he began working his way across the room to where he had left his shoes.

  Every step he took twisted his abdomen, and he quickly discovered that fresh burns hurt in ways that he hadn’t been aware of before. He skipped walking across the training mat, instead walking around it in lieu of ticking off Ryder again for some perceived slight, and by the time he made it to his boots, Ryder was on his way out the door.

  “Training starts tomorrow morning,” he said, his voice as disinterested ever. “Try not to get yourself killed before then.” He paused for a moment and added, “Go to the infirmary and tell them I gave you permission to use the spring.” Then he turned and left as well, leaving Madison to struggle with the task of putting his shoes back on when it hurt to bend over.

  So much for getting answers without more questions, he thought wryly as he watched Ryder leave. I guess he learned whatever it was he wanted to find out with this ‘test.’

  CHAPTER 8

  In the end, Madison gave up on getting his boots back on. Instead, he squatted down and picked them up without bending over and then gingerly limped his way out of the room. His feet felt like they were half frozen, his face and stomach felt like he had fallen asleep in a tanning bed, and his body already ached in a way that told him he was going to be sore for days to co
me. The pain in his stomach was secondary to the burns there, but the spot on his chest where he had been struck was probably already purple with a bruise. He had spent a ton of time in the gym training, but most of that didn’t include cardio or a ton of calisthenics. Dancing around, dodging, ducking, leaping and rolling about were almost completely-foreign concepts as far as his body was concerned, and it was already protesting the abuse it had received.

  Since it apparently didn’t matter which route he took to exit the building, he simply thought about the entrance closest to the infirmary and then limped along, taking every right turn he came to. As a consequence, it took several more turns than he had anticipated before he exited the building into the bright afternoon sun. Alright, he noted, wincing as he gingerly made his way down the stairs. You’ll get out eventually, but some routes may be more efficient than others. Duly noted.

  There were quite a few people outside on the large lawn. Some were sitting around in circles, some were tossing around something that looked like a Frisbee, and others were practicing what looked like martial arts moves. A few turned in his direction as he limped past and then started talking to someone close by, clearly making some keen observation about him, but most people seemed to ignore him, so he ignored them in turn. I guess they’re already getting tired of their new toy, he thought dryly. Or maybe it’s the fact I haven’t done something stupid in a few hours . . . Or maybe it’s the fact I haven’t done something stupid in a few hours that they were able to see, he corrected, wincing again as his tattered shirt rubbed up against the tender skin on his stomach.

  Eventually, he made it to the infirmary. By the time he made it to the top of those grey steps, he realized that he was probably going to become intimately familiar with them in an incredibly short amount of time. This was his third visit there in the little while he had been in K’yer Utane and his second visit of the day. True, the first was for someone else, but the notion still held. He stared down the long, white-stoned hallway with its natural illumination and fervently wished that someone would show up with a wheelchair and push him the rest of the way. Without any such luck, however, he was forced to continue limping along at a snail’s pace until he ran into someone.