Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  Surprisingly, however, he did find a single page that interested him. The entire page had been given over to a single image, and it was created in painstaking detail. There was a silhouetted picture of a man, his arms spread wide like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, and there were lines drawn between various different body parts and small boxes along the edges of the page. The boxes contained all sorts of various symbols, and someone had scribbled notes in the margins in a different language. It looks like someone was either adding notes of his own or was trying to decipher this at one time. The ink was faded, though not nearly as that from the book, and he could tell that had been long ago. The pages were so frail at this point that they probably wouldn’t hold up to someone writing on them.

  Madison flipped through several more pages, and he actually started picking up on a pattern. He was able to match up several of the symbols from the drawing, and he began to realize that they were headings and subheadings. It was like someone had created an image and then added pages and pages of descriptions and notes afterward, categorizing each.

  He was so caught up in trying to figure out what the tiny symbols might mean that he entirely lost track of time, and it wasn’t until he heard someone clear his throat that he realized he wasn’t alone anymore.

  “Ah, you’re back,” Madison remarked, quickly thumbing back through the book until he was on the page where he had found it.

  “And so are you,” Ryder responded flatly as he walked across the room. He was wearing the same black duster that Madison had seen him in the day before along with unremarkable, plain clothes. Apparently casual is the accepted standard around here, Madison observed. I at least expected to see someone in a uniform or something.

  “Ah . . . yeah. The book was already open, so thought I’d look at it while waiting for you.” Madison glanced at the window behind Ryder and realized that the sun had shifted in the time he had spent examining the manuscript. “Wait, how long has that been, exactly?”

  Ryder removed the overcoat, hung it from a peg in the wall, and sat down behind his desk, unabashedly eyeing Madison. “A few hours, if you arrived promptly after I sent for you.”

  Well damn. Learning how to gauge time with magic might be a better idea than I originally imagined. “That long? Really?”

  “I have numerous responsibilities at K’yer Utane, none of which can be shirked. I had an early class to teach, and I wasn’t going to skip that simply to meet with you. Now, there are several things we need to discuss,” Ryder began, his voice as monotone as ever.

  Madison nodded. “I had heard that you were one of the teachers. I was looking forward to learning as much as I could from you and the others.”

  “Were you? There are many who are questioning now whether or not we made a mistake by taking you in. There are some who have started asking whether or not you’re responsible or trustworthy enough to receive the training and education that we provide here.”

  “What? Is this because I missed training today? How am I ever supposed to—” Madison was choked off before he could finish his question. He had completely forgotten about it, but both Davion and Ryder had silenced him in this manner before, magically choking off his voice so that he couldn’t interrupt them or respond until they allowed it.

  “First,” Ryder continued, as if Madison had never even said anything. “You broke a cardinal rule of the infirmary by initiating a fight. To make matters worse, you also did it in the hot springs, an area that is normally off-limits that I specifically gave you special permission to enter.”

  Madison opened his mouth to say something in his own defense, but quickly shut it when he realized it wouldn’t matter anyway.

  “Second, you stole medical supplies from the infirmary on several different occasions. Third, you have been using the testing room without permission. This normally wouldn’t be a problem in itself, except for the fact that it’s currently beyond your ability to do so. You haven’t even put on your ring yet, and no one is allowed to freely use the testing room for advancement until you are at least ranked as a Class. Until then, it’s unsafe for you to enter alone as you lack the prerequisite skills to defend yourself should something go wrong. Fourth, you entered the forest sanctuary, an area that all persons are prohibited from entering. Fifth, you bathed in the pool there, defiling the waters. Sixth, you assisted a medical patient in escaping from the infirmary without leave from any of the staff.”

  Ryder finished listing off the charges, and neither his expression nor his voice inflection ever changed. He wasn’t angry, he wasn’t disappointed, and he wasn’t surprised. He simply listed off one indictment after another in the same fashion that someone would a baseball score for a team he didn’t even care about.

  “You may speak,” Ryder finished.

  Madison leaned back in his chair and carefully studied Ryder before answering. He didn’t really need to think about anything, but he didn’t want to seem like he was overly anxious to defend himself either. It had been his experience in the past that the guiltiest people were often the ones who cried the loudest when caught, and they did it without any real consideration of what they were saying. Trying to defend yourself without a plan was just as dangerous as attacking without one. What he was quickly trying to figure out, however, was how he got caught. Who would have been in all of those locations at all those different times? He’s not wrong about single one, but how did he find out about all of them? The only person with a common connection to more than one is Shayna, and I doubt she’s the type who would rat me out. I told her about the training room, and I told her I went swimming, but I never said where. It could have been in the stream next to the quad for all she knew. But why would she tattle on herself for leaving the infirmary? She would be in as much trouble as I would. No, there’s no way he could know unless—

  Madison snorted, finally realizing what he had forgotten. “Those damn eyes,” he muttered. Warren had told him to assume that everything he did in K’yer Utane was being watched, and he had even explained that the Guardians used a series of magical eyes to keep tabs on everyone and everything that went on within the walls. He had just completely forgotten all about them.

  Casually crossing an ankle over a knee, he looked at Ryder in the eyes and said, “Guilty on all counts.”

  Ryder actually raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t have anything to say to defend yourself? From any of these?”

  “Why?” Madison asked, raising his hands helplessly. “Would it do any good? Even if I did? What am I supposed to say? That no one told me any of those things? Would you really accept that as a reasonable excuse for why I did them?”

  “No,” Ryder answered coldly. “We wouldn’t. Ignorance is rarely ever an excuse.”

  “Exactly,” Madison agreed. “And, by the way, you said that there were six charges, but you listed seven. I’m assuming that not wearing the ring you gave me is also against the rules, which brings the list to seven in total.”

  “You’re not making the case against you any easier. You understand that, don’t you? Perhaps you don’t understand the seriousness of what is about to happen here, Madison.”

  “Oh, well, not that anyone has explained it to me—just like no one explained anything else around here—but I have a fairly good idea. You’re not just going to carry me out in the woods and drop me off, hoping that I won’t find my way home, are you? And you’re certainly not going to send me to live on a farm where there are lots of other little puppies to run around with . . .” He leaned forward in his chair and said in a low, confidential tone, “And, well, you can’t flush me down the toilet . . .” He leaned back and forced a smile on his face. “But you aren’t going to kill me either. You want me to think you are, but you’re not. So, in the end, none of this really matters, does it?”

  Ryder’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and he visibly clenched a fist. It was the biggest sign of emotion Madison had seen from the other man so far, and it spoke volumes as to how angry Madison’s flippant remar
ks must have made him. After a long moment, his fist released, and he asked tersely, “What makes you believe that we will not?”

  “What makes me believe that you won’t kill me?” Madison asked, pointedly correcting what Ryder purposefully didn’t ask. “Because you’re too interested in me. Don’t think I’m so stupid that I wouldn’t notice all the little signs. Almost everyone who appears here does so at a young age. It allows you to indoctrinate them early so that you can mold them into the exact type of obedient fighting machine you want. I’m not exactly an old man, but I’m a long way off from being a child either.

  “Secondly, I’ve had personal meetings with three different Guardians so far. Who else has ever had such an extensive testing process? You, Davion, and Sherrie all tested me for something, and you all did it with something specific in mind that you were looking for. I can’t confirm it, but I’m willing to bet that no one else ever had to perform tricks like a dog while having fireballs hurled at him by one of the strongest mages in existence. I’m also willing to bet you’ve never personally swung a fist at someone who was ranked lower than the lowest novice without a damn good reason. Don’t get me wrong: I know you were pulling your punches. I’m not delusional enough to believe that I’d walk away if you went all-out on me, but you weren’t exactly playing patty-cake either.

  “Third, you’ve gone to quite a bit of trouble to keep me out of trouble and in decent condition. You broke up the impending fight between me and Randall before he could do anything because you were afraid that he was going to hurt me—probably kill me, actually. I broke the rules—I broke custom—when I interrupted that fight and saved Shayna. And yet, you let me walk away from it without so much as a reprimand. That’s why everyone was so pissed off. It wasn’t because of what I did. They’d be willing to write it off as a newbie’s mistake. No one said anything about it, but they were pissed off because I was getting special treatment from you, and they all saw it. They all know you’d never accept ignorance as an excuse. Even just now, you agreed that ignorance is never an excuse. Which, well-played, by the way. There’s no way you’re stupid enough to do that in public unintentionally, so I’m assuming you did it with the intention of ostracizing me from everyone else. After all, who would want to associate with the new guy who’s getting special treatment from a Guardian? They’d run the risk of angering you if they messed with me.

  “And, I didn’t realize it until just now when you said something, but you also gave me special treatment by allowing me to use the hot springs. Not just everyone can use those. You said it yourself. They work faster than the healing drought without the side effects, right? That’s why you sent me there to heal up: so that I’d be ready for today. If anyone had used magic or a potion, I’d still be passed out in the infirmary right now.

  “No, you’ve done too much work already, and you’re far too interested in me for whatever reason. You’re not going to kill me, so spare me the empty threats.”

  Ryder leaned back in his chair as Madison finished, the faintest traces of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It was somewhere between sly and amused, and it only served to make him look all the more menacing. Before he could answer, however, there was a sudden knock at his door.

  “You’re right. We’re not going to kill you. But there are going to be consequences, Madison,” he said quietly. Then, much louder, he barked, “Come in!”

  The door swung open silently, and Madison swiveled in his chair to see who would be dumb enough to risk interrupting Ryder while he was in the middle of a meeting. He automatically assumed that it was something urgent since no one would want to risk angering a Guardian.”

  A young man somewhere in his late teens walked into the office, glancing at Madison disdainfully. Like everything else that went on in K’yer Utane, it was probably already common knowledge that he was in Ryder’s office. The young man was just trying to figure out why he was there: if he was being chewed out or if Ryder was showing him some sort of favoritism again.

  Knowing that, Madison was tempted to act sheepish so that he’d report to everyone else that he was being dressed down verbally, but instead, he put on the biggest shit-eating grin he could possibly manage and looked as relaxed as possible. Let them have fun with this one!

  The young man scowled at Madison when he saw the display but quickly corrected himself as he addressed Ryder. “Sir, there is an issue with Lord Fox and his entourage. They asked for you personally,” he said, presenting the information as formally and professionally as possible.

  “Anyone else?” Ryder asked quickly.

  “Wh-what?” the man asked, caught off guard by the sudden question. It clearly wasn’t what he had expected.

  “Did they send for anyone else or just me?” Ryder asked.

  “They also sent some to fetch Guardian Sherrie. I believe it’s urgent, sir.”

  Ryder was on his feet in an instant. He grabbed his jacket off of the wall and was out of the door before he even had time to put it on. The young man cast a disparaging glance at Madison, but he shrugged it off and sprang up, taking off after Ryder.

  Who is Lord Fox? Is that the diplomat who was supposed to arrive today? Or wait, did I miss that while I was in his office? Damn it. Time keeps getting away from me.

  Ryder was faster on his feet than Madison could have imagined. He was down the hall and through a door before Madison could even make the turn out of his office and into the hallway, but it didn’t matter. He had already found Ryder once by focusing on him and letting the magic do its work, so that’s what he did now. He focused on Ryder flying through the hallways and reaching his destination, some unknown door. He knew that as long as he could picture that, he would eventually catch up to him—and he was right.

  Madison streaked through the hallways, often pushing his way through groups of people and narrowly avoiding collisions with others, but he eventually turned down a hallway that ended in a wide set of double doors, and he saw Ryder disappear inside just as he entered the hallway. Madison slammed on his breaks, sliding over the smoothly-polished stone floor and slowing to a halt. Then, as casually as possible while out of breath, he strolled in behind Ryder as if he were supposed to be there. Ryder cast a glance back at him but didn’t say anything. No doubt he didn’t want to look like he was having to discipline someone in front of a visiting dignitary and when something urgent required his attention.

  Madison looked around the room and stepped out of the way as soon as he was inside. He hadn’t seen very many rooms, only a handful of public areas, offices, and the sleeping area, but he imagined that this had to be one of the most lavishly-furnished apartments in the entire compound. There were furs and thick carpets laid out on the polished stone floor, and the walls were covered with intricately-woven tapestries that were carefully placed to hide the glaring plain-Jane nature of the walls. There were several large windows designed to let in light on either side of the room and a series of doors that led off into what he imagined were private bedrooms and baths.

  The room was also filled with ornately-carved furniture. The room was split into two sections, and a group of people he didn’t recognize was clustered around a large wooden table on one side of the room. There was a heavy tension in the room that he recognized immediately. He’d spent far too much time at funerals in his short life, and this had that exact feel to it. Someone was dead.

  “What happened?” Ryder asked, striding across the room to join the people who were already assembled there. “Has Sherrie arrived?”

  An older man who was seated at the head of the table shook his head slightly. He had lines around his eyes as if he spent most of his time worrying, his skin was tan and weathered—which told Madison that he spent a lot of time in the sun and wind—and he had long hair that hung down to his shoulders that was streaked with more grey than black. “No,” he said in a low voice. “It doesn’t matter now anyway. There was nothing she could have done.”

  Ryder was quiet as he absorbed those w
ords. “I’m sorry for your loss, Lord Fox,” he said sincerely.

  “Do not worry, Guardian. We do not hold this against you or K’yer Utane. We knew the risks when we agreed to make the journey. I just never thought that it would be like this . . .” Lord Fox’s words were strong and admirable, but it was still easy to tell how hard it was for him to say them.

  Who died, exactly?

  “It’s not fair!” a woman cried softly from the side of the table. She looked to be around the same age as Lord Fox, though she had a much softer appearance. Her skin had a lighter complexion, there were fewer wrinkles on her face, and she had a bit more weight on her. “It shouldn’t have been like this.” She shook her head defiantly and said, “He fought in so many battles, and he was always gone from home for so long . . . but he always returned. He was always safe no matter what we heard. But . . . No, not like this . . .”

  “No one could have foreseen this coming, Maureen,” Lord Fox said comfortingly, placing his hand over hers. “There’s nothing we could have done to have stopped it. He finally fought a fight he couldn’t win. That’s all. It’s just the way.”

  Maureen sniffled once, but she didn’t cry despite the tears welling up in her eyes. She nodded faintly, a tiny movement of her head that was almost imperceptible.

  “I don’t mean to be brash, Lord Fox, but we must begin making arrangements. Prince Darrius’s body will need to be returned to the land as soon as possible.”

  Lord Fox sighed heavily, the weight of losing his son clearly taking its toll on him. “Yes,” he agreed. “I had hoped that we might be able to spend a short amount of time here before returning home, but you are correct. There’s just still much to do.”

  “I’ll contact the other Guardians and arrange for us to have our meeting as soon as possible,” Ryder said. “There is much that we need to discuss, but under the present circumstances, I know that you will be eager to return home and begin making arrangements there.