Death Flag

by Richard Haygood

  Shayna glossed over his warning, clearly ignoring it, and continued with her other questions instead. “But why? You don’t think that you can somehow reverse the flow of time, do you? I can already tell you that’s as impossible as trying to grow a tree from nothing.”

  He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, except in reverse, and he felt the invisible tension surrounding his body break as the weight of the magic lifted off of him. His vision turned to black, leaving him slightly disoriented, and he fumbled around blindly as he tried to find the door handle. He brushed up against one of the girls and then grabbed ahold of something soft. There was a small squeak from one of them, and he quickly let go. Then, one of them found what he was looking for, and all three stepped out into a bright hallway.

  Knowing that they were now being watched once again, he responded somewhat cryptically. It would be obvious to them, but not to anyone watching or listening. He said, “I’m tired of losing it, and I need more of it. That’s all. Anyway, I guess we need to figure out what time it is and where to go from here.”

  “Shayna is going to return to her room, and you two are coming to my office,” someone answered. Ryder truly had a gift for words: he somehow made the simple sentence seem both stoic and uninterested and yet remain forceful at the same time.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Wow!” Madison exclaimed, turning around on his heels to face the Guardian. “You guys are really getting good at predicting when and where I’ll be somewhere, you know that? You especially. I have to say, your aim is a bit rough, but you really do seem to be in the right place at the right time.” Madison patted his side for emphasis to get his point across. He wanted to make sure Ryder saw that he was as fit as he had ever been.

  Just like always, however, the Guardian’s face remained impassive and emotionless. If he had been bothered by the fact that Madison had already healed from his wounds, he didn’t show it all. Madison was going to have to start figuring out who was pulling the strings and why. He had already pushed the boundaries further than he ever would have imagined by antagonizing both visiting dignitaries and fighting with Ryder. Prior to that, Ryder had been in the process of chewing him out for breaking a laundry list of rules. If the Guardian truly wanted him dead, he didn’t need to search for many excuses.

  “I meant now,” Ryder said with finality, his measured strides quickly carrying him down the hallway as he turned and walked away.

  Madison just shrugged. “I guess that’s it then.” Turning to Shayna, he said, “Try not to get into any more trouble for a while if you can help it. Avoid starting fights if you can, please. If someone reminds you how small you are, just let it go, alright? Come on, Aly, we need to get going before he decides to cut me in half again.”

  “W-what?” Shayna stammered as the other two walked away. “I’m not . . .!”

  The duo made their way through the keep and toward Ryder’s office as quickly as possible, and once again, the trip seemed to go smoother and with fewer turns while he was with someone else than it had previously when he was alone. He knew that Ryder was waiting on them, so he didn’t bother knocking once they arrived, instead simply pressing the door open and stepping inside as if he owned the place. Ryder had never said anything about it, but Madison had the feeling that it irked him. It was disrespectful, and Madison knew that, but he wanted to push this man’s buttons at the moment in every way he could.

  People around here were too accustomed to half-truths, shady lies, and withholding information. He hadn’t said anything to either of the girls since it was pointless to do so, but he had already decided that, if he was going to figure out anything about what was going on, it was going to be through sheer luck and hard work. Sitting back and waiting for someone to come to him and to lay it out all nice and neat so that even a simpleton could understand it was just too much to hope for. If given the chance, everyone in K’yer Utane would simply wait for it to blow over and hope that no one ever came calling to ask about it.

  “Well?” he asked impatiently, stopping in the middle of the room and crossing his arms over his chest with Alyanna stepping up beside him.

  Ryder’s gaze swapped to Alyanna, and he said, “Miss Fox, we will begin with you. Although your stay with us has already been an exciting one, I’m sure that I can expect only great things from you while you’re here. Because your tenure with us is only going to be a short one, I would like to encourage you to take advantage of as many of the facilities and opportunities as you can.

  “I will remind you that it’s highly unusual for someone to be in your position, and you should remember that things here do not operate the same way that they do in your homeland. Throughout the long history of K’yer Utane, I can’t recall anyone ever being invited to stay for a set period of time. Your time here will be tough, and it will be dangerous, but if you apply yourself, it will also be productive. I would also like to encourage you both to remember that we are extending this offer not because of anything Madison has done, but because we wish to maintain a healthy relationship with your father.

  “Now, if you would be so kind as to grab ahold of this.” Ryder held out a smooth translucent stone about the size of his fist. It was the same crystal that had been passed to Madison on two separate occasions when he first arrived, and it was apparently a common occurrence for every new person to enter K’yer Utane.

  “What is it?” Alyanna asked curiously as she reached for it.

  She took it in the palm of her hands and held it up so that she could get a better look at it. A milky-white trail of vapor began to form at the center of the stone as they all watched, discoloring the light as it passed through it. The tendril of smoke grew larger until was about the size of her thumb and then blossomed out quickly in all directions, opening up much like the petals on a flower. It seemed as if the smoke was going to fill the crystal the same as it had when Madison held it, but instead, it stopped when it was about two-thirds full. Then, as they watched, the white cloud simply faded away and disappeared. She stood frozen for a minute as if watching for another reaction and then carefully passed the stone back to Ryder, placing it in his outstretched hand when she was certain nothing else was going to happen.

  “Very interesting,” Ryder remarked. “Think nothing of it. It’s just a bit of a test that we give everyone once they arrive here.”

  “Oh,” she answered, looking down at the stone on his desk. “Did I pass?”

  “There isn’t a pass or fail,” he answered. “There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s just a test.”

  “Then why did she say that the stone lies?” Madison asked, interjecting himself into the conversation. What he had seen just now had been radically different from what he had seen when he held that stone. His had produced an inky black smoke that was violent and erratic and had roiled around as if it were fighting to an escape. It had also been tinged with a dark purple, the same color that his arm was stained with.

  “The stone doesn’t lie,” Ryder replied. “I’m not sure who—”

  “Sherrie. She was there when I held the stone for the second time. She said that the stone lies. She also said that it has been wrong before.”

  Ryder focused his penetrating gaze on Madison, a thing that he was quickly becoming accustomed to. When he had first arrived, Ryder’s stare had made him feel like an insect being dissected for observation. That feeling hadn’t diminished at all, but after everything that had happened, he just seemed to think less of it now than he had before. “I’m not sure what you think you heard, but you’re mistaken. She clearly didn’t to indicate this stone when she spoke. As I wasn’t there at the time, I can’t be certain. I can promise you, however, that there is neither a right nor wrong answer, and it certainly doesn’t lie.”

  “Ah, well . . . If you say so.” Madison grinned broadly and fought back the urge to dance a jig. He knew he wasn’t mistaken about what she had said or what she was talking about. He had been so interested in finding out what it meant a
t the time that he had hung on every word. Even now, he didn’t truly have an answer, but he had gained another bit of information instead: either Ryder or Sherrie was lying. Why one of them was lying was an entirely different question, but the fact remained that what one said was at odds with the other. “Well, is that all then?”

  “No,” Ryder said flatly. “Miss Fox, seeing as your visit with us is a bit unusual in nature, and seeing as how you are accustomed to a certain lifestyle already, I’m going to grant you the continued use of your apartment while you’re here. We could not permit your father to leave any of his retainers behind, so you will not have a staff to wait on you, but you will have a private living quarters.”

  “I appreciate the offer, Guardian Ryder,” she said politely, “but I don’t believe I need any special consideration. We people from the north are not as soft as those from the sun-ripened south.” That last part was a bit sour, but given the political climate, Madison could understand why.

  “While you are here, you will retain use of your private apartment,” Ryder repeated. There was no room for argument or misunderstanding this time, so Alyanna simply nodded. “Very well,” Ryder concluded. “We’re done here. Both of you should try to get to some type of class tomorrow morning. Until then, try to stay alive.” He pointedly looked at Madison as he said that last bit.

  “Would be a lot easier if people would stop attacking me,” Madison said. “You know, people swinging swords around could be dangerous. Someone might end up getting hurt. Anyway, toodles!” Madison threw up his hand as a parting gesture and had turned and was out the door before Ryder could reply—not that Madison thought he would anyway.

  So, why did he even invite me there to begin with? To tell me to stay alive? It seems like he could have conducted that entire interview with just Alyanna. Was he trying to show me something? Or tell me something? Madison shook his head as they turned back through the hallways. He fell in beside Alyanna, following her as they went. What was it I was supposed to see? If he was trying to figure out whether or not I was actually healed, he would have had enough information after just seeing me leaving the testing room. I don’t get why I need to be there with Alyanna if . . . Shit. He didn’t want me there, he just wanted me away from Shayna.

  An ominous sense of foreboding slammed him in the stomach like a heavy weight, and Madison picked up his pace. Rather than mindlessly following Alayanna, he focused on finding Shayna instead. “We need to find Shayna,” he said urgently.

  “What? Why?” she asked curiously, though she matched her pace to his when he sped up. “Didn’t Ryder tell her to go back to her room?”

  “Yeah. That’s the problem,” he explained. “People don’t get private rooms here: they all sleep in a shared dormitory. That’s the only reason I figure out why I was even with you. He was either trying to tell me something, or he was trying to separate us from Shayna. And given everything else that’s been going on . . .”

  “You don’t really think that—”

  Madison shook his head to stop her from saying anything and said, “Yes. I do.”

  The two wove in and out of doorways and up and down halls, but they never seemed to get any closer to finding the missing girl. It hadn’t been long since they had seen her when Madison realized that something might be wrong, but some time later, they were still having trouble finding her. He had eventually suggested that they navigate their way to the women’s dorms rooms, but even that turned out to be a failure. Half of the people Alyanna stopped to ask claimed that they didn’t know who she was, which Madison found hard to believe considering how word spread and the fact that she had been involved with everyone’s favorite celebrity, Randall, and the other half simply said that they hadn’t seen her.

  Part of the problem was that he and Alyanna attracted attention everywhere they went. Madison was still a spectacle in his own right, but the combination of him and her together seemed to send the gossipmongers into orbit. Everywhere they went, they were followed by a chorus of speculation and chatter. ‘What are those two doing together?’ ‘She doesn’t look like a princess.’ ‘I thought that guy was the one who tried to kill her and her father?’ and ‘Why is she running around with the guy who killed her brother?’ and ‘What is he doing to manipulate her like that?’ and ‘Do you think he’s blackmailing her?’ and ‘She’s too pretty to be hanging out with him. It must be some sympathy thing.’

  Madison was actually starting to grow worried, and it turned out that he had good reason to. He suggested that they check the infirmary on the off-hand chance that she might have gone there to pick up something or because she was already injured, and the two happened to get lucky on the way. Just as they exited the main building, they heard a high-pitched shrill and saw a wave of people surge toward the dining hall.

  “What was that?” Alyanna asked, watching everyone quickly congregate in that area.

  Madison rolled his eyes and had to stop himself from groaning out loud. “Shayna . . .”

  He took off in a sprint and began pushing his way through the crowd when he could no longer maneuver around them. He broke through and into the circle just in time to see a guy who must have been at least twice Shayna’s size strike her across her jaw. He had reddish-orange hair that looked like it had been cut with a bowl—a hairstyle Madison hadn’t actually seen on an actual person in the last twenty years—and he was slightly pudgy. There was also a second man, who was almost the exact opposite of the first, holding Shayna with her arms pinned behind her back. He had shorted-shaved black hair, and he was as skinny as a rail.

  “Here he comes!” a girl shouted over the normal jeers.

  Madison glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and spotted a girl with stringy, blonde hair standing in the front row. Before he could take in anything else, he felt a pair of hands grab him from behind and stopped him dead in his tracks. He struggled against them, but soon two more pairs of hands joined the first, and all together, they kept him rooted in place.

  The pudgy kid turned around, and with a smug, self-righteous expression, he said, “I was wondering when you would show up. I hear you took had another little nice nap in the infirmary. What is that, like twice a day you go now?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Madison demanded, ignoring the obvious taunt.

  “I’m the man teaching this little bitch how she’s supposed to behave.” He turned and punched her across the jaw a second time to drive the point home. “She’s not housebroken, and we’re tired of her pissing all over the place.” He punched her again, this time in the stomach. Shayna recoiled under the force of the blows, but there was nothing she could do to break free from the larger man’s grasp.

  “I thought fights were supposed to be one-on-one?” Madison asked. He was wracking his brain as he tried to come up with anything he could say or do that would get him out of this situation so that he could save her. He had lost track of how many people were holding him in place, and he refused to take his eyes off of what was happening in from of him to find out.

  The pudgy kid managed to look even more satisfied than he had before. He threw his head back and laughed before punching her yet again, this time right in her eye socket. Haughtily, he said, “Oh, what a trip. This slug thinks that this a duel.” He threw his head back and laughed again. “Does this bother you?” He reached forward and grabbed Shayna’s face with his meaty hand, pressing her lips together. “Does it drive you crazy knowing that there isn’t anything you can do to your little girlfriend?”

  He suddenly let go and backed up, cursing loudly, when Shayna spat a mouthful of blood in his direction. “Bitch!” He unloaded on her then, raining down several punches into her body and her face until the guy behind her suddenly let her go and threw her to the ground, where she remained limp and unmoving. By the time he was finished, he was breathing heavily, and Shayna was a bloody mess. Her face was streaked with blood from where she had spat it up, and it was already starting to swell up from the beating. Her cheeks and
eyes were turning colors at an alarming rate, and it looked like she would have had a hard time seeing had she been conscious.

  Madison wrestled against the people holding him, but they refused to let go of him.

  “Take this a lesson, kid. This is what happens when you jump into other people’s duels. Why don’t you wipe all that snot off your nose, and come play with the big kids one day? I’ll teach you the same less we taught her.” Still snickering to themselves, the two guys disappeared into the crowd.

  Madison continued struggling, but no one would let him go until long after the other two had disappeared. He seared their images into his brain. He was going to find them sooner or later, and he was going to deal with them his own way when he did. The valley that contained K’yer Utane was only so large, and there were only so many people there. He was bound to run into them when the time was right. But for now, he was going to have to deal with Shayna. Despite her earlier words of comradery after a fight, no one made a move to help her. She had insisted that someone would rush anyone gravely injured to the infirmary after a fight was over, but no one so much as stepped forward. The people began to disperse, almost as quickly as they had gathered, and she was still lying prone in the same position that she had been dropped in when they finally let go of him. He instantly jerked away from the few remaining hands that were attempting to hold him back and rushed to her side. Within seconds, Alyanna appeared there beside him as well.

  Her swelling and bruising had been evident before, but it looked even worse from up close. “We need to get her somewhere,” Madison said quietly so that only Alyanna could hear. “I’m no doctor, but I’ve been beaten in the ribs enough to know that they probably messed up something serious. She needs treatment—she needs healing—and she needs it as soon as she can get it.