Death Flag

  Madison trailed off as a memory came back to him. So much had happened so fast that he had never sat down and tried to put the pieces together. Thinking about it wouldn’t do him any good, and dwelling on what had happened just made him angrier because of his own inability to do anything about it now. He knew that his best shot of making it back home was growing strong enough to win in a fight against the witch, and that’s what he had been focused on all of this time. Talking with this woman now, this dragon, reminded him of something that he had forgotten. Just before he was stripped of his senses and banished to this world, the witch had reached out and touched him. He had felt a terrible, explosive pain inside his head then.

  “I don’t know,” he answered at last. “Would I ever really know if she did? I do remember . . . I guess it’s possible.”

  The old lady shrugged, and her bony shoulders were made all the more obvious through her thin black dress as she did so. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. All magic leaves a trace if you are aware of what you should look for. That is the only reason I am able to say with certainty that she did. Although, to say that she altered something is not exactly correct. It is more appropriate to say that she has suppressed what is there already. Memory is a delicate thing, and magic is not such a precise tool as the sciences you are accustomed to.”

  Madison took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. It was absolutely terrifying to think about. There was no telling what she might have done; what he might have forgotten. He was suddenly going to have to second guess everything he thought he knew and some of the things he didn’t simply because something had been changed without his knowledge or consent. It was a horrifying prospect any way he looked at it.

  “This is likely the reason you do not remember why you are here,” she explained. “She claimed you were being punished, yet you have no memory of any crime you might have committed. It would seem that these two things are linked.”

  “That’s . . . a possibility. But isn’t it a form of punishment to contemplate the things you have done? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose if you don’t know why you’re being punished in the first place? The point of a punishment is to correct a behavior or action so that it is not repeated in the future—to show that there are consequences and repercussions for actions. Wouldn’t it not correct the behavior or action if you didn’t know what you did wrong to begin with?

  “No . . . Never mind.” Madison realized as soon as he said it that it really didn’t matter. “That’s only if you want the person to come out the other end alive. It doesn’t matter what any one person thinks or feels if their punishment is death. Dead is dead. There’s no need to correct someone’s behavior if they aren’t going to make it through the punishment alive. There’s no point in rehabilitation then.”

  “That is correct. I believe that it is safe to say that you are not intended to survive this trial. You are meant to die here for things that you have done. Thus, it does not matter if you are aware of why you are here. The simple fact that you are is enough. I believe it is also safe to say how incredible it is that you have made it this far without even a basic understanding of why or how.

  “As I have said, I am not able to tell you certain things. Yet, she is the enemy. Thus, I will explain to you this: You have visited this world before, and the crimes she accuses you of were within this world, not your own. Despite your belief otherwise, you are not a stranger to this world. Although, you are now admittedly more intimate with it now than you have ever been before.”

  “Uhh . . . You’re . . . I’ve . . . What?” Madison fumbled about as he reached for what he was trying to say. He was at a loss for words, something that rarely ever happened, and he had no clue how to recover. She had just pointed a loaded gun of information at his head and pulled the trigger. He didn’t even know where to begin sorting out everything that she was telling him, much less where to start filling in the blanks for everything she was hinting at without actually saying.

  How is that even possible? How could I have possibly been to this world before? Do I possess some innate magic I don’t know about? Did I climb through a wardrobe as a child and forget about it? Get sprinkled with pixie dust? And what did I do while I was here that would necessitate bringing me back as a form of punishment? What in the world is she talking around without actually saying?

  She smiled softly, and all pride and conceit were gone. Instead, she looked almost sad for what she was about to say. “This is true. It is safe to say that, while your memories have been taken from you, there are others who remain aware of your past. It is possible that you will encounter them while here. I also believe that it is safe to say that, were you to return to your own world, those memories would return to you as well. Sadly, there is nothing I can do. Her magic is as potent and as powerful as exists within this world. There is nothing I can do to alter what she has done except prepare you as best I can for what is to come.”

  Madison shook his head, dispelling it of the million different questions he had as he pushed them away for the moment. “You said that she is ‘the enemy.’ What do you mean by that?” He had to stay focused as long as he could. There was nothing he could do to fix what had already been done, and it was literally an impossible treasure hunt to try and recall what he couldn’t remember and might not even exist. Despite her assurances about always telling the truth, everything this woman said might actually be a lie. He had no way of knowing the difference.

  “She existed before this world was ever created,” the lady explained. “She and others like her predate the creation of this world. It was modeled after her memories of another and created as she saw fit.”

  “You’re saying she’s some type of god?” Madison asked skeptically.

  “No,” she replied emphatically, shaking her head firmly. “She is not. She is as mortal as you are. She can be killed, and she will die eventually of age just like all living things. She is definitely not a god. She simply possesses certain powers that may be attributed to one.”

  “That’s . . . a fine line.” He was already having trouble believing what this woman was telling him, and it kept getting more and more outlandish by the moment.

  Without any sense of malice, she said, “I can see that you do not believe me. I understand. The things I am telling you are simply for your benefit. What you choose to do with this is up to you. Yet, to answer your question, she is in fact the enemy. She is the enemy of all things that are not of her domain. She has already recreated within this world the very thing which destroyed her own. She has given new life to a being and a race that should have remained dead along with the past, and now it seeks to devour this world the same as it did the last. Thus, she is the enemy.”

  “And I’m guessing that somehow relates to me? Probably has something to do with whatever she thinks I did that landed me here? Whatever that means? If she can create entire worlds, couldn’t she just create a paradise of her own and do whatever she wanted with it? I mean, if she did actually create this entire world, it’s hers to do with as she wishes, right? Or does that end the minute other sentient beings becomes involved . . .” The philosophical debates were starting to add up. Even if he accepted what he was being told prima facie, there were still too many unanswered questions.

  “It does not matter what should or should not be. It only matters now what is. This”—she reached forward and tapped Madison’s arm—“and you.”

  Madison looked down at the gauze that was wrapped there. He had actually managed to forget about the blasted tattoo ever since this little adventure had started. It was something that had plagued him ever since he landed in this world and it first appeared, but without being around an entire fortress of people who seemed to know its meaning, he hadn’t had to worry about keeping it hidden. The worst part was that everyone seemed to know something about it except for him. Burke and Alyanna had both promised to tell him something about it, but then things had happened, and neither had said a word.

  “You know what th
is is?” Madison asked. He stuck his finger underneath the filthy gauze and started ripping it away. The trappings fell away as the tape came unraveled, exposing the strange mark for the first time in days. Several of his friends had commented on it, and it was hardly more than a poorly-kept secret within his group that it was there, but this was the first time that he had willingly shown it to anyone. He had been caught out like a kid with his pants down every other time someone noticed it, and it made him slightly self-conscious to think about exposing it now.

  The skin underneath was slightly lighter in color than the arm above, likely due to the fact that it had been protected from the dirt and grime he picked up. He had been smeared with soot, covered in mud and blood, and raked through grass and leaves. His trip downstream in the river hadn’t been nearly adequate to scrub him clean, and he admittedly looked a mess. Yet, the bandages had held up well, and the tattoo itself was still as pristine as the day he had first noticed it. The fanged skull was filled with jet black ink and hues of purple that bordered on black, making it stand out in stark contrast to his otherwise normal skin tones.

  “I do. And I believe that you would as well if you knew all that you should. This mark . . . It has significance for everyone within this world. It means something to almost everyone, and there is nary a child who would not recognize it. What it means . . . That, however, is something that has been lost. Its significance is what matters most—not what they believe it to be.”

  “And . . .?” Madison wasn’t holding out much hope for this topic going any better than the others had so far. “What is its significance if it means something different to everyone? I’ve seen this symbol in one other place, but no one has explained what it means to me—or even why it’s there. I didn’t put it there, so I have to assume that it was the witch—the enemy—who did when she brought me here.”

  “That is very likely so. It is a brand. An emblem. A symbol. It is all of these things.”

  Madison sighed at the cryptic answer, but he hadn’t expected anything different. “That would explain why it means so many different things to different people. Well, start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

  She folded he hands in her lap and studied him for a moment, her ancient gaze searching his face as if she were looking for an answer. There was no overwhelming sense of inscrutability like he had felt before, and for the moment, she was nothing more than an old woman looking for answers in someone else before sharing some of her own.

  “You have been told the tale of how the peoples of this world fell from grace. You have heard the story of how majesty and family and a single unified nation fell into ruin and became poverty and greed and gluttony. That much was taught to you. As such, you have also been told how it recovered—at least part of that story, anyway. You were taught, I am sure, that when things were the darkest, a force arose as if from nowhere to combat that evil. A mysterious group who set rights to wrongs and undid the evils that man reaped against man, brother against brother, and husband against wife.”

  Madison had to think back for a moment. He hadn’t been prepared for what had been an otherwise philosophical conversation to suddenly convert into a history lesson. He had heard the story a few different times, and it changed subtly each time. “That’s . . . a rather short summary of what I’ve heard, but yes, I recall the tale. They told it to me at K’yer Utane when I first arrived and then others have added a few missing bits and pieces afterward. The story seems to alter every time someone new tells it.”

  “Well, the missing piece is this”—she reached forward across Shayna’s body once again and tapped the mark.

  “What?” Madison asked in disbelief. “That must have taken place a thousand years ago—at least in the version I heard. You’re not trying to say that I had some part in that war? That I was the villain who destroyed everything and threw the world into darkness and despair, are you? Is that why I’m here? Because that crazy witch thinks I had something to do with what went down a full millennium ago?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head back slightly as she answered, making her look like she was recalling some forgotten memory. “Is that so hard to believe? You have already learned that magic is a powerful tool, have you not? You have already seen the effects it can have on time, have you not? This place they call K’yer Utane, time will pass differently there than here. So, why do you not believe that is not so in other places? What makes you so confident that you have had some part in that which is in the past?”

  Madison was completely boggled by the question. There wasn’t an answer to it, of course. Just like everything else she told him, it was completely full of holes and impossible to prove. He hadn’t actually seen the effects of time and magic himself: he had only been told about them. The only thing he knew for certain was that everyone else accepted that the correlation was real, which meant that he had to take it for granted that they were right. It wasn’t like he had a mother or father at home in this world whom he could watch age an at accelerated rate compared to himself. “Gauging by my estimate, one week passing in K’yer Utane is about a month in the rest of this world. Give or take a day or so. If we’re talking about the passing of a thousand years, give or take a century”—he scowled sarcastically as he said it—“that would make me about . . . two hundred and fifty years old? Yeah . . . No, I don’t think so.”

  She smiled slightly, her head swaying back and forth. “Your calculations are not entirely incorrect. I can see that you have already put some thought into this. You have, of course, considered the possibility that time passes differently within your other world than it does here. If the effects were even more dramatic than the example you just gave . . .?”

  “That’s a leading question, and there’s no answer. Without being able to return to my own world and then back here, I have no way of actually gauging it at all. Just as with K’yer Utane, I have no way of seeing or measuring the effects: I can only assume that what I’m told is factually correct. There’s no evidence to base it on at all. Unless you can prove that I was in this world a thousand years ago and that I was the emperor who threw away the prosperity of a kingdom, I just simply won’t believe it. I can’t. It’s too insane.”

  “No, Madison, you misunderstand me. You were never meant to be the king. That has never been your destiny in this life or any other. Your path is death and darkness no matter which world you walk it in. You were never meant to sit a throne and look down from above. That skull is the symbol of the Legion—the ones who overthrew the king. They were the ones who stood up for the layman. They were the ones who hung the butchers and skinned the rapists. They were the ones who thinned the herds of the fattened lords who thought themselves safe behind high walls as they fought their petty battles and squandered away the lives of those who served them.

  “That skull was the banner the Legion flew when they marched to war. It was left carved in bodies and painted on walls in the cities, and it became a symbol of the rebellion and the end of oppression and dark, dark days. That was its significance then.

  “But as with all things, time changed this. It has been used by many people for many purposes since then in order to rally others to their cause. What once had true meaning has now become a corrupted and evil sign of madmen who seek to do wicked things. It is used by petty thieves and common criminals to justify the evil they do and by gangs and overseers to put fear into the hearts of those whom they oppress and harass. Lords and lawmen in the cities scribbled it on the scenes of crimes and used it as a reason to come down hard on whomever they wanted to punish.

  “Kings fear that symbol and what it means. Lords hate it. They loathe what it did to their forefathers in the past. That skull and the power behind it toppled a nation and brought a wicked justice to a world that was without. Do you understand? The enemy has marked you. She wanted everyone to fear you, to label you an outcast and a scoundrel and worse. She wanted men to dismiss you before you ever spoke a word simply because of a mark you bore fo
r all the world to see. She never intended to give you a fair shot. Your sentence here was a punishment, and the punishment was death—whether you believe you committed any crime or not.”

  “That’s . . .” Madison held up both hands and shook his head in frustration. “You’ve got to be kidding me. There’s no way that any of that can be true. If she really believes something that insane as you say, then she really is off her rocker! There’s no way I was alive a thousand years ago! There’s no way I had anything to do with what went on in the past. If she wants me dead that badly, why wouldn’t she just do it herself? If she’s as powerful as you say, she could have just zapped me to death and been done with it. She created a world. What could she possibly have to fear from me? I’m fairly smart, and I’m decent with a sword for some reason, but that’s about as far as it goes.”

  Her mouth split open in a strange smile, and it appeared as if she were cackling silently for a moment before she answered. “Indeed. I would venture to say that you are a competent swordsman as you say. Yet, where did you learn to fight like that? You did not have training with a sword in your world of sciences? Hmm . . .? Where do you think you became so immune to the powers of the elements? Hot and cold and fire and ice have little meaning to you, do they not? Your constitution is stronger than most, and if you were to be struck by lightning, I would say that you would likely live when others would perish. Can you explain these things to me?”

  Madison scowled as he scrutinized her and worked over what she was hinting at. For all the things she said that were so outlandish they were impossible to believe, there were others that hit too close to the mark for comfort. He had been struck by fire and ice on several occasions, and neither had really bothered him to the extent they should have. It was as if he had some mysterious, unseen charm that wicked away the heat or the cold before they came into contact with him and were able to do any real damage. He couldn’t ignore the fact that she was right. “You are right, of course. But I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why things work that way, are you? You’re not going to explain to me that I was blessed by some holy power that makes me immune to the elements when I was a child a thousand years ago, are you?” His voice was sardonic as much as it was curious, but he couldn’t help it. He had absolutely no expectation of getting a real answer from her.