by Adam Carter
“You’re not upper class, are you?” Asperathes said. “You’re low-born, like the rest of us. A peasant. When your powers manifested, you must have panicked, yes? Panicked so badly you did something terrible and were arrested for it.”
Moya rose and said flatly, “I think I’ll make my own way.”
Asperathes winced as he realised his mistake. If her powers manifested and she did something silly, like discovered she was magic-sensitive by projecting a wave of ice which froze her town, she would not have been able to handle herself so well back at the dungeon. First against Baros, and then with precision aim at that lock. That took training; besides which, she was too old to have only recently manifested.
“My mistake,” he said quickly. “You became sensitive at puberty and were trained in secret. Then, recently, someone discovered your crime. How many years have you trained?”
Moya stared at him so blankly that Asperathes was getting fed up of it. At least she had stopped looking as though she was about to burst into tears.
Slowly, she sat back down.
“I’m twenty-three,” she said, staring back into her beer. “We had a little farm by the river. Nothing special, just enough so we could harvest grain. My father, he … when he was young he tested for magic. He had potential, you see, so he had to be tested. But he wasn’t of the upper class, so when his test results came back positive he was offered a choice. Death or magical neutering. They took away his powers, took away everything that made him special. He became a broken man, or boy I suppose he was. But he got on with his life, tried to forget about what he’d lost. The neutering though, it doesn’t neuter as such: it represses. For most people that would be enough, but my father was more powerful than he realised, more powerful than the upper class mages had noticed. His powers began to return. Not in any great quantities, but enough for him to feel alive again.
“My powers manifested when I was fourteen. He didn’t want me to suffer the way he had, didn’t want me to have to go through life knowing I had something special, only to have a load of rich people take it away from me. He didn’t want my life destroyed. So he taught me; through trial and error he taught me everything he’d learned. He taught me to control my powers, to use them, and above all to hide them. He taught me so much, so many things I never would have been able to have worked out alone.
“Life was good. Life was so good I fell in love. His name was Drake. He was a sweet lad, slightly younger than me, but Father liked him. He was a farmer too, knew how to harvest grain and everything. It was a good match, someone to help run things when Father passed. Father told me not to tell him about my powers, but I was so much in love I wanted to share my heart, my soul, everything.
“The next day soldiers came to the farm. Father put up a fight, tried to give me enough time to run. They killed him. I didn’t run, I couldn’t. I just watched as they callously cut him down. I couldn’t even fight back.
“And there was Drake, right at the back, looking like I was the one who had hurt him.”
She finished her story and Crenshaw placed a protective arm around her shoulders. Asperathes was not as a rule moved by human tales, but while he would shed no tears for her story, he could heartily understand why Moya always seemed on the verge of doing so herself. And it had nothing to do with being female after all, so it showed what he knew.
“You have nowhere to go,” Asperathes told her; not unkindly, just not kindly either. Asperathes tended to speak in whatever way he hoped would elicit the least amount of emotion. “You might as well throw your lot in with us, then.”
“You could try being a little less callous,” Crenshaw shot at him.
“Pardon me, I didn’t realise you were laying your foundations elsewhere in case your wife doesn’t want to know you any more.”
That was, he reflected, not the best way to elicit the least amount of emotion.
Crenshaw looked very much as though he wanted to batter him, but drawing attention to themselves would have been suicidal. “She may have only been in that cell for one night,” Crenshaw told him, “but Karina’s one of us now. And, if I have to repeat myself, we’d still be there if not for her.”
“Ah yes, the toast. I’d quite forgotten that. Fair enough, she’s shown her use. But then so did Kastra, and neither of us much cares that he’s dead.”
“I think we should leave,” Moya said. “I think we should get as far away from this area as we can. How far does the baroness’s reach stretch anyway?”
“Too far to walk tonight,” Crenshaw said. “Baroness Thade owns all this land for miles, and all the bordering lands are owned by people who are friendly to her. They’d have to be, or she would have overrun them by now. She’s not exactly one for sitting on her morals when there are places to invade.”
“Then we get a room somewhere,” Moya said, “and we set off first thing tomorrow morning. We walk all day, ride if we can, and get as far away from here as possible.”
“And head where?”
“North,” Moya said.
“Why north?”
Here her face fell. “I don’t know. I’ve never been more than two miles away from my farm. North’s as good a direction as any.”
Asperathes laughed. “We’re doomed.”
“The plan’s sound,” Crenshaw said, perhaps just to annoy his old friend. “But we head east. If she’s still where we used to live, that’s where Maria will be. A long, long way away, but east regardless.”
“East then,” Moya said. “But we still need money.
“Then we take it from someone,” Asperathes said. He could tell by their reactions that neither agreed with him. “Fine, I’ll do it myself. Wait here. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be back with enough money to …”
“No,” Moya said too loudly, on her feet already. “You’re not going out murdering people just to get us money.”
“Get her to sit down,” Asperathes hissed at Crenshaw, “or by whatever god you people worship I swear I’ll be murdering her.”
With a gentle hand, Crenshaw managed to coax Moya to take her seat, although Asperathes did not react at all.
“The problem with you people,” he told the humans, “is that you don’t have what it takes to do what has to be done. There are millions of people on this world, of so many races. You think in the grand scheme of things one death is going to matter?”
“Someone could say the same about you, Asp,” Crenshaw said.
“Of course they could. I never said I was important. I’m not, you’re not, your little wizard certainly isn’t. But one person dies so three can live? Those are good odds.” He could see by their faces that they did not agree with him. He wished he could understand it, but knew he never would. Morality was not something held exclusively in the human heart, but they did seem to throw it around more than most species, which was odd considering they were the most immoral race on the planet.
“Fine,” Asperathes said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms, “what’s your great and glorious plan?”
“I don’t have a plan,” Crenshaw admitted. “Yet.”
“Something will turn up,” Moya said.
Asperathes began to honestly wonder whether he was the only sane one left. “Super. In the meantime, how are we going to pay for the rooms we want tonight? You won’t let me intimidate anyone, murder anyone or probably even raise my voice to anyone. Little wizard, do you happen to have a spell for conjuring gold we might use?”
Silence.
“No,” Asperathes said. “Anyone mind if I get the next round in? Neither of you seems to have the guts to do anything around here.”
He rose without another word and went back to the bar. The bartender paled when he saw Asperathes, although the apepkith was hardly in the mood to suffer his stuttering arguments.
“Another round,” Asperathes said. “And quickly.”
The beers were poured and Asperathes noted a couple of apepkith further down the bar taking an interest in him. If
they knew he was an escaped prisoner there was little chance that they cared, which meant the barman had been talking to them about this rude snake man who wouldn’t pay for his drinks. Those apepkith were probably regulars here, and Asperathes figured it would not do to provoke them.
“Open a tab for me,” he told the barman. “And my companions and I shall require rooms. We’ll settle our bill in full in the morning.”
The barman looked relieved, muttered something about sorting out the rooms, but Asperathes was not listening. By morning he and his companions would be gone and he would no longer have to worry about anyone in the tavern again. It was only then he wondered whether the establishment even did rooms.
He was almost back to his table when he noticed Crenshaw was on his feet, antagonising some of the locals. Asperathes slid past them and set the drinks onto the table while raising an eyebrow at Moya. She seemed agitated, but it did not appear this incident was anything to do with her. Crenshaw was standing there with a woman behind his back and two burly men before him. The woman was shaken and the men were drunk. It did not take a genius to figure out why Crenshaw had stepped in, but not for the first time did Asperathes wish his friend would drop his conscience.
“I don’t want to use my magic,” Moya whispered nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Asperathes said. “I’ll sort this. Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?”
“No problem,” Crenshaw said. “These two fellows were just leaving.”
“Leaving?” one of the men laughed. “Two on two now; we got ourselves a proper fight.”
“Oh, I don’t fight,” Asperathes said. “No, no, I’m an undertaker by trade. I follow this man around and he provides me with nice fresh bodies to bury.”
The two men laughed, until Asperathes got out a shoelace and began taking measurements of their limbs.
“Stop that,” one of the men said, waving his arm as though to swat away an insect.
“It saves a lot of time later,” Asperathes said. “I’m only thinking of your comfortable journey to the afterlife.”
The men seemed less certain of themselves by this point, and perhaps that could have been an end to it; but Crenshaw had been cooped up in a cell for too long. Before Asperathes could do anything, the man had leaped at his foes, screaming at the top of his lungs. He had no weapon, but with his one good arm he needed none.
His first blow felled one of the burly men, sending a spray of blood across the bar even as he toppled. The second man yelped, jumped back, and collided with someone in the crowd. With a continued roar, Crenshaw barrelled into him with his shoulder, sending them both to the floor. Crenshaw was the first to recover and stamped his heel into the man’s shoulder. There was a resounding pop as the shoulder became dislocated, but Asperathes had seen all this before and by this time was sitting back down to enjoy his beer. There were gasps from the crowd, a collective groan, and other relevant noises as Crenshaw no doubt beat the man with whatever came to hand.
Moya looked horrified, but if she had spent any more time in the dungeon she would have seen far worse things.
“We’re going to have to run,” Asperathes told her quietly. “Crenshaw means well, but he tends not to think things through. He’s saved a girl and doomed us all. But, freedom was nice while it lasted.”
There were no more sounds of blows being landed, so Asperathes assumed the bout was over. Murmurs went through the crowd, and it was not a good sign that they were not cheering.
And then someone said something which made Asperathes’s already cold blood run freezing. Someone said, “You were the guy in the castle. And those two at the table … the apepkith and the wizard … they were there too.”
“Oh dear,” Asperathes said very, very quietly to Moya, more mouthed the words than anything. “I fear we’re going to have to kill to get out of here alive.”
Moya looked so pale it was as though she was already dead.
“You’re right,” someone else said. “These three went into the castle. They stopped a while in town to show off their muscles right before they attacked the place. These guys are heroes.”
Asperathes frowned. This was unexpected.
“Barman!” another voice declared. “Barman, you got heroes in your place. These guys took down the baroness, sent her packing. Three cheers and free beers!”
Asperathes was liking this more and more. He slid from his chair and saw Crenshaw was about to say something especially stupid. “You’ve found us out,” Asperathes said with a smile. “It seems we can’t hide anything from folk as intelligent as you good people. Three cheers we’ll accept, but we should pay for our own beers. I mean, just because we saved untold lives and made all your meagre existences that much more bearable …”
“Nothing of the sort,” the barkeep said. “Free beers, sir. And those rooms you wanted. And someone get these heroes something to eat, they must be starved.”
“You’re too kind.” Asperathes led Crenshaw back to their table and plopped him down, silencing him with a glower. “This is bad,” Asperathes told them both, amidst the raucous cheering of the crowd. “But we get a free meal out of it so we can worry about it in the morning.”
“This is not keeping a low profile,” Moya said, trying her hardest not to wail. “And we’re not …”
“I know that, you know that, he knows that. But no one else does, right?”
“But …” Moya looked about ready to faint. “But that group who went in. They were monsters.”
“Most heroes are, my dear.”
“And they were all men. Including their wizard.”
“Ah, that might not be overlooked for too long.”
More beer came at that moment and Asperathes found he no longer cared about the details. He could already smell the food from the kitchen and decided if this was how they were going to die, it certainly beat sitting in the dark, licking moisture off the walls.
“Chins up,” he told his companions. “For one night in our pathetic little lives, we’re actually heroes. Let’s at least try to enjoy it.”
Then the food came, and Asperathes – even though the rat he had eaten earlier would sustain him for several days yet – decided this was without doubt the best night of his life.
CHAPTER FIVE
Crenshaw’s head felt like someone had spent all night hitting it with a sledgehammer, his stomach groaned in anger, and his senses were so woozy that nothing about him seemed right. He was lying on something softer than stone, and there was no dampness saturating his body. As he stared at the ceiling, he began to wonder why it was so light and why he couldn’t hear the sound of rats scurrying about his legs.
Then he began to remember things. The escape, Kastra, the townsfolk … It was all coming back to him. He knew he should have felt exhilarated, but all he could really feel was nausea.
Rising tentatively to sit on the edge of the bed, he focused on the door as he tried to level out his senses. The room he had been given was small when he had spent so many years of his life in one massive cell housing so many other bodies. It was also private, the very thought of which made him smile.
“Good, you’re awake.”
His stomach lurched, but he managed not to vomit. Turning his head, he could see Moya sitting in a chair beside the window, staring out across the town. She was dressed in dark blue trousers and blouse, with a cloak dropping into a pile by her side. Crenshaw was suddenly conscious he was naked and moved his head about – slowly – in search of his clothes.
“Morning,” he grumbled. He found a shirt and gently rose from the bed to fetch it. He reached it in a few tottering steps and hauled it over his head. It wasn’t his, but it was something to wear so he was taking it. “How long you been in my room, then?”
“All night.”
That hit him like a thunderbolt and he span to face her, his hangover forgotten. “Good lord, we didn’t …?”
Moya tore her gaze from the window and stared at him. She raised an eyebrow. “No
,” she said, “we didn’t. And if you’re trying to make yourself look decent, go for the trousers before the shirt.” She went back to looking out the window.
Flustered, Crenshaw found some trousers and slid into them. “Sorry,” he said. “Been a while since I went out drinking. Guess I don’t know how to handle it any more.”
“You’re going to get us all killed.”
“Huh?”
“You and Asp.” Now that he was dressed, she was looking at him again and there was such anger to her face he wished he was still asleep. “Low profile,” she said. “That’s what we’re supposed to be doing; keeping a low profile. Instead, you declare yourselves saviours and they throw us a god-damned party. A party! A party is in no way low profile.”
Crenshaw placed thumb and forefinger to his forehead. “Keep it down, Karina.” He remembered some of the previous night and was just glad he had woken up alone, or at least alone in bed. He had not gone through all those years of hell just to cheat on his wife the first night he escaped.
“Your clothes are gone,” Moya said. “All our clothes are gone.”
“You burned my clothes?”
“They were rags, Crenshaw, and anyone looking at them would have known we were escaped prisoners. And they stank to high heaven. So do you, by the way. Take a bath.”
“Where’s Asp?”
“In his room probably.”
“He gets his own room and you don’t?”
“We get whatever we want. And, in case you missed this part, I’m terrified and have been since this whole mess began. Even snoring like a bear with a cold, you protected me just by being here.”