by Ijaz, Usman
Alexis, sitting on one end of the long, polished oak table, ate almost mechanically. The food looked great, smelled great, and he supposed that it must taste great as well, but he couldn’t be sure. It simply settled in his stomach. He looked up from his plate and saw Adrian and Connor watching the puppeteer’s display. Landerly watched too, but sometimes his eyes drifted to his guests, as if to see if everything was to their liking. Alexis gave the old man a smile as he met his eyes, but in the back of his mind dark thoughts toiled. Hamar and Owain dead. Only me now. Can I carry it out by myself? Can I even take them to Gale safely? The answers eluded him and despair filled him. He supposed he had been wrong to hold onto the faint hope that Hamar and Owain might still be alive, but what else had there been left for him but to hope and wish?
He ate and drank as much as he thought he could stomach, and then relaxed and watched the puppeteers. He couldn’t concentrate on whatever tale the puppets were carrying out. In his mind he kept hearing the crash of those guns as he had turned and fled. I couldn’t have done anything if I had stayed, a part of him spoke firmly. Hamar ordered me to leave, and it’s why I ‘m still alive and so is the boy. His gaze shifted to Adrian, and he watched him silently, wondering how many others would have to die to protect him. It was not anger he felt towards the boy, but a bitter resentment towards all that had happened, and all that might follow.
“Alexis?”
He came out of his brooding thoughts to realize that Connor had turned away from the entertainment and asked him a question. “What did you say, Connor?”
Connor spoke quietly. “Are you really related to the prince of Teihr?”
Now both boys were regarding him, as was Landerly, and perhaps even the puppeteers for all that they pretended to carry on with their show.
“Yes,” he answered, and smiled wanly.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Adrian asked.
Alexis stared into his wine cup; he supposed he had been drinking too much of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. “Because often you don’t know if what someone says or does is truly because of how they feel about you, or simply because of whom you’re related too. It becomes hard to tell the sycophants from those that are friends.” That was only half the answer though, but he didn’t feel like delving too much into it at that moment.
“How true, my boy,” Landerly observed quietly from across the table.
“Is that why we’re going to Gale?” Connor asked.
Alexis stared into his dark wine, watching his own reflection staring back at him, and simply nodded.
9
When they were done eating and done watching the puppets’ acts Landerly dismissed the puppeteers. Adrian and Connor were shown to their rooms, while Alexis and Landerly moved to a sitting room to enjoy their pipes.
Adrian relaxed down into the feather mattress and pulled the covers up to his chest. It had been a very eventful day, and now, with his stomach full and his mind feeling lazy, he simply wanted to go to sleep.
“I still can’t believe that he’s of royalty,” Connor said from his bed across the room.
Adrian shifted to face the wall and make himself comfortable. “Leave it alone, Connor. I can understand why he wouldn’t go around telling everyone with an ear to hear.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Connor said, sounding tired, as well.
Adrian fell asleep, and for the first time in months he didn’t care what the dreams showed him. Somewhere between dinner and the final acts of the puppeteers, he had come to a truth. He realized that no matter what the dreams showed him, it paled in comparison to watching his mother’s death. As long as that particular nightmare didn’t steal over him, he thought he could learn to handle the dreams and not let them drive him mad.
10
The pipe smoke hung thick in the air but Alexis barely registered it. Across from him sat Landerly, watching him in pensive silence and smoking his own pipe. Alexis noticed the other man’s presence, but it was like being aware of an inanimate object. He simply didn’t register much of anything around him.
He felt tired, as if all the weariness of the past several weeks had at last caught up to him and now threatened to drown him. He sat there, a stone statue himself, and pondered over the loss of Owain and Hamar. I can’t do this on my own, came the thought again. Even Hamar and Owain didn’t believe me ready, yet I was sent along and now I’m the only one left to guide the boy to Gale. He wondered if he should not send word to king Aeiron and ask for aid, and dismissed the thought quickly. Not from here. It’s too dangerous. Gale. It will have to be from there.
Landerly suddenly broke him from his thoughts.
“Your accents changed, you know?”
Alexis looked at him, suddenly aware of everything around him through a haze of weariness. “Has it?”
“It has. You truly sound like a Westerner now.”
Alexis made no reply, content to settle in his silence again.
“Have you spoken to your father lately?”
“Not in over a year.”
“And why is that?” Landerly asked around his short pipestem.
“I ... I don’t know,” Alexis answered absently, puffing at his own pipe. He wished Landerly didn’t want to talk right now; all he wanted was to be left alone with his thoughts. In an attempt to end the conversation, he said, “I write to him and my mother, but haven’t been to visit in months. Lander, if you will excuse me, I should get myself to bed.”
He rose to stand up and the wave of dizziness that rolled over him nearly threw him forward on his face. Landerly leapt to his feet and helped steady him. Alexis was appalled at how much help he needed simply to get to his room. Landerly talked all the while, but his words fell on deaf ears. The old man let him down on the bed, still dressed, and turned to leave.
“I’m sorry, my boy,” came the bare whisper as he walked away.
“Sorry for what, Lander?” Alexis asked, his words thick and mumbled.
Landerly started, and turned to look at him with surprise and then sympathy. “Just that you had to hear about your friends’ deaths in this manner.”
The old man left then, and Alexis was left by himself. He tried to rise to change out of his clothes, but felt too weary for it, and decided to lie down on the bed to catch his breath.
He was soon fast asleep.
Chapter 21
Betrayal
1
When Alexis awoke it was to find himself surrounded by armed men.
He was grabbed by strong hands and dragged from the bed and thrown to the carpeted floor. His stirring and confused mind was still trying to make sense of what was happening as two men held him up on his knees between them. Early morning sunlight streamed in through a window and near blinded him, as if he didn’t already feel incapacitated. The wound in his shoulder was stretched taught and pained him severely. It was but one of the few things that he noticed, like the dust motes that swam in the daylight.
“What are--” he began, and lost his breath in a gasp as a third man drove his fist into his stomach. He tried to fold over, but the men holding his arms wouldn’t even allow that much. Even as the numb pain spread through him, Alexis became aware of voices shouting from somewhere deeper in the house.
“Alexis! Alexis!”
The boys! he thought frantically. Adrian! He tried to pull free from the men holding him, but they were strong and he couldn’t move. He gritted his teeth, and thought if only he could reach his guns.... His eyes immediately went to the nightstand, but his guns were not there. He looked down, already registering the missing weight on his belt, and saw his empty holsters.
“Looking for these, are you?”
Alexis looked up to see a fourth man standing before him, holding his guns in his hands. He attempted to jerk free and reach the man and the guns, but to no avail. He only earned himself a backhanded blow across the face that split his lower lip open. Shaking off the blood, and making his head throb in the process, he looked ar
ound the room. There were five men in all, he saw, dressed in the coarse blue coats that marked them as part of the city Guard, and not a one of them wore guns, only swords. Those that were not holding him had their swords drawn. His anger swelled at the situation he had awoken to find himself in. How? He demanded of himself.
“Alexis! Help!”
Those loud, frightened screams cut through his thoughts like a knife. Sudden worry for the boys gripped him. He was angry to find they had been taken as well.
“What are you doing?!” he shouted to the men around him.
“Our duty, boy,” said the man with his guns as he leaned close. He was the oldest of the five, with a beard that covered his chin and trailed up the sides of his mouth. Alexis placed him as the captain. “Grandal cannot help you now, even if you truly are a man of the Legion. Grandal is far away, and here we adhere to our own laws.”
At a gesture from the man, Alexis was hauled to his feet. He realized bleakly that he could barely stand on his own, if not for the two men holding him up between them he would have sagged to the floor. They half-carried half-dragged him out of the room.
As they came into the hall they nearly ran into Landerly, standing outside the room, wringing his hands nervously. Alexis’s eyes met the other man’s, and sudden understanding dawned on him as clearly as the sunlight he had awakened to find himself bathed in. “You?” he whispered hoarsely. Landerly looked away, shamefaced, and Alexis was dragged down the hall. “Why, Lander? Why?!” he bellowed as they entered another hall. He heard no answer.
They came to the entrance to the house, and there Alexis saw Adrian and Connor being held by armed guards. The guards had their swords drawn, as if expecting to put them to use. He looked at the boys, saw the fear in their eyes, and relaxed a trifle as he saw that they were unhurt. Nonetheless, he felt like wailing in anguish. It couldn’t end like this, not in this manner!
One of the guards’ grip on him had slipped a little. Alexis jerked his arm away, and then sent it crashing back into the man’s stomach. One arm freed, he turned to face the other man, fist drawn back to strike. The next moment he was on the ground with three bodies atop him holding him down. He thrashed and convulsed against them, like a cornered animal, yelling wordlessly, but the weight of the three men proved to be too much. He saw the sudden movement of one man’s hand toward his head, and there was bright pain ... and darkness.
Infernal darkness.
2
Adrian and Connor were led out onto the courtyard under the dazzling daylight and to two awaiting wagons. Both wagons, they saw, had iron bars surrounding the wagon beds.
Adrian stared at the surprised faces of the small crowd of stableboys and servants that had gathered to watch them and felt his shame and anger swell. He tried to resist the two men who had hold of him by each arm and were pushing him before them towards the larger of the wagons, but it was useless. His heart was thundering in his chest, and his eyes flickered from face to face as they passed. He was suddenly intent on not weeping.
“Why are you doing this?” Connor asked. His wavering tone suggested he was struggling not to let his fear show, as well.
“Be quiet boy or I will silence you myself,” said a man who looked cruel enough to deliver on his promise.
Connor kept quiet.
Adrian glanced over his shoulder, and his spirits sank lower as he saw two men dragging Alexis down the steps. If there had been hope of any kind then, he would have clung to it, but at that moment he felt more helpless and alone than at any other time.
A small door was opened in the cage on the wagon, and Adrian and Connor were shoved into it none too pleasantly. They were forced to crouch and kneel since the cage didn’t allow them room to stand. Adrian’s eyes went to the other wagon, and he watched as Alexis’s lifeless body was thrown into the cage like a sack of flour. The guards took their places around both wagons, but his and Connor’s had the greater number, he noticed miserably.
Adrian looked around the courtyard, at all the servants and stablehands that watched on in amazement, and felt sick to his stomach. This can’t be happening, he told himself, but the realization of it was all around him. What pained him most of all was how quickly they had been robbed of the small peace they had felt in that house and been thrown into this hell.
“Why are they doing this?” Connor asked beside him.
Adrian glanced at him, and thought Connor understood perfectly well why this was happening. It was because of him. He looked again towards where Alexis lay unconscious on the wagonbed from the blow one of the men had dealt him with his sword hilt, and again wondered how this could be happening.
A large, round man stepped forward and addressed the onlookers in the yard in a booming voice. “These three are hereby placed under arrest for their crimes! For the crimes of being an Ascillian--” the man pointed an accusatory finger towards Adrian, “--and for aiding and supporting one. They will be dealt with under the laws of the Council!”
With that the signal was given and the wagons were drawn out by horse while the guards marched beside them, hands on their sword hilts.
Adrian looked at the guards, and saw more than a few give him looks of disgust before looking away. For that matter many of the servants and stablehands looked at him in revulsion as well.
“What do you think they’re going to do to us?” Connor asked frantically.
“I don’t know,” Adrian told him, but in his mind he remembered the dreams all too clearly.
They were led down a wide street, and the fat man declared his indictment several times to the crowds that gathered to watch as the wagons passed by. Many of them simply stared incredulously, but others bent to pick up and throw rocks at the passing wagons. Adrian and Connor retreated from these, but some still managed to strike them through the steel bars. Adrian’s fear dwindled as he watched the malevolent faces of the crowd, and was soon replaced by a surprising surge of anger. The guards were doing double duty he suddenly realized, guarding them from escape as well as keeping them safe from the crowd.
“You will burn, boy!”
“Abomination!”
He suffered through it all, the pelting rocks, the vile names they shouted and the promised threats, until they drew up before a large square building of white stone. Here the cage door was swung open and he and Connor were roughly pulled out. The men held Adrian warily and looked at him in sidelong glances, as if they all expected him to shoot fire out of his mouth. If only I could, he thought miserably. They were herded into the building.
Inside they were led past a large waiting room with a few chairs and a table on one side, and down a small hall lined with cells on both sides. Adrian counted eight cells in all, four on each side, blocked off by long steel bars. One of these was unlocked and he and Connor were pushed inside. The door closed and then the man with the keys locked it. In a cell across the hall and one down from them Alexis was tossed in like sack of grain. The guards then turned and began to walk away. Adrian leapt to his feet and ran to grip the steel bars.
“Wait!” he shouted after them. “What do you mean to do with us?”
One of the men stopped to look at him, his eyes first surprised that he had been spoken to, and then full of brazen loathing. “Lord Wendyl will decide what to do with you.” He spit in Adrian’s face and walked away.
Adrian wiped the spit off and walked back to where Connor stood. Neither one of them spoke. They had only to look at one another to see the hopelessness they felt reflected in the other’s eyes.
Adrian went and sat on one of the hard cots and wondered what was to come next.
6
Alexis awoke to the feel of icy coldness beneath him. He stirred, and his head responded with dull explosions of pain. He reached up to rub at his forehead gingerly, and felt the pain intensify as his fingers brushed the spot where he’d been hit. Dry flakes of blood drifted to the floor. Memory slowly drifted back to him. He opened his eyes and stared at the cold gray stone floor, then lo
oked around and wasn’t at all surprised to find himself in a cell. A small barred window at the back let in some daylight. He judged it close to high noon outside. He became aware of a strange racket from outside the window and the sounds of men talking or giving orders.
Alexis forced himself to stand up, and winced at the twinge in the wound in his shoulder. He wondered if it had broken open again, but didn’t have the nerve to check. He wavered about and his head swam in pain, but he made it to his feet. He felt at his torn lip with his fingertips. Like the blow to his temple it had crusted over and the blood had dried. He still wore his coat and his clothes, he saw, but he only had to look down to prove to himself that his guns were still missing. He went to the steel bars at the front of the cell and stared both ways down the hall. He understood he was in a temporary cell, meant to hold drunks and brawlers; those with more serious crimes hardly occupied these long.
“Alexis?” Adrian asked from across the hall and one cell up. “Are you all right?”
Alexis only looked at him, and felt a steel band loosen around his chest. He’s still alive. “I’m ... all right, considering everything,” he answered thickly. “What about you? Did they harm you? Or Connor?”
Adrian shook his head. “No, they only brought us here and left us.”
“How long ago?”
“Not long,” Adrian said. “Perhaps three hours ago.”
“Did they tell you anything?”
Adrian hesitated, and then said, “One of them said that some lord would deal with us.”
Alexis nodded. A local magistrate to carry out the law. He wondered how much time that left them.
“Alexis, what do they mean to do with us?” Connor asked as he came to stand beside Adrian.
Alexis looked at the two boys who looked to him for an answer, and sighed. How did he explain to them that they were now simply waiting out the hours to their deaths? “I don’t know,” he said, and thought the lie on his tongue was obvious. “Go and sit down while I try to think of something.”