As the cage began rumbling downward, Danner lurched toward Alex as though thrown off balance. Feeling as sluggish as a novice thief, Danner dipped his shoulder and slammed the operator into the wall. He brought his shoulder up with a sharp blow to Alex’s chin, felling him in an instant. Danner breathed deeply until his head was clear from whatever fog or spell he’d been under, and he crouched to check the fallen man.
Good, he’s alive but out cold, Danner thought, breathing a slight sigh of relief. He had little doubt he could eventually talk himself out of whatever trouble he seemed to be in, but not if he’d killed someone inside the Coalition headquarters. He realized he’d been drugged with a mild narcotic, which meant they wanted him alive. That was something, at least. It also meant they expected him to be easy prey, which was also to his advantage.
Danner swiftly took in his surroundings, realizing that he had to move fast if he was going to get out of the elevator without being detained. Not being captured was the key, since so long as he was free he could worm his way out of whatever the Coalition was doing against him.
The metal door to the cage left no room for him to climb over and could only be opened when it reached one of the levels of the building, but for Danner that wouldn’t be a problem. He pulled a thin wire out of his pocket and, in seconds, had the latch undone.
With the door out of the way, Danner watched until the ground floor appeared before him, then he launched himself through the gap. The cage door clanged shut behind him as the elevator continued down, leaving no clear signs of where he had gone.
Danner tucked as he hit the marble floor and rolled until he came to a stop. Men and women in the lobby, all human of course, stared at him, and several moved toward him as though to help him get to his feet.
“Damned elevator,” Danner laughed weakly as he brushed off his trousers, “almost missed my floor.” He straightened and begged off the helping hands, then stopped at a noise behind him.
Danner grimaced as he saw a trio of guards rushing toward him. He turned and raced toward the entrance to the building.
“Stop him! Traitor!” The guards’ cries rang out behind him, and Danner saw the guards at the front gate turn in response to the alarm. The two men before him raised long spears and aimed them threateningly at him.
“Not me, you fools. Him!” Danner cried desperately, pointing behind him toward no one in particular. He was rewarded with a brief look of confusion in their eyes, which lasted only as long as it took them to see that the only ones behind Danner were their fellow guards. That was all the time he needed.
Danner’s legs folded out from beneath him and he slid to the floor, rolling as he slammed into the guards’ legs and knocked both men to the floor. Danner recovered first, dodged a feeble kick in his direction, and ran out the front door.
He glanced behind him and smiled, then grunted as he ran headfirst into a wall of flesh and steel. Danner looked up from the ground and saw an armored guard towering over him, a grim smile on his lips. The guard raised a short spear and Danner clenched his eyes in a vain attempt to deny the inevitable.
He heard the crack of wood and a sharp cry of pain, and for an instant Danner thought that clenching his eyes had somehow worked. He opened one eye, then the other as he saw his uncle standing over him with one hand outstretched.
“Get up, Danner,” Birch said calmly. In his other hand he held a sword that, as far as Danner could see, was made entirely of wood. “Get up!” Birch ordered again, more sharply this time.
Danner grasped his uncle’s hand and hauled himself to his feet, then looked around him in despair. Over a dozen Coalition guards had encircled them, all with drawn weapons and grim faces. Danner didn’t doubt that any of them would happily kill both him and his uncle.
Danner reached down to pick up the short spear from the guard on the ground below him, but Birch held out a staying hand.
“Don’t,” his uncle said softly, then he directed his gaze toward the guards around him. “We surrender,” he said simply.
The Coalition guards looked dubious at first, and then they smiled to themselves and closed in. A guard wearing officer’s stripes reached forward to take Birch’s sword from him, but the paladin held the wooden blade away from him and tucked it under his shoulder.
“I’ll be keeping this,” Birch said, his voice making it a statement of fact. The guard opened his mouth to object, but Danner saw his face pale as he locked eyes with the paladin.
“Captain?” one of the guards said, jerking his head toward the wooden weapon in a question.
“Bah, let him keep his toy,” the guard said, a faint tremor in his voice. “Take them inside and below.”
Chapter 7
Each virtue is itself an example of temperance. Virtue lies on a center-path: stray to either direction – excess or paucity – and you enter the realm of vice.
- “An Examination of Prismatic Virtue” (801 AM)
- 1 -
Danner paced the cell irritably.
“For the first time in years, I’m sincerely, unavoidably, flapping shnieked,” he cursed. He heard a rustle of cloth and saw Birch staring at him reproachfully. Danner flushed under the scrutiny, but did not apologize. The dwarven slang was politely translated “in deep trouble,” but Danner wasn’t trying to be polite. He was old enough to say what he liked. Why then did his uncle’s gaze make him feel so uncomfortable?
“Well, besides the obvious,” he muttered under his breath.
Their cell was eight feet in all dimensions, large enough to accommodate all but the tallest of humanoids. They were encased in stone on three sides, their only light coming through the steel bars that made-up the fourth wall from a pair of torches in the hallway. Danner grumbled silently to himself, remembering that just the other day he’d been happy not knowing about the existence of levels beneath the main basement.
“Well, now I’m bloody well acquainted with at least one of those levels,” he said, still muttering. He turned another half-circle and walked irritably back to the other side of the cell.
“Does the pacing really help?” Birch asked mildly. “We’ve only been here an hour.” Danner glanced in irritation at his uncle, who was sitting with motionless calm on one of two boards projecting from the wall that passed for their beds. The paladin’s eyes were closed, and there was a look of intense calm on his face, if such an expression could truly exist.
“Yes, it does help,” Danner snapped.
Birch quirked an eyebrow at him, his eyes still shut.
“I’m sorry, uncle,” he apologized. “I guess I don’t take well the thought of being cramped up like this in… well, I never actually thought I’d ever end up in a…” he stopped, struggling to say the word.
“Cell,” Birch finished calmly.
“Yeah,” Danner said. He stopped pacing and sat on the other bed across the room from his uncle. “What about you?” he asked. At Birch’s questioning grunt, Danner said, “I mean, my dad always said you were uncomfortable in enclosed spaces. When he actually talked about you, I mean.”
Danner’s uncle nodded.
“You seem to be taking this pretty well, then.”
Birch slowly opened his eyes and regarded his nephew, his gaze not quite meeting Danner’s.
“I’m not taking this well at all, Danner,” he said seriously, “but I see no worth in giving our captors the satisfaction of seeing my distress, and so I refuse to show them. Were I truly alone, and there was no captor to observe me, I would long ago have chewed through those bars in anxiety.”
Danner snorted, not believing a word of it and knowing his uncle didn’t really intend for him to. Birch practically radiated self-control and discipline.
“Don’t you mean fear?” Danner asked without thinking, and nearly biting his tongue in an attempt to take the question back. “I mean, um…”
“Fear is not my enemy,” Birch answered, and Danner had the sudden feeling he was hearing part of a rote doctrine. “Fear makes a ma
n cautious and prevents him from being overly bold.”
In spite of himself, Danner was curious about what his uncle said. For a moment, he forgot about his surroundings.
“But fear is what makes a man cowardly,” Danner objected, his voice more inquisitive than insistent.
“Yes it is, and having too much fear can freeze a man’s heart and make him no more useful than a vegetable,” Birch answered. “But having too little makes a man feel invincible and leads to foolhardiness and false bravado. It is having the right amount of fear that enables a man to live and fight with honor.”
“Fear is a good thing?” Danner said dubiously.
“The right amount of fear,” his uncle corrected. “Or perhaps you would understand the opposite, possessing the right amount of courage. It is too much courage, and not enough fear, that makes a man foolhardy, and too little courage with too much fear that makes a man scared of his shadow. Courage is one of the seven Prismatic Virtues.”
Danner didn’t bother to ask, he just raised his eyebrows.
“Courage, justice, knowledge, temperance, piety, love, and beauty are the seven Prismatic Virtues,” Birch explained. “Each is represented by one of the seven colored facets of the Prism - red, blue, orange, yellow, violet, green, and white respectively.”
“Didn’t you say you were a part of a color?” Danner asked, trying to piece together things his uncle and his father had talked about.
“I was originally a member of the Red Facet of courage, which is made up mostly of paladins specializing in battle,” Birch replied. “More recently, I was a member of the White Facet, the color of beauty.”
Danner glanced dubiously at his uncle, thinking that although women might find his uncle ruggedly handsome, he was far from what one might call beautiful. Birch saw his expression and barked a laugh.
“No, I’m no primping butterfly,” Birch said lightly. “Beauty as a virtue simply means possessing all of the other virtues. Paladins who are called to the White Facet are said to possess all of the other six virtues in relative balance. Most paladins who survive long enough and mature generally acquire a moderate balance across most of the virtues, but not all of them sufficient to wear the White cloak.”
“What about the others then?” Danner asked. He found himself eager to learn more about the paladins, even though he knew his dad would disapprove. Danner’s father had always seemed dead set against the Prismatic Order, yet now Danner knew Hoil’s own brother was a paladin. Some of his father’s antagonism was at least explained now, Danner reasoned, since the Prism had somehow been the cause of Birch’s supposed death.
“The members of the other Facets exhibit one of the other virtues more strongly than the others, and so become affiliated with that group,” his uncle answered. Birch did not show any untoward eagerness to expound on what he was talking about, and Danner remembered his uncle’s promise to Danner’s father. But so long as Danner was the one asking the questions, he knew his uncle would continue to answer. He motioned to Birch to continue.
"All paladins study swordsmanship and battle, but Red paladins typically serve as enforcers of peace and lead their brothers in combat,” Birch went on. “The paladins of knowledge, in the Orange Facet, study history and teach not only paladin trainees, but men and women, young and old, all throughout the land. Paladins in the Yellow Facet of temperance often serve as political advisors and mediators between governments and even families, while Blue paladins moderate more local disputes and often serve as traveling judges of sorts.
“The Violet Facet paladins are evangelists, practicing and teaching the arts of religion and faith. They are often closely affiliated with the Green Facet of love, whose members practice healing and study the arts of medicine,” Birch said. “Each paladin finds where his strengths lie during training and joins the appropriate Facet.”
“So if a paladin has equal strength in all areas he studies as a White then?” Danner asked and flinched as Birch’s gaze nearly met his. His uncle’s deep, smoldering eyes stopped short, though, focusing instead on the wall beside Danner’s head.
“No, nephew,” he answered softly. “No one studies to become a White paladin, at least not deliberately. That honor is reserved for those who feel a calling to combat Satan’s forces in the most fearsome of places – on their home turf. White paladins, such as I became, find themselves inexplicably compelled to journey toward Nocka and cross the Merging. They are the only men with the inner strength to attempt such a feat, and we mourn the passing of each man that goes, for until me, no one has ever returned.”
This was common knowledge even to Danner, but somehow hearing it from his uncle’s lips made that knowledge sink in like never before.
“So what are you now, uncle?” Danner asked, his voice subdued. “You keep saying that you were once of this Facet and formerly of that one, so what are you?”
“That is for God to decide, Danner,” Birch answered piously, then he added with a touch of cynicism, “or perhaps for the Prismatic Council to decide, should our Lord not take an active hand. I think it likely they will try to place me back in the Red Facet, though they may be foolish enough to insist I wear the white. As if they had a choice.”
Again, Danner’s question was in his silence.
“Every paladin, at the end of his training, receives a cloak for himself made from a special wool that is blessed by members of the Violet Facet,” Birch said in answer. “As a mark of his acceptance, the cloak changes from its original off-white to whatever color conforms with the reflection of the new paladin’s soul. Those who aren’t ready yet see no change at all, and they continue their training. Some men, thinking themselves brave warriors, are surprised to find their cloaks turn blue or yellow. The blessings on the cloak respond to each man’s inner soul, and all men find themselves happy in their work.”
Birch paused, his face thoughtful; Danner almost would have called it morose.
“When I re-crossed the Merging, my cloak was in tatters and all but destroyed,” he said softly. “The remnants of it were so charred and blood-stained that the Green paladins treating me nearly destroyed them. But in a pain-filled daze I begged them not to…”
- 2 -
“Please, no, I need to keep those,” he cried, reaching out desperately to the men above him. Unfamiliar faces crowded all around him, uniform in their green cloaks and concerned faces. He could barely see the man who held the remnants of his cloak, so he focused on the blackened shreds in the man’s hands.
“Brother, these are of no use to you,” a patient voice explained. “You will have a new one, fear not.”
“No,” he screamed, throwing away the hands that clutched at him, straining to hold him down. Pain filled every fiber of his being, but he was used to that. The only memories in his head were of days and days of never-ending pain.
The torture of walking. The despairing agony of stumbling, falling to the lifeless ground. The gradual sapping of his will each time he was forced to gather his failing strength and push himself to his feet. At times it seemed the only thing he could remember was pain. Pain from claws tearing at his…
“No,” he yelled, grabbing at his ruined cloak. He fell short of his mark and collapsed on the ground. Then, to the amazement of the on-looking paladins, he clawed his way across the remaining few feet and began to crawl up the leg of the man with his cloak. How could he explain to them what it meant to him? How could he make them understand that his cloak was a tangible reminder, a worry stone he’d clutched for months as proof of his sanity? The blackened cloth was proof of who he was, where he’d come from, and what he’d endured – and it was proof that he was free of his torturers.
“I need to keep it,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and strained with the effort of holding in the pain. Willpower and a mindless determination alone kept him from collapsing to the floor with screams of agony.
Hands grabbed at him, pulling him away from the other paladin.
“No!” he yelled and, w
ith a lunge, ripped himself away from their grasp and fell against the man with his cloak. He locked eyes with him, and saw the man flinch in horror.
“Please,” he said, his voice full of desperation. He seemed incapable of telling them why he needed to keep it, and indeed he scarcely knew himself. But the simple desire, the need to keep his cloak drove him to the point of madness. It was a piece of what he’d left behind, proof of what he’d escaped.
“Please,” he repeated, his hands holding the other man’s shoulders for support.
“Alright,” the paladin replied, tearing his eyes away and staring at the tattered cloth in his hands. “I’ll save it for you.”
With a smile of gratitude, he fell to the floor and allowed the pain to swallow him.
- 3 -
“…and so they saved the cloak and agreed to include the cleansed remains in the material they were preparing for a new cloak,” Birch said, shaking his head to clear away the half-memories of pain and pleading that filled his mind. “When I go back, it will be presented to me when the Council makes its decision. But regardless of what the Council might decide, it is the cloak – or rather its reading of my soul – that will have the final say in what I am to become.”
Danner stared wordlessly at his uncle, not knowing what, if anything, to say. During his explanation, Birch’s face had undergone several swift, startling changes, as though he’d been reliving a painful memory in the space of a few heartbeats. Pain, desperation, determination, triumph, and finally relief had flashed across his uncle’s face almost too swiftly for Danner to have seen them. Even now, only a few moments later, he wasn’t sure they had even been there.
A sudden sound, really nothing more than the creak of his wooden bed, broke the lingering silence and made Danner blink and shake his head. Birch’s uncomfortable recollection had effectively ended their conversation, and the paladin showed no signs of wanting to renew it.
Hunting The Three (The Barrier War) Page 8