by B J Hanlon
“Young man, are you alright?”
“That was…” Edin swallowed. “I’m fine… I have a room in Middletown,” He said to Arianne.
“Two beds, I hope,” Arianne said glancing in Laural’s direction.
“I’ll take the floor.”
“Nonsense stay here tonight. There’s a lot of no-good thugs on the street. You can stay on the couch, I have a spare room for Mistress Arianne. Come dear.” The woman took Arianne’s good arm and began pulling her toward the stairs.
“One moment,” Arianne said. She walked up to Edin and took his hand and stared into his eyes. “Thank you for coming for me.” She pressed her lips to his. Their second kiss.
Edin closed his eyes, feeling the soft warmth of her lips on his. His heart raced, thumping like a waterwheel during a flood.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she whispered before turning up the stairs.
Edin sat on the couch, his head was dazed, his chest beating wildly. The kiss caused all sorts of stirrings through him.
“Now how am I going to sleep?” Edin mused closing his eyes.
10
A Dinner with Deadly Ramifications
Something woke him. Edin opened his to see the parallel wooden timbers crossing the ceiling like ruts on a road. He took a breath and rolled over trying to get in a more comfortable position. A voice sounded outside, too loud to be considered a whisper but it hung with him for a moment. “Is there…” It was muffled but he heard those words.
Edin looked at the window, it was still dark, but the gray blue of the early morning was pushing away the night. Something moved at the bottom corner. He saw it for a moment, a black oval pressed against the window before it disappeared.
Edin blinked and the hairs on his neck stood. Something wasn’t right. The room was dark but for the ambient light from the outside.
Quietly, he slid off the couch to the floor and fumbled for the cutlass. It clanged too loud and he stopped. He stared out the window but saw only the empty street beyond. It seemed odd. They were by a dock… at this time of the morning there should be movement out there, right? Merchants, sailors, maybe street sweepers or muckrakers.
Someone was out there though, he knew it. And he was almost certain of their intentions.
But who? The pirates or the thieves. Not much difference, he thought.
Edin crawled toward the window and tried to look out. Across the street, there was a stack of crates. Someone was staring at the building like it was about to have a sale on ale.
Edin dropped back and began up the stairwell. The stairs creaked under his weight and at the top was a hallway that ran to the left dotted with three closed doors. A window sat open just above his head, letting in the smell and sound of the ocean not far away.
Edin was about to stand when he saw the shadow of a hand. Then another. The hands actually appeared a moment later, gripping the sill. With a quick movement, a man leapt in and crouched just before Edin. He was silent. The man wore black, but not the cloak of the Por Fen and in his mouth was a knife with a serrated blade.
The intentions of him were obvious.
With a quick hand around his neck, Edin stabbed him with the blade in the back.
The man struggled for a moment before he dropped to the ground resting at Edin’s feet. Edin turned toward the window looking for the next attacker. No one came.
A rattle came from below. The front door. A moment later, a click. Edin went to the first door he found, he turned the knob. “Arianne, Laural?”
Something crashed into the wall beside him.
“Stop… its Edin,” he whispered.
“Edin? There are people outside.” It was Arianne’s voice tiny and groggy.
“I know.”
She glanced past him. “What happened?”
“Where’s Laural?”
“End of the hall,” Arianne said, she glanced at his sword and sighed. “The damned pirates took my things.”
“You’re hurt…”
A black figure appeared in the glass window above the bed Arianne had been sleeping in.
A fist smashed into the glass shattering it in a spray. He tried swinging in, but Edin was faster. The cutlass pierced him. His momentum was such that his entire body slid up to the hilt.
Edin freed the weapon and moved to Arianne.
“Not trying to sneak around anymore are they,” he whispered. “How are you?”
She shrugged, “I’m not going back with those…”
Edin nodded and motioned her toward Laural’s room.
Arianne knocked before opening it.
The old woman was standing with a staff in her hand and staring at them. She was dressed in a bright blue cloak the hood covered most of her head though he could still see her eyes. They seemed to glow the same color as her cloak.
On the floor next to her window, a man laid in a pool of blood with a look of agony that sent gooseflesh up his body.
“You’re a magus?” Arianne said.
“No time for this, we must go,” Laural said. “The third floor.”
They followed her back out and up a flight of stairs. She tapped her staff against a trap door and it dropped open, the ladder silently clicking into place and resting perfectly against the hall floor.
He waited until they were up before he climbed. Laural pointed her staff somewhere and a small flame shot out. Instantly a string of white flames appeared around the room.
“That’s the fire from the office?”
“I have few mundane weapons… a staff and short sword.” She pointed him to a small rack of weapons.
He looked at Arianne, his heart pounding. Laural trusted them enough to show her talent, whatever that was… Arianne nodded.
Edin held out his hand and summoned a ball of ethereal light into it. A moment later, a wind whipped around the room and the white flames went out, leaving them only in the glow.
“Edin a philios and Milady a gusoria…” There was almost a smile in her thin lips as pointed the staff toward a wall. A moment later, a line appeared out of nowhere and a hidden door swung open.
Behind it hung on the wall was a long sword with a bow next to it.
“Enchanted?” Arianne asked.
Laural nodded and white flames appeared again.
Edin grabbed the blade and pulled it from its sheath. The black metal said Eluvrian, and the grip was ornate. The pommel was in the shape of a wolf.
“It is called Mirage.” She said. “It can only be wielded by a mage.” Next to it was a bow, that seemed to be a bright yellow, almost like Arianne’s. She took it, though Edin had no idea how she’d use it. “That is Far Seen.”
Edin noticed the head of an eagle was melded into the arrow rest.
“My old weapons. The days of adventuring are long past,” she said and looked toward the trap door still open. Edin was about to open his mouth when she said. “We have zero time for me to give you a tutorial. Come now.” She clicked her tongue and pointed her staff toward the corner of the room. A ladder dropped and another trap door opened.
Edin grabbed the first quarterstaff.
Arianne went first with little trouble despite her injury. It was almost as if she was pushed by an invisible hand… or her talent.
Glass broke and people’s voices rose up through the building like smoke. Pounding feet bounded up the stairs. Laural went next, she seemingly glided up the rungs, Edin was sure her feet didn’t touch one of them.
A dark-skinned man appeared in the trap door. He grinned with wild jagged teeth. Edin recognized him as the pipe smoker that pointed them to Laural’s building.
Edin drew the enchanted blade, he felt no different.
“Edin?” Arianne yelled.
The dark-skinned man pulled out two short curved blades from behind his back. But there was a hesitancy to his movements. His eyes seemed to shift left and then right as if he was trying to see Edin.
Then, he leapt at Edin slicing as fast as possible. The bla
des sang through the air.
Edin was forced backward defending himself with the sword.
The man’s body was a blur of movement. High strikes, low strikes. His hands didn’t stop but many, that could have killed Edin, missed by inches and up to a foot.
Edin sank back into the serpent stance as a blade sang past his cheek. He lunged forward and caught the man in the side.
The fighter dropped just as two more men emerged from the front of the trap door.
“Get up here lad!” Laural called down there was fear in her voice.
Edin formed ethereal blades and threw them. They arced out in a fan and burst through the men sending them down the stairwell in heaps. Streaky blood poured down the wall where they had been.
Then he could hear nothing but a howling, ear cracking wind above him. Edin climbed the ladder to find himself in the middle of a tornado streaked with what looked like stones. Arianne and Laural were at the center Laural’s staff held high in the air. A man from the building behind them fired an arrow. It caught in the roaring wind and then was spat back.
The archer couldn’t move fast enough and was skewered. It all happened in a brilliant instant.
Then, everything stopped and Edin felt the suppression of the talent.
Arianne was looking toward the neighboring building. A Por Fen appeared, a Justicar. His black cloak ceased its fluttering.
“A master magus… here.”
Edin recognized the man as one who’d been in that meeting with the Inquisitor.
He leapt across the five-foot chasm and landed on their roof.
Six more appeared like gargoyles on the roof. All wearing the black cloaks with weapons drawn. “I don’t know how we’ve missed you.”
“Behind me,” she whispered, then louder she called to the Por Fen. “Your order is naïve and brainless, can you even wipe yourself after taking toilet?” She began backing up toward Edin and the trap door.
The Justicar grinned, it seemed almost jovial, but the eyes... Those black eyes were not smiling.
Laural waived her hand back pushing them toward the front of the building as men began to flood up the trap door.
They were scruffy and haggard. Some were stumbling and staring around with tired, probably drunk gazes. A few moments later, another appeared, clean shaven with large gold hoop earrings. His long black hair was pulled into a ponytail.
“I still get paid for this right?” the man said. Edin remembered the voice. Gostal, the pirate captain.
The Justicar hissed. “If you finish them… except the boy.”
“Pirates and the Por Fen fighting together,” the man said, “I’d say it’s the start of a joke.”
“Quiet scum,” the Justicar said as the attackers formed a semicircle around the three of them… slowly, they began closing in.
Edin pulled the staff and moved next to Laural. She gave him a sideways glance.
The captain took out a long cutlass, “you killed my men,” he said looking at Edin. “It’s going to take… at least a day to replace them.”
“I spared Ginnis,” Edin said. More men appeared. Edin couldn’t count them anymore. “Your nephew.”
Gostal paused and with him, his men.
The Justicar held back and his men stood motionless on the next roof. They seemed to be waiting for the pirates to finish the job or die and then move in.
Edin spared a glance toward the street and tried to suppress the dizziness. Down below, he saw many people beginning to come out of their homes and businesses showing up for a day of work and instead being treated with entertainment.
“It’s a lie.”
“I know his name, and how do you think I found her? Blazing Tortoise… your favorite inn.”
“Blotard,” Gostal grumbled. “Where is he?”
“In the city I presume, we parted after leaving the jungle.”
“Damn… men with me,” the pirate yelled. A few began to follow.
“He has my necklace…” Arianne whispered next to him.
Edin didn’t acknowledge, as the confused pirates began looking at each other, at the captain, then at the Por Fen.
“Fifty gold per head,” the Justicar called. This caused most of them to pause, all but Gostal.
“Some things are worth more than gold,” he spat and disappeared.
“Pirates…” the Justicar hissed. “Kill them.”
“You’ll have to jump,” Laural whispered.
It was a thirty-foot drop straight to the stone road.
“You’re coming?” Arianne said.
“Not yet…” Laural said with such force Edin nearly stepped back. “And don’t wait for me.”
The charge of multiple pirates came at once, Edin remembered their wild but coordinated attacks and was ready for them. And this time, he had a good blade he knew how to use. Edin stepped in front with his weapons.
“Go,” he yelled. Edin began parrying the blades with his staff and sword at a speed that was faster than he had before. A thrust to his gut was deflected toward one of the pirate’s friends. A club to the head crashed onto the roof.
He felt a sort of rhythm take over him, the clangs and cracks of the staff took on a sort of music. Men appeared and their attacks just bounced away.
He chopped the blade down and took off an arm, then gutted another. Edin didn’t notice a blade coming into his side. Laural appeared and slammed her staff into the man’s face. The pirate crumpled but more took their place.
“I’ll hold them…” Laural moved next to him and slammed her staff into one of the man’s sides. Somehow, he took flight as if he were an ant being flicked from a table top.
“There’re too many,” Edin yelled. He swung the quarterstaff catching a pirate in the leg letting loose a loud crack. The man howled and dropped as another appeared.
Edin stepped forward, caught a strike with his sword, spun the staff and nearly corkscrewed. The weapon slamming into another man’s shoulder.
The pirates seemed confused as they fought him. Their eyes wandering as their attacks slowed.
Edin saw the Justicar drawing a long sword and what looked like a whip. Edin backed up next to Laural.
“Escape my son... I haven’t survived this long without a few tricks. Remember, this is my house.”
It was the first part that stopped him. Edin looked into her eyes, they were steady and strong. She reminded him of his mother in more than just the name. A commanding and powerful presence but also kind.
Edin gritted his teeth.
She was going to save them, this old woman, old mage… would die so they’d live.
Edin turned to Arianne, his heart pounding as he glanced down. “Like the river,” Edin said taking her good hand.
“I don’t have my talent…” she said.
“Try.” He took her hand. He had faith in her that she’d stop them from breaking their bodies on the cobblestone. “Now.” They leapt out and the building flew past them. A moment later, he caught the sight of a pirate appearing from the door, then another. They walked with purpose.
A few stopped and looked up. He waited for the billow of air, something to cushion their fall. They were falling fast. Too fast and the wind didn’t come.
The man Edin landed on was completely unaware. Edin’s knees crashed into his back and then he rolled on the ground a few feet as his quarterstaff caught his gut. Edin gasped as the air burst from him.
He blinked and saw Arianne was rolling off another man. She was quiet but her eyes were filled with pain and tears.
Above them, he heard the whirling of wind and a clash of weapons. A man screamed.
Edin spotted Gostal in front of him. They stared at each other, both not moving just gasping for air. He spotted the gems, still attached to the necklace.
That was all he needed. He stumbled over and yanked it free with a snap. “I won’t kill you this time.” Edin huffed… “do not cross me again.” It probably would’ve sounded better if he could breath right.
Then a sound of a huge crack like a lumberjack splitting logs blasted out from behind them. A moment later, something that sounded like a zipper.
People screamed and he glanced back. The two buildings that had been there were now enveloped in a giant cloud of brown and white dust. Where they had stood, was nothing but rubble.
A man in black came stumbling out, he was gasping and coughing and looking around as if he didn’t know where he was.
For a second, he was certain the Por Fen saw him. Edin pulled Arianne, running as fast as they could down the docks. He yanked her down an alley, crossed one of the angle streets with another triangular building. They turned again, then again. He had no idea where he was going.
Somewhere, he could hear… or maybe not, someone chasing after them. Edin didn’t want to stop to find out.
A quick left but they had to stop. Taking up almost the entire alley was a large slow-moving cart packed with cows. The same ones from yesterday. He locked eyes with one and somehow he believed the animal was pleading for help.
Then he heard the pursuer. It was an uneven gait, clap clap, pause, clap clap.
“This way,” Edin said and pulled Arianne up. He took out his blade and struck at the lock. It snapped as if it were a twig. Edin yanked the ramp down.
“Hey? What’s going on back there?” someone called.
They turned sideways and began moving between the cart and the building. The cows weren’t moving. He needed some way to get them out. An idea came. He concentrated on the static electricity around them and touched one of the animal’s legs.
He let out a small burst.
A bellowing moo came from it then the cow pushed forward.
Suddenly, they were all trampling down the ramp like bison on the plains. Edin saw the dark robes of a Por Fen turn the corner and then disappear beneath the trampling beasts.
“My gods! They’ve escaped!” The driver got up on his bench and somehow didn’t see Edin and Arianne. He was too transfixed on his bovine.