by Davis Ashura
Fiona shook her head. “No. Make the bindings tight. The Servitor won’t believe I was truly abducted otherwise.”
“How will you get free?” Zeus asked.
“I have a knife hidden in the small of my back. I’ll use it to cut the ties.”
The old man, a shadowed form in her cottage, nodded. “We’ll go with what you deem best. You’ll cut the ties, start howling for help, and leap off our rowboat. Do it with your legs still bound, though.”
“Why?”
“If this Servitor is as untrustworthy as you say, barely surviving your kidnapping might be the final act that convinces him to remove your necklace.”
“The necklace starts tightening twenty or thirty yards from shore,” Fiona said. “That’s when I need to make my escape. Maybe at forty yards. It’ll constrict, but it should leave me enough breath to swim back to shore.”
Julius approached. “We need to hurry. Someone might notice the yacht.” He held a rope. “Do you mind?”
“Do it,” Fiona ordered. She held still while Julius bound her hands behind her back, tied her feet together at the ankles, and stuffed a rag into her mouth. She gagged at the last, but at least the cloth was clean.
“I’m going to braid a block on your ability to source your lorethasra,” Zeus said. “That should also help our cause with the Servitor.”
“It’s time to go,” Julius said. He fairly bounced with anxiety.
Zeus nodded, and before Fiona could ready herself, the two men lifted her up. She tried not to struggle while they crept from her cottage. She hated being carried. It made her feel like a sack of onions, bouncing about and squished in inappropriate places.
They slipped out into the night. Village White Sun remained cloaked in darkness. The few lampposts scattered about did little to illuminate the gloom, especially with Sinskrill’s typical mist and fog to shroud the streets.
Nevertheless, Zeus and Julius avoided any light as they crept amongst the shadows. They shuffled forward, slowly edging toward the pier. All the while, Fiona’s heart pounded, sounding in her ears like a thudding drum.
“Someone’s coming,” Julius hissed.
The steady tromp of boots reached Fiona.
“Here,” Zeus ordered.
The two men ducked with her into a shadowed alley.
Yellow light approached, and Fiona’s heart hammered harder. The Night Watch.
Indistinct voices echoed along the silent streets of Village White Sun. Fiona silently cursed. Beams of light pressed into the alley, bare feet from where they hid. Fiona held her breath. The sound of conversation crested, but nothing more than indecipherable murmurs arose. No distinct words.
After what felt like hours, the voices, lights, and sound of boot steps eventually faded.
The two men remained hidden, though.
Good. No reason to leave too soon and blunder into the Night Watch.
After the passage of ten more seconds, Zeus whispered, “Now.”
They eased from the alley. Once more, they kept to the shadows and steadily made their way to the wharf. From her vantage point, Fiona could barely make out the pier but saw that it was perhaps fifty yards away.
“There’s the rowboat,” Julius whispered.
“And there’s the yacht,” Zeus said, sounding relieved.
Fiona’s heart continued to hammer, but this time in exultation. Almost there. She tried to keep the hope down, but it insisted on burbling and bursting forth. If her mouth hadn’t been gagged, she would have laughed with joy.
“Halt!” a voice cried out.
Fiona’s heart seized. They’d been discovered.
Rushing boot heels struck the pavement. The lampposts along the pier flared to life. The world was revealed in a sharp relief of light and shadow. Fiona knew that she and the two men stood out, exposed amongst the light.
Zeus sourced his lorethasra. A snap of Earth put out the lampposts.
He and Julius sprinted for the docks.
Zeus cried out when he stumbled and crashed to the ground. His fall took Fiona down as well.
The guards were mere yards away.
“Run!” Zeus said to Julius. “Save yourself. Tell the others what happened. I’ll hold them off.”
“But—”
“Go!”
Julius argued no more. His footsteps raced away, and with them went the last of Fiona’s hope.
Three mahavans reached them, and Fiona cursed her inability to see. She’d landed face down. Nevertheless, she could sense.
Zeus was a powerful asrasin. He battled with Earth, Air, and Spirit. He snuffed out a ring of Fire and cracked apart a cage of Earth. He kept the mahavans at bay with a blast of Air set alight with Fire.
It wasn’t enough.
A rumbling blow of Earth slipped through his defenses, and Fiona heard him shout in pain. Sulfurous fire singed him, but this time he held silent.
He continued fighting, but by now more mahavans had poured in to support the members of the Night Watch who had discovered them.
An engine roared to life—Julius must have reached the yacht—while Zeus fought on. He shouted a final time before thudding to the ground.
Fiona struggled to move, hoping to catch the attention of the mahavans. If she could distract them further, Julius would more easily make it to safety.
“Fiona!” one of the mahavans shouted. “They wanted to steal her away.”
Someone rolled her over and ripped away the gag from her mouth.
A young mahavan, eyes wild and ready for blood, stood over her.
“Send for the Servitor and the Secondus,” Fiona ordered. “They must be made aware of what has happened.”
“What about the other one? We might still catch him.”
“What if there are more magi aboard with him?” Fiona asked. “You saw how hard the old man was to pull down. Do you really want to face them without the Servitor’s power to buttress your own?”
The mahavan quailed a moment before snapping out orders. “Send for the Servitor. Now! He must know of this.”
“And someone untie me and unbind my lorethasra,” Fiona growled. She forced herself to remember who she was, where she was, and ignored the death of hope, the desire to weep. Weakness was a death sentence on Sinskrill.
The sound of the boat’s engine grew faint, and she breathed out. At least Julius had escaped.
Julius’ heart pounded with terror and adrenaline as he stared back at Sinskrill. Lights had bloomed all along Village White Sun’s shoreline, and shouts rang out across the water.
Damn it! He pounded the ship’s wheel. They’d been so close! Only a few more yards, and the plan would have worked. Now it was all gone. A disaster.
He continued to stare back at Sinskrill, still shocked by Mr. Zeus’ capture. The shouts from Village White Sun slowly diminished and only intermittently sounded. The lights remained, though, focused on the area of the harbor where they’d been discovered.
Fear for Mr. Zeus roiled Julius’ stomach. What would the mahavans do to him? If even half of what William and Jake had said about Sinskrill was true, it didn’t bear considering.
Shit! He pounded the ship’s wheel again.
The yacht continued to pull away from Village White Sun’s harbor, and Julius’ thoughts knotted, whirling and swirling without pattern and purpose, like twigs caught in a rushing stream. For a moment, panic threatened to overwhelm him, but enough reason remained, and he forced himself to think. He turned away from Sinskrill and focused on the water in front of him.
Right now, given the gloom of mist and fog, he couldn’t see more than several dozen yards forward. That couldn’t go on. He needed to know what was ahead of him. It wouldn’t do to hit a rock.
He sourced his lorethasra and linked to the sewage of Sinskrill’s lorasra. He braided Water, and his weave rippled off his arms and into the bay. Julius used it to feel for upcoming obstructions and also stretched it back toward Sinskrill, feeling for anyone coming after him.
/> He sensed nothing. No pursuit, which was a miracle. Water Masters should have been riding his wake.
Julius’ thoughts slowly calmed. Everyone else needed to know what had happened. They’d have to abort the mission and return to Arylyn.
His jaw clenched. They’d have to abandon Mr. Zeus.
Guilt at the notion sat like a lead weight in Julius’ belly. How could he have left the old man behind? He should have done something.
Julius hit the ship’s wheel a third time. Damn it!
But what could he have done? If he’d stayed, he’d have been captured, too.
Julius sighed, and some of the anger and frustration drained away.
Time to make the call. He pulled out the satellite phone—thankfully, he’d been the one carrying it—and dialed William’s number.
“Mr. Zeus?” William whispered.
“Julius.”
“How’d it go?”
Julius swallowed another lump of guilt and regret. “A disaster,” he said. He explained what had happened. “We have to abort the mission. I’ll pick you up at Barrier Bay, and we’ll head back to the Faroes.”
A crackle came across the earpiece.
“No,” Rukh said. “The plan’s merely been altered. Jessira and I will free Mr. Zeus.”
“What!” Julius barked. “Are you insane?”
“We’ll get him out of wherever the mahavans have him secured,” Rukh said, his voice filled with certainty.
“How?” Julius demanded. “You don’t even know where they’re taking him.”
“They’ll take him to the prison under the Servitor’s Palace,” Serena whispered in the background.
“We can do this,” Rukh said.
“You’re crazy. You’re only going to get everyone else captured.”
“I know it sounds that way, but you’ve only seen some of what we can do,” Rukh said. “You haven’t seen all of it. Breaking into the Servitor’s Palace and freeing Mr. Zeus won’t be hard.”
The man sounded so sure of himself. Julius wanted to punch the smug certainty out of him. Nonetheless, he had no option but to go along with what Rukh ordered, since William and Serena had already agreed with the man’s plan.
Rukh spoke again. “As we discussed, William and Serena will make contact with Travail, and we’ll all get through the anchor line when it’s open to Australia. The plan’s only altered slightly.”
Only slightly? Asshole.
“What about Fiona?” Julius heard Serena whisper in the background.
“If the Servitor removes the necklace, or we figure a way to get it off her, she comes with us,” Jessira answered.
“We’ll let the group in Australia know what’s happened,” Rukh said.
“What are you going to tell them?” Julius asked.
“That Mr. Zeus has been captured. We’ll free him, and they need to enter the Australian saha’asra three hours sooner than we originally planned.”
Fiona watched as Zeus struggled to get to his feet, but they were kicked out from beneath him. A blow to the head made his eyes roll. He tried to stand again, and received a crack to the jaw. This time he collapsed.
“Enough,” the Servitor said, having just arrived.
Fiona stood tall. She couldn’t afford to show anything but outrage at her near abduction.
Zeus worked his way back to his knees. He blinked repeatedly, as if he couldn’t see clearly.
The Servitor loomed above him. “I told you one day you would kneel before me. Now I will teach you the true measure of pain.” He wore a chilling smile as he stroked Zeus’ white hair. Fiona sensed the Servitor forge a braid to block the old man’s use of lorethasra. “You were a fool to come back.”
Zeus flinched, and the Servitor smiled more widely. “Take both of them to the prison,” he ordered Adam, his Secondus. “I’ll question them in greater detail in the morning.”
Fiona gawked. “My Lord,” she protested, “why am I to be questioned? These brigands tried to steal me away from Sinskrill. The Night Watch will attest to that. I was bound.”
“So you were,” the Servitor replied, “but when the raha’asras you helped train initiated their escape, you sent the Palace’s mahavans north, rather than east after Serena. It was an understandable mistake, since my own words could have spurred your actions. But if they’d followed their impulse to chase my fleeing daughter, she would have been caught and the raha’asras would have never escaped.
“Now this occurs,” the Servitor continued. “Another example of your involvement in a magi assault on Sinskrill. Once is poor luck, twice is coincidence. We’ll learn if thrice makes a plot.” He strode to a saddled stallion and rode away in a clatter of hoof beats.
Fiona hid a shiver of fear. She knew the magi’s plan, and knew the Servitor would learn everything he needed from her. Her life was over. Her head dropped as a pair of mahavans grasped her under the arms.
They did the same to Zeus, but he fought against his captors, seeking to free himself.
His struggles ended when Adam Paradiso brandished a knife and held it an inch from the old man’s eyes. “You do not need to see in order to scream.”
Zeus settled down, and they were hustled away. The journey passed in silence as the grim-faced mahavans marched them swiftly through Village White Sun. They ascended the hill to the Servitor’s Palace, and all the while the mahavans’ gazes darted about. They were obviously on alert for another attack.
As they traveled, Fiona managed to murder her grief. Weakness wouldn’t help her. It never had. She called on the deep core of strength she’d developed during her long years on Sinskrill. She wasn’t dead yet. Perhaps her questioning would be perfunctory. She might yet survive this disastrous night.
Minutes later, they reached the Servitor’s Palace and were unceremoniously hurled into adjacent cells, like sacks of rotten vegetables.
The mahavans left, and Fiona and Zeus—What a ridiculous name—were left alone in the dark. She sat with her back to a wall and faced the door to her cell with eyes closed. She needed to husband her strength for what was to come.
After minutes of silence, with no one to check on them, Zeus spoke. “Can you source your lorethasra?” he whispered.
She shifted about and peered through the darkness. The old man was an indistinct form in the other cell. “I cannot and will not help you.” She spoke words intended for any eavesdropping Air Masters, several of whom were likely listening in on them right now.
“I need you to unbraid the lock they’ve put on me.”
“Be silent! I do not know you, and I will not help you,” Fiona repeated.
Even while she spoke, she sourced her lorethasra and formed a block of Air about them, barring any sounds from extending past their cells.
“But—”
“Now we can talk. I’ve formed a block of Air.”
“Why?”
“Because the Air Masters on this island hear all,” Fiona explained. “They listen for sedition. Now be quick. What do you want from me?”
“If you lift my braid, I can dream to someone. He might have a way of freeing us.”
“Free you, but not me,” Fiona said, knowing bitterness filled her voice. She shook her necklace.
“About that. From the description Serena gave me—”
“How is she doing?” Fiona interrupted. “What about Selene?” If this would be the last night of her life, she wanted to at least know that her granddaughters prospered.
“They’re both doing well,” Zeus said. “When she isn’t surfing, Serena has become a farmer, and Selene is on her way to transforming into a bright, beautiful young lady. They’re both happy.”
Fiona breathed out, grateful to know that her granddaughters—the only good things remaining in her life—had found joy.
“Anyway, your necklace is what I thought it would be, a locked nomasra. The key to unlocking it is a simple cipher made of the Elements.”
“I already know this,” Fiona replied.
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br /> “You do?” Zeus asked. He sounded surprised. “Then why haven’t you removed it?”
“Because even though I know it’s a cipher, I can’t create a braid fine enough to weave the key. No one but the Servitor can.”
“Not true,” Mr. Zeus said. “I can.” He sounded utterly sure of himself. Then again, his surety had landed them in the Servitor’s prison.
“So easy, is it?” Fiona snorted in derision. “No one is that skilled.”
“From what I’ve seen of Serena, she’s powerful at creating quick braids, but the tight weaves we use on Arylyn have been a challenge for her.”
Fiona paused. She hoped to survive tomorrow’s questioning, but in her soul she knew it unlikely. She would break. Or Zeus would. In either case, she would die. The only way to freedom lay in whatever crazy plan the old man had in mind. But first, she’d have to unseal his use of lorethasra.
A realization occurred then. “If this is true, you could have removed the necklace once we reached your rowboat.”
“It was my intention,” Zeus said. “I didn’t think to study the necklace until we had arrived at Village White Sun’s pier, and once I realized what it was, I was going to remove it. I saw no reason to let you flounder back to Sinskrill when I could have gotten you safely off the island on my own.”
Incandescent rage roared to life within Fiona. God damn it! She’d been seconds away from freedom!
“Will you unlock my braid?” Zeus asked.
Fiona suffocated her fury and concentrated. “It’s done.”
Zeus inhaled deeply and seemed to stretch himself. A moment later he sourced his lorethasra. “Let’s take care of your necklace.”
A sharp click echoed in the prison, and for the first time in sixty years the necklace unsnapped from Fiona’s neck. Free, or at least freer than she had been in decades. “Now what?” she asked the old man.
“Now we unlock the cells and get out of here.”
“They’re braided to prevent that.”
Zeus’ teeth flashed in the darkness. “The locks are simple ciphers.”
Fiona chuckled.
Jake sat alone on a log before the fire and cursed the cold weather and clouds hovering about the saha’asra in Australia. In the winter, the outback could be as cold and miserable as Sinskrill. The only difference was that the noonday sun here burned brightly rather than hid behind a bank of clouds.
