by Dan Wingreen
Except, just before Aidan was about to look away to keep from seeing the jumper smash into the stone landing in front of him, they started slowing down. Instead of crashing into the ground and probably traumatizing Aidan for life, the man—Aidan thought he could see the facial hair—floated down and slowly flipped over so he was feet first when he landed gracefully.
As he gradually recovered from the shock of seeing someone practically flying, Aidan noticed several things at once. Black clothes, leather jacket, way too long hair.
It was Eallair.
And he was on fire.
Eallair stood there casually, brushing off the front of his jacket, seeming not to notice the flames flickering on his right shoulder. When he did notice them, he just scowled in annoyance and waved his hand. The flames disappeared.
He looked exactly the same as he had the last time Aidan had seen him; he even had on the same clothes; except he'd shaved at some point since his beard now little more than day old stubble. There was a cylindrical scroll case slung over his back with the strap crosswise over his chest.
Eallair looked around, his gaze seeming to zero in on Aidan. He froze, then grinned that exact same grin Aidan had been pretending he hadn't been thinking about since last week, and waved.
"Well, fancy meetin’ you here," Eallair said as he walked over to Aidan. He stopped in front of him and smiled cheerfully. "Didn't think I'd be seeing you again, what are…hang on a tick." He turned and held out four fingers towards the front of the building. A single, white-blue streak of magic shot out of each finger and hit all four sets of doors, turning into big, glowing padlocks that hooked through the center of each set. "There. That should keep them in there, for a bit at least. So, what are you doing here?"
How…how can he ask that so casually? He just… Aidan looked up at the window where the fire was still burning inside the building. It had to be a magical fire if no one had managed to put it out by now; magical fire was extremely hard to contain for anyone except the one who cast it. He looked back to Eallair. Why would he be inside a DMS building that was on fire… Oh shit.
"You…you are a terrorist!" Aidan backed away, quickly putting some space between them.
Eallair's grin melted into a scowl. "Are we back to that again? Really?"
"Back to—" Aidan sputtered in disbelief. "You blew up a building!"
"I blew up a room in a building," he said. "You're overreactin’."
Aidan just stared at him incredulously. Overre… He's not even denying it. I can't believe I thought he wasn't a terrorist. For some strange reason, Aidan felt let down. "So, you're admitting it?"
Eallair let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm admittin’ I caused one little explosion, yes. That I'm a terrorist? Not so much."
"But that's what terrorist do—"
"Do you have a carriage?" Eallair asked, cutting him off.
"—they… I… What?" Aidan was thrown by the random question.
"A carriage. Do you have one? Or did you walk all the way here?"
"What?" Aidan scowled. "Why do you care? And what does it have to do with you being a terrorist?"
Eallair smiled. "Nothing. Just wondering if maybe I can get a ride."
Aidan gaped at him. "A-are you insane? You just blew up a building—"
"One room."
"—and you think I'm gonna be your getaway driver?"
"Pretty much, yeah.”
Aidan just…stared at him. "No," he said. "I can't even believe I need to say it out loud. No. A million times no."
Eallair's smile never faltered. "I think yes."
"No," Aidan said. "In fact, I'm-I'm reporting you!"
He started looking around for a police officer. He had no idea why he needed to report him; the building was still on fire, and if any cops were around, they had to have seen Eallair floating out of it. The problem was, there weren't any around.
You think there would be like a million around here. I should have turned him in last week. There were definitely enough cops all over the place then.
"You gonna be reportin’ me then?" Eallair asked cheerfully, drawing Aidan out of his thoughts.
Aidan scowled. "Shut up. I don't need to. You just set a building on fire."
"I set—"
"One room, yeah I know. You really think it won’t spread?" Aidan asked, crossing his arms.
"Since I set it to only stay in that room, no, I don't think it's gonna spread."
"Oh." Aidan blinked. "You can do that?"
"Of course." Eallair's smile was way too smug for Aidan's liking.
"Why?" he asked before he could think better of it.
“Because I’m a damn good sorcerer?”
“What?” Aidan shook his head. “No, not—why did only set the one room on fire?”
Terrorists aren’t known for limiting their destruction. Maybe…maybe he isn’t one after all..?
"Can we talk about it while you're driving?" Eallair asked. "I think they figured out I'm out here and I ain’t sure how long them doors are gonna be stayin’ locked."
He nodded towards the front of the building, and Aidan looked. There were several people—a few police and what Aidan assumed were DMS Agents—at the spelled doors, pounding on them and trying to shove them open from inside the DMS building. Now it was Aidan's turn for a smug look.
"Then you're gonna get arrested," he said, trying to match Eallair's infuriating casualness.
If he managed it, it didn't seem to have the same effect. Eallair's stupid grin got even wider. "Don't you mean we're gonna get arrested?"
"What?"
"It just seems to me that you've been out here, right in the middle of this bright sunny day, talkin’ to a guy that just set a building on fire."
"One room," Aidan cut in snidely.
Eallair practically beamed. "See? You're learning. But no matter what I've blown up or set on fire, I'm pretty sure everyone and their mother would be agreein’ with you that I'm a terrorist, and yet here you are just havin' a conversation with me, right in front of a building filled with official government types. And there don't seem to be much in the way of line of sight blockage 'tween us and them, if you get what I'm sayin’."
"Wh-what?" Aidan shook his head rapidly. "No. They… I mean there's no way anyone would think I'm with you."
"Oh?" Eallair cocked an eyebrow. "And just what have you been doing to stop me?"
"I'm a wizard. I can't stop you!"
"And we all know just how trustworthy wizards are, don't we? Not like they're needin’ constant restriction and watching to make sure they don't blow up all us poor, unsuspecting sorcerers, right? And I shouldn't even bring up the kinds of secret, nefarious shenanigans they must get up to in their exclusive little wizard enclaves; wouldn't wanna be scarin’ all the little children with stories like those, would we?" Eallair crossed his arms and smirked.
"No, that's not…" Aidan sputtered, trying to come up with an argument. The problem was, he couldn't. People saw wizards as walking countdowns to disaster at best and an entire population of wannabe terrorists at worst. Even the Wizards' Quarters, which were supposed to protect non-wizards when a wizard lost control and used magic, fed the fear most sorcerers had of them. And Aidan had been talking to Eallair, not running like everyone else. And, now that he thought about it, there was the slight possibility that could be misconstrued…
"Shit," Aidan said, the blood draining from his face. "I'm dead."
"It's not as bad as all that," Eallair said, and, dammit, he actually sounded like he was trying to be comforting. "They haven't seen your face. Not up close anyway. We get out of here now and there's no way anyone will be knowin' it was you what helped me."
Stop making me feel better. It's hard to hate you when you do that. Aidan shook himself. "I hate you."
Eallair smiled. "No, you don't."
Aidan scowled. "I really, really do."
"Agree to disagree, then."
Aidan…was going to ignore him. That seemed li
ke the best idea. Certainly a better idea than actually helping Eallair escape when he could just get away himself and leave him behind. Except, he didn't think he'd get more than two steps before Eallair would do some magic thing and stop him, and he had saved Aidan's life when he didn't need to… Dammit.
Aidan sighed, and resigned himself to the fact that he was about to be monumentally stupid. He spared one last, longing thought for the promising day he was supposed to be having, then decided he might as well get on with the nightmare it had turned into.
"Let's go," Aidan said sourly. "If I'm going to be an accessory again, I'd like to get it over with."
"That's the spirit!" Eallair slapped him on the shoulder.
Aidan glared. Great, if they didn't think I was with him before, they definitely do now. Aidan wanted to yell at him, but a loud banging and some odd flickering lights at the corner of his vision distracted him. He looked back to see that the trapped sorcerers had moved on to casting at the doors. The strange padlock spell that Eallair had used seemed to be holding up under the dark blue force bolts so far, but Aidan didn't want to wait around to see how long they'd last.
Life was so much easier when I was scared to leave my apartment.
Aidan stalked off towards his carriage, sparing a quick glare at his prime parking space. The stupid thing was supposed to be a sign of things getting better, dammit. He pulled open the door and threw himself into the driver's seat, fuming. Stupid heroic terrorists and lying parking spaces.
He pressed the power button and waited while the carriage read his unique magical signature. A few seconds later the engine started, filling the carriage with a low, steady thrum, and Aidan decided he wasn't going to wait around for Eallair to get in. If he wasn't inside by the time Aidan shifted into drive, he was gone. Let him run and see how far he gets. Aidan shifted. Eallair pulled open the passenger door and got in.
Damn.
Aidan sighed and pulled out into the four-lane street.
"Now that you've kidnapped me, where are we going?" Aidan asked sullenly. He hoped it wasn't too far. Or someplace he'd never been before. Which was basically everywhere except the Wizards' Quarter, the DMS, and the book binder's he worked at.
"Just drive," Eallair said, sounding distracted as he shifted around in his seat to slip the scroll case off his shoulder. Little more than a box on wheels, the carriage was small and narrow, like most non-commercial carriages, so he constantly jostled Aidan with a stray elbow or forearm as he moved.
"Great," Aidan mumbled, rolling his eyes and shifting over as far to his left as he could.
After a few minutes of careful driving—two miles below the speed limit, as he didn't want to attract any police attention while he was still 'accomplicing'—he glanced over at Eallair. The sorcerer had the scroll case on his lap, and he was unscrewing the lid slowly, almost hesitantly. Like he was scared to find out what was inside. Or, maybe, what wasn't. Despite himself, Aidan was curious.
"Did you steal that?" he asked. He spared a brief second to wonder why he cared, then an even briefer second wondering why he still wasn't scared of Eallair. He was scared when he heard the explosion, but once he saw Eallair and realized he was behind the explosion, all he'd felt was anger. And disappointment.
"Mm-hmm," Eallair answered, not even sparing a glance for Aidan.
Aidan slumped in his seat. He's kidnapping me; the least he could do is look at me and tell me what's in that stupid case.
Dividing his attention between the sorcerer and the road, Aidan watched as Eallair finally got the lid off and looked inside. The case was average sized, as far as scroll cases go, but the scroll he pulled out was incongruously small, just slightly larger than a page in a medium sized encyclopedia.
It was also old. Very old, judging by the faded yellow color and unusual thickness of the paper. Since scrolls had never really gone out of style, Aidan had no way of knowing if it predated book bindings or not, but he kind of thought it didn't. It was treated with a preservative resin, the shine clearly visible in the sunlight gleaming through the windshield, and while the technique was used before bindings were invented in 1650, it wasn't very widespread until the late 1700s when people started getting really lazy with their magic and didn't want to keep repairing their older scrolls.
And Aidan officially knew way too much about paper.
Eallair unrolled the scroll carefully and started reading.
A few minutes later, he let out a triumphant shout.
Aidan jumped in surprise, jerking the wheel to the left and barely swerving back into his own lane without smashing into the carriage next to him. The driver rolled down his window and shouted a few obscenities before flipping Aidan a rude hand gesture and speeding off. Aidan pushed his hair out of his eyes and glared at Eallair as his heart slowly stopped pounding, but the sorcerer never noticed.
"Ahaha!" Eallair crowed gleefully, pumping his fist in the air.
"What?" Aidan finally asked when it became obvious he wasn't going to elaborate.
Eallair looked at him this time, but just grinned and pointed towards the scroll. "I found it."
"Found what?" Aidan asked.
"Something I've been looking for, for a very long time," Eallair said. His giddy grin never faltered, but he had a glazed, faraway look in his eyes, and Aidan doubted he was even being paid attention to anymore.
"And that would be?" he asked impatiently.
Eallair blinked, then let out a small bark of laughter as his grin melted into a smirk. "Probably the most important thing that's ever been found."
Aidan sighed in frustration. "You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Nope. Sorry," Eallair said.
Aidan was really starting to hate the way he actually sounded genuine when he said things like that. It made it hard to stay mad. "I burned all their restricted records to ash, so they wouldn't know what I took—turn left up here—and I can't tell you and risk that you'll blab after we go our separate ways and undo all my hard work, can I?"
"You're letting me go?" Aidan asked in surprise as he made the turn.
Eallair frowned. "Of course. What? Did you think I was kidnapping you?"
"Yes! What else would you call this?" He gestured wildly between himself, Eallair and the car.
"Saving your life. Again. Make your next right."
"What?"
Eallair stared at him for a few moments, like he was trying to figure something out. Then he sighed. "If I didn't take you with me you were just gonna…stand there after they saw you with me, weren't you, all trusting and unaware. They'd have taken you, tortured you, then killed you when you didn't give them anything useful. At least this way, they only know I have an 'accomplice', as you put it. They never got close enough to see your face. You can go back to your own life, such as it is."
Aidan swallowed heavily. He had no idea how close—but no, that couldn't be true. Eallair was a terrorist and terrorists lied. "The DMS doesn't torture people."
Eallair snorted. "Then what do you suppose goes on in the 'interrogation' rooms?"
"Interrogating," Aidan snapped defensively.
"And what are you thinkin’ that word means? Askin’ questions all nice like?"
"Well, yeah," Aidan said.
For someone who was lying, Eallair sounded so sure. Well, duh. Just because he's a liar doesn't mean he can't be good at it.
"They wouldn't put 'Interrogation Room' in the directory in the main lobby if it was some secret illegal torture room."
Eallair stared at him in disbelief, then shook his head. "Illegal? Sometimes I forget how naive you people are. You'd think more wizards at least would—" He sighed, cutting himself off. "I've seen the inside of more'n one interrogation room, and not a one of ‘em didn't have floors that weren't stained red with old blood. You can practically hear the screams echoing off the walls. Even after you stop screaming. Eyes on the road, please."
Aidan looked back to the road just in time to slam his brakes on before going t
hrough a red light in a busy intersection. His heart pounded in his chest; he shuddered and tried to pretend it was from almost dying and not what Eallair had said.
He's lying. He has to be…
The light turned green, and Aidan slowly got up to speed. Neither one of them said anything. Eallair was looking out the window, the scroll resting in his lap, showing none of the giddy excitement he had a few minutes ago. For some reason, that bothered Aidan. Maybe because it made his lies seem even less like lies than they already did.
Finally, Aidan decided that even if Eallair was lying about the torture—which he was, of course—he'd still saved Aidan from being arrested as an accomplice to a terrorist, which definitely would have ended in Aidan getting his registration revoked. He barely held back another shudder. Eallair had saved his life, twice; the least he could do was let a little bit of treasonous lying go.
Besides, he was really curious about that scroll.
"What if…" Aidan said, licking his lips unconsciously. "What if I promised not to say anything?"
Eallair blinked, seeming to take a few moments to realize what Aidan was talking about. Then, he smiled faintly. "I'd be more than a bit stupid if I believed that."
Aidan scowled, trying to ignore how much that hurt. "Fine. Don't tell me. See if I care." He stared resolutely at the road, tossing his hair until it fell in front of his right eye so he couldn't see the idiot sorcerer anymore.
"But," Eallair said, his voice lighter than it had been a few moments ago. "I seem to be doin’ more’n a few stupid things lately, least when it comes to you."
Aidan wondered what that meant, but he refused to ask. If Eallair wanted to tell him, fine. If not, he officially didn't care.
Even if he, maybe, kind of did.
"This scroll," Eallair said with a trace of smugness creeping back into his voice, "describes, in detail, the location of the tomb and final resting place of Arthur Pendragon."
