by AC Cobble
“Really Ben, this was a very bad idea,” added Amelie glancing over her back towards the building.
Ben grimaced. It wasn’t a good way to start. “I know this is risky, believe me, I know. I came because I had to warn you, Amelie. You’re in serious danger.”
“This better not be more cow shit about some bumpkin you met who’s worried about his sister,” muttered Meghan.
“No,” growled Ben, “it’s about how two days ago an army of men from the Coalition slaughtered Lord Reinhold and one hundred of his guards outside the town of Arrath. They are coming here next and they plan to take Amelie.”
“What! That is ridiculous,” replied Meghan incredulously.
“Hold on, what are you talking about Ben?” Amelie asked and shot a concerned look at Meghan. “How do you know this?”
“I was there!” Ben was exasperated. For the last two days his head was spinning with plans to sneak into the center of power for all of the Mages in Alcott and spirit away two of their precious Initiates. In his plans though, Meghan and Amelie had believed him.
“We thought Gulli, the man who arranged the attack on us, was in Arrath. So Reinhold assembled his men and we marched up there. But it was an ambush. A Coalition army was waiting for us in the woods and they killed them all. They are on the way here. I can’t be more than half a day ahead of them. They’re going to take you Amelie.”
Amelie sat down on the ground stunned. “The Coalition?” she asked in a small voice.
“Ben,” chided Meghan, “if there was this big battle and everyone was killed, how are you here?”
“I was behind them,” replied Ben. “Reinhold wanted me away from the action. I got to the top of a hill and saw them attacked. I watched it until the end.”
“So then what,” pressed Meghan. “These men, Coalition you said? I guess they just let you go after that. How do you know they are coming here?”
“I overheard them while I was hiding. Meghan, I am not lying. Amelie is in grave danger.” Ben ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He was exhausted from the frantic march back to The City and couldn’t find the words to explain himself.
“You lied to get us to come out here didn’t you, um, what did you say your name was, Brandon? Be serious Ben. This story makes no sense. And even if it was true and these men want to harm Amelie, what do you expect us to do? There is no safer place for her in Alcott than behind these walls.”
“No, the men, the Coalition men, are working with the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is part of this. I heard them dispatch a man to come here and give news of what happened.”
Meghan dramatically rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “Oh, now the Sanctuary is in on it? Really, you’re saying the Sanctuary is involved in some crazy plot to assassinate a Lord and then kidnap someone who is already here?”
Appealing to Meghan was going nowhere. Whatever trust they shared as adopted siblings was vanishing quickly. Ben sat down next to Amelie and ignored the glowering Meghan. He placed a hand on Amelie’s shoulder.
“Amelie, Lord Jason led this Coalition army. He ambushed and killed Lord Reinhold so that Lord Gulli could buy up all of the arms from Venmoor and cut off your father and the rest of the Alliance. He plans to come here next and kidnap you to put more pressure on your father and have him surrender from the Alliance. I do not know what they plan next, but I can imagine the offensive planned against Issen will turn into an offensive with Issen. This Lord Jason, he believes you are the key, he thinks your father will bow to the Coalition demands if they have you.”
“Oh please,” grunted Meghan.
“Lord Jason,” squeaked Amelie. “You saw him?”
“Yes, I did,” answered Ben.
“What did he look like?”
“I only saw him from a distance. He is around my height and had long blonde hair pulled into a pony tail. He was wearing the dark grey of the Coalition and he moved like I have never seen. He made Saala look like the city watch. I heard him, his voice was smooth and strong. Like a razor-fish in the water.”
Amelie looked to Meghan and whispered, tears filling her eyes, “I know Lord Jason and that describes him. If he is coming, I need to go. Ben is right, my father would do anything for me. I came here because he knew I would be a target and he thought I would be safe in this place. If I’m not, then I could be a pawn in the Coalition and King Argren’s games.”
“Amelie.” Meghan squatted down next to her and put a hand on her other shoulder. “You are safe here. The Mages would never allow anything to happen to you. Surely you know that by now.”
Amelie looked between the two, torn. They all sat there in silence and Ben looked to Meghan. She stayed focused on Amelie and didn’t return his look.
“I have to go,” sighed Amelie.
“Amelie…” Meghan started.
Amelie placed a hand on Meghan’s and said, “no, the risk is too great. Not for me, for my father and for Issen. I cannot allow even the smallest chance of the Coalition capturing me. My family, my father, my people, my home would all be at risk.”
“Amelie,” Meghan started again, “this is your home. You may not feel like it yet but you are already part of the Sanctuary. Our old ties have been severed and we belong here now. We have no fathers anymore. But the Veil is our mother and she will protect you.”
“I have to go.” The whisper was barely audible. Amelie resolutely rose to her feet before looking back down at Ben and in a stronger voice declaring, “I will follow you out.”
She turned to Meghan, “please understand. There is more at stake here than just me or even my family. My father’s weakness is me. I have no doubt he would cave if I was captured. My people would suffer. Hundreds of thousands Meghan. They would suffer under the Coalition if Argren didn’t make an example of us first. Issen as I know it would be no more. The Sanctuary has existed for millennia and it will continue to do so just fine without me.”
“You are making the wrong choice,” snarled a steely voiced Meghan. “But it is your’s to make. I wish you the best of luck because I believe you will need it.”
Amelie looked back down at Ben, “we should go.”
“Do you, uh, do you need to get anything?” he asked.
“If we go, we go now,” she answered with determination.
Ben scrambled to his feet and motioned for Amelie to follow him to the hedge-wall. He kneeled down to make a stirrup for her feet and boosted her over the fence.
He looked back and Meghan and held her gaze for three long breaths. A year ago, they were siblings. Adopted, but still close. He felt like this night, their relationship had been sundered and he would never call her sister again. As she said, her family was the Sanctuary now.
Taking quick strides along the pebble path, Amelie looked to Ben. “You have a way out, right?”
“I do. Amelie, I want to you to know, this is real. The things I saw…”
“I know Ben. I wouldn’t have left otherwise. We will talk, but later. This is not the place.”
With that, a clanging erupted through the still night. It sounded like a giant banging a steel spoon over and over against a cook pot.
“Damnit!” screamed Amelie. She grabbed Ben’s hand and they started to run. “That bitch didn’t even give us a head start.”
“What?”
“Meghan, Ben. Meghan just found a guard. Or a Mage.”
Ben steered them down a fork in the road and between breaths said, “we have to get to the water. There’s a lot of brush ahead that I don’t think the guards would ever spot us in. Should we run or hide until the alarm dies down?”
Amelie, already panting, replied, “we’re trying to escape the bloody Sanctuary. The guards aren’t what we need to worry about. We fucking run!”
And they did.
The buildings Ben had passed between earlier were lit up like fall festival jack’o’lanterns and they’d be spotted within heartbeats of passing between them. He pulled Amelie towards the exterior wall and t
hrough the waist high grass they started a wide circle around the populated areas of the grounds.
He glanced back and saw the trampled path they were leaving. Someone tracking them wasn’t the problem right now though. Movement was their only option. Running into a guard or worse is what would ruin their escape attempt.
They made it to the outside wall and paused. Amelie was breathing heavily and leaned against the cool stone that encircled the city side of the grounds.
“So, how are we getting out of here?” she asked between deep rasping breaths.
He grinned. The stress of the last few days had weighed heavily on him but the confusion from earlier was done and they just had to execute the escape. Whatever had happened between him and Meghan could be dealt with later. Amelie was the one in danger and she was the one who had trusted him.
“Boat,” he said. “If he can wait long enough. I know you’re tired, but we’ve got to move.”
Amelie pushed off the wall with a groan and a broad gesture, “after you.”
Ben started again, tracking the outside wall to get to the riverbank which he hoped they could move along until they met Mathias. He kept a quick pace but not the run they started at. Amelie clearly was no longer used to physical activity and the last thing he needed was to wear her completely out.
The clanging sirens continued and in the distance Ben could see bright spots of light moving throughout the grounds. Their possible saving grace, he thought, was that the entire complex wasn’t lit. It looked like individuals carrying the lights which were easy to see coming. As long as they could avoid them, they should be fine.
But as they neared the water, Ben saw they had a problem. A bobbing light was making it’s way towards them and from a distance, it looked like it was tracking the outside wall as well.
“I should have thought of that,” muttered Ben. “Of course they’ll check along the walls to see if we’re climbing out somewhere.”
He glanced behind them and a thousand paces back and behind a stand of trees, another light flickered in and out of sight.
“Can we climb out?” whispered Amelie.
Ben brushed a hand along the wall and said, “I thought about that before I came in. This wall is some sort of Mage fused stone. It’s completely smooth. There’s nowhere to get a finger grip and any hooks or things like that you throw over the top will just slide off. We have to make it to the water, it’s the only way out.”
“There,” Amelie pointed to a low dark building. “That should be deserted this time of night and there’s something in there we can use.”
They scurried through the high dewy grass and Ben frowned down at their feet then looked back to the first light steadily moving closer.
“We’ve got about two minutes until they see these tracks.”
“We run?”
Quickly they made it to the dark building and slipped inside the unlocked door. It was one long open room and half of it was entirely glass and filled with a stunning variety of plant life. The other half held sturdy tables covered in an array of objects Ben didn’t understand. There were liquid filled brightly colored glass tubes, a profusion of massive leather bound books, strange metallic devices and other objects he wasn’t even sure how to classify. Some of them bubbled and hissed strangely.
Amelie plunged into the room and kept straight ahead, Ben quickly scrambled to follow her. If they made it out of here alive he was very curious to ask her what this place was.
Halfway through the room Amelie paused then darted to the wall to snatch two slim vials off a rack on a shelf. She yanked a cork stopper out of one and passed it to Ben then opened her own vial.
“Cheers,” she whispered then downed the contents.
Ben drank his as well. It tasted like water.
“What was that?” he asked.
“I’ll explain later.” She quickly turned again and rummaged through the shelves until she found a palm sized wooden disc carved with strange symbols. She tucked it into her dress and nodded back to Ben. “Let’s move.”
The building was long but there was a walkway down the center so even in the dark they were able to move fast. The door at the far end came into view and Ben saw the reflected lights on the river through the wall of glass windows.
“Almost there,” he excitedly whispered.
“Not quite,” called a stern voice that sent shivers down Ben’s spine.
He and Amelie spun around and saw a plainly dressed, stern faced woman standing in the center of the aisle they just walked down and two armed guards standing behind her. One was wearing the dark grey of the Coalition and the other the emerald green of the Sanctuary. The men contemptuously hadn’t drawn their blades. Without a doubt, Ben knew the woman was a Mage.
“Where do you think you are going, Initiate Amelie?” she continued in the same firm tone. “You know that at this stage of training it is forbidden to leave.”
Amelie gestured to the Coalition man, “I think you know why I am leaving.”
The woman smiled and stepped forward, “that is a fair point. You would have made a good Mage.”
“Eldred…”
“That is Mistress Eldred, girl.”
The woman took another step forward and Amelie looked to Ben. He placed a hand on his sword and his body tensed. He was willing to challenge the two guards but he would be helpless against the Mage.
Eldred took a final step closer and placed a hand on Amelie’s shoulder. “I am sorry about this, I truly am. I mean it, you would have been one of the great ones but it is politics girl, and it’s bigger than any one of us. We must do what we must for the greater good.”
Amelie looked down and to her side, “I am sorry too.”
She glanced back at Ben and said, “you shouldn’t have come here Ben. But even if we wanted to, there’s no going back now.”
Ben nodded.
Amelie turned back to Eldred and swept her hand out over one of the sturdy tables, snatching up a heavy glass beaker full of steaming liquid. She maintained her momentum and spun with the glass, raising it up and crashing it straight into Eldred’s face. The Mage’s head snapped back in a spray of glittering glass, white teeth and bright red blood. Smoke boiled off Eldred’s skin where the liquid poured over her and she collapsed silently backwards. Ben whipped out his sword and leapt over Eldred’s falling body before she even hit the ground.
The Coalition man was the first to react, reaching for his sword, but he was too late. Ben plowed into him, slapping the man’s hand away from his weapon and slashing his blade across the man’s throat. The man dropped to his knees clawing futilely at his ruined neck. The Sanctuary guard stumbled backwards, still fumbling to draw his blade and staring down at Eldred with wide eyes.
Ben paused for a heartbeat and saw a streak of iridescent yellow light through the glass windows arc into the sky from the direction they came.
“They found our trail,” moaned Amelie.
Ben grimaced, darted forward and pounded the hilt of his sword into the side of the Sanctuary man’s head. The man fell like a limp rag doll. “No reason to kill him if they’re already onto us,” Ben said with a frown.
“I understand,” replied Amelie before they both turned and ran for the door.
There was no pretense at sneaking now. It was a race to the riverbank where they could only hope Mathias was still waiting.
The sprint to the water took no more than one hundred heartbeats but it felt like an eternity. Shouts were rising throughout the compound and bright disks of white light began to rise high above from all sides. Ben wasn’t sure if it was his imagination but they seemed to start floating slowly towards them.
“Don’t get below one of those!” shouted Amelie.
Ben didn’t even want to think of what would happen if they did.
They flew down the pebble path he’d come in before any of the lights converged on them and before they were seen, but yards from the riverbank his heart sank. Mathias and the boat were missing.
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“Damn.” He stared out at the water.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” asked Amelie. “We’ve been running around a lot, maybe you got turned around?”
He looked back and the park and buildings were exactly like he remembered. “This is the place,” he answered teeming with frustration.
A swarm or lights were in the glass building they just left and he saw them begin to pour out the exit. The floating discs began to converge more quickly. They were out of time.
“Can you swim?” he asked out of desperation.
“How far?” she answered while kicking off her shoes.
“The far bank is half a league away.”
“I’ve never swam that far before,” she paused. “I saw the man from the Coalition. We killed him for sure and maybe a Mage. What choice do we have now?”
Ben kicked off his boots, tore his shirt off his back and looped his sword belt over his shoulder. He grabbed their shoes and other clothing and hurled it into the river before they both stepped off the bank and dove into the water.
The water was cold but the current was lazy this close to the island. After a furious minute to get distance from shore they settled into slow and steady strokes. Behind them they heard angry shouts and bright lights bloomed along the river bank to light it up like it was day. The clanging of the siren finally let off and the ensuing silence was eerie. Ben cringed and kept swimming.
Amelie’s strokes began to get sluggish before they were a quarter way across the channel and Ben started to worry. He kicked with his feet to rise out of the water, scanning for nearby boats. There was one narrow sailing skiff rounding the north side of the island that might pass near them. It had a softly flickering lantern on the bow so he could easily track it while they swam.
Whoever was on it, it couldn’t be worse than who they’d left. It was a long shot, getting spotted in these dark waters or even making it close enough to the fast moving boat. But they had to try something. They weren’t going to make the other side with how quickly Amelie was fading.
