by Edun, Terah
As she entered the plaza from the people’s street, Sara walked up a long ramp until she reached the pinnacle of the incline. While standing on the broad marble pathway, she looked down at the apex of power. The plaza was a rectangle-shaped depression in the ground with a promenade of columns to the left and right. Beyond the columns the stairs arced up from the base toward the triad of power in the empire. On the right was the mercenary’s guild, an imposing structure with towering colonnades. Directly across from it and to the left was the magistrate’s court. Staring straight ahead, Sara watched the morning sun light the palace of the empress in red, gold, and orange rays.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Ezekiel.
“Stunning,” said Sara with a voice like stone.
Ezekiel caught the tension in her voice. “What is it?”
She stared down at the base of the stairs to where a single pole with chains lay in the distance.
“This is where they proclaim traitors to the empire,” she said. “This is where my mother and I heard the citywide pronouncement that my father had been executed for his crimes.”
Ezekiel was silent. For a moment longer she took it all in. Then they turned to go along the broad pathways to reach the petitioners’ entrance to the mercenary guild.
When they got there, a normal-looking man with a helmet on and a bored expression in place said, “Name?’
“Sara Fairchild.”
“Occupation?”
She was silent for a moment.
“Occupation?” he repeated impatiently.
“Fisherwoman,” Ezekiel exclaimed from beside her while studiously avoiding looking up. With his head hanging down and his shoulders slumped, he looked like a depressed stork. But the lackey didn’t question him.
“Purpose for entering the mercenary’s guild?”
“Hire of a new watcher for the fishery,” she said.
He nodded and scribbled it down. Then he handed her two medallions on a rope. One was painted red. The other red with blue stripes.
“Here, this will grant you access to the guild records room for hiring purposes. Nowhere else. If you are found without those medallions or outside of those areas, you will be detained.”
They way he said “detained” made it sound a lot like “tortured and killed.”
He looked down at her impatiently. “Got it?”
“Got it.” She was quick to confirm.
“The red one is for you, as the primary party responsible. The man with you is your charge. If he gets into trouble, it will be on your head. Do you understand?”
Still Ezekiel didn’t look up.
“Yes,” Sara said.
“Yes,” squeaked Ezekiel.
The man said, “Put them on now. Yours first, and you put his over his head.”
She didn’t ask why. She knew why. It was a military tactic used on prisoners. The medallions were objects called symbiotic rings. The wardens liked to make sure prisoners behaved well. Each prisoner wore one that was linked to the others about their necks. If one prisoner was punished for a transgression, they all felt it. But the symbiotic rings had an even more sinister purpose in their design. They could be used to kill. Ezekiel was now beholden to her. Anything he did wrong she would suffer for from the moment she put that medallion around his neck to the moment they left the mercenaries’ headquarters.
Her hands didn’t tremble as she put them on.
The man watched her carefully. Satisfied, he nodded her through the gate. Sara stepped forward into the training yard and marble halls of the empire’s most famous guild. The hall of men and women with the power and the skills to protect the empire. She knew that more battle mages resided under this one roof than resided in the whole of the rest of the empire. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying. Not the thought that she could meet more people like her. She already had. No, the thought that had her quaking in her boots was the fact that if something went wrong, she might have to face two or more battle mages in a fight to get out of here.
“It won’t go wrong,” she whispered to herself.
“What?” said Ezekiel, coming up by her side.
She amended her statement. “I said it’s time to go.”
She didn’t move.
“Do you know where the records room is?” she finally asked.
“Right,” said Ezekiel guiltily. “I forgot you’ve never been here before.”
I wouldn’t say that, she thought in her mind. But now wasn’t really time reminisce about the past. She just hoped she didn’t run into anyone she had known. Ezekiel wasn’t the only one with a past they wanted to avoid.
She cleared her throat. He started moving. They quickly exited the training field through a side door and weaved in and out of packed hallways to get into a long line for the records room. When they finally reached the front after a half-hour of waiting, Sara was eager to get inside.
She presented her medallion and the request to hire a mercenary for a local assignment to the older woman in charge. The woman had the battle scars of a soldier who’d seen the field firsthand. With a lick of her thumb, she scrolled through a book as she worked.
“You’re in luck,” she told Sara. “We’re just about to send a company out, but the Red Lion garrison is still here and can do some freelance merc work for you.”
“Great,” said Sara as Ezekiel unsuccessfully tried to hide behind her. She got the feeling he knew this woman just as well as he had the medallion man. She’d seen the flash of recognition cross his face before he ducked down.
“What hours are you looking for?”
“Twenty-four hours a day, with three one hour breaks daily plus a temporary person to rotate in once every two weeks for our primary watcher’s two days off.”
“Hmm,” murmured the woman. “I think we can do that.”
Opening the drawer next to her she took out three chips—two red and one green.
“Give these to the man inside,” she said strictly, pointing her thumb at the ajar door to the records room. “He’ll give you the files for the men and woman that fit your specifications.”
Sara nodded and said, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” said the woman as she waved them inside.
As they walked through that door, Sara breathed a sigh of relief. They were in. That was easier than she’d thought it be.
Ezekiel caught her arm and pointed off to the right when she turned to look at him. A man stood at podium with a bunch of baskets filled with the assorted chips in front of him. Walking over to him silently, she handed him the three that she had.
He took the green one and held it up first. “Let’s start with this one. You’re looking for a temporary worker?”
She nodded.
“How many days or hours?’
“Two days every two weeks to relieve our primary watcher. The shift will be for the full twenty-four hours with three one-hour breaks each day.”
He scribbled that down and dropped the chip in the green basket. “Okay.”
He picked up the red chips next. “And these. You need two mercenaries as watchers?”
She shook her head impatiently. “One.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How many hours? How many days?”
“Twenty-four hours, seven days a week, with two days off every two weeks.”
He nodded. “That’s why she gave you two. Mercenary Guild policy states that our workers get one day off a week if based locally.”
She started to protest, but he interrupted. “Those are the rules, or you can hire two mercenaries with split shifts.”
Sara and Ezekiel exchanged glances. Then Ezekiel stepped forward to take over negotiations.
“What if we had one guy that worked for one and a half weeks with a day off every eleven days?” he asked the young man, eagerly leaning forward.
As she backed away from the conversation and hurried to disappear in the meandering crowd she heard the mercenary guild official say, “Well, that won’t work because�
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After she slipped into the crowd, Sara looked back and forth. Hoping to see a sign that said “Death Records” in bright lettering. No such luck.
After twenty minutes of circuitous walking, she almost gave up and went back to Ezekiel. He should know exactly where it was. But then an old woman tottered up to her. Small and hunched over, she looked like an old crone. Her white hair spilled out of a small bun and spectacles perched on her nose haphazardly. But on her breast was the patch of the mercenary guild. She worked here.
“Sweetie, can I help you?” said the old woman while leaning on a cane and peering up at Sara hopefully.
“Well,” Sara said nervously. “I don’t know.”
The woman reached out with a pale hand spider-webbed with blue veins and patted Sara’s hand. “Don’t be shy. I’m here to help our patrons.”
Sara nodded and decided to go for it. “My father died and I just wanted to see his records.”
She left the sentence hanging. She didn’t want to give the woman too much information but she did prefer to give her a bit of the truth. After all, it was easier to lie if you didn’t actually tell a lie.
“Ahh,” said the old woman, lighting up. “The death records room. It’s just over here.”
As she tottered away, Sara followed behind at a slow pace. The woman said to Sara over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry for your loss, dear.”
“Thank you,” said Sara, truly touched. The woman didn’t know it but that was the first time any representative from the military or the mercenary guild had mentioned her loss and her father’s execution in the same sentence. If she had known she was speaking of a Fairchild, she probably would have held her tongue.
They push through the crowds and the woman turned right abruptly to walk through the tiniest doorway Sara had even seen. The top of the door barely reached her throat. The words inscribed above the door were at her eye level.
“Todeszimmer,” she said aloud. Room of Death.
No wonder she hadn’t been able to find it, with the crowded nature of the records room this small doorway was hidden. Stooping, Sara ducked inside to follow her helper.
“And here we are!” said the woman with a wide smile as they entered a spacious room with a ceiling that vaulted high above them.
“Thank you,” said Sara appreciatively. “I never would have found it on my own.”
“Of course, dear. Of course,” the woman said, beaming. “Now what did you say your name was? The files are in alphabetical order and I can find your father’s death records very quickly with his family name.”
Sara hesitated and then prepared to lie, “It’s—”
“Madame Sanze!” shouted a young man from just inside the doorway.
Startled, Sara turned to see him just as the woman nodded.
“Michael needs you,” said the boy who couldn’t have been a decade old yet. “A man in front is being horrible and wants only one mercenary when he must have two. Michael says customers are more likely to come back if we don’t have to call in the guards on them.”
“Oh, poppycock,” said the old woman, tottering quickly away. “So many cheap bastards these days.”
Sara blinked at the kind old woman's language.
Just before the woman disappeared into the crowd to deal with Ezekiel, she turned and said, “I’ll be right back, dear. Michael, you stay with her.”
The little mercenary in training nodded and looked over at Sara with a stubborn look.
“I will stay with you.”
Sara gave him an uninterested look. “How old are you? Seven?”
He stuck out his bottom lip. “I’m eight and a half.”
As if that made a world of difference. She hated kids. Luckily, they tended to be afraid of her.
“Well, I’m going to look for those records,” she said. She waited for fear to silence him into submission. A minute later a sound came that she didn’t want to hear came from his direction. The sound of refusal. Not the silence of a child afraid to reproach her.
“You can’t!” she heard his shout from behind her. “Guild rules.”
Damn, thought Sara. All kids except for this one.
She thought about it for a minute before turning around to look at him. She just wanted to get this over with—maybe they could strike a deal. “If I look, you can watch.”
He shook his head quickly, not falling for it.
“I’m getting Madame Sanze if you do that,” he retorted.
She snorted. “Madame Sanze said you’re to stay with me, so you’re not going anywhere.”
He opened and closed his mouth, flummoxed. But he couldn’t refute her logic. She almost felt bad for taking advantage of an eight year old. Almost.
“Don’t worry, kid,” she said as walked over to the storage shelf with a metal F hanging above it. “I won’t do any harm to your files.”
She began thumbing through files of stacked parchment paper, looking for the one most important to her.
Glancing behind her, she saw the boy standing in the middle of room with his arms crossed and the glare of death on his face. It would have been funny if she wasn’t in a hurry.
Murmuring to herself, she said the names aloud. “Faine. Farst. No, that’s too far.”
And then she found it. Her eyes lit up as she pulled the only record with the label Fairchild on it. Quickly she cast a sight shield so that the human boy wouldn’t suspect anything and grabbed the file folder labeled Farst as well. Opening the Farst file, Sara dumped the entirety of her father’s record inside with not a moment to loose.
Madame Sanze came in at just the moment Sara dropped the sight shield and turned around.
The old woman cleared her throat and narrowed her eyes in speculation at Sara.
“I told her she shouldn’t touch the records!” Michael exclaimed.
Sara quickly smiled and waved her hands. “I just thought it would be faster for me to grab the Farst file while you dealt with that customer. With it being so busy out in the records room and you being so kind to me, I thought the least I could do would be to help out.”
Sara held her breath tightly, wondering if she had laid the sugar on too thick. She also wasn’t sure if Madame Sanze, a mage, had seen her conjure the sight shield. If she had, the jig was up. If she hadn’t, then Sara would live to see another day.
Slowly, Madame Sanze nodded. “Well, if that’s all. Farst, you said?”
“Yes,” said Sara, smiling so brightly her teeth hurt.
She walked forward, hoping the woman wouldn’t raise the alarm. As she passed a glaring Michael, two other guests ducked into the death records room through the small doorway.
“Is this the death records room?” asked a grieving woman whose eyes were red, tears still dotting her cheeks.
Madame Sanze leapt into action. “Yes it is, you poor dear. Can I get you some tea?”
Sara escaped out the door and into the main records room. With no time to lose, she caught the eye of Ezekiel standing next to the door and jerked her head to indicate they should leave.
Getting out was much easier than getting in, and as they rushed through the halls, he pointed to a small courtyard. “We’re meeting our first watcher here.”
“First?” she murmured, clutching the records labeled “Farst” tightly in her hands.
He nodded. “The second will show up on shift relief day.”
“Right,” Sara said, distracted by the thoughts racing through her head.
Five minutes later, their leather-clad mercenary arrived and Ezekiel announced, “The quickest exit’s through the training yard.”
“Great, let’s go,” murmured Sara.
They came down the stairs to see dozens of men and women battling opponents on mats, in sand, and on rough terrain. It was quite interesting to watch, but Sara was too worried about getting outside in one piece to be fascinated with their training methods.
“Hey, girl,” shouted a man.
They walked faster.
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br /> “Sara,” shouted the man. “Sara Fairchild, I’m speaking to you.”
Ezekiel and Sara froze.
They had no choice.
“Oh shit, that’s the captain of the Corcoran guard,” Ezekiel said.
Every man and woman in the training yard had turned to look at them. They all were sweaty from their workout and carrying some sort of weapon—she spotted swords, staffs, glaives, and throwing stars in just one glance.
Sara looked over at Ezekiel, surprised. “You never curse.”
“First time for everything,” he whispered as he looked over his shoulder to confirm.
“Don’t turn around,” she snapped.
“Too late.”
She snorted as they turned to watch the company captain approach.
When he reached them he towered over Sara, and she realized that she knew him. From a long time ago, before her father had died, actually. He looked different. Where he had been spindly like Ezekiel before, the captain now had muscles stacked on his abs and his forearms bulged. She could tell because he was shirtless. She was looking because he was more than likely going to be the first person she had to kill to get them out of here.
Too bad he was a battle mage. That would make this first fight a lot harder.
She edged forward until she had stepped in front of Ezekiel. She might not be able to take them all on but she could at least give the curator a fighting chance to run. Their new hire stood off to the side with his arms crossed, unimpressed.
When the red-headed captain with green eyes met her defiant orange ones, he grinned.
Think I’m amusing, do you? Sara thought to herself. I’ll show you funny.
Then he looked around at his gaping mercenaries and said something she didn’t expect to hear. “At ease! Get back to your practice, you lazy lot.”
Quickly the staring men and women began sparring with their opponents again or training with their weapons. Some of the mercenaries were good enough to fight their partners and watch their captain at the same time. Sara felt mild envy at that, but she kept her focus on the man in front of her.
“Can I help you?” Sara said coldly.
