Unsuspecting Mage

by Brian S. Pratt

  “Miko,” he whispers. “Are you here?”

  “Oh, thank god James,” somewhat muffled, Miko’s voice comes to him from the dark. “I feared you might be dead. You were out for a long time.”

  “Where are we?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” Miko replies. “They put a hood over my head before they took us out of our room. After that, we were loaded in a wagon and I think they covered us up. I was told to be quiet or they would slit my throat.” He paused a moment before saying, “I’m not sure how long they had us in the wagon before we stopped. I am pretty sure we were brought inside a building. They brought us down some stairs and then dumped us in here. That was hours ago. I tried to wake you when we got here, but you didn’t respond.”

  “Were they the ones who we encountered after leaving Bearn?” James asks.

  “No, I didn’t recognize any of them,” he answers. “Why?”

  “I was coming back to tell you that I saw Lord Colerain here in Cardri,” James explains. “Perhaps our being here and his being in Cardri are related. I can’t think of any other reason for us to be in this situation.”

  “You’re probably right,” agrees Miko. “What are we going to do?”

  “Did you mention to them that I can do magic?” he asks.

  “No, I haven’t said anything since they surprised me back in our room,” Miko replies.

  “Then let’s hope they don’t find out. It may be the edge we’ll need to get out of here.” James concentrates and casts his light spell, the effort of doing even so little magic causing the pain throbbing in his head to increase. When the light appears, he discovers they are lying in what looks to be a root cellar. Sacks, along with several boxes, are stacked against all the walls save one. That one has an old wooden door, apparently the only way out.

  He looks over at Miko who’s bound like himself, with the hood still covering his head. Scanning the room, he sees what looks like a little hand trowel, similar to what his grandmother used in her garden, wedged in between two of the sacks. He slowly wriggles his way over to it and maneuvers himself to grab the handle with his fingers. Holding it as tight as his position allows, he twists his body sharply and rolls away from the sack in an attempt to dislodge it. But it’s wedged in there too tightly and the handle slips from his fingers.

  Twisting around again, he lies on his back and places his feet against one of the sacks trapping the trowel and pushes with all his strength. The sack topples over and spills grain as it hits the ground, causing several rats to scurry away. He leans upon one elbow and is relieved to find the trowel lying loosely upon the ground. Wriggling his way over to it, James tries using it to saw through his bonds. The thought of doing magic to break the ropes binding him makes his head ache.

  “What’s going on?” asks Miko who is unable to see what James is doing because of the hood.

  Groaning with the effort to apply proper pressure to saw through the rope binding his hands tied behind his back, he replies, “I found something that may cut the rope.”

  “Can’t you use magic?” Miko asks.

  In dire need of an aspirin, James says, “I’d rather not if I don’t have to.”

  The trowel isn’t very sharp and having his hands tied behind his back doesn’t give him much leverage to be very effective. He works at it for several long minutes before managing to saw through the bindings.

  “Got it!” he exclaims when the rope finally comes apart.

  With his hands free it’s much easier to sever the rope binding his legs. Once his legs are free, he comes to his feet and goes over to remove Miko’s hood.

  “Thank you,” he says to James once the hood comes off. “It was getting hard to breathe in there.”

  “No problem,” James replies as he begins using the trowel to saw through Miko’s bindings. Once he frees Miko, he goes over to the door. He’s not surprised to find it locked. Using his orb of light, he examines the door closely. He can’t really tell anything about the locking mechanism as it is located on the other side, so he decides to try prying the lock up. Using the trowel which is fairly flat, he slides it between the door and the door jamb and very cautiously slides it up until he feels resistance. Giving it a little more pressure, he hears a faint click as the trowel pushes the latch up. He presses lightly on the door and it begins to swing open.

  Opening the door a bare crack, he sees nothing but darkness on the other side. Pulling the door closed, but not far enough for the lock to secure itself again, he turns back to the room and Miko.

  He takes Miko’s hood and puts the glowing orb in it, leaving only a small opening which will allow only a very dim light to escape. Signaling for Miko to remain quiet, he opens the door slowly and the light coming from the hood reveals a flight of wooden steps on the other side leading up to another door. The door at the top of the steps has light radiating through the cracks around it.

  “Looks like they’re up there,” he says to Miko who nods. “How many of them were there?”

  “I only saw four before the hood was put on me,” replies Miko.

  “Let’s hope they didn’t invite any friends along and maybe we can get out of here,” he says as he slowly starts to climb the stairs. Turning back to Miko he says, “Stay down here for a second, I’m going up there and see if I can tell how many we have to deal with.”

  Miko nods understandingly and remains by the foot of the steps.

  James takes the steps slowly, trying to minimize their creaking by placing his feet as close to the edge of the wooden steps as possible. Cautiously, he makes it to the top where an old, cracked wooden door stands closed. Leaning close to the door, he hears several voices coming from the other side.

  “Just how long are we supposed to wait?” one whiney voice asks impatiently.

  “We were told to wait and wait is what we’re gonna do!” another voice commandingly tells the first.

  “Yeah, stop yer whining Elz,” another adds derisively. “We’re making enough off of this.”

  “Alright, alright,” Elz says, “I’ll wait.”

  The sound of cards being shuffled comes from the other room. Listening for a while, he determines there are just the three of them playing cards. He then returns back down to where Miko waits and tells him what he overheard.

  “I don’t like this James,” Miko says. “If there are three up there, then where’s the fourth and is he the one they’re waiting for?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t want to be here when whomever they are waiting for arrives,” he replies.

  “I agree,” Miko says, “we better get out of here fast.”

  James returns to the cellar where they had been dumped, and takes a quick inventory but finds little of use, just grains and seeds. The boxes however give him an idea and he pries three small boards off of one that’s broken. Using the trowel again, he sharpens one end of each. It’s not very effective for this sort of thing but it’s all he has. Once the boards are sharpened, he hands the trowel and the hood with the glowing orb still inside, to Miko. Then he carries the sharpened sticks with him as he again climbs to the door at the top of the steps.

  He pauses a moment to listen at the door until he again hears the three men talking as they play cards. The door is being kept closed by a sliding bar. Fortunately, the sliding bar has a handle on this side of the door. Taking hold of the handle, he slides it very slowly until the end comes free from the door jamb.

  Thinking about what he is about to attempt makes the throbbing in his head worsen. He takes a moment to calm himself, and the throbbing settles back down to a dull ache. Okay James, he says to himself, you can do this. Readying his sticks, he begins formulating the spell he plans to use. Once he has it, he nods to Miko who nods back that he’s ready. One final calming breath, then he kicks the door open.

  The slamming of the door against the wall startles the three men, causing them to leap from their seats and turn in surprise to see him framed in the doorway. One begins to draw a sword, th
e other two, knives.

  Not giving the men a chance to react, James takes the three sharpened boards, and as he throws them in their direction, the words of a version of his spear spell issue forth. Magic surges out of him and takes hold of the sticks. With incredible speed and accuracy, they impale each of the three men in the chest. James has a momentary satisfaction of seeing them fall before the pain in his head erupts to a point where it causes him to black out.

  As James bursts through the door and casts his spell, Miko follows him into the room. He carries the trowel in one hand as a weapon and holds the hood containing the glowing orb in the other. Movement from across the room catches his eye as James launches the three sharpened sticks toward the men at the table. A man who had been resting upon a cot gets quickly to his feet. Wearing nothing but a shirt and pants, he draws a sword from the sword belt that had been looped around the back of a nearby chair and begins advancing toward them.

  Before the man has the chance to take two steps, he comes to an abrupt halt when his partners are struck down by the sticks. Fearing to face one who can do such a thing, he turns for the door, ready to flee. But then he sees James succumb to the affects of casting the spell and collapse to the floor. Now with only Miko left to deal with, the man stops his flight and advances once again toward Miko, sword at the ready.

  Miko holds the trowel out before him threateningly. In a voice filled with fear, he says to the man, “I…I am a great wizard too! A…and if you don’t throw down your weapon, I…I….I will cast the fires of hell at you.”

  Smiling, the man continues advancing toward him and says, “Go ahead kid, burn me. I dare you.” When he takes another two steps and Miko has done nothing but stand there menacing him with the trowel, he says, “Thought not.”

  As he comes close, Miko grabs the open end of the hood with his left hand, the one holding the trowel. With his other hand, he holds the other end and says with all his might, “Fires of hell, burn him!” He swings the hood toward the man and lets go with his left hand. Stopping the hood’s forward motion with a jerk of his right hand, the hood suddenly opens and the glowing orb sails out of the hood, straight toward the man’s head.

  Holding his arms up and screaming as if the fires of hell truly were coming for him, the man stops and backpedals quickly, trying to avoid the orb.

  Knowing he only has a few seconds, Miko advances with speed and strikes with the trowel, just as the orb hits the man in the head and bounces harmlessly off. With the strength of desperation, Miko thrusts the trowel into the man’s belly cutting through the shirt, and opening up a long gash from which the man’s intestines began spilling out. Tripping over his own guts the man falls to the floor. Not dead, but in a great deal of pain, he stares at Miko who is now approaching him after having appropriated a knife from one of the fallen men at the table.

  “If you tell me who hired you I’ll make it quick,” he tells the man.

  The man replies weakly, “I don’t know who it was.” He nods over to one of the dead men, “Carl over there made the arrangement. He said that someone wanted you captured alive. Once we had you, he went and made contact to find out what they wanted us to do with you. When he came back, he said that someone would be coming this evening to collect you and that we’d get paid when he arrived. That’s all I know, I swear!”

  True to his word, Miko makes it quick and the man’s pain ended quickly. Wiping the knife on the dead man’s pants, he gets up and returns to where James lies on the floor. He checks to make sure he’s breathing and is relieved to find that James is still alive, if unconscious.

  Shaking him gently, Miko says, “James, are you okay?”

  Coming to, James gasps from the pain throbbing in his head. “What?” he asks dazedly.

  “James, we need to get out of here,” Miko urges.

  Realization of where he is and what’s been going on suddenly comes back to him. “Help me up,” he says, lifting an arm so Miko can assist him to his feet. The effort to stand leaves him with black spots circling in front of his eyes. But with Miko’s help, he makes it over to a chair and sits down.

  “See if there’s something around here to drink, it may help my head,” he tells him. Pain rips through his head and he feels as if he’s about to black out again. Closing his eyes, he takes a few slow, deep breaths which seem to have an affect.

  As Miko searches the room, James gets the pain in his head to subside a little then looks over at the three dead men with pieces of boards sticking out of them. Then he notices the other man, throat slit and entangled in his own intestines, lying on the floor.

  “Found some ale by the looks of it,” Miko says as he returns. He holds out a bottle and James takes it, hesitantly sniffs it and then drinks some. It is ale, if a bit stale and it does help to further ease the headache.

  “Thanks, that helped,” he says. “You do that?” he asks Miko, nodding toward the man on the floor.

  “Yeah,” Miko replies, smiling with pride.

  “Good work,” James congratulates him. “We need to get out of here, but not before we take care of some things.” He gets up and moves toward the men he killed with the sharpened boards. Removing the board from the closest dead man’s chest, he says, “I don’t want anyone to know I can do magic. Collect the other two and put them in a sack with the trowel, we’re taking them with us.”

  “Why bother?” Miko asks as he grabs a sack. He takes the one blood stained board from James, then begins removing the boards from the other dead men and placing them in with the one already in the sack.

  James goes over and picks up the sword that belonged to the gutted man, and stabs one of the other three through the place where the stick had impaled him. “I want anyone who sees this to think that we were rescued, that we didn’t get out by ourselves. That way in the future we may have an edge in a similar situation.” Going over to the other two he stabs them in a similar matter. “I doubt if forensic science has evolved very far around here for someone to be able to tell that they were not killed by a sword.”

  “Forensic science?” asks a confused Miko. He stands there watching James, the sack with the sticks and trowel in hand.

  “It means the study of a crime to tell what actually happened,” he replies.

  “Oh,” responds Miko. “Why would that be important?”

  James walks over and then places the sword back into the hand of the man on the ground. Seeing the orb on the ground he cancels the spell, causing it to disappear.

  “Knowledge is power,” he says as he proceeds to each of the four men, searching their pockets. Some coins and two small gems and his pouch they had taken from him are in the pocket of one man at the table. Around the neck of another he finds the medallion the little creature had given him. His other amulet he finds in the man’s pouch with several coins.

  He puts the medallion around his neck and tucks it inside his shirt. His other amulet, coins and the other valuables go into his pouch. Turning to Miko he says, “What people know will determine what they will do. The better your information, the more effective your course of action will be. And if your information is wrong, it could lead you into actions which may be a waste of time or even cause you problems. Understand?”

  “I think so,” he replies, not sounding very convinced.

  “Regardless, let’s get out of here before someone comes by.” James moves to the door leading outside and opens it slowly, peering out. It’s still very dark, the street outside is illuminated mainly by the light spilling past him through the door. The street appears deserted so he steps out into the night, quickly closing the door after Miko exits. Once again the street is plunged into darkness.

  After proceeding down the street a little ways, they come across a refuse pile heaped against the wall of a building. Making sure no one is watching, they pry up a portion of the pile and place the sack with the sticks within before covering it back up again. Satisfied that the evidence is well hidden, at least for the time being, they continue
on down the street.

  A shadow watches from the darkness as they make their way from the refuse pile. Once they move off a suitable distance, the shadow disengages itself from the dark and crosses over to the refuse pile where it digs until it finds the sack with the bloody boards. The shadow then removes the sack and takes it with it as it hurries down the road after James and Miko.

  They don’t travel long before James realizes that they are on the outside of the outer wall, in the poor sector. Moving down the road at a quick pace, they are soon approaching the gate leading back into the city. The smaller gate for travelers stands open and is brightly illuminated by several torches. The two guards standing watch suddenly turn and look through the gate at the sound of an approaching horse. Shortly a rider appears and nods to the guards as he leaves the city.

  James and Miko stay hidden in the shadows as the rider makes his appearance. James feels Miko’s hand grip his arm as he points to the rider passing through the gate. “James, that’s one of the guards who chased us from Lord Colerain’s estate.”

  “Are you sure?” he asks.

  “Very sure,” replies Miko.

  They watch the rider come through the gate and turn down the lane they had just vacated.

  James starts for the gate when Miko suddenly stops him. Turning toward Miko he hears him say, “If we go through the gate now, and should Lord Colerain’s men later question the guards about those who entered tonight, then they will know we’re back in the city.”

  Considering the possibility a moment, James says, “Good thinking, I wouldn’t have thought of that. What do you propose we do?”

  “Find someplace to hole up for the night and then come in with the crowd in the morning,” whispers Miko.