by Travis Kerr
"No one gets in to see Master Sloan without an appointment, and if you had one he would have told me personally to expect you. Now get lost before I give you a reason to wish you had." The guard fingered the hilt of his sword eagerly to emphasize his point. The man wore his blade with the air of someone who used it quite often. Roland wasn’t concerned.
If this guy thinks that he’s any sort of a match for Malik he’s got another thing coming.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll tell that pathetic little weasel that Raiste Goldstone is at his door and is calling on him,” Malik replied as if he hadn’t heard the guard at all. “Or perhaps you would prefer to tell Bloodheart himself why you didn't think that I was important enough to announce?"
The guard gulped noticeably. He seemed torn between his order to keep away riffraff who might come to the door and the blatant threat implied with the mention of Bloodheart's name. Finally he seemed to come to a decision.
"Wait here. I'll send someone to talk to Master Sloan, and we'll see if he thinks you're worth bothering with."
"He'll see me," Malik assured the guard. "There's no way he wouldn't."
The guard said something to an unseen person just inside the doorway, then resumed his post. Less than two minutes later the page returned, coming out to talk to the guard in hushed, whispered tones. He was a young boy, only perhaps nine or ten years of age, but he seemed to be a capable enough lad. The boy whispered to him for several minutes, after which the guard stiffened and came over to where they waited a few feet away.
"I apologize if I seemed rude," he said. "We have had people come from time to time just looking to cause trouble, so I was given orders to deal with anyone who was not welcome. It seems that the master was not expecting you, but he will see you right away in his study. I was asked to relieve you of your weapons. It's nothing personal. Master Sloan has many enemies, and he doesn't allow armed men to enter his offices. Follow the page, he'll show you the way."
Roland moved to take Ocean's Hand off of his back, but Malik stopped him. "I also have many enemies, so my guard and I will keep our weapons with us. Your master will just have to deal with it."
The guard seemed to be expecting this. The young page behind him shrugged. "Very well. Follow him inside and he'll show you the way."
The inside of the building, which the guard had indicated was nothing more than an office building, was like nothing Roland had ever seen. He couldn't believe such a collection of riches could exist in one place. The walls were of a smooth white plaster, with dozens of murals and paintings hanging from every wall. Each step the group took clicked loudly on the polished marble floors, magicked to shine the dark red color of fresh blood. White marble statues, mostly of nude women standing in a variety of provocative poses, dotted the floors inside each empty room they passed. Not a single door in the building that Roland could see was closed.
The boy led them through twisting passageways, finally ending at the first unopened door they had come across, made of a single, thick slab of oak. Without knocking he opened the door and stepped inside. Unlike the other rooms, this office had a thick, forest green carpet extending from one wall to the other.
Roland knew nothing at all about art, but he knew without being told that the several paintings that covered the walls had to have cost a fortune. At the far end of the room a small, thin framed man sat behind a massive desk made of intricately carved cherry wood. The man seemed to be looking over a small pile of papers that were spread across the desk. He looked up at them as soon as they walked in.
"So you're Raiste Goldstone you say?" the man asked quietly, his beady eyes twinkling. "I had heard that you were dead. How is it that you are still alive when all of the reports say otherwise?"
"My father had his secrets," Malik replied. "Does it really matter? I'm here now."
"I don't suppose it really does. The real question is what are you doing here now? What, may I ask, brings you so unexpectedly to me?"
"My father might be dead, but as his son and legal heir, everything he owned rightly belongs to me now. I've come to claim what is mine. That includes this city, this building, and everything that slug Bloodheart has taken. I understand that it will take him time to gather what little belongs to him, so I will offer him one week to get his things together and leave. After that time I will be forced to take it from him."
Roland stared at his friend in shock. Bloodheart was the powerful mage that ruled this city with an iron fist, he knew, and yet Malik had just claimed that it did not really belong to the mage at all, but really belonged to him.
What game is he playing at?
Malik might be a dangerous enemy, but Roland didn’t know what he thought he could ever hope to do against one of the great mages.
Has Malik finally lost his mind? Roland suspected that he very well might have, though the man seemed unusually serious.
Sloan laughed, a high, vile sound that grated on Roland's ears. "You must be mad! Even if you are who you claim, what could you hope to do against Bloodheart? You come in here issuing threats as if I have reason to fear you. I had hoped that you would surrender your weapons at the door as I requested. I know that Bloodheart would love to deal with you himself. I'll offer the two of you one last chance to throw down your weapons and surrender. Perhaps if you're lucky Bloodheart might kill you quickly, after you've told him everything you know of your sister's whereabouts of course."
Suddenly the doorway exploded with activity as several guards rushed in. All around the room hidden panels slid aside to allow more armed, armored men into the room. In a matter of seconds they were completely surrounded by over two dozen men, and Roland could hear more in the hallways outside. Malik stood as still as stone. He didn't seem the least bit frightened by the turn of events. Roland, on the other hand, had never been so terrified.
"You were a fool to come here so lightly protected," the weaselly man declared. "I can have an army at my command in minutes, as you are now witnessing. Now throw down your swords!"
"I will make you a counter offer," Malik answered evenly, completely calm. "If your men throw down their arms now, I will spare them. They may return to their wives and make them fat with children. You, on the other hand, have offended me by attempting to trick me in such a dishonorable manner. If your men surrender now, I will make your death quick and painless. If not, I can assure you I will not be so kind."
Sloan and several of the guards laughed loudly. "You really are mad! Take him alive if you can. Kill his man. He is of no use to us."
Roland sensed the movement before he saw it as three of the guards behind him rushed in with weapons drawn, eager for the kill. From out of nowhere, or perhaps only in his own mind, someone spoke in a low voice. It was slow and rhythmic, almost a chant. While he couldn't be certain, Roland thought it sounded like his mother's voice. It sounded vague and indistinct, as if he were hearing it from underwater.
Even the greatest of kings must bow before the awesome weight of the ocean, the voice droned, repeating his words from earlier that day. Mountains have toppled and entire civilizations lost with only one wave of the ocean's mighty hand.
Without warning a bright blue light surrounded him, and the air in the room began to spin and turn, as if a mighty hurricane had suddenly erupted around them. To Roland, who was in the proverbial eye of the storm, it seemed as if time itself slowed to a crawl. Everyone around him moved as if they were being burdened by a great weight.
All eyes turned to him. Even Malik eyed him with a look of awe. Roland pulled his mighty blade in one swift motion, and the chaos around him subsided until only the electric blue glow that surrounded both him and his sword remained.
If I’m about to die, I’m at least going to take one or two of them with me, he thought. With all his might he swung at his nearest attacker.
Roland hoped that his swing would be hard enough to cut deep into his adversary's armor, at least enough to cause damage. He knew that, as hopelessly outnumbe
red as the two of them were, they didn't have a chance at winning, regardless of whatever the magic Malik had just used on him might do. He never for an instant expected what came next.
The guard began to raise his blade to defend against the attack.
It was slow, Roland thought, unnaturally slow.
Even with such a slow movement the man's blade still reached its blocking position in time, though it mattered not a bit. Ocean's Hand crashed through the man's weak defense, cleaving his blade in two, then cut the man neatly in half at the waist in one brutal arc.
Roland moved as he had been taught to, stepping forward into a second swing at the next opponent. This time the man didn't have a moment to react. The blade didn't stop with the first opponent however. The swords momentum continued through to a second man, and then on through a third. With one swing three men fell, leaving six pieces of carved meat on the ground in front of him before anyone had a chance to so much as take a single step. With four of their number dead in a heartbeat's time, the rest of the guards hesitated.
Malik recovered from his own apparent shock, pulling his own blade he moved forward in a swift, dancing step. His blade sliced one man just under his thick steel helm, then without pausing Malik promptly thrust at the man behind him, neatly running him through.
The first guard clawed at his throat, as if hoping that somehow he could stanch the flow of arterial blood that poured out of his neck and down the front of his armor. The second man never had time to react to his wound. He dropped straight to the ground in a clanking heap, dead instantly, his heart neatly split down the middle.
Strange, even Malik's movements seem sluggish. The last time he fought I couldn’t even see him move. He should be faster, much faster, than he seems to be now.
Two more men moved forward to attack, diverting Roland's attention away from his companion for a moment. Though he was looking the other way, he still somehow sensed Malik's movements behind him. It almost felt as if he was standing above them all and could watch the fight calmly from some other place, yet at the same time he was still in his own body, in complete control his every movement.
He swung his blade in an upward swing, catching the first guard underneath his chin. The blade did not stop when it hit the steel helm however, but continue through with no more effort than it would take to run a hot knife through a slab of warm butter. The man’s momentum carried him forward even after the swing. He toppled to the ground to Roland's left.
The second guard hesitated for a split second, as if unsure of whether he wanted to fight or flee. Roland twisted his grip and brought Ocean's Hand down on his head in a vicious chop. The blade cleaved through the man's head and continued, passing completely through the armored body, imbedding the tip of the blade a foot deep into the floor beneath him.
Roland watched the man fall in two directions, as his body was split vertically down the middle.
Even his falling body seems to move in slow motion.
Roland knew he should have felt frightened, or at the very least angry, but for some reason he no longer felt anything at all, save for a small amount of confusion. It was as if he was completely detached from everything, simply watching it happen. At the same time every sense was heightened, like hearing a bard tell a tale where every detail is vivid and bright.
Malik cut down three more men in lightning flash movements, or so Roland suspected they must have been, as none of those men had moved to defend themselves. Roland pulled back on Ocean's Hand, which slid free of the floor easily, and held it before him, looking for the next enemy. The blade felt as light as a feather in Roland's hand, as if it weighed nothing at all.
"Enough of this!" Sloan shrieked, and lifted his hands toward Roland. He uttered three sharp syllables that Roland couldn't hear, and from his outstretched arms erupted a ball of fiery red liquid.
Roland knew that he had no chance of dodging the attack at that distance, even with the strange lethargy that the world seemed to have taken, and the man was still beyond the range of Ocean's Hand. Instinctively he raised the massive blade before him. Strangely he didn't feel fear or anger towards his fate, but instead waited to meet it with complete calm.
The fireball crashed into Ocean's Hand first. Roland expected the magically created missile to engulf the blade and him as well. Instead the ball of plasma struck the blade and stopped. Slowly, the fire seeped into the sword, spinning along its edge like a rolling wheel, getting smaller and smaller as it spun. As the fireball winked out of existence the weapon glowed red for an instant, then returned to the electric blue it had been.
"That will be enough of that," Malik yelled, and promptly struck, severing both of the mage's outstretched hands in one hard swing. Sloan screamed and fell to the floor. Blood pumped furiously from the hacked stumps at his wrists to pool on the ground at Malik's feet.
Behind him he sensed another guard entering through the doorway. He turned quickly, bringing Ocean's Hand to bear. As he held it before him the edge unexpectedly glowed red once again, and the fireball that it had swallowed emerged once more in its full glory, striking the guard in the center of his chest.
The guard's mouth opened in a scream that never sounded as the ball of plasma instantly engulfed his entire body. In less than a second it melted through his armor to blacken his flesh, but the guard was already dead. The fire had scorched his lungs and stole all of his oxygen. As he guard melted into nothing more than a puddle of molten steel and blood the spell's power ended, and the magma-like liquid disappeared.
This was too much for the remaining guards, though more than half of those that had come still remained. The men broke and ran, nearly trampling each other in their eagerness to escape. Roland watched them go with detached amusement.
To think that so many would be frightened off by only two men, he thought.
He turned back to the room, where Malik was now holding the mage by his throat in his left hand, his sword poised above him in his right.
"Please don't kill me!" Sloan begged. "I'll give you anything. Money, women, anything you want is yours! Only don't kill me!"
"Who ordered my father's death?" Malik asked harshly. "Was it Bloodheart? He was certainly the one who benefited the most."
"I don't know. I wasn't working for Bloodheart when your father was killed. I'm innocent!"
"We both know you're far from innocent, Sloan. Do you expect me to believe that you've never heard anything about it during all the time you've worked for him? What do you know Sloan?"
"Look, I don't know anything I'm telling you! Bloodheart was supposed to find you and your sister, and I was told to watch out for you. I didn't even know what to look for. No one does. All of Bloodheart's men have orders to report any information that has to do with you, that's all I know. No one ever expected to actually hear anything about you. Those orders to find you were all from twenty or thirty years ago. Most of us all thought that you must have either died or had gone so deep into hiding that you would never show yourself again to anyone. Please, don't kill me!"
"Was it Bloodheart that summoned the dragon? Did he kill my father?"
"Not by himself, if he was involved at all. No mage has ever been able to summon a dragon on their own. It takes several mages working together to accomplish that. Since mages rarely work together for anything, your father must have really angered a lot of people. I had nothing to do with it! It had nothing to do with me! Please just let me go!" His whinny voice was beginning to irritate Roland as he begged for his life.
"You were hoping to cash in by turning me over to Bloodheart I take it? That's why you had your guards hide themselves when we came in? So you could trap me in here?"
"There's a bounty on your head of ten thousand gold pieces to anyone who can bring Bloodheart your corpse and can prove who you are. Double that if they can bring you in alive. No one knows what you look like, but someone would have to be stupid not to try if they are lucky enough to find you. Even if you kill me, there are enough people who
know who you are now that everyone will know before too long. You won't be able to hide forever. You don't need to kill me!"
"I have a message I need you to give Bloodheart for me," Malik said darkly.
"Yes, yes! I'll give him any message you want!"
Without warning Malik twisted his arm around in a vicious arc. Sloan's head left his shoulders in a single stroke, rolling across the floor to stop with a dull thud as it struck the far wall. His body toppled to the ground like a tree under the woodsman's ax.
"Tell him death comes to all," Malik whispered venomously.
Chapter Ten
The two men walked back to the inn as quickly as they could without drawing undue attention to themselves. Whatever strange magic Malik had used on Roland had long since vanished, leaving him feeling completely drained, as if he had just run a marathon or had spent an entire day working on his father's farm. The calm that had descended on him during the battle had gone with it, and now every nerve in his body was on edge.
Walk, don’t run. Walk, don’t run.
He felt certain that at any moment an entire army of city guards would come from around a corner and bar their way. More than half of the soldiers that had been in the building had ran, so without a doubt the alarm had to have been sounded. A part of him expected bells or sirens to resound, but no such sound came. Even the guard who had been at the door to the building had abandoned his post.
The guard must be mobilizing as quietly as they can to avoid concerning the citizens of the city, he thought.
A thousand questions raced through his mind. He had tried to question Malik, but to no avail. "Now is not the time to talk about it," was the only answer he received.
