by Ty Johnston
A wave of Fortcastle’s free hand cut off the deputy.
The sheriff looked to Bayne. “Do you have any intentions to harm myself? Or to try and escape?”
“Not currently,” Bayne said.
Fortcastle looked back to his deputy. “See? There is nothing to worry about. Besides, if anyone should try to escape the jail room, they’d have to go through a whole room of deputies.”
Now Bayne grinned. He had little doubt he could make his way through the deputies if needs be, odd weapons of magic or not.
“See?” the sheriff said, pointing to Bayne. “He’s even returning my smile.”
The deputy did not appear assuaged in his concerns. “Very well, sir,” he said, taking a step back from the jail door. “If you should have need of me, do not hesitate to call. Spiker and Shast will be here guarding the outside of the door.”
“Very well, Deputy Walticoff,” Fortcastle said, “whatever you think best.”
The deputy clicked his booted heels and stomped away down the hall.
“My apologies,” Fortcastle said to Bayne. “Some of my men are a bit overzealous at times.”
“Understandable,” Bayne said.
The sheriff exhaled loudly and leaned back against the desk. “Well, first things first. I should have done this earlier. Allow me to introduce myself. I am County Queen Sheriff Themanuel Fortcastle. And what is your name?”
“Bayne kul Kanon.”
Fortcastle’s round head tilted to one side, like a dog staring at something confusing. “That’s an unusual name.”
Bayne said nothing in response.
“Well, you’re obviously not from around these parts,” the sheriff said, planting a firm hand on one of his pudgy knees. “What say we begin at the beginning, and you tell me where you’re from. You mentioned some place called Ursia. Where is that?”
“From this location, I do not know,” Bayne said.
“Then how did you get here?”
“I am not sure,” Bayne said. “I was in a cave and fell into a pit filled with liquid fire. There was a flash of light and I woke in a field south of here.”
“Liquid fire?” The sheriff’s face screwed up in befuddlement, then a spark came to his eyes. “You must mean lava! Yes, lava.”
“Very well.”
“And you woke in a field?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do then?”
“I walked.”
“Walked? Where to?”
“Across the field, up into hills. I spotted a road and followed it.”
“Is that when you came to the boy?” the sheriff asked.
Bayne nodded.
“And you proceeded to mouth whip him?”
“My first words were questioning him about my location.”
“And then you mouth whipped him?”
“Only when he became rude.”
Fortcastle clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Right there was your problem. You can’t go around correcting others’ children.”
“We have discussed this already.”
“Uh … yes, we did, to some extent.”
“There is no need to go further on the subject,” Bayne said. “I redressed a child, as I should. You believe differently, as did the father.”
The sheriff nodded. “Yes, the father. That’s another matter.”
“I am supposing he was the one who contacted you,” Bayne said.
“Yes,” the sheriff said. “We received a tag file some little while before Walticoff found you wandering the woods.”
“I was not wandering.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then what were you doing in Forest Lee?”
“I was coming to the city,” Bayne said.
“What for?”
“I hoped to find someone who could help me.”
“With what?”
“Discovering where I was, and how to return to Ursia.”
Fortcastle sighed and leaned back further, nearly lounging on the desk top. “Mister, why didn’t you just ask the boy? Or his father?”
Now it was Bayne who sighed. “I attempted thus. As I’ve told you now more than once, the youth became rude.”
“Okay, well,” the sheriff said, “you were far enough north. You should have passed the ranger station. You could have asked for help there.”
“There was no one at the ranger station,” Bayne said. “I know. I spent the night there.”
“There’s always a ranger at the station,” the sheriff said.
“Perhaps Trolg killed him.”
“Trolg!” Fortcastle’s face suddenly became red, his eyes widening for a moment before turning into slits. “What do you know about Trolg?”
“I met him in the forest,” Bayne explained. “At first, he seemed helpful, providing directions to the ranger station. The next morning he and his men – ”
“How many?”
“Five, including Trolg. Later, there were more.”
“Later? More?”
“Yes,” Bayne said. “There were five at the ranger station. They tried to cut down the station with me inside. I jumped down and dealt with them, then – ”
“What do you mean, you ‘dealt with them?’”
“I slew them,” Bayne said.
“You what?” The sheriff’s voice was as high as a singing bird.
“I slew them,” Bayne repeated, “but Trolg escaped. Later, when I was on the road again, he attacked me with more men.”
Fortcastle shook his head, looking confused, possibly unbelieving. “Why would they attack you in the first place?”
“They were bandits.”
“Well, yes,” the sheriff said. “I’ve had a witness report for Trolg’s arrest for six months now.”
“You will no longer need it,” Bayne said.
“What?”
“He is dead, in the woods.”
The sheriff’s face went white. His voice was tiny. “Why would you do a thing like that?”
“He fell on his own blade,” Bayne said, “but he was a dangerous man, evil. He deserved his fate.”
The sheriff looked as if doom itself had fallen upon him. He leaned forward, resting his large head in a chubby hand. “You killed a man.” The words were not directed at Bayne, but spoken to the floor.
“I killed a number of men,” Bayne said.
Fortcastle’s eyes shot up, staring the warrior in the face. “How many?”
“I do not know an exact count,” Bayne said. “Perhaps half a dozen. Likely more.”
The sheriff’s hands were visibly shaking now, his jowls bouncing in fear.
“They wanted to take my sword,” Bayne said with a dark grin, “so I gave it to them.”
Fortcastle stood and stepped toward the exit. He turned slowly and looked to Bayne. “I will have to verify all of this.”
“Do I remain here?” Bayne asked.
“At least for the night,” the sheriff said, his voice thin and shaking. “One of my men will bring you a meal. Try to sleep and I will talk with you again in the morning.”
“Very well.”
The sheriff exited.
The door closed.
But not before one of the outer guards showed a face of pure terror.
Then a clanking din and Bayne was alone with his thoughts once more.
Time passed slowly, agonizingly slowly, but Bayne would not allow himself to stir from the bed. He had wandered far for many years. Why not take a rest now that it was provided to him?
A meal came a few hours after the sheriff’s visit, a metal plate slid through a narrow opening in the bottom of the steel door. His hands were still shackled, but he found little trouble eating and drinking. The food was bland, a biscuit, a dried piece of some kind of red meat and a fruit that appeared to be something like a pear. A short, metal cup was filled with milk, and Bayne drank it down in one gulp. He then slid the plate back through the opening in the bottom of the door and lay bac
k on the bed, his bald head quickly finding a home on a pillow of rough cotton.
The remaining sunlight through the high window soon died.
And Bayne allowed himself to sleep.
The return of the sunlight woke him, the luminescence glinting through the glass above to spear his eyes.
He rolled to sitting on the edge of the bed. Another tray had been slid beneath the door. Breakfast was porridge, another fruit and a ceramic mug of a warm drink that tasted as if coffee with cinnamon. He engulfed the food and the drink, then pushed the remains of the meal back through the door.
He sat then. And sat and sat and sat.
Finally, several hours after the brightest rays of the sun had moved on from his bed, there were more mechanical noises from within the door before it opened wide to reveal the sheriff standing outside in the hall.
Next to the sheriff was a small wooden desk, behind it a metal chair nearly as big as the desk. A half dozen guards were lined up behind the desk and chair. Each guard carried one of those black sticks with the glass ball on the end.
“Good day, Bayne kul Kanon,” the sheriff said, his hands trembling.
“Good day, Sheriff Fortcastle.”
The sheriff’s eyes slid away to the floor as if he were ashamed of looking the big man in the face. After a moment of hesitation, the sheriff clambered around the desk, pulled back the chair and stuffed himself into it. His hands slapped the top of the desk, flittering around with a half dozen sheets of paper. Eventually he stacked the papers and retrieved a writing utensil from somewhere beneath the desk’s top. He still did not look at Bayne.
“Bayne kul Kanon,” the sheriff read from one of the papers before him, his words monotone, “you are being officially charged for the harassment of ten-year-old Huddy Stayworth, assault of Senior Stayworth, possession of a baleful item, the murders of eight individuals, and the suspicion of possible other murders. To that end, as sheriff of County Queen, I hereby declare you guilty of all charges and sentence you to imprisonment for life with no opportunity for liberation. Within the hour you will be removed from these premises and relegated to royal authorities where you will be placed in permanent custody at His Majesty’s Royal Detainment Center for the remainder of your days. Do you have any words?”
Fortcastle glanced up.
Bayne sat there staring at the sheriff. His eyes were flat, his gaze heavy. If he had anything to say, he was keeping it to himself. But his look told much.
The sheriff flinched. His eyes returned to the papers beneath his hands.
“Since the inmate has nothing to say prior to removal,” the sheriff began, “it falls upon me – ”
Bayne had heard enough. He stood.
Fortcastle’s head jerked back as his eyes shot up.
The six guards tensed, their weapon sticks suddenly raised.
“I have waited,” Bayne said, his voice deep, “and I have been patient. But it seems no one is to be of use to me in this world. It seems there is no one here but fools and idiots who blame everyone else for problems they themselves create. Enough.”
His wrists snapped apart, popping the chains of his shackles and sending links flying.
Guards rushed.
The first one to Bayne pulled back his staff for a blow but was caught beneath the chin by a flat hand that cracked back his neck and sent him to the floor in a heap.
Using the narrow opening of the cell to limit his opponents’ numbers, Bayne took a step back, close enough to reach the door if the guards should try to close it but far enough within that no more than one man could approach him at a time.
The next guard was slower, more wary. His thumb jutted against the side of his weapon and suddenly the glass bulb at the end was glowing as if aflame.
Bayne crouched and waited.
“Wait! Stop!” from the sheriff.
The guards came to a standstill, all eyes upon their combatant prisoner stooping over their twitching but still breathing comrade.
Bayne glared over his foes’ shoulders to see Fortcastle now standing, the heavy man behind the minimal shelter of his desk, one of those strange stick weapons gripped before him in two hands, hands that were shaking.
“Bayne,” the sheriff said, “use your head. As strong as you might be, I can call upon hundreds of troops. Give yourself up without a fight and I’ll make sure you are treated well, that your rights aren’t violated.”
Bayne’s eyes blazed. “Rights? You speak to me of rights? If I had any such rights, they have already been violated!”
The sheriff’s hands slowly stopped shaking. Perhaps because the prisoner was now talking instead of swinging his fists.
“Bayne, we have treated you as humanely as possible,” Fortcastle said.
“You are worse than the most uncouth barbarians,” Bayne nearly shouted over the shoulders of the guards. “At least barbarians will stand head to head against a man, instead of coming up with false rules and nonsense about rights that protect the instigators from those who would stand against them.”
The sheriff spluttered. “False rules? Nonsense about rights? These are laws that protect us all, that protect the weak from the strong.”
“No,” Bayne said, his steely gaze narrowing, “they are rules designed to allow cowards to control those who would not bow to them!”
“People have rights, Bayne.”
“The only rights we have are those allowed us by those with swords,” Bayne said with dark laughter. “Are you people fools enough to believe there is some inalienable law that grants you these rights? That some god sits upon high and hands down these rights? If so, he must be a cruel god.”
Fortcastle shook his head slowly, almost in sadness. “Those men you killed in the forest had rights, Bayne, by whatever beliefs one holds to.”
“They squandered their rights,” Bayne said, “the moment they attacked me. Their irresponsibility lost them their rights.”
The sheriff sighed. “Very well. You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“No.”
The sheriff sighed again and backed further from his desk. “Alright. Take him down.”
The guards charged.
Bayne waded into them, his fist flailing. He caught one man on the side of the head, sending him reeling away. Another he shouldered aside.
Then one of those lit globes smacked against the warrior’s side.
Bayne jerked and convulsed, foam flying from his lips as he dropped to the ground, his body curling in upon itself. There was little pain, but he had lost control of his limbs. His mind screamed for him to jump to his feet, to batter aside these lesser men, but his body would not accommodate his wishes. He could only lay there, his arms crimping in on themselves, as he stared into the flittering eyes of the first guard he had pounded.
“Carry him away, boys,” Fortcastle’s voice spoke, hollow as if from a distance though Bayne knew that was not the case, “then see to poor Milshin here.”
Rough hands grasped the warrior by his curling limbs, pulling them apart so the guard would have an easier time of carrying the large man. Even then they found it difficult to move Bayne. The warrior was huge, nearly a head taller than themselves and still weighted down by his chain shirt.
Eventually someone wheeled in some sort of metal cart, its top cool to the touch against Bayne’s arms and neck as he was hefted atop it.
Squealing sounds screeched in Bayne’s ears, the wheels of the cart, as he was rolled along the hall of the jail and out a door with which he was unfamiliar. Through it all the swordsman who had come from Ursia could make out little more than foggy impressions of what was happening around him. Whatever magic had been within those black sticks had been powerful, numbing the warrior and beglooming his senses. Shadows drifted before his eyes, oiled scents assaulted his nose. The terrible din of the wheels scratched at his ears.
Bayne’s limbs felt heavy, as if he had been weighted with large chains. He could not move, and that was the worst of it all.
He was helpless, at the mercy of these men who meant him no good but were too cowardly and weighed down with the rules of their society to slay him. They were fools, one and all. For if he ever gained back his own abilities, he would tear all of them limb from limb. And he was tempted not to stop there. This was an insane world, one obviously ruled by a mad king, a king in need of being slain himself for allowing belief in such nonsense.
Part V: The Court
Bayne must have blacked out at some point, because he found himself coming around eventually with a feeling that much time had passed. He lay still for long moments on a cold floor that felt of smooth stone or marble, his head pounding as if a hundred giants had hammered it over and over again with mallets of iron.
When he deigned to finally open his eyes, he found his vision swimming before him. He could make out little more than a gray blur in the distance. Had those stick weapons done this to him, or had it been some other magic or something else altogether? He could not remember. His last thoughts were of being tossed onto a cart in the hall of the jail room, then the intolerable squeaking of the cart’s wheels as he was rolled along.
Then … nothing.
Until he had now woken.
Anger stirred within the big man. He had had enough of lacking in his own memories. He was a man without a past, and now the people of this strange land had stolen more of his past.
But he had not forgotten his earlier anger at the king of this land. That man had much to answer for, in Bayne’s opinion, especially concerning the madness that seemed to govern the people of this ridiculous nation.
After long seconds, his eyes began to focus. The gray fugue in front of his vision began to take a more solid form, a flattened form. He was staring at a ceiling of some kind of gray paper tiles.
Bayne sat up, and found himself hampered by enormous bracelets of thick stone that encircled his wrists and were connected by a chain of huge links of steel. He stared at his shackles, almost not comprehending their very actuality at first; they were so huge it was difficult to believe they existed. Those stone shackles were nearly as thick as the bulging muscles of Bayne’s biceps.
He felt similar bindings weighing his legs and glanced down. There, too, were chained restraints wrapped around his ankles. The trammels were so large Bayne could not see his own boots, though he could feel the leathers still wrapping his feet.
