by Guy Antibes
The sorcerers stopped in the middle of the lane and began to urgently whisper between themselves. Their faces looked concerned. Shiro thought that the spell must have worked rather well.
“I’m in need of some information,” Shiro said, now wearing Horiuki’s face.
“So are we,” one of the sorcerers said. “A person of power has, uh, used Affinity close by. Have you seen anyone in robes?”
Shiro looked back to see the merchant and his companion turn the corner and disappear. No one would witness what was to come. “Those two,” he said. “Is there anything wrong?”
Alarm showed on the sorcerer’s faces. “Would you escort us back to the Guildhouse? We have forgotten something.”
“Like your powers?” Chika said as she walked up. “You all look pretty impotent to me.” Shiro had to keep from smiling.
“Watch your tongue, boy.”
“I’ve found that somewhat hard to do. Have you ever tried it?” Chika smiled as she turned back into the image of Shiuki’s cook that Shiro knew.
“A White Rose!”
“And a powerful one,” Shiro said. “We need two robes.”
“Whatever for?” a sorcerer said.
Chika threw a spell at the defenseless man. He clutched his heart and fainted. His two companions backed into a wall, holding out their hands. “Please don’t kill us!” Their eyes were wide with fear.
Shiro walked up and pushed the taller of the two back into the wall while Chika dragged the body out of the middle of the lane. “As I said, we need some information. A former sorcerer, Ashiyo, currently resides within the Guildhouse. This lady would like to speak with him. Do you have any idea how we can do that?”
Chika dragged the comatose sorcerer into an alley and returned to fold her arms, glaring at the sorcerers.
Beads of sweat ran down their faces. “We can’t tell you that.”
Shiro pulled out his dagger. He wouldn’t show them his sword. It was too unique. He’d have to remember that the next time he accosted guild members prior to breaking out a prisoner of the sorcerers. He shoved the sorcerer back up against the wall.
“It’s an easy choice. Your life or give me some useful information.”
The sorcerer sneered at Shiro. “I won’t tell you what you want.” The sorcerer’s eyes grew as he clutched his throat. He slid down the wall.
Shiro looked back at Chika and glared. “We won’t get anything out of them if you keep up with that!” Chika shrugged and then Shiro turned to the last of the trio. “Well?”
The last sorcerer threw up his hands as Chika took the feet of the recently dispatched sorcerer, dragging him in a tiny alley to join his colleague. “Your turn?” Chika said. “Do you think two times are enough for a girl? What do you think, Horiuki?”
Shiro furrowed his brow. Now wasn’t the time for jokes. However it seemed to work on the sorcerer.
“In the back. The cells are underneath the storage building.”
“Is there a posterior entrance?”
“A what?” the sorcerer said.
“A door in the back,” Chika said.
“Oh. Yes. Our deliveries come in the back of the building. The kitchen and the storage building are next to each other.”
Shiro nodded and Chika put the last of the sorcerers to sleep. Shiro took this one to the alleyway and conjured up a light. “I’ll take the tall one’s robes and you’ll…”
“Come up a little short?” Chika said. “Look how limp this robe is. I’m embarrassed.” She smiled.
“As well you should be.” He had already removed one of the robes and threw it at Chika.
She gasped. “You expect me to wear this? The sorcerer isn’t wearing anything underneath!”
Shiro made a downward motion with his hand. “Keep it down. Don’t let it bother you.” He had to repress a sigh of relief when he discovered the tall sorcerer had at least worn underclothes. “Follow me.”
They both gripped swords in their hands as they hurried out of the lane and onto a dimly lit street. The guildhouse took up an entire block. No one took notice of the pair as they walked slowly along the peach-colored stucco fence. He could sense magical wards along the top. He looked at Chika and then up at the top of the wall.
“Not a good idea to climb,” Chika said.
“That’s why there is a door.” He stood at the door and wondered how to get in. “It’s time to change our appearance. Do you have another disguise model?”
“What do you think I’ve been doing in the kitchen?”
Shiro now looked at the ugly face of a cook who had yelled at her just hours earlier. He changed back to Kinoru as they approached the door. “How long do you think the sorcerers will be out?”
“An hour? Two? Four? I don’t know. I’ve never used the spell before. I just noticed what the sorcerers did at Shiuki’s inn. I didn’t put as much into it as they did. Seemed to work. Those sorcerers didn’t die on us, did they?”
“I suppose not.” Shiro shook his head. He didn’t like improvising so much, but they had no choice. He came to the door and found a rope to pull. “There must be a gong on the other side. Let’s see if we can get in without a fuss.” He pulled on the rope and did, indeed, hear a gong.
A worker dressed in the whitish clothes of a cook opened the door. “No deliveries until tomorrow.” The man yawned and then noticed that he spoke with sorcerers. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day. You know it’s against the rules to let guild members through this gate.”
Shiro grabbed the cook’s shirt. “You don’t understand. Bandits have accosted three of our brothers. They are lying in an alley along a lane that way.” Shiro pointed in the opposite direction from where they had come. “Get some help!” He pushed the cook back inside the guildhouse grounds.
The man ran into the darkness, appearing as he ran past a lit window. “Help! Help!”
Shiro pulled Chika through the door and looked at both of the buildings. Cooking smells came from their right, so they sneaked to the back of the storage building on the left. Shiro forced a sliding window open and climbed inside. He helped Chika through.
“I could have done it myself,” she said.
Shiro merely grinned and put his finger to his lips. He led her towards the light. A lantern illuminated a wide archway over stone steps. No one stood guard as he adjusted his robes and began to descend. He walked into the light of another lantern. A sorcerer sat eating pickled vegetables.
“I like those,” Chika said. “Can I have some?”
The sorcerer sneered. Shiro hadn’t recalled any classes in sneering during his apprentice training, but it seemed to be talent that most sorcerers expertly picked up.
“Where is Ashiyo?” Shiro said. “We’ve been sent down to ask him a question.”
“Who sent you?”
“The Guildmaster,” Chika said.
The man put out his hand. “No one sees the prisoner without authorization.”
“I’ll give you authorization.” Chika pointed at him and the man fell into a faint. She smiled as she took his pickled vegetables. “We should hire the cook. These are better than mine!”
“You and your pickled vegetables. Let’s see where they have Ashiyo.” Shiro quickly stripped the robe from the comatose sorcerer.
“Ashiyo!” Shiro called as he pulled the sorcerer along the corridor. He had only found one key so all of the doors must have used the same lock. He stopped when he heard a muffled voice. When he opened the door, a scrawny old man stood only wearing underclothes.
“Ashiyo?” This couldn’t be Shiuki’s husband.
“If you think I’m Ashiyo, you’re an intruder!” The old man pushed Shiro back against the wall with magic and scuttled past him and up the stairs.
“Why didn’t you stop him,” Shiro yelled back at Chika.
Chika poked her head around the corner with her cheek full of vegetables. ‘Who said I didn’t?” she said with her mouth full.
Shiro hurriedly pushed all
of the dungeon doors open and found Ashiyo asleep on his pallet. He shook the man awake.
“Hurry! We’ve got to flee. Shiuki sent me.”
Ashiyo stood up and shook the sleep out of his head. He wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothes. Shiro threw the guard’s robes at Ashiyo and helped him into them. The robes were much too big. “Can you assume a disguise?”
“Very well.” The man grew in height until the robes fit much better. He was of a size with Shiro with a thick head of gray hair and clear eyes. This is the husband. “This is my real visage,” he said, smiling. “It’s good to be myself again.”
He still didn’t look quite right, but the light did strange things in the cells. “I’ll go ahead. You stay between Chika and I. Then we’re going to the castle to rescue Shiuki.”
The three of them crept up the stairs and past the body of the old man. Shiro led them to the back gate. This time a sorcerer stood there.
“Hold this,” the man gave a marble to Chika.
“Piki Paki Poki,” Chika said. The marble glowed.
“Ok.”
“Now you.”
Ashiyo took the marble. “Piki Paki Poki.” The tiny globe glowed quite a bit dimmer than Chika’s attempt. Ashiyo put the marble in Shiro’s hand.
“Piki Paki Poki,” Shiro said, willing the marble to glow dimly, but it didn’t work. A brilliant white rose appeared in the marble and lit up the door.
“You’re a Master?” The sorcerer gave Shiro an astonished look. Chika put the man down as she had all the others as they rushed into the back street. Shiro kept the marble and pulled the door shut.
“Now would be a great time to teleport,” Chika said.
“Well?” Ashiyo said, looking at Shiro with a bit of awe. “He’s certainly powerful enough.”
“Power isn’t everything,” Shiro said, feeling miserable. “I don’t know how!” They ran down the street and passed the first lane and then passed another street as it curved, like all of the local streets, around the base of the castle. “Time to ditch the robes and become guards again.”
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
~
“I’M NOT—” ASHIYO SMILED, AND THEN DISGUISED HIMSELF as a woman. “Shiuki hates it when I do this,” he said.
Shiro, back to being Kinoru, took Ashiyo by the elbow and marched him up to the lower castle gate. “We found another sorceress. Decided she could go in with the others.” Shiro gave the guard his identity stick and they were waved past.
By the time they reached the soldier’s courtyard, no guards were about. All were out having a good time and it was beginning to get dark. They reached the empty mess, when Anata strolled up to them. “What do you have here?”
“We found a sorcerous woman at a quiet inn and decided to put her in with the others.”
Anata looked as if he had been cornered. He rubbed his chin, but couldn’t stop the shaking in his hand. “Why didn’t you take her to the Guild?”
“There seemed to be some commotion there, so I thought it better to put her in with the other women.”
The captain paled in the torchlight. “You’d better not go down into the dungeons,” he said. The man seemed evasive and nervous at Shiro’s request and he shouldn’t have been.
Shiro furrowed his brows. “Why not?”
“You are not to go to the dungeons!”
“Then what do I do with her?”
Anata took a deep breath. “Then kill her like the others were killed. You hate them enough.” Shiro now noticed his eyes were red-rimmed.
“What?”
“The Lord’s personal guard, just minutes ago. Both of you should be drunk and in the bed of a hired woman like all of the others.”
Anata crumpled to the ground and Chika dragged him through the door of the deserted mess. “I didn’t hold back this time,” she said, grimly. She rolled him behind a table after Ashiyo took off Anata’s clothes and sword.
“I must see her.” Ashiyo said, now that he was dressed appropriately and armed.
Shiro’s heart jumped as well as his stomach. He fought off the nausea that he felt. Nothing good would come of their trip to level seven. He led them through the kitchen. A single cook sang loudly to himself as he stirred a pot of soup and didn’t note their slipping through the kitchen and down into the dungeon. They heard voices down below. All of the keys were off of the pegs. The coppery smell of blood overpowered the stench he had smelled on his last trip.
Ashiyo ran down the stairs, heedless of the need for stealth. He attacked the guards, who were stacking up bodies at level one, with Anata’s sword. Shiro had to push the older man aside so the more-expert guard didn’t kill the man. It didn’t take but a moment before the guard had been dispatched.
Chika took on the other one and showed no mercy. She wasn’t Shiro’s equal with a sword, but more than competent enough to handle the guard. Shiro noticed the hardness set into the face of the youth, whose disguise she still used.
Ashiyo followed her down leaving Shiro gawking at the human destruction. Seven levels of this?
It appeared that there were at least two guards at each level. Ashiyo’s killing frenzy affected Chika and both of them dispatched all of the dungeon guards on the second level before Shiro could stop them. Down another level. Now they ran into the Lord’s personal guards. These fighters were more skilled.
Chika had begun to use her power to help her swordplay. Ashiyo barely evaded a slash when Shiro caught up to him and took over. Ashiyo stepped aside.
“Go on. I’ll only get myself killed against the Lord’s men,” Ashiyo said. He stood behind Shiro and harried the guards enough to restrict their movements.
Shiro began to slip on the stones, now covered in blood. His opponents fared no better and Chika had begun to stun her opponents before she ran them through. Shiro matched her technique and that accelerated their descent to the lowest levels. At the end, White Rose bodies mingled with those of the Lord’s guard.
They began to lay out the bodies where they fell as they moved up level by level. Nearly one hundred women had been killed. Shiro couldn’t feel any emotion, just an awful numbness in his heart and in his mind.
By the time Shiro reached level one again, he bent over, hands on knees and retched. Taking deep breaths he looked over all of the women. The senseless carnage overcame him again. This was what Anata planned on doing all over the South Isle. How could anyone find honor is such an activity? He’d never seen such evil. He spat in anger and to get the awful taste out of his mouth, but it didn’t work
Ashiyo brought up the bloody body of Shiuki to level one. Tears streamed down his face.
Shiro tried to piece together what he needed to do in the next minute, the next hour. His mind could plan no farther.
“We leave by the sewers, where they will dispose of all this,” he said, waving his hand. “If we go back the way we came, there will be plenty of witnesses, even if we are able to disguise our blood-covered clothes. There’s no one to save except ourselves.” Even he could hear the bleakness in his voice.
Ashiyo stood up. “A funeral pyre. I won’t have my love thrown away in the sewer.”
“And it might disguise our escape,” Chika said, “as much as I hate leaving my sisters here.” Shiro noticed the tracks of tears down her blood-spattered face.
They descended one last time to the bottom, arranging the bodies in more honorable poses. Ashiyo found a pair of breeches and sandals to wear. They removed the coins from the guards’ bodies.
“Have you left anything incriminating, Chika?”
She shook her head. “I have what I want to keep on me.”
“So do I. Let’s say a prayer to whatever gods we choose and leave this tomb.”
The three each said a prayer. Ashiyo could speak his own words. The man ended by attempting a chant, but couldn’t finish.
Shiro asked his family god to protect their souls. The emotion grabbed at him and his legs felt like lead as he trudged halfw
ay up the stairs between level seven and level six. He took in a deep, fetid breath and sent flames into the dungeons. The heat drove them upward as they repeated setting fire to all of the corpses as they ascended. By the time they reached the back door, they could hardly see through the greasy smoke. Shiro unbolted the door to the sewer pathway as he checked for tell tale footprints.
“I can lock this behind us,” Ashiyo said and levitated the hinged bar of the door up and closed it. He released the spell and the bar fell into place. No one would know they came this way. They ran down the corridor, the sewer smell became worse, but Shiro, for one, preferred the smell of the sewer to the stench of the burning flesh they left behind. They continued to work their way down. No stairs here, just a pathway made out of the rough rubble of the foundation of the castle. Pillars on the sides of their route held up wooden supports kept the ceiling intact. When the fire got to here, the entire castle might come down.
The smell of sewage finally got to Chika, making her gag. “Put something around your face,” Ashiyo said.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
~
THEY ALL NOW WORE MASKS made from whatever cloth they could cover their mouths with. The air thickened with the smell, but they came to a channel. Filthy water ran through it, but they had no choice but to jump in. Shiro couldn’t touch bottom and they all were swept away into the current as the sewer doused the torch they had taken with them.
Shiro fought to keep his head above water and conjured a small ball of light to accompany them as they were taken down, down, down. He heard the roar of the ocean as he extinguished his light. They were about to be coughed out of Sekkoro’s sewers.
He fell for what seemed like forever, but it must have only been twenty feet, into the dark ocean. Waves washed over him as he lost his orientation in the dimness of deepening twilight, but he finally struggled to find the surface. As he shot up into the air and gasped for breath, he saw Ashiyo holding a limp Chika.
Both of them helped carry her out from the shore and then they swam further east until they spotted an inlet. All three collapsed on the tiny sandy beach. Shiro produced a tiny ball of light. Chika stopped breathing and her disguise melted away. Where was the cook? This woman was young, younger than Shiro. She had long black hair and a wrinkle-free complexion. Her body was toned and trim, like a noble goddess. A beautiful woman lay in front of him. No wonder she had never revealed her true appearance, no one would forget her.
