by Deck Davis
Remembrance Night was the name given to the anniversary of the Cataclysm. Or, the anniversary scholars had guessed at, anyway. Truth was, little was known about the cataclysm, but Dantis had read as much as he could about it.
It was said that in Oakherald, way beyond the seas that washed around the Fire Isles, humans were the minority. They were seen as troublemakers, as warmongers who drained resources from the land and put nothing back in return. They were cast out of Grand Councils by the other races, and hostilities increased until war broke out, with humans on the losing side.
After an explorer named Dillan Danser discovered the Fire Isles, humans fled Oakherald to settle on this undisturbed island. They found it unoccupied and barren, and it wasn’t even listed on maps.
Even so, they quickly found evidence of life on the Fire Isles. Rock formations that resembled cities, and the dried-remains of long-dead giants. Scholars studied them for years, before concluding that there had been an extinction event on the Fire Isles. The Cataclysm.
People said that time heals all wounds, and that was what happened. Races from Oakherald began to visit the Fire Isles, and some settled here. Together, they formed towns like Wolfpine, and out of respect for the giants who lived on the island before them, they held Remembrance Day.
Remembrance Day meant something else for Dantis and Ethan. It was on Remembrance Day, five years earlier, that their parents were murdered. When he looked at the banners draped around the town below, all he could think about was what had happened. He wanted to tear the banners down and set fire to them.
He looked beyond Wolfpine, where the famous Wolfpine Blackrock sat; it was a dagger shaped rock that stuck out of the ground, blacker than Ethan’s wrist scar and older than the town itself. Tributes rested around it; flowers and lanterns that people left there, after the Blackrock had somehow become a symbol for lost loved-ones.
“Now what?” said Ethan. “We’re in the middle of Wolfpine, we’re weaponless, we’re surrounded by guards, we’ve got no money…and every girl in a ten-mile-radius knows our names and our faces.”
“Your name and your face,” said Dantis. “They didn’t notice me. Maybe I can leave you behind.”
“Like you’d ever do that.”
“I might.”
“And whose sword is going to get you out of shit?”
Ethan was right. Dantis never bothered learning swordplay. It didn’t click with him like it did with his brother. Ethan was a natural. He must have inherited it from their mother, who fought in sword tournaments when she was younger. He was left-handed, but he spent hours training with his right, trying to become ambidextrous. Swordplay flowed in his blood.
Not so for Dantis. Violence turned his stomach to bile. Ever since that night, five years ago, when his parents…no. Don’t think about it. Swords, blood, wounds; they made him want to pass out.
“Swords aren’t gonna help us here,” he said, “even if you had one. Half the guard will be after us now.”
“Pah. We’ve faced worse odds. Remember in Unchurch? The three-armed juggler scam? We got out of that one, didn’t we?”
“Yeah, smuggled out of town on the back of a wagon, buried in three tons of shit. Let’s go. My vertigo’s making my stomach wobble.”
“I saved you this,” said Ethan. “I know how much you love them.”
He tossed a plum to Dantis. Dantis caught it with one hand, almost losing his grip on the wall behind him. He loved plums so much his vertigo couldn’t stand in the way. His mouth filled with spit when he looked at the juicy fruit.
“What a coincidence,” he said. “Because I saved you this.”
Dantis handed Ethan an oat and raisin biscuit he’d kept aside from his evening meal.
“Great place for a picnic,” said Ethan.
They moved along the ledge, sticking as close to the wall behind them as possible. The strength of the wind threatened to sweep him off the roof. As they went further along, his stomach sank.
“I thought there’d be ledges leading to the ground,” he said. “We’re outta luck.”
“Story of our lives,” said Ethan.
Behind them, the window at the furthest end of the ledge opened, and a guard stuck his head out.
“There you are, you little bastards!”
The guard climbed out.
“Get your arse moving,” said Ethan.
They crossed to the end of the ledge. “There’s another roof. It’s only about ten feet high,” said Dantis.
Behind them, one of the guards squeezed his portly frame out of the window. Using the last of his mana, Dantis cast an illusion. The ledge was a foot wide, but Dantis crafted an illusion that halved its length, and making it look too thin for the guard to risk walking on. Seeing this, the guard paused.
“They’re from the bloody circus, these two,” he told someone behind him. “No way I’m going out there.”
No time to tie this illusion off. It would fade the second he broke concentration, but it gained them a few seconds.
They climbed off the ledge and dropped onto the roof below them. The edge of this roof sloped toward yet another one, and to a turret. From the turret, it was fifteen feet to the ground. Phew. They had a way out.
“What the hell happened back there?” said Ethan.
He was talking about the illusion. Dantis had never told Ethan about his ability. He never cast them around him, but he had no choice today.
“There’s something I need to tell you. I’m sorry I hid it for so long…but I can do things.”
“Things?”
“Spells, Ethan. I don’t know why I hid it from you, but…”
Ethan grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“You dope. Think I didn’t notice? I was gonna pay for you to go to mage school. Y’know, if we hadn’t fucked up the robbery and been accused of treason.”
“Oh. I didn’t think you…”
“Why’d you hide it from me?”
“Let’s get off this roof and out of town, and we’ll talk,” said Dantis.
The truth was, he hid it because he was scared. He and Ethan only had each other, and he worried that his ability would drive them apart. As if, somehow, it would make them too different from each other, and – it sounded stupid to even think it – they wouldn’t be as close.
But Ethan had known all along, and he hadn’t cared. He should have had more faith in his big brother. If he had, maybe things would have been easier for them. Dantis could use his illusions in their robberies, for distraction, or something. Maybe soon. First, they had to escape.
“Listen, Dan. I need to say something. You know that none of this was down to you, right?”
“We need to go.”
Ethan squeezed his shoulder. “I’m serious. I know what you’re like, and I don’t want you to be thinking I’m mad or that I blame you.”
Ethan’s word meant more than he would ever realize. Dantis couldn’t say anything back. He just smiled.
“Let’s go,” said Ethan.
As they crossed the sloping roof, a soft noise from behind got his attention. Four men wearing guard uniforms were standing on the ledge behind him. The cell guards had let their bellies swell through years of inactivity, but these guys were the opposite.
Their light leather armor showed off their athletic bodies. Two of them carried daggers, and two had bows slung across their backs, which didn’t hinder them when they ran along the ledge behind Dantis. Their agility reminded him of acrobats. He was jealous about their obliviousness to the height.
“It’s some kind of ultra-guard unit,” said Ethan, backing away.
“Is that their technical name?”
“Who cares? We need to leave, unless you plan on giving yourself up.”
One of the guards leapt off the ledge, somersaulted in midair, and landed on the same roof as Ethan and Dantis. He held a dagger in each hand, and faint wisps of blue light swirled from the blades. Swirling light meant enchantment, likely a
stun effect.
“The somersault was unnecessary,” said Ethan.
Ethan ran to the spire of the roof to his right where a weather vane twirled in the wind. He bent a metal spike back and forth, straining until it snapped off. He held it in his hand. It was long, thin, and sharp.
“Not a sword, but it’ll do,” he said.
The other three guards dropped onto the roof. Ethan faced them, makeshift sword in hand. He adopted a fighting stance.
“What are you doing?” said Dantis.
“Getting us out of this.”
The guards circled Ethan. One moved forward, dagger in hand, and swiped. Ethan avoided it. He lashed out with his metal, scratching the guard’s arm. The other two closed in one him now.
Ethan struck at one of them, ducked to his left to avoid a blow, then countered. Metal clanged on metal.
There are too many of them, you idiot. You’re gonna get yourself killed.
As Ethan dodged the strike from one guard, another punched him in the gut. Ethan grunted, and the guard kicked his legs, swiping his feet away.
Dantis fought the paralyzing fear in his legs. He hated violence, but concern for his brother overrode the feeling. He charged over, hitting one guard with his shoulder and knocking him away.
He reached for Ethan’s hand. A splitting agony seared across his shoulders. A guard faced him, his dagger bloodied from slicing Dantis’s back.
Ethan got to his feet. He dragged Dantis away from the guards.
“Remember what I was saying about worse odds?” said Ethan. “I’d like to retract that statement.”
Dantis breathed through the pain. “Run. It’s our only chance.”
“They’re fast as hell, and they outnumber us.”
Ethan was right; they’d never outrun them. He needed something else.
He checked his mana. Good; it had regenerated. What illusion could he use? What would stop the guards?
He pictured a wall in his mind, one he could cast in front of him. It wouldn’t take the guards long to realize it wasn’t real, that it’d appeared from nowhere, but it would stop them for an instant.
Sweat dampened his forehead as he concentrated. The illusory brick wall formed on the roof in front of him, but it was hazy.
Need to pump more mana into it.
He let his mana drain out from him and lash over the wall. As the magical energy left him, something rumbled. The wall became clearer, but sparks of light spat from it. Tiny firework explosions popped over the surface and onto the roof, spreading across the tiles.
The rumbling grew until it vibrated up his legs. He realized what he had done.
Too much mana. I pumped too much mana into it, too quickly.
A cracking noise came from below him. It sounded like ice breaking. The roof timbers split apart. Tremor lines spread out, and the cracking sound grew.
“It’s gonna cave!” said Ethan.
Dantis held his breath. He didn’t dare blink. “It’s gonna hold our weight. We have to be careful.”
Why didn’t I read the book more carefully? It said something about mana, didn’t it? If you used it when you were anxious, if you used too much at once, it became unstable…
The cracks spread out. The guards behind them edged closer. On the ground, outside the judiciary building, more guards watched.
“Now what?” asked Ethan.
They couldn’t get off the roof, and if they did, more guards waited for them. Yep, these were the worst odds they’d ever seen.
“When I count,” said Dantis, “Focus on the turret and run like hell. I’d rather chance it than give up.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“One…”
“Two…”
The cracks shot out further. The roof caved, and the solid roof disappeared from under his feet. His stomach lurched as he fell. He waved his arms like a mad duck desperate for flight, but he couldn’t stop his plummet.
He opened his mouth, and a sound came out. “Arrrghhhhhhuueeeeee!”
He could only shout as his plummet stretched out into what felt like hours. What the hell happened? Is this it? Am I going to die? Please don’t let it hurt.
He closed his eyes and braced for the agony.
Finally, he hit solid ground. Or, luckily for him, solid-but-cushioned ground.
“My back,” he said. “Think I’ve broken it.”
Ethan lay next to him, covered in dust and rubble and pieces of wood, in a similar state of agony. He brushed dust from his hair. “Where are we?”
They were in a large hall. Dozens of townsfolk were sitting in rows of wooden seats behind them. Some peered at Dantis, while the finer-dressed ladies and gentlemen eyed him with an air of disgust.
“Morning,” he groaned. “Don’t help or anything. I’m fine. I only fell through a roof.”
“The Ashwood brothers,” said a voice behind him.
A man towered over him from behind a large wooden pulpit. It dawned on him; they’d fallen through the roof and into the justice hall, the same place the guards had planned to take them.
He’d never believed in destiny before now, but if something was going to force him to acknowledge a spectral finger in the sky prodding him along the route it chose for him, this was it. For all his scheming, he’d ended exactly where fate – the cruel bastard - had wanted him.
“This isn’t how I expected you to join us,” said the man behind the pulpit, who must have been the judge, “but you’re here, so we’ll begin the auction.”
The auction? This was the justice halls, right? Not an auction house.
The truth dawned on him.
Oh, hell.
“Dan,” said Ethan, “We’re in more trouble than I thought.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the man behind the pulpit. “I hope you brought your purses. We have two young men for sale today.”
Chapter Four
Dantis
“Which boy do we take?”
“You know our requirements; do I need to spell everything out?”
“People are starting to notice. Rumors are spreading. Too many…there are wanted posters plastered over the town.”
“Rumors won’t mean much soon. Take the stronger one.”
“Are you sure? They say the younger one is…”
“The stronger one.”
~
The pearls of society were sitting across from the lowest of the low. Rich men and women dressed in fineries occupied one side of the justice hall, while pimps, heavies, slavers, and rogues filled the other. None of them would have confessed to such labels, but everyone knew what they were.
Blue mana barriers buzzed around all sides of them, probably to protect them from the kind of criminals who would usually get their punishment here. It was strange, really. Mana used to be such a valuable thing. It was the essence of magic, the fuel that powered mages’ spells, and they used to be so protective of it. After the emperor increased his tax on colleges and guilds to fund the Soul Wars, the mage colleges had been forced to sell mana. Now, you had mana-powered everything; mana carts, mana swords, mana toilets.
He smelled something in the air, an aroma that cut through the pinch of dust around his nose. When he realized what it was, his chest tightened. Mayroot. Someone in the room had taken mayroot, either by eating it, smoking it, or rubbing it into their skin as a paste. It might have only been a little, but Dantis was so attuned to it that the smell was cloying.
He started to sweat. His body yearned for the root, just as it had for years on the run, when he’d become addicted to it. He’d bought some from an herb dealer in Rotterwell, and the hallucinogenic herb had taken him away from the streets, away from the problems, away from anguish and fear about his parents.
He’d become addicted from then on. At first, he’d tried to hide it from Ethan, but spending so much time so close to someone, it was impossible. Ethan hadn’t been angry, though. He understood why Dantis needed his escape. Instead, he locked Dantis in a ce
llar they’d broken into, and he trapped him there until he sweated every bit of mayroot out of his system.
As he brushed dust from his face, he noticed a woman in the crowd looking at him. She was rich, judging by her clothes and where she was sitting, and pretty enough to make his heart ache. She smiled at him.
Dantis wasn’t used to smiles. As a street thief, nobody smiled at him, and his first thought was that she was joking, or something. But the longer the stared, the more he realized the smile was genuine. He nodded at her, and she looked away.
Ethan nudged him. “All in one piece?”
“I think so. Does it strike you as odd nobody cares about the giant hole in the roof?” asked Dantis.
“Wolfpine is a weird place. They throw stones at the moon, and they marry their sisters.”
Ethan was trying to make light of it, and Dantis loved him for that, but he was rubbing his black scar. The more trouble they were in, the more confident Ethan acted. Dantis always tried to copy him, but he couldn’t master his emotions as well as his brother.
A clamor of voices rose in the room. The judge banged his gavel so hard it was like he was trying to smash his pulpit into pieces. He was dressed in full battle armor, with a six-foot sword next to him. Dantis had seen enough justice halls to know what it was. Judges in places like Wolfpine didn’t just pass sentences - they executed them too, and the Sword of Justice was their implement of law. It seemed barbaric, but there was good reason for it. Good for criminals, anyway; it was said that a judge shouldn’t pass a sentence he wasn’t willing to carry out himself. That meant that fewer death penalties were given.
“Cuff their wrists and put them the dock,” he said.
Put them in the dock. Dantis clung to the word. As long as it was him and Ethan, they would always come good.
“Come on, you two,” said a guard. “Move your arses.”
He nudged them over to the dock. The floor crunched under Dantis’s boots. An inch-thick layer of hay covered it, with most concentrated around the dock. He hadn’t expected luxury, but being treated like a donkey was a social step down. What was with the hay, anyway?
Ethan whispered to him. “This is bad, Dan. I’ve heard about auctions like this. They only sell off the worst criminals. Murderers, rapists, traitors like us.”
