Stuck In Magic

by Christopher Nuttall

  Just assholes, I reflected. I wrapped my cloak around myself to conceal the uniform as I hurried on. People who could do better if they gave a damn.

  I felt my heart twist as I made my way down to the slave pen. It was little more than a walled warehouse, not that different from the building we’d raided earlier in the day. I’d checked it out weeks ago, fearing that I might end up in it one day. It wouldn’t be that hard to escape, even without my tools. I guessed the runaways were shackled, bound hand and foot. They knew what awaited them, when they were forced-marched home. They’d be desperate enough to attack armed men with their bare hands.

  The warehouse rose up in front of me, illuminated by a single burning lantern over the gatehouse. The wall wasn’t that high, barely twice my height; the interior had been designed to make it difficult to climb. I scrambled up to the top, then dropped down and landed inside the courtyard. My lips twisted as I knelt within the shadows, waiting to see if any of the guards had heard my landing. The designers hadn’t expected someone to try to break into the slave pen. Who in their right mind would try?

  I smiled grimly as I slipped around the walls, remaining within the shadows as I approached the gatehouse. There would be a handful of guards on duty, probably already half-drunk. I told myself not to take that for granted as I reached the gate and peered inside. A man was sitting at the table, his back to me. I drew my club and cracked it over his skull, sending him crashing to the ground. He seemed to be alone. I frowned – there should have been at least three guards on duty – and searched the gatehouse quickly before stealing his keys. Where were the other two?

  Move, I told myself. Don’t slow down for anything.

  I was committed now. I took the keys and hurried back to the warehouse. The door was solidly locked, but it was a lock I could have picked in my sleep. I opened it with the keys, then inched down the corridor and peered into the nearest office. A guard stared at me, his eyes going wide. I knocked him down before he could raise the alarm, then glanced around the office. A handful of

  papers lay on the desk, covered with unreadable scribbles. I cursed my inability to read Old Script as I looked at them, then turned my attention to the far doors and tried to open them. It took me several tries to find the right key to open the locks.

  The stench was appalling. I gagged, stumbling back in disgust. The darkened chamber beyond smelt like a barnyard … no, like a prison. I picked up a lantern from the office and held it up, shining it into the chamber. A sight from hell greeted me. The giant warehouse had been subdivided into a number of cages, each one holding a dozen chained and shackled men. Some of them had clearly been beaten into submission, their wounds left to fester and decay. There were no women or children. I couldn’t help finding that ominous.

  Eyes followed me as I made my way up to the first cage. I tried to smile at them, knowing they’d take me for just another tormentor. They might try to jump me the moment I opened the cage. I inspected the locking system, silently cursing the evil genius who’d designed it. The cage wasn’t meant to be opened by just one man … I supposed it was a safety precaution, intended to keep the prisoners safely confined. I cursed under my breath as I opened the first lock, then jammed the key in place. The system should be relatively easy to spoof. I told myself I should be glad they didn’t have electronic locks, with fingerprint scanners or PIN numbers. It would have been a great deal harder to break the prisoners out.

  “Go through the office, through the gatehouse and run,” I hissed, as I opened the second lock. The prisoners stood, shaking off their chains. The noise was terrifying. I feared someone would hear it. I didn’t have time to search for the final guard, if indeed there was a final guard. “Hurry!”

  I moved to the second cage and started to unlock it, working my way through the keys as the first set of prisoners made their escape. The second set followed the first, then the third. I tried to open the forth cage and discovered, too late, that I didn’t have the right key. The prisoners stared at me as I went through the keys twice, fearing the worst. There were ten separate cages in the giant warehouse. If I didn’t have the keys to all of them …

  Break the lock, I told myself. Hurry.

  I dug a screwdriver out of my belt, inserted it into the keyhole … and froze.

  My entire body locked solid. I could neither move nor speak. I couldn’t hear my heartbeat. I wasn’t even sure I was still breathing. Horror washed through me as I realised I’d struck a magical booby trap, that I’d effectively trapped myself. I’d thought the locks were absurdly simple, but I’d never realised why.

  The keys were charmed to open the locks. By inserting a screwdriver into the lock, I’d triggered the spell. And …

  My mind raced. The guardsmen hadn’t given me any training in what to do if I got jinxed, let alone hexed or cursed. Fallows had told me to make sure I gave magicians the upmost respect – and, if I got zapped with magic, to pray to all the gods it wore off before I went mad or got eaten or … or something. I tried to think of a way of breaking free, but nothing came to mind. I didn’t have any magic myself. And I couldn’t move a muscle.

  If my body is completely frozen, I asked myself, why am I still alive?

  I heard running footsteps behind me, fading in the distance. The prisoners I’d freed were making their escape. I hoped they made it, even though I was grimly sure I was going to be taking their place. They could have tried to help … I knew there was nothing they could have done to help me. Fallows – and Jasmine –

  had made it clear ordinary people were helpless against magic. I feared, as time started to press down on me, that they were right. There was nothing I could do, save wait. And try not to go mad.

  “Well,” a voice said. “What have we here?”

  My body jerked, then started to move of its own accord. I tried to fight, to resist whatever force was controlling my limbs, but it was useless. Thunder was standing in front of me, his eyes narrowing as he studied my hooded face. My hands rose up a second later, uncovering my face. Thunder frowned, then turned and walked into another office. I followed him like a dog on a leash, as helpless as a baby. My muscles did as they were commanded by his magic.

  I struggled, mentally, as my body came to a stop. I’d been caught. I’d been caught and … I was dead. Captain Alder already distrusted me. He wouldn’t need any more excuse to kick me out of the guard, to sell me into slavery, to even kill me outright. It wasn’t as if anyone would give much of a damn about me.

  Horst and Fallows would shrug their shoulders and move on to the next recruit.

  Jasmine would never even know what had happened to me. I wondered, as I waited helplessly, if she’d even care.

  My mind raged. I’d tried to do the right thing and …

  Captain Alder walked into my field of view. He looked tired, tired and worn.

  The nasty part of my mind insisted he was exhausted, after spending the evening selling runaway slaves back to their masters. They were slaves, in all but name. Bound to the land, unable to leave without permission that was never forthcoming … I wanted to swallow, but I still couldn’t move a muscle. Thunder held up a hand and twisted it in the air, light pulsing around his fingertips.

  My head lolled to one side, as if I’d been hit. The rest of my body remained unmoving. His magic held me prisoner as surely as chains and shackles.

  “Elliot,” Captain Alder said. “Guard Constable Elliot, Son of Richard. Did you think you could claim the bounty for yourself?”

  It was hard to speak. My head felt sluggish and my tongue felt … I tried to think clearly, despite the discomfort. If my lower body – everything below the neck – was paralysed, so completely frozen my heart was still, how was I even alive? There would be no blood and oxygen going to be head. I should be dead.

  I should be dead … I felt a surge of panic as I realised I was confronted with a genuine outside context problem. A wizard had done it. I almost giggled. A wizard had done it!

  “Answer th
e question, boy,” Captain Alder slapped me across the face. I tasted blood in my mouth. “Who paid you?”

  I stared at him, numbly. He thought I’d been paid? It was … didn’t he expect me to do the right thing? But then, slavery – however disguised – was normal for this society. Freeing the slaves was nothing more than an assault on property rights. I felt sick – people weren’t property – and tried to come up with an answer. My head was scrambled. What was the name of the rapist bastard, the one who’d bought his way out of trouble? If I gave his name instead, he could …

  “Answer.” Thunder made another motion with his fingers. “Answer now – and truthfully.”

  My mouth opened, no matter how I tried to close it. “I wasn’t paid,” I said, dully. “I wanted to free them.”

  Captain Alder gave me a look that suggested he thought I was a bloody moron. I supposed, by his lights, he had a point. What did I get out of freeing the runaway serfs? Nothing, by his standards. The idea it might help me sleep at night was alien to him. He would sooner believe I’d tried to steal them all by my lonesome, in hopes of claiming the entire bounty for myself, than I’d simply meant to let them go.

  “You wanted to free them?” Captain Alder shook his head, then started to pace

  the room. “What were you thinking?”

  “There’s no point in wasting time,” Thunder said, before I could speak. He made a gesture. My head froze. Again. “We won’t be paid for the missing slaves.”

  I felt a flicker of triumph, even though I knew I was doomed. Thirty runaways had made it onto the streets. It would be a long time before they could be hunted down, let alone returned to their former masters. I wanted to laugh.

  Captain Alder and the sorcerer had probably hoped to claim the vast majority of the bounty for themselves, while handing out tiny sums to the guardsmen. That would be harder now, I thought. They might be lynched if they didn’t pay the guardsmen. If nothing else, I told myself, the captain was going to be out of pocket.

  “We can send this oaf into slavery, in their place,” Captain Alder said, from behind me. He didn’t sound very hopeful. One person, no matter how strong, could hardly do the work of thirty. “Or … do you have something else in mind?”

  “Yes.” Thunder lifted his hand. Fear gripped me as an evil look crossed his face. I realised, to my horror, that he was a sadist. “I think turning him into a frog and selling him should suffice.”

  Green light flickered around his fingers, then flashed at me. I couldn’t move.

  My skin tingled … and I felt, just for a second, Jasmine’s lips on my forehead.

  Thunder’s eyes went wide as the spell holding me in place vanished. I didn’t hesitate. I lunged forward, slamming my fist into his throat. His body flew backwards, his head cracking into the wall. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or merely stunned, but either way he was out of the fight. And …

  Something cracked into my skull. I staggered under the impact, cursing my mistake. The captain. I’d forgotten the captain. Alder was overweight, but that didn’t mean he was useless. And I’d turned my back on him. I started to spin around, too late. He hit me again and I fell, screaming, into the darkness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I felt as though I was in hell.

  My head hurt, pounding like a drum. My throat was dry. My body felt as if I’d gone several rounds with an artilleryman and lost decisively. My … my memory was hazy, but I had the vague recollection someone had been trying to kill me.

  Panic shot through me as my memories snapped back into place. I’d tried to free the runaway serfs, only to be captured myself, threatened with a fate worse than death and then … Captain Alder had knocked me out. Where the hell was I now?

  I forced myself to remain still and keep my eyes closed as I reached out with my senses. I was lying on a bed, I thought. It didn’t feel as though I was tied or chained. I could hear someone – one person – breathing lightly. It sounded feminine, although I couldn’t tell for sure. Jasmine? I didn’t know any other women, not on this side of the dimensional divide, certainly none who would come to my aid. Who was she? I hesitated, then opened my eyes wide. The light was bright enough to make me regret it.

  “Drink this,” a female voice said. “It’ll help.”

  I forced myself to sit upright, despite the throbbing headache. The room was small, with nothing beyond a simple bed and a chair, but I had the sense of wealth and power. A young woman was standing beside the bed, holding out a glass … a real glass. She looked to be around twenty, with reddish skin, short dark hair and a pair of gold spectacles. She wore a simple white robe that concealed everything below the neckline, held firmly in place by a green band wrapped around her wrist. I would have liked her if we’d met under other circumstances. As it was …

  She pushed the glass into my hand. I sniffed it warily, then shrugged and drank. If they’d wanted to poison me, they hardly needed to resort to subterfuge. They could have bashed my head in or slit my throat while I was unconscious. It tasted foul, as if I’d drunk oil mixed with rotten fruit, but the pain faded away. The woman smiled at me, then recovered the glass. My eyes narrowed as I looked at it … really looked at it. Glass was expensive, very expensive. Whoever had brought me here was staggeringly wealthy by local standards.

  “You probably need to drink some water too,” the woman said, pushing another glass into my hands. “And then you can meet the master.”

  My eyes narrowed, just for a second. If she noticed, she gave no sign. I drank the water – it tasted pure, not the brackish slop I’d endured in the guardhouse

  – and stood, taking the opportunity to check for damage. There was a nasty bump on the back of my head, which felt uncomfortable when I pressed my fingers against it, but I was otherwise unhurt. My body felt surprisingly energetic, despite the beating I’d taken. I wondered, as I flexed my muscles, just what had been in that potion. The recipes I’d seen had sounded like something out of a jokey child’s cookbook.

  The woman watched me with an amused expression. “Are you done?”

  I nodded, glancing down at myself. Someone had removed my guard’s uniform and replaced it with a simple tunic. My gun and supplies rested on a table, along with a belt. I donned it quickly, breathing a sigh of relief it hadn’t been stolen. I guessed the rest of the stuff I’d brought – and left at the guardhouse, along with my savings – had been taken by now. The guardsmen might have been honest enough not to steal from each other, but I was probably no longer a guardsman. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was now. What had happened to me, when I’d been unconscious?

  “This way, please,” the woman said.

  I shrugged and followed her through a maze of white corridors. The interior was odd, a strange combination of Roman and Middle Eastern architecture that seemed designed to allow air to flow freely through the house – the mansion –

  and yet, somehow, keep the air cool. Magic? It was possible. I saw a handful of men and women along the way, all – judging by their outfits – servants. I frowned, inwardly. Where the hell was I? One of the mansions I’d been told never to even look at? Or … or what? The only good sign, as far as I could tell, was that I wasn’t in chains. And yet, even that was meaningless. If my captor was a magician, he could stop me in my tracks with a wave of my hand.

  We stopped outside a brown door. The woman tapped on it once, then pushed it open and motioned for me to step into the room. It looked like an office, bigger than anything I’d ever owned. The desk and chairs looked small, as if they were dollhouse furniture in a room for grown adults; the walls were bare, save for one covered in maps of the city and the surrounding countryside. The room was brightly lit by wide-open windows, brilliant sunlight streaming into the chamber. I blinked, half-covering my eyes. It was just too bright.

  “Greetings.” A young man stood behind the desk. “Thank you for coming.”

  I bit down a sarcastic response – I was fairly sure I hadn’t had a choice – and studie
d him thoughtfully. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, with long dark hair and light brown skin, but there was something unfinished about his features. I had the mental impression of a greenie lieutenant, fresh out of West Point, utterly unaware of the real world. I’d met my fair share of them, back in the service. Some of them matured into decent commanding officers.

  Some of them just got good men killed because they mistook education for experience. I allowed my eyes to wander over his clothes. They were finely cut, the very epitome of local high fashion. I was looking at someone so

  wealthy and powerful that he didn’t need to show off. Everyone who mattered would already know who he was.

  Or at least his family is wealthy and powerful, I reminded myself I’d heard of rejuvenation spells, but the young man’s attitude didn’t suggest an old mind in a young body. It remains to be seen what he’ll do when – if – he inherits.

  “I’m Rupert Drache,” he said. “I think you may have heard of me.”

  I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “You were the one who bribed Captain Alder not to punish me.”

  “You saved my sister from a fate worse than death,” Rupert said. “You didn’t deserve to be punished for it.”

  “No,” I agreed. The local sexual mores struck me as bizarre at best, harmful at worst, but I knew there was no point in trying to change them. If Rupert’s sister had reported her rape, she would have been disgraced; if she’d kept it to herself, she wouldn’t have been a virgin on her wedding night. The bridegroom would have been very disappointed. He might even have used it as an excuse to annual the wedding. “What happened? I mean, after I was knocked out?”

  Rupert gestured to a chair, motioning for me to sit. “Most guards would have walked away, rather than risk getting involved. You didn’t. You could say I took an interest in you. I asked your comrades to tell me about you …”

  Bribed them to talk, I translated, silently.

  “… And about what little they knew of your past. I was going to approach you in a week or two anyway, when I heard the news. Captain Alder was going to sell you. I … convinced … him to let me take you, and all of your possessions, instead.”