A storm darkened the dawn. Four horse-drawn carriages climbed a wide dirt path. On their right was the forested hillside of a mountain and to their left, the city of Vultheras, its inlet of turbulent water shrouded in fog.
Anton Eddleston couldn’t appreciate the view. He still had fair-colored skin and the golden-blonde hair of his mother, but the bright blue-colored eyes that were so characteristic of the Eddlestons had long burned away. The very thing that granted Jessica such vast control over mana, the Eyes of the Sorcerer, had rejected him. Blindness was the price he paid, and for the past three years his eyes had been wrapped in a black blindfold.
Anton’s carriage, second to last in the caravan, bounced over a lump. The character of the road, the clean smell and thinness of the air, told him he had traveled high into the mountains. He cupped his hands in the lap of his heavy wool coat and imagined the pine, cedar, and fir trees. As a child he’d wandered the woods, through bushes and valleys, with his twin sister. From the forest his mind wandered elsewhere, to thoughts of the First Sorceress.
“Is there any news from the capital?” Anton wondered aloud.
The Eddleston scion was accompanied by three people, one man and two women. Their flight from Drakenhelm happened so quickly that he didn’t know their names, but the man provided proof enough that they were mercenaries sent by Anton’s father, the duke. It was their duty to spirit Anton to safety.
“Yes, sir,” the quiet woman said. “The Clockwork Palace has surrendered. Our last report read that king Kalen had died. The city is under Atilonia’s control.”
“And Jessica?” he asked.
“The First Sorceress was captured by the Atilonians.”
“She’s in Achlesial’s hands,” the man added.
“I see,” Anton said.
The carriage juddered again. Anton looked around the cabin. Perhaps it was a result of his encounter with the Eyes of the Sorcerer, but ever since then he could perceive mana in the air around him. In the black of his vision, the women appeared as blue silhouettes. The man appeared gold colored. He saw the colors of his cabinmates and all the colors of those in the carriages ahead of him. The caravanners were so intensely magical as to shine brightly even through walls.
Anton made a thin smile and lowered his head.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” the other, louder woman said. She touched her hand to Anton’s shoulder. “Your sister is very strong. She must have had a reason to surrender to Achlesial’s Inquisition.”
“So, my father sent you people?” Anton asked again.
The silhouette of the man folded its arms. “That’s right, we were sent to evacuate you.”
“Why didn’t he send the family guards?”
“Most of them are dead,” the man replied.
Anton pressed his thumbs together.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “We’ll do our best to deliver you to Edwindy.”
The country of Edwindy was an ally of Bastilhas, another in the northern realm of the god Mathematzan. The Zenith War was over for the Bastilhasians, but the Edwindians continued fighting. As important nobility, Anton and his family members were targets for death or capture. The whereabouts of Anton’s mother and his other siblings was unknown.
Anton leaned into his leather seat. It was the first storm of spring, so rain made the ground muddy while piles of snow remained in the hills. Ordinarily they wouldn’t travel when the mountains were still treacherous, but the Atilonians had tightened their grip. Anton’s ears flexed and he tilted his head to the side. He heard the guttural roar of an aircraft.
“An Atilonian single engine,” the male guard said. “It’s flying low, below the storm clouds.”
“Why fly at all?” the louder woman wondered. “They already control the city.”
“Paranoia, probably,” the quiet one said.
The man nodded. “This storm has blinded their observations balloons. That pilot isn’t watching the ground, but the sky. They’re anticipating an air raid.”
Anton heard the engine whine loudly. Its sound faded somewhere far above.
“It’s back above the clouds now,” the man said. “At cruising speed, the Edwindian airships could be here in an hour. If they were going to counterattack, now would be a good time.”
There was a moment of silence in the cabin as the women seemed to think to themselves. If there was a question as to why a counterattack would be well-timed, Anton knew the answer.
“Atilonia is afraid Edwindy will bomb the city while they’re occupying it,” the quiet woman said.
“Their navy is around the inlet, too,” the loud one said. “Not a lot of room to maneuver in that shallow water.”
“But—the civilians—”
“We’re nothing if not a cold, logical people,” Anton said, head turned down. “We followers of Mathematzan. We were weak and conquered, but if our corpse could serve to protect Edwindy by trapping the Atilonians, then there’s no reason to worry for civilians.”
The man nodded and the cabin returned to silence. The rain poured harder and rattled on the roof of the carriage. Anton played with his thumbs, there was little else for him to do. If I had succeeded at the ritual, he thought, could I have changed this fate?
The Eddleston scion turned his head up. He heard sharp cries from the lead carriage. Silhouettes moved quickly in their cabins. Their own carriage rolled to a stop.
“I’ll see what’s going on,” the man said. He opened a small door and dropped outside. The door was slammed shut behind him.
Bands of rain lashed the carriage, rocked it on its axles. “Can you see anything?” the quiet woman asked the other.
The louder one appeared to shake her head. “It’s still dark. Tall trees on the right side, some snow. Left side is a sheer cliff it looks like.”
“There are seventy of them,” Anton said. The women turned to stare at him.
“Seventy?” they each asked in their own manner.
“Twenty ahead, fifty on the hill to our right,” Anton said. “Their mana is faint, but I can see them clearly enough, like gray ghosts.”
“An Atilonian checkpoint?” one woman asked the other.
She shook her head. “Too large for a checkpoint.”
“Then, an ambush.”
“An ambush,” Anton agreed. “That’s what I think too.”
The door to the carriage swung open. The man returned, stepped up inside and closed the door behind him. “Atilonians. They have an armored car blocking the road ahead,” he said and reached beneath the bench of his seat. Anton watched him fiddle with what sounded like a metal clasp. “High caliber gun in the turret,” the man continued, “not something that we can take lightly.”
“Eddleston said there were seventy men,” the loud woman said, “fifty on the hill and twenty ahead.”
“That’s what I sensed too,” the man said. Anton heard the rack of a pistol and the clack of a rifle’s bolt handle. The man’s hands dipped, vanished, and returned holding a white mask. The round mask topped with a pair of horns was bright white in Anton’s eyes, clearly infused with powerful mana. When the man slipped the mask onto his face, his gold silhouette disappeared. The ‘floating’ mask was the only indication he was still there.
“Mana-concealing masks?” Anton asked. “You’re not mercenaries. Who are you people really?”
“Cynthia, wait for the fireball,” the man said, ignoring Anton. “We’re lucky they stopped us here. There’s a weakness in the veil that you can use if you need to. Take this.” The man produced a small blue orb and placed it in the quiet woman’s hand.
“A False Eye?” Cynthia, the quiet one, asked.
“If you can’t escape with Eddleston to the Otherworld, destroy the eye, and then yourself,” he said.
“I understand.”
“Hey!” Anton shouted.
“Quiet.” The louder woman hushed him. “You need to be careful now or a sniper will pick off your head.”
“Protect him at all costs,” the man said.
The floating masks that were the women nodded.
It was then that Anton remembered something; a folk tale, or rather a children’s story. It was something to scare them into good behavior. The story went that if they misbehaved white phantoms would steal their souls for the king of darkness.
“Demons,” Anton muttered in surprise. “But, why me? I’m just a disgraced noble. What do you want?”
“Stars of the emperor,” the man said. “Deliver us.”
“From this darkness,” the women joined, “we will deliver the next world.”
The cabin turned silent. A clap of thunder rolled overhead. Rain pounded the roof and the carriage tilted in the wind. Men shouted at one another somewhere ahead.
Boom!
Soldiers shouted in Atilonian.
The carriage doors were kicked open on both sides, Anton heard gunfire. There was so much gunfire, pops across the hills and all down the carriages. He was pulled out of the cabin, slipped on the sidestep and dropped his knee in the mud.
“Get up!” Cynthia snapped and pulled at Anton’s arm. The scion clambered up and followed her. He was pulled along up the hill.
Cries echoed down into the valley. Anton saw the light of mana fade from the phantoms in the hills, heard their bodies roll through pine needles and into the mud. The rain continued to pour.
“Penitent Strike, Rank 2!” That was the voice of Anton’s cabinmate.
Light dazzled in the corner of Anton’s eye, and when he glanced to look, he saw gold-colored mana pierce a group of dim phantoms. Their faint silhouettes were snuffed instantly. The din of clashing blades followed. A paladin, Anton thought. And I had wondered at the gold color—to think that he was a paladin all along!
The women and Anton hiked a stone-laid path. Below, the caravan guards struggled with the Atilonians. A fire of blue mana whipped wildly in the middle of the road; Anton surmised it was the armored car, destroyed by the fireball. Apart from the bob of white-horned masks and one blue orb, the way ahead looked pitch black.
They’re taking me somewhere, he thought. Like in the folk tales. Somewhere called the Otherworld. I guess I’d be dead without them. I can hardly walk without their guidance, but is this okay with me? To be taken by the king of darkness.
“We’ve got tag-alongs,” Cynthia said.
“Take Eddleston up the hill,” her partner said, “I’ll handle them.”
Cynthia stopped. There was a bright fluctuation in the white of her mask, but it quickly dimmed. He felt a tug on his wrist, and they continued up the hill. Rifle shots rang out behind them, echoed up the hillside.
Minutes later, Anton had run dry. His throat felt tight and he was out of breath. It had been years since he trained daily, he wasn’t up to a steep climb. “Get up!” Cynthia shouted at him, she sounded nothing like the quiet woman he remembered from the cabin. “We have to go, it’s just a little farther up this clearing.
“That oak ahead, it’s enchanted by the Otherworld. You’ll be safe if we can pass through the veil.”
“I can’t walk,” Anton gasped and fell on his knees. “I can’t—I can’t—!”
“What about Jessica?” she asked, grabbed him by his shoulders. “If you die here, how can you protect her?”
Anton’s heart trembled with more than exhaustion. He clutched Cynthia’s wrist. “How do you know about that?” he asked breathlessly.
“Lord Ghost said—”
Cynthia gasped. Anton watched her mask plummet, heard her body slam the dirt. The orb fell from her hand. It bounced off the steps, toward pop of rifle shots, and the gray silhouettes that combed the wood. Anton swallowed; his chest tightened in fear. He blew hot air through his nose and clawed on through the mud and grass.
Anton’s right shoulder juddered. He felt a hot pain and the warmth of blood down his chest. He lost feeling in his right arm, felt it stiffen. He clambered up with left hand, kicked desperately with his legs. I don’t want to die! he yelled inside. I don’t want to die so far from her! He shuddered; his waist bounced forward. Blood ran heavy down his leg.
He collapsed on his knees and fell, his coat was drenched in mud, stuck with grass and bits of pine. Owing to his training, he managed to turn himself onto his back. He kicked with his legs, pushed up with his good hand, and with the last of his effort managed to knock his back against something hard. It felt stiff, but spongy, and it chipped when he hit it.
A tree? Anton wondered. It didn’t matter if it was a tree or not, whatever it was happened to be his last support. His head leaned into his shoulder, chills wracked his legs, and numbness pervaded with the pain.
The gray silhouettes disappeared, and all he saw was darkness.
