The Fifth Star - Chapter 6 (2/2) - Out of Time

“What I'm doing,” Darius said slowly, as if explaining the situation to a child, “is freeing myself of you.” He strode casually to the door and used the key he'd taken earlier to lock it from the inside before Harlemont got it in his head to make a run for it, then slipped it into an inner pocket. With that assurance of the lord's continued presence, Darius reached under his clothing and retrieved the outfit he'd brought for Sparrow – he was glad he had the foresight to bring the garments for her dress was reduced to nothing, laying scattered in pieces on the floor. He passed them to her with a kind smile he hoped would help allay her fears, and she took them with plain gratitude for her hands were not doing a upstanding job of hiding her nudity.

Harlemont's mouth gaped open and closed like that of a fish; he was totally dumbfounded. Then he regained a moment of confidence as he remembered how to use the compulsions that all magi under his power were supposed to be under the influence of. He stood straighter and barked a sharp order, “Darius, I command you to surrender!”

Had he been any other mage in this castle, or some of the more headstrong members of the Valterian army that had the same magic applied to them, his statement would have been enough. The magic would have done the rest, forced him to do exactly as the order demanded, for to fight a compulsion was to feel unexplainable agony in payment for every second one denied its influence. But he was no longer a prisoner of such spells, and the words passed over him with no effect. Darius couldn't help the gloating smirk that rose to his lips.

“That's not going to do you any good here,” he told him, “I've not been a slave to you for many, many moons now.”

“But…” Harlemont's brow was deeply furrowed, his concern for his own well-being temporarily put aside as he tried to comprehend Darius's words, “But that's not possible. No one has ever broken the compulsions.”

“Until now,” Darius stated plainly.

“But – how?” Harlemont persisted.

Darius snorted derisively. “And why would I tell you that? So you can safeguard against such a threat to your power in the future?” He shook his head slowly. “I do believe I'll keep that secret.”

The lord saw he was clearly getting nowhere with his line of questioning, and it seemed he recalled the urgency of his immediate situation as his eyes danced between the momentarily forgotten corpse of the guard and his killer. “So what is it you want from me?” he asked scornfully, “Gold? Land? A title? Name your price, traitor.”

“I wouldn't be so quick to throw about insults,” Darius suggested as he slid the dagger's twin from the sheath on his other hip, stepping slowly toward where Harlemont had backed himself up against the wall, “You call me a traitor, but have you ever paused in your garish lifestyle to consider that it is you who has committed treason? Only yours is against your people, and without your citizens, what are you really? What remains but a man, as mortal and fallible as the rest?”

To Darius's surprise, Harlemont laughed at the last. “Oh, you have no idea who I am. How about this,” he stood a little straighter, armed with the recollection of some undisclosed knowledge that seemed to have reignited his confidence, “Kill me, and you will know more suffering than you ever thought possible. All the strength of the Empire will come down on you like an unassailable storm, and you will have no means of escaping it. Your death will be neither swift nor painless in the end, I can say for a surety.”

Darius stepped closer to Harlemont; so close he could feel the lord's rapid and shallow breaths rustling the stray hairs by his face. He brought the dagger up between them, and Harlemont's eyes widened at the sight of the sharpened edge so near to his person. “I don't think you're in much of a position to be making threats,” he growled.

A small sound came from the vicinity of the door and Darius turned to see Sparrow walking over towards them, now fully dressed in the black garments that were far too large for her, legs and sleeves rolled high to accomodate the difference. It would have almost been comical, were the situation at hand not so dire. She stopped to stand calmly near Darius, having apparently recovered quickly from the shock of watching a man killed before her. “Has he ever been punished for his actions though?” she asked pointedly, “Has anyone ever told him that what he does is wrong?”

“I don't know,” Darius shook his head, “but I doubt it. It would likely cost them their head if they tried.” He laid the cold edge against Harlemont's smooth skin, just beside his eye. He did wonder about Harlemont's threat of retaliation, however. Is that simply due to his position as a city's lord, or is there something more to this? The question gave him pause – no matter how badly he wanted the satisfaction of taking Harlemont's life, he was not an irrational man. He would need to think on this.

“Stay your hand, Darius,” Sparrow pleaded, quite to his astonishment, “Do we execute a thief on their first offence, or release him with a punishment? If you kill him, you know you will be no better than him.”

Darius reluctantly acknowledged she was right. Still, he couldn't do nothing; especially not with the fresh pain of learning what had happened to Kierton, and how Harlemont had managed to keep it concealed from him. Would he ever have told him, or would he have left his assassin indefinitely oblivious to the loss of his home and everyone who had ever known him before?

Though it was admittedly cruel, Darius couldn't let all this man's affronts pass unchallenged. He pressed the blade against his flesh until a hiss of pain escaped Harlemont's lips and the first drops of blood oozed from the cut he'd made. But the fear of a more serious injury wasn't all he wanted to leave him with, as much as the lord now trembled and winced. He applied more pressure, digging past the surface layers into the muscle, and in one expedient motion he sliced downwards, splitting open a deep gash on the right side of his face to match the one he had given Darius years before. Harlemont's self-control cracked and he screamed wordlessly, falling to his knees and clinging to the ruin of his cheek. Darius fully knew when the Healers got a hold of him, the damage would be repaired so well it would be as if naught had happened to it at all – but at least now he knew what it was to feel as powerless as he made others, to be completely at another's mercy, if he bothered to take the lesson to heart. Somehow he didn't believe he would. He looked down at the pitiful man wailing on the floor and addressed him, “Let that be your warning. Look to yourself Harlemont, and change your ways. Or someday, I swear to you now; I'll be back to finish this. Don't waste the mercy I have given you.”

Darius was surprised at the calm he'd managed to maintain, and he mentally congratulated himself for not losing control. It was no mean feat, considering all he'd done. The lord continued to scream as if he'd never before suffered an injury. But maybe he hadn't, Darius considered, for who would dare to raise a hand against Lothan's ruler, even as unknown as his origins were? He put it aside, and he turned to Sparrow, whose face was cold and indifferent to the display she had just been a witness to.

“Are you ready to leave this place?” he asked her.

She smiled broadly in response, and it lightened his heart to see it. He held out an arm to her, and she took it as one would to be led into some grand ball, but it lacked the inherent elegance – she clung close to him for protection, not as a show, and he could feel her tense muscles against his side. Together they made for the door, but the sound of the key turning in the lock finally captured Harlemont's attention.

“You can't just leave me in here!” he protested, and Darius thought how like a petulant child he sounded.

“Watch me,” he answered as he opened the door to allow Sparrow through, before following behind and slamming the door in their wake. He locked it again from the outside and returned the key to his pocket. Once the events of tonight had been discovered, the guards would need to go searching for a second key to fit the lock. Anything to buy them time.

“The next part will be tricky,” he started once they entered the prison area beyond. “I haven’t had to cast full invisibility on someone other than myself since I was a trainee in the College. It will drain aethris quickly, so once I cast it on you we need to be out of here as fast as we’re able. I’ll stay visible. There’s a door towards the stables; we’ll go there and acquire a horse. It should be well ready by now.”

“Okay,” she replied, chewing on her lip.

“OY!” came a holler from further inside the dungeon, “Shut up yer racket out there, ye bastards! I be tryin’ to sleep!”

“Now’s as good a time as any,” Darius whispered. “Let’s go.” He closed his eyes, focused on casting his illusion, calling on his aethris and weaving it over her with expert precision until the task was complete. When he opened his eyes once more, Sparrow was gone.

The march through the castle towards the doors that led to the yard was an unnerving one, to say the least. Darius had no trouble keeping Sparrow’s location; the illusion he’d cast over her was draining his aethris quickly and it was impossible to ignore the pull. The issue came from the fact that the more aethris the spell used, the more physically fatigued he became and the less capable he was to monitor their surroundings. The castle itself was expansive, and it took several minutes before they arrived at the door. By the time they got there, Darius was nearly exhausted, and he leaned against the wall on shaking legs.

Sparrow’s disembodied voice whispered close to his ear, “Are you okay? Are you sure you can do this?”

Darius sighed then pushed himself off the wall with a reluctant groan. “I haven’t much choice. Let’s get you out of here before I collapse.”

She said nothing else but he felt her fall in line behind him at the doorway. As he opened it, he said aloud, “If I falter, get yourself out of here before they can catch you. Do not stop for me, no matter what. I’d hate for all this to be for naught. Understood?”

“Yes,” came the quiet response, and he stepped over the threshold into the crisp autumn air. They crossed the yard, Darius’s vision beginning to blur at the edges, until they were inside the stable where the boy was alert this time and waiting for him, a horse geared and ready at his side.

His heart was beating slowly, laboriously, his head swimming as he fought to maintain control of the spell that would soon threaten to suck the last of his life from him in a very literal sense. Can’t think about that right now, he thought, and he acutely directed his focus, ignoring all else around him but the thread of magic that extended from him to her. She stood close, and for that he was thankful- the more distance there was to the target, the more aethris was consumed. So many things to teach her, if we both survive.

The horse itself looked healthy enough, clear skin and eyes, if a somewhat small frame for carrying two people. The boy wouldn’t have known that though, and the mount would surely be faster than many of the warhorse brutes that dominated the royal stables.

With a heartfelt thanks, Darius moved towards the horse and went to pull himself up onto its back. When he got there however, his body had decided it had had more than enough work for one night. He got his foot into the stirrup, but could not muster the strength to throw himself over the horse’s back the rest of the way. The stableboy saw this and moved quickly forward to help. The only issue with this was, Sparrow had been standing with her back to the boy in his line of movement, because he crashed into something invisible and fell to the ground. His head hit first and he knocked himself into an apparent daze, making no move to rise from the dirt.

Sparrow’s invisible form pushed against him until he was seated in the saddle, and then he felt her mount behind him, her arms tight about his waist though he couldn’t see them. With a crack of the reins they were off, barreling full-speed down the path that would take them out of the castle walls on the northern side of Lothan. Darius passed the guards stationed there with hardly a delay; he left often enough on unnamed errands in the black of night that they didn’t even bother to question him, only stopping him long enough to identify him before opening the gates for his passage.

As he passed underneath the walls, he felt his aethris falter for a moment, a hiccup in the flow that kept her hidden, immediately followed by the surprised holler of one of the guards who’d just allowed him through.

“Stop!” the yell came from behind him. Darius did no such thing, but squeezed the horse insistently and she took off into the forest, leaving the guards far in their wake. Once they were out of view over a hill, he severed the spell’s connection without hesitation and lay forward in the saddle with his eyes closed, all his strength long gone.

He heard Sparrow talking to him but the words were fuzzy and distant, none coalescing into a sentence he could understand. By the frantic tone, he judged she was panicking, asking him if they should stop. “Keep… riding…” he mumbled, lips numb and unresponsive. He wasn’t sure if she understood, but the horse kept moving, and he slipped into unconsciousness thoroughly against his will but well beyond his power to stop.