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Athanor
53. The Burning City: Sanctuary

53. The Burning City: Sanctuary

Sa glyph [https://i.imgur.com/plK5EWM.png]

Sam clapped and chanted: ‘Five, five, nine, nine.’

‘Nine, nine.’ Baily hesitated. ‘Six—no—‘

‘Hah. You lose,’ Sam crowed.

The eight other players in the circle groaned. Baily scowled. ‘Did not.’

‘Sam’s too good at this. He always wins,’ Ellise said. ‘Let’s play something different.’ She turned to him. ‘What games do you like?’

The green robe they’d made Sam wear itched, and it smelled funny. He scratched himself, thinking back to long sunny days in Sark, running and fighting with his friends. ‘Well, uh… tag, I guess.’ The cavern’s dark depths and twisted rock formations didn’t really suit running. He was restless, though, and bored of stupid clapping games. All he wanted was to go home. Several times he’d tried sneaking off, but Ellise or Baily or Paet were always around to stop him. It was becoming annoying. ‘Hide and seek?’

She wasn’t listening. Along with everyone else, she stared at the cavern entrance, where a group of green-clad Seekers surrounded a man in a white robe. ‘Look, the Master’s here.’

The whole group jumped to their feet. Across the cavern, the babble of games and songs broke off as everyone rushed toward the Master. Sam bobbed among the crowd, trying to get a good view. From what he could see, the white-robed man didn’t look remarkable. He was a youngish sort of old, with wavy chestnut-brown hair and a pleasant enough face.

The Master climbed onto a rock pulpit. A few of the older boys, including Paet, stood near him, holding lamps. The light haloed him in a misty glow.

He raised his hands and breathless silence descended. ‘My children.’ His voice was warm and mellow. ‘My beloved fellow seekers, these are dark times. The forces of evil are unleashed in the world. Monsters walk the streets. Violent men shed the blood of the innocent. The end of days is coming, when the Earth will be destroyed.

‘Here, in this haven deep underground, there is safety, safety for all the innocent, all the pure of heart. But safety is not enough. We must rise, my children, and fight the darkness in the name of light.’

Hair prickled at the back of Sam’s neck. Beside him, Ellise leaned forward, her mouth slightly open.

‘It is time for one of you to step forward, to join the chosen. One brave soul will ascend to join the Legion of Light, to defend the world against the terrors to come.’

A rustle ran through the crowd. All straightened beneath the Master’s gaze, as if trying to catch his eye.

‘Brother Mikael,’ the Master said. ‘Come forth, and rejoice.’

A boy near the front stepped forward. He was tall and gangly, older than Sam, but not by many years. His neighbours patted his back and urged him forward as he stumbled to kneel before the Master.

The Master descended from his perch. He put his arm round Mikael’s shoulders, and shepherded by the group of older boys, led him away. As they passed through the crowd, everyone reached out to pat Mikael and congratulate him, like he’d just won a race.

‘Where are they taking him?’ Sam asked.

‘For the Rites of Ascension,’ Ellise said.

The Master, Mikael, and his cadre of followers headed into the further reaches of the cavern. The rest of the Seekers wandered back to their games, chatting and laughing.

‘What’s ascension?’ Sam asked.

‘The Master will endow him with great powers, so he can be a mighty warrior and fight at the Master’s side when the Burning Times come.’

Sam frowned. From the little he knew of magic, he doubted transforming a skinny teenage boy into a mighty warrior would be a good thing. Besides, the city already had plenty of warriors. The whole of House Phylaxes to begin with.

Yet Ellise seemed perfectly serious, and the others smiled and nodded along. Strange.

Si glyph [https://i.imgur.com/mHhTdaF.png]

Simon paced his cell. As cells go, he supposed it was not uncomfortable. He had a bed with a mattress, and a blanket — though it was so warm at this depth, he didn’t need it. He had light from the lamp outside. The food was decent and the Wardens had even brought him a book to read.

It was still a prison. Stone walls do not a prison make… He had to laugh at that irony. The Wardens weren’t fools. His cell was lined with timber, the door was timber, everything inside was wood, with not so much as an iron nail. And of course, they had taken his glove with the steel fingers, and his own clothes, and replaced them with the grey garments of a Warden. They had left him nothing of metal.

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Last night, lying sleepless on his bunk, he’d relived the long walk down into the prison: the seven iron doors, locked, barred, and guarded by masked Wardens; the circling, corkscrew path that led ever downward to the burning heart of the mountain; the empty cells lining the walls; the silence.

He had no fellow prisoners that he knew of. Once in the night something howled below him — though that might have been a dream. Otherwise, the silence was so deep he feared he would go mad.

The Wardens spoke to him when they brought food, and were not unkind. He read—the book was a dry, long-winded history of the Order, but it passed the time—and paced, and worried, and thought a great deal, and tried to be patient, and worried again.

Far above came the echoing clang of the prison door closing. Simon peered through the barred window in the door, listening to the tramp of footsteps descending toward him. Two people, he thought.

First into view was a masked Warden, a man by his height and shape. A pace behind him came a tall woman wearing a Phylaxes red cloak over black armour. Riga. He hardly recognised her. Her head was shaved and she was painfully gaunt, every bone stark through her skin. Where she’d been scalded, her face looked waxy.

She looked in at him through the bars, and the hatred in her gaze hadn’t changed. ‘Simon. What a pleasure to see you again.’

‘It isn’t mutual. I rather hoped you were dead.’

Her grin was lop-sided, half her face strangely immobile. ‘Get him out.’

The Warden replaced her at the door.

‘What’s going on?’ Simon asked.

‘You’re to be handed to the Oryche,’ the Warden said. ‘Commander’s orders.’

‘Wait.’ Simon retreated from the door as it was opened. ‘I’m not guilty. Let me speak to your commander.’

The Warden shrugged. ‘Sorry, not an option. Walk or be dragged, up to you.’

‘Let me deal with him,’ Riga said.

‘No.’ The Warden entered the cell, his head brushing the door lintel. ‘He’s our responsibility until he leaves.’

Simon stepped back again, and ran into the bunk. ‘I’m going nowhere.’ He grabbed the book he’d been reading. ‘I request sanctuary. Any citizen in fear of their life can request sanctuary from the Wardens of Holywell.’

The Warden stopped. ‘Not to escape justice.’

Simon waved the book. ‘Even so. Sanctuary has often been granted to citizens unjustly accused of crimes. Where genuine doubt of guilt is established—’

‘What is this?’ Riga said.

Simon sat on the bunk. ‘Ask the commander.’

The Warden backed out of the cell. He swung the door closed; Simon heard the firm clunk of the bar slotting into place.

‘You spineless turd-bag.’ Riga seized the bars. Her knuckles went white. ‘Don’t think you can weasel out of this. When I get my hands on you, I’m going to gut you. Slowly.’

Simon crossed his arms. ‘You should get yourself a hobby, Riga. Something soothing, like watercolour painting.’ There was a black mark on her right forearm: an Oryche labyrinth. ‘Is that a tattoo? Light, what happened to Phylaxes pride? Does Eranon own you, like a dog?’

She growled. ‘Speak of him with proper respect, or I’ll—’

‘He does, doesn’t he? Body and soul. You poor, sick, twisted wretch.’

Riga wrenched at the bars. One of the two-inch-thick timbers broke with a sharp crack, leaving a jagged stump.

Simon stared in shock. The Warden shoved Riga away from the door. He inspected the damage, his eyes a dark gleam through the slot in his mask. Simon stayed firmly seated on his bunk. With or without bars, the window in the door was smaller than his head. He wasn’t about to escape that way, even if he wanted to.

Riga sneered over the guard’s shoulder. ‘Where’s the codex? Give it up, and maybe you’ll live.’

‘I don’t know where it is, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’

She snorted. ‘Enjoy your cell. You don’t have long. I’m coming back for you, and then you die. You and the Numisma bitch.’

Sa glyph [https://i.imgur.com/plK5EWM.png]

Ellise and Baily and the others bickered about what game to play. Sam half-listened; much more interesting thoughts occupied his mind. All their games were stupid and boring, anyway.

‘Do you see these mighty warriors?’ he asked. ‘After they’re ascended?’

The others broke off their discussion to stare at him. ‘Of course not,’ Ellise said. ‘They go aboveground, and train to fight, and do important stuff.’

‘And never visit you? You don’t think that’s odd?’

Baily scowled. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing.’ Sam shrugged. ‘I’d just like to see them. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Some of us,’ Baily said, ‘have been here a long time. The Master tells us all we need to know. Try listening and you may learn something.’

‘Yeah?’ Sam scrambled to his feet.

Baily met him, nose to nose, fists bunched. ‘You want to fight, do you?’

‘Boys,’ Ellise said. ‘You’re being stupid. Baily, Sam’s new. We should be nice to him.’

Sam grinned. ‘Yeah, you heard her Baily. Be nice.’

Baily swung at him. Sam dodged and hammered his fist into Baily’s gut, and then the two of them were rolling on the stony ground. Baily flailed and kicked, and Sam got in a few good punches.

Hands seized his arms and hauled him back. Valla and Grathan restrained him; Twig and Ellise had Baily. Sam licked his lip. It hurt and tasted bloody. Opposite him, Baily pinched his nose, trying to stem the blood trickling from his nostrils.

‘Fighting is wrong,’ Ellise said. ‘You know that, Baily.’

Baily shook off his supporters, and with a parting glare at Sam, stalked away toward the washroom. What they called the washroom, anyway, which wasn’t a room at all, just a smelly hole in the rock and a bucket of fairly clean water.

Ellise turned to Sam. ‘Are you hurt?’

He smiled and squared his shoulders. ‘I would have beat him.’

‘The Master says violence without reason is evil.’

‘Oh?’ Sam couldn’t see it. The little scuffle had been fun. Baily had wanted to fight as much as he had, so why shouldn’t they? No one was seriously hurt. Baily would nurse his nosebleed, maybe cry a bit, the big baby, and he’d be fine.

‘You were to blame too,’ Ellise said. ‘You should apologise and make up with him.’

Sam thought not. Baily didn’t like him and he didn’t like Baily. He especially didn’t like the way Baily was always close to Ellise and always watching her. Baily sulking in the washroom was a big improvement on Baily hovering round Ellise, being annoying.

The last person he wanted to apologise to was Baily, but the thought of Baily alone in the washroom did spark an idea.

‘You’re right,’ he said, with his best attempt at remorse. ‘It was my fault. I’ll go find him.’ And before anyone could stop him, he strode away, headed for the washroom.