Eliska crashed down hard on a frozen block of ice dusted with snow. She immediately started shivering.
She struggled to sit up and pull her cloak around her, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep her warm in this environment.
She landed in the middle of a completely different landscape. She must have fallen through a dozen different Layers.
Now she lay in the middle of what looked like a frozen lake surrounded by wooded mountains. An iron-grey sky blocked out any sunshine overhead.
Yann, Wesh, and the other Watchmen slammed down on the same lake and they all started shivering, too.
“We….have to…..get to …. those trees…..over there…..” Yvan stammered as his lips went numb and blue. “We…..have to….light a fire…..”
Eliska stood up and brushed the snow off her clothes. “You go ahead. I’m leaving.”
Yann started to open his mouth to protest, but she’d already made up her mind. This disaster had gone on long enough.
Wesh distracted everyone by flicking his empty hand at the ice in front of them. Sparks burst from his fingertips and a fire flared up right there on the ice sheet.
The flames instantly created a pocket of warmth around the party.
“Not here!” Yvan snapped. “The fire will melt the ice! We have to get onto land first.”
“The fire won’t melt the ice,” Wesh muttered. “It’s magical fire. Calm down, Watch Commander. We have much bigger problems right now.”
“What problem could possibly be bigger than this?” Vidal asked.
“Those Darklings—they went after us to steal whatever it is the Voyant wants.”
Rien rolled his eyes and groaned. “Not that again!”
“Don’t you see?” Wesh countered. “These aren’t random attacks. They can’t be. They happen too quickly one on top of the other.”
“What are you saying?” Yann asked.
“Did you see the way the Darkness took the gypsies and not you?” Wesh scrambled onto his knees. “The Voyant must have done that. He took possession of them to attack you.”
Yvan and the others exchanged glances. “Are you sure about that?” Yvan asked. “Maybe the Darkness took the gypsies because we’re imps and they’re magic-users.”
“Then why did it take the imp gypsies along with the magic-users? Why did it take them and not me or Eliska? Why do you think Eliska’s attack protected you and not them?” Wesh fumbled for something under his tunic. “I’m telling you this was no random occurrence. Whatever the Voyant wants is here—in this group right here. One of us must have it.”
“This is nuts!” Neils muttered. “None of us is carrying anything.”
“We’ll see about that,” Wesh countered. “I’m going to find it either way. Then we’ll know.”
The others gathered around the fire. Wesh waved his hands in circles in the air again. He released a sheet of magic in front of his eyes and created another window between himself and the Watchmen.
This one didn’t show him any other landscapes. He looked through it at the Watchmen themselves.
The surface morphed and undulated over each person. Wesh widened his hands, took hold of the window from both sides, and moved it up and down in front of each man.
The image wavered with the window’s movement, but it didn’t show him anything except each Watchmen staring back at him.
The window did start to glow a little when Wesh passed it in front of the ring hanging around Barsali’s neck, but the glow faded after only a few seconds.
Wesh must not have thought that glow meant anything. He finally passed the window up and down in front of Yvan.
Wesh wilted, let his hands fall with a shaky sigh, and the window evaporated. “I can’t find it,” he husked. “The Voyant must be concealing it from detection.”
“Unless it doesn’t exist,” Vidal suggested. “Maybe Ando is right and these are just random Darkling attacks.”
“They are not!” Wesh snapped. “I lost my entire party that left the Guardian Temple to protect Middleborough because of this thing! All of you are the only people left from the town. The Darklings wouldn’t be coming after you if one of you didn’t still have it.”
“All the more reason to get as far away from this group as possible,” Eliska interrupted. “Being near this group is suicide. I’m going. You’ll all be fine now.”
“Eliska—wait!” Yvan called after her.
“Don’t try to talk me into staying, Watch Commander,” she replied over her shoulder. “Be grateful I don’t shatter this Island to separate myself from you.”
“You can’t just leave us here!” Rien bellowed after her. “You can’t just leave us to die!”
“I saved your life already, you ungrateful pig,” she snarled. “I got you here to a stable Island—and this isn’t the first time I’ve saved your backsides. Wesh will be able to take you back to the Ancestral Empire. You’ll be fine without me. Don’t worry.”
She walked off into the snow without looking back. All the turmoil of the last two days came to a head and drove her away from the Watch.
The connections she made with them only put her at a disadvantage in the Coil. She couldn’t afford any disadvantage. Staying alive was hard enough.
Wesh’s continued insistence that one of the Watchmen had something or was something that attracted Darkling attacks—that made the decision for her. She couldn’t stay around anyone like that.
She had enough problems of her own without going to look for someone else’s.
She marched off into the snow and channeled her magic into her feet to walk on top of it so she wouldn’t sink into the deep drifts.
She crossed the lake and entered the trees. She walked a long way until she judged she’d gone far enough from the Watch not to make any difference to them.
She stopped under a stand of tall, black pine trees, looked around her in all directions, and planted her staff into the snow at her feet.
She sent a quick burst of magic down the shaft into the ground—just enough to create a hole—not big enough to put the rest of the Island in danger.
The hole opened under her feet and she pitched through it into a different Layer underneath.
She migrated through multiple Layers and landed on her feet in another Island. She came to rest in the middle of a sunbaked grassland with a rustic town not far away.
The land throbbed with heat. A dusty road wound away from her to the town’s outermost houses.
This place looked like a different part of the Ancestral Empire, but she couldn’t be certain—not after the way the Darkness invaded. The Ancestral Empire might not even exist anymore.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
She paused there to check her magical image of the Coil. This was the Ancestral Empire. She and the Watch must not have fallen very far away.
This was the closest Island to the spot where she left the Watch. Wesh would bring the Watch back here as soon as he decided to take them anywhere.
She would just have to avoid meeting up with them. She would leave this Island as soon as possible, but she didn’t need to do it immediately.
Wesh would bring the Watch through somewhere else. Then it would take time before their paths crossed. She had some time to regroup before she left for another Layer somewhere else.
She rummaged in her bag while she headed for the town. She searched for something she could trade for supplies, but she didn’t find anything.
She would just have to take a job or two to earn some money or some other goods to trade. Then she could buy what she needed and move on.
The houses in this town had all been constructed of logs tied together with leather thongs. Even the roofs consisted of logs laid one against the other and plastered with mud.
Eliska didn’t see any forest where the townspeople could have gotten these logs, but what did she know? Maybe they cut down the whole forest to build this town.
Dust covered everything and swirled in the air. She smelled and tasted it the minute she set foot in town.
Everyone in town wore handmade leather clothing in the crudest style.
She passed down the town’s one main street until she spotted two men staggering out of a larger building near the center of town.
This building actually had a few glass windows in the front wall—unlike all the other houses in town. Some of their walls were already starting to fall apart. They barely held up their own roofs.
This building appeared sturdy and well taken care of. She knew too much about the Ancestral Empire not to recognize the building.
The door stood open, so she walked in. Sure enough, tables and chairs filled the downstairs room. A man stood behind a long bar along one wall.
Random people who must have belonged to this town sat around the room. A group of ten Barbarians occupied a table to themselves in the corner.
They were all men, all tall, and powerfully built like the rest of Barbarian kind. They stood out from everyone else in town by being tattooed over most of their bodies. Some of the Barbarians even tattooed their faces.
They were also much better dressed than anyone else around here.
Half of them wore their hair shaved except for spikes of greased hair sticking up from their scalps in a line from the forehead to the back of the neck. It was the classic Barbarian headdress.
The other half of the group either kept their heads completely shaved or they had attached other kinds of spikes and horns to their scalps.
Some of these spikes came from wild animal horns. Others had been fashioned out of bone, wood, or anything else the Barbarians could get their hands on.
The Barbarians darkened their eyes with soot to make themselves look even more menacing than usual.
All the men wore black leather pants constructed much more expertly than anything the townspeople could make.
The Barbarian men also wore studded harnesses around their chests and black leather studded or spiked gauntlets around their wrists and biceps.
All of them decorated their clothes and hair with feathers, strings of beads, drilled coins, or any other ornament. Some wore earrings.
Eliska took one look at them and walked past their table. She knew Barbarians. They had magic-users among their tribesmen, but they relied on brute force to get what they wanted when they wanted it.
None of the Barbarians looked sideways at her. A massive collection of cups crowded the table in front of them. They talked and laughed loudly. Eliska didn’t see anyone else in the tavern talking.
She went to the bar. A man sat on the nearest stool. His clothes announced him as another local.
The man behind the bar looked and dressed as scruffily as everyone else around here besides the Barbarians. The quality and decoration of their outfits made them look downright regal compared to these people.
The barman came over and asked, “What can I do for you?”
Eliska was just making up her mind what to say when the guy sitting there interjected, “Give her one on me.”
“Thank you,” she exclaimed. “I was just about to ask if I could get work to pay for supplies.”
The customer dipped his eyes to the stool next to him. “Sit down. Where did you come from?”
“I’ve just been wandering around in the Coil.” She settled down on the stool and propped her staff against the bar next to her. “I got caught at the edge of the Ancestral Empire. It’s destabilizing from the outside. I’m glad I finally got somewhere solid.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “Is that so? That’s no good.”
“Do you know anywhere around here I could get some work?” she asked. “I need to make some money.”
“That depends. What can you do?”
The barman came back just then and put a rough clay cup in front of her before he left to go do something.
Eliska picked up the cup, sniffed it, and smelled strong, home-fermented grain brew inside it.
She took a gulp. The alcohol fumes rushed to her head.
When she opened her eyes, she discovered the man watching her from the next stool. She took a second to remember that he’d just asked her a question and she hadn’t answered it yet.
She opened her hand on the bar, flicked her fingertips, and projected the revolving image of the Coil in front of the man.
Miniature versions of the Layers collapsed on top of each other. The vapors and shadows swirled and reformed into new landscapes buried in countless Layers of wild magic.
The guy raised his eyebrows again when he saw it and again when she made it disappear. “As a matter of fact, I do know someone who might be looking for someone like you. Stay here. I’ll go tell him you’re here and find out if he’s interested. If he is, I’ll come back and take you over there to introduce you.”
“Thank you,” she repeated. “I really appreciate it.”
He got up, dropped a handful of coins in front of the barman, and left her sitting there alone. Silence descended over the building—or it would have if the Barbarians didn’t talk so loudly.
No one else spoke up. No one wanted to attract the Barbarians’ attention to themselves.
Eliska didn’t turn around. She took another sip of her drink while she waited. Barbarians were everywhere in the Ancestral Empire. Their presence became just another feature of the landscape like bandits and gypsies.
She could handle Barbarians, even a group as big and powerfully built as these men. She didn’t even particularly worry that they might be traveling with a magic user. She’d handled Barbarian magic-users before, too.
They told a bunch of tasteless jokes about how the local women weren’t worth their time and they might have better luck in the next, larger town down the road.
Eliska took her third swig of her drink when their conversation changed.
“The travelers should be coming through any minute now,” a man with a deep booming voice remarked. “We can catch up with them under the poisonwood stand by the Mossword Bridge.”
“Make sure they have some loot this time,” another snarled. “We don’t have time for these penniless wanderers.”
Eliska spread her hand again and let a faint trace of magic flow across her palm. The magical pool widened into a tiny version of Wesh’s shimmering window.
It showed her the scene behind her back so she didn’t have to turn around. She gazed down at the image and watched the Barbarians plan their next raid.
The first man who spoke had the biggest, blackest hair spikes sticking straight up from his scalp. He also wore more jewelry—probably stolen. He must be their leader.
The second speaker was one of the bald ones with wooden spikes sealed to his scalp with some kind of black sap. They formed two rows down either side of his skull instead of one row down the middle.
He wasn’t as big as his leader, but the second was plenty big enough. Eliska probably wouldn’t have come up to his chin.
Them talking about ambushing travelers on the road didn’t shock her. That was the way life worked in the Ancestral Empire.
The Barbarians lived by the law of power. The biggest and the strongest made the decisions and took what they wanted. All Barbarians made their living by marauding the countryside and preying on anyone not strong enough to stop them.
They weren’t the only ones who made their living that way. Plenty of smaller, less organized gangs of bandits did the same thing.
They just didn’t do it as effectively as the Barbarians. The bandits didn’t have a whole society dedicated to training their young men for it from an early age.
Centuries of Barbarian women marrying the biggest and the strongest made all their fighting men the biggest and the strongest. Eliska couldn’t fault them for that.
Their next words made her freeze with her cup halfway to her mouth.
“We’re doing this for pay, not for loot,” the first Barbarian told the others. “We can get loot anytime.”
“We better be careful around them,” a third man replied. “The Black Watch is known for the bravery of the Watchmen. We can expect them to fight back. They won’t lie down and let us take what we want like that gaggle of hens last week.”
“To hell with the Black Watch,” the first snapped. “We have a job to do. If any of them are still alive after we return the item to the client, we can go back and finish off the Watch later.”
“We’ll have to,” the third went on. “We can’t have the Black Watch running around the Ancestral Empire. They’d ruin everything.”
“It doesn’t matter,” the first countered. “We’re getting that item no matter what the Watch does.”
Eliska put her cup down without finishing the rest of her drink. So the Barbarians were going after the item now—and not because they knew what it was or because it was so valuable.
Someone paid them to go after it.
She’d never heard of the Barbarians taking a job for pay like this, but why not? Loot was loot regardless of where it came from.
Like they said, they could return whatever it was to the Voyant, get paid, and then go back and loot the Watch for anything of value.
Barsali’s ring flashed before her eyes. No way could she stand by and let the Barbarians take that.
They would probably kill Barsali while they were at it. He sure as hell wouldn’t give it up without a fight.
What else were the Black Watchmen carrying that the Barbarians would find valuable?
She didn’t even have to ask. Yann was with them. Wesh was with them. Barsali and Yvan were with them.
What the holy hell was she thinking walking away and leaving them like that? Each of them was worth a thousand times more than that ring.
Yvan would die fighting before he let anyone lay a finger on Yann. They all would.
Each of them treated him like their own son—because none of them had sons of their own. He was all they had and they were all he had.
She stood up, considered for a split second if she should down the rest of her drink, decided against it, grabbed her staff, and walked out of the building without a word to anyone.
End of Chapter 13.