Chapter 5: A SPARK OF HOPE

The boy led me down an alley between two buildings made of rough stone brick, their seams filled with mud. The alley ended where a third building stood and splitting the alley into two darker, narrow passages.

The boy took the left passage for a dozen feet until it turned out of sight of the outer streets, where he stopped. Worry wrinkled his forehead as he glanced around.

While I’d witnessed prejudice and hatred leveled against users of the Way in other places, this boy’s fear suggested a different level of paranoia. If he was part of whatever meager resistance existed here, he could be imprisoned for helping me. Or killed.

After a moment’s pause, the boy removed a wooden panel in one of the walls and motioned for me to enter the tunnel. The narrow space had a low ceiling, forcing me to crouch down as I crawled in. Pain flared in my side, and I took a deep breath while stars flashed across my vision.

Don’t pass out now, I told myself, feeling the edges of my view darken. I focused on breathing and trying to stay awake.

The boy slipped inside the tunnel behind me, replaced the panel, and crouch-walked into the darkness ahead. I couldn’t see him clearly but managed to follow his silhouette — a shadow moving into the dark. Anywhere else, trusting someone so blindly would have been a genuinely bad idea, but today, I didn’t have the luxury of time.

As we walked, my side brushed against the wall, pain igniting in the wound. I groaned involuntarily, stifling the sound as much as I could. I gently shifted my pouch to the other side to avoid rubbing against the injury.

After shuffling ahead for several paces, my eyes began to adjust. Through cracks in the walls and floorboards, I saw faint trickles of light filtering into the tunnel, illuminating the path.

A few paces ahead, the boy knelt down and lifted a square plank of wood from the dirt floor. He set it aside and stepped down into a dark hole in the ground, gesturing for me to follow.

Then his head disappeared.

A shiver of nerves ran up my spine as I stepped toward the dark opening, looking down. This was truly a last resort; stepping into an unknown hole and following a total stranger, especially in a place like Vale, was a gamble, but feeling how I did right now, I might be dead in a couple of days anyway.

Steeling my nerves, I inhaled, the air heavy with the smells of urine, dirt, and sweat. Shifting painfully, I sat and swung my legs down into the hole with a grunt, blindly searching for a foothold. I found a step set into the dirt wall, placed my foot, and climbed down into the darkness, my heart pounding, the wound throbbing.

I looked up and flinched at the sight of a pair of glittering eyes above me. Another boy knelt in the tunnel over my head, holding a plank ready to close off the hole.

A lookout, I thought.

As the second boy placed the plank over my head, darkness closed in, and I continued descending. Panic rose in my chest, but I swallowed hard, pushing it down.

Finally, one of my legs brushed against something below, and I stepped down onto a floor. I heard someone moving in the dark and turned around to face an opening behind me.

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A candle flickered to life, forcing me to squint against the sudden brightness.

I found myself in a room with dirt walls, a dirt floor, and a dirt ceiling propped up by rough wooden pillars, and a couple simple crossbeams.

In some cities, this would be a cellar, a storage cave carved into the earth to escape the desert heat — a place for storing bags of rice, beans, grain, or whatever else could be preserved for the future. In other places, it might serve as a holding cell, a prison, or worse.

The boy stood before me, his curious eyes shining in his dirty face. He looked considerably less anxious now.

In the back corner, a large man stood wearing a black hat and a leather vest, staring at me with a knife held ominously in his hand. Was there a hint of a smile on his lips? Perhaps he relished the idea of using that knife.

At a desk in the middle of the room sat another man, hands clasped thoughtfully, his beard a little more trim and glasses framed his face. He wore a buttoned, collared shirt of a higher quality when compared to everyone else I’d seen here. This man looked pensive but unsure as he regarded me.

Sparse wooden furniture filled the earthen room — a desk, a bed, a table, and several crude chairs. Clearly, these items had been brought down in pieces and assembled here, as they were too large to fit through the hole or narrow crawlspace above.

I noticed a wooden plank covering a door-sized exit in the back wall behind the desk. A potential escape route? A storage room? Another tunnel? If so, where did it lead?

The man sitting at the desk cleared his throat and looked me in the eyes. “Who are you?” he grumbled. “We heard there’s a mage in town showing off. Is that you?”

I studied the bearded man and then glanced at the one with the knife. This could go any number of ways, and though I had been in similar situations many times before, these kinds of confrontations rarely ended well. Though I could barely keep my eyes open now, the pain flaring, I slid a piece of simple rock from my pockets into each hand, just in case.

“And if I am him, what then?” I asked carefully.

“Listen, old man, I’m not your papa,” the man at the desk replied, looking down at his hands. “I didn’t make you come down here, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be you if you are that mage. Not in Vale, of all places. That little trick you pulled at The Tall Drink could get you killed. I’ve seen a dozen mages hung at the gates for much less. Now, from what we hear, the whole city is out hunting for you, but I found you first. So, assuming you are him, we need to talk.”

“Well then, I am he,” I replied, summoning as much bravado as I could. “Who are you, and what do you want with a mage of the old ways?”

“I’m Dirk, and I’m in need of a favor,” he replied. “As far as Vale is concerned, I’m a tailor working in my simple shop here in the city. But I collaborate with others who wish to see the old ways, as you say, The Way of the Mark, return to its former place.”

I nodded as a wash of relief hit me. The resistance.

“Why don’t we trade a favor for a favor?” I suggested, knowing that barter systems likely worked the same here as everywhere else.

Dirk nodded.

“My son…” He paused, glaring at me with searching eyes. Taking a deep breath, he continued, “My son is a prisoner somewhere in Vale. I need your help to get him back.”

I considered this opening. This was more than a simple favor to start with, Dirk must be desperate. These men were certainly part of some resistance, and rescuing his son was not only illegal, but probably impossible for most.

“Why is he in prison in the first place?” I asked.

“Same reason you might be dead in an hour and hanging from the walls,” Dirk replied, causing my breath to catch.

Could it be?

“He’s a mage?” I asked, and Dirk nodded. “Is he still alive?”

“I believe he is alive,” Dirk replied. “They took him a week ago because he was seeking to learn The Way. After his own master was killed some months ago, my son was the only one left in Vale.”

My initial spark of hope faded. He wasn’t likely to be alive.

“Can you help?” Dirk asked again, and now I could see the desperation in his voice, just a bit.

“Perhaps,” I said, staggering slightly.

“Are you alright, mage?”

I pulled back my duster, noticing the large man with the knife tense up, raising his weapon.

“Peace, man. I just want you to see something,” I said, gesturing to the blood-soaked blanket wrapped around my midsection. “You see that I am injured.”

Dirk’s eyes widened.

“You’re the first new mage we’ve seen in many years,” Dirk sputtered, standing up and looking to the other man. “Summon the healer.”

The man with the knife nodded and darted through the exit in the back of the room. Meanwhile, the boy guided me to the bed to lie down.

I closed my eyes and exhaustion moved through me immediately. Moments before I passed out completely, I heard a woman’s voice in the small room.

By then, everything had gone dark.