Flanked by the four false prison guards, Tarn, Rykin and Erto walked through the lower levels of the Baltoro, their footsteps echoing through the darkened halls. A single torch in the lead man’s hand lit the passage ahead of them, the shadows rendering the scene as if they were passing through one of the ancient ruins from the Wasted Lands of the South.
Tarn had thought he’d seen the inside of his last ruin, but now he was not so sure. With each passing step, the chill in the air grew as the sound of the prison riot faded behind him. He was being led down into these ancient tunnels, apparently toward an engineered escape.
But why?
Either someone wanted him for a job, or they wanted him dead. Yet the four men escorting them were all armed and looked fully capable of the task of killing him if they wanted to. But even if someone wanted him to explore a dark dungeon or retrieve a lost trinket, that hardly explained the bag of strange mystical gems tucked in his cloak.
He had expected his four liberators to further object to Erto and Rykin, but they had said nothing to him about either. In fact, they had said nothing at all. They simply closed the door behind them, reapplying the three layers of bars to the door’s tunnel-facing side.
Erto now walked ahead of Tarn, his head whipping back and forth as he wrung his hands. One of the four men led the way, but Tarn half-expected Erto to shove him aside and simply run for it.
“This is very strange,” Rykin said calmly from behind him. “High Warden Gorford will be receiving an odd report.”
“I doubt that,” the escort to Tarn’s left muttered, his voice like fresh sandpaper. “We’ve got our orders, but in here it will only be our word as to what happened. Keep jawing at us, old man, and all three of you end up dead.”
“I assure you,” came a rumbling voice from the shadows ahead of them. “If anyone is to kill Tarn Arisfal, it is going to be me.”
Tarn’s eyes shot wide with surprise as a tall, dour-looking man walked forward from the darkness. His skin was as night, his tone as deep and foreboding as a summer storm. Yet at the sight of his old companion Urthin, Tarn’s face broke into the broadest grin it had worn in years.
For a moment, his time inside Baltoro melted away. Gone too was the pain of that awful last day, and the incarceration of his team. Inside one single beat of his heart, Tarn was back with a man he had faced death alongside. One of the few people he truly trusted in the world.
Lunging forward, he slapped the tall stoic man on the shoulder, reaching for his hand to pull him into an embrace. Urthin stood stone fast, resisting any effort to draw him closer.
Tarn looked at him in confusion, the smile draining from his face as fast as his joy. When they had last seen each other, Urthin was being led away in chains. Two years had been a long time indeed.
“Smiley?” he said, taking a step back. “I mean - Urthin, I ---” He let the words drain away, searching the man’s face for some clue of his feelings. No chance of that, he reminded himself. Urthin was a member of the Order of the Shattered Stone, with emotions as subtle as the mountains they surrounded themselves with.
It was that very stoicism that inspired the nickname. Back in the old days, his tolerance of being called Smiley had been proof of their friendship.
But those were the old days.
He might still be angry, Tarn thought to himself. Or he might just be Urthin. Who can tell?
Dressed in the same dull brown prison leathers that Tarn himself wore, Urthin was flanked by a pair of men who could have been part of the same family as the quarter that escorted himself and Rykin. It made sense. Urthin had been sentenced to life in prison by Arch Mage Lurim, just as Tarn had. Likely a better fate than the rest of his team.
“Since Tarn doesn’t have the manners to introduce me,” Rykin said with a friendly tone, offering his outstretched hand. “I’ll perform the honors myself. Master Sargent Acthebal Rykin, retired of course.”
Urthin looked at Rykin’s gesture as if both it and the old guard’s broad grin were beyond his understanding. Yet after a moment, he extended his gloved hand, shaking Rykin’s.
“Urthin.” He nodded; a show of respect Tarn recalled he offered few. “A Shard of the Order of the Shattered Stone.”
“Shattered Stone?” Rykin gasped, a mixture of wonder and surprise laced within his words. “The crazed mountain monks?”
At an annoyed grunt from the lead escort with the torch, Tarn began to walk forward again. The group continued its descent deeper into the side of the mountain, marching ever closer to a singular destination but any number of outcomes.
Satisfied with his introduction, Rykin had turned his attention to Erto. The man was fidgeting left and right, like a scared rabbit. The old prison guard was always on the lookout for someone to calm, reassure, and teach. Tarn smiled a bit as Rykin put his arm around Erto, trying to bolster his confidence.
But the warm feeling was fleeting in the cold of their descent. Tarn was bursting with the desire to ask Urthin a thousand questions, yet both the man’s reaction and his appearance gave him pause. The mere fact he was here too meant that whatever was happening, this was about his old team, and not just him. But was it revenge?
“Urthin, how did you get here?” Tarn asked. His mind continued to work on the many problems he wrestled with. He needed answers and information. A moment to think. But all he had was more questions.
“I have been here, on this mountain,” Urthin replied, a blade’s edge to his voice. So, he is still angry. “Just as you have, simply several thousand feet higher. On the northern reaches, farther toward the peak. Every day of the past two years. The men of that prison have ignored me, as I have ignored them. Until today, when these two new guards ushered me out and brought me here. They have since revealed nothing.”
“What he said about killing you, Tarn,” Rykin spoke up, always curious. “Was he kidding?”
“Nope.” Tarn smiled wistfully, recalling how often he and Urthin had discussed this. “He’s quite serious. The Shattered Stone charged him with the task. Seems I stole something … important from them. A few years before I was arrested. The pay was good, and at the time I had no idea it was sacred to the monks.”
“Two of our most treasured texts.” Urthin frowned. “The council sentenced you to thirty years, and I took a vow to carry it out.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tarn couldn’t blame Rykin. The Shattered Stone was tremendously secretive, so much so he had no idea at the time it was the Stone’s remote library he had been hired to pilfer from.
“It’s confusing to outsiders,” Tarn said, favoring the old guard with a smile. “Urthin’s Order believes all people are destined to live seventy years. I was sentenced to lose thirty of mine. They take it off the back end.”
“That is correct,” Urthin said. A hint of warmth came to his voice. “It is my vow and charge to end Tarn Arisfal’s life. I owe this man the honor of being the one to strike the blow and protect him until that time. Tarn and I share a bond forged in battle. That bond can be stretched, almost to the breaking point.”
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Urthin favored Tarn with a look that revealed nothing, but his subtle nod told Tarn all he needed to know.
That bond has not been broken. Tarn could feel the vice around his heart loosening. Whatever else was going to be a mystery today, at least this worry he could put to rest.
“I still don’t understand this, lad.” Rykin sounded incredulous. “This monk has a vow to kill you when you’re forty, and you’re friends with him?”
“What can I say?” Tarn laughed, the sound echoing down the carved stone pathway. “I’m not forty yet.”
They walked along in silence, with their six strange escorts saying nothing. Tarn had long given up any thought of questioning them, as he was sure not one of them had the answers Tarn needed. Just like Erto, they were likely hired separately by whoever was arranging this and kept independent so no one part of the operation knew everything. Odds were they were here under some form of duress as well, just as the poor gem messenger had been. It was the way of things in Lurim’s Realm.
At least their destination was obvious. Every entrance to the deep passages that wound underneath Baltoro prison was kept locked for a reason. Other doors led to cells, prison administration, or in rare cases, medical facilities. But these halls only led to one place.
The Cairn Tundra. A vast flatland ringed by the impassible range of the Iceteeth Mountains, pock-marked by only the fewest hardscrabble settlements of dissidents and refugees. In every way, the tundra was as much a prison as the Baltoro, just one with less food, less shelter, and even less hope.
As the light ahead grew, Tarn’s hopes began to fall. Perhaps this wasn’t about a new task for his team after all. The plan might be to simply take him out here and kill him. He was a high-profile prisoner after all, and well-respected by both the inmates and the guards. He could be killed in the prison, but it would be loud and draw questions.
But an escape attempt, that would be believed. Anyone who spent any time with Tarn knew of his desire to get free, to undo the poor decisions of his past. To free his sister Sinah, and his team.
Yet if these men wanted to kill him – they could easily attempt to do so here. And why is Urthin here? He dismissed the thought as exhaustion and paranoia. The gems, the staged riot, Urthin. It all meant something, he just needed to keep his options open until he determined what.
Study the board, Rykin would say. Don’t make a move until you know what the rules are.
As the likelihood of answers to his questions grew with each step, so did his chances of escape diminish. He eyed the guards’ weapons and checked how they carried themselves. Their hands were loose as their sides, ready and relaxed. Their gaze moved steadily between the growing white light of their destination and Tarn himself.
They were confident veterans and their experience showed in their every movement. They were well-muscled, well-trained, and well… ready for action. That alone made them stand out from any guards of Baltoro. He was unarmed, but with Rykin’s help, he was sure he could take one of them before they could act. Two or three with Urthin’s assistance.
But someone would die, Erto if no one else. Gritting his teeth, he let the idea of resistance go for now. Perhaps outside in the swirling snows of the Cairn Tundra, an opportunity would present itself.
Whatever was going on here clearly involved his old team. A team that had descended into perilous tombs, ancient ruins, and even the Arch Mage’s throne room and come out alive. Maybe it was revenge, or maybe it was a job. But there was one person present who didn’t need to share the consequences of whatever scheme was being planned.
“Rykin,” he muttered back to the old guard. “Head back to the prison. These guys don’t care about you. You don’t need to be here.”
“The hell I don’t,” the old man rasped, indignant. “I don’t know who these lot work for, but sure as the Sky it isn’t High Warden Gorford! The answers I want ain’t going to be up there.”
Rykin let out a sigh, his breath filling the air with mist. His right hand went to the empty space where his left would be, rubbing there as his expression grew darker. The growing wind blew his thinning gray hair across his forehead.
“Besides,” Rykin said through clenched teeth. “I doubt anyone will even notice I’m gone.”
Tarn smiled, feeling a bit of warmth against the growing chill of the cold. In his time at Baltoro, Rykin had become more than a friend. He was someone Tarn trusted, and trust in a place like this was hard to find. It would be good to have the old man with him.
The path continued to twist and descend, as snow began to blow in their faces. The ever-present storms of the Cairn Tundra pushed into the narrow hall, reminding all who might escape through these ancient passages that there was light at the end of this tunnel, but no hope. Winter may be ending in a few months back in the palaces of the capitol, but here the only season was wind and cold.
Peering at the distant opening through the blinding snow, Tarn could make out half a dozen shapes moving back and forth outside. He surmised these were more of the same guards that were escorting him out, which meant good and bad news. Bad news, it was too many enemies for Tarn, Rykin, and Urthin to overcome. Yet the good news was they didn’t need this many guards to kill them, meaning something else was planned.
A howl came across the wind, followed by several more. Artic hounds began to take shape through the blowing snow as he grew closer to the opening, the long profile of a pair of sleds becoming visible.
Tarn paused at the threshold of the tunnel, even as the guards continued their progress into the snow. Giving him a stoic but quizzical look as he passed, Urthin too walked forward. Behind him, Tarn heard Rykin’s boots come to a stop as well.
“S’matter, lad?” he rasped. “Nothing through that door but freedom, and new chances.”
His last moments in the free world came back to him easily. His hand at the Arch Mage’s throat, the great sorcerer’s omnipotent golden scepter on the marble floor of the palace, just out of the Old Bastard’s reach. His sister Sinah frozen in place like a statue, held in stasis by some wizardry of the old man’s.
The Crimson Cadre’s mage battalions surrounded them, their arcane weapons pointed at Urthin and the other members of Tarn’s team. He could recall only murmurs of their captain shouting warnings to Tarn, muffled sounds as if buried under snow.
The words had failed to pierce the noise of his rage. She had been there, captured and displayed in the Arch Mage’s throne room. And it was all Tarn’s fault.
It had seemed a standoff, one wherein the foolish moments of his youth Tarn thought he had leverage. This man, or whatever the Arch Mage was, had ruled the Realm for a thousand years. Now it could end with one push of Tarn’s blade. All he wanted was the release of his sister and his team. Leverage was the true law of the land, and surely the Old Bastard would consider this bargain an equitable one.
“We’ll walk out together,” Tarn had hissed, applying more pressure. He could see Lurim’s pulse throbbing against the dagger’s edge. A thousand years poised to end with just a push. “Once we’re clear of the capitol and outside the shield, Old Bastard, maybe we will release you.”
But it was as Rykin warned him, he had gone to play the game without really knowing the rules. This was the man who had run the Realm for centuries, killing the other Arch Mages one by one until he stood alone, Scythe-staff in his hand, looking across a world reshaped by his own designs.
“Mayhap you can kill me, boy,” Arch Mage Lurim had rasped, his ancient voice filled with confidence. The edges of his ancient eyes crinkled with a smile, murderous joy in his stare. “But not before I freeze her lungs with a thought.”
And at that moment, all of Tarn’s options had been scattered like pieces on a game board. He held the knife a moment longer, staring into Lurim’s bloodshot countenance, looking for a hint that the old man would lose his resolve. All he saw was a gaze like the sun, the look of a man who had constructed each contest he faced with planning and skill to ensure only one outcome. The Arch Mage would always be the winner.
Tarn’s blade clattered to the floor, the sound echoing off the polished marble-like his shattering future. The guard captain rushed forward, arms around Tarn as the rest of his team was taken away. Tarn himself was taken last, the Arch Mage wanting to ensure he saw each of his teammates’ fate before receiving his own. The touch of the golden scepter upon his forehead, forever marked his defeat.
As he slowly marched out of the throne room, hand shackled with a blade at his back, he swore he saw Sinah’s frozen eyes staring back at him. Filled with disappointment.
He had started his two-week journey to the Baltoro prison that night and had never seen any of his team again. Completely defeated, with nothing to show for it other than Lurim’s brand.
Two years inside these walls. Living with his anger, living with his guilt. Ultimately living with the knowledge that he probably deserved to be here, for abandoning Sinah. For rushing in and getting his whole team captured. For playing a game he never bothered to understand.
“I know you’re upset, lad.” Rykin put his good hand on Tarn’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “I know the mistakes you made out there aren’t easy to live with. But the man walking out is different, you listen to me, Tarn. You ain’t the boy who walked in.”
Tarn breathed in deeply, feeling the chill of the arctic air filling his lungs. Rykin was right. He had spent two years thinking about all that had happened, but what mattered once he stepped outside the prison and into the free world again was not what he had done, but what he would do.
“Thank you, old man.” He said to the old guard, as his boots reached the last crumbling bricks of the passageway. Tarn still had no idea what awaited him on the outside, but one thing was certain. This was an opportunity, and in his experience, those were even rarer than hope.
Time to make things right.