"Did Voz send you to the spirits?" asked the doc.

"And I came back, yes." Arlen concentrated and the basic spell sprang up quickly from his fingers, to his delight. Droplets condensed from the air and swirled into a small ball. "Which has also let me begun training to fight with this."

The doc started to speak, but a spearman came to visit, checking in on the group. "Four in the hut, fine. But you, Arlen, you're supposed to be back at home."

"I was just talking about magic training," Arlen said, showing off the spell he still held.

"All right. But the chief says you're to spend the night at home."

Nobody argued. Arlen went along, and he sat in his hut with a different guard who'd been assigned to keep him company. Arlen kept quiet and occupied himself with magic practice.

Over an hour later, leaves rustled. Arlen looked up from his work, done by moonlight and the chilly glow of spells. The guard had wandered off and a man from the Opaline group peeked in. The man whispered, "Do you want to leave?"

Arlen opened his jaw but found no words. To stay meant being a court slave to a tyrant... or put another way, a favored member of that court and an in-law of the royal family. To be conscripted to build weapons to dominate the region, but also to lift a small nation centuries ahead in technology. To be a well-funded builder and teacher wearing a yoke and living near hostages.

To leave meant... what? Betraying a chief who'd offered him a good life in a gilded cage. (And he hadn't even dated that third lady yet.) Siding with Opaline in a conflict he poorly understood.

The man waiting for an answer said, "If you do, then run when you hear a bird call." He was gone. The guard returned moments later, yawning.

Arlen sat with his head on his hands. Some amount of what Thoko was doing, Arlen could overlook as the price of progress, or innocent mistakes. But there were too many marks of a tyrant about him. If Arlen could have his own freedom, he could contribute to the islanders' future without one man getting to dominate how his ideas got used.

When a screech came from what could've been a jungle parrot, Arlen tried to slip out past the lazy guard. He got a few paces downhill and heard the man call out, "Hey!" behind him.

Arlen panicked and started running. The guard chased him, hesitated and looked around, then followed again. Arlen fled toward the beach. His boots pounded on dirt. Shadows stretched across his path and he stumbled into a tree. His pursuer caught up. Arlen recovered and lashed out with a punch that flashed blue-white and struck from several paces away. He was off again. Down to the beach where people were sleeping. The one who'd been following him wasn't in sight, but another group had just reached the beach and was rushing to launch a boat. That was Arlen's ride! His lungs burned as he ran.

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The group he'd thought was working together, was fighting. Two of them were Thoko's guards, brawling for control. One of the fleeing party carried a bawling little kid over his shoulder and could hardly fight while doing that. Arlen sucker-punched a guard and tried to kick the other, which only got his attention. Good enough! The boat started moving. Arlen got grabbed and spun around. A fist struck him in the chin. He reeled. As he'd been taught, he twisted and did an expert counterattack in his head, but in reality he fell over and the guard landed on him. They flailed at each other on the wet sand. Thoko's man reached for his spear. Arlen used the distraction to squirm aside, kick him, and hop toward the boat.

Another guy had a knife. The boatmen had oars and somebody jabbed at him. Arlen barely dodged their blows. He shoved the boat toward the sea and got in. But his attacker kept coming, driving a spear at him. Arlen got nicked on the arm and he kicked back desperately. A second stab missed by inches.

The guards were arguing now. "Forget it! Get more guys!" People in nearby huts had started to hear the muffled fight and peek out.

One of the men was still trying to get Arlen in particular. A timely oar thrust barely saved him from a blow to the spine. Arlen sat up and did another icy punch that made the spearman step back to dodge. Their boat was in waist-deep water now, approaching the stone breakwater by the spirit cave. The persistent guy took out a knife, threw aside his spear, and began swimming after them. Like all his kind he was good at it, thrashing his rudder tail side to side. All he had to do was delay the escape for a few minutes.

Arlen put his hands in the water and tried that current spell again. He felt the water churn and flow past him. Their boat swerved away from the breakwater, where a woman was approaching. The sail caught the wind and they picked up speed. People shouted from the shore.

A hand grabbed for Arlen. He yanked his own arms out at the last second. The swimming guard grabbed the boat and came up for air, shouting, "Stop, now!" Arlen kicked him in the face. A rower whacked his hand. Then he was down again but not out. In the distance men were readying a second boat to follow them. Arlen risked trying magic again in the water, propelling them onward. The rest of the group was rowing, but for the terrified toddler and the doctor, who was holding up a gemstone pendant and making wind whip and whistle through it. A natural evening breeze blew out to sea and they rode that as hard as they could.

They were all exhausted now. Arlen was strained in some magical sense he didn't understand, like a chill in all his muscles. "Can they catch us?"

The swimmer had given up and retreated to the breakwater. The pursuing boat was visible in the distance but the island had faded into the night. The doc said, "Doubt they'll be any faster; we picked a good boat. Might shoot at us. If they do, we've got this." He nudged a bow and quiver that someone had snuck aboard.

Arlen stretched, then traded places with one of the oarsmen to use his actual muscles. "Thank you."

The doc frowned. "You weren't our main goal. Thought it'd be worth fetching you if we could, though."

"You still helped me. Thoko was treating me as a permanent unwilling guest."

One of the other rowers took a moment's break and looked up at the full sail. "Yeah, he has plenty of people as 'guests' on Newshore, too. You did the right thing, outsider, giving up life with him."

Arlen still wasn't sure of that. He looked out to the dark sea and said, "The die is cast."