Holding a wand in each hand, Seff was exposed as a sorcerer. And now Puugi knew exactly what was happening, since no sorcerer would ever be dressed in a constable’s garb unless he was being tricky and dishonest.

In one hand, Puugi held a leather-bound dossier. In the other, he held his staff.

After he saw Puugi smile, Seff did not wait for him to talk or act. Seff rolled to his right and said the last rune for his lightning spells. With his two wands, he could only fire two spells at a time.

The two lightning bolts struck Puugi, who returned the favor by saying the last rune of his own fireball spell.

Seff was surprised by how fast the fire engulfed him. He was still trying to stand when he felt the heat from it. He cast a new shield spell even as the other broke, his arm hair incinerated before the new shielding spell took hold.

By the time he got to his feet, his skin shined a fresh, hot red. He looked back at Puugi as he began to run. He saw joy—a bigger and wider smile—on Puugi’s face as a lightning bolt struck Seff in the back. He felt a tingling sensation, and Seff, once more, was forced to use another shield.

I’m going to die, Seff thought.

He finally turned a corner and kept running. Puugi could be heard laughing. Seff waited at the next corner with his two wands at the ready.

Only showing the barest part of his face, he looked down the corridor, waiting for Puugi to pursue him. Seff could quickly cast a fireball and let it float, hidden on the other side of the wall. He would then cast two lightning spells at Puugi and then guide his fireball into him. He hoped that Puugi wouldn’t have another shield ready in his staff. Beyond that, he had no ideas.

Puugi stepped out.

“Wait,” Puugi said.

It was too late—Seff finished the last half of the spell rune at the same time. Two beautiful jagged white streaks appeared out of his wands and hit Puugi in his chest. Seff ducked behind the wall before he sent the fireball at Puugi. He peeked around the corner to guide the fireball.

Puugi said a rune that Seff didn’t recognize as Seff’s fireball hit him. It wrapped around Puugi beautifully, but nothing—not even the documents that he held—were scorched. Seff ran around the next corner.

Only then, did he realize his mistake. He had almost destroyed the documents that he wanted so badly. Seff decided to talk to him. Maybe they could make a truce. Maybe negotiation was possible.

“Wait!” Seff called out.

He peeked out and then ducked his head back in. He saw Puugi walking towards him.

This Puugi reminded him a little of his father. His father was scarier, but Puugi was scary.

“Wait!” Seff called out. “Let’s talk.”

“Now you want to talk?” Puugi said.

“Yes. Truce, please,” Seff said, hoping the kind ‘please’ at the end would do the trick.

“I already told you to wait. Well. Let’s talk then. Why do you want them so badly? Do you work for Codinor? Are you one of his bastards?”

“Who’s Codinor?” Seff asked, trying to think if that name meant anything. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

“Ok, then who are you?” Puugi asked.

Seff peeked out and saw that Puugi had walked behind a wall. “I was the kid that should be hanged. I set fire to the inns.”

“Ah, you. Your friend was the one we were hanging?”

“No, but he’s innocent. Let him go, give me the papers. If you’re worried about Codinor, I’ll take the boy far away from here. You’ll never see either of us again,” Seff said, still hidden behind a wall.

“So, you want the documents? Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And, in exchange?”

Seff paused and then answered, “Your life.”

“I don’t think that’s something that you can trade. You’re not even close to being my equal. Anything else you possess that I might like?”

“Money?”

“Have enough of that,” Puugi coughed.

“Well, what do you want?” Seff said, increasingly desperate as the smoke rose from the floorboards and from behind the closed hallway door.

“Codinor and his family dead.”

“Who’s Codinor?”

“A master sorcerer. Challenged others six times; been challenged seventeen. He’s still alive.”

Seff rolled his eyes from behind the cover of the wall and shook his head, “He’s beyond me, then. I know someone that might be able to help, for a price, but I can’t do anything. Don’t you want anything else?”

“The boy dead. Codinor will hunt for him.”

The smoke was growing thick, and Seff breathed in a bit too much and coughed even through his shield. “Why kill the boy when you could adopt him?” Seff asked, knowing sorcerers often tried to build themselves more power by adopting young sorcerers and sorceresses—if they had the means and ambition.

“Codinor would ask him from me. It would only help Codinor in the end. I am not in a position to defy him.”

“Then leave, and let me and the boy leave also.”

“This is the province where I grew up. I’ll stay, thank you. And Codinor, once he hears of you two, would spare no expense in catching you. No, I think it’s best I hold onto these documents and catch the boy myself. However, there is one other thing that you may be able to give me.”

Seff waited for him to ask. He peeked around the corner and saw nothing. He asked, “What?”

“An exchange. I give you nothing, except your life, and you run away. There is no reason that I should have to kill you too.”

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“But I want the boy,” Seff said, not giving up.

“Why?”

“Same reason that Codinor would want him, I guess.”

“Are you that greedy, that ambitious?”

“Maybe a combination of sympathy and greed. The boy didn’t do anything wrong.”

“He was born. That’s enough for some.”

Puugi wanted the boy dead, and Seff paused to think about how he might be able to convince Puugi to give up the documents. Seff coughed and knew time was short. He was glad there was an open window nearby providing some fresh air. Puugi was obviously against Codinor, yet at the same time, working with him. Puugi was trapped in this province having worked his way up and now refused to leave his home province. Seff said, “Give me the documents, and I’ll take him away. I’ll take him to Rhea or Jakola.”

“Only to have him come back to Imperial Sorcerer Academy when he is twenty?”

“Sure,” Seff said.

Puugi said, “And after five years at the Academy, the boy will challenge me for my position the very next day out of spite for having him almost hung, and Codinor will have him in his grasp, along with my dead body.”

Seff could not deny the logic. He imagined the boy would still remember almost being hung, and that would generate a great deal of anger and spite—maybe enough to come back specifically to Puugi and challenge him for his position. “The boy won’t remember you,” Seff lied.

“Will you remember me in ten years’ time?”

“Yes,” Seff said, regretting his instant response. He should have lied.

“Then so will he, and I’ll have to fight both of you. I might kill you, but the boy is a rare talent. He’s better off dead.”

“No one is better off dead,” Seff said. He then added, “Except people who stick their noses where they don’t belong. Give me the papers!”

“Come and get them.”

“I have the window and fresh air. I can wait.”

“I have spells and I could walk to you and kill you. Run away and let me deal with the boy. Last chance.”

Seff didn’t know what to do. Puugi called his bluff. He peeked out again and decided what he would do. He started storing lightning bolts into his wands.

“Ok. I agree,” Seff said.

“Then run away.”

Seff didn’t move. He finished the first spell. He finished the second one.

“Hello?” Puugi said after a time.

Seff finished the third one, and peeked out to see Puugi walking towards him. Seff cast a lightning bolt at Puugi and ran across the passageway the main hallway. Puugi missed with his own lightning spell, hitting the wall behind Seff.

Seff fired another spell at Puugi, hitting him this time. Ignoring the hit, Puugi continued towards Seff as he slipped through to the main hallway and crouched. Seff drew his sword and waited for Puugi.

Smoke was heavier here, near to the stairwell and in the main hallway. The fire had crept up, and now it consumed roof and floor alike. Seff tried to muffle the soft coughs reflexively coming from his lungs, and he didn’t know how much longer he could wait on Puugi. Following quickly on that thought, he heard heavy footsteps coming.

Puugi flew through the passageway like a bull—only to be stabbed in the side. Seff held his sword with his right hand as Puugi let go his staff. It rattled onto the ground. Coughing and cursing, Puugi fell down, while Seff pulled his sword out of Puugi, demanding, “A way out, Puugi, and you will live for another minute.”

Through the dense smoke, Seff planted his boot onto Puugi’s chest and pressed down hard. Further, he held his sword to Puugi’s throat. He did not want Puugi to have time to cast a spell at him. He knew Puugi had let go of his staff, so there would be no spell forthcoming immediately. Sorcery spells required a focus point—a wand or staff—unless Puugi had been trained otherwise which was rare. Even then, Seff was still shielded and a single spell would do little.

“Take the key from around my belt and unlock the last room on the right. Within, you will find a spiral staircase that leads to an underground passage. That passage leads from this courtyard to the basement of the Higel residence. From there take the stairs and exit through the kitchen. Beyond that, you figure it out.”

Seff pressed down onto Puugi’s chest with the edge of his shoe, “Throw the key. I saw your dagger earlier. Do not take me for a fool.”

A second later, Seff heard a key skitter across the floor through dark smoke. His eyes were teary, so he wiped them with the back of his hand to see more clearly. As he coughed, he searched the burning floor for the key, using up some of his magical protection. Searching and raking his hand over the burning floorboards, Seff began to worry he’d die from Puugi from behind in an unknown way. After glancing to and fro from the floor to Puugi more than once, Seff’s hand closed around the key.

He ran to the door at the end of the hall and unlocked it, only then remembering the papers that he needed.

Cursing loudly, he ran back to where he left Puugi. He needed the dossier! Seff found the dossier on the floor, but Puugi and his staff were gone. Puugi, too, had forgotten. However, Seff thought he heard him cursing on the stairwell. He listened for a second, and the cursing was growing louder.

Seff cursed, knowing Puugi was on the way back with his staff.

He fled to the stairwell as fast as he could run, stepped through the doorway, and shut it behind him. Stuffing his wands down his shirt, he made his way down the stone steps with his sword drawn. Smoke seeped from every stone as he made his way to the bottom.

Once there, he lit a lantern and raced down through the smokeless underground corridor.

He came through the trap door straight into the arms of a servant who happened to be in the wine cellar.

“Who are you?” asked the servant, a young lad with a wine bottle in one hand and a list in the other.

“Who are you?” Seff demanded in reply, still dressed as a slightly roasted constable.

“I’m Seddy.”

“Seddy, stay right here and kill anyone who comes up that passageway. That is an order from the king’s guard. There is a madman on the loose, and I barely escaped. Put something on that trap door and sit on it and don’t let anyone through. I’m getting help.”

“But, sir—” the servant protested.

Seff interrupted, “But, sir, nothing. Smack your butt on a barrel atop this trapdoor and sit there until help arrives! I’ll be back.”

With that, Seff raced from the cellar and through the kitchen full of staff preparing food, with only a hail of Excuse Me’s and Pardon’s saving him as he dashed outside into the alleyway with the dossier in his clutches.

He had the dossier and a plan, but now he needed to get out of the city. Although almost everyone who had seen him had died, that was not good enough. Puugi was still alive, but would he live with a sword wound? Should he go back in and try to kill him? Or should he simply flee?

If Puugi lived, the entire city would be after him. Nowhere would be safe. And Codinor would be after both the kid and himself. His own friends would drug him and turn him in for the bounty that would be placed on his head.

Knowing time was his enemy, he ran through the streets towards Baka’s hideout.

The gates would be closed, but they were not yet closed tight enough, Seff figured. A well-placed bribe would allow Seff to slip through without a problem if he beat his description to the gates. Puugi would be worried about getting treatment. Even better, Puugi could die. If he didn’t, the authorities would station sorcerers at all the exit points, just to ensure he would not get through.

He wondered how many there were left after the three or four judges died. Puugi may have died too. The mayor might be a sorcerer. How many others would there be? Did it matter?

He was not in a position to take on twenty gate guards with bows and swords. He imagined as it currently stood that Codinor or Puugi or both would send assassins after him. He may have really stepped into a deep, deep pit by attacking Puugi, especially after Puugi offered him a simple escape. But instead, he had attacked him.

Seff cursed, knowing he had gambled and somehow lived. But now, he’d be rolling the dice until the age of twenty, knowing assassins would be on his trail at every turn, a bounty on his head large enough for anyone in the game to look over him twice. His face had been anonymous, but no more. He hoped more than anything Puugi would die. How could he have made the mistake not to slit Puugi’s throat when he had a chance?

Seff weaved through the streets and alleys, avoiding the larger roads. He stuck to back alleys and thin corridors squeezed by housing apartments. He ducked into an alley, turning onto stairs that were deceptively easy to walk by. They led to a lower, secondary alley, beneath a stone building.

He made a right, passing by a boy named, what was his name? Seff didn’t remember nor did it matter.

He reached Baka’s and walked in. The hideout was busy. The bottles of wine were out, and everyone was drinking and laughing.

He asked the nearest boy where Baka was, and the boy said, “The back.”

Seff found Baka and said, “I’m back.”

“Are those bells because of you?” Baka asked.

“The town alarm bells? Yes,” Seff said. He then whispered, “I need some money to bribe the gate, so I can get out.”

“You’ll need more than that,” Baka laughed, his expression turning grim right after. “I’ve been hearing those bells for almost an hour now. They’ll have the city on lock-down. Without a great cover story, it won’t matter how much money you have with you.”

Seff shrugged, “Well, do you have money and a cover story?”

“I have neither,” Baka shook his head.