The Hidden Illusionist Read online

  “They were caught in a trader’s yard, trying to steal a…uh…valuable item. This yard belonged to Onderill Answerpe. Yes, the Onderill Answerpe. I’m sure I do not need to highlight to you the importance of the emperor’s cousin.”

  A man in the crowd stood up. Rings adorned his manicured fingers. He held a tomato in his hand, took aim, and threw it at Dantis. The fruit smashed into the dock. Some juice splashed Dantis’s face, while the rest soaked the hay on the floor.

  Others joined him, until soon, onions, oranges, apples, and cabbages thudded on the dock like rotten cannonballs. So that’s why they cover the floor in hay.

  Ethan gave Dantis a sidelong glance. He didn’t need to say anything, because Dantis knew what he was thinking; he’d messed up.

  When he’d planned the robbery, Dantis hadn’t unearthed anything that would alarm him. Maybe he’d gotten cocky, and that was his undoing,

  What Dantis didn’t know was that Onderill Answerpe, the emperor’s cousin, used fake names for his trading operations. He knew if he used his real name, the one that tied him to the emperor, he would become a target for thieves. That explained the mind-wyrms and cogmen in what was supposed to be a regular, if a little rich, trader’s yard.

  Unwittingly, Dantis and Ethan had tried to steal from a relative of the emperor. This caused the emperor to take interest in their case, which resulted in their charges growing from theft, to being traitors.

  “We’ll start bidding now, ladies and gentlemen. First, we will begin with the elder of the two, Ethan Ashwood.”

  Dantis leaned forward. Had he heard that correctly? “You’re selling us separately?”

  A guard lashed out with his club. Dantis flinched from the blow, but it wasn’t aimed at him. Ethan cried out. He held his right hand in his left, moaning in pain. Dantis grimaced at Ethan’s index and forefingers, which were bent out of shape.

  “What was the meaning of this?” said the judge.

  The guard lifted Ethan’s hand up, while Ethan gasped in agony. “Little bastard was trying to pick his cuffs.”

  “True,” groaned Ethan. “I was.”

  The judge faced the audience. “Yet more proof, ladies of gentlemen. The Ashwood brothers are dangerous when together, and they will not be sold as a pair.”

  Dantis leaned in toward Ethan and whispered. “I don’t get why they’re selling us separately. Dangerous? What a crock of shit.”

  “You’ll…be fine…Dan,” he said, gasping. “Keep your chin up. This won’t be forever. Wherever they send us…we’ll both escape.”

  Watching Ethan in pain made his stomach sink, and he felt guilty talking about his own problems.

  “Are you okay?”

  “They’re broken,” said Ethan, gritting his teeth. “Guess I won’t be…fighting any…duels for a while.”

  He was trying to be strong, but Dantis saw through it. Swordplay was Ethan’s talent, and he couldn’t use it with broken fingers. Hell, he wouldn’t be using it for a long time if the wrong person bought him in the auction.

  “Hey,” said Dantis, looking at Lillian. “You must know a healing spell.”

  Lillian gave a smug grin, but he didn’t move.

  “Bastard,” said Dantis.

  “Don’t let him know he’s got to you,” said Ethan.

  The judge pounded his pulpit with his fist. “Enough. We’ll start the auction for the older one at one gold piece. Let me hear your bids.”

  “One gold!” shouted a girl from the back of the room.

  “We have a bid,” said the judge. “Do I hear two?”

  At this, a man in the front row lifted his hand. He wore leather armor on his muscled frame, and a sword hung in a sheath on his waist. Faint scars lined what Dantis guessed some people would have called an attractive face. They were deep and red, and formed rune letters. His grey hair was tied back in a pony-tail.

  Was this man in charge of a gladiator camp? Is that where Ethan would go? Ethan could probably cut it in a place like that, but Dantis would end up as monster meat.

  “I have two. Do I hear three gold?” said the judge.

  The girl stood again. “Three gold!”

  The girls who had become obsessed with Ethan had banded together to buy him. For what purpose, Dantis had no idea. Maybe they wanted him as a sex toy. Poor bastard.

  On and on the bidding went. With every bid from the girls, the man with the sword answered. Soon, the girls reached the limit of their funds. The man won with a final bid of fifteen gold pieces.

  “Sold!” said the judge. “Ethan Ashwood, you have been sold to Bander Brigan, of the heroes’ guild.”

  “Wow, the heroes’ guild?” said Dantis.

  Ethan smiled. “Is this real? The heroes’ guild? I thought I was gonna end up in a salt mine in the arse end of nowhere.”

  This was a welcome turn. Heroes guilds had codes of honor. They wouldn’t buy a criminal if they planned to work him to death or make him fight in gladiator arenas. Such things were legal, since the worst criminals didn’t have rights, but he had to question the morality of it.

  Heroes’ guilds only ever bought criminals if they saw potential to reform them. Not all guilds did it, but the Wolfpine chapter must have been one of them.

  Relief broke through his mental dam and flooded through him. Ethan would be okay. Better than okay. This was a second chance. Dantis’s own auction didn’t seem so grim anymore. It stood to reason that Bander of the heroes’ guild wouldn’t buy one brother and leave the other.

  “And now we move on to Dantis Ashwood,” said the judge. “I’ll open the bidding at twenty silvers.”

  Dantis stood involuntarily. “Twenty silvers? You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

  He sat down, wary of the guard with his club. Maybe he should have told them about his mage skills – that would have raised his price. But no. A secret lost its power if you blabbed about it.

  The bidding started for Dantis but soon, his flicker of hope was snuffed out. As he watched on, the girls didn’t bid for Dantis. That wasn’t unexpected. The problem was that Bander didn’t bid for him either. The heroes’ guild leader was sitting silently on the front row and watching the auction unfold, rubbing his rune scars with his fingers.

  With an increasing sense of dread, Dantis could do nothing but spectate as two rival parties bid for him. One was a dwarf who owned a coal mine in the east. Dantis grimaced. Mine owners had no regard for the criminals they purchased, and would work them until they dropped. You never heard of a miner slave living long enough for retirement.

  If the dwarf wins, I’m gonna bash in his skull and take my chances. I’d rather die trying to escape than in a mine.

  The other bidder was a man wearing a black robe with golden flames drawn on it. This man answered each of the dwarf’s bids, and he eventually won. Dantis didn’t get a good feeling from the man. Who was he?

  The bidding ended at three gold pieces. What an insult. The judge ended the auction. “Dantis Ashwood,” he said, “You have been sold to the Brotherhood of Fire.”

  Brotherhood of Fire? Dantis’s stomach turned to water.

  Ethan leapt to his feet. “No! You can’t do that! It isn’t fair! Bander, or whatever your name is, fix this! You can’t buy me and not my brother.”

  Bander didn’t move. He wore a tight expression, as though he fought to appear neutral. Unlike the other spectators, Bander didn’t seem to find the auction process entertaining. He gripped the edge of the bench in front of him as if he was going to stand.

  Flickers of relief shot through Dantis’s stomach. He’s standing up. He’s going to help. If Bander bought him, at least he and Ethan would be together.

  The struggle in Bander’s mind wrought deep lines on his face, which met with his rune scars. Dantis had learned how to read a man, and this one was conflicted. But why? Was it about buying him?

  Bander sat and lowered his head, and Dantis’s relief fizzled out.

  The audience muttered amongst each other, while th
e representative of the Brotherhood of Fire approached the bailiff and paid three gold pieces.

  The Brotherhood of Fire – could it have been any worse? They worshipped the ever-burning lava fields in the south of the Fire Isle. Parents told their naughty children stories about the lava fields, emphasizing that anyone who went there didn’t come back.

  He remembered everything he’d heard. Rituals. Torture. Sacrifice. It was inhumane. They bought criminals by the dozen, putting each of them through their fire trials. Most people died, and the ones who survived became acolytes.

  Nobody knew the true reason for the trials. Some said that they worshipped a fire god, while others said it was merely a cover, and that the elder acolytes were sadists. Whatever the answer, Dantis felt sick.

  Every part of him wanted to cry out. To protest. To grab the club from the guard, beat him over the head, and make his escape. There must have been something he could do. An illusion, maybe? A diversion?

  He focused on the hole in the roof. Maybe if he was quick enough, he could cast an illusion before Lillian realized.

  He tried to imagine an illusion of the cracks widening. Maybe if they thought the whole roof was going to crash down, there’d be pandemonium, and he and Ethan could escape.

  As much as he tried, nothing happened. He didn’t get the usual feeling he got when he cast illusions. His mana was bottled inside him with a cork in it.

  Lillian, the Wolfpine mage, stared at him with his red gem eyes. His smug grin spread wider across his face.

  He sank back against the dock, his energy gone. He was a husk, a suit of skin with all vitality drained out. Bander approached the dock, ready to lead Ethan away. Ethan said something to Dantis, but his brain was so muddled he couldn’t make out the words.

  A guard approached the dock, and leaned against it, with his back to Dantis and Ethan. He must have been making sure they didn’t try to escape.

  The guard opened his palm behind his back to show a small, rolled-up piece of paper. He wiggled his fingers, gesturing for Dantis to take it.

  Dantis took the note, and the guard moved away. Before he could read it, Bander faced him.

  “Sorry lad,” he said to Dantis. “If I could have bought you, I would. Believe me on that. Justice is a fine thing, but sometimes what happens here isn’t justice. Keep strong; I can read a man, and I don’t see darkness in you.”

  Bander’s sentence burned the reality of it deep inside Dantis’s soul. There was no them now; it was only he. Their crimes - their supposed treason – would lead them down different paths, and Dantis’s was darker.

  Behind Bander, the Brotherhood of Fire acolyte eyed Dantis. He smiled, and this cruel gesture sent a shudder through him.

  Chapter Five

  Dantis

  “Is your vow of silence for show, or are you a chatty guy when people get to know you?”

  The acolyte focused on the landscape ahead, holding the reins in his hand. Whenever the two horses, one chestnut and the other milky-white, slowed, he tugged on the reins.

  Wolfpine was a dot behind them now, and the Brotherhood of Fire acolyte steered the cart off the traveler roads, through a field of wheat, around a forest of dead wood, and onto the Road of Repent.

  The road had fallen into disuse because of the frequency of bandit hold-ups, skarpion attacks, and mysterious disappearances, but it used to be used to escort criminals to a torture tower in the south. Spectral light whooshed and danced in the air. Some people said they were souls of the dead, and others insisted it was just a trick. Listening intently, Dantis heard voices in the light; whispers of remorse and repent from long dead criminals. I didn’t do it. I’m sorry. It was an accident.

  The horses’ hooves clacked on the road. It was the only real sound he heard beside the spectral whispers; there were no birds, no insects, just silence. The humid air made sweat stick to his undershirt.

  He looked don, and realized he’d cast his dragonfly illusion in his palm. Its wings flapped against his sweaty skin, but he couldn’t feel anything. Maybe one day, if he lived long enough, he could cast an illusion that he could really touch.

  He let the illusion fizz out, saying goodbye to his dragonfly friend. Now wasn’t the time for magic; he needed to take the measure of the acolyte and see if there was a chance to escape. First, he had to get him talking.

  “It’s getting dark,” he said. “We better stop soon, don’t you think?”

  The acolyte ignored him.

  “I know why you take your silence vows. I read about it. Your thoughts are winds that waft your inner fire, and opening your mouth lets them out. That’s right isn’t it?”

  The acolyte grunted.

  If he couldn’t escape before they reached the Lava Fields, he was done. Even if he didn’t die in their fire trials, acolytes screwed around with flames so much the older ones sported hideous burn scars over their skin.

  It was unbelievable that nobody had done anything about the Brotherhood. People had gone missing all over the Fire Isles, and fingers were pointed at the acolytes. No matter how many men, women, and children disappeared, the emperor did nothing. Propaganda leaflets spread around towns like Rotterwell and Wolfpine always proclaimed how the empire was flourishing after the Soul Wars with the nearby island of Patton, yet still he didn’t spend gold or pass laws to stop the Brotherhood. Either the empire wasn’t as rich as the emperor and his officers said, or they had a reason to allow the Brotherhood to exist.

  Even if he knew the answer, it wouldn’t help him now. Without Ethan, it was down to him and his wits. He’d thoughts of, and dismissed, a dozen escape plans since they left Wolfpine, but he had to be careful; this wasn’t the justice hall anymore. The acolytes punished wrong doing by branding body parts with scolding iron. Private body parts.

  First, he needed to make sure his magic was working now that he was away from Lillian. He focused on a rock ahead of them and to the left. He imagined a mouse peeking out from beyond it, with just its head showing. Such an illusion needed the tiniest scrap of mana, and it should have been easy.

  Instead of a warmth where mana flowed from him, he was cold. It wouldn’t come. He straight. Hrrrggghhhhh...no. He couldn’t conjure anything, ever since Lillian, with his damn gem eyes and stupid scepter…

  The acolyte tugged the reins. The horses stopped, and the clack of their feet and clicks of the cart wheels stilled. The Road of Repent lay deathly silent.

  “Why’ve we stopped?”

  The acolyte drew back his hood, so that Dantis saw his face fully. When he did, he almost fell off the cart.

  “Renton?”

  Renton had a bald head, but his wasn’t shaved like the acolytes. He’d simply lost his hair in his teens. His eyebrows met in the middle, giving him a primal, unkempt look that matched how he lived his life. Renton was a traveler, carefree and always looking to find a new, unexplored place in the Fire Isles so he could write about it in the travel book he planned to publish one day.

  He was Dantis and Ethan’s only friend. In fact, he was the only person they trusted enough to label even as an acquaintance. They’d met him in Rotterwell when they’d seen a group of drunken yobs following a girl, and decided to step in. Ethan had made the first move, of course, and Dantis had pushed back his hate of violence to help him.

  After that, Renton told them they’d made a friend for life. If they ever needed anything, he’d be there. It turned out to be true.

  “What are you doing here?” said Dantis, unable to stop the smile spreading on his face.

  “Ethan told me what you were doing, and he wanted a backup plan in case things went to shit. He told me to keep an ear out for any arrests, and to help get you both out of the justice halls if you were arrested.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “He said you don’t work well under the pressure. He didn’t want you to think anything could go wrong.”

  “I guess he’s right. But what’s with the clothes?”

  “I would h
ave just bought you both in the auction, but they wouldn’t let me in. Said I don’t have the credentials. Never mind that they let every pimp this side of Rotterwell in there. I once found an acolyte robe when I was travelling near the Lava Fields, so I decided it would be a handy disguise. Even the bloody guards are scared of the Brotherhood.”

  Dantis leaned back, feeling the tension leave him. Ethan had worked it all out. He wasn’t going to the lava fields, he wasn’t going to have to suffer a fire trial.

  “I could kiss you right now,” he said.

  “Buy me a drink, and we’ll talk. Now, Ethan is gonna escape from the heroes’ guild guy, and we’ll meet him in a tavern near Erlick in two days’ time. You heard of the Naughty Old Man?”