The Hidden Illusionist Read online

  A gavel pathway led to the entrance, and on one side there was an herb garden full of multicolored flora. Sweat-drenched recruits tugged at the herbs, which buzzed and banged. They must have been used for bomb making.

  On the other side, heroes practiced sword drills with each other. As they twisted, pirouetted, and countered, Ethan longed for his blade. These boys were younger than him, but their technique…it was so refined, so quick.

  Pah. They were little rich boys sent to the guild by their daddies, who probably paid a master swordsman to tutor them from the age of two. They didn’t know what it was like to learn things yourself, to live on the streets. Ethan had learned his swordplay fair and square, the proper way.

  He was glad to see the guildhouse, even under duress. It meant he could stop walking. His body ached for rest, and he wanted to collapse to the ground. He willed himself to stay on his feet. Was falling a good first impression to give? No.

  His pleasure at seeing the house soured when guilt filled his mind. Dantis hadn’t been as lucky as him. Walking up a mountain was tough, but the Lava Fields were horrific.

  I should have done something. I should have changed things. He’d replayed the auction again and again in his mind. Why did he get the easy route? Why couldn’t Dantis come to the heroes’ guild instead, and Ethan get sent to the Lava Fields?

  Because he can’t fight, and I can. And I need to pull myself together and get ready to fight again.

  He would escape from the guild. As soon as he memorized its layout, its routines, and its security, he’d escape.

  Not good enough. Could Dantis wait that long for him? Supposing the Brotherhood of Fire used their fire trials straight away?

  His stomach lurched. He couldn’t wait. He’d have to escape tonight.

  Suddenly, his wrist scar burned. He looked at it and saw that it had spread. There was hostility in the air, but where did it come from?

  “This way lad,” said Bander.

  The recruits on the grass watched him pass. I’m a celebrity here. Charged for treason – they must think I’m so cool. Everybody admired a lovable rogue – that was why people wrote so many books about them.

  “Scum!” said one recruit.

  “Watch your stuff around this thieving bastard,” said another.

  They glared at Ethan as Bander ushered him toward the entrance doors. Ethan waited for Bander to speak. Surely he wouldn’t let the recruits talk to him like that? Wasn’t everyone in the guild supposed to get along?

  Bander’s face changed. His kindly guild master expression disappeared, replaced by a stony glare. He prodded his back. “Get moving,” he said.

  The change was startling. Ethan could only suppose Bander was showing his authority in front of the recruits. Maybe he was putting Ethan in his place. Whatever the reason, he didn’t have any allies here

  “I don’t get it,” said Ethan. “If everyone thinks I’m scum, what am I doing here?”

  “It’s a second chance, if you’re not stupid enough to waste it. Ever heard of rehabilitation? I was a thief too, once. You should look on me as an example of what you can achieve if you stop being such a little bastard.”

  One recruit ran over to them, a wooden sword swinging from a sheath on his hip. “Another thief?” he said, then spat on the ground. “I thought this was a heroes’ guild, not a prison. I’ll tell my father. He’ll stop funding you.”

  “Steady, lad,” said Bander, his face tightening with anger.

  The boy pulled out his wooden sword, and prodded Ethan in the chest. “Stay away from my things, thief.”

  Ethan clenched his fists. His cheeks boiled. Dimly, in the back of his head, his ration voice spoke, but he couldn’t hear it. His pulse pounded.

  He punched the recruit in the face, knocking him to the grass. The recruit blinked and got to his feet. Without a word, he turned away.

  Great. Now I’ve done it. He waited for Bander to rebuke him, but instead, the guildmaster squeezed his shoulder. A faint smile curled on his lips. “This way, lad,” he said.

  Then, he stopped. “One thing I forgot to mention,” he said. He flicked his hand, and a black-handled dagger appeared. Ethan patted his pocket and found it empty. “I was a thief too, and I’m a hell of a better pickpocket than you, boy, even if I haven’t done it…professionally for a while. Take some advice; stop thinking of people as marks who you can just take from.”

  Ethan nodded, and they walked on.

  The first room in the guildhouse was a spacious atrium. Recruits pushed brooms on the stone floors, sweeping them free of dust. A broth aroma drifted through the hall, carrying scents of meat, onions, and carrots.

  “What’s a fire-imps weakness?” said one recruit, leaning on his broom.

  “Water, obviously. Ask me something harder.”

  “Bah, what’s the point? We’re gonna pass the critter exam easily. Bladecare is the class I’m worried about.”

  Doors lined the walls. They were giant blocks of stone with rune marks on the front. A recruit walked toward one and held up a purple circular object, like a coin. The rune on the door lit up, and the stone rumbled to the side, allowing the recruit entry.

  Stuffed animal heads lined the walls; boars, bears, wolves. A staircase was in the centre, leading to the upper levels of the guild.

  A man was standing at the bottom. A metal masked covered his face, and red eye gems stared out from it.

  “Lillian?” said Ethan.

  The mage ignored Ethan and greeted Bander with a nod. “You took your time,” he said. Whenever he spoke, his red eye gems flared up.

  “We can’t all teleport.”

  A necklace hung from Lillian’s neck. It was a red eye with a blood tear dripping from the corner. It stared back at him, as if it were real. He held a wooden staff in his hand, with a crimson gem set on top. Lillian produced a vial from his robe, tipped gloppy liquid into it, then applied it around the edges of his metal mask.

  Ethan gritted his teeth. Lillian stirred hate from his bowels, but he couldn’t say why. The mage hadn’t done anything to him. Sure, he’d been rude to Dantis in the justice halls, but he’d barely spoken to Ethan.

  A teenager approached them from a room in the east of the hall. He wore an oversized shawl and hood. A yellow, palm-sized cat sat on his shoulder.

  Ethan felt a shock of cold in his chest. It was the trader’s son, the one he’d fought in the trader’s atrium before they were caught. His right arm, the one Ethan had stabbed in the armpit, hung in a sling.

  “What’s the street rat doing here?” he said, his voice dripping with hate. His cat hissed, and the boy stoked it.

  “Me? What are you doing here?”

  The teen gave him such a glare he felt it burrow into his mind.

  “Yart is Onderill Answerpe’s son,” said Bander. “You know, the gentlemen you tried to rob? I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your memory. He was going to start hero training, before you ruined his arm.”

  Ruined his arm? Couldn’t they heal him? Surely his father was rich enough to afford a healing spell. Ethan didn’t know what to say.

  “Got me good, you bastard,” said Yart. “Spent a week in a mana coma because of you, while they tried to fix my arm. I might be able to use it again one day, but I’ll never fight. You put paid to that. You’ll regret it, rat.”

  “Now, Yart,” said Bander. “You’re both in the guild now. You don’t have to kiss each other, but you will rein in your temper. We still took you on, didn’t we?”

  “As a scribe,” growled Yart. “A god damned scribe. Here to sort all the boring admin shit nobody wants to do.”

  Lillian turned his gem eyes in Yart’s direction. “I told you, boy. You’ll learn magic from me, if you show a proclivity. There’s a role in the guild for you yet. One better than a simple-minded sword thruster.”

  “Lillian…” said Bander. “These ‘sword thrusters’ keep you in a job.”

  “Pah,” said Lilian, waving his hand dismissively.
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br />   A recruit lumbered across the hall and joined Yart. Ethan stepped back in shock. This guy wasn’t just big; he’d been cut from mountain rocks. The hall seemed to shake at each of his steps. On the index finger of his left hand, he wore a signet ring with a red eye on it.

  He was a gigas, a race humanoid in form, but big as hell. True to the fashion of many gigas, the recruit had grown his hair into two long dreadlocks, that he must have toughen with wax or something similar to make them look like horns.

  He glared at Ethan. His hands curled into fists.

  “Settle down, Bunk,” said Yart.

  Bunk was standing next to Yart, towering over him. He didn’t take his eyes off Ethan. Looks like I made a new friend.

  Bander left Ethan and approached the stairway. On the first step, he turned to Yart. “Assign the lad a bed,” he said.

  A bed. Hearing the word soothed him. The sun was setting over the mountain, and after a day or marching, his body begged for rest.

  The guild had other plans. Yart led him up the stairs and into a dormitory. Bunk followed them, his boots thudding on the ground as they went. He made sure to stick close to Yart. Was he his bodyguard? It seemed Yart’s father’s fortune bought privileges for his son.

  The entered a room. Beds lined both walls. Each one was perfectly made, so not a single creased showed on the bedsheets.

  “This way, rat,” said Yart.

  He beckoned him to the end of the room, where an open doorway separated it from the bunk room. There was a hole in the stone wall in the corner of the room, through which the forests outside peeked. Was it big enough to squeeze through? He’d explore it the first chance he got.

  On the floor, there was a wooden bucket brimming with water, and a separate one filled with white powder.

  “Strip,” said Yart.

  “I like to get to know someone before I do that,” said Ethan.

  Bunk growled. A prod of his index finger was enough to send Ethan hurtling into the room.

  “Clothes off,” he said.

  Ethan removed his shirt, his undershirt, and his trousers, until he was buck-naked. Wind crept through a cavity and chilled him. Yart folded his arms and stared at Ethan’s body.

  “See something you like?” said Ethan. “Stop gawping.”

  Yart didn’t take his eyes off him. He was staring at the welts that covered Ethan’s chest, back, and legs. Crisscrosses of them scored his skin.

  “Whippings,” said Ethan. “The passage of honor of any thief. Get caught stealing, and you’re lucky if this is all you get.”

  “You’ll get more if you don’t shut up,” said Yart.

  “Quiet,” said Bunk, his deep voice parroting his master.

  He didn’t enjoy being naked with Yart and Bunk staring at him. He felt vulnerable, but he wouldn’t let them know it. He put his hands on his hips and faced them.

  “What’s next, now that you’ve enjoyed the view?”

  They forced him to wash with the water. When he was sopping wet, Bunk threw handfuls of the white powder at him, sticking it to his skin until he looked like he was covered in flour.

  “That’ll get rid of the street bugs,” said Yart.

  Next, Bunk approached Ethan. He held a bronze bracelet in his hand. He snapped it across his wrist. Ethan tugged at it, but it wouldn’t move.

  “This is more like it,” he said. “Gifts are nice. I might give you more of a show next time.”

  “Shut your fucking face, rat. Your bed’s over there.”

  Ethan eyed the bucket on the floor. There was still some powder left in it, and if it could speak, it would have been saying ‘pick me up, Ethan.’

  He grabbed it, then shoved it in Bunk and Yart’s direction, covering their faces in it.

  Bunk grunted. He shoved Ethan so hard that he slammed into the wall, and all the breath left him. Yart’s cat hissed, it’s claws protruding.

  Bunk shook with anger, every cell in his gags body wanting to pound Ethan into the consistency of the powder he’d just covered him in.

  Yart touched his arm. “Not yet, Bunk. Not yet. Go and train outside, if you need to get your anger out.”

  After the gigas left them, Yart gave him new recruit clothes to wear, consisting of a cloth shirt that itched, and trousers that were too small. He gave him the worst bed possible; one nearest the wall, where the wind wheezed through a crack and froze him.

  As night fell on the guild house, Ethan lay on his bed. He tugged at the bracelet on his wrist, but it was clasped too tightly. Short of taking a hammer to it, there was nothing he could do. He would have settled for at least knowing what it was for.

  The other recruits drifted in. Some were covered in mud and sweat, while others sported bruises from a day of sword training. Far from being impressed with his celebrity as a traitor, they ignored him. He wasn’t a lovable rogue here – he was the lowest of the low. A street rat who didn’t deserve to be in any guild, much less one for heroes.

  Opposite him, a wiry-looking recruit watched him. Blue jagged tribe marks covered his face, meeting in the centre around his nose. Dantis would have known what those meant.

  “You don’t let people push you around, do you?” he said.

  “You can’t let people walk all over you.”

  “You gotta keep cards close to your chest. Especially around here. They know who you are now. They know you’ve got a temper and believe me, Yart will work out how to prod you until you show it at the wrong time. Me? They know nothing about me. Nothing to exploit.”

  “I can’t help it sometimes.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, I enjoyed it. What’s your birth-ja?”

  “Birth jar?”

  “Sorry, it’s a thing from back home. What’s your name, I mean?”

  “Ethan.”

  “Dullzewn.”

  “At least not everyone here’s is an arse. I’ll try and rein in my temper.”

  “Good. Yart won’t always be there to stop his ape. Night, Ethan.”

  As soon as they settled onto their beds, the recruits fell into deep sleeps. Much as his eyes begged to close, Ethan forced them open. He listened to the groan of the wind as it mixed with heavy snores.

  He couldn’t help feeling vulnerable, on his bed in a room for of people. He was used to it being him and Dantis, and he felt like he was never going to be able to sleep, like he’d need to keep one eye open all night.

  A scratching sound caught his attention. He sat up. Dullzewn was crouching beside his bed and scratching at the wall. He held a metal file in his hand, and he chipped away at the stonework, gathering dust around his feet. When a pile of it formed, he scooped it and dropped it down a crack near his bed.

  Was he making an escape hole? Maybe he was a fellow criminal. What a stupid escape plan. This place wasn’t a prison; there were easier ways to make a run for it. In fact, Ethan had noticed a few.

  He was going to try one of them tonight. First, he needed the boy to go to sleep. No use bolting from the guild and leaving a witness behind to spill about his escape.

  Come on, you bastard, go to sleep.

  Hours went by. Recruits shifted in their beds. One of them farted. Another mumbled in his sleep. Finally, as the fingers of sleep tugged on Ethan’s eyelids, the boy hid his file under his bed, and flopped down on his back.

  He shook the tiredness away. He moved off his bed and crouched, before sneaking out of the dormitory. He might have been a street rat, but he was a quiet street rat. If his life as a petty thief had taught him anything, it was how to mask his steps.

  He went into washroom and looked at the hole in the wall. It was a tight fit, but rats could get through the tiniest of places, and Ethan had to try. He grunted as he squeezed through it. The stone scraped on his back, but inch by inch, he worked himself free, until half his body was outside the guildhouse, half in.

  The wind lapped at him. He grasped on the outside wall and found a hand grip. He put his foot out onto a stone block that stuck out an inch a
nd moved clear of the hole.

  That was easy. Too easy.

  His dormitory was ten feet off the ground. Knowing how to fall properly, it was easy for Ethan to drop onto the courtyard below. A slight pain stung his ankles when he dropped, but he shook it off.

  He was out. The guildhouse loomed over him, but he wasn’t trapped in it anymore. Wind lashed his face, and nighttime insects chirped to each other. The winding path lay to the left, beyond the courtyard. The forest lay to his right. The trees would have offered more cover, but he remembered the klizerds, painfully aware he didn’t have a sword.