Shadow and Wild Magic

Ezra hid behind some sort of curtain. He made himself so flat he could barely breathe. The sithrax patrolling the hall with six doors hadn’t seen him.

Once they were gone, Ezra rushed to the stairs. He remembered the staircase was behind the second door on the left. He opened the door and immediately climbed. He had one job, one goal. Get to the room where they kept the mage.

Ezra headed for the floor where they’d interrogated him. He hid behind the wall and peeked into the corridor. One guard stood by the mage’s room. If he’d planned this correctly, this guard would soon be rushing downstairs.

And he’d been right. There was shouting and screaming coming from downstairs. The guard first looked confused, then he drew his weapon and hurried to the stairs. He didn’t even see Ezra when he passed him. Once the guard was out of earshot, Ezra headed for the door.

It seemed like the concept of locked doors didn’t exist in Rallis. Maybe Shadow was right and the sithrax were indeed stupid. Ezra pushed the door open and found himself in a small room with a man in a blue robe chained to a chair. The man was not moving. His head hung from his shoulders. He was dirty and smelled of feces.

Oh, no, Ezra thought. Was he dead?

Ezra hurried to him and held a hand under his face. Thank the gods the man was still breathing! But his breath was weak.

Ezra had to find a way to open the chains restraining the man. As he fiddled with the chains to find the lock, the man gasped and moved. Their eyes met.

The man was young. His curly black hair covered half his face.

“A fellow human...” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

“Yes. I’m breaking you out,” Ezra said quickly. “Can you walk?”

“What?” The man looked utterly lost.

“Me and your sindur friends, we’re getting out of here! Can you walk?”

Ezra found the lock. It was a rusted padlock that could easily break open with enough force. Ezra looped the chain around the chair’s legs to create tension. He jerked the chain, and the lock snapped.

“Wait...” the man moaned.

“Man,” Ezra was getting impatient, “We need to hurry while all the guards are downstairs. We get out of here, then we head for the Barrier!”

“I’m not going to make it!” the man shouted.

Ezra was taken by surprise. “No, you have to. Come on!”

Master Khan coughed. “I’m not going to make it. I can feel it. My death...”

The man paused. Ezra was sure Master Khan had just died on him. Ezra gasped when Khan suddenly inhaled very deeply.

“If you say you can get out of this place, go,” Master Khan said. “You can still cross the Barrier.” Then he whispered something in Ezra’s ear, something Ezra had suspected but hadn’t confirmed yet. “But you will need the black one. You can’t do this without him. He has magic. I felt it, and it’s more powerful than anything I’ve ever felt. I was going to take him to the Academy to train him.” Master Khan coughed. “If you make it past the Barrier, please take him to Avahs.”

He coughed again, and just like that, Master Khan was gone.

“Where’s Master Khan?” Shadow asked him on the stairs.

Ezra paused and frowned. “He’s dead,” he finally said. There was no point in sugarcoating it.

Shadow looked clueless for a minute. “But the plan. What should we do now?”

Panic wasn’t going to get them anywhere. Shadow had magic. Ezra had seen it with his own eyes, and Master Khan had confirmed it. And if Shadow had magic, he could use the amulet to cross the Barrier.

But how?

They’d figure it out. However, figuring it out would have to wait. They first had a few sindurs to rescue.

“We go through with the plan,” Ezra declared. He began walking down the stairs to the second floor.

“But we need Master Khan!”

Ezra looked over his shoulder, then he smiled. “We have all we need. Now, let’s get moving!”

The two hurried down to the second floor, where they’d meet the other sindurs. There was no one when they arrived, but not a minute later, Shadow looked like he heard something. The cacophony downstairs was getting louder and louder. Now, there was even the sound of steel. But Shadow was focused, squinting at the darkness.

The young red lynx was first, then the grey. The old sindur arrived last.

“You did it!” Ezra exclaimed. To be honest, he’d been afraid that they wouldn’t have gone through with the plan.

“Everyone is fighting outside like you predicted,” Ten Zin said calmly. “We must hurry.”

Ezra motioned for them to follow him. They entered the corridor, and Ezra searched every north-facing room for a window. He kicked each door open quickly while the rest stood watch. One, two, three, four doors later, he found some sort of pantry with one window. The room was full of oversized jars on big shelves. Those jars contained thick sandworms all tangled together. It was disgusting, but seeing the window was a relief. Fortunately, making glass wasn’t the sithrax’s favorite pastime on Terra. The window was paneless.

Ezra peeked through the window. It was dark outside, but a few torches lit parts of the area. However, beyond the wall surrounding the fortress was only darkness. The fight was happening on the other side of the tower, but he could still hear all of it.

Ezra had a clear view of the backyard and stables where they kept the rhinos. No sithrax in sight. It was a twenty-feet fall, but Ezra would survive. He turned around and called the sindurs, then he motioned for them to hurry down.

“Come on, come on!”

When they’d be down, they hurry to the northern gate. Ezra could see it from here, and it was barely guarded.

Shadow jumped first, then everyone else followed. Once they were through, Ezra looked one last time over the ledge. He got that fuzzy feeling in his stomach, the bite of vertigo. No time for self-doubt, he had to jump. He stood on the ledge, holding himself in place with his arms against the wall. Then he took a deep breath in, and he let go.

When Ezra landed, he thanked the gods that he’d not broken anything, not even twisted an ankle.