The Missing Traveller

Alister stared at Yuri in surprise. The man’s eyes burned with a cold fire.

“I’d be happy to.”

Alister opened his mouth again, intending to volunteer in the man’s place. “We don’t need to decide now,” he said instead. “You don’t even know Lark, Yuri. It makes no sense that you go.”

“You’re right. But I have no qualms about being arrested.”

Silence fell on the room again, and Alister furrowed his eyebrows. Why was Yuri so willing to volunteer? He remembered the man’s dark tone when he talked about Baudouin. Something made him quit being a Defender, and despise the king. Perhaps, whatever it was, it was so horrible, assaulting the king or his family would be a pleasure.

Alister dried his palms on his breeches. The relief which washed over him when Yuri volunteered now burned against his conscience. He couldn’t let Yuri be the one to be arrested any more than he could let Mirielle or Ren. His gruelling teaching method aside, Yuri was a gentle man. I’m the one who Lark came to for help. It needs to be me.

But the others were already discussing another issue, and the moment passed. Alister insisted to himself he would volunteer next time they discussed it.

Ren glanced at Mirielle. “You said you were an Enchanter, right?”

Mirielle drew a sharp breath and clenched her fist, her eyes on her bracelet. “Not at the moment. I’ll need to go to the town square tonight. Why?”

“What are your aptitudes?”

Mirielle’s chin rose. “Healing, illusions, and levitation. I used to perform songs and use candra to draw attention to the performance.”

Ren smiled shrewdly. “We may not be able to distract all of the guards, but if they saw, say, an escaped prisoner running down the halls, one of them would have to pursue, right?”

“I think you’re overestimating my ability.” Mirielle’s proud smirk vanished. “I can’t make a flawless illusion of a person.”

“It doesn’t need to be flawless. Just a prisoner rounding a corner, just enough to make one of them follow. Then Yuri or I, waiting round the corner, could take care of the guard.”

Alister eyed her. “What do you mean by ‘take care of’?”

She met his gaze. “Kill, or maim. Or otherwise make incapacitated.”

“We can discuss the guards later in the week.” Yuri turned to Mirielle. “Do you think you’d be able to conjure such an image?”

Mirielle folded her arms. “I…I think so. I’ll have to practice, of course.”

“So that can take care of one of the guards…” Ren glanced at Alister. “…with a gentle tap on the head. So, if this is after we get in as delivery workers…”

By the time they ate dinner, they formed a general idea formed of how they’d get in and out of the prison without the guards setting off an alarm. Alister and Ren continued to disagree on how to get past the guards, but they agreed to settle it the next day.

Just before they returned to Furdier, Yuri elaborated on the red rust.

“It doesn’t damage the skin, so the best way to sneak it into the prison would be to rub in somewhere and make it look like an injury. It’s quite indistinguishable to dried blood.”

Mirielle frowned. “But if we managed to slather it on the doors to high sec, wouldn’t they wash it off?”

“Yes. But it would only need to be there for minutes before it sinks in enough to do its damage. Even if they wiped it off, the stain would corrode the iron in a day’s time.”

“Sounds perfect,” Ren said. “So we’ll need to scout out the storeroom it’s in.” She glanced at her timepiece and raised her eyebrows. “Actually, to get the location of the red rust by tomorrow, I’ll need to stop by The Smith’s headquarters on the way home, and it closes in half an hour. We should get going.” She looked at Mirielle and Alister. “Do you two know the way back yet?” They nodded. “Alright, I’ll see you both back here at dawn.”

A knock on Alister’s door woke him early the next morning.

Mirielle inched open the door. “I’m about to leave.” He pulled a nearby shirt on hastily as she cast her eyes around the room. “Alister, you know there’s a wardrobe and shelves, right?”

Alister followed her gaze to his belongings, which were a dishevelled pile beside his overflowing pack. He still hadn’t bothered to organise them. “We’re only here for another week.”

Mirielle gave a laugh of disbelief. “And we’ve been here for three days already. That’s plenty long enough to put away your things. How do you find anything in this war field?” She went to his pile and shuffled through it.

Alister jumped up in protest, and his leg collapsed under the pain. He straightened up and hobbled over to Mirielle. “Hey, hey! What’re you doing?” He grabbed the pair of breeches she’d picked up.

She snatched them back with eyebrows raised challengingly. “I’m cleaning.”

When he reached for the breeches again, she held them on her other side. Alister glared at her. “I’ll not have you searching through my belongings and dirty clothes. This is my room. Give me back my breeches.”

She’d dropped them the moment he said ‘dirty clothes’. “Some of this isn’t clean?” Her voice implied she’d discovered something horrific, like a dead body. Alister stepped into his boots and fastened them.

“Most of it is.” He strode to the door. “Weren’t we leaving?”

Mirielle followed him out. “You realise if there’re some dirty clothes sitting amongst the clean ones, then the clean ones will start to smell? You can’t just put it all in a pile and expect to be able to—”

Alister tuned Mirielle’s lecture out as they made their way to the Reltanine district. ‘War field’, she called it, he thought with a slight grin. He filled in the brief silences with vague agreements until they reached Yuri’s house.

Ren waited outside, and she raised an eyebrow at Mirielle. “What’s got her panties in a twist?”

Mirielle stopped mid-sentence and glared at Ren, her cheeks tinged pink. “Nothing but Alister living like he’s from Bulgandon.”

Alister rolled his eyes. “I haven’t unpacked, and she took offence to my pile of clothes.”

Mirielle threw her hands up. “Will you please tell him it’s simply good manners to keep a room clean, especially when it’s not his own?”

She smirked. “I would, but I suspect you’d just about faint if you saw the state of my room. I don’t give a flying cry if your room’s fit for His Majesty himself or if you can’t see the floor.” She looked at Alister. “So long as you don’t let mould grow, you can have your room as messy as you like.” Ren laughed once and glanced at Mirielle, who wore a pout. “Really, what did you expect me to say?”

Her response came through gritted teeth. “Let’s go inside.”

She pulled open the door before they could reply, and they followed her with stifled laughs.

Ren informed them the red rust stores were in Wyster.

“Apparently there’re Defenders around, but it shouldn’t be hard to sneak past at night. It’s an old storeroom. We’ll have to have a look before we go, but I can pick most locks.”

They decided to split up for the day; Yuri and Mirielle were to go and watch the outside of the prison for the deliveries, while Ren and Alister had a look around the storeroom.

The two of them walked in silence to Wyster. Alister was still brooding over his cowardice from the day before. When we talk about it next, I’ll make sure I’m the one to go, he told himself.

“So you really think we can break in without harming the guards?”

Alister looked at Ren. Her eyebrow arched. It seemed they were raised more than they were relaxed.

“I don’t know, but I’d just like to avoid it. Don’t you care about doing the right thing?”

Ren smirked. “I work for a man who deals with grey areas. Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?”

He stared at her. “Harming other people is wrong.”

“I thought you came here so you could stop His Majesty from harming other people? If the only way to do that’s kill a few guards, isn’t it worth it?”

Alister grimaced as a horrible scream piercing through the mist came to mind. “We’ll not kill them. If it comes to it, maybe we could knock them out.”

“As long as they don’t come to halfway.”

Her indifference made him frown. “Don’t you have any value for human life?”

She shrugged. “Everybody dies.”

Alister held his tongue, but drew steady breaths. What made Ren so callous?

“I can’t wait until this whole mess is over. Then I can get back to proper work.”

Alister frowned. “The Smith mentioned you’ve been working for him for many years.”

An eyebrow arched. “Yeah, and?”

“You must’ve been young when you started. Didn’t you go to an academy or something?”

Ren stared ahead. “Or something.”

“What made you work so young? Where’s your family?”

Ren laughed. “I work because I’m good at it. I’m The Smith’s best worker between here and Bastium. As for my family, that isn’t your concern. After this mess is over, we’ll go back to being perfect strangers, and that won’t happen if you know my life’s story. Besides,” she glanced at him, “would you tell me all about where you came from and why you’re here? It’s about the bird man, and I don’t need to know how you know about that, or why you care.”

“Fair enough.”

They walked in what Alister considered to be a tense silence, but Ren seemed content.

“Why do you like working so much?”

She shrugged. “It’s interesting. I’m good at it. The pay’s enough for me to live in that house in Furdier for only a few days of work a week.” She glanced at him. “Except when my clients take up all of my free time, as well.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Yeah, you two owe me.” Despite her words, she didn’t seem too bothered.

He asked her more about work—it seemed to be the only topic she would allow—and she told him stories of the clients she’d had, until they reached Wyster. The storage room with the red rust was number thirty-four in Wyster, and they could see down its corridor from a bench in the district square.

Two Defenders stood in the square, chatting amongst themselves, but none in the corridor. Ren and Alister’s job was to watch the door and see how well it was guarded. It would be a long day.

Once they established the corridor was only checked on once during the day by the Defenders, they walked past the door on their way back so Ren could inspect the lock.

“So can you do it?”

Ren laughed and pulled a thin, silver pin out of her pocket. “I could do it now, if I wanted.” She furrowed her brow and pushed the pin into the lock. “It’s neither easy nor hard.” Ren removed the pin. “Better not unlock it now, though. Shall we?”

They headed back to Reltanine, and passed through the district square on their way back to Yuri’s. Alister squinted at the ceiling, where light shone down from the mirrors. The rest of the square’s dirt cavern was unremarkable, but the people who walked around Reltanine dressed in sharp clothing Alister considered formal. He spotted only a couple of other people with hair as dark as his, although plenty had skin the same caramel colour as Tarael.

A trumpet blared through the square, and an amplified voice echoed behind it. “His Royal Majesty, King Baudouin the Noble.”

Everybody in the town square dropped to their knees, and Ren pulled Alister down with her. “Keep your head down or this time you might lose it.”

Alister listened to her, and mimicked her position on her knees, but strained his eyes to their corners to try and catch a glimpse of the group of Defenders walking through the square. Enough people were between him and them they surely wouldn’t notice one person with their head up. Alister craned his neck towards the side entrance of the square.

In the centre of the circle of stern-faced Defenders was a tall, pale man in a trim red coat. His black hair added extra height to his already thin face, and his sunken eyes gave the impression of a lack of sleep. If he hadn’t known he was the leader of Deemstun, Alister would’ve dismissed him as an unimpressive man. But Baudouin held an air of authority. Perhaps it was the way he stood, or his dark stare around the room, or his easy-going smile tinted with pride. He was nothing like Alister imagined.

Alister’s eyes followed the so-called king as he strode through the square of Reltanine between his guard. None of the bowed subjects made a noise, but Baudouin and his guard’s footsteps echoed through the caverns. Alister glanced to Ren; although she bowed her head, her eyes were wide open, unlike all the others. Her grey eyes looked back to him, and she smirked.

When Baudouin exited into the tunnel, two Defenders blared trumpets.

Everybody stood and went about their business as normal.

“That’s him?”

“Do you need to ask?” Ren arched an eyebrow. “Do you need me to announce him like they did? Because I left my trumpet in my other coat.”

“Ha, ha.”

The rest of the week passed slowly as the four of them awaited Seniro’s response.

Mirielle and Yuri’s scout of the deliveries went as smoothly as theirs did of the storeroom. The plan was for Ren and Mirielle to infiltrate the delivery workers on their way down a narrow tunnel, and Mirielle, with Alister, would get into the guards’ quarters of the prison, while Ren went to visit Seniro as Denipha.

Once inside, Mirielle would cast the illusion she’d been practising to lure one of the guards away from their post. Alister would use the technique Yuri had been teaching him to knock the guard unconscious once he rounded the corner he would wait at.

Alister and Mirielle would use the guards’ quarters’ cornered corridors to knock out the remainder of the guards, as they practiced several times a day under Yuri’s watchful eye. Once the guards were taken care of, they’d black out the lights from the guards’ quarters.

That’d be Ren’s signal to immobilise the guards on her way to the iron doors, and the lever would be pulled simultaneously. By that point, they’d also have Seniro to help them, after Ren picked the lock during her visit.

They’d carry their own torches to the iron doors to high sec, and, if Yuri managed to cover the sides in red rust, then the doors would all but fall open.

Alister had yet to volunteer to switch places with Yuri, and every time it was mentioned, he meant to. Every time the opportunity came and went, the pit in his stomach grew. Yuri seemed as eager as his calm features allowed to be arrested. Alister tried to convince himself that Yuri’s desire to be arrested made the decision right, but Lark asked Alister to come to Deemstun, not Yuri.

Alister, Ren, and Seniro needed to take care of the guards in high sec with pure force. Ren would pick the lock to the control room, and release the iron doors for Yuri and Lark’s cells. If they managed the guards fast, the alarm wouldn’t be pulled, and they could exit through the guard’s personal entrance to high sec. Yuri assured them it would be safer to get out through there, rather than the main entrance.

The days leading up to Seniro’s letter were spent practising Elin-tor techniques and Mirielle’s candra illusion. Ren taught Mirielle how to pick the same locks she knew, mostly as back-up, but Mirielle’s grin was wide when she unlocked Yuri’s safe by herself. They meant to go to Wyster to steal the red rust in the days between Seniro’s letter and the break in.

His intense sparring with Yuri sent Alister straight to sleep once his head hit the pillow back at Ren’s house, but dreams of the so-called king of Deemstun plagued his sleep. Baudouin’s dark stare pierced him, and Alister’s mind conjured up some image of the Stone of Dominus. Baudouin would reach for it, his grin wide, and Alister would wake up gasping.

When the letter finally arrived, seven days after Ren visited Seniro, she slammed the door open to Yuri’s. Alister and Yuri ceased their Elin-tor practice; after working on it for seven days, Alister’s strikes were strong and precise, and his reflex sharp enough to defend against sudden attacks. Ranvier, once heavy and awkward in his hand, now moved like an extension of his own arm. Mirielle’s illusion of an escaping prisoner, close enough to reality to convince even the most sceptical guard, vanished into thin air.

Ren brandished the letter in a frenzy. “Listen to this! ‘It must be 4 letters ago I told you I’m sorry. Can’t you see, Runea, that denying my sibling a call, even, is letting it loose a bit too much?’” She slammed the paper down on the table and stared at it. “A five-year-old could tell this is encoded.”

Alister leaned over her shoulder to look at the letter. Runea, I’ll hope again, in vain, possibly, you believe me… “It’s not too bad.” He wrinkled his nose as he read some of the other phrases. On account I realise I did, and do, deserve the sentence…I can’t tell you how very painful it is, being ignored by Ennie. The others, too…

“Not too bad? It’s a mess. Has he always called Denipha ‘Ennie’, or is that some ridiculous nickname he came up with to fit the letters? We probably have Defenders ready to knock at our door.”

“If they suspected anything, wouldn’t they’ve stopped the letter from being delivered?” Mirielle arched her eyebrows. “It’s clearly fine. Does it tell us what we need to know?”

Ren tore out a pencil and underlined some of the letters. “It had better, with this awkward a letter.” She reached the end and held it up. “The first sentence’s message is ‘four guards all times’…he put an extra letter in there like a fool. The next sentence is ‘shift change sunrise set’, then ‘second week night’. The last one is ‘high sec open only new prisoners’, with another extra letter.” She sighed. “Well, at least it makes some sense. There’re four guards in low sec, and they change shifts at sunrise and sunset. The second week night is the best time to do it.”

“Why do you think he considers that the best time?”

Ren shrugged. “The guards are probably less strict, or something.” She tossed the letter onto the table in disgust. “I bet you anything my murderer informant would’ve been able to do a better job.”

Alister stared at her, and she laughed.

“I’m just messing with you, Alister. You should’ve seen your face.”

“Right.”

Mirielle sighed. “That’s not what’s important. The second week night is two days away. Should we do it then, or wait a week?”

Ren ran a hand through her short hair. “All we need is the red rust, and someone to get arrested and put it on the doors. We can do that in two days. Everything else is sorted, right?”

“I suppose so. So we’ll get the red rust tomorrow an hour after dawn, and then the arrest can occur in the afternoon?”

Ren shook her head. “Can we meet two hours after, in the Wyster square? I have a meeting for my next job tomorrow morning.”

Alister grinned. “More travellers from Bastium?”

Ren rolled her eyes. “By the Divine, I hope not. You two are the worst clients I have ever had the displeasure of doing business with.”

Mirielle gave a slight smile. “Well, it’ll all be over in two days.”

And then what?

Two days until they either rescued Lark, or were thrown into the prison with him. Alister had one day to take Yuri’s place, or give in to his cowardice and let the man be arrested.

Alister shook his head. He would volunteer the following day, after they acquired the red rust. I will do it, he told himself.