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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 5118525" data-attributes="member: 63"><p><strong><span style="font-size: 12px">Chapter Five</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Tired, cold, sore, and directionless, Rantle spent nearly an hour drifting in the crowds of Gate Pass, a press of bodies wilder and more packed than even the greatest turn-outs during the new year’s festival. He saw city soldiers trampling people under wagons as they tried to go the wall to fight back the Ragesians. More than once he passed a family carrying a burnt loved one, dying or dead, the healing houses already too full to admit any more. Some frightened soldiers were trying to press through the crowds to retrieve what healers they could and get them to the walls, while distraught fathers and husbands brawled with them when they tried to leave without healing their children and wives. </p><p></p><p>He stepped over several corpses in the street, and even if the crowd behind him had let him take the time to move them, he wasn’t sure he would have cared enough. He had just left the closest thing he had known to a family, and it seemed like fortune was mocking him by having brought him so close to the ones he needed to go with – Torrent, the jispin man, and the frightened woman – who by now could be anywhere. Rantle had no idea how to find a group of three people out of the thousands in Gate Pass, and if he did not find them before tomorrow he suspected they would already be outside the city.</p><p></p><p>There was no route Rantle knew of southward that would not take him through enemy territory, either west through the lines of the Ragesian armies, or east into Shahalesti, which would likely get him captured as a spy, since he looked Ragesian. He could only guess Torrent knew a route through the mountains, but if Rantle had to follow on his own he imagined he would end up freezing to death at the side of some snow-filled mountain road.</p><p></p><p>As it was, after an hour of aimless wandering, the flights of dractyls stopped, the crowds began to disperse, and Rantle found a dark, looted tailor shop to rest in. A dozen other people, either displaced or too cold and tired to go back to their own homes, huddled inside with him, sharing the warmth of a small hearth which barely managed to win against the chill draft coming through the door looters had smashed open. </p><p></p><p>For the first half hour people sat together silently, until one man began plucking away a five-beat couster song on a broken guitar. Rantle and a few others recognized the song and began humming or tapping beats along with it. It felt good to help, even for something as sad as this old war song.</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Oh hear me brave boy, girding at the gate.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>The irons have tolled, and dawn shall be late.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Against you now stands a torch-tongue of fire</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>And Conquest, oh child, is the Dragon’s sole desire.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our home soon in ruins,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our spirits may be thralled.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Look brave on one last dream,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Before your shield falls.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>In the night’s final hours, you drift into sleep,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>And soar with the Eagle to where pains all cease.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Beneath that shining gate, where the titan Worm dwells</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Gleaming shadows cry up, child, from the darkness of hell.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>The doors of light break at the howl of hounds.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>And from Kraken’s waves, mad tempests confound.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our home now in ruins,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our spirits all are thralled.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Be brave for one last dream, boy,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Now, as your shield falls.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>You dream of fearful storms, of ghosts and of flood,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Of flames and of scourge, and bones, damnation, and blood.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>A nightmare of ruins,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our dreams forever thralled.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Wake quick from this dream, child,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Here, before we fall.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Like a child’s first breath, the army’s horn cries.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>You awaken to war, and nightmares brought to life.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>So lift up your arms, and hold fast, be brave.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>You’ll fight and might die, but never will you be a slave.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em></em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our home soon in ruins,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Our spirits might yet be thralled.</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>But fight against that dream,</em></p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"><em>Oh, stand fast at the walls.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p>When the song ended, the silence was too heavy to last. Slowly, the people huddled in the wreck of a building began sharing the events of what had brought them there.</p><p></p><p>At first Rantle took dark pleasure in privately comparing what he had gone through with the plight of those whose stories he heard, feeling a strange pride that he had been through more than them. Then the stories grew bleaker.</p><p></p><p>“I was returning from my brother Thuro’s,” a woman said, cradling a cookpot in her arms like a child. “His wife, she’d cooked a sweet potato porridge, and I was to use it in my children’s breakfast. I was carrying it home, hurrying so I could be in before the new year bells. My boys, they always. . . .”</p><p></p><p>She stopped to get control of herself.</p><p></p><p>“We live in a third-story home. I heard the first crashes . . . you called them ‘bombs’?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle and a handful of other men nodded silently.</p><p></p><p>“I heard them when I was coming in the building’s door. And I was just about to go up the stairs when the walls shook. It felt like the sound just pushed me down. I bled out of my ears and couldn’t hear. I finally . . . I looked up and saw fire, all the way up the stairwell. There just . . . there wasn’t a third floor anymore. I could look up and see the clouds.”</p><p></p><p>A long moment later, a young man spattered with blood added his story.</p><p></p><p>“My brothers and I were trying to get inside the walls of the Castle, but the mages wouldn’t let us in.”</p><p></p><p>Several in the room snorted derisively. The wizard Gabal trained a few dozen students in the ways of magic at his school of war. Supported by tuition of fabulously wealthy families who wanted their children to be as famous and powerful as Gabal himself, the school compound stood near the heart of Gate Pass, but a moat separated it from the rest of the city, and high walls hid the interior buildings, except for a six-story red tower.</p><p></p><p>When word spread that the city was preparing to capitulate to the Ragesians and let in the inquisitors, Gabal had publicly decried the move and warned that if Ragesia attacked, he and his students would not come to Gate Pass’s aid.</p><p></p><p>“The cowards didn’t even come to the gate,” the man continued. “There were dozens of us, and I know we could have fit inside, but we were stuck out in the open.</p><p></p><p>“One of the Ragesian dragons fell out of the night, and it crushed ten or more people under its claws when it landed. There was a man on its back. He rode it in a saddle like it was a giant horse with wings. I saw him fire a crossbow at someone in the crowd. We started to run, all of us.</p><p></p><p>“My youngest brother, Perant, he was at the back of the crowd, and the dragon chased after us. I looked back when I heard him screaming, and . . . the dragon had him in his teeth. It shook him like a damn cat eating a mouse. The bastard rag would have gotten more of us, but the gods chose then to show mercy. A pair of avilons swept in and scared the dragon and its rider, and they flew off. They took Perant with them.”</p><p></p><p>“Aye,” said a bearded elder whose burned hands were bandaged over. “The gods always seem to ‘show mercy’ a little too late.”</p><p></p><p>Others spoke, telling similar stories. Few cried. Eventually the stories stopped, and Rantle still had not spoken. The silence of the room, disturbed only by the crackle of the hearth, weighed upon him.</p><p></p><p>“We’re still alive,” he said finally. His mouth was dry. “We’re still alive, and we’re going to stay that way, for those who are gone, and for those who are missing who we might be reunited with. Our city survived worse than this forty years ago, and . . . and we’re the children of their bravery.”</p><p></p><p>The rest of the room was listening, but Rantle felt too embarrassed to continue. The bearded man from before leaned close.</p><p></p><p>“Did you lose someone, son?”</p><p></p><p>“No.” Rantle shook his head and stood. “And I don’t intend to, either.”</p><p></p><p>He started to leave, but the bearded man held up a hand for him to stop.</p><p></p><p>“Son,” the man said, “what can you do at this time of night? Leave the fighting to the soldiers.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle shook his head. “There’s someone I have to find. Trust me, if I could stay here, I would, but I don’t have long to find her, and she could be anywhere.”</p><p></p><p>People around the room muttered. Rantle wanted to say something else encouraging, or explain himself, but after a moment he just shook his head and left. </p><p></p><p>The stories had given him an idea, and now there was one place that might hold a chance of finding Torrent. He climbed to the nearest stable roof, used the shadow of the Coaltongue colossus to get his bearings, and then set out for the Castle.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">* * *</p><p></p><p>A man stood just inside the iron portcullis gate of the entrance to the Castle, the red ember tip of a cigarette making him visible from far away as Rantle approached. The city was much quieter now, and colder, the streets deserted and the skies empty of warriors battling in flight like demi-gods, beyond the power of normal men. The streets bordering the Castle always were less occupied, normal folk being nervous of getting too close to a den of mages, but on the icy cobblestones scattered dead bodies lay, most of them half-naked now that the looters had had their way with them.</p><p></p><p>Rantle walked softly, and the man at the gate did not notice him until he was nearly at the moat. Unlike most of Gabal’s students, who when they were seen in public wore thick red robes with golden sleeves, this man’s robes were dark blue, and were cut differently, perhaps to accommodate his shoulders, which were broader than Rantle would expect for a man his size. Though he wasn’t much older than Rantle, his short brown hair was receding at his temples, and a day of stubble was smeared across his jaw, not messy, but rather like he carefully maintained an appearance of mild laziness.</p><p></p><p>Aside from his left hand which he was smoking with, he was tightly bundled against the cold, but didn’t look like he minded it, but rather as if he felt he deserved to be stuck out in the frigid night.</p><p></p><p>The drawbridge lay down – the moat was frozen anyway – so Rantle simply walked up to the portcullis and nodded to the mage.</p><p></p><p>“I need to come inside,” Rantle said.</p><p></p><p>The mage chuckled. “You’re not the first one to say that this evening.”</p><p></p><p>“I heard,” Rantle said. “You and your fellows hid in your castle while people died out here.”</p><p></p><p>The mage shrugged. He drew a long breath of smoke.</p><p></p><p>“So,” the mage said, “what makes you think we’re going to let a thief like you in?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle considered the mage as some distant rumble rolled across the city like thunder, no doubt the sound of magic being used at the west wall. The smoking mage turned an ear in the direction of the sound and shook his head.</p><p></p><p>“I’m no thief,” Rantle said. “I’m not here to steal. I need to find someone.”</p><p></p><p>“Your boots,” said the man. </p><p></p><p>He and Rantle both looked down and squinted at Rantle’s boots.</p><p></p><p>The mage chuckled, “You’re a Mauser. Or else you took a Mauser’s boots. Either way, you’re a thief.”</p><p></p><p>“My uncle made these boots,” Rantle said. “What do my boots have to do with being a thief?”</p><p></p><p>“Normal people don’t need boots that soft. I bet you could sneak up on a man and he’d never hear it. I barely heard you crossing the street, and it’s the middle of the night. What’s his name?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle was confused.</p><p></p><p>“Whose?” he said.</p><p></p><p>“Your uncle, the cobbler.”</p><p></p><p>“Ulwyn,” Rantle lied.</p><p></p><p>The mage smiled. “Where’s his shop?”</p><p></p><p>“What?” Rantle sighed. “He used to have a shop on Turliss Street in the ninth district, but I don’t talk to my uncle much anymore, so he might have moved.”</p><p></p><p>“And uncle Ulwelf-”</p><p></p><p>“Ulwyn,” Rantle corrected.</p><p></p><p>“Whatever.” The mage took a drag on his cigarette, then spoke a cloud of smoke. “You’re a wretched liar. You’re too eager. That’s bad form. If you are a thief, I feel sorry for your guild. Anyway, thanks for keeping me company.”</p><p></p><p>The mage started to turn away and walk off, dropping a spent cigarette on the ground.</p><p></p><p>“Hey,” Rantle said. “Even liars and thieves can have legitimate business. I have need of a mage.”</p><p></p><p>The man hesitated, then shrugged and turned to look at Rantle. He rummaged around inside his robe with his left hand, eventually pulling out another cigarette, then planted it in his lips, reached in again and produced a small wooden wand, and put the wand to the cigarette’s tip, lighting it with a sudden spark of flame. Then he tucked the wand away, the whole process remarkably smooth considering he was only using one hand.</p><p></p><p>“Alright,” the mage said, “as foolish as you sound, you came here thinking you have a good chance of getting me or one of the other students to care. So let me hear it.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle grinned. “You’re the first smart person I’ve met all night.” </p><p></p><p>The mage nodded in bemused agreement.</p><p></p><p>“So here’s the situation,” Rantle said. “The city is locked down, the rags are beating down the walls, and once they get in, any mages who are here will be carted away by the inquisitors. You had to have heard the same rumors I have.”</p><p></p><p>The mage’s expression briefly turned very grim, but then he quickly again looked indifferent and nodded.</p><p></p><p>“I know someone who knows a way out of the city and through the mountains,” Rantle said. “She’s taking a group of mages south to Dassen. I was supposed to go with them, but I got to the meet-up location too late, after the attack had started.”</p><p></p><p>“You’re trying to flee to the Lyceum?” the mage said. </p><p></p><p>“No,” Rantle said. “I’m trying to get to some town called Seaquen.”</p><p></p><p>“The Lyceum is the wizard’s school in Seaquen,” the man laughed. “And you don’t look like much of a wizard.”</p><p></p><p>“I’m not,” Rantle said. “But my sister is. Well, she’s self-trained. Anyway, she’s already gone.”</p><p></p><p>“Good for her. What’s the problem?”</p><p></p><p>“The problem,” Rantle said, coming up with a lie, “is that she left me a note. She said she didn’t want me to follow her and risk getting hurt. But I mean, she had to know I’d go after her.”</p><p></p><p>The mage scoffed. “That was sweet of her. Does she run off and need rescuing a lot?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle grinned. “Oh yeah. You have no idea.”</p><p></p><p>“Yeah,” the wizard said with a shrug. “I don’t think the inquisitors will waste their time with an amateur. But fine, you want to track down your sister so she’s not alone, and because you want out of the city before someone tries to get you to fight the Ragesians, if I’m guessing correctly.”</p><p></p><p>“Hey, I don’t see <em>you</em> on the wall,” Rantle said. “Honestly, I don’t even know if you can find her, but I assume magic can do anything.”</p><p></p><p>The mage chuckled as if he had seen a toddler trying to dress in adult clothes. The man clearly had pride about his powers, which Rantle could exploit.</p><p></p><p>“You can’t want to stay here,” Rantle said. “You could come along, and come to safety. I know they would never refuse the assistance of a Gabalese war mage. Unless you’re planning to side with the rags.”</p><p></p><p>“No,” the mage said, his tone disturbingly amused. “The inquisitors are indeed capturing or killing every mage they find. I couldn’t betray you if I wanted to. No, I’m staying here so we can wait for the inquisitors to come and deal with them, instead of getting shot or stabbed fighting an army. That’s what normal people are for. Like you.”</p><p></p><p>“Fine,” Rantle said. “You want to stay here and be safe while the rest of the city burns?”</p><p></p><p>“Yes,” the mage laughed mockingly. “That was basically the idea. Not that it’s going to work.”</p><p></p><p>Rantle blinked in surprise. “What?”</p><p></p><p>“I’m not a <em>war mage</em>,” the man said. “We don’t all hurl balls of fire and searing bolts and all manner of magical missiles. My parents sent me here so I could learn magic that’s useful in business. Now they’re probably being carried off to some gulag themselves, and, as much as I respect my parents, I don’t miss them enough to want to join them. I somehow doubt the great old spirits of eldritch accounting will protect me when the inquisitors are torturing me.”</p><p></p><p>“Right,” Rantle said slowly, confused. “So you <em>do</em> want to run?”</p><p></p><p>“There was a meeting earlier this evening,” the mage said. “At some pub called the Poison Apple, and you were supposed to meet at midnight? Their plan was to go to Seaquen and, under the enlightened guidance of the Lyceum, join forces with other panicked, feeble refugee magic-users in order to defeat the Ragesians. Which, as history has shown, is exactly what happens when you have hundreds of people who desire each other’s secrets living in the same place: they band together out of communal good will, and certainly don’t try to kill each other for access to their power.</p><p></p><p>“Yes,” the mage concluded, “all of us knew about it. Mages have been smuggling themselves out of here for weeks. It had been talked about too much, and in addition to being a stupid idea, it was probably just a trap.”</p><p></p><p>“Well,” Rantle said, “it was a legitimate meeting, but there were dead bounty hunters there when I showed up.”</p><p></p><p>The mage chuckled and took another draw on his cigarette.</p><p></p><p>“And you want me to travel with you, as if it would be safer than staying here?”</p><p></p><p>Rantle shrugged. “Honestly, my night has been full of so much trouble, I can’t imagine it could get any worse, so you might as well come with me.”</p><p></p><p>The mage considered for a moment, then reached out through the bars with his left hand, turning it upside down to shake Rantle’s hand. Rantle obliged, wondering if something was wrong with the man’s right arm.</p><p></p><p>“My name’s Diogenes,” the mage said.</p><p></p><p>“I’m Rantle. Can you actually find the woman I’m looking for?”</p><p></p><p>“Not yet,” Diogenes said. “You’re going to have to earn my help.”</p><p></p><p>Diogenes moved to open a small door built into the wall beside the portcullis so Rantle could come inside.</p><p></p><p>“What do I have to do?” Rantle asked.</p><p></p><p>Diogenes swung open the door and gestured him in.</p><p></p><p>“Just be a good thief, and a decent liar.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 5118525, member: 63"] [b][size=3]Chapter Five[/size][/b][size=3][/size] Tired, cold, sore, and directionless, Rantle spent nearly an hour drifting in the crowds of Gate Pass, a press of bodies wilder and more packed than even the greatest turn-outs during the new year’s festival. He saw city soldiers trampling people under wagons as they tried to go the wall to fight back the Ragesians. More than once he passed a family carrying a burnt loved one, dying or dead, the healing houses already too full to admit any more. Some frightened soldiers were trying to press through the crowds to retrieve what healers they could and get them to the walls, while distraught fathers and husbands brawled with them when they tried to leave without healing their children and wives. He stepped over several corpses in the street, and even if the crowd behind him had let him take the time to move them, he wasn’t sure he would have cared enough. He had just left the closest thing he had known to a family, and it seemed like fortune was mocking him by having brought him so close to the ones he needed to go with – Torrent, the jispin man, and the frightened woman – who by now could be anywhere. Rantle had no idea how to find a group of three people out of the thousands in Gate Pass, and if he did not find them before tomorrow he suspected they would already be outside the city. There was no route Rantle knew of southward that would not take him through enemy territory, either west through the lines of the Ragesian armies, or east into Shahalesti, which would likely get him captured as a spy, since he looked Ragesian. He could only guess Torrent knew a route through the mountains, but if Rantle had to follow on his own he imagined he would end up freezing to death at the side of some snow-filled mountain road. As it was, after an hour of aimless wandering, the flights of dractyls stopped, the crowds began to disperse, and Rantle found a dark, looted tailor shop to rest in. A dozen other people, either displaced or too cold and tired to go back to their own homes, huddled inside with him, sharing the warmth of a small hearth which barely managed to win against the chill draft coming through the door looters had smashed open. For the first half hour people sat together silently, until one man began plucking away a five-beat couster song on a broken guitar. Rantle and a few others recognized the song and began humming or tapping beats along with it. It felt good to help, even for something as sad as this old war song. [indent][i]Oh hear me brave boy, girding at the gate. The irons have tolled, and dawn shall be late. Against you now stands a torch-tongue of fire And Conquest, oh child, is the Dragon’s sole desire. Our home soon in ruins, Our spirits may be thralled. Look brave on one last dream, Before your shield falls. In the night’s final hours, you drift into sleep, And soar with the Eagle to where pains all cease. Beneath that shining gate, where the titan Worm dwells Gleaming shadows cry up, child, from the darkness of hell. The doors of light break at the howl of hounds. And from Kraken’s waves, mad tempests confound. Our home now in ruins, Our spirits all are thralled. Be brave for one last dream, boy, Now, as your shield falls. You dream of fearful storms, of ghosts and of flood, Of flames and of scourge, and bones, damnation, and blood. A nightmare of ruins, Our dreams forever thralled. Wake quick from this dream, child, Here, before we fall. Like a child’s first breath, the army’s horn cries. You awaken to war, and nightmares brought to life. So lift up your arms, and hold fast, be brave. You’ll fight and might die, but never will you be a slave. Our home soon in ruins, Our spirits might yet be thralled. But fight against that dream, Oh, stand fast at the walls.[/i][/indent][i][/i] When the song ended, the silence was too heavy to last. Slowly, the people huddled in the wreck of a building began sharing the events of what had brought them there. At first Rantle took dark pleasure in privately comparing what he had gone through with the plight of those whose stories he heard, feeling a strange pride that he had been through more than them. Then the stories grew bleaker. “I was returning from my brother Thuro’s,” a woman said, cradling a cookpot in her arms like a child. “His wife, she’d cooked a sweet potato porridge, and I was to use it in my children’s breakfast. I was carrying it home, hurrying so I could be in before the new year bells. My boys, they always. . . .” She stopped to get control of herself. “We live in a third-story home. I heard the first crashes . . . you called them ‘bombs’?” Rantle and a handful of other men nodded silently. “I heard them when I was coming in the building’s door. And I was just about to go up the stairs when the walls shook. It felt like the sound just pushed me down. I bled out of my ears and couldn’t hear. I finally . . . I looked up and saw fire, all the way up the stairwell. There just . . . there wasn’t a third floor anymore. I could look up and see the clouds.” A long moment later, a young man spattered with blood added his story. “My brothers and I were trying to get inside the walls of the Castle, but the mages wouldn’t let us in.” Several in the room snorted derisively. The wizard Gabal trained a few dozen students in the ways of magic at his school of war. Supported by tuition of fabulously wealthy families who wanted their children to be as famous and powerful as Gabal himself, the school compound stood near the heart of Gate Pass, but a moat separated it from the rest of the city, and high walls hid the interior buildings, except for a six-story red tower. When word spread that the city was preparing to capitulate to the Ragesians and let in the inquisitors, Gabal had publicly decried the move and warned that if Ragesia attacked, he and his students would not come to Gate Pass’s aid. “The cowards didn’t even come to the gate,” the man continued. “There were dozens of us, and I know we could have fit inside, but we were stuck out in the open. “One of the Ragesian dragons fell out of the night, and it crushed ten or more people under its claws when it landed. There was a man on its back. He rode it in a saddle like it was a giant horse with wings. I saw him fire a crossbow at someone in the crowd. We started to run, all of us. “My youngest brother, Perant, he was at the back of the crowd, and the dragon chased after us. I looked back when I heard him screaming, and . . . the dragon had him in his teeth. It shook him like a damn cat eating a mouse. The bastard rag would have gotten more of us, but the gods chose then to show mercy. A pair of avilons swept in and scared the dragon and its rider, and they flew off. They took Perant with them.” “Aye,” said a bearded elder whose burned hands were bandaged over. “The gods always seem to ‘show mercy’ a little too late.” Others spoke, telling similar stories. Few cried. Eventually the stories stopped, and Rantle still had not spoken. The silence of the room, disturbed only by the crackle of the hearth, weighed upon him. “We’re still alive,” he said finally. His mouth was dry. “We’re still alive, and we’re going to stay that way, for those who are gone, and for those who are missing who we might be reunited with. Our city survived worse than this forty years ago, and . . . and we’re the children of their bravery.” The rest of the room was listening, but Rantle felt too embarrassed to continue. The bearded man from before leaned close. “Did you lose someone, son?” “No.” Rantle shook his head and stood. “And I don’t intend to, either.” He started to leave, but the bearded man held up a hand for him to stop. “Son,” the man said, “what can you do at this time of night? Leave the fighting to the soldiers.” Rantle shook his head. “There’s someone I have to find. Trust me, if I could stay here, I would, but I don’t have long to find her, and she could be anywhere.” People around the room muttered. Rantle wanted to say something else encouraging, or explain himself, but after a moment he just shook his head and left. The stories had given him an idea, and now there was one place that might hold a chance of finding Torrent. He climbed to the nearest stable roof, used the shadow of the Coaltongue colossus to get his bearings, and then set out for the Castle. [center]* * *[/center] A man stood just inside the iron portcullis gate of the entrance to the Castle, the red ember tip of a cigarette making him visible from far away as Rantle approached. The city was much quieter now, and colder, the streets deserted and the skies empty of warriors battling in flight like demi-gods, beyond the power of normal men. The streets bordering the Castle always were less occupied, normal folk being nervous of getting too close to a den of mages, but on the icy cobblestones scattered dead bodies lay, most of them half-naked now that the looters had had their way with them. Rantle walked softly, and the man at the gate did not notice him until he was nearly at the moat. Unlike most of Gabal’s students, who when they were seen in public wore thick red robes with golden sleeves, this man’s robes were dark blue, and were cut differently, perhaps to accommodate his shoulders, which were broader than Rantle would expect for a man his size. Though he wasn’t much older than Rantle, his short brown hair was receding at his temples, and a day of stubble was smeared across his jaw, not messy, but rather like he carefully maintained an appearance of mild laziness. Aside from his left hand which he was smoking with, he was tightly bundled against the cold, but didn’t look like he minded it, but rather as if he felt he deserved to be stuck out in the frigid night. The drawbridge lay down – the moat was frozen anyway – so Rantle simply walked up to the portcullis and nodded to the mage. “I need to come inside,” Rantle said. The mage chuckled. “You’re not the first one to say that this evening.” “I heard,” Rantle said. “You and your fellows hid in your castle while people died out here.” The mage shrugged. He drew a long breath of smoke. “So,” the mage said, “what makes you think we’re going to let a thief like you in?” Rantle considered the mage as some distant rumble rolled across the city like thunder, no doubt the sound of magic being used at the west wall. The smoking mage turned an ear in the direction of the sound and shook his head. “I’m no thief,” Rantle said. “I’m not here to steal. I need to find someone.” “Your boots,” said the man. He and Rantle both looked down and squinted at Rantle’s boots. The mage chuckled, “You’re a Mauser. Or else you took a Mauser’s boots. Either way, you’re a thief.” “My uncle made these boots,” Rantle said. “What do my boots have to do with being a thief?” “Normal people don’t need boots that soft. I bet you could sneak up on a man and he’d never hear it. I barely heard you crossing the street, and it’s the middle of the night. What’s his name?” Rantle was confused. “Whose?” he said. “Your uncle, the cobbler.” “Ulwyn,” Rantle lied. The mage smiled. “Where’s his shop?” “What?” Rantle sighed. “He used to have a shop on Turliss Street in the ninth district, but I don’t talk to my uncle much anymore, so he might have moved.” “And uncle Ulwelf-” “Ulwyn,” Rantle corrected. “Whatever.” The mage took a drag on his cigarette, then spoke a cloud of smoke. “You’re a wretched liar. You’re too eager. That’s bad form. If you are a thief, I feel sorry for your guild. Anyway, thanks for keeping me company.” The mage started to turn away and walk off, dropping a spent cigarette on the ground. “Hey,” Rantle said. “Even liars and thieves can have legitimate business. I have need of a mage.” The man hesitated, then shrugged and turned to look at Rantle. He rummaged around inside his robe with his left hand, eventually pulling out another cigarette, then planted it in his lips, reached in again and produced a small wooden wand, and put the wand to the cigarette’s tip, lighting it with a sudden spark of flame. Then he tucked the wand away, the whole process remarkably smooth considering he was only using one hand. “Alright,” the mage said, “as foolish as you sound, you came here thinking you have a good chance of getting me or one of the other students to care. So let me hear it.” Rantle grinned. “You’re the first smart person I’ve met all night.” The mage nodded in bemused agreement. “So here’s the situation,” Rantle said. “The city is locked down, the rags are beating down the walls, and once they get in, any mages who are here will be carted away by the inquisitors. You had to have heard the same rumors I have.” The mage’s expression briefly turned very grim, but then he quickly again looked indifferent and nodded. “I know someone who knows a way out of the city and through the mountains,” Rantle said. “She’s taking a group of mages south to Dassen. I was supposed to go with them, but I got to the meet-up location too late, after the attack had started.” “You’re trying to flee to the Lyceum?” the mage said. “No,” Rantle said. “I’m trying to get to some town called Seaquen.” “The Lyceum is the wizard’s school in Seaquen,” the man laughed. “And you don’t look like much of a wizard.” “I’m not,” Rantle said. “But my sister is. Well, she’s self-trained. Anyway, she’s already gone.” “Good for her. What’s the problem?” “The problem,” Rantle said, coming up with a lie, “is that she left me a note. She said she didn’t want me to follow her and risk getting hurt. But I mean, she had to know I’d go after her.” The mage scoffed. “That was sweet of her. Does she run off and need rescuing a lot?” Rantle grinned. “Oh yeah. You have no idea.” “Yeah,” the wizard said with a shrug. “I don’t think the inquisitors will waste their time with an amateur. But fine, you want to track down your sister so she’s not alone, and because you want out of the city before someone tries to get you to fight the Ragesians, if I’m guessing correctly.” “Hey, I don’t see [i]you[/i] on the wall,” Rantle said. “Honestly, I don’t even know if you can find her, but I assume magic can do anything.” The mage chuckled as if he had seen a toddler trying to dress in adult clothes. The man clearly had pride about his powers, which Rantle could exploit. “You can’t want to stay here,” Rantle said. “You could come along, and come to safety. I know they would never refuse the assistance of a Gabalese war mage. Unless you’re planning to side with the rags.” “No,” the mage said, his tone disturbingly amused. “The inquisitors are indeed capturing or killing every mage they find. I couldn’t betray you if I wanted to. No, I’m staying here so we can wait for the inquisitors to come and deal with them, instead of getting shot or stabbed fighting an army. That’s what normal people are for. Like you.” “Fine,” Rantle said. “You want to stay here and be safe while the rest of the city burns?” “Yes,” the mage laughed mockingly. “That was basically the idea. Not that it’s going to work.” Rantle blinked in surprise. “What?” “I’m not a [i]war mage[/i],” the man said. “We don’t all hurl balls of fire and searing bolts and all manner of magical missiles. My parents sent me here so I could learn magic that’s useful in business. Now they’re probably being carried off to some gulag themselves, and, as much as I respect my parents, I don’t miss them enough to want to join them. I somehow doubt the great old spirits of eldritch accounting will protect me when the inquisitors are torturing me.” “Right,” Rantle said slowly, confused. “So you [i]do[/i] want to run?” “There was a meeting earlier this evening,” the mage said. “At some pub called the Poison Apple, and you were supposed to meet at midnight? Their plan was to go to Seaquen and, under the enlightened guidance of the Lyceum, join forces with other panicked, feeble refugee magic-users in order to defeat the Ragesians. Which, as history has shown, is exactly what happens when you have hundreds of people who desire each other’s secrets living in the same place: they band together out of communal good will, and certainly don’t try to kill each other for access to their power. “Yes,” the mage concluded, “all of us knew about it. Mages have been smuggling themselves out of here for weeks. It had been talked about too much, and in addition to being a stupid idea, it was probably just a trap.” “Well,” Rantle said, “it was a legitimate meeting, but there were dead bounty hunters there when I showed up.” The mage chuckled and took another draw on his cigarette. “And you want me to travel with you, as if it would be safer than staying here?” Rantle shrugged. “Honestly, my night has been full of so much trouble, I can’t imagine it could get any worse, so you might as well come with me.” The mage considered for a moment, then reached out through the bars with his left hand, turning it upside down to shake Rantle’s hand. Rantle obliged, wondering if something was wrong with the man’s right arm. “My name’s Diogenes,” the mage said. “I’m Rantle. Can you actually find the woman I’m looking for?” “Not yet,” Diogenes said. “You’re going to have to earn my help.” Diogenes moved to open a small door built into the wall beside the portcullis so Rantle could come inside. “What do I have to do?” Rantle asked. Diogenes swung open the door and gestured him in. “Just be a good thief, and a decent liar.” [/QUOTE]
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