Silent Plans

Eric slipped out while Welyvyne was still sleeping. This time, when he headed to the market, he avoided the food vendor—the obvious first place anyone would look for him. He hadn’t told her he was looking for a place off campus to live and work on artificing.

The guilt sat heavier than he liked, especially because he’d already suggested they rent a place together. He told himself he was only scouting. He’d find a few places that would do nicely, then bring them back to her—options, not decisions.

He studied the buildings by the market and decided he didn’t have to be directly in the middle of it, so he walked farther out. A few places north of the market were clearly vacant, but he couldn’t find rent signs on any of the buildings.

"Excuse me," someone said from behind Eric. He whirled around to see a tall, black-haired elven man.

The man took a step back before continuing. "You wouldn't happen be looking for a place to rent, would you?"

Eric narrowed his eyes. "What gives you the impression I'm looking for a place to rent?"

The man chuckled. Eric noticed he was dressed much like himself, except his long coat was a deep red, and his pants and shirt were a burnt orange. "You have been walking and stopping by every vacant place on this street, young man. I assumed that is what you were doing."

"That obvious?" Eric said. "Yes, I was looking for a place to rent."

The man smiled. "As I thought. If you are looking to rent, there are boards in the market with posted properties. What exactly are you looking for? I am actually renting a place nearby, and it may suit you."

Eric thought for a moment, then decided. "I'm looking for a shop mostly, maybe the bottom floor with a living area on top."

The man rubbed his chin. "Ah, well, my place may work for you then. The place I have isn't exactly a shop on the bottom, but it could be made into one. It has a living space on top. If your interested in looking at it, I'd be glad to show it to you."

Eric smiled at his luck. "Oh, what was it before?"

Eric began moving with the man as he was talking. Much of the noise from the market was dying down as they walked down the street, then off to the left.

The man smiled as he turned to look at Eric. "My name is Elyritch. I meant to use the building for my own business endeavors but couldn't ever get it off the ground, so I decided to rent it out. What are you planning on using a shop for, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm an artificer," Eric said proudly. "I plan to create things that I can market." Eric pulled the watch out of his pocket and presented it to Elyritch.

Elyritch examined the watch. "What does it do?"

Eric grinned. "It displays the time. This small hand tells me the bells, and the big hand shows how much time between the bells is left—hours and minutes."

Elyritch’s brows shot up, and he smiled broadly. "That's brilliant. I think I'd like to buy one for myself."

Elyritch turned down an alley, and Eric realized a bit too late that this alley was a dead end. He turned just as a rock struck him in the side of the head. He staggered back before Elyritch threw a bag over his head and cinched it around his neck. He went to punch the man but was then struck from the side and brought to the ground. He struggled, trying to roll to his stomach.

Elyritch jumped on his back and called out. "Help me with him, he's strong."

Eric heard multiple boots stomping his way. He fought to get back onto his feet, trying to pull the sack off his head. The sack put him in absolute darkness, and his yells were muffled—likely too much for anyone to hear.

Elyritch held his arms, and Eric couldn’t cast—couldn’t form the words. The sack over his head smothered his voice, turning any incantation into muffled breath.

Then he was tackled to the ground, landing hard on his side. Before he fully understood what had happened, he’d broken free and was swinging wildly into the air, trying to make contact with anyone—before a bright flash washed through the darkness and his ears started ringing. A kick caught him in the side of the head.

When he woke, he was sitting in a chair, his hands bound firmly behind his back. The sack was still over his head, the darkness unbroken. He started to move, then froze—he could hear them talking somewhere not too far away. Eric stayed still and listened.

“...followed him from the market,” a man said, deep and guttural. “Didn’t even have to pull him out of the crowd.”

Eric thought back to the market. He hadn’t noticed anyone following him. How could I not notice someone following me? he chastised himself.

Another man spoke, this one with a high tenor. “We still plannin’ to cart him off to th’ Empire fer that bounty, eh?”

Elyritch spoke this time, smooth and calm. “Of course we are. Getting paid twice for this job is the best part.”

Eric pulled on his bindings. They felt like rope, so he pulled harder. Simple rope shouldn’t be enough to hold me, he thought—especially with his strength.

Another voice joined the others, female and smooth. “Hey. He’s awake.”

Crap, he thought. I didn’t know someone was in here with me. She hadn’t made a sound.

Eric began to struggle as he ran through his options—which were exceedingly limited. He couldn’t just pull his sword from his dimensional space; even if he did, he had no idea how he’d do anything with it like this. His clothing, some claws, a few mana crystals—none of it was going to help him here.

Elyritch ran a finger across the sack, and it turned slightly translucent—just enough for Eric to make out the room and the men. The woman seemed to be behind him. The sack was disorienting, and Eric wondered if that was its purpose.

As Eric struggled, he yanked hard on the rope binding him and noticed chains hanging from the far wall. The room was built from rounded gray bricks stacked tight, with green moss and brown mold clinging in the seams. Crates and boxes were scattered around, and the air smelled old and damp.

Elyritch leaned in, smiling—too wide to be anything like happiness. “It’s your lucky day, Eric. You don’t get to die today.”

Eric yanked again, trying to break the rope that shouldn’t have been able to hold him. It felt far too thin to be this strong.

Elyritch leaned over his shoulder and chuckled. “You can’t break them. Do you honestly think we didn’t come prepared for you? Don’t answer that. We aren’t going to kill you—but if you don’t calm down, we’ll string your girlfriend up on that wall over there and skin her in front of you.”

Eric went still, menace written across his face. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice still muffled—but at least he could hear it now.

“What do we want?” Elyritch laughed, and the men laughed behind him. One of them scraped filth from under his nails with a small dagger—a gaunt human with short brown hair, dressed in black leathers. “We’re doing a job. You go to the Empire. She doesn’t leave this room.”

Eric scowled. “What does this Empire want with me?”

Elyritch straightened and glanced at his men before looking back at Eric. “How could you not know the Human Empire has a bounty out for human mages? Most turn themselves in and take the bounty for themselves. Then there are the stupid ones who try to run—like you.”

Eric kept his scowl. “Well, you’ve got me. Send me off—just leave Welyvyne out of it.”

The big man laughed this time, deep and rumbling—another human. He wore mostly leather, reinforced with metal plates riveted over it. “He thinks he’s the job.”

Elyritch smiled. “No. The job calls for both of you to die. Sending you to the Empire just gets you gone either way.”

Eric snarled. “Who wants us dead?”

Elyritch laughed hard. “We won’t say the name of anyone who hired us. We’re professionals, after all.” The other men—and even the woman behind Eric—chuckled.

Elyritch’s expression changed instantly, twisting into a snarl. “Now we need a plan for your girlfriend. Sit tight. And if you try anything—know the Empire will gladly take most of you.”

Eric was panicking inside. He couldn’t live with himself if he got his friends killed—especially Welyvyne. She meant more to him than he was willing to admit. Losing her would feel like losing family, and the thought shocked him. He’d barely met her.

He ran through everything he had again and again, spiraling fast. Then a simple thought cut through it as the woman walked around him—an elf, long white hair, all he could make out before something clicked about the way he cast.

He thought back to when he’d first learned. Seltheren had shown him the hand movements, and he remembered how the incantation had felt. But it hadn’t worked at all until he’d forced the intent of what he wanted.

He wondered if intent was all he needed.

Elyritch looked back at Eric. Eric was stock-still, focused on ignite. He tried to feel mana flow toward his restraints, then poured his intent into burning the bindings. It felt like it took forever—he tried again and again until, at his wrist, a spark of warmth. He’d made something happen.

He tried again—another quick spark. He pushed more mana, and the bindings flared into a blaze. Pain tore through his wrists, sharper than anything he’d ever felt. The smell of burning wood mixed with his own flesh as the binding finally snapped and fell to the floor.

He bolted upright as a system message chimed in his head. With no time to read it, the message faded into a simple notification.

Eric channeled mana and fired a lightning bolt at the large man. The man froze, then collapsed.

Eric summoned his sword into his hand and launched himself at the smaller man as Elyritch ran through a stone archway and darted left. Eric swung. The smaller man deftly redirected the blade while stepping aside, then stabbed out—lightning quick—driving steel into Eric’s hip and sending him crashing to the floor.

Eric focused on arc. He grabbed the man’s ankle and poured more mana into it than he’d ever used at once. His arms burned from the expenditure and his vision narrowed. The recoil hit him like a truck, but he couldn’t stop now. He heard the large man getting back up as the smaller man collapsed beside him in a smoking heap.

The large man kicked at Eric while he was still on the ground. Eric blocked the strike, but the force sent him slamming into the opposite wall through the archway.

Eric tried to scramble to his feet and saw the man smile as green mana shimmered over him for a moment. Eric barely had time to react before the man was on top of him, swinging a fist at his head. Eric snapped his head aside just in time. The punch smashed into the wall, and pieces of brick rained down onto him.

A knee drove for his stomach. Eric tried to stop it with his sword, but the tip slammed into the wall, barely biting into the man’s leg.

Eric punched forward, forcing too much mana into arc a second time. This time the man crumpled to the ground, still breathing.

Eric nearly blacked out. The fire in his arms spread up into his chest, and his vision swam. Still, he placed a hand on the man’s head and sent another arc into him. The man convulsed, then went still.

Eric took a moment to pull the sack off of his head and heal his hip. He knew Elyritch would find him and finish him off if he didn’t get back up soon.

Something struck his shoulder.

The woman.

How did he forget about the woman?

He looked down and saw a football-sized stone on the floor beside him. He shoved himself away from the wall just as another crack split the stone next to his head.

Eric scanned and noticed another football-sized stone rising from the ground. He still couldn’t see the woman. He dodged again, but the rock clipped his leg and sent him spinning.

As he turned, he caught it—a ripple in the wall, person-shaped, shifting as she repositioned to keep him in sight while he moved farther left of the archway.

Eric snarled and spoke under his breath. “I’ve got you now.”

He focused on steam jet and fired it at the last place he’d seen her, careful not to overdraw his mana again. It struck the wall—and the wall screamed.

Green blood ran down the stone as her camouflage collapsed. She looked up at him, then down at her chest. Her jaw worked soundlessly, as if she were trying to speak, before she slid down the wall. A clean hole burned through her chest.

Eric had hit her in the heart.

Eric moved back into the room to make sure the woman wasn’t breathing. He reached to check her pulse with his left hand—and felt his shoulder pop.

His breath caught. The pain was almost enough to make him black out. The stone she’d hit him with had dislocated his shoulder and broken his clavicle. As he stared down at the ruined angle of it, he heard a slow clap behind him.

“Very good,” Elyritch said from behind him. “I’m surprised you survived. Well done.”

Eric fully turned to face Elyritch and dismissed his sword back into storage.

Elyritch smiled. “See? I knew you were a smart man—giving up here—”

Eric pointed at him and unleashed an overcharged lightning bolt straight into Elyritch’s face.

“Shut up.”

Is was all he managed before his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.

"We found him!" Kaelen said after he burst into Welyvyne and Eric's dorm room. "The guild tracked him down using his guild badge. They are taking him to the infirmary as I speak."

Welyvyne shot to her feet. She had worried when he hadn’t showed up that night; he had been gone all day, and she had just assumed he was busy. But now—Kaelen had said they took him to the infirmary.

"What happened, Kaelen, what do you know!"

Kaelen grimaced. "We don’t know much. He was found with four dead mercenaries around him. What I can tell you is he fought like hell."

Welyvyne ran past Kaelen, heading for the infirmary. When she got there, there were two guards at the door. They blocked her entry. "Let me through, Eric is my friend!"

Kaelen walked up from behind, nodding at the guards. "It's okay, let her through."

The guards stepped to the side, and Welyvyne rushed in, leaving Kaelen behind.

What she saw inside was Eric lying in a bed, his shoulder heavily bandaged. Lyren was already there, channeling mana into Eric. "Is he going to be okay," Welyvyne said as she looked down at him.

Lyren frowned. "Take a seat Welyvyne, this isn't going to be easy to hear."

Welyvyne frowned. "What is going to be hard to hear, is he dying?"

Lyren shook her head slowly. "No Welyvyne, Eric isn't dying. He is... He damaged his mana channels. He won't be able to cast for awhile, and if he does, it'll be very limited. I don't know what happened, but he fought hard."

Welyvyne looked at Eric, tears welling in her eyes. "Why, he knew he shouldn't... why would you over extend Eric."