Amendments (26 page)

              Ruith pulled out a key, unlocked and removed the siphon collar around Noir's neck, then stood and replaced the Einlanzer on its stand.  The sword enchant had dark red blood on its blade, but Ruith didn't have time to clean the weapon.  He did not know how long Noir would be out, so he had to leave before he woke up.

              Ruith turned to leave when a sad, gravelly voice above moaned, “Even the Tierian dogs heal the wound afterward.”

              Ruith turned back to the dragon.  “I am worse than a dog.  You should know that by now.”  Despite his words, Ruith walked to the still-dripping wound on Nidhoggr's abdomen and reached up with his hand.  He spent a long time mending the long gash and felt his conscious waning as he used the last of his chakra.  Only after it showed as just another scar among the numerous others did Ruith turn to stumble drearily away.

              “He will never forgive you for this,” Nidhoggr's voice boomed overhead.

              “He doesn't have to.”

Chapter 25

Revelations

              Finn scoped out the location that Noir, Ruith, and he had planned on meeting in case they got separated one final time.  He carried all of the tali, enchants, and other valuables he possibly could, but not so much that he couldn't still be stealthy.  They had planned on rescuing Noir's cousin together, but if something happened to them, Finn had promised to rescue Aimee on his own.  Finn now cursed himself for being so nice to Noir.  He wasn't sure what the worth of what he carried in his pack was, but he knew it would help the resistance tremendously and probably set him up for life.  Every thief and ninja lesson in his head told him to just get out, but he prided himself on keeping his word.  Giving his word to those who did not deserve it was his problem, not keeping it.

              With one final glance at the supposed meeting place, Finn headed back towards the inner bowels of Fort Estelar.

              Before Finn's cover had been blown earlier, he asked about the location of the prison.  Finn now headed down stone stairs that would lead to a separate cave system that functioned as the Tierian prison.

              Finn walked slow and stayed in the shadows between the periodic glow spheres that lined the halls of the fort.  Occasionally, guards would noisily run by, no doubt looking for him and the other intruders.  Each time some passed, Finn would pull his enchant cloak over his body and shrink into a corner.  He would feel his chakra drained slowly while he hid, but he knew he could use it several times before he would feel significantly drained.  He had been told the enchant cloak used lux in some way to bend light, and it was an enchant so it was unbreakable, but he didn't care much past that.  It had saved his life numerous times over the years and it was an invaluable tool in his arsenal, but he didn't dwell on the magic of it.  Vigors and enchants were not his forte.

              Finn lit a tiny glow sphere and held it low so it would not ruin his night vision.  He could just barely see the floor in front of him with the weak glow sphere.  He descended another set of stairs that eventually changed into a slanting cave floor.  The walls looked like they'd been worked by metal tools to make the opening wider in places.  Tiny drips of water pattered randomly around him in the dark.

              Finn followed the tunnel down for a while until the tiny amount of noise he made and the dripping water seemed to echo from far away.  The tunnel must have opened up into a larger room.  It was pitch black except for the faint light that shown on the ground near his feet with the glow sphere.  Finn pulled out a larger and much stronger glow sphere from his pack and touched the spot that would lite the enchant.  He felt a small amount of weariness in his body and the light burst to life.

              Finn almost dropped the glow sphere when he saw what it illuminated.  Surrounding Finn was a massive chamber.  It had a low ceiling and a slanting, uneven floor.  Small pools of water were scattered about in the uneven rock, and several small trickles of water tumbled down the slanting stone.  Hundreds of metal cages lined the walls and more stood freely in the middle of the room.  Dozens of people were packed into each cage, and all looked at Finn with sunken, suddenly hopeful eyes.

              “Food!” many cried out.  “Bring us food!”

              “We are dying!  You can't do this to us!”

              Finn was shocked at first by the emaciated faces that looked out at him.  Then he became disgusted.  These people were being treated like animals, not humans.  He realized many of the bodies in the cages weren't moving.

              “I... never knew how bad it was,” Finn said to himself.  Finn had often doubted if starting a revolution in Tier was a good decision, but after seeing the Tierian prison, he felt absolute resolve in his actions.  The king had to be removed.  Tier would be made beautiful again.

              Finn heard a frantic voice that caught his attention and he looked in the direction.  A frail elderly man said with thick Tierian accent, “Hey!  Hey!  Th' guards are hidin', friend.  Th're hidin!  Th' saw yer light comin' and hid.”

              Finn barked over the din of others calling for help, “Where?  How many?”

              The man shook his head and his white beard scraped back and forth on his tiny chest.  “Not sure.  There's usually two guards down 'ere though.  Might be more since th' said thr's intruders.”

              Finn nodded at the man and pulled two daggers from inside his cloak.  “Thank you.   I promise I'll do my best to get you out of here.”

              The man demanded, “Don't worry about me.  Get the young ones out.  They still have a life to live.”

              Finn shook his head.  “No, I'm going to get
all
of you out.”

              Finn heard the clanking armor of the Tierian soldiers before they reached Finn in a sneak attack.  Finn ducked and rolled to the side.  As soon as he stopped his roll, he flung the two daggers at the two charging Tierian guards.  One dagger bounced off the breastplate of one of the men, but the other caught the second guard in the neck.  The guard dropped a large spiked club, grabbed at his throat, and fell to the wet cave floor.

              The other Tierian guard cursed loudly then charged straight at Finn.  Finn knew he had no chance in straight and fair hand-to-hand combat with a trained soldier, so he pulled his cloak over him and activated the light bending lux effect.  Finn ducked to the side and the guard barreled into the metal bars where he'd just been.  Finn quickly threw another dagger, but it bounced off the guard's right pauldron.

              The guard sprang to his feet and looked around wildly.  Many of the prisoners had begun to cheer and some were screaming, so the sound of Finn's movements were drowned out.  Finn slowly moved into the shadows while holding his cloak tightly around him.  The guard swung his sword into the air wildly.  “I'll find you, Luxin!” he bellowed, but Finn could hear fear in his voice.

              Finn circled around behind the guard and waited until he attacked wildly in the opposite direction.  While the guard was recovering from his attack, Finn jumped onto his back and plunged two daggers down into the guard's shoulders.

              As the guard fell, Finn suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back.  He let out a sudden gasp and fell to the ground.  Finn reached behind him and felt the shaft of an arrow protruding from his side.  Apparently the invincible cloak enchant had not been in the path of the arrow.

              Finn again pulled the cloak around him and ran behind one of the metal prison cells.  He pulled out his last two daggers and felt blood on his hand from where he'd touched the arrow.  Another arrow clattered to the floor near where he'd been.  Finn waited in the shadows behind the cage.  The prisoners continued to make noise, but now it was to Finn's disadvantage and covered up his attacker's approach.

              Finn waited for what felt like minutes, but time always warped strangely during battle.  Eventually, a guard with a sword on his belt, arrows on his back, and a bow in his hand shot past.  He was headed toward the sloping tunnel Finn had used to get there.  Finn threw both daggers at the retreating guard.  One dagger flew slightly high over the man's head and clattered against the floor up the tunnel, but the other caught the man in the small of his back beneath his metal breastplate.  The man cried out in pain and tumbled to the ground.  Finn seized the opportunity and ran to the fallen man.  He ripped the dagger from the man's back and dealt a finishing blow.

              Finn’s legs gave out to the pain and he fell beside the man he'd just defeated.  The arrow shot streaks of pain through his side whenever he moved.  Prisoners now cheered, but Finn was still worried that there could be more guards.  He had to do something about the arrow first, though, or he'd have no chance.

              Finn crawled to the other arrow that had clattered to the floor and inspected it.  To Finn's dismay, the tip was barbed.  The one in him would do more damage if he tried to pull it out.

              “Great,” Finn said to himself.  He scanned the prison cells in the light of his large glow sphere that now lay on the ground.  He'd dropped it in the initial attack.  His eyes fell on a tall, muscled man in a cell to his right and crawled toward him.

              “Hey,” Finn said as he forced himself to stand.  “I need your help, big guy.”

              The man looked scared but nodded.  “What do ye' need, friend?”

              Finn turned and pushed aside his cloak which was rapidly turning opaque again.  He pointed to the arrow that stuck out from his side and said, “I need to be mobile.  Can you break it close to the skin?”

              For a strange moment, all of the prisoners shushed each other and silence filled the large prison.  Finn guessed they wanted to hear what he was saying.  The large man in the cell agreed, “I will try, friend.  Will ye' try ta get us out of here?”

              “Yes.  I promise.”

              Finn turned his back to the metal bars and took a few steps back until his back was pressed against the cage and the arrow stuck into the cell.  “Do it quick so I don't--”

              Finn screamed involuntarily as a tremendous pain shot from his back through his whole body.  He found himself on the floor of the cave breathing heavily.  He put a hand to where the arrow had been and felt less than a finger-length left.  Finn forced himself to stand and turn.  “Thank you.”

              The large man threw the rest of the shaft of the arrow out of the cage and said, “Just get us out, friend.”

              “Workin' on it,” Finn said through clenched teeth as he walked toward one of the fallen guards.

              Finn searched through the belongings of each of the three guards as quickly as possible, but found no keys.  The prisoners were his captive, quiet audience, now.  He turned to them and said, “No keys.  I can pick locks, but it is going to take forever to open all of these.”

              “There's a Din Mage over here,” a voice offered from somewhere deeper into the prison.  “She can melt the locks or even the bars.  You just have to pick the lock on her collar.”

              “That might work,” Finn replied across the distance.

              Finn walked to his large glow sphere and picked it up.  He walked quickly, ignoring the pain in his side, and found a dark-skinned man standing in a cell near the middle of the room.  As Finn neared, the man added, “I don't know if she'll cooperate, though.”

              The man pointed to a young woman with tangled, jaw-length hair.  She sat in a defeated pose, eyes down, and looked skinnier than any living person in any of the other cells.  Noir had described his cousin in case Finn had to recognize her.  This girl matched what he'd said perfectly.  Finn reached the cage and said, “Aimee?”

              Finn involuntarily took a step back as the girl's head rose and stared into his eyes with unbelievable hatred.  “How do you know my name?” she spat with disgust.  However, her voice was weak and small.  This young woman was on the verge of starvation.  Surprisingly, she was surrounded by several trays of food in various states of decomposition.  They'd been feeding her but she hadn't eaten?

              “Your cousin Noir.  He sent me--”

              “Noir started all of this!  I hate him!  Tell him to leave me here to rot!”

              Finn stood for a moment unsure of what to say or do.  It was not at all what he'd expected.  He had imagined rescuing the damsel in distress and being a hero.  She was supposed to be thankful, not hateful.  Finn pushed the thought aside so he could deal with the matter at hand.  “If I picked the lock on your din slave collar, could you melt the--”

              “No.”  Aimee spun her body away from Finn and dropped her eyes to the ground again.

              “I'm sorry, Din Mage Aimee, but I don't understand.  You could help free all of these people in here.  Why don't you want to—”

              “Because they don't exist.”

              Finn was again surprised.  This girl really
wasn't
what he'd imagined.  Noir hadn't told him that his cousin was insane.  Finn stared at the tiny, emaciated girl's back and tried to think of what to say next.  “Look,” he started, “I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm here to get you and all of these people out.  You say they don't exist, but they're there.  I'm here.  You're here.  We exist.  Now help us out.”

              Aimee didn't say anything for a long moment.  Finn was about to give up and try to think of a new plan when Aimee said quietly, “It doesn't matter.  Even if I got them out, everything is still ruined.  None of this is real.”

              Finn ducked down and pulled out his lock picking kit.  He pulled out a couple tools, inserted them into the lock on the door, and started to put the pins into place.  Bending over sent jabs of pain through his body from the arrow in his side.  While he worked, he tried to keep the woman talking.  “All of this is real, Din Mage Aimee.  I've lived my whole life in Tier.  How could I possibly have childhood memories and... a physical body if none of this was real.”

              “This can't be real,” the woman murmured.  “Throwing fireballs... making the earth move with my hands... it's impossible!”