Theft of Swords (The Riyria Revelations #1-2)

“Be at ease for perils past but tarry not and follow well,” Esrahaddon told them reassuringly.

They did as instructed, and no one said a word. To pass the clerk, who stood peering through the great door, they needed to come within inches of his anxiety-riddled face. As Hadrian attempted to slip by without bumping him, he saw the man’s eye move. Hadrian stiffened. “Can they see or hear us?”

“Nay. A ghostly breath is all thee be, a chill and swirl of air to their percept.”

The wizard led them without hesitation, making turns, crossing bridges, and climbing stairs with total confidence.

“Maybe we’re dead?” Myron whispered, glaring at each frozen guard he passed. “Maybe we’re all dead now. Maybe we’re ghosts.”

Hadrian thought Myron might be on to something. Everything was so oddly still, so empty. The fluid movement of the wizard and his billowing robe, which now emitted a soft silvery light far brighter than any lantern or torch, only heightened the surreal atmosphere.

“I don’t understand. How is this possible?” Alric asked, stepping around a pair of black-suited guards who watched the third bridge. He waved his hand before the face of one of them, who did not respond. “Is this your doing?”

“ ’Tis the ithinal.”

“Huh?”

“A magic box. Power to alter time eludes the grasp of man, for too vast be the scope and too great the field. Yet enclose the space, confine the effect, and tame the wild world within. Upon these walls, my colleagues of old wove enchantments complex. Designed to affect magic and time, I had but to ever so slightly adjust a fiber or two within the weave to throw us out of phase.”

“So, the guards can’t see us, but that doesn’t explain why they are just standing there,” Hadrian said. “We disappeared, and you’re free. Why are they not searching? Shouldn’t they be locking doors to trap us?”

“Within these walls, locked art the sands of time for all but us.”

“You turned it inside out!” Myron exclaimed.

Esrahaddon looked with an appraising eye over his shoulder at the monk. “ ’Tis thrice thou hast impressed me. What did thou say thy name was?”

“He didn’t,” Royce answered for him.

“Thou dost not trust people easily, my black-hooded friend? ’Tis quite wise. Careful should be the dealings with the wise and wizards.” Esrahaddon winked at the thief.

“What does he mean by ‘turning it inside out’?” Alric asked. “So, time has stopped for them while we are free?”

“Indeed. Though time still moves, ’tis very slowly paced. Unaware will they remain sealed in an instant lost.”

“I’m starting to see now why they were afraid of you,” Alric said.

“Nine hundred years did I spend imprisoned for saving the son of a man we all swore our lives to serve and protect. Exceedingly kind is the reward I bestow, for there art worse moments in which for all eternity to be trapped.”

They reached the great stair that led to the main entrance corridor and began the long, exhausting climb up the stone steps. “How did you stay sane?” Hadrian asked. “Or did time slip by in an instant like it is for them?”

“Slip it did but not so fast when measured in centuries. Each day a battle did I fight. Patience is a skill learned as a practitioner of the Art. Yet times there were that … well, who can say what it means to be sane?”

When they approached the hall of faces, Esrahaddon looked down its length and paused. Hadrian noticed the wizard stiffen. “What is it?” he asked.

“Those faces, frozen thus, art the workers who built this gaol. Came I to this place during the final walling. Tented city did wreathed the lake. Hundreds of artisans with families came to the call to do their part for their fallen emperor. Such was the character of His Imperial Majesty. They all mourned his passing, and few in the vast and varied empire would not gladly give their lives for him. Labeled the betrayer, I beheld hatred in their eyes. Proud were they to be the builders of my tomb.”

The wizard’s gaze moved from face to face. “I recognize some—the stonecutters, sculptors, cooks, and wives. The church, for fear of secrets slipped from lips innocent, sealed them so. All before thee, ensnared by a lie. How many dead? How much lost to hide one secret, which even a millennium hast not erased?”

“There’s no door down there,” Alric warned the wizard.

Esrahaddon looked up at Alric as if awoken from a dream. “Be not a fool. Thou didst enter through it,” he said, and promptly led them down the corridor at a brisk walk. “Thou wert merely out of phase with it.”

Here, in the darkest segment of the prison, Esrahaddon’s robe grew brighter still, and he looked like a giant firefly. In time, they came to a solid stone wall, and without hesitation or pause, Esrahaddon walked through it. The rest quickly followed.

The bright sunlight of a lovely, clear autumn morning nearly blinded them the moment they passed through the barrier. Blue sky and the cool fresh air were a welcome change. Hadrian took a deep breath and reveled in the scent of grass and fallen leaves, a smell he had not even noticed prior to entering the prison. “That’s strange. It should be nighttime and raining, I would think. We couldn’t have been in there more than a few hours. Could we?”

Esrahaddon shrugged and threw his head back to face the sun. He stood and took long deep breaths of air, sighing contentedly with each exhale. “Unexpected be the wages of altering time. ‘What morrow be it?’ ’tis better to ask. This day, the next, or one after. ’Tis possible tens or hundreds did fly past.” The wizard appeared amused at the shock on their faces. “Worry not, ’tis likely only hours hast thee skipped.”

“That’s rather unnerving,” Alric said. “Losing time like that.”

“Verily, for nine hundred years have I lost. Everyone I knew is dead, the empire gone, and who knows in what state the world is left. Should what thy sister reports prove true, much hath changed in the world.”

“By the way,” Royce mentioned, “no one uses the words ’tis or hath anymore and certainly not thou, thy, or verily.”

The wizard considered this a moment, then nodded. “In my day, classes oft did speak different in forms of speech. Assumed I did that ye were of a lower station or, in the case of the king, poorly educated.”

Alric glared. “It’s you who sound strange, not us.”

“Indeed. Then I shall need to speak as all of—you— do. Even though—it is—crude and backward.”

Hadrian, Royce, and Myron began the task of saddling the horses, which remained standing where they had left them. Myron smiled, obviously happy to be with the animals once again. He petted them while eagerly asking how to tie a cinch strap.

“We don’t have an extra horse and Hadrian is already riding double,” Alric explained. He glanced at Royce, who showed no indication of volunteering. “Esrahaddon will have to ride with me, I suppose.”