Previously: Our allies made contact with Chancellor Victor, hoping to find temporary aid and shelter. To their surprise, The Chancellor was not only willing to give them the support he needed, but he offered to do the unthinkable - end the Fisher Contract for good. Hanna was quick to agree, but Sam resisted due to one of the restrictions. However, the fragile relationship between Hanna and Sam was hit with a curveball nobody saw coming.
“Dammit! I can’t get it open.” Sam yanked on the doorknob of their locked bedroom, but it wouldn’t budge. He suspected the mechanical lock may have some kind of magical reinforcement that kept it from moving.
Sam decided to give the lock a stronger nudge. He looked around the room for something heavy, settling on an antique candelabra sitting on a side table next to the vanity. He shook out the candles and charged the door, antique held high and ready to strike.
Sam brought the heavy metal candelabra down with all this speed and strength. He didn’t remember what happened until he woke up sprawled on the floor thirty seconds later. All he could recall was a brilliant flash of yellow energy hitting him with a shockwave when the candelabra impacted the door lock.
All through the wild incident, Hanna remained sullen and motionless on the bed. She made no attempt to check on Sam after the magical blowback, nor did she help him in searching for a way out of their opulent prison. In her swirling thoughts, the same question repeated: “Who is the father?”
“Ha… Hanna. You’ve got to help me. Come on. Snap out of it!” Sam hoped his words would break through her daze, but she didn’t move a muscle when he called to her as he staggered to his feet. Fearing an aggressive push would do more harm than good to Hanna, Sam resorted to calling for help, hoping Alex and Mage River were close enough to hear him.
“Hello! Help! Alex! River! Can you hear me! We’re locked in! Help!” He frantically pounded on the door and the adjacent walls. “Can anyone hear me! We need help!” He glanced over his shoulder at Hanna. She was no longer frozen but lightly rocking in place. “Hanna needs help! Please, help!”
Whatever doubts he had about his newfound allies, he would have given anything to see their faces breaking open the door in that moment. After a few minutes of futile banging and screaming, Sam slumped, out of breath, back into a chair. If anyone could hear him, they weren’t coming.
Two and three doors down, Mage River and Alex were in their rooms, banging on the door and hollering at the same time as Sam. Whatever mystical reinforcements the three Mages put on the door locks also blocked out sound. They truly were trapped.
Mage River couldn’t say for sure what rank the three Mages achieved, compared to herself, but their combined power was too strong to overcome with her force projections and counter-spells. At best, she managed to get the doorknob to turn slightly. Not enough to open the door.
A few minutes later, the door knob clicked. The same footmen who led the allies through the palace when they first arrived entered and bowed. “The Chancellor requests a meeting with you… now.” Mage River returned the bow and silently followed. The footman stopped at the next room, opened the door, and repeated the same request to Alex, who sat smoking a pipe near the unlit fireplace.
Alex leaned over to make eye contact with Mage River. He whistled a curious tune, she nodded. “Well, it is the way,” he said as he stood and obediently followed the footman down the hall.
The footmen led Alex and Mage River to a large but cozy study, where Chancellor Victor Fisher sat studying a map of the border unrolled on a large desk. “Aah, Uncle Alex, and Mage… River, is it? Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” The Chancellor magnanimously directed the pair to two chairs on the opposite side of the desk.
Mage River kept her composure but didn’t mince words. “It’s hard to say ‘no’ when you’ve been locked up like a common criminal.”
“Aye, what’s the meanin’, Nephew? I’m yer blood ‘n kin.” Alex’s cheeks brightened a few shades of red.
Chancellor Victor matched Mage River’s composure. “Yes, I am sorry about that. It’s only a precaution. You see now, don’t you. There is betrayal rotting away President Fabok’s office. If the spell fails completely, Hanna, you, me… everyone is in grave danger. Her life must be protected at all costs until we can come to a resolution.”
“Pfft… Resolution. Fine speak, Nephew. Say yer say and be quick.” The shade of red in Alex’s cheeks grew deeper.
“You’re right, of course, Uncle.” The Chancellor sat back in his chair, considering his next words carefully.
The Chancellor stared hard at his Uncle, and in that moment, Mage River felt that flicker of unnatural pressure, as if a presence was desperately influencing the people in this room from someplace far away. In another moment, the flicker was gone.
“Uncle, if the spell fails and someone kills her, the unleashed power will kill millions. The Old Gods our family has served for generations never meant for this power to be used as a political weapon, only for defense. If President Fabok is truly the good man I believe him to be, we need his help to stop Charmers and anyone else involved.”
“Bah! The Old Gods,” Alex waved off the plea to loyalty with a defiant wave. “All trouble, if yer ask.”
“Perhaps,” The Chancellor replied while rubbing his temple, “but their power is real, as is the risk. As your Chancellor, I can order you, but I’d rather ask you to see reason and help me stop Charmers. Help me end the Fisher Contract for good.”
Mage River took in the exchange between Nephew and Uncle with great interest. Despite their different stations in life, the family bond was stronger. “Chancellor, if I may. If the Old Gods are so unhappy, why don’t they revoke the contract?”
The Chancellor opened his mouth to reply but paused. Mage River felt that flicker of influence again, but it was now directed at her. The Chancellor finally spoke. “Through my prayers and meditation, I believe the Old Gods will intervene if we don’t resolve this situation on our own, but they will be far less gentle about it than what I’m proposing.”
As native Maldonians, growing up with the stories of wrath and destruction that the Old Gods were capable of inflicting, neither Alex nor Mage River needed a deeper explanation.
Finally, Alex released his stubborn resistance. “Aye, we’ll speak ter Sam.”
Sam stared at the floor from his place in the chair. His throat ached from his futile shouting for help. His hands were sore from pounding on the door. Hanna remained motionless on the bed, sitting upright, head down, gently rubbing her belly.
He looked up at Hanna and spoke loud enough for her to hear from across the room. “I don’t know what to say or even how this happened. Who’s the father, Hanna? Who’s the father!?” Sam’s voice rose higher and faster than he expected.
Finally, Hanna moved. She simply shook her head, then slowly looked up and at Sam. “I don’t know. I haven’t been with anyone else. It has to be… It has to be something you and Charmers did to me. What did you do to me, Sam?” Sam could see wetness on Hanna’s cheeks reflecting the room’s low light.
“I didn’t DO anything. Not like that. I was in a bad place a few years ago. Dead-end job, my dad was sick, everything felt pointless. A man approached me with an offer. I guess… it was one of Charmers’s operatives. He said he could help my dad. He said he could help me. He said…”
Hanna waited for Sam to continue. “What did he say that could convince you to do all of this?”
“He said the problems I had were a result of Fabok’s poor leadership. He said Fabok didn’t care about people like me as long as he kept his power. He said Fabok thought regular people like me were nothing. Then, he said I could do something about it. That I would be helping my country and everyone like me if he could get Fabok out.”
“The operative arranged for me to meet Charmers. Fabok needed to go but we wanted it to be legal and expose Fabok as corrupt. My job was to get close to you, become your friend, and get evidence from you as the personal advisor to the President. At least that’s what they told me who you were in the beginning.”
“When I didn’t find anything, and I got to know you, I told them there was nothing here. Charmers said the evidence was hidden by magic, so he had me bring him little things to investigate.”
Hanna’s voice was harder. “What things?”
“Nothing that mattered. A few hairs from your brush, an unwashed drinking glass. Anything you’d come in contact with, but nothing you’d miss.”
“Those are pieces of me, Sam. What did Charmers do with them? Why did you give pieces of me to him?” Hanna’s voice wavered as the tears flowed.
“I don’t know what he did with them. I swear on my life I thought he was looking for evidence of corruption or some secret Fabok was hiding. Then, when we got closer and I agreed to be with you, Charmers said he would back off because they exhausted every channel. That there was nothing more for me to do, and that I should go be happy with you, if that’s what I wanted.”
“I don’t expect you to trust me, but that IS what I wanted. To be done with Charmers and be happy with you.”
They didn’t speak for several minutes. Finally, Hanna took a deep breath and exhaled. “Where’s your phone?”
Sam patted his pockets until he found it. “It’s here. Why?”
“Contact Charmers. Get the proof. Buy us out. Then leave!”
The Acolytes approached the operative who first spotted Hanna and Sam as they crossed the border on foot. An average soldier would have made a slight noise or given a physical sign of approach, but the Acolytes had skills in traversing rough terrain silently, so the operative didn’t notice he was surrounded until it was too late. Within seconds, the operative was bound and gagged. The leader of the pack sent a message to Mage Spruce: “WE HAVE HIM”
“BRING HIM TO MY LAB.” Spruce used the transport time to lay out a collection of instruments and potions for interrogation. He thought of himself as a good man, an honorable man, but he wasn’t above force and torture on the rare occasion when an assassin was captured.
The Acolytes roughly dumped the operative in a chair in Spruce’s lab just under two hours later. Even on foot, transporting a prisoner, the Acolytes were inhumanly fast.
Spruce dismissed the Acolytes with an indifferent wave of his hand. Internally, he was impressed that they executed the retrieval with minimum mess or mistakes. He made a mental note to examine why later.
Spruce delivered a sharp slap to the operative’s face to wake him up. The Mage wanted to set the tone immediately that this discussion would involve pain.
“Do you know who I am?” Spruce always began with generic questions to relax the subject’s tongue.
“N… No. I… You’re dressed like a Mage, but I don’t know you.”
*SLAP* Spruce repeated the blow to keep the operative off guard.
“Do you know where you are?” Spruce kept the tone of his voice even and calm. A small trickle of blood flowed from the corner of the operative’s mouth.
“I… No, not exactly. It looks like a government building.” The operative started to squirm in his seat.
Maintaining an air of calm, Spruce reached over to the instrument table, uncapped a vial containing black dust, and blew the dust in the operative’s face, ensuring its powder entered his eyes, covered his skin, and was inhaled.
Within moments, the operative twitched and writhed. To any observer, it looked like the operative was having a psychotic break. To the operative, he was suddenly covered with creeping, biting spiders - the one creature in the world he was most frightened of.
“Get them off me. No. NnononoNONONONO! GET OFF!” The operative’s screams quickly spiraled to piercing levels. Spruce left him in terror for two minutes. Once the operative had reached a state of hysteria, Spruce snapped his fingers, instantly dissipating the hallucination.
Spruce stepped forward and leaned down to meet the operative, eye-to-eye. “You don’t know who I am, and you don’t know where you are. Nobody is coming to save you. You will cooperate. Yes?”
The operative trembled as he nodded in agreement. Beads of sweat ran down his temples and forehead. Spruce was mildly surprised the operative hadn’t soiled himself.
Spruce continued questioning in the same even tone. “What is your name?”
“B… Baker… son. Jim Bakerson.”
“Bakerson. Such an ordinary name. Yet, you have very special information that I need.” Spruce raised his hand to deliver another slap. The operative flinched and recoiled in anticipation of the blow that didn’t come. Spruce recognized the reaction of someone who was afraid and ready to comply.
“You were tasked with watching the border. Yes?”
The operative, still trembling, nodded “Yes.”
“What did you see? Tell me.”
“A man and woman. They were on foot, headed towards a valley between two hill ranges on the other side of the border.” The operative looked as if he was going to say something else, but he instantly shut his mouth.
Spruce slapped Bakerson again, harder this time. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
Bakerson shook his head, pressing his lips together to withhold the next detail. Spruce nodded and reached for the vial of black powder.
“No. NO! Wait, I’ll tell you. I.. reported what I saw, and they sent someone, an Outcast named Zane. I don’t know what happened after Zane went after them. I swear!”
Spruce listened for the tells in human anatomy that would signal the truth or a lie. “I believe you, Bakerson. Now, show me on this map where this valley is located.” Spruce unraveled the knot on the rope that bound Bakerson’s left hand. The operative pointed to the exact location where Hanna and Sam crossed into Maldonian territory. Spruce was pleased to see Bakerson’s hand shaking.
“Good. Good. You’re doing well, Bakerson.” Spruce left Bakerson’s hand unbound to show the prisoner that escape was impossible. “There’s just one more thing. If you continue to cooperate, all your troubles will be over.”
Bakerson let out a deep breath. “Yes, I understand. Anything. Just no more spiders. Please.”
“That’s right,” Spruce agreed, now speaking in a soothing tone. “No more spiders. All that’s left is for you to tell me who you work for. Who gives you your orders?”
Bakerson’s eyes went wide. “I thought… I mean, yes. Yes, I reported the information to Vice President Evan Charmers.”
Mage Spruce didn’t know how to respond. He worked under the assumption that Hanna had been compromised by a criminal organization or a Maldonian spy group. It never occurred to him that the betrayal came from within.
Faster than Bakerson could see, Mage Spruce spun back to the instruments, snatched up an ordinary piece of paper with a red sigil scrawled on one side, and slammed the paper on the operatives forehead while barking out a rough incantation.
The effect was immediate. Bakerson burst into blue flames, brief but intense enough to turn him to ash within seconds. A small pile of ash and a charred chair were the only evidence that Bakerson had been there.
Spruce quickly gathered essential books, instruments and vials into his satchel and left his lab. He didn’t stop or speak to anyone as he crossed the Maldonian border near the valley between the hills.
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Sam tapped out a series of messages to Charmers on his phone as he kept the phone in direct contact with the spell encasing the door. Charmers anticipated Sam’s capture in his original plans, so the phone was designed to feed off and channel through magical containments, like a grounding circuit. As he tapped out his first message, Sam kept up the appearance of his undercover mission, but his motivations couldn’t be more different.
Sam: “WITH HANNA. SPELL DISSOLUTION CONFIRMED. AWAITING INSTRUCTIONS.”
Charmers: “LOCATION?”
Sam: “MALDONIAN PALACE. SANCTUARY. OUTCAST FAILED.”
Charmers expected Zane to be successful. When he failed to return, he assumed something had gone wrong. Taking cover with the Chancellor complicated matters.
Charmers: “SIT TIGHT. ACTIVATING AGENTS.”
Sam didn’t know what Charmers meant by “agents,” but he had to get something more concrete as a bargaining chip. The next text was a bluff big enough to make him sweat. He looked at Hanna before he hit the SEND button, knowing he would rather die before carrying out his next suggestion.
Sam: “SHOULD I KILL HANNA?”
Charmers: “NO. WE NEED HER ALIVE FOR THE RITUAL TO OVERTHROW FABOK. DO NOTHING.”
Sam believed the last reply was enough, but the recent revelation got the better of him. He had to know.
Sam: “WHO IS THE FATHER OF THE BABY?”
There was no reply for several seconds. Sam began to suspect the signal was lost. Suddenly, a reply popped up on the screen.
Charmers: “WHAT BABY?!? EXPLAIN!”
Sam immediately turned off the phone. He assumed Hanna’s pregnancy was a result of the weakened spell and their relationship. The prognosis from the three Mages and Charmers’s confusion meant something else was going on.
He turned to Hanna, who quietly remained on the bed. “I have it. It’s enough to prove Charmers is a traitor.” Hanna didn’t reply or look in his direction. She only kept her head down and lightly rubbed her belly.
Sam didn’t bother banging on the door to call a guard, so he scribbled a note on a small piece of paper and slipped it under the door. A nearby guard saw the paper, picked it up, and immediately took it to the Chancellor. It simply said, “I’m ready to deal.”
Minutes later, the Chancellor sat with Sam and Hanna in the same meeting room where they were first introduced. Under a negotiation such as this one, the Chancellor knew it was better to listen first and speak last.
Sam powered up his phone and began to hand it to the Chancellor. “This thread is the proof you need to show that Charmers orchestrated a plot to overthrow Fabok. All I ask is that you continue to provide us sanctuary until you can fix this.” Sam nodded his head towards Hanna.
The Chancellor nodded in agreement and accepted the phone. He scrolled through the messages, some going back months, and felt a growing heat flaring through his chest. Charmers was planning to sacrifice countless lives and start a war to seize power. His building rage ceased when he read the last exchange.
“What ritual was Charmers planning on performing?” The flicker of pressure flowed from the Chancellor’s gaze as he glared at Sam.
“I… I honestly don’t know. He told me about destroying the spell to unleash the power, but he never told me how he did it or what he was going to do with it other than the fallout would turn everyone against Fabok.”
Chambers nodded. Sam appeared to truly care for Hanna, but it’s clear he was used as a fool in a bigger scheme. “And what of this last line? Hanna?”
Hanna finally looked up and spoke for the first time in hours. “I don’t know anything about this plan, and I’m sick of everyone talking about me as if I’m not sitting right here.”
The Chancellor rose from his seat, and walked around the table to sit next to Hanna. He wasn’t very much older than Hanna, but he’d ruled long enough to develop a fatherly posture, when needed. He gently took Hanna’s hands into his own and looked her in the eyes. “Charmers says he doesn’t know anything about a baby. Under the circumstances, I believe him because he has no reason to lie about this. Do you know how you became pregnant?”
Hanna shook her head, tears welling up. “All I can think of is a weird dream around the time the baby was conceived. Something about cool water and fresh grass.“ The Chancellor’s fatherly eyes didn’t apply the same flickering undercurrent of pressure as when he glared at Sam. This time, the Chancellor’s eyes flickered briefly as if reflecting a warm, blue flame. The flicker seemed to draw Hanna in and calm her, but it disappeared as quickly as it arrived. “I’d like to go back to my room now.”
The Chancellor nodded, rubbing his temple as if he had a mild headache. “Of course. You’ve both honored your part of the bargain, so I shall honor mine. I’ll get my best people working on the spell, and you’ll have full sanctuary. But I insist you do not leave the palace. Even my protection has its limits.”
Sam and Hanna rose to leave the room, but Hanna stopped short of the exit. “Also, please have Sam’s things moved to another room. We’re done.”
Twenty minutes later, Sam watched silently as a series of servants prepped his new bedroom. Hanna didn’t look at him or speak to him after they left the meeting room. He wondered if he should fight for their relationship, but every opening sounded like another excuse.
The two guards who escorted them to the Chancellor for their meeting now split up, one led Hanna back to her room, the other led Sam down an adjacent hall to the room now being prepped. For now, all the allies could do was rest, think, and wait.
Hanna noticed a few books on a nearby shelf, picked one at random and leafed through the pages. From her brief skimming, she gathered it was a piece of Maldonian literature about a family with an inquisitive dog. The print was slightly faded, so she brought the book closer to the lamp on the small table near the fireplace. Halfway through the first paragraph, the lamp flickered, then came back on again.
“I guess Maldonia has power problems like everyone else,” she thought before she sat down and continued to read.
Minutes earlier, a hooded figure worked his way through the trees on the outskirts of the palace walls. He circled the perimeter until he spotted what looked like a servant entrance on the North side of the property. The hooded figure waited until the guards patrols passed by twice to get a sense of the time window. When the second patrol passed, he approached the entrance and quickly cast a disruption spell to briefly open the invisible barrier protecting the palace.
The figure’s spell opened a thin gap wide enough for one person to squeeze through, but the power required was strong enough to disrupt the nearby electrical systems, causing the brief blackout Hanna experienced less than a quarter mile away. As the spell dissipated, a gusty breeze passed over the palace with the faint odor of damp earth. The figure made a mental note to research the unexpected breeze later.
The figure sprinted from one ornate statue to the next, and behind decoratively carved topiaries in the shapes of lions and bears. Every hop was designed to avoid detection from patrols or cameras.
Finally, the figure reached the service entrance door that opened into the lower levels of the palace where the daily work of cooking and preparation was performed. The hour was late, so only a skeleton crew of on-call servants were awake.
The figure snaked from one darkened doorway to the next, pausing at any sound. When a pair of cooks rounded a nearby corner, the figure ducked into the closest room that was unlocked.
“Wha… Who ARE you!? Get out!” The hooded figure wheeled around and immediately blasted the innocent maid in her bed with a sleeping spell to keep her quiet. He waited until the cooks had moved far enough away and snuck out of the room to continue his hunt.
At the end of the hall, a stone stairway led up to the ground level where his target waited. The figure opened the service door and stepped into the light of the empty hallway. Mage Spruce had arrived to kill Hanna Wilcox.
Next Time: The walls of the palace offer no protection from a ghost. As Mage Spruce begins his hunt through the palace halls, Chancellor Victor Fisher must decide if he will serve his guests or the Old Gods. Meanwhile, Sam discovers that Charmers’ “agents” are already closer than he ever imagined.
Read the next episode now:
War Chest: Episode 8
Previously: Chancellor Victor Fisher’s hospitality has its limits when the allies are held prisoner to consider his offer. The solitary confinement grants an opportunity for Sam and Hanna to decide the fate of their relationship and consider the Chancellor’s offer. Meanwhile, a determined Mage infiltrates the palace to kill Hanna.