Out from the Empire

“Hurry!” I gasped, pulling my younger sister Bekah by the hand. We ran through the run-down streets at the edge of the city. I couldn’t believe we had missed this. My whole family had carefully planned this escape day down to the minute, but we had been undone by clothes. Bekah, my younger sister, still wore a dress with 4 intersecting red lines embroidered on the right shoulder. The symbol that the Empire forced all mages to wear when we went outside. No sooner had we entered the street than guards had spotted us and given chase.

Bekah was still crying. I squeezed her hand to show her a confidence I didn’t feel. Our slender forms had the advantage over the adult guards in the narrow alleyways, but soon we would have to emerge into the outskirts, where they would quickly catch up to us. Our destination was a quarter mile from the edge of the city. We couldn’t evade them that long.

I pictured my father’s stern expression as he drilled us, over and over, on how we would do this escape plan. “Even if you are pursued, do not use your magic,” he had told me every time. “Your control over the Expanse is still weak, Rakel. If you try to cast a spell in such a high-stress situation, it will not work as you want it too.”

We reached the end of the street and burst into the woods that surrounded the city. Cries of “there they are!” rang out, closer than I had expected. I heard a whiz and a thud hit the tree to my left. A crossbow bolt quivered in the impact. I heard another whiz, followed by a cry of pain from Bekah. I glanced over to see another bolt had nicked her shoulder, drawing blood. I’m sorry, father, but we don’t have a choice! I would need to use magic. So I opened myself to the Expanse.

The Expanse was every mage’s birthright, the weave of power that bound together the world; mages with the knack to touch it could channel it into themselves to do magic. As I opened myself to it, I felt the power flow through me, although it felt different than usual. It was muted, like trying to hear with a think scarf wrapped around your ears. Still, it was enough. I began making the hand gestures necessary to weave the raw power into a spell.

Bekah cried out “look out!”

Two figures leaped down from a nearby tree. These two were dressed in black from head to toe, with just a slit for their eyes. They also differed from the guards chasing us in size. The taller of the two was barely taller than I was, and the shorter barely came up to my chest. The taller one brandished a short, curved sword. After just a moment, he lunged at me.

I had no time to double-check my calculations as I executed the final hand gesture. I felt the power rush out of me as the world changed. Bekah and I were still in the woods, but we were now surrounded by a glowing mist that obscured everything more than a few inches away.

Although I couldn’t see her, I felt Bekah squeeze my hand. She asked “did you open the portal? Is that what all this mist is?”

I suddenly felt tired from the effort; I had never tried that spell on such a scale before. “No, I just transported us right to the location of the portal. I think this mist is Granny using the portal to take us to the pocket dimension, though. It should clear up soon.”

I was proven right just a few seconds later when the mist dispelled as if it had never been there. I could see Bekah to my right, still clutching my hand. When I looked forward, I saw a short, old woman with a wrinkled face but piercing blue eyes clutching a well-worn staff.

“Granny!” I ran to her, throwing my arms around her. I saw Bekah do the same. Up close, I could see the sweat on her forehead. She leaned against me like she needed the support to remain standing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Was operating the portal hard?”

She smiled and hugged us back. “Hoho, it’ll take more than channeling the power of a bit of the magic of the Golden Monarchs to put this old biddy in the ground. Still, imagine my shock when I felt Space magic move four people into the mist! To think you could use a movement spell, at your age. You’ll grow up to be the greatest Space mage in generations, I tell you.”

I smiled in embarrassment and pleasure. “I’m still nothing compared to you, Granny.”

She winked. “Oh, I know. Not yet. But give it time, eh?”

Something she said registered. I pulled away from her embrace. “What did you mean, four people?”

I heard a crash behind me. I turned around.

About a dozen feet behind me the landscape was abruptly cut off by what looked like a wall of mist. Next to the wall I saw three figures.

The first was my father, dressed as he always did in a grey suit, overcoat, and tricorn hat. He was moving at speeds no normal human could match, but I knew that was just his magic enhancing his body. It took me a moment to realize that he was fighting two figures dressed all in black. The two who had attacked us in the forest!

I wasn’t worried. I knew my father was strong; I had once seen him fight off an angry mob of thirty men by himself without receiving a scratch. So I was impressed to see that the two figures were keeping up with him. The shorter one hung back, occasionally throwing daggers at openings in my father’s guard, while the taller one used his sword.

I turned back to Granny. “Did I accidently bring them to the portal, too?”

She nodded but smiled kindly. “It’s all right, dear. We all make mistakes. Besides, your father has it under control.”

She was right; the fight was already over. My father landed one final magically enhanced punch that sent the taller one flying. He impacted the mist like it was a solid wall, sliding down to the bottom, where he lay on the dirt ground, coughing. The force of the strike had knocked his hood off, exposing his face. The shorter one stood back, seemingly unsure what to do.

Without taking his eyes off the taller attacker, my father called out to Granny. “Send these two back to the real world.”

Leaning on her cane, Granny shuffled closer. Bekah and I followed. Granny said “It will take some time for the Expanse to settle enough to refuel the magic that powers the portal. I can’t open it again until that happens.”

“How long will that take?”

Granny shook her head. “Perhaps a few days, perhaps several weeks. This is old, powerful magic here. Nobody alive still knows how any of it works.”

“I see.”

By this point a small crowd had gathered, drawn by the commotion. I counted about 20 people, all adults; this was about half the people here in the pocket dimension. My father looked at the assembled group. “Does anyone have a knife?” His voice was flat. One man in the crowd raised his hand, revealing a long dagger. My father walked over to get it. He took it, then turned back to the injured man in black. “I will make this painless.”

Oh. My father was going to kill this man. I mean, the two assassins had tried to kill me and Bekah, but still…

I looked over at the man in black, his face now revealed. He had long black hair, pale skin, dark eyes, and a small nose. And with a start, I realized this was no man: it was a teenager. He couldn’t have been any older than me. Did that mean…I looked over at the smaller figure. I realized it now: he wasn’t a short man; he was so short because he was a child. At that size, he couldn’t have been more than nine or ten.

The teenager tried to move, but the wind must have been knocked out of him. My father calmly moved toward him, knife in hand.

“NO!” I shouted, sprinting with a sudden burst of energy to interpose myself between my father and the teen. I spread my arms wide. “We can’t just kill him,” I said.

My father looked surprised for a moment before his face returned to sternness. “Those robes are worn by the Empire’s Aijalon assassins. They kill mages.”

“He’s a kid,” I emphasized.

“He’s been trained since birth to be a living weapon.” My father’s face hardened. “Aijalon kill mages. That’s all they do. We can’t let two of them stay in the pocket dimension with us.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the Aijalon teen. For just a moment, our eyes met. His expression wasn’t that of a living weapon. Instead, I saw a panicked kid, facing down pitiless adults who wanted to kill him. Earlier, when I was being chased, I must have had the same sort of expression. I looked back at my father. “I’m not going to let you kill him.”

“Out of the way, Rakel.”

“No.”

We held the tension for a long moment, until my father sighed. “Fine.” He shook his head. “You’re as stubborn as your mother.”

Granny shuffled beside us. “Hoho, I think it’s good for a young woman to have a backbone, no?”

“Don’t encourage her,” my father replied. To anyone else, he would have seemed stern, but I knew him well enough to tell he was holding back a smile.