Chapter 13

It was like something out of a nightmare.

The attic room began to rapidly fill up with thick, dark smoke as Koji and Sylvia looked for a way to get out.

Sylvia went over to the window and tried to smash it open with her sword, but the iron bars on the glass made that task all but impossible. Even if she had managed to break the glass, the window was only a foot wide.

“It’s no good!” Sylvia cried, coughing as the smoke invaded her lungs. “We’re trapped!”

Sylvia dropped down onto her knees, trying to stay conscious as the air grew thinner and thinner around her. She accidentally inhaled a mouthful of smoke as she felt something wrap around her waist.

“Wha-?” She looked round to see Koji holding her close to him. Golden light was gathering around his free hand and his legs. “What are you doing?”

Koji did not answer her. All he could say was, “Trust me!”

And with that, Koji aimed at the wall that had the window and let loose with a burst of golden light. The technique was twofold: his hand was generating a protective barrier around himself and Sylvia, while he channeled power into his legs to provide a huge boost in speed and momentum. Koji hoped it would be enough to break through the wall and get them clear of the inferno that the manor house had become.

With a bone-shaking crash, Koji and Sylvia erupted out of the side of the mansion, flying over the street below and landing in the basin of a fountain. A plume of water sprayed up into the air as they impacted. Fortunately the fountain was deep, and they were only bruised from their narrow escape.

Koji and Sylvia lay there panting and coughing as they ejected the remaining smoke and soot from their systems.

A muffled crash came from the mansion, and they both looked back in time to see the roof cave in and join the rest of the building in a blazing conflagration. Other people gathered to watch as the mansion collapsed into itself, burning into a heap of broken timber and scorched bricks.

“That… was too close,” Koji said eventually, climbing out of the fountain. He offered his hand to Sylvia. “Are you alright?”

“I… I think so,” Sylvia shook the water out of her hair. “You saved our lives.”

“Yeah, well…” Koji wrung out the bottom of his tunic. “You would have done the same for me.”

For a while, neither of them said a word, only watched as the city’s fire control department finally arrived on the scene to douse the flames.

“I don’t suppose there’s much point in calling for backup now,” Koji observed.

Sylvia looked less sure. “We should get back and report this to the High Lords. They’ll know what to do.” A guilty look came over her face. “I’m so sorry, Koji. The fire only started because of me, and now we’ve made a mess of this assignment. I just… let my eagerness get the better of me.”

“You didn’t know what would happen,” Koji countered. “It’s not your fault.”

“I’m not sure the High Lords will see it that way,” Sylvia said dejectedly.

Koji put his hand on Sylvia’s shoulder. “Nobody said that the High Lords had to know every detail. We’ll word it in a way that doesn’t make you look like the guilty party.”

“I’m not sure that will work…”

***

“... then, just as we were about to leave, the house caught fire,” Koji told the three High Lords. He and Sylvia were giving them their report of the event. “Sylvia and I almost died trying to get out, but I think it’s safe to say that no more cultists or anyone will be using that house for any secret meetings ever again.”

“And the house just happened to catch fire?” High Lord Sampson asked skeptically.

“We think it may have been magical in nature,” Koji explained. “Some kind of booby trap left for anyone who came around snooping in their business.”

“I see, I see,” High Lord Eliana nodded. “That is entirely possible. We will have to send in an investigation team over to the site to pick through the remains and see if they can find anything that can tell us what started the fire.”

“There is also the possibility that there was someone else inside the house that started the fire with you two still inside,” High Lord Tristan declared. “The Magecroft Organization is devious. It’s not impossible that they knew you were coming.”

“Hmmph.” Was all High Lord Sampson had to say.

“In any case, I think congratulations are in order, young Koji. Once again you have proved your bravery and heroism, as well as your dedication to the Order of the Unbroken Path. You not only deprived our enemies of a meeting place, but you also saved the lives of both yourself and Sylvia. I daresay the Order owes you a debt of gratitude,” High Lord Eliana praised, her face kindly.

“You two have been through an ordeal,” High Lord Tristan said, eyeing Koji and Sylvia’s sooty and damp attire. “You are dismissed. I suggest you go and rest before your spirits fail utterly.”

They did not have to be told twice. Koji and Sylvia left the meeting room silently, only stopping once the doors were securely shut.

Sylvia stopped walking and regarded Koji, her face bashful.

“Thank you for not turning me over to the High Lords, Koji. I have no doubt that if they learned that I was to blame for the fire, I would be taken off duty.”

“Hey, it’s no problem,” Koji said with a smile. “I didn’t lie. You really didn’t know what that circle would do. I don’t think you deserve to be punished for something that was outside of your control.”

Sylvia looked at Koji with newfound respect. “You saved my life today, and you covered for me with the High Lords… you truly are a hero.”

“I wouldn’t say-” Koji began, but he fell silent when Sylvia stepped closer and kissed him on the cheek.

Koji’s face turned bright red, and he raised his hand to touch the spot where Sylvia’s lips had just been. Sylvia simply stepped back, her face also flushed.

“I will see you later, Koji,” she said softly before saluting to him and striding away.

Koji stayed rooted to the spot for many a minute longer, until the evening sun began to set.

***

That night, after washing himself and eating dinner at Rena’s family inn, Koji sat alone in his house. He had a single lantern in front of himself on the table as he examined the strange coin he had found again.

This time, however, he had something new in his possession: the wooden hand he and Sylvia had found in the now destroyed mansion. He had snagged it while Sylvia had been trying to break the window. While he had at first intended to give it to the Order, on the way back to the High Lords he had decided to keep it, for reasons that he himself did not understand.

The wooden hand was not at all damaged from the fire, staying as polished and pristine as if it had only just left the woodcarver’s table.

The wooden fingers were still closed around Sylvia’s silver piece, but Koji was able to reach in and remove it with a little help from a spoon. The coin dropped out, and like before, the hand slowly uncurled until it was flat and facing up. Just as Koji had suspected, the circular indent on the palm perfectly matched the shape and size of the mystery gold coin.

Koji moved to put the gold coin into the slot, but he stopped halfway through the action. The last time someone had put a coin into this hand, it had almost killed him. He had no idea what would happen if he did it again, but at the same time he knew that it would be different.

Koji looked around himself, as if making sure nobody was watching him. Then, feeling a little bit foolish, he slid the gold coin into the hand with a small click.

As before, the hand curled into a fist around the money. But this time there was no red flash. Instead, the hand took on a faint blue glow and the fingers dipped down in a most dexterous way to take the coin. The wooden fingers held the coin up, rubbing the carved digits over the surface of the small golden disc.

Then, in a flurry of bright blue sparks, the coin vanished and what Koji could only describe as a hologram projection appeared above the hand, which was now open with the fingers curled up as if it was holding an invisible sphere. The projection of blue light flickered uncontrollably for a moment. Then it solidified into clear, smooth lines, forming a symbol.

Koji gasped and recoiled. He knew this symbol. It was the same one he had seen on the door in his dreams, as well as the one engraved onto the mysterious coin.

As he sat there, the projection rotated slowly, then a beam of light shot out of it and traced over Koji’s body like a bar code scanner at the supermarkets back on Earth.

While Koji was still deciding what he should do next, the hologram abruptly blinked out, leaving him once again with only the lamp for illumination. Then to his dismay, the wooden hand began to crumble into ashes, quickly falling apart into a pile of dust that was whisked out the window by a sudden breeze.

Koji scrambled to his feet and tried to catch the ashes, but they slipped through his fingers like the finest powder and were gone before he could do anything else.

Koji stood at the open window, his fists clenched. He felt confused and angry. Today should have been perfect; he had helped a friend out and she had given him a token of her gratitude. Koji had never been with a girl for more than two months at a time, and being kissed was an uncommon experience for him. He should have been over the moon at being given one by Sylvia, but now all he could think of was the wooden hand and what he had just seen from it.

He had a shrewd feeling that the hand had been some manner of communication device; the Order had seemed to think that there had been some kind of seance or something going on in that mansion, and given the circumstances, Koji was almost sure that the hand had been used to contact someone. Someone who had a link to the now-disappeared coin.

Koji growled with frustration and thumped his fist on the window frame.

“Why is this so hard?” He complained to himself.

Now he had lost both the coin and the hand, and with the way things were going, he was not hopeful of finding another. Even if he did, what would be the point? He clearly wasn’t the intended recipient of these items. They probably wouldn’t even work for him.

“I should have taken it to the Order, they’d probably know what it was for…” Groaned Koji as he slapped his hand on his face.

Still, at least this meant that there was no evidence of him playing around with magic on him anymore, in the unlikely case someone were to search his house, and he didn’t have to feel guilty about hiding things from the Order. In fact, he may as well never mention it to anyone, seeing as he didn’t have anything incriminating on himself now.

With nothing else left to do, Koji extinguished his lantern and went to bed.

Hours later, in the deep dead of the night, a dark shape with shining orange eyes hopped across the rooftops outside, coming to a stop atop the building that stood across from Koji’s home. It watched him through the window for a handful of moments, then left and vanished as quickly as it had come.