Carter’s eyes snapped open. For a second he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, before the loud knock repeated itself and jolted him awake. Carter groaned and sat up in his bed, feeling absolutely terrible. A shiver ran down his spine, and he realized he was freezing. The professor foggily groped around for his coat.
“Professor Marchand-Renier!” a loud voice called out in the hallway. Carter didn’t recognize it. “Your presence has been requested by Commander Vederrak.”
“Grand,” Sebastian’s voice carried dryly through the hall. “I’ll put on my best shirt.”
There was a slight thumping noise that came from a door being shoved open. Carter quickly threw on his coat and stumbled to the door. He carefully placed his eye up to the keyhole and peered out, softly cursing himself. How could he have overslept at a time like this?
“Commander Vederrak requests your presence immediately,” the Falkovnian said forcefully. “Either you will come with us now, or you will be dragged.”
Sebastian frowned deeply as he stood in the doorway, pressing his mouth into a thin line. Part of Carter’s sleep-drugged brain managed to register that the linguist was missing his jacket and cravat. A growing sense of unease began to gnaw at the back of the archeologist’s mind. Something was wrong.
Sebastian knew it as well, judging from the tense expression on his face. He ran his fingers over his throat before softly replying. “Very well.”
Carter pressed himself against the door to watch the procession leave, his instincts screaming at him and his mind unable to grasp why. Vedarrak’s demands were nothing unusual - Vederrak had been dragging Marchand-Renier off constantly for questioning, more to annoy the linguist than anything else. The old Marchand-Renier had returned in force around the Falkovnian, and the pair got along like cats and dogs, throwing underhanded insults at each other ever since the Professors had been placed in their “guest quarters.” Vedarrak had usually responded to Sebastian’s sniping with the kind of amused tolerance that came from having all the power in the situation. This felt different.
The second the Falkovnians left the hall, three doors opened. Carter completely ignored the guards left behind, who did the same to him, and looked at the other two captives, desperately seeking some sign of understanding. Remy adjusted his glasses on his face, his hair and clothes in total disarray, his eyes questioning and deathly concerned. Seeing there were no answers to be found there, Carter turned to look at Professor Devereux.
The violet-eyed professor was barely recognizable, stripped of his colorful frock coats and clashing vests; he was wearing only his white ruffled shirt and breeches, his unbound hair cascading around his shoulders. Devereux said nothing, silently holding his pocketwatch out for Carter to see. Even from where he stood, the time on the watch was clearly visible.
- 3:15
“Stay here,” Carter commanded, snatching the bag from the floor of his room and racing down the hallway after the grim procession. With a few sharp words and the gestures that Remy had taught him, the professor vanished from sight.
This was suicide. But as he’d often told Marchand-Renier, the plan had always been suicide, prepared or not. And if his suspicions were proven correct, this could be Andre’s last chance.
The archeologist followed after Marchand-Renier and the two guards, carefully setting his stride to match that of the Falkovnians. The clanking armor and heavy marching of the soldiers was likely loud enough to cover Carter’s own footsteps, but Carter was not going to take any unnecessary risks. The guards stopped in front of Vedarrak’s office; Carter slowed his pace to a mere crawl, stepping carefully so as not to make any noise. He allowed himself a brief burst of speed as the guard knocked on the door, letting the sharp raps cover the sound of his movements.
“Enter,” Marcos Vedarrak’s voice carried into the hall, every veneer of pleasantness stripped away.
The guards opened the door, pausing to grab Marchand-Renier and shove him inside, none too gently. Carter quickly darted in after them, moving swiftly and silently into the back corner of Vedarrak’s office. The guards dragged Marchand-Renier over to a chair and sat him down in it, before saluting smartly to the Kommandant and being dismissed with a gesture. The two soldiers closed the door behind them, shutting Carter in the room. There was no turning back.
Carter paused for a moment to catch his breath, fighting the urge to hold his head in his hands and scream very loudly. This was crazy. This had to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life, and he had quite a variety to choose from. The professor roughly grabbed his hands to steel his nerves, watching and waiting. Vedarrak was drumming his fingers on his desk, unpleasantly grim.
“Where are they?” Vedarrak demanded, his face and voice both tightly controlled.
For a moment, both professors stared openly at the question. Marchand-Renier began to laugh quietly, a horrible, bitter sound that reminded Carter too much of Kamarn-Quse.
“They’ve flown the coop, have they?” Marchand-Renier managed, his laughter interrupted by a few ragged coughs. Carter could barely stop himself from gaping.
Vedarrak did not seem amused. “Where are they?” he repeated. Marchand-Renier just kept laughing.
“They’ve left, Marcos,” Marchand-Renier chuckled. “You’ve lost. Oh, I take back everything I’ve ever said about them. How absolutely marvelous!” The professor’s laughter turned slightly hysterical.
Vedarrak abruptly stood up, walking around his desk to where Marchand-Renier sat. Carter seized his chance, quietly sliding into the spot Vedarrak had vacated and picking out the desk drawer Remy had described to him. The archeologist pulled Sebastian’s lockpick from his coat pocket - Carter’s lockpick, technically, but he still had no idea how the linguist had gotten hold of the thing - and unlocked the drawer with a few swift turns of the handle.
“I think you are lying to me, Sebastian,” the Kommandant said, his voice dangerously quiet. “They would not have left you behind. What are they planning?”
There was a sharp snapping noise, the faint smell of ozone, and a muffled gasp of pain. Carter winced as he quickly hooked his fingers into the drawer, pulling it open as quickly as he could without making any sound. He carefully took the box and stowed it under his coat, trying to block Sebastian’s agonized struggling from his mind. It took some effort not to try to brain the Falkovnian, but Carter had a feeling that would not end well.
“If you hadn’t locked us up... I might know!” Marchand-Renier snarled through gritted teeth. “And if you’re so convinced... they haven’t left us... they’ll... come... back! Take it up with them... not me!”
The crackling stopped. Sebastian slumped in his chair, glaring up at Vedarrak with narrowed eyes. Carter tried his best to ignore the grisly proceedings, silently sliding the desk drawer shut and moving away to a safe corner of the room. He pulled a small crystal bead out of his pocket, feeling a pang of regret that he hadn’t asked Kuzan to help him hone his meditation skills - what he was about to try was beyond even Lia and Kuzan’s abilities, and his own magic skills were dodgy at best. He concentrated on the bead, letting it roll around in the palm of his hand as he watched Sebastian try to compose himself.
“I feel there would be very little for me to discuss,” Vedarrak said, folding his arms behind his back and beginning to pace around the linguist. “ I offered them my trust, and they rewarded it by destroying the Temple of Osiris and turning the people of Muhar further against us.”
“You’ll find that to be a common theme whenever Theroux and his advanced class in archeological vandalism deals with anything,” Marchand-Renier said, almost managing a smile at that. The linguist’s gaunt form was still wracked with uncontrollable spasms. “Perhaps you should have kept him on a shorter leash.”
Carter frowned even as he concentrated, annoyed that Sebastian had even brought that up. If Vedarrak decided to do anything with Andre’s heart right now, he’d notice it was missing, and if that occurred, the attempted heist would soon be discovered. Carter took a slow, deep breath, visualizing the bead in his mind’s eye, letting it expand to fill the entire horizon, allowing himself be drawn inside of it. The air around him began to shimmer like light dancing on water - he would just have to hope that Vedarrak wouldn’t look back and notice it.
“It might have been less unpleasant for everyone if I had,” Vedarrak sighed, and Carter was struck with the sudden fear that they were already too late. “I had thought the precautions I had in place would prove to be enough. And yet now I find my trust rewarded once again by them vanishing in the middle of the night, plotting some unknown scheme.”
“Perhaps they went somewhere where they could get a decent night’s sleep, if you insisted on checking on them at these hours,” Marchand-Renier retorted, his eyes searching Vedarrak’s face for something intangible. Despite his caustic demeanor, the linguist was gripping his chair so tightly that his knuckles were white, and there was a glimmer of uncertainty in his voice. “Why don’t you make some use of your ‘precautions’ instead of bothering us?” he suddenly asked.
Carter nearly dropped the box. Vedarrak placed his fingers on Sebastian’s shoulder threateningly. “I am making use of my precautions,” he said, darkly.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed, then widened. Carter quickly held the locked box up to his ear. The unsettling sound of a heartbeat echoed in the wooden container, leaving the Mordentishman vaguely puzzled.
“I hardly think it’s fair,” Sebastian said, hoarsely, “that only we should suffer for Theroux’s actions.” Carter felt his skin start to prickle as his hair stood on end, his instincts screaming at him again. Something was very, very wrong.
Vedarrak leaned down, digging his fingers into Marchand-Renier’s shoulder, and gave a black smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “When he comes back to rescue you... and he will come back... I’ll see to it that he joins you.”
What little color had been left in Sebastian’s face completely drained away. “It’s rather a pity I’ll be beyond caring at that point,” he said, quietly. “Cavendish.”
Vedarrak grinned. A thousand cruel, serrated shark teeth glittered in the magical light of the office.
The bead fell soundlessly from Carter’s hand. He began to run.
He was slow at first, keeping himself low to the floor and favoring stealth over speed. If Cavendish noticed him, there would be nowhere to hide. Carter swiftly pulled himself out of the window with no concern for the silent alarm - the person it would inform was no longer of any concern to them. He landed heavily on the sand below, barely pausing to regain his balance before sprinting across the courtyard and back towards his quarters.
The sand behind him shifted.
Turning to look at the sudden movement, Carter saw the sand rise up in a writhing cloud before suddenly coalescing into a solid form. The undead Smiledon growled at him, the horrible grinding sound of stone scraping against stone, and began to stalk towards him with deadly accuracy. Carter shoved the box into his shirt as he ran, trying to form half-remembered gestures with his fingers and half-forgotten prayers with his lips. The skeletal cat gave chase, swiftly gaining on the archeologist. Flesh and blood was simply no match for the endless endurance of the dead.
Carter stumbled in the sand, finishing his frantic spell as the Smiler pounced. With a word and a gesture, he shot into the sky. A claw raked through his jacket as he soared upward, and he felt a bitter stinging in his ribs, but the Smiledon could not follow. With an angry screech of stone, the cat turned and stalked back towards Vedarrak’s office, doubtless to inform its master. At the moment, Carter didn’t care. He doubted whatever fate Cavendish had in store for them was going to get any worse.
Carter flew through the courtyard, down the hallways, and back to their rooms, landing with a terrible crash. He gripped the wounds in his side in agony, mentally begging succor from Ezra against the pain. To his vague surprise, it seemed to help a little. He managed to stand up even as the other two prisoners opened their doors and looked out into the hall.
“Did you find out what’s going on?” Remy asked, looking around the hall fearfully, and then spotted the blood seeping down onto the floor. “Professor Carter, what happened?”
“Remy! Did you prepare your spells?” Carter interrupted, forcing the wooden box into the student’s hands.
“Last night, before I went to sleep, just like you suggested,” Remy answered, scrabbling to keep ahold of the unexpected offering. Something bad was happening.
“Take Devereux and get out of here, now,” Carter commanded, yanking open the door to his room and rifling around for anything that might be of some use. Remy stared at him for a moment, stunned, before replying.
“You’re not going to leave, are you?” the student asked, aghast. “I know that’s what Professor M wanted us to do, but we can’t just leave him! Even if he is the only hostage left, Vedarrak will-“
“Not Vedarrak,” Carter said. “Cavendish.”
Remy’s eyes turned as wide as saucers. He leaned heavily on the side of the door frame, shaking his head in desperate denial. “No...” he moaned. “No... Professor...”
“Listen!” Carter commanded, resisting the urge to grab the student and shake him. “I’m going to go back for him. I’ll get him out! But I can’t be worrying about you or Professor Devereux!” The Mordentishman swore furiously as his attempt to cast another fly spell fizzled. Why did these things always fail him when he needed them the most?
Remy looked up as he felt a comforting hand on his shoulder. Professor Devereux smiled reassuringly, although his eyes were not on Remy, but where Carter’s voice had been. “Let’s get this back to Andre,” he said to the student. “He can give us a hand.”
Remy paused, then grimly nodded. Carter felt a faint wave of relief, followed by another surge of frustration as the spell once again failed to go off. “I can’t get this miserable incantation to work, the worthless piece of mumbo-jumbo...”
Devereux shook his head and gestured for Carter to stop, pointing to the Falkovnian guards that stood in the hallway. “They’ll get us out,” he said, walking over to one of them even as he spoke. He waved to the guard, who waved back at him.
“We can’t let you out without written orders from Vedarrak,” the guard said, sounding crestfallen. “Precautions to prevent any false orders.”
“Could you... just leave?” Devereux asked, licking his lips slightly. “Go out to the barracks in the main courtyard?”
The guard nodded. “We can do that.”
Devereux nodded back. “Do that. We’ll follow.” He looked at Remy, who hurried over with his notebook. With a few disciplined words and gestures, he made Devereux vanish from sight.
The student turned back to look towards the blood on the floor. “Professor Carter...” he said, his expression troubled, “I don’t want you to die, either.”
Carter gave a confident smile, not that Remy could see it. “I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?”
Remy wasn’t quite mollified, but cast his spell once more. With a few soft footsteps, the group left the hallway, leaving Carter alone. The professor gripped his jacket tightly. It had hurt, lying to Remy like that. For a moment, Carter wondered if he should have taken the weapons from the guards before they left, but there was really no point to it. There was nothing plain steel could do against magic and stone.
He could have run. He should have run, really, it was likely already too late, and he had no idea what he possibly thought he could do even if it wasn’t. He had nothing left, no plans, no weapons, no more tricks up his sleeve - just his rapidly fading invisibility and some spells that didn’t work. But he would never be able to look himself in the eye again if he left Sebastian to die alone. He winced slightly, recalling the conversation about Remy they’d had before. He only hoped that one day, the boy would be able to forgive himself.
“May we all forgive ourselves,” he murmured to himself. He thought of his missing friends, realizing he probably would see them again - as Cavendish’s undying slave.
Suddenly furious, Carter grabbed the water pitcher from his room, hurling it against the floor with a deafening crash. With bleak purpose, he picked up the sharp shards of clay, wincing as a sharp edge sliced into his fingers. He paused for a moment, steeling himself, then ran the sharpened edge across his flesh. He had to grit his teeth to stop from dropping the makeshift knife, tearing at his hand again and again until his macabre message was complete.
- Don’t trust me.
“Thirty-seven years,” he said aloud, feeling the blood dribble down his cheek. Come to think of it, his birthday was coming up soon. He’d dodged death more times than he could remember, but he couldn’t keep running forever. “All and all, it wasn’t a bad run.”
He placed his hat on his head, gripped the clay shard in his hand, and walked resolutely down the hall. He only had a few minutes of his spell left. Time to make them count.
