Bystander Day 4
Hiram woke with a distinct sense of foreboding. He had slept in, in a comparative sense; Opalneria woke with him. Once they both had prepared for the day, they went downstairs to determine whether they were leaving that day.
They found the proprietress sitting downstairs at one of the empty tables with her head in her hands. Opalneria and Hiram exchanged a glance, then Opalneria approached the woman while Hiram stayed back looking around the main room of the inn. Even though it looked just the same as any other morning, something was wrong today. And even the inn seemed to know about it. Opalneria came back over to him about a minute of looking around the room later. "Her husband is among the dead," Opalneria said quietly.
Hiram looked at Opalneria's serious expression and found that he was unsurprised by the news. "And the Magistrate hasn't opened the roads?"
Opalneria shook her head. "No."
Hiram closed his eyes. "I don't know whether it would be for the best to confine whatever this is to this town, or let more of this town survive."
"You answered your own question, of course. Not that you have to like it," Opalneria replied. Her eyes had started to scan the room. "I do recommend that we escape, however. No lives may be replaceable, but yours more than most in this kingdom. And the last thing that Gammel wants is to have to tell your mother that you died while ostensibly under his care."
Hiram shook his head. "We're probably among the most magically talented people here. If there's anything we can do to protect the people here, it is my duty to do it."
Opalneria narrowed her eyes. "You won't do any good committing suicide for some ideal here. Be realistic; a former member of the Society is dead you told me. Do you think she was weak as a kitten to a magical attack, if that's what it was?"
Hiram shook his head. "They could have been surprised."
"Then we must not be," Opalneria said. "You're being too stubborn about this. It would be a greater blow to the Kingdom if it had to mourn a Prince among those who died here when news gets out about all of this."
"What if the Kingdom found that a Prince had evacuated himself from the town but hadn't done anything to help the town as it imploded on itself?"
"Barely anyone here knows who you really are," Opalneria said, still flat, still sharp and still serious. "Just the Magistrate, right? Or have you been telling everyone you've met?"
"The Magistrate and Bartido. But Bartido already knew."
"Right; him." Opalneria lifted a hand to her lips as she thought for a moment. "As suspicious and strange as he is, there's no way that he's the one behind all of this either. It would be a diplomatic incident to charge him with anything anyway. Why is he being held here?"
"His servants; not all of them are Immune like he is."
"Right... ugh. This of course has to happen with lots of important people around."
"Are you implying that there's a good time for this to happen?" Hiram asked with a hint of an edge in his voice.
"No, and don't put words in my mouth," Opalneria snapped. "Worse events than this can be thought of, but they aren't many, and most of them involve wars. And when I only have some control over one aspect of a tragedy, aren't I going to take advantage?"
Hiram's mood softened a bit at that. "Of course, but this isn't your choice. Or your duty. It's mine."
Opalneria folded her arms. "I still say you're being a stubborn idiot about this."
"I have to agree with your young companion," the Magistrate said, coming into the inn, flanked by a few of his guards. "It would be best if you were gone in the next hour."
"I will not abandon my people in their hour of need," Hiram replied tersely. He didn't want to go over this yet again.
"What your people need in this hour is not you or your presence," the Magistrate said. "What they need is this culprit caught, and this town made safe."
"Which you've been doing quite the job at, Magistrate," Opalneria said with some venom.
The Magistrate inclined his head to acknowledge the point. "Unfortunately, the situation we have here is what we have to deal with, not the ideal." He looked at Hiram. "I must insist on this; we have reason to believe that you are going to be targeted by someone in this town."
"Why haven't you arrested them yet?" Opalneria asked.
"He evaded our capture," the Magistrate said. "You need to be on the road as soon as possible, and keep your eyes open. While I might not be able to protect you here, you may be able to protect yourself given the amount of warning the empty road will give you."
Opalneria turned to Hiram. "See? We need to get you out."
Hiram frowned. This went against his gut feeling, but if what the Magistrate was saying was true... "How do you know that someone may be after me?"
"Got a report from a towns-person," the Magistrate said. "Anonymously, but I believe it genuine. The tipper knew who you were."
Both Hiram and Opalneria's eyes widened. "Oh," Hiram said. "Oh..."
"I'll start our preparations and tell the driver," Opalneria said. She left without waiting for a response from Hiram.
The Magistrate gave Hiram a sympathetic look. "If I manage to come out of this alive, I will certainly not disparage you for leaving now."
Hiram looked up. "You don't expect to live through this at all, do you?"
The Magistrate just gave him a soft smile. It made Hiram shudder. "You'll be able to get through the gate as long as you and your partner over there show yourself, and let my guards search the carriage."
And with that, the Magistrate left with his guards, the door of the inn swinging behind him. Hiram was frozen to the spot. Things had clearly gone terribly downhill the previous night. What had happened?
Before he could get too far on that train of thought, the door to the inn swung open to reveal Gertrude Silvaner, who looked terrible, but alive, which given what had apparently happened the night before, made Hiram feel just a hint better. She spotted him quickly and walked straight up to him, making him take an involuntary step back.
"The Beast... is a boy," she said. Then she laughed, not sounding entirely sane. "A mere boy." She then started to walk off.
Hiram recovered quickly. "Wait!" She turned to look at him, and he noticed that she looked quite dazed. "What do you mean?"
She just laughed for a moment. "It doesn't matter. It's no use. We're all going to die, anyway." She mumbled for a bit, then shook her head. "No. Hiram, right?" Hiram didn't say anything, so she went on. "Get out of here while you still can." Then she turned and walked off to one of the rooms.
Hiram sighed. Opalneria and the Magistrate were probably right; it was time to go.
The packing and getting the horses ready went smoothly, if not as quickly as Opalneria clearly would have liked. Thankfully, she did not complain about the delay, merely helping so that it went faster. Hiram, once he had recovered enough to join them, helped as well. The driver snapped the horses' reigns short of an hour after the packing had commenced, which Hiram thought was rather speedy.
The entourage made it to the checkpoint in short order, with Hiram and Opalneria riding up with the driver so that they could be seen.
"Ah... who are you?" the guard in front challenged.
"Hiram, with my partner and driver. The Magistrate told us that we were free to exit the town."
After a tense moment, the guard lowered his weapon. "Alright. He told us that you would be coming." He waved to his compatriots. "Check the back; just make sure that no one's stowing away; don't touch anything if you don't have to."
Hiram's eyebrows rose at the order. What exactly had the Magistrate told them to expect, anyway? Opalneria didn't waste time, jumping off of the carriage with grace and walking swiftly to the back to make sure none of the guards did something stupid to the specimens. Particularly the one that they had accidentally activated the day before...
But it turned out that no caution was necessary. There was no one in the back, and the guards checked thoroughly without endangering themselves. The lead guard waved them on through, and then they were on the other side of the barrier. Opalneria now rode in the back with the cargo, while Hiram kept his eyes peeled in the front. After all of that, it would not do to be caught unaware. Hiram was surprised that shortly into the trip, Opalneria stuck her head out from behind him to whisper in his ear. "There is a problem back at the checkpoint. Keep the driver moving, and be ready to summon." Then her head was gone.
Hiram felt very tense as he continued to search the horizon for anything out of the ordinary, and jumped at every odd sound from behind him, even when it was just the bumping of the carriage on the road. But nothing compared to the shock of fear he felt when he heard Opalneria shout.
"Chimera!"
That was bad. Hiram turned to the driver. "Keep going. Shout if you need us." Then he jumped into the carriage and stumbled to the back as quickly as he could. Opalneria had already drawn a rune in one of the spaces they had left open in the back of the carriage, and Hiram began drawing in the other space.
Opalneria's Phantoms burst forth from her rune the instant it was possible, flowing out through the flapping canvas to meet the abomination that was behind them. Through the opening, Hiram could see that even though the Chimera had to swim through Phantoms to do it, it continued to gain on the carriage. He also spotted a pair more behind it. He cursed quietly before continuing to draw a Chaos Nest. Upon finishing, he poured mana to it as fast as he could. Looking out to the following Chimera, and making sure he still had time to complete his plan.
Opalneria was breathing heavily with the effort, but her Phantoms continued to pour out. Finally, long after Hiram actually wanted it, Hiram had his first Grimalkin. The command was issued without a thought, and the Grimalkin hopped out of the carriage and cast Sleep until it was out of magic, knocking out two of the Chimera. The third nearly killed it before Hiram was able to dismiss him. Thankfully Hiram's second Grimalkin had arrived and even though the last Chimera dodged around the swarm of Phantoms that enveloped the others, it also succumbed to sleep from a Grimalkin's staff. Hiram let out a sigh of relief, and Opalneria sat down heavily.
"I-"
"You were right; there's no need to rub it in," Hiram cut her off.
"I'm glad you finally listened to me," Opalneria said mildly, making Hiram flush with shame.
Then both of them whipped around when they heard the driver scream, and then a sound that couldn't be good, but sounded like squish. The carriage then came to an instant stop, throwing Hiram and Opalneria toward the front. When Hiram looked up he found himself looking at a devil... a devil that looked somewhat like Bartido's friend.
The devil grinned, showing white spikes as teeth. "Mmm, and for a moment he thought you two would get away." He laughed. Like his voice, it was not pleasant. "We'll thank that Pabst for the Chimera's shortly, of course. Because of that, two more for Hell this morning. And plenty more waiting back in town. Where they're all just sitting tight, waiting for me to kill them all."
Phantoms flew through the pair of humans and attacked the devil, but he cleared them out of his way with diffident swipes of his claw-like hands. "Pathetic. And to think you two were there when Grimlet kicked the bucket, as little as either of you had to do with it in the end." He laughed when a sleep spell hit him from a Grimalkin. "Stop it," he said, stepping on Hiram's back to get to where the Grimalkin was to kill it. "I'm ticklish there." Hiram screamed, and Opalneria shouted as she pumped more mana into her rune.
"Just how much do you have, anyway?" the devil asked, but it didn't wait for an answer. It reached down and separated Hiram's legs from his body, covering most of the floor with his blood. He screamed again. "A broken back and no legs. What will you do with yourself?" He reached back and killed a few more Phantoms that were slashing their swords at him before he swiped down at Opalneria. She cried out in pain as his talons raked across her body, throwing her to the floor alongside Hiram. "Any last words?"
Opalneria stared up at him with hatred, while Hiram tried to stop focusing on the pain so much so that he could feel his hand. It found its target just in time. Opalneria squeezed just before neither felt anything more from the sharp claws above them. Hiram saw blue and green... but wasn't the floor of the carriage brown and red? Then he was floating, feeling only Opalneria's hand. Then there was nothing.
It doesn't matter what I do; It remains the same.
It doesn't matter what I say; They reply identically.
It doesn't matter where I go; Nothing will change.
Nothing I do may work at all. I fly forward into the known evil...
Tomorrow's sunrise... is it my last?
Tomorrow... Prisoner
