Young Writers Society

My feet slapped against the polished marble, footsteps echoing off the wall. I glanced behind me to see a dozen guards pursuing me down the hallway. They each wore a uniform underneath their armor and each one carried a spear. “After her!” one called, which I thought was pretty pointless as every guard in the entire complex was already attempting to capture me, and all because of the small, glowing object currently residing in my satchel.

I bolted for the door on the far side of the room, but more guards flooded from that exit. I flexed my right hand, the trigger for my gauntlet to shoot a bolt of lightning. It collided with two of the guards, hurling them against the wall. I darted for the third exit. My hair rose in a fiery nimbus around my head; I really needed to fix that lightning setting. It was getting temperamental.

The guards were momentarily stunned, but they resumed their mad dash to catch me. As I sprinted down the hallway, the wooden wings rattled on my back. If they didn’t hold together….that would be bad. I looked down the other halls branching off, but never took one; they’d only take me deeper into the tower.

Finally, I arrived in a circular room, probably fifty feet across. It had vaulted, marble walls and a massive window straight across from me. There was only one exit and that was the one I’d just come through.

The guards, by now numbering about thirty, surrounded me in a semi circle, spears facing in. “No way out of this one,” someone called.

I shook my head. “There’s always a way out.” I glanced at the timer in my hand. Seven, it read. Six….five….

I dashed towards the window, through the gap in the guards’ defenses. They left a gaping hole exactly where I needed to go. No one stood in my way as I darted towards the window. Of course, that was because no one expected me to jump out of a five hundred foot tall tower.

My brass gauntlet smashed through the window, sending shards of glass flying into empty space. My momentum carried me through the broken window and then I was in freefall, plummeting through the night sky. The sound of air rushing past me blared in my ears as I plunged through darkness. It was exhilarating, falling weightlessly through shadows, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

I pulled a string on my shirt and wings that had remained folded on my back ballooned out. The sturdy oak frame held strong and the linen held enough air to keep me from falling. I had been slightly unsure if they would; I’d never used wood in my designs before.

Well, they had done the job. I was gliding gracefully over the houses below me. And then I heard a massive explosion from behind me. I twisted my neck to look behind me and saw that the entire top of the tower I had just robbed had gone up in a blast of fire. I glanced at my timer. Zero. I grinned, savoring my victory, but it didn’t last long. I had forgotten to account for the shrapnel.

A hail of stones ranging from pebble to boulder shot through the air. My back was peppered with pebbles. That paled into utter insignificance in the face of the fact that a larger rock, about the size of the palm of my hand, had punched a hole in the left wing. Not just in the fabric, but in the structure so that it flapped around uselessly as I plummeted into a spiral. Thankfully, it wasn’t freefall like before, but sadly I was still falling towards the slate rooftops below me. Headfirst.

The roof rose up to meet me, and the gap was closing fast. At the last second, I extended the wings and I wasn’t falling so much as gliding very, very steeply. I bounced off the roof, the impact taking the air from my lungs. My momentum carried me down the side, and I fell off of the roof, slamming into the wall of an alley. Finally, I hit the ground. It was a relief, honestly; I had no where left to fall.

Pain radiated through my body. I had two, maybe three broken ribs, a few more were fractured along with my shoulder. Everything would heal in time, none of my wounds were serious, but they hurt. And I had to get out of here. Sooner or (more likely) later, the guards would regroup and come looking for me. No sooner had I had the thought than an alarm bell began ringing. Of course it was sooner.

“Well, this is just stellar,” I growled to myself.

“Don’t move,” someone from farther down the alley advised.

I laughed a bitter, only slightly manic laugh. “You did just see me jump out of a building which exploded, right? If you’re thinking of robbing me, think again.”

“I wasn’t.” A figure walked closer. He was dressed in a red robe, not one traditional with any style I’d seen on Alaran. His hood was up, covering most of his face, but I could still see below his nose. I squinted, trying to see under it, but to no avail. I hadn’t been on Alaran long, and it was possible I just hadn’t encountered someone wearing this cloak before, but all the same, it made me nervous. If he was a Flicker, I wasn’t sure I could deal with him in my present state. I wasn’t even sure I could deal with him if he wasn’t.

As he approached, I tensed. I flicked my wrist, sending a fireball to his right. “That was a warning shot.”

“Oh, come on, Nyx. You need my help.” I was perplexed to notice that his voice hadn’t deepened all the way yet, putting his age in the early teens.

“No, I do not!” I growled through gritted teeth. I tried to shift myself into a sitting position in a way that caused the least pain. I couldn’t see for sure, but I was fairly certain the cloaked person was rolling his eyes. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

“Oh, do you prefer to be called the Alchemist?” he asked. “I know lots of things. I know what you just stole from that tower. I know everyone in this alliance will be looking for you. And I know you’re in too much pain to Flicker or even walk away. Once they catch you, they’ll imprison you, maybe torture you, but you’ll heal eventually. When you do, you’ll be able to Flicker away, but your bones will have healed badly. You’ll have to deal with that for the rest of your life. And, of course, they’ll have taken your precious gauntlet.”

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I suppose you’d call me the Harbinger.” I wracked my brain for stories, even rumors of someone going by that name, but came up with nothing. “I can help you.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow, but didn’t strike him with lightning. He held his hands near my broken bones and tendrils of light flowed from them, connecting to my ribs and shoulder. All the while, I was looking at the Harbinger’s face, hoping the light would reveal it. It didn’t.

Gradually, the light knit my bones together, which was an altogether disconcerting sensation, but the pain was going away, so it was worth it. I don’t know how much time passed, but eventually the Harbinger stood up and I was able to do the same without writhing in agony.

“There’s something I want you to do,” the Harbinger said.

“No,” was my immediate response.

“Let me rephrase that,” he said, his calm voice threaded with a hint of a threat. He held up his hand and light came from it, but this time, it coalesced into a sword which he held about an inch from the tip of my nose. “There’s someone I want you to kill.”