In Search of Home

by Michael Olson

The world once more had an impact on his mind, imparting with a sudden rush a small room that was pretty dim, even for him. He could see the blurred lines of some cage like device around his face. The thing seemed to be attached to the back of the chair in some way, preventing him from turning his head. There wasn't much else to look at except a blank wall. Slowly, he came to notice the chafing of rope on his wrists and corresponding immobility that made it evident he had been tied to the chair.

"So, things didn't go according to your plan, did they?" a female voice rhetorically asked from somewhere behind him.

"Um... No. I guess they didn't," Jacob replied honestly, confusion reigning his consciousness at the moment, only barely beating down the fear that rose at the implications of both his restraints and the tone in which the question had been asked. "Why am I tied up?"

A small snort of derision echoed from the unseen area behind him. "You are tied up because you were caught trying to break into the Keep," the voice stated. "See how nicely this pattern works? I ask a question, you answer. You ask a question, I answer. Now, why were you trying to break in?"

"I wasn't trying to break in. I was trying to get to the Writer's Guild," the gecko offered.

Before he could elaborate his interrogator cut him off with a mirthless chuckle, "Sure you were. We find that's often the case when we have black clad strangers scaling up our walls. They were trying to reach a building outside the Keep." She paused to let ridiculousness of his statement sink in. "Now you've told me a lie. That's no good. I'll give you one chance to correct that mistake."

"The Keep's danged magic wouldn't give me any doors," Jacob said, an ice cube of growing dread had appeared in his stomach, but he tried not to let its frigid vapors creep into his voice.

The silence that held for a moment gave the young man reason to hope. After a moment the voice said, "No... No, I think you are still lying to me. I'm very disappointed. Now I am going to have to call in Martin." Probably at some unseen signal, there was the shuffle of feet across the bare floor from behind the prisoner. They grew close as whoever was making them began to pass on his left.

In a few moments he saw before him a boy of about thirteen years of age. The boy's hair was an unruly mess, of what appeared to be a light brown color. Jacob wasn't able to ascertain the hue definitely. Light as dim as he was in tended to leech the color from things. The youth was attired in a questionably dark grey uniform. A variety of odd instruments were on the boy's belt, including wooden blocks, a metal file, a jar of... well, a jar of something.

A mischievous grin consumed the youth's countenance as he ran his fingers and eyes lightly across the materials, as if deciding where to start. He seemed to decide in a sudden movement as he drew the file from the belt quickly, the rasp of metal on leather bouncing loudly off the walls, emulating the sound of a sword being freed from its scabbard. On the heels of the sound he snapped his head up to look at Jacob, a deep coarse voice emanating from his young throat, "D'ya moind if I's cut-Holy cow, Sam, come take a look at this!" The voice had dropped the rough accent mid-way through, and now sounded like nothing more than an excited child, though considerably deeper.

An exasperated sigh and some low rapid cursing from the female voice he had heard earlier came from behind Jacob. It grew louder as she approached and finally the string of profanities gave way to coherent words expressing frustration and light anger. "What in the world are you doing, Martie? I really stuck my neck out by letting you plan this interrogation, and here you are goofing off and for what? What is it Martie?"

"Take a look at how creepy this guy looks. I've never seen pupils this big before," the boy exclaimed. Jacob grimaced deeply at the scrutiny and appraisal, some of his trepidation giving way to wounded pride.

"So?" the woman, presumably Sam, asked in a voice that had lost none of its anger. She amended somewhat more mildly, "I mean, yeah, he does look pretty freakish, but this is serious business and you have to be able to stay focused, Mart-"

"Shaddup for a second, will ya, Sam?" the boy cut in. "The entire plans a wash anyway. Watch." Turning to the prisoner once more, the youngling held up his hand and asked, "How many fingers am I holding up."

"Four," Jacob stated tersely, correctly identifying the number of extended digits.

"See? Told ya," the deep-voiced juvenile said, beaming with victory, even as Sam uttered another profanity. "He can see me, so the mind-games we had planned weren't going to be that effective anyway." Jacob couldn't help but think that the boy, Martin, might sound thirty years older than he looked, but he had the tone and attitude of someone five years younger. Martin had practically stuck his tongue out at the woman at the end of his victorious demonstration.

Suddenly, something occurred to the reptile, "It's no miracle that I can see in here, but how can you two?"

"Magic!" the boy proclaimed in his bass, "Benny's work. Same guy who did the voice."

It was then that Jacob noticed the metal emblem sewn into the left shoulder of the woman's uniform. It was a hollow shield with a lantern inside. Though out of necessity the lantern had been crafted larger so that the top and bottom could connect to the shield, it was still obviously the same symbol that graced the door that had tormented him. "What does that shield and lantern mean?" Jacob asked, gesturing with his head as much as the muzzle would allow.

"Oh, that's the symbol for the Watch. We keep peace within the castle and town."

Sam seemed to recover her senses and gave Martie a light slap to the back of the head. "Stop feeling clever, and think for a second. Just because he can see in the dark doesn't miraculously clear him of suspicion of being a thief, spy, or assassin; so don't start acting like this interrogation is over!"

The next moment, a star blossomed in that very room, or so it seemed to the occupants. The sound of the turning handle had gone unheard amidst the arguing and now a nova of light erupted into the chamber. "Shut the door!!" the three of them cried in unison as their retinas were impaled by the lance of illumination, two closing and clutching their eyes while the third wished he could do either.

The rectangle of fire narrowed to a mere bar, reducing the light to tolerable levels. Blotchy, multi-hued, color-changing blobs danced before the eyes of the assailed. "Hell! What were you thinking you id-" Sam started to say to the person who had opened the door. Her sentence cut itself off halfway through as her vision became sufficiently normal to see who it was. "I'm sorry, Chief, I didn't know it was you."

"Sure you didn't," a voice said in wry incredulity. "You're pulling double patrols in the town for the next three months, you know that don't you?"

"For one little slip of the tongue?" Sam protested.

"No, for letting him in here," the man stated plainly. "I don't remember authorizing Martie to participate in interrogations, and I don't think of myself as a forgetful person."

The reprimanded Watchwoman simply grimaced and held her tongue. The newcomer then said, "And as for you Martie, I'm simply going to look the other way for the next month for whatever kind of revenge Sam wants to take." The words were hardly spoken before the woman swatted the head of the youth to her side without taking her eyes off the door, as if a promise that she'd be taking full advantage of the period of sanctioned vengeance. "Now, what's the story?" the speaker concluded as if nothing had happened.

"One of the guards caught him trying to scale the wall," Sam said while gesturing toward Jacob. "Torpor caught up with him just before he made it. One of the guards managed to catch him by the wrist before he fell."

"Why was he trying to get into the Keep?" the man asked.

Jacob spoke on his own behalf now, "I was trying to get out of the Keep. I'd been wandering the halls for two hours trying to find a way to the Writer's Guild."

"Where did you get the climbing equipment?"

"From the Curse," the gecko said.

"Why were you going to the Writer's Guild?"

"I am applying for a job as a scribe. I needed to submit a sample of my script to Tallis."

"Do you have the sample with you?"

"It's in a pocket in my first cloak."

At an unseen gesture Martin's fingers dove deftly through the folds of cloth and silently, with barely a ripple or a sound, extracted the sheet of parchment. The boy examined it in the increased light of the room and said, "It's a page of writing," he announced.

Sam snatched the page from him, causing the restrained reptile to wince, fearing that it would be torn. His fears found no realization, however, as the woman's motions had apparently been gentle despite their swiftness. She clarified, "I think it's a page copied from the Canticle."

"Would Tallis confirm your story?" the man asked, obviously speaking to Jacob. The lizard nodded and affirmed vocally, "Yes."

"Sam, go track him down and bring him here."

"Sure thing, Chief," she replied snapping a quick salute before dashing off out of Jacob's field of vision.

"What's your name, son?" the Chief asked. After Jacob had answered, he continued, "Jacob we're going to untie you now, because I'm pretty sure everything is going to check out, but don't leave this set of rooms. Martie, release him and then, Heaven help me, you're in charge of keeping an eye on him. I have some work to do."

The boy gave a nod with a neutral expression on his face and undid the clasps connecting the muzzle to the chair and then proceeded to untie the ropes. Freed from the constraints, the gecko stood and tried to work the kinks out of his 'neck'. The man had already left by the time the former captive was able to look at the doorway.

Martin walked over toward the monolith of light pouring in through the partially open door, avoiding looking at it directly, and called into the adjoining room, "Ben! We're finished." Before the boy had even completed the sentence, his voice transmuted from the deep bass to a childish tenor. Apparently freed from ensorcellments, Martin stepped into the doorway, momentarily eclipsing the opening. He turned and waited expectantly. "Coming?" he inquired.

Jacob shrugged to himself mentally and walked from the interrogation chamber to find a narrow, well-lit office beyond. It was furnished with a large and heavy-looking dark wooden desk on the left, opposite a door that presumably led to the hall. Several small padded chairs lined both walls on the right half of the room. Seated in one of them was a ten-year-old boy, whose face was mostly obscured by a large book. Martin leaned casually against a wall on the far side of the room where the line of seats ended.

"Jacob, meet Benny, he's the mage for our squad," the teen pronounced.

"Benlin Faraday, merely a mage in training. Pleased to make your acquaintance" a child's voice stated slightly more formally from behind the tome.

"Jacob Drazil, newly come to the Keep," Jacob stated in reply. "Sorry for asking, but how old are you two actually?"

The tiny sorcerer spoke for both, saying, "I'm about twenty in reality. Martin, as his behavior often suggests to many, is actually as old as he appears. He has another year before Metamor lays a hold on him, as close as we can estimate."

"I'll be long gone by then," the discussed said with a mischievous grin and reasonable confidence.

"Does the Watch hire a lot of real children?" Jacob asked, a bit confused.

"Young Martin is somewhat unique among members of the Watch," Faraday said. "Due to an act of mercy on behalf of those in power, he is serving out his time helping us capture his former brethren rather than staring at mildewed walls.

"They caught me swiping a few things and I convinced them that I'd be more useful spotting other thieves than rotting in the dungeon," Martin admitted.

The conversation ranged a bit after that. The two guardsmen shared some information about Watch policy with their guest, discussed a bit of how they had come to this point in their lives, and, in hushed tones for fear of being overheard, warned him of the Chief's steel insistence on being referred to as a female at all times. The pair had shared a brief shudder at the thought of the consequences of violating that edict.

Then a sort of silence fell over the room as Ben returned to his studies, Martin worked with his knife to carve his name unseen into the back of one of the chairs, and Jacob turned his attention to the scenes painted on a pair of vases standing on pedestals in each corner of the room behind the massive desk.

Fertile and vibrant land transformed into a cracked and barren wasteland as one circumnavigated the surface of the vessel. It was very well painted, the detail and emotion it conveyed as the wind-swept grassland withered was simply stunning. The raw desolation in the crusty lifeless surface reached past any feelings of objectivity toward the scene.

What Jacob really found interesting, however, was the circular nature; when he had dared turn each gently upon its stand, he'd found that the wasted terrain was also gradually transmuted back into the bountiful. One could almost feel the health radiating from the light green saplings that turned in towering oaks just an inch further on. He was in the middle examining the second vase, which was of similar theme but slightly different landscapes, when Sam returned with a curly headed rat in tow.

The woman was about to speak when the Chief came striding back through the door, looking at some papers in his hand, "Tallis, I presume?" he asked as he went toward the desk. Sam clamped down on the questions she had been about to ask, her eyes flashing with annoyance. The rat at her side nodded.

A few simple inquiries confirmed Jacob's story to the Watchman's satisfaction. "I have a few more words for you, son," the big man said addressing the former prisoner, "But since I don't want to detain the Guildmaster any longer than necessary why don't you conclude your business with him first." He returned the writing sample that had lain on his desk to its owner.

Jacob accepted the parchment gratefully, happy to be reaching the end of this catastrophe. He passed along the page of script to Tallis commenting, "You never mentioned you were head of the Writer's Guild."

Tallis merely smiled and said humbly, "Only one of three victims, actually." He began to peruse the paper. Almost immediately his expression soured. "I'm sorry, Jacob. I should have been more clear. The sample needs to be an example of when you are trying to write at your neatest; most of the assignments are going to be formal copies for sale in other lands, not just casual recordings. Can you make another sample for me?" He offered the paper back to the gecko.

Jacob's heart had started an erratic course at the first disappearance of the rat's smile. Now the organ seemed to have turned to lead. How could he confess the effort that had gone into that 'casual' scrawling? He thanked the maker for the first time for the dome-covered eyes which hid the tears that would have surely burst through prior to the Curse. Aided by this and his animalistic visage, the lie rolled off his tongue with only a moderate effort at composure, "Of course." After a moment to collect his thoughts, he said, "Actually, I probably won't be able to for a while. I hurt my hand pretty badly trying to get out of the castle today." He cradled the suddenly ailing appendage for emphasis, "Not sure I'll be able to do any heavy writing for a while. Maybe I'll try again when it has healed if I haven't found other work."

Tallis grimaced in sympathy and then offered a wan smile, "I understand. Well, the offer is always open if things change." The black and white rat departed, leaving only Jacob, the Chief, and book-burried Benlin. Sam and Martin had withdrawn earlier, presumably having lost interest when the question of Jacob's status as a spy had reached a conclusion.

The man behind the desk set down the stack of papers he had been reading and looked at Jacob. "I had planned on telling you how absolutely stupid the stunt you pulled was, but you've sparked a bit of my curiosity," he said while rising. He walked over to the vases that stood in the corner of the room to Jacob's left. "I don't suppose I need to mention how lucky you are to be alive?" he asked raising a black eyebrow. Jacob shook his head, indicating that it wouldn't be necessary. The head of the night Watch nodded slightly and said, "Good. Catch!"

The exclamation was coincided with a fluid twist that allowed him to grab the beautifully depicted vase with his left hand and then uncoil and release, flinging the object off to the right of the reptile standing ten feet away. A spike of horror at the airborne nature of the fragile masterpiece was quick enough to go off in Jacob before he had to lunge sideways, his right hand was darting out to catch. Even as he was reaching to grab it, the corners of his vision caught the Chief using his tall height and long reach to lean across the room and grab the right-hand vase. The smooth surface of the first projectile adhered itself to Jacob's hand when contact was made from the side, tugging the skin as its motion was arrested. At the same time the second vase was airborne, again being hurled cross-wise so that its path would take it from right to left of Jacob's position. With no way to reverse the direction of his lunge in time to reach it, the lizard pushed off with his right leg and allowed himself to fall back, snaking out his left foot to grab the currently threatened piece. Then there was the pain of both his tail being crushed beneath him, and the impact on the stone softened only by a thin rug.

He drew a few rapid breaths courtesy of the adrenaline the shock had provided him. Benlin turned a page audibly. The relative silence slunk sullenly off as Jacob's mind recovered and asked at once confused and exasperated, "Why did you do that?"

"To see if you were lying, and if you were qualified," the man answered simply. "It would seem to me that your hand isn't as injured as you claimed."

A touch of dread spilled across the young man that his falsehood might have been that transparent. He wondered if he'd even managed to fool Tallis. The incongruity of the second reason for the bizarre actions snapped him out of the reflection. "Qualified for what?"

There was a brief chuckle at Jacob's turn of expression from bald misery to confusion. "For the Watch. You are in desperate need of work, aren't you?" Jacob picked himself up off the ground, taking care with the two vases while the Chief spoke. "I like to see how people react to the unexpected. You have some nice reflexes. Of those that try to catch, not many get both of them."

"You do this to everyone who comes to join the Watch?" Jacob asked amazed. "Is there some kind of spell on these that prevents them from shattering?" he said, referring to the objects in his hands.

"I do something similar to everyone, and no, those aren't enchanted, I just have a storeroom full of them," the Chief said. "You can keep those. I never throw a pair that I don't consider lost." Jacob expressed his gratitude as best as he was able for the considerable generosity, with a 'thank you, Ma'am' and a bow. It just struck him as the right thing to do. The Chief tossed a look at Ben, but smiled at the use of the feminine title. The tiny magic wielder, if aware of the attention, ignored it and simply turned another page.

The police leader had a few more questions. In the short interview that followed it was revealed that Jacob could use a staff, but owned a spear, that he had fought humans, but had never killed any, had killed, but only a lutin, could only work in relative warmth, and had a strong preference for night. The Chief said that it was an ok start, and that Jacob should start learning how to actually fight the very next day. The reptile was given a place to go to and a name to report to, and was out the door before he even really had a chance to say whether or not he wanted to be recruited.

Jacob stared, having few other visual options, at the white symbol on the door that had just been closed behind him; the same door and icon that had plagued him all morning. It gave a full circle impression to the events, making them feel almost complete. That sensation aside, did he really want to join the Watch? He answered his own question with the thought, 'Beggars can't be choosers' and realizing that a mendicant was exactly what he'd become if he didn't find paying work.

Besides, how bad could it be? Police work was an honest living. He would be able to help keep others safe, to uphold order, to see that fair treatment was meted out. It wasn't as if it was a job as a soldier. Maiming and death wouldn't be so much the orders of the day as subduing and capture.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized he had every reason to be pleased with the outcome of the day's oddities. He would still work on improving his writing so that he had a skill to rely upon for work, that and, more importantly, it was another thing the Curse had taken from him that he could take back.

A new vigor graced his step as he walked away down the corridors, a healthier motion than the anger-forged plod of earlier. He had a lot to do, but before beginning on any of it, he had to deal with a task he had been neglecting. He had to write a letter to his family and tell them of his new life, what little of it had solidified so far.

He had only stridden a few short halls before he came to his quarters. In some way the brevity of the journey surprised him, but another part of him simply felt and understood that the magical passageways no longer had any need to force him on a search for home.

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