“Openupopenupopenupopenup!” Al said as loud as he could with his hoarse voice. He continued to pound on the door even though both his hands had swollen into mitts an hour prior. He gave the gate a few good kicks with his heel. “I’m going to use my ax!”

“Hey!” a man said from the street. The three of them turned and saw a constable approach them. “You can’t be out here yelling at all hours of the night. We’ve had several people complain about the noise.”

“We need to get in there!” Al said, pointing to the gate.

“Ha, well you wouldn’t be the first who wanted that.”

“No, our friend is in there.”

“Friend?” He looked alarmed. “Did the trirecs take a citizen behind their lines?”

“Yes! His name is Raulin Kemor and he’s a trirec, but we met him about a year ago up in…”

The constable held up his hand. “I can’t help you there, son. That’s trirec business. Best go find a hotel room, get some rest, and take off in the morning.”

But we can’t, Al wanted to say. “We need to make sure he’s okay.”

The constable walked up and put his arm around Al’s shoulders. “There’s nothing to do, lad. I’m sure he was a good friend to you, but that’s just how they do things. There’s a nice place about two blocks over. The mistress keeps late hours, so she’ll likely still be up. Tell her I sent you and-”

Al shrugged his arm off. “If we wait until morning, they may have already killed him! We need to get inside to talk to them.”

“Well, I don’t know if it will work, but there is a bell most people use,” he said, pointing to the sliding window twenty feet from where they were. The three looked over. “Good luck to you. And if you don’t get anyone’s attention, please be quiet about it. I don’t want to, but I will drag all three of you to jail for disorderly conduct.”

Al ran over and rang the bell enthusiastically. The window slid open immediately. “Hello! What can I do for you?” a cheerful voice said in a clear, but distinctly Merakian accent.

“We need to see Raulin,” Al said.

“Raulin Kemor is in the middle of being tried. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Wait!” Al said as he began to close the window. “Are they going to kill him?”

The trirec leaned forward and spoke quietly. “I don’t know, but it’s likely. He committed some serious crimes. It doesn’t look good.”

“Then…then I have something to tell them. They could be killing innocent people.”

“What? How?” he said, his fingertips touching the bar in front of him.

“If they kill Raulin, they will also be killing us. It’s a spell that we’re under.” The trirec made a soft “oh” sound as he thought. “Are you Isken, by chance?”

“I am.”

“Then Raulin told us to trust you.”

He peered around the corner and saw Anla. “It is as he says.”

“What?” she asked, moving closer. “What did he say?”

“This was months ago. He talked about you a lot.”

She leaned in next to him so her lips almost brushed the metal of his mask. “We’re married. Please help us save my husband.”

Isken inhaled sharply. “It is a beautiful thing. He told me how much he loved you and how wonderful you were. Bu,t I don’t know what I can do.”

Al spoke. “Grant us an audience with one of the men who’ll be judging him, one of the…what are they called…trivren?”

Isken hissed and grabbed his arm. “This is knowledge you’re not supposed to have! I will bend the ear of one who might be sympathetic to Raulin’s fate, but you must teach yourselves to be ignorant. Speak to one another and get your story ramrod straight should I get the gate open for you.” He let go then closed the window.

They moved to the gate again and sat. Al guzzled the rest of his water and ate some of the dried fruit they had leftover. “Tel, you’re going to have to pretend like you can’t speak Ghenian. I don’t think you’ll have a problem keeping the truth and lies separate, but the least said the better. Anla, they won’t let you talk anyway, but if they do, the less the better.”

“Maybe we should call in our favor to the Duke,” she said.

“I thought of that. I don’t think he can help us. On the other side of this wall is technically Merakian land. So long as they don’t break any high crimes, like treason against the King, they can do whatever they want. They can kill Raulin. They have the ultimate authority over him. There’s nothing the Duke can do, not summoning him, nor hiring him, nor raiding the compound.”

“What if we told the Duke who he really was?”

Al shook his head. “If he believed me, he’d have to get the King’s army to back him to raid the compound. Then Arvarikor would withdraw and plot and you don’t want them as your enemy.” He looked at her. “I’m sorry. If I thought either option had a firm chance, I’d try it. But, I know the laws and how they work and they’re not on our side, therefore they’re not on the Duke’s.”

She sighed and propped her chin up with her hands. Al spent the next hour muttering to himself, combing over every interaction he’d had with Raulin, and removing the dangerous information. He reminded himself that he had never helped Raulin in Iascond, never figured out who was stalking Lady Amirelsa, was never hired by Schoolinghouse to find the embezzlers. Raulin had kept to himself. Al knew it would seem unrealistic that he had been quiet, so he found topics they had discussed. There were some gray areas he decided to lie about, like who had trained him to wield an ax.

Finally, finally, there was a wooden thumping noise on the other side of the gate. The three startled and stood, waiting. “Anla, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to look less enthusiastic,” Al whispered. She nodded and schooled her features into something blander.

The door creaked on its hinges and two trirecs stood before them, one with the same mask that Raulin wore and the other with red lacquer around his eyes and mouth. “You may enter while we discuss things,” the red-lacquered one said.

They hung the lanterns on hooks that were on either side of the sitting area. The two trirecs sat and bade the rest of the quartet to do the same. “My name is Curvorn,” the older man said. “I am what’s called a trivren, a retired trirec who presides over the fate of Arvarikor and its trirecs. Isken tells me that you have information you wish to share. Before you begin, I must remind you that I am aware of the gifts you three possess. There is another trirec outside this gate who will sound an alarm if he hears this young lady speak.”

“Understood,” Al said. “My name is Alpine Gray. I and my companions got tangled in one of Raulin Kemor’s contracts and we were all imprisoned together. By that point, the three of us were already under a spell. May I retrieve something?”

“You may,” he said, then said a command to Isken in Merakian. He tensed in response, his hands hovering near his knives.

Al ignored this and pulled out the chalice. “I know to you it looks invisible, but to us we see a gold chalice with red stones.” He paused, shocked to realize that even in this light he could tell that the stones were clear. He was sure they had been red as rubies the last time he looked. “It’s an artifact of Mikros, the god of brotherhood. Here.” He handed it to Curvorn.

Curvorn hesitated, then reached out to take it. His arms sank with an unexpected weight. “What strangeness is this?”

“It’s like I said, a deitic artifact. I stole it and I don’t know much about it. I know that smearing your blood on it and drinking from it binds you to whomever else drank from it. Raulin had been fingering a wound he took fighting the guards and drank from it not knowing what it would do. For the last year we’ve been forced to stay in proximity of each other or else we get painfully ill.”

“This would explain his twenty-fifth contract,” he mused.

“He asked us to pay him and sign papers saying he was our guard. Whenever anyone asked, we had a cover story. Anla was my wife, Telbarisk our ledgerer, and Raulin our guard. We went where he needed to go.”

“And did you assist him in his contracts?”

Al fought the urge to confide in the man. “No. We would journey some place. He would tell us to stay in the hotel or nearby, because of the spell, and we would stay. Then, we’d move on to the next place.”

Curvorn held up the chalice, trying to see it. “You believe then that if Raulin is found guilty and is executed, you three will also die due to the bond of the spell?”

“Yes.”

“You feel your fates are intertwined while this spell is still in place?”

“Yes.”

“And why is it our concern whether you live or die?”

Al weighed those words, studied their tone and their meaning. He didn’t think Curvorn was coming from a place of indifference or even of indignation. If he had to put money on it, he’d guess he wanted to know because he needed to build a case for them and for Raulin. “From my education in Amandorlam, I know that you trirecs value the public’s opinion of you. I know that some places are hostile or won’t allow you to operate. You cultivate perception. You need people to know that a contract is binding and that you’re worth the money spent. I suspected it might not go well, so I sent a letter a few hours ago to my mother asking her to check in on me.”

“That was smart, but I doubt one grieving mother will kick up much fuss from the public about us.”

“Do you know what the A Rendi Vhradir is?”

“The Br’vanese council? Yes. The one in Baradan is quite influential.”

“Do you know who heads the council in Baradan?”

Curvorn sat and thought about this for a moment. “Abeli Choudril, if I’m not mistaken.”

“My name before I became a wizard was Dominek Choudril. I am her youngest son.”

He bowed his head slightly at this, then smirked before he returned the chalice. “Yes, we wouldn’t want to anger the Br’vani. I will need to speak with my fellow trivrens before we allow you inside. And, again, your lives are automatically forfeit if she speaks.”

The door to the compound was opened and both trirecs left. Al slumped in his chair. “Well, at least my blood was elevating at least once in my life.”

* * *

Raulin shifted on his knees as he sat on his ankles. His legs had lost most of the circulation a long time ago and he was doing his best to keep them ready for when he’d need to stand again. He still felt woozy from the blood loss from the “conversation” he’d had with Stavro earlier.

Curvorn entered the tribunal room once more. “Your protection charges are quite tenacious. I do believe the wizard broke both of his hands pounding on the door.”

Oh, Al, Raulin thought. “Yes, I’ve noticed they are insistent in many things.”

“The wizard informed me of something you’ve failed to mention. Tell me about the chalice.”

Raulin betrayed nothing even though he was cringing inside. What game was Al playing? Why would he tell him that after he warned him not to say anything? He knew Al had come far, but maybe negotiations were beyond him. Or what if they weren’t? Why would he give a trivren that piece of information? And why would Curvorn bring it up? Unless…unless Anla kept her promise and never told Al that the chalice wouldn’t kill them if one died. He was still under that assumption…

“I beg forgiveness on this. It is something I gave little thought to unless it became a problem. During my first contract in Carvek, I was captured and thrown into jail with the group who are outside now. They were already under a deitic spell, one that forced the group to stay together for one year. I accidentally wound up fulfilling the requirements to become the fourth member of the group and I’ve had to stay within one mile of at least one member.”

“What else does this entail?” a trivren asked.

“Little is known of it. It is an artifact created by an ap of Mikros, the miartha god of brotherhood. Other than staying in the vicinity of the others, it supposedly will kill all the members if one dies.”

“And that would mean we would be killing three innocent people if we kill Kemor,” Curvorn said.

“Why does this matter to us?” Stavro said.

“The wizard that I spoke to happens to be the son of the head of the A Rendi Vhradir in Baradan and he was crafty enough to pen a letter to his mother should something happen, as an insurance policy.”

A ghost of a smile played on Raulin’s lips.

“So, we wait until the spell is over. When will it finish?” Stavro asked, turning back to Raulin.

“I’m unsure, master. The woman tried to research its history when she could, but found conflicting information. Some books said a year, some said when certain obligations were fulfilled, some said it was lifelong.”

Stavro scoffed, then burst into a series of hacking coughs. “The boy needs to be punished!”

“I agree,” Curvorn said. “We cannot allow our trirecs to unmask themselves in front of miartha.”

When they had asked earlier, Raulin hadn’t lied. He’d been caught, so there was no reason to. He’d admitted truthfully that he had grown too familiar with his charges and had taken his mask off in front of them, starting with an injury he’d needed healed by the wizard. This hadn’t saved him from the beating they had given him and the recutting of his forearms, but he was still alive and he didn’t think he was going to lose any teeth. Not that he’d survive long enough to be able to tell.

“But, we cannot kill the other miartha tied to him,” another trivren said. He was the young one who had admired his speed when Raulin had been here a half year ago.

“I agree as well.”

“You have a solution, then?” Stavro snapped.

He took a sip of tea. “Kemor, you are dismissed for now. You will sleep on the beam tonight.”

Curvorn was speaking of a beam they used to help with balance, a thin wooden plank off the ground that was impossible to sleep comfortably on. “Thank you, masters,” he said, bowing low and waiting for someone to crush his neck with their foot. And he meant it. He had one more day to live and that meant maybe one more moment to see Anla.