Night came too quickly as the boy
waited for the inevitable to come. It wasn’t fair. Why would they think he knew
magic? He never cast a spell or sacrificed the neighbor’s yappy dog in a dark
ritual. He didn’t know the first thing about magic.
His mother was sitting in her chair
sobbing again as she watched her son and for the first time Sane understood
why. She feared this day would come ever since Avelice disappeared. She would
lose both of her children to the Kenzai.
His father stared helplessly at a
bottle of ale. He had not yet given in to putting the bottle to his mouth, but
he did not look far off.
Maybe
Avelice will save me, Sane thought hopefully, or her husband, Xander.
He finished packing his meager
possessions: some clothes and an old slingshot he got as a gift on his last
birthday. It seemed wrong that that was all his life had boiled down to. A few
possessions that fit snugly into a backpack and any trace of the boy would be
gone from this place after tonight.
The family ate dinner listlessly.
No one wanted to say their final goodbyes and they could think of nothing else
to talk about. The moment they finished there was a knock at the door. The
timing was too perfect to be a coincidence. If there was any doubt that the
Kenzai were watching them, then that doubt was now gone. The three of them stared
at it intently, but did not move. A second knock followed. This one was a bit
louder and sounded somehow more insistent than the one that came before. Sane’s
father finally rose from his seat and opened the door.
“Sir Cordwainer,” the cloaked
figure nodded, “It is time.” The man entered the room without being asked. He
was followed by another Kenzai who was similarly attired in a non-descript
brown cloak with the hood pulled over his head and the husky Constable Ragnit.
“It is good to see you again,
Josef,” the constable said to the boy’s father, “although I wish it was under
better circumstances.”
“As do I,” replied Josef. He spoke
like a man resigned to his fate.
The first Kenzai stood before the
boy and pulled down his cloak revealing the face of a man who was probably in
his mid-thirties. To Sane, he said, “This is scary, I know, but I promise that
nothing bad is going to happen to you.” He cautiously took Sane’s backpack from
him and handed it to the other Kenzai without looking. His focus was always on
the boy.
The other man rifled through the
bag and pulled out the slingshot. “A weapon,” he said devoid of any warmth in
his deep voice. That was probably why the first Kenzai had done all of the
talking up to that point. He handed it to his partner.
“You can’t take this,” said the
first Kenzai, “I’m sure you understand.”
“It was a gift from my parents,” Sane
told him on the verge of tears, “It’s all I have to remember them by.”
“Rules are rules,” the baritone
Kenzai told him stoically.
“Let him keep it!” his mother
wailed to the surprise of everyone there. “Let him keep the slingshot!” She
lunged at the Kenzai holding the slingshot and made a grab for it, but the
Kenzai was a battle hardened warrior and flung her to the ground with his free
hand causing her to cry out in pain.
Josef went for the man next, but he
was pressed up against the wall by the apathetic Kenzai who pinned him by the
throat with one arm and freed his sword with the other.
“Easy,” Constable Ragnit cautioned
pulling his own sword, but it was unclear whether he was warning the Kenzai or
Sane’s father.
Sane was unsure of what to do as he
looked at his mother crying on the floor and his father turning red from a
blocked windpipe. He felt the blood pumping through his small body. He wanted
to fight these men and save his parents. Instead he turned and he ran down the
hall toward his bedroom. He had a hand on the doorknob when he remembered the
dreams about these men catching him in there. He ran into his parents’ bedroom
on the opposite side of the hall instead and climbed out of their bedroom
window with an ease only possessed by those that were both young and swift.
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