Part 5

  Carlo raised his hands keeping the saber in his right hand. He judged from the angle of the blade that it was held by someone shorter than himself. He took a step back and the sentinel holding the blade used her other hand to knock the chest lid closed. Carlo was momentarily impressed that she'd done it without moving the knife one iota from Carlo’s neck.

  “Who are you?” She asked.

  “That seems to be everyone’s question tonight. I’m just looking for my things, then I’ll be gone.” Carlo answered.

  The sentinel squinted warily. She lifted her chin in the direction of the saber. “That's yours?”

  Carlo nodded carefully as the blade was still close.

  “Is it a weapon?”

  Another careful nod.

  “Interesting. Vishla was pretty convinced that it was but no one could get it to actually do anything.”

  Carlo raised his eyebrows. “Good thing. It’s dangerous in the wrong hands.”

  The sentinel paused.

  Carlo took the opportunity to ask a question. “Who are you?”

  The sentinel ignored the question and stepping a pace back she pointed at the knife in Carlo’s belt. “Where did you get that?”

  He wanted to glance down but he kept his eyes in the sentinel in front of him instead. “I borrowed it.”

  The sentinel shook her head. “I don’t think so. I know the owner of that blade. She wouldn’t have handed it to just anyone.”

  Carlo decided to take a risk. “How do you know Eren? You’re not from the same clan.”

  The sentinel's eyes narrowed. “We are. I’m her sister, Lucia.”

  Carlo’s eyes widened in surprise. Alice’s daughter here and acting as the sentinel of her mother’s rival! It was more than a surprise, it was almost a shock. “Your mother wants me to bring you home.”

  Lucia shook her head. “I can’t go home yet. Vishla has been plotting to take over my mother’s caravan. That’s why I came in the first place. I had to stop her and the only way was to get close to her. I had to disavow my family to do it.” Finally Lucia lowered her blade, but only slightly.

  Carlo nodded. “Did you know that Vishla is using technology to fake her powers?”

  Lucia took a moment and appeared contemplative. “No. But it does make sense.”Then she beckoned onward to the next chamber. “This way. I think your skills may be of some use.”

  The next chamber was larger still. It was clearly the largest room of the tent. The main support post was in the center of the space, rising to a great height. There were no chemical lights here, actual wood torches provided the light. There was only one sleeping mat here. It was thicker and of obviously higher quality than the others. Opulent appointments abounded from the golden filigrees on the torches to the fine carvings that adorned the fine wood of the furniture. This was definitely the chamber of Vishla.

  Lucia crossed the chamber with Carlo following. She stopped in front of a chest similar to the one in the outer room only much more finely adorned.

  “Vishla won’t let anyone into this chest. If there is proof that she’s a charleton, it will be here. Can you open it? Like you did the other one?” Lucia was almost pleading.

  Carlo looked at the chest. He was suddenly frozen with uncertainty. He was sure the Force could help him as before but to do it in front of a witness? He could almost hear the scream of the old woman from his home village echoing in his ears: “Witch!”

  Lucia’s voice cut through his reverie. “Hurry! They’re coming! Can you do it?”

  At that moment Carlo also took notice of the indistinct voices coming from the antechambers.

  “No time.” Carlo said calmly. He thumbed the saber to life, its green glow shining in the relative darkness. With the flick of his wrist the blade sliced through the chest's lid and then vanished when Carlo’s thumb left the activation control.

  Lucia nodded with approval and flipped the lid back. She immediately picked up a pair of long gloves. Carlo recognized them instantly. Vishla had been wearing them the night before at the amphitheater. Lucia handed one to him. Carlo examined the glove and turning it inside out, showed Lucia the controls hidden within.

  It was Lucia’s turn to be shocked. “She is using technology! I knew she was a fraud but the use of technology to falsify the powers of Naraka is. . .”

  “Heresy!” Vishla finished the young woman’s sentence as she stepped in the chamber. She waved her hand dramatically and the torches flared brightly and the rest of the torches that were placed round the chamber flared to lifefulling the entire chamber with light.

  “However, as you can see,” Vishla continued. “I have no need for such toys.”

  “That means nothing,” Lucia snarled, waving a glove. “These must be extras.”

  Vishla looked at her with disdain. “Oh, I had such high hopes for you, girl.”

  “Heretic!” Lucia spat back.

  “And with that my last hope vanished,” she sighed, her tone sarcastic.

  She stepped further into the room, flanked by half a dozen heavily armed sentinels. The last one that came through the door was pushing a prisoner. With his last push, the prisoner, hands securely bound behind her back, stumbled and fell roughly to the floor. The prisoner rolled to face the light. Carlo and Lucia immediately saw that it was Eren.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Lucia ran to her sister’s side but was herself grabbed and held fast by a pair of Vishla’s sentinels. One of them tore her knife and the glove from her grasp. The other sentinel pushed her roughly to her knees. Her face flashed with a mask of barely contained rage but the sentinel placing a knife at the side of her neck discouraged her from any immediate action.

  Carlo moved to the side suddenly hoping to turn their attention away from the sisters. It worked. The other sentinels began to close in in him menacingly, brandishing their electro-spears.

  Carlo kept his back to the tent wall in an attempt to keep all the sentinels in front of him. He tucked the glove from Vishla’s chest into his belt and raised the saber hilt in front of him in a two-handed grip while adopting a widened stance. His thumb was on the activation control when Vishla raised a gloved hand and, in response, the sentinels stopped their advance.

  Carlo and Vishla locked gazes. She spoke again. “You are full of surprises. And you’ve been quite a thorn in my side for the short time we’ve been acquainted.”

  “I’ve always worn out my welcome in a hurry.” Carlo returned.

  “We don’t have to be enemies. Return what you’ve taken and you can go. Provided I never see you again, we won’t have a problem.” Vishla offered.

  Carlo took a half step forward. “I have your word on that?”

  Vishla’s smile was thin.

  Carlo could practically feel the duplicity oozing from her. He took another step forward. “These two go with me,” he gestured at the sisters.

  Vishla’s smile faded. “Not possible. They must pay the price for their crimes. Naraka forbids robbery.”

  Another step forward. “And what price is that?”

  “Their hands,” she answered, matter of factly.

  Carlo, now in his desired position, spoke once again, “That price seems high.”

  She shrugged, “It wasn’t your things that were stolen.”

  He returned the shrug and suddenly the saber in his hands flared back to life. With a quick slash the main tent support pole at the center of the room was cut clean through.

  Vishla shrieked as the pole fell, followed by the entire tent itself.

  Lucia took the initiative as the sentinels were all distracted by the falling tent. She twisted her right arm free and pulled a knife from the belt of the nearest sentinel. She aimed a quick slash at the arm of the sentinel who held her other arm. The man cried out in pain, releasing her from his grip.

  Lucia deftly reversed her grip and slashed the blade across the first sentinel’s middle. He fell, grasping his stomach as the tent hit them all.

  Carlo’s second slash after the tent pole was aimed at the sentinel closest to Eren forcing the guard to jump backward to avoid the strike. Carlo, now standing next to Eren, aimed the saber upward and cut a wide opening in the falling tent as it crashed around them.

  He pulled Eren to her feet and, reversing his grip on the saber, cut the bonds from her wrists.

  Lucia emerged from the hole Carlo had just cut followed by one of Vishla’s men but Eren stopped the sentinel’s advance with a well-aimed kick to the face.

  Carlo closed down the saber and looked around quickly. Nearby a member of Vishla’s caravan was leading a rather scraggly chestnut colored fathier he’d managed to recover after it had bolted when Eren had set off the flash charge. His eyes widened in fright when he saw Carlo, flanked by the sisters, bearing down on him at a full run. Fear froze him in place and he just barely managed to hold out the lead rope to Carlo as he cringed.

  Carlo took the rope from his grip and Eren, gripping the man’s shoulders, twisted him around to face the opposite direction. She raised herself on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “Run. Now,” she commanded. He didn’t even look back as he raced away, hoping they wouldn’t follow.

  Vishla and another of her sentinels pushed their way out of the wreckage of her tent in time to see her three former prisoners mounted on a fathier. “Get them!” she screamed, punching the sentinel's arm.

  Carlo had already urged the fathier into motion before the sentinel had pulled his knife, the only weapon he had, after losing his electro-spear in the tent. He threw the knife at the fleeing prisoners but the fathier had already carried them out of range in the direction of the rising sun. The knife clattered useless to the ground.

  Vishla yelled again and landed another punch to the sentinels arm.

  She quickly recovered her composure, however. “Gather the sentinels. We have preparations to make.”

  *****

  Carlo and the two sisters burst into Alice’s tent, alarming the two sentinels to the point that they drew their weapons. Alice, who had been sitting around a low fire with Gerold and a dozing Charles, leapt to her feet as well, brandishing a small knife pulled from a hidden location. As she saw Eren and Lucia ahead of Carlo, she cried out running into their arms. Charles, awakened at the sudden noise, ran to Carlo hugging his waist.

  Gerold rose up as well, smiling and clasping his hands together. “Naraka be praised!” he breathed in apparent relief.

  “Oh my girls!” Alice called out with exultation.

  Their embrace lasted almost a full minute when Eren drew back slightly, pressing the glove Carlo had been carrying into her mother’s hands. “It’s Vishla’s. She’s been using technology to fake her powers.”

  Alice held the glove in her hand, for once shocked into silence.

  “It’s true, mother,” Lucia confirmed.

  Alice looked deep into her second daughter’s eyes. “What happened to you?”

  Lucia took her mother’s hands in her own. “I knew Vishla was a heretic and I knew she was coming for you. I stayed with her people only to work against her. I would never betray our people.”

  “Oh, thanks be to Naraka!” Alice cried.

  Gerold, who was now standing next to Alice, took the glove and examined it carefully, his fingers gingerly tracing the controls nodded beneath the fabric. “This heresy cannot go unpunished.”

  Alice nodded. “Go. Gather your sentinels. We’ll meet at the amphitheater. Together we will bring Vishla to justice.”

  Eren and Lucia raced out to gather the rest of Alice’s sentinels before pausing to rearm themselves with long knives and electro-charged spears.

  Carlo and Charles stayed back, watching them leave.

  Alice laid a hand on Carlo’s arm. “You fulfilled your end of our bargain. I will hold you here no longer.”

  Carlo nodded. “Thank you. We’ll be on our way as soon as possible. Charles has been away from his family for too long.”

  Alice looked down at the boy. She felt a pang of sympathy for the child. She knew he wasn’t well emotionally and her thought was that only Naraka or being back with his family would heal the boy. “You should know, there is a settlement not far from here, a town called Paradise. It’s maybe a day's hard ride to the east. Naraka may forbid us from such things but they would have a way to communicate with the boy’s home.”

  Carlo nodded a second time. “And check with Cook, he should be able to restock your supplies.

  “Again, my thanks.” Carlo gave a shallow bow.

  *****

  It took some time to gather the promised supplies and to load up their fathiers. Carlo had decided to keep the one they’d taken during the escape from Vishla’s encampment.

  Charles appeared happy to be getting under way. He stood next to the fathiers holding the lead ropes. He wasn’t smiling but his eyes were bright. His hat was behind his head, tethered to his neck by the chin strap.

  The cook approached as Carlo was checking the tightness of the straps. He handed a small bag to Carlo and ruffled Charles’s hair. “Some treats for the boy.” The big man seemed almost on the verge of tears.

  Carlo took his hand and shook it warmly, “Thank you my friend.”

  “We’ll all miss you around the cook fires. I hope to see you both again.”

  Carlo nodded and the cook ruffled Charles' hair a second time before turning back to his fire.

  Carlo lifted Charles into the chestnut fathier’s saddle before mounting himself on the darker one. His fathier snorted and shook his head.

  Off in the distance Carlo could see the amphitheater and the combined sentinels of the two caravans making ready to advance on Vishla. He felt a twinge of guilt for not being with them but then he reminded himself that they’d basically blackmailed him into helping in the first place and he had a responsibility to get Charles home in the second. He patted the fathier’s flank and pointed the beasts in the direction he’d been given for the town of Paradise. Hoping the Force would be with them, he urged the beast forward.