Rebellion

“I can’t believe we’re finally going to do this!” I said excitedly.
　
“Yep. By the day after tomorrow, Loifle will be a better place, thanks to us. The plan is in motion. You, Carthi, Jek, and Roan will be standing guard, I’ll be making the preparations and implementing the getaway, and Hesethi will be the one to actually do the killing.” Saola beamed at him.
　
I froze. “Wait. We’re going to kill the king?”
　
Everyone stared at me. “Yes, Isletia, that is the point,” Saola told me exasperatedly. “We haven’t been planning this for two years just to, what, take him captive? Let him step down? Force him into exile? Tyranny must end; we kill him.”
　
“It’s for the best,” Hesethi said, more kindly.
　
“But… I thought we all agreed he isn’t really that bad, mostly.”
　
“It’s the principal of the thing, dear,” said Saola in her most patronizing tone. “You’re free to back out if you like, of course.”
　
I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to. I agreed wholeheartedly that monarchy is tyranny and the only fair government is one that governs itself; I wanted to help bring democracy and equality and justice to Loifle. I just wasn’t quite sure about the means.
　
But I hadn’t been involved in the plot for two years just to drop out at the last moment. “No, I’m in.” I wanted to try to convince them that it wouldn’t be necessary to kill King Brhyme. Why couldn’t we just let him step down and go into exile? But I knew it would be useless. I was the youngest in the group, and none of the others accorded me the least shred of respect. They wouldn’t listen to a word I said, and if they did, they’d only laugh.
　
So I went home, and went through the rest of my day as normal, and eventually went to bed. The idea of standing guard while Hesethi committed murder haunted me. It would be one thing if King Brhyme was a tyrant, but while he occasionally raised taxes a bit too high and sometimes passed laws that the vast majority of the country disagreed with, he wasn’t really a tyrant, not compared to some kings. And his wife and children… I hadn’t even thought of them, and when I did I wanted to run out and ask Saola what would happen to them. But in truth I already knew. If any of the royal family lived, the monarchy would continue, and our goal would not be achieved.
　
I don’t know whether I would have been able to be part of the murder of King Brhyme or Queen Jaiya. But I knew that I could not stand by and let my friends kill ten-year-old Princess Elfithia and eight-year-old Prince Adre. I decided that the next morning, I would go and tell Saola that I wouldn’t be part of it, and with that decision made, I was eventually able to drift off to sleep.
　
When I woke up, I knew that backing out of the plot wouldn’t be enough. They would carry it out without me, no worse for having three lookouts rather than four. The royal family would be dead due to my inaction rather than my action. That wasn’t good enough. And thus I, a rebel, made up my mind to rescue the king and his family.
　
The rebellion was planned for very late in the night; I had time, though only a little. I only prayed that King Brhyme would listen to me, or at least not have me arrested before I could deliver my warning.
　
King Brhyme was holding audience, so I had to wait in line and watch him listen to complaints and mediate debates over chickens. I thought he handled most of them well enough. My knees trembled when I finally reached the front of the line. Surely someone would recognize me as a rebel--never mind that our faces were not known--and have me seized.
　
“Your majesty, might I have a word in private, concerning a matter of great importance to you and your family?” My voice shook.
　
Everyone seemed surprised, but I was hardly going to say what I had to say in front of everyone. “If you like,” King Brhyme agreed. “My guards will need to be there, of course.”
　
“Of course,” I agreed, and followed the king to a small room off of the larger hall. Two men with swords stood on either side of the king.
　
“You need to step down from the throne and take your family and leave the country.” My words came out in a jumbled rush. “There’s a plot to kill you.”
　
“Tell me of this plot,” he commanded, looking unworried.
　
“No, I can’t.” I knew he wouldn’t give me a choice, and that I’d made a mistake in coming, but they were my friends, and I would not turn them in. “There’s nothing you can do to stop it. If you want to live, if you want your children to live, you’ll leave Loifle before tonight.”
　
I fled. I expected him to stop me, or to order his guards to stop me, or for someone to prevent me from leaving the castle and running all the way to my house, but no one did. I wondered whether he took my warning seriously, and if he did, whether he would do what I said or merely heighten his guard. There was, after all, no reason for him to flee. With that kind of forewarning, he could quash a rebellion. I hoped I hadn’t just gotten my friends killed.
　
On the other hand, our plan--their plan--was good, and their backup plans numerous. I wouldn’t have cared to place odds on King Brhyme’s life, if he decided to stay.
　
I fretted, and paced about the house. Would the king be killed? Would my friends? Would someone come with a warrant for my arrest for being part of a rebellion? Or, once King Brhyme had been overthrown, would my friends--maybe my former friends, in their eyes, at least--have me arrested for betraying them?
　
I hadn’t chosen a side, or rather, had chosen both, and I knew I would have to pay for it. My house, which had felt like a refuge when I left the castle, now seemed a trap.
　
I jumped at the knock at my door, convinced that whoever it was, they probably wanted me dead. But it was too soft a tap to be guards to arrest me, and my friends wouldn’t yet know of my betrayal. Even so, my heart pounded as I opened the door.
　
It was a little girl. I recognized her immediately as Princess Elfithia, and was utterly shocked. “Are you Isletia?” she asked.
　
“Yes, your majesty.”
　
“You’re the one who warned my father to escape?”
　
I nodded.
　
“May I come in?”
　
“Of course.” I let her in, and she closed and locked the door behind her. “How did you know where to find me?”
　
“You were followed home, of course. And then once my father poked around into what you’d said and realized that it’s not just going to be a rebellion, but a complete takeover, with the army involved as well--”
　
“What?” I was surprised, but at thinking about her words, I wasn’t, really. It would be just like Saola to coordinate the rebellion with a military coup, and not tell any of us.
　
Princess Elfithia nodded solemnly. “So we’re going to do what you said, and escape, and well, he doesn’t trust much of anyone right now, so he wants your help.”
　
“Why on earth would he trust me?”
　
She looked at me as though it was obvious. “Well, you warned him. Anyway, he sent me so nobody would be suspicious--well, I convinced him to, he didn’t want to let me out of the castle, but somebody trustworthy had to go, and my mother’s too conspicuous. So you need to come back with me!”
　
I did, of course. It could have been a trap, but I didn’t think so--if King Brhyme had wanted to arrest me, he would have sent guards, not his ten year old daughter.
　
Elfithia led me into the castle through a back entrance, and into a book-filled room on the second floor. King Brhyme was alone there. He seemed afraid.
　
“I’m going to take your advice,” he told me. “But there’s more to the plot than you told me, and I need to know what it is. I don’t know who I can trust, and I don’t know how much time I have.”
　
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I never knew there was any more to it than a simple rebellion; I didn’t know your army was involved. I was told the rebellion was to take place very late tonight, but now I don’t know if that’s true, or if that’s just the end of it. And I don’t know anything about which of your people are involved.”
　
King Brhyme nodded, as if that was about what he’d expected, and said, “Then I need to get my family away immediately, without trusting anyone. Will you help me?”
　
I wanted to ask him why he was trusting me, but I didn’t. “Yes.”
　
“Book passage on a ship. Jaiya will smuggle our children out and meet you, and I’ll come as soon as I make the announcement that I’m stepping down.”
　
I stared at him. “But that’ll let them now what you’re doing, and give them so many more chances to kill you! Surely it would be safer to just slip away.”
　
“Safer, yes, and that’s why I’ll wait until my family’s gone, but if I just disappear, Loifle will be left in turmoil and I can’t do that to the country. I’m going to announce that I’m relinquishing the throne in favor of democracy, and appoint a few people to be sure it’s carried out.”
　
I saw there was nothing I could do to dissuade him, so I left the castle and booked passages on a ship to Majardea--their king was a relative of Queen Jaiya; they’d be welcome there. I met the queen and her children outside of the castle; they were dressed in plain clothes so as not to be recognized, though Jaiya’s features were distinctive enough I doubted it would help. But she wore a hood and kept her head down, to hide her crimson hair and the bright tattoos around her dark eyes.
　
Still, we made it to the ship without incident. I took care of speaking to the captain so they wouldn’t be recognized yet. Finally, Jaiya, Elfithia, and Adre were locked in their cabin, and I breathed freely. Until I remembered the king.
　
It was three hours before he arrived, running. He nearly leaped onto the ship. “Can you take off immediately?” he asked the captain.
　
“Your majesty?” said the surprised captain.
　
“Not anymore. But please, go.” King Brhyme turned to me. “Are you coming as well?”
　
I nodded. “If my role in all this get’s found out, it would be better if I’m not in the country.”
　
And so it was that I achieved my dream of bringing democracy to Loifle, and left before I ever got to enjoy it. I didn’t really mind, though. When I’d been in Majardea a few weeks, I learned that Saola had been elected as the head of Loifle’s government. I’m sure she’s being completely insufferable, and though I sent a card to congratulate her, I’m glad to be an ocean away.

Execution

I’ve been here for a few months now, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Here—I’m not sure what to call it. Someone called it a menagerie of mages, a Magiary, and the name seems to have stuck somewhat, but since it was meant as an insult, those of us who stay here are torn between rejecting the name and trying to reclaim it.

The Magiary is a large house with lots of towers, and is intimidating from the outside but a friendly, cozy place inside, for the most part. The house is not inside the city, but the main doorway is set into the city wall, which is only a few feet high there.

It’s a school, sort-of, and probably several other things as well. People come here to learn magic, and Malexandra and whatever other magic-users happen to be around teach it. There’s nothing official about the Magiary. It’s in Majardea, but everyone knows the king has no control over it. There aren’t many rules here--most of the normal things such as don’t kill or steal are assumed to be obvious. Besides for that, it pretty much amounts to everyone here being expected to not do anything cruel or utterly idiotic. The king’s laws don’t apply here, and so problems are dealt with by Malexandra—you can imagine how relieved I was very when I heard that, considering there’s a warrant out for my execution. But official laws are highly frowned on, and I don’t worry about anyone here turning me in. On the same note, we’re not allowed to go watch executions or other public punishments.

You wouldn’t think that last one would be a big deal. I’ve never had any urge to go watch someone being killed, and the fact that it could easily happen to me has made the idea even less enticing. And it’s not like my friends would want to, either. Devrin’s a bit squeamish, and while Quaos is the last person in the world I’d call squeamish, seeing people die isn’t entertainment for her either.

But we were walking around the city, just for the fun of it. It had been raining for a week, and now that it was bright and sunny we wanted to get out. At first we thought the crowds were just other people who felt the same. But they were all headed in the same direction, and a cheerful woman with a small child on her shoulders told us that we should hurry, because all the best places to see the execution from would be taken.

“Oh no, we won’t be able to get a good view of someone being killed! Whatever shall we do?” Devrin was being even more sarcastic than usual, which is saying a lot.

“We should go,” I said.

“Back home, you mean? This does rather ruin the beauty of the day.”

“No, to the execution.”

Quaos and Devrin both stared at me. “Because your idea of fun is watching people die?” Devrin asked.

“No, because it could have been me.”

“And it could still be you, Aniya, if anyone recognizes you,” Quaos said sharply. “I’ve had friends in line for execution before, I’d prefer not to repeat the experience.”

“I’m not just going to go home and pretending nothing’s going on,” I said stubbornly. “You can, if you want.”

They didn’t, of course.

Executions took place on a stage in a large, beautified square. The square was packed, and we stood far from the stage and right next to the path leading to it which the accused was marched down. The path was empty; everyone knew it was bad luck to stand on it, and most people tried to stay as far away from it as possible.

The path stretched all the way to the prison, and was relatively straight, so we could see the guards marching the prisoner towards us from a long way off, and they marched very slowly. As they drew closer, we saw a scowling woman in chains, held on each side by a uniformed guard.

That could be me. The thought repeated in my mind over and over. I could feel myself in her place, barefoot, wearing only a thin prison shift and thick chains, marching to my death. It could be me.

“We should stop it.” The words popped out of my mouth before I could think them through, but I had no desire to take them back.

“It’s not that easy,” Quaos objected.

“We could do it, though. Just, grab her when she comes by, and we know enough magic by now we could probably get away.”

“What if she’s a murderer?” protested Devrin.

“Well, then, that would make two of us,” Quaos reminded him.

“Same goes for treason,” I added. “So you’re in?” I asked Quaos.

“I’m always up for stopping executions!” Quaos said with a crazy grin. “At least I won’t have to kill a king this time. Hey, the worst that can happen is that we end up on the block next to her.”

“So it’s not like anything really bad could happen to us.” Sarcasm, of course, but Devrin had said ‘us.’

“So, our plan is really just to grab her and run?” Quaos asked rather incredulously.

“Um… we improvise after that,” I said. I was very nervous, even terrified, and maybe beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing, but I had just to glance at the woman to see myself in her shoes, and my second thoughts disappeared.

And then, they were next to us. The guards had swords; I, stupidly, hadn’t thought about that. Still, they didn’t have them out, and were holding the woman’s chains. So I let myself kind of stumble into the guard closest to me, and when she was off her guard, so to speak, grabbed the chain from her hands. She hadn’t been expecting it, but she reacted quickly and grabbed it back, and we were playing tug-o-war. Devrin, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, had grabbed her sword from its sheath, though he wasn’t doing anything with it. I took a deep breath and used a bit of magic to heat the chain. It hurt the prisoner as well as the guard, but it only lasted long enough for me to jerk the chain from the guard. Quaos, I saw, had the other guard on his knees, holding his head in his hands.

We ran.

It wasn’t just the guards behind us; the crowd wanted their entertainment. The prisoner, still chained and now burned under the chains on her waist and left ankle, was not fast. This was the part we hadn’t planned for, and the dangerous part—if they got us now, we were all dead.

Devrin, who had been at the Magiary the longest and was the most studious, did something magical that seemed to slow down everyone else, as though they were moving through thick syrup. We got a bit of a head start, but he only managed to keep it up for a few seconds, and the use of so much energy tired him. We began to slow, and the crowd was upon us, the people at the front just reaching out to grab us—

And suddenly, I felt a large jolt and the four of us were in Malexandra’s tower. I felt rather nauseous.

“That was quite impressive,” Malexandra said. “I haven’t seen a rescue like that since I was- well, in a long time.

The woman who was to have been executed finally spoke. “Who are you? I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but who are you and what the hell is going on?”

We introduced ourselves. Somehow, our names didn’t seem to lessen her confusion.

“Okay, it’s nice to meet you and all, but where are we, how the hell did we get here, and why?”

“You’re in my tower. I was alerted to the unusual occurrence by a friend and brought you here in order to keep you from the bloodthirsty mob and bloodthirstier, if rather inept, guards. Now who are you, and why were you about to be executed?”

“Smuggling. I’m a smuggler. I was a smuggler, I guess, I don’t think I’ll be going back to it. My name is Wrayli.”

“Pleased to meet you. I’m worn out from transporting all four of you, but if you give me a few minutes I’ll do something about those chains, and your burns.”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

Wrayli shrugged. “Better than being dead.”

We all stood around awkwardly for a minute. Suddenly, Devrin laughed loudly. We all looked at him.

“Um, you know how we’re not supposed to go to executions? Well, we rescued the condemned prisoner, so we weren’t actually at an execution, since nobody was killed.”

“Well, I’m so glad you’re not in trouble,” Wrayli said, but she laughed.

It Must Be a Mistake

I was just walking down the street, minding my own business. I know, that’s what they all say, right? But I really was. In a way, I wish I had done something wrong—mouthed off in class about the government, or hacked into classified documents, or jaywalked in front of a security camera—anything to explain why they took me. But I hadn’t. I was walking home from school, just like every other day of my life, when they jumped out of the van and grabbed me.

They were obviously government agents, in their black uniforms armed with guns and high tech radios and little computers clipped to their belts. Their voices were those of authority as they barked orders- “Hands in the air! Against the wall! Don’t move!” They patted me down and restrained me with the brusqueness of people who did this kind of thing every day, just doing their jobs. The van they shoved me into was grey and unmarked, the kind everyone knows is seen right before the kind of disappearances that aren’t talked about.

I think the man in the back of the van must have been some kind of doctor, but that part is woozy. I vaguely remember him leaning over me, and I know he must have injected me with something, because my panic began to dull and everything went very fuzzy and finally faded to black.

When I woke up I was strapped to a chair in an interrogation room. Everything was still fuzzy, and I still can’t remember that part with any clarity. They questioned me. I can’t remember what they wanted to know. I think that was probably the point of the drug; that I wouldn’t remember afterwards. Except, if they expected I’d be dead…. I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t plan that far ahead yet, at that point. What I do remember of that interrogation was my terror, and confusion—I had no idea what they were talking about, what they wanted from me. I remember trying to explain in a slurred voice that this must be a mistake, and my outraged indignation at the injustice of it all. I remember the feeling of the hot tears on my cheeks as I cried and tried to answer their questions, “I don’t know! I’ve never heard of that! I’ve never met that person! I don’t know anything about any of this! You’re making a mistake, maybe you have me confused with someone; I would never do anything wrong, I’m a good citizen!”

It was true. I was such a good citizen, that I really believed they must be making some horrible mistake. I thought that maybe there was someone who looked like me, or had the same name, that had done something really, really terrible—so bad as to deserve the treatment I’d been getting, and far worse. I imagined their apologies when they realized their mistake. They’d be truly, honestly, sorry; they’d drive me home and explain to everyone that they’d made a horrible error, and I’d been so brave, and they’d eventually caught the real criminal. Maybe they’d give me some kind of compensation—money, or an award, or something to make up for it all. After all, they weren’t bad people, and they were trying to do the right thing, they’d just made a mistake.

Yeah, I really was that naive.

Eventually they either realized I didn’t know anything or decided that whatever I did know, I wasn’t going to tell them, so they injected me again. When I woke up, I was in some kind of warehouse-like building, slumped in a chair. Across the table from me was a young woman maybe five or six years older than me—in her early twenties. I don’t know how I knew she was a prisoner, not an agent, but I knew. She seemed calm and alert, but wary too. I wasn’t muddled like I had been the first time I’d woken up from being drugged, but I was scared and confused and had no idea what was going on. I realized I wasn’t cuffed to the chair, but after looking around I knew better than to try to escape. I was at a table in the middle of the room, and around the edges of the room was a sort of wooden platform, with maybe twenty agents with machine guns standing all around it. So I didn’t try to move.

I studied the woman sitting across from me, the least intimidating figure in the room. Though after watching her silently for a few minutes, I realized she probably was a criminal. It’s not that she seemed like one, but I didn’t think she was just some innocent person picked up off the streets like me. She had this… attitude of not being surprised at anything.

After letting us stare at each other silently for maybe ten minutes, two of the agents came down from the platform and stepped up to the table. One was a kind of rat-like man, and the other was a small woman with cold eyes. The man announced, “Eya Foxgold, you know why you’re here. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Terror filled me, and I began to babble, panicked, “I don’t know why I’m here! I’m innocent, I didn’t do anything, I don’t even know what you think I did but whatever it was I didn’t do it, this is all a huge mistake, I would never do anything!” I couldn’t look at the agents, so I looked at the woman across the table from me. She gave me a sad, cynical kind of smile, like, Do you really think they care? And I knew, then, that they didn’t, so I shut up.

The rat-like agent then turned to her and said in the same way, “Holly Malacrow, you know why you’re here. Do you-”

She interrupted him, mid-sentence. “Yeah, yeah, I know why I’m here. Fuck you too.”

Just a minute ago, I’d been thinking she was a criminal, and now she was confirming it, but it didn’t matter anymore. I liked her, admired her, wished I could be as brave and cool under fire as her, wished at least that we could be friends.

The agent said, in an authoritative yet somehow mocking tone, “Holly Malacrow, you are being given the honor of ridding this county of a traitorous piece of scum!” He held up a gun, not the machine gun he was armed with but a smaller one. “You understand that if you try anything stupid, you’ll be gunned down by my colleagues. Now you can shoot her, or shoot yourself.” He smirked, and looked me over, and I could feel him imagining my dead body slumping onto the floor. He handed Holly the gun.

She looked me in the eyes, and raised the gun, and I knew I was about to die. I’d never see my family or friends again, never sit down in my desk at school, never have the chance to… so many things. I’d be one of those people who just disappear, and everyone knows what happened to them but nobody talks about it for fear of joining them. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t want to spend my last moment on earth as a coward, so I met her gaze head on.

“Make it worth it,” she said, and before I could comprehend, she raised the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

I don’t know why they let me go. I think they must have known, probably all along, that I was innocent. Was I just a trap for her? But no, the agent really had expected her to kill me. But they could have killed me too. I’ll never know why they didn’t. I was injected again, and as I slid off into unconsciousness I assumed it was a lethal poison this time. I can’t begin to describe how shocked I was when I woke up on the sidewalk sometime later.

I managed to get home. I’d been missing for a day. My parents were frantic, and demanded an explanation. “I don’t know, I don’t feel good,” I mumbled, still bleary from the drugs. I went to sleep, and when I woke up the next day I said I had no idea what had happened, and I must have gotten really sick and collapsed somewhere. Well, I couldn’t tell the truth. Everybody knows you can’t talk about that kind of thing.

I think about Holly Malacrow a lot. I’d thought she must have been a criminal, but I think now that she was actually a rebel. Before, I would have said it’s the same thing, but I don’t think that anymore. The whole thing wasn’t just a mistake, and if the government really does things that horrible—and now that I’ve been thinking about it, I know they do; not everyone who’s disappeared deserved it, and some of their laws are just ridiculous when you actually think about them—then maybe it’s right to rebel against them.

I want to find Holly’s family, or friends, or whoever her people were, and tell them what happened. I have to be careful to do it without raising suspicion, but I have some ideas. I think they’ll be rebels too, and I’m going to join them. Because what I think about most of all was that last thing she said, “Make it worth it.” And I will.

Desperate Measures

The only light is the fire, and even that has burned down to embers. That is good. If anyone happens to come down from their rooms, they will see nothing. And yet, it is a fearsome thing, waiting in the dark, flinching at every sound and shadow.

He is a fool, to chose to meet here, and I’ll tell him so when he arrives. I, of course, am a greater one, to have traveled miles in the wind and rain to wait here in the dark for who knows what reason. It’s urgent, the messenger tells me, and no more but for the name of the inn I am now waiting in and the time I am to be here. I wanted to shake him in frustration, but he was but a child who knew no more of the matter than what he’d been told. But when Iaedan gets here, I really will tell him what a fool he is.

But in truth he is no fool, and that is the cause of my fear. Because I know him well, and he has a tendency to understate. If Iaedan says a matter is urgent, disaster is imminent.

I shiver. The room is growing cold, and my hair is still soaked from the rain—hair that falls past the knees does not dry easily. I try to lean my head closer to the fire to dry it, but jerk upright as the room is flooded with moonlight at the silent opening of the door. A hooded figure slips in, the door shuts noiselessly, and the blackness returns.

“You idiot,” I tell him. He makes no response, but crosses the room and sits next to me, cross-legged in front of what’s left of the fire. At the sight of his face, even in the faint light, I can tell I was wrong. Disaster is not imminent; it has already happened.

“Quaos,” Iaedan whispers my name hoarsely. “It’s all my fault.”

“Don’t give me that crap; what is it?” I ask him sharply.

“They’ve been arrested for treason. All six of them. They’re in the dungeons awaiting execution.” He is barely able to say it.

I shudder at the thought of my friends and coconspirators sitting chained in a darkness darker than this, but keep my voice matter-of-fact as I inquire, “What are we going to do?”

He shook his head. “I thought… there was a chance we could… I sent for you because…” He shook his head again. “But there’s nothing we can do. I learned they’re to be executed at dawn.”

I ignore his uncharacteristic hopelessness and jump. “Dawn! Why in hell are we just sitting here? We only have what, four hours?”

“Five, it’s only a little past one, but it would take nearly three hours just to get there.”

“Good, we have time to plan.” I grab his arm and drag him up. Realizing that resistance is useless, he snaps out of his despair as we sneak out of the room.

It’s no longer raining but the ground is wet and even icy in places. I start to say it will take even longer to get there, but I realize his estimate took the weather conditions into account.

“It will be difficult to break them out of thee dungeons,” he muses.

A typical understatement. “Try impossible. No one’s ever escaped the dungeons.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

I ignore that. “We’ll have to take a more sensible route and rescue them between the dungeons and the gallows.”

“Any plans how?”

“Nope. You?”

He shook his head and we walked in silence, thinking.

“There’ll be a crowd for the execution,” Iaedan says finally. “Maybe we could fade into it and rush at the guards as they bring them past.”

“If the guards didn’t kill us, the mob would. You know what people get like at these things.” I thought more. “Maybe if we disguise as guards, rush them before they get to the crowd…” Seeing the myriad of problems with that plan, I trailed off.

“Disguise as guards and take them from the dungeons before the real guards get there?”

“Have you seen the security in that place? Just because we’re dressed as guards- and where would we even get the uniforms- wouldn’t mean they’d let us take prisoners out.”

We thought of plan after plan and tossed them all out. After we ponder in silence for a while more—we’re perhaps two thirds of the way there—Iaedan says wearily, without much hope, “Maybe we could stop the execution somehow?”

“I don’t know how we could. They won’t stop it for weather; if the gallows burn they’ll behead them; if we’re arrested they’ll just have two more bodies to hang; the king’s magicians will be blocking anything I could try; if the executioner dies they’ll replace him; and I can’t think of a diversion big enough to—“ I stop, shocked by my idea. “We’ll kill the king,” I tell Iaedan.

He is speechless. I continue, trying to be as convincing as possible, because I can actually see this working. “That is our purpose anyway, after all, to depose that tyrant. He won’t be expecting it because he just caught the group of rebels. And his death would be enough to stop the execution, and the chaos afterwards would be enough to let us rescue them, and—”

“Quaos,” Iaedan stops me. “The reason we haven’t killed him yet is that it’s not that easy.”

“But he’ll think that he’s safe, since he just caught the rebels. It’s no riskier than anything else we could do, and we’d be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak.”

“We can’t even figure out how to perform a rescue, much less a murder. Or do you have a plan?”

I do, but I won’t tell it to him. “I’ll take care of the murder, you do the rescue. You can hide somewhere near the dungeon and when all hell breaks loose, do whatever it takes to get them out of there.”

We are nearly at the castle. Iaedan tries to press me for my plan, but I give him nothing and make him promise to do his part. “We’ll meet back at the inn, on the off chance both of us are alive to make it,” he proposes. I agree, and slip away.

The castle is guarded, but it is not hard to slip through a window unnoticed. Once inside, I make my way to the corridor outside of the king’s rooms. As a member of a group of rebels, I’d taken care to find out where he slept a while ago, though till now I’d never been able to use the information.

I peek around a corner and saw a host of guards standing in front of the door. It’s still the right room, then. I glance around to be sure I am unseen, but this part of the hall is empty. I strip off my clothes, unbind my hair, and proceed down the hall.

“Who goes there?” one of the guards demands as they ogle me.

I feign embarrassment. “His majesty asked me to come, sir,” I tell him. My heart pounds with fear and exhilaration.

Seeing that, being unclothed, I am clearly unarmed, the guards make the mistake of assuming I am not dangerous. With only a few crude comments, they let me inside.

To my surprise, the king is not asleep but sitting on the edge of his bed, fully dressed and toying with his crown. I wonder with surprise if he has enough humanity in him to worry over his responsibilities, but I dismiss the thought at seeing that his expression is one of pride. He smiles when he sees me, but says nothing. “Your majesty,” I say, curtsying slightly, and his smile broadens.

I cross the room and embrace him. It nearly sickens me to be in such close proximity to this evil excuse for a human being, but I think of my friends sitting in his dark dungeon and steel myself. He begins to grope me, and, barely managing not to shudder, I sweep my hair over his shoulder and around his neck and pull it as tight as I can. He makes a gurgling sound that would be a scream, and I am nearly too disgusted and horrified to go on. I make myself remember the evils he has done, the children I witnessed him kill, the people rotting in his squalid dungeons, including my friends. The king’s face is purple and the noises issuing from his throat grow even worse. I manage not to let go of the ends of my rope of hair until the noises stop, his breathing stops, his heart stops.

I check to be sure he is dead. He is. I go to the window—he is able to have large windows, a luxury most kings lack, as his mages have spelled them to resist arrows. They do, however, open. It is a three story drop, and I have no rope—for a moment I think of Rapunzel—after all, my hair has been put to one unsavory use already, but this is reality and anyway, my hair’s not that long. So I just jump, and use my magic to create a cushion of air to break my fall. I haven’t much training, so this is one of the few things I can do, and I’m not very good at it. But I don’t die and I don’t break any bones.

I feel uneasy, standing naked in the cold air. I make to the nearest house and sneak in a window. It would be awkward, not to mention dangerous, if the room’s occupant woke up, but she is sound asleep and snoring. I take a shift and a cloak and put both on, and just as I am about to leave I see a pair of scissors on the nightstand and take those too. I walk until I’m far from the town, perhaps halfway to the inn, then take the scissors and crop my hair as short as possible. I bury the hair and the scissors, just as a precaution in case I am at some point followed.

The sun rises perhaps half an hour later. I pray that Iaedan succeeded, that there is no execution, that they are safe. My mind fills with images of their bodies hanging from nooses. I push them away, and it fills with the image of the king’s corpse, my hair still wrapped around his neck. This shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. I wanted him dead, and I’ve spent the last year or so of my life trying to arrange it. And I am glad to end the tyranny, though it does not yet feel real. But the image of that corpse, the knowledge that I killed it, the memory of his face turning purple as I twisted my hair around his neck….

I reach the inn. It is bright and warm inside now, and I am served tea, but it is at least as bad as waiting in the dark had been last night.

It is hours before Iaedan arrives. He gawks at me as he enters and asks incredulously, “What happened to your hair???”

I ignore him, there are more important questions to be asked. “Did you rescue them?”

He nods. “When the news of the king’s murder arrived, the guards just abandoned their posts and ran into the castle. All I had to do is pick some locks. They’re all free, all okay, and I think by now most of them have left the country.”

“I’ll be doing the same.”

“I doubt you need to, if anyone saw you the loss of your hair should be enough of a disguise.”

“Maybe, maybe not, but you know we’ll all be under suspicion.”

“I know, I know. But really, Quaos, what happened to your hair? And even more importantly, how did you do it?”

“They’re really the same question,” I say, and tell him.