Chương 4: Ten Minutes To Live (1)

"Up, boy. We've arrived."

"I know." The answer left Teren before his eyes had fully opened. The older man across the cage frowned at him.

"Then stop sleeping." Teren sat upright before the wagon's lurch could throw him into the bars. Chains scraped across the wooden floor as he lifted his arms to look at them in the sunlight. His hands were unburned. His hair was still on his head. Cool air passed over skin that had been melting only a moment earlier. He closed his eyes. Three deaths. He remembered every single one of them. The first fire had caught him completely by surprise.

The second had come from behind, and the third only after he touched the testing handle. And now he was back again. Dreams, hallucinations, and premonitions no longer explained it. Something impossible was happening to him. It was like he was trapped in some kind of a... time loop, where every death brought him back to this wagon, on this road, just outside Karthane's walls. He had no idea how it worked or how any of it could possibly make sense.

Nothing he knew about science, physics, or anything else from Earth said that a person could die and return to an earlier moment. Not merely once, either, but again and again. Yet that was exactly what was happening to him. Would it keep occurring forever? Or was there a limit to how many times he could return? And what happened when he reached that limit? Teren pushed the thought away.

Getting violently burned to death three times, with a fourth probably waiting for him in the next few minutes, was already more than enough to think about. He opened his eyes and looked down at his rough hands. Each time he had touched the testing handle, the same strange current had flowed out of him. By now, he was certain it had nothing to do with electricity. It had to be magic. A few hours ago, the idea would have sounded impossible.

But nothing that had happened since he woke up in the wagon followed the rules he knew. Whatever this place was, magic existed here—and apparently, he possessed it too. For a brief moment, despite the chains and the repeated fires, he felt something close to excitement. It did not last long. Wonderful... I seem to have magic and approximately ten more minutes to live. He let his head fall back against the bars. The older man glanced at him again.

"Ya ill or somethin'?"

"Probably..." The man shifted farther away. Outside, mounted guards escorted the three cage wagons across the same rocky land. Sparse grass and thorny shrubs grew from cracks between broad stretches of reddish-brown rock, while some larger rocky outcrops broke up the ground farther from the road. There were no farms in sight. Teren watched it all without much interest. Why had anyone built such a large city in this barren place, anyway?

The surrounding land looked barely capable of supporting shrubs, let alone feeding the vast city behind those walls. And if even slaves—people treated here as little more than cargo—needed nearly a dozen mounted guards to protect them, the land outside Karthane's walls could not be safe either. So, why? He had no answer, and little time to dwell on it. The massive walls of Karthane stood ahead. Sunlight flashed against the invisible barrier for a moment. The moat appeared next.

The caravan crossed the drawbridge and stopped before the lowered portcullis. The lead rider passed the bronze token through the bars to a guard waiting inside. Exactly as before. Teren leaned forward and looked beyond the gatehouse. Somewhere inside the city was the person who kept burning him alive. Or perhaps outside it. He still had no idea where the fire came from. All he knew was that the attack came shortly after the crystal in the testing device flashed purple. The portcullis rose.

The wagons passed through the gatehouse, past the orange lights glowing along the walls and through a passage long enough to hold an entire mansion. This time, Teren actually registered the strange riding beasts in the streets and the distant airships moving above the city. The first time he had woken up in the wagon and seen this city, he had thought that maybe, just maybe, someone had been playing a cruel prank on him.

Maybe they had gotten him far too drunk to remember anything and sent him to some remote, forgotten place on Earth. Maybe a friend would suddenly jump out from an alley and shout, "I got you!" That idea had lasted till he got roasted alive by that accursed white fire. After seeing that huge transparent barrier over the city, the airships, the glowing crystals in the gatehouse tunnel, and after feeling that strange current flow out of him and turn that damned crystal purple, he had no doubts left.

I'm not on Earth anymore. He had no idea if he was even in the same galaxy or the same universe as Earth. Or if there was any way for him to ever go back there. Or how he had even been brought to this place. To this... planet. He had been too panicked during the earlier loops to spend much time thinking about what it meant. Now he could no longer avoid the obvious: he was in a different world, in a different body, surrounded by magic and slavery, in a vast city called Karthane.

And somewhere inside that city, the same death was waiting for him in the same yard. He spent the journey to the military compound thinking about the handle. During the previous loop, he had delayed touching it. Nothing had happened to him. The fire had not appeared until his hand closed around the metal and the purple light flashed. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

That was enough for him to stop treating the timing as a coincidence—someone had noticed the reaction. The safest choice was obvious now: never touch the device. Unfortunately, he was going to be chained inside a military compound filled with armed guards. Refusal might delay things, but it would not get him through the gate or out of the city. He could still refuse to follow their orders and let them beat him unconscious, as they had done to the large lizardfolk man, rather than cooperate.

It would be better than being burned alive. Perhaps they would assume he had no magical ability and send him elsewhere. Or perhaps they would force his hand around the testing grip while he was unable to resist. Teren looked at the shackles around his ankles. He needed something better than refusal. The man who had produced the weak yellow glow had been sent to someone called Master Edras.

If the test was meant to identify people who could use magic, then Edras was probably some kind of mage—or wizard, or whatever they called such people here—and was stationed somewhere inside the compound. The faint purple flicker had drawn the attacker's attention, but apparently not Edras's. Maybe the reaction had simply been too brief. If Teren could make it stronger, perhaps the actual mage would notice it before the fire arrived. Or perhaps the person watching would kill him even faster.

Teren swallowed and pressed his chained hands against his knees until the iron bands bit into already raw skin. The wagons entered the military compound. Cheering rose from the fighting enclosure to the left. The large man near the cage door tensed as the guards approached. Teren knew what was coming. He considered warning the gray-scaled man. No. Not this time. He needed the compound to remain as close as possible to the previous loops until he reached the device.

If everything else stayed similar, he could be more confident that any later difference came from what he did with the handle. He still felt sorry for what was going to happen to the man. But not sorry enough. Not if there was a chance it meant he would not be burned alive. It might mean the burly man stays alive longer too, along with the others. Assuming the guards don't kill him first. The door opened.

"Down! Keep the line moving." The captives began climbing out. The large gray-scaled man reached the ground but this time he swung his chained hands at the nearest guard instead of driving his shoulder into him. The blow clipped the guard's jaw. The guard staggered back.

"Hold 'im!" Three others rushed the captive. One struck his stomach with the blunt end of a spear. Another brought a cudgel down across his back. The lizardfolk man stayed upright longer than before. Then a blow caught the side of his head. He collapsed, but the guards continued hitting him until he stopped moving. The details had changed again, but the lizardfolk man still ended up beaten unconscious on the ground.

"Move!" a guard shouted into the cage.

"Unless someone else wants to join him." Teren climbed down carefully. His wrists were unlocked with the others, and he joined the line without being pushed. When two guards dragged the unconscious man past him, Teren looked away. The clerk's table stood ahead. Teren stepped forward as soon as he heard his name. The guard beside the table watched him approach but did not shove him. The clerk glanced at the wooden tag. There was no reason to go through the same questions again.

The sooner Teren reached the testing device, the sooner he could test his theory. Before the clerk could speak, Teren said, "I don't remember having a trade. I can read." The clerk stopped with his pen above the ledger.

"I did not ask yet."

"I thought I'd save us time." The man looked at him for a few seconds.

"Do you remember anything?"

"My name."

"What's already written around your neck?" Teren shrugged.

"Then I guess I remember nothing useful." The clerk's mouth tightened. He made a longer note than he had during the previous loops.

"Literate. Claims to have memory loss."

"I do have memory loss."

"You are also a slave trying to avoid hard labor. Keep moving." Teren walked on. The testing device waited ahead in the yard. His heart began beating faster as soon as he saw it. The weak candidate ahead of him placed his hand around the brass grip. Yellow light formed inside the cloudy crystal, slightly dimmer than Teren remembered. The scarred man beside the device bent toward it.

"Small response. Take him to Master Edras anyway." The escorting guard looked toward the wooden hall on the far side of the compound.

"He's still examining the last two."

"Then he can examine one more." The young man was led away. Teren watched the distant doorway. That had to be where Edras was—close enough to reach the yard. Whether the mage was strong enough to stop the white fire was another matter. The goblin woman ahead of Teren was tested next. The crystal remained dark, and she was sent toward the labor group. Then Teren stood before the handle. The scarred man gestured at it.

"Go on." Teren looked around the yard. There was still no sign of the white fire. The guards were talking as usual. The knight in plate armor was no longer beside the holding yard; he had moved near another wooden hall. A wagon driver was arguing with the clerk now, complaining about his overdue payment. But everything still remained ordinary, or as ordinary as it could be. The scarred man followed Teren's gaze.

"Ya lookin' for someone?"

"Master Edras." That earned him a sharper look.

"Ya know him?"

"No. Not yet."

"Then why're ya askin' about him?" Teren nodded toward the building where the candidate had been taken.

"He checks people who make the crystal glow, doesn't he?"

"If there's anything worth checking." The guard beside the device laughed.

"Planning to impress him?" Teren grinned.

"I just might." The guard laughed harder.

"Go on then. Let's see if ya're the next archmage."

"You heard him," the scarred man said.

"Take hold." Teren stared at the metal. He knew what happened when he touched it lightly: the strange current flowed into the device and the crystal flashed purple. Then he burned. He curled and uncurled his fingers. If even a tiny amount of that power had drawn the attacker's attention, sending more of it into the device might be the worst idea he had ever had, but it might also be the first plan that changed anything. Fine. If I'm going to burn anyway, I might as well learn something first.

Teren closed his hand around the grip. Cold spread into his palm. The familiar current stirred somewhere inside his arm. This time, he did not recoil. He tightened his grip and tried to force the sensation forward. The crystal remained dark. The guard snorted.

"Go on, archmage." Teren ignored him. He remembered how the current had moved before. It had felt as though something inside him had been pulled toward the handle. He searched for that sensation now. It wasn't easy to find, but somehow his body knew what he wanted. There. A faint pressure beneath his skin, deeper than any muscle. Teren held his breath and concentrated on it. Something answered. The pressure rushed down his arm.

Purple light flared inside the crystal, making the nearby guards step back, but Teren kept pushing. For two or three seconds, the cloudy crystal blazed with bright purple light within its brass cage. A low hum came from the stone block, and the handle vibrated beneath Teren's hand. Then the light vanished. The current stopped at the same time and the crystal went dark. Teren released the handle. Damn it! I thought it would work. He stared at the dead crystal, his heart beating faster and faster.

It really is faulty. Nobody spoke for a moment. The scarred man's mouth was hanging slightly open. One of the other guards took a step away from the device.

"That wasn't yellow..."

"No," the scarred man said quietly.

"No, it wasn't." Teren's heart was thumping in his chest now. His gaze darted across the compound, searching for the first flicker of white fire.