“Let us be leaving,” he heard Esrahaddon say from behind. Hadrian whirled around and discovered the wizard was no longer on the stage below. Instead, he moved casually past him, navigating around the stationary guards. “Come along,” Esrahaddon called.
Without a word, the group hurried after the wizard. He led them through the tunnel and across the newly extended bridge. The prison was oddly silent, and it was then that Hadrian realized the music had stopped. The only remaining sound was their footfalls against the hard stone floor.
“Relax and just keep walking,” Esrahaddon told them reassuringly.
They did as instructed, and no one said a word. To pass the clerk, who stood peering through the great door, they needed to come within inches of his anxiety-riddled face. As Hadrian attempted to slip by without bumping him, he saw the man’s eye move. Hadrian stiffened. “Can they see or hear us?”
“No, not really. They might sense something. The hairs on the back of their neck might stand, and they might feel a disturbance in the air as thou moves by, but no, they do not know we are here.”
The wizard led them without hesitation, making turns, crossing bridges, and climbing stairs with total confidence.
“Maybe we’re dead?” Myron whispered, glaring at each frozen guard he passed. “Maybe we’re all dead now. Maybe we’re ghosts.”
Hadrian thought Myron might be on to something. Everything was so oddly still, so empty. The fluid movement of the wizard and his billowing robe, which now emitted a soft silvery light far brighter than any lantern or torch, only heightened the surreal atmosphere.
“I don’t understand. How is this possible?” Alric asked, stepping around a pair of black-suited guards who watched the third bridge. He waved his hand before the face of one of them, who did not respond.
“Actually, ’tis only this way because we are in this gaol. No one person hath the power to stop time, but this gaol was designed for just such a purpose. ’Tis a giant Ithinal. What we once called a magic box. Within these walls the matrices of enchantments art complex. Many of my old colleagues created this place, and according to what Arista hath told me, I may be the only one who can still understand the ancient language. Because this gaol was designed to affect magic and time, I merely ever so slightly adjusted a fiber or two within the weave to throw the five of us out of phase.”
“So, the guards can’t see us, but that doesn’t explain why they are just standing there.” Hadrian said. “We disappeared, and you’re free. Why are they not searching? Shouldn’t they be locking doors to trap us?”
“Because nothing hath happened, as far as they art concerned. We art still where we were. For everyone else in this gaol, ’tis the moment young Alric spoke the last word in my poem. ’Tis why they dost not appear to be moving to us.”
“You turned it inside out!” Myron exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Esrahaddon said, looking with an appraising eye over his shoulder at the monk. “’Tis thrice thou hath impressed me. What did thou say thy name was?”
“He didn’t,” Royce answered for him.
“Thou dost not trust people, dost thou my black-hooded friend? ’Tis quite wise. More people should be as careful, particularly when dealing with wizards.” Esrahaddon winked at the thief.
“What does he mean by ‘turning it inside out’?” Alric asked. “So, time has stopped for them while we are free?”
“In the crudest terms that is correct. Time still moves for them, but very slowly. While unaware of it, they wilt remain very close to the instant the field changed for all time, or at least until someone alters the pattern engraved on the stone.”
“I am starting to see now why they were afraid of you,” Alric said.
“They kept me locked up for nine hundred years for saving the son of a man we all swore our lives to serve and protect. I think that I am being exceedingly kind. There art, after all, many worse moments in which to be trapped for all eternity.”
They reached the great stair that led to the main entrance corridor and began the long exhausting climb up the stone steps. “How did you stay sane?” Hadrian asked. “Or did the time slip by in an instant like it is for them?”
“The time did slip by, but not as fast as thou might thinketh. A year for me passed in about the length of a day.”
“Almost three years,” Myron calculated.
“Not nearly as bad as I thought,” Hadrian remarked, “but still, three years of just sitting there—”
“I was not just sitting there. I fought a battle each day. ’Twas a force of great effort to fend off their attacks to learn my secrets. And I had to decipher the runes etched all around me. I was never bored. Moreover, I have learned patience as a practitioner of The Art. Although there were times…Well, who is to say what it means to be sane?”
When they approached the hall of faces, Esrahaddon looked down its length and paused. Hadrian noticed the wizard stiffen. “What is it?” he asked.
“Those art the workers who built this gaol. I came here during the last few days they wert building this place. There was a small city of tents and shacks around the lake then. Hundreds of artisans and their families traveled here at the imperial call to do their part out of patriotism for their fallen Emperor. Such was the character of His Imperial Majesty. They all mourned his passing, and few in the vast and varied Empire would not have gladly given their lives for him. They labeled me the betrayer, and I could see the hatred in their eyes as they passed me on their way to work. They were proud to be the builders of my tomb.”
The wizard’s gaze moved from face to face. “I recognize some of them: the stone cutters, the sculptures, the cooks, and their wives and children. The Church could not let them go for fear they would talk. They sealed them in. All these people, all these artists ensnared by a lie and murdered just to keep me here. How many people died, I wonder? How much was lost just to hide one absurd secret, which even a millennium hath not erased?”
“There’s no door down there,” Alric warned the wizard.
Esrahaddon looked up at Alric as if awoken from a dream. “Of course there is a door,” he said and promptly led them down the corridor at a brisk walk. “Thou wert merely out of phase with it before.”
Here, in the darkest segment of the prison, Esrahaddon’s robe grew brighter still, and he looked like a giant firefly. In time, they came to a solid stone wall, and without hesitation or pause, Esrahaddon walked through it. The rest quickly followed.
The bright sunlight of a lovely, clear autumn morning nearly blinded them the moment they passed through the barrier. Blue sky and the cool fresh air was a welcome change. Hadrian took a deep breath and reveled in the scent of grass and fallen leaves, a smell he had not even noticed prior to entering the prison. “That’s strange. It should be nighttime and raining, I would think. We couldn’t have been in there more than a few hours. Could we?”
“Funny things can happen when ye play with time.” Esrahaddon threw his head back and faced the sun. He stood and took long deep breaths of air, sighing contentedly with each exhale. “The question ye should be asking thyselves is what day ’tis? Today could be the same day you entered, or the one after. In theory, ’tis possible to be tens or hundreds of years in the future.” The wizard appeared amused at the shock on their faces. “Don’t worry too much. Most likely ye only skipped a few days or hours.”
“That’s rather unnerving,” Alric said, “losing time like that.”
“I have lost nine hundred years. Everyone I knew is dead, the Empire is gone, and who knows what else hath happened. If what thy sister tells me is correct, much hath changed in the world while I have been gone.”