Act of Will Read Online Free Page B

squeaked.
    The men peered at me. I snatched my wig off and their eyes widened a little.
    “Empire guards!” I blurted, glancing over my shoulder.
    It was, apparently, the right thing to say.
    For a split second they looked at me, then at each other. Then the girl pulled one of several large trunks from the corner. Her pale male counterpart opened it and wordlessly motioned me over.
    Then they started arguing.
    “Garnet, are you mad?” hissed the black man. “It could be a trap!”
    “We can’t take that chance,” said the girl. “We have to trust her. Him. Whatever.”
    Even in my terror I managed an indignant glare.
    “It isn’t worth the risk,” replied the black man heatedly.
    “Who are you?” the olive-skinned man asked me quietly.
    I thought I could hear the guards forcing the door of the first guest room. My moments of liberty were numbered and I wanted to scream at them. The sweat broke out on my brow and my eyes widened with fear, but I restrained myself and gasped, “William Hawthorne. I’m an actor. And a playwright. And,” I added reluctantly, “I kind of cheated at a card game.”
    “A petty criminal,” said the black man, rising to his feet. He was impressively built and in alarmingly good condition. In fact, all of them were. He looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on the bloodstained dress and then, as the door to the second guest room was audibly kicked open, flashed his eyes to the olive-skinned man who had demanded my name and who, I sensed, would have the last word.
    I was right. For a second he said nothing, and then he whispered, “Get in the box. Quickly!”
    The black man bundled me into the crate and sat on it.
    “Oh, brilliant,” I mumbled. “Put him in the box. They’ll never think to look there.”
    The room fell silent for a second and then, muffled slightly by the wood of the crate, I heard the door open and imperious footsteps enter.
    “Any of these?” demanded a soldier.
    “No,” replied a voice I took to be the innkeeper’s.
    “Has anyone been in here?”
    Muffled negations and murmured inquiries as to what the problem was.
    “Open those boxes!”
    Blood and sand!
    I heard movement and a creaking lid, then another; then I saw daylight, and the irritated face of a soldier peering in at me.

SCENE IV

    A New Problem
    T he soldier’s eyes lit up: he drew his sword swiftly and had begun to shout when something stopped him. There was a brilliant flash, yellowish, like firelight, but sudden and stark, so that everything solid went flat and pale, casting hard shadows. I think there was a sound too—a bang? Or a sudden and powerful gust of wind? I wasn’t sure. And there was something else, something like falling asleep after too much beer and coming to again with a raging hangover, except that the entire process lasted no more than a few seconds. It was panic, I supposed, and some kind of weird head rush at being shoved into a crate with an Empire soldier about to drag me off to torture and execution. That had to be it.
    But there was more. They were fighting. There was grunting and the unmistakable crash of metal on metal, and then a gasp of pain and the sound of a falling body.
    God! I was involved in a murderous brawl with Empire guards: a capital offense if ever there was one. I clambered out of the box and started to crawl away.
    Someone stepped over my back. I heard a weapon fall and then what sounded like cracking bone. I closed my eyes tighter till someone stood on my wrist and, with a yell of pain, I looked up. The pale kid who had been called Garnet faced a man who might have been the patrol officer. They had their fingers about each other’s throats and were fighting for control of the soldier’s shortsword. The other soldiers, astonishingly, seemed to be already dead. Or stunned, perhaps, since I could see no blood or wounds. The black man joined the last remaining fight, lending his considerable strength to wrenching the officer’s sword from his