I was sitting in an interview room dressed in my finest orange jumpsuit. My hands were handcuffed, but at least I was not shackled to the chair, thanks to the guard standing at the door. Officer Turnbull was okay for a guard, and I had not caused any trouble in the two years I had been here. I ignored the cameraman in the corner and the irate looking star of the documentary they were filming. Instead, I was fully focused on the pretty brunette in front of me.

Her makeup was professionally done just like the time they had been here to request the interview. Unfortunately, she had hidden her goodies a bit more this time. Last time she had been wearing a blouse that showed off her perky breasts. It was mainly for that reason I had demanded that the intern did the interview, instead of the documentarist. Which had thoroughly pissed him off and was the other reason for agreeing to this little sit-down. He was a pompous jerk, but the interview was a nice break in my routine.

I suspected they would cut it in such a way that it appeared to be him who interviewed me, instead of pretty Jackie. Do not get me wrong, I respect women, but when you have been locked up for two years, any bit of thrill you can find is sweet.

“Mister Smith, than—” she started to say.

I interrupted her by leaning forward, making her instinctively lean back. My size probably scared her quite a bit. Two meters tall and large muscles had that effect on most people. Came in handy making sure people did not mess with me. I did not see him do it, but I heard Turnbull take a step forward. To the scared looking teenager, she could not be more than eighteen or nineteen, I said, “Jackie, call me Karth.”

“Okay,” she squeaked.

“Karth, sit your arse down, or I’ll have you restrained,” Turnbull growled.

“Sorry, Officer Turnbull. Sorry, Jackie, did not mean to scare you,” I said with fake sincerity. The way her breathing had quickened was stimulating, the only way it could be better if it was from excitement. I could always fantasize.

It took them a minute to reset and for Jackie to calm down. I was just sitting there with an amused smile the whole time. Finally, the cameraman indicated we were filming again. Jackie asked, “Karth, you are currently serving a sentence for felony murder.”

“Correct,” I said with a bit of disinterest.

“If you are lucky, you will be out of prison before you are eighty. Yet it did not have to go down like that. You shot and killed one of your partners in the bank heist. If you hadn’t done it, you would have served maybe ten or fifteen years.”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“The question many have been asking is why did you kill your partner?” she asked, getting to the core of what they needed me for pretty fast. It was a documentary about the partner I did not kill, a former child star, who fell on hard times and took up a life of crime. I was but a side note in that story.

“The short story. Because he was an idiot.”

“What’s the long story?”

“Idiot brought a gun, took hostages. I should never have worked with a bunch of amateurs, but I was in need of some quick cash.”

“But it was a bank heist, surely you brought weapons?” she asked incredulously.

“Cut,” the documentarist said and waited a few seconds before walking over to me. “Listen, it would be better if you said you were armed to the teeth. Maybe even a grenade or something. Will make the sheriff who ended the hostage situation look good.”

“You want me to lie?” I asked, feeling pretty insulted. “I don’t lie. Only Billy brought a gun, the gun I used to kill him with. I’m not going to say otherwise.”

“You’re a criminal, isn’t lying what you do?” he asked before turning his back to me. I felt the urge to strangle him, but a quick look at Turnbull who had his on his baton cautioned me that it would be a bad idea. I did not need problems because of a pompous arsehole, so I let it slide for now. Maybe I could reach out to someone owing me a favour and let them visit him.

We reset and Jackie picked up where we left off. “Karth, can you tell us how you were going to rob the bank.”

“Ask nicely,” I said with a chuckle. Seeing her confused look it seemed they had only done their homework on the one bank heist that went wrong, and not the dozens I was suspected of being behind. “Okay, hypothetically how you could do it without guns is that you stalk the employees of the bank. Most importantly the guards. Find out who works when, who is vulnerable. Better known as having a family or someone they care about. A scandalous affair between manager and employee works too. On the day of the heist, pay someone to follow and film the family members of the guards and the teller you hit. Walk up and politely show them the live feed of their loved one and a note that says it’s a robbery and if they make a fuss, well guess the rest. Makes them comply every single time. Hypothetically of course.”

“You’re a sick fuck, Karth,” Turnbull scoffed in the corner.

“Quiet,” the documentarist demanded.

“Don’t presume to tell me what to do,” the guard said with a glare. That was everything started to shake as if there was an earthquake. Except there were no earthquakes in the region, at least none big enough to be felt.

“What’s going on?” Jackie screamed, the last part nearly drowned by a high keening sound. It seemed to come from the ground beneath me. I looked down to see a ball of blue energy or something like it underneath the table. I stared at it for a second as the sound became louder. Then silence for a moment, before the sphere of energy burst out in rapid expansion, enveloping me and Jackie.

The next thing I registered was lying naked on a cold stone floor. I have done that enough time to recognize the feeling, without even looking around. I heard other people groaning nearby, definitely more than had been in the room with me.

“Hrok argoth urh,” someone said, speaking a foreign language I did not recognize. Opening my eyes I found myself in a circular room dimly lit by flickering light, made entirely of large rough granite-like stones cut into uneven approximations of squares. A quick look at a light source explained why. It seemed that the room was lit by old kerosene lanterns or something like it.

“Na larik, hrok argoth urh,” the voice repeated. I looked for the source and soon found it. It was a diminutive man dressed in some kind of silky green long shirt coming to beneath his knees. Leaving just a small gap between the hem and his soft-looking brown boots, where I could see he was wearing grey pants made of wooly material.

I immediately dismissed him as a threat even though he was carrying a knife in his belt. What I could not dismiss were the people fanning out behind him. The first two I noticed, a step behind him on either side, were both carrying some medieval polearm. I think it was called a halberd. They were also dressed in what looked like a thick leather tunic, a leather skull cap. Both also had knives in their belts and what looked like a curved wooden handle of an old flintlock pistol. Maybe a shortsword would be a more apt description based on the length, and that fact they were dressed like medieval soldiers.

There were ten other guards along the wall, dressed mostly like the others, but without the skullcap. What worried me the most was that they were pointing rifles in my direction. Not modern rifles, but what looked like front loaded muskets.

I knew I had to comply with whatever these fuckers wanted, because there was no way I could take them in a fight. Looking around me I saw around ten people lying naked on the floor, looking around just as confused as me. Jackie was one of them, but I did not see any of the other three from the interview room.

Slowly, I rose up. However, as soon as I got to my knees my ears started ringing so badly I got dazed. After a second it stopped again, and I continued to stand up.

“Finally, someone understood me,” the man spoke again. Only this time I could clearly understand what he said, though he was still talking the language he did before.

‘What the heck is going on?’ I thought and considered for a moment to ask just that, but decided against it. When men are pointing guns at you, it is not the most conducive time to ask for explanations.

“Stand over there, and keep your hands where we can see them,” the diminutive man ordered me. I did as ordered. One thing you quickly learn to do in prison is following orders, unless you want trouble. Even if all you wanted to do was rip the fucker’s tongue out for ordering you around. I stepped over to where he indicated and stood there with my hands down my side in a relaxed posture. Even though I felt tense and on edge, I forced myself to relax. It would not be smart to give the men with guns a reason to use them.

Slowly the others started to get up as well, and a couple of men I had never seen before joined me. Both of them were covering their private parts. Modesty was another thing that went out the window with communal showers.

The small man asked his guards, “How many do we need to be at full capacity?”

“Just four, Sir,” the guard on his right said.

“Good, kill the women, the tainted one and the rest when the next one joins them.”

The man furthest from me in the line stepped forward, and in a haughty tone demanded, “You can’t do that. I’m a lawyer with the Cali—”

He was interrupted when the man in charge ordered one of the men with a rifle to shoot. The would-be hero was hit in the stomach, as the people around me started screaming and backing away. The lawyer, soon to be dead lawyer, fell to the ground, howling in pain as blood started seeping out between his fingers. The stench of urine came from the man next to me, as he staggered around for a moment before he fell to the ground, seemingly fainted.

“Fuck this,” the boss growled. To his two guards, he said while pointing at me, “Grab that one and three others. Kill the rest.”

“Understood,” the guard to his right said. The guard to his left headed towards me since he was the closest. I tensed up, ready to act if necessary, even if the odds were against me.

He was the tallest of the people there, and he was a good head and a half shorter than me. He looked up at me with a grin full of discolored teeth and a stinky breath. “Yer a big ‘un. Ye mind yer step, stand over there and ye’ll live. Savvy?”

“Savvy,” I said with an empathetic nod and surprised myself because I spoke the language they spoke. The ringing returned weakly for a short second, and I felt myself relax almost involuntarily. It felt like the adrenaline left my body.

“Good,” he grunted before swinging the halberd around deftly and brought the blade down on the neck of the shot man, shutting the lawyer up permanently. This action brought more screaming of course.

In between the screaming, I suddenly heard Jackie’s voice shouting, “Karth help me! Please help me.”

I ignored her call, did not even look back, even though I knew she was naked and I had fantasized about how she would look several times. There was nothing I could do to help any of them, not if I wanted to live. At the moment I was powerless. Not that I really wanted to help them anyway, they were all strangers to me. The strange calmness seemed to make me care even less about these people.

Soon three other men were forced to stand next to me, and as the boss and his two guards let us out of the rooms, the other guards opened fire on the rest of the people in there. What a shame to waste a beauty like Jackie like that, but that’s how life is sometimes.

We were lead out into a dark corridor, only lit up by a lantern held by another guard. We followed them for a minute down the dark corridor, with screams of dying people echoing from behind us. We came to a staircase and started going up. Halfway up the stairs, there suddenly was the sounds of a scuffle behind me, followed by the screams of a single person.

“What’s going on back there?” the leader demanded from ahead of me.

“One of them tried to kick me down the stairs,” the guard reported back. Then added mirthfully, “Broke his shoulder.”

The boss audibly sighed. “We’ll get a healer to patch him up. Listen up, anyone else trying something and I’ll have you castrated. Understood?”

“Understood,” I immediately said, while the others said nothing.

“I asked if you understood me, and you better answer. So did you understand?”

“Yes,” the two other mumbled. The wounded man did not. Something that sounded like a slap came from behind me, followed by the guard growling a warning. Finally, the wounded man whimpered, “Yes I understand. Don’t hurt me, I can give you money. I just wanna go home!”

“I don’t see no coin pouch on you, so shut up,” the guard barked.

After that little scuffle, we continued up the stairs and was led into what looked like a guard room. Tables and cots for relaxing, stands for weapons, and two more guards who were playing a game of dice or something. They stood up as soon as we entered.

“This is the last four,” the boss said.

“Thank the Gods,” one of them said before going over to another table where there was a pile of fabric.

“The pigs will get fat off all those corpses,” the other remarked with a grin. A second later, one of the other prisoners, or what the heck we were, started gagging.

“You make a mess, you clean it up, with your tongue,” one of the original guards barked. The prisoner audibly gulped something down.

“I’m fine,” he muttered. He did not sound like he was fine.

The guard at the pile of fabric had grabbed it and came back with it. He handed me part of it, and it turned out to be a shirt slash robe of some kind. It looked awfully small. The guard grinned at me, “Don’t think it’ll fit, but it’s all you get for now.”

Shrugging I started putting it on. The next in line, a guy with a large gut, received his and said, “I think this a medium, do you have any in double extra large?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Get dressed or I break your fucking nose.”

“I was just asking,” the guy muttered petulantly.

“Aye, and I was warning you,” the guard growled before punching the man in the nose. The fat guy started wailing about what should be obvious to all; his nose was broken.

The guard was right the shirt was awfully small for me. It was one of those shirts without buttons, just with a bunch of string at the neck. I had to rip the neck opening a bit to get it on, and the seams split a bit as I forced my muscular arms into the shirt. It came to rest just a bit beneath my buttocks, still leaving some of my private parts dangling free.

The other two guys were of a slimmer built and of roughly the same height as the tall guard. It fit them way better, reaching midthigh or so. The fat guy had even more problems than me, he could not get the shirt pulled over his stomach.

“Good enough,” the boss said and led us out of the only door in the room. Another set of corridors, which were lit by lanterns hanging on the wall, and a lot of guards standing around keeping watch.

We were led to a set of double doors, which opened up into a great hall that almost reminded me of the nave in church. Lots of benches, an arched ceiling, lots of columns, and what looked like small balconies overlooking the nave. On each of the balconies, I spotted guards carrying rifles, pointing at the filled seats beneath.

The benches, or maybe it was pews, were occupied by men dressed the same as us. There had to be at least a hundred and fifty or so of us. Some were whispering, but most were looking frightfully at the balconies, some were quietly whimpering. At the end of the hall, where I almost expected an altar to sit, there were thirteen thrones, all of the same size. No one was sitting in them.

We entered through what seemed to be a side door because, at the opposite end of the thrones, there was a massive set of double doors. At least double my height, meaning four meters or taller.

The man with the broken shoulders was led to another set of side doors, as was the fat guy. Probably to see a healer as the guards had talked about. The other guy was led to take a seat in one of the back rows, while I was led to one in the middle of the hall.

As I sat down at the end of the bench, the shirt crawled up a bit, leaving my half-naked butt to plant itself on the cold wooden bench, sending shivers up my spine. The guy next to me looked at me with squinting eyes, blinking rapidly as if he could not focus. He was a thin tall guy, almost as tall as me and looked like a nerd.

“No glasses?” I asked in a quiet voice.

“They disappeared with the rest of my clothes,” he whispered. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“I’d hoped you knew.”

“I can only surmise.”

“Surmise away then,” I said.

“Well, obviously we’ve been transported to another world.”

“What gave it away, the language?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm. I had drawn the same conclusion. These people were white, and the weapons seemed to be late middle ages or early renaissance, but they spoke a language that sounded like no European language I had heard before. Eliminating the possibility that we had travelled back in time.

“Well, yes. It’s not a language spoken on Earth.”

“You’re a regular Einstein aren’t you.”

“My IQ is two points higher than Einstein’s,” he said proudly, puffing out his chest.

I shook my head. “How did we get transported here?”

“Well, if you look at it scientifically, the only obvious and logical answer is aliens.”

“Aliens. Right,” I said. Feeling more and more that this conversation was useless.

“Well, if you look at the other explanations they make no sense. Magic or divine intervention. Doesn’t exist. But the possibility of a—” he started a long explanation that I just shut out. Nodded along whenever he took a break longer than a second.

Instead, I concentrated on taking in my surroundings. Not that there were a lot I had not taken in already. The hall which as first had seemed impressive, started to look less and less impressive. There were no decorations anywhere, and the thrones were sitting on a raised wooden platform, which looked like it had been assembled for short term use. Making me conclude that this was usually used for something else than gatherings of this size.

After five minutes, my nerdy acquaintance had stopped his long-winded explanation and we fell into silence. During those five minutes, I saw that the fat guy and the guy with the broken shoulder come back, with astonished looks on their faces. The fat guy I could not see what had happened, because he still had blood smeared in his face, but the other guy was swinging his arm around as if it had never been broken.

A few minutes after they returned, the giant doors at the end of the hall opened with a bang, and a procession started filing in. Guards were first, all armed with drawn swords, and the guards on the balcony audibly cocked their rifles.

Next came thirteen finely dressed men, all wearing crowns of some kind. Followed by more guards. They were followed by a group of people that looked like priests and four men carrying a golden altar of some kind on wooden poles. The altar was finely decorated with lots of carving and small gems.

On top of it in the centre was a pedestal holding what looked like a big spherical diamond, reflecting light in several different colours. Ranging from black to blue to yellow and red, enough colours to make a rainbow jealous. I suddenly realized that it was not reflecting light, but the light emanated from within the sphere.

More guards followed, most of them taking up a position next to a bench. The finely dressed men sat down on the thrones, while the priest looking guys stepped to the side and stood there all formally. The four men deposited the altar in front of the thrones, before removing the poles and leaving through a nearby side door.

When the doors shut, one of the older priests stepped forward, standing in front of the altar. With a deep voice that seemed amplified somehow, despite there being no microphones or loudspeakers, he explained, “Aeons ago, the Prophecy foretold that the end of mankind would come.

“The Gods in their infinite wisdom and mercy granted us a relic for that time. And that time has come. With it we were able to conjure all of you, to be the soldiers and generals foretold to be able to prevent the end of us all. As foretold in the Prophecy.”

He took a deep breath before continuing, “The Gods will now grant each of you a gift of power, a gift of magic. Wield it to protect us, and you shall be richly rewarded.”

One guy started to stand up and demand, “We just—”

However, he was quickly silenced by a guard and his sword. Just waving the sword in front of the man was enough to shut him up. The nerdy guy next to me leaned in close to whisper, “This is like one of those weird transmigration stories I’ve read. I think I might be dreaming.”

I felt the urge to punch him really hard and ask if he still thought he was dreaming, but there was a guard right next to me, who was giving the nerdy guy a hard stare. No reason to cause a ruckus.

“Bring the first candidate forth,” the head priest, or whatever he was, said. A guard at the front row grabbed one of the men seated there, much to his protestation. The priest and guard ignored the man and ordered him to place his hands on the sphere thing.

He refused to do it until the guard drew his sword and lightly poked him in the arm, making it bleed a little. The man put his hands on the crystal ball and immediately it lit up in a single colour. A white-bluish light enough to almost blind the rest of us emanated from the altar.

When it dimmed to its previous level and everchanging spectrum of colours, I could see the man stagger a few steps backwards, before collapsing. He was caught by the guard though, who dragged him off to one side.

“Next,” the priest commanded, and another guy was pulled out of his seat. In the meantime, a lot of guards stepped into the hall from the side doors. These all wore tabards in a different colour scheme. My bet would be there were thirteen different heraldries there.

This time the crystal showed a bright orange colour, and the guy touching it passed out again. About the time the third one was dragged forward, the first one started to regain consciousness. Another one of the priests stepped forward and put a gem the size of a fist to the man’s forehead.

This junior priest looked into his crystal as it flashed several times, almost like someone sending a morse code with a flashlight. He then spoke out loud, “Has the ability to manipulate Ice Magic. Power rating of two.”

The king, or whatever the hell they were, sitting in the middle throne said loudly, “If nothing else, he can produce ice for my larder.”

Which made the other kings laugh uproariously. The man, who now could control ice apparently, was hauled to his feet and one of the guards escorted him out of the hall. The guard was wearing a tabard in the same burnished orange as the king who had spoken out.

The next guy to wake up had the ability to manipulate fire but with a power rating of five. This continued going on for over an hour before it became my turn. In that time I had made a few observations. There were 169 of us who had been summoned from Earth, or I assumed we were all from Earth. All of us were men, and of Caucasian descent.

There were a wide variety of powers assigned or whatever the fuck was going on. Someone had the ability to teleport himself short distances. Someone could go invisible and so one. Like the ensemble cast of a freaking superhero movie. Fire manipulation seemed to be one of the most prevalent powers, and most had a power rating between 5 and 7. The highest recorded was a guy with the ability to manipulate plants with a rating of 10. The lowest was not the first guy, but one that could go invisible with a rating of 1.

The last observation I had made was that each king took turns getting one of assigned, which meant that each of them would be getting thirteen people. A few of us had made a fuss and gotten punished. One got his hand chopped off before led out to the healers. When he got back into the hall, his hand had been reattached and it worked as if nothing had happened.

I was smart enough to reckon when I was up next, so before the guard could grab my arm, I stood up and marched up to the altar. I kept my pace slow and steady but intentionally lengthened my strides, so that the much shorter guard had to do a weird half-jog to keep up with me. I fought hard to suppress a grin.

As I stepped up to the altar, I focused on the king I knew was up next in the rotation, and bowed to him. Made sure I bowed deep enough to flash my bare arse at the guard behind me. Insulting people was a hobby of mine. Before putting my hands on the crystal ball, I looked over my shoulders at the glowering guard and flashed him a shit-eating grin.

I put my hands on the glowing sphere thingy and braced for impact. All I felt was a little tingling, as if a small current was running through the crystal into my hands and then up through my arms. At the same time, it stopped showing any colour, becoming clear as glass and did not light up as it had done with the previous people using it.

It kept sending this tingling sensation through my arms, and it spread quickly to the rest of my body. I should feel scared, but the tingling sensation was accompanied by the feeling of warmth and I felt energized, revitalized by it. It almost felt like the energy settled somewhere inside my body, just outside of reach, but I felt that if I could tap into this well of energy I would be powerful. It almost felt like I was getting a buzz on.

“Is it broken?” I heard the guard behind me ask. I knew he should be right behind me, but it sounded like he was far away, and muffled by water.

“No, it isn’t,” I said without thinking, still riding the high of whatever it was this thing was doing to me. I managed to focus on the priest on the other side of the altar, and he was staring with huge eyes at me.

The sphere stopped sending those feelings through me and started displaying its light show again. It was a disappointment I stepped away from it and moved over to the junior priests. I was wondering if I had a power rating of zero, because I had not been knocked unconscious like the rest of them had. Even the guy with a rating of one had been knocked on his ass.

Looking at the junior priest they were all staring back at me with wide eyes. Shaking my head in disgust, I asked, “Which one of you are going to tell me what power I got? Come on, we don’t have all day.”

“You heard the man. Test him,” one of the kings said, and then addressed the other kings. “I wonder if the relic is running out of power.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” another king commented.

The senior priest immediately shouted, “Next!”

One junior priest finally stepped forward, and took out what I had assumed was a gem. I saw that it was a giant pearl instead. Still, such a pearl should be worth some money. I considered for a moment how to nick it, but then dismissed the thought. If all of them had one, it could not be that valuable.

The priest looked fearfully at me, and I had to hide a smile that threatened to form when I observed how he had to stretch a bit to place the pearl against my forehead. The pearl performed like it had done the other times, so far so good.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I caught the bright orange light of another summoned person getting his power. It seemed the relic, or whatever the heck the sphere was, had not run out of juice and was working just fine. Even heard the thud of the guy hitting the ground when the guard failed to catch him.

The kings commented as much and then turned their attention to the priest in front of me, who had finished performing whatever ritual with the pearl they were doing. The king I was going to, asked the priest, “So, what power does he have?”

“He has a power rating of twelve, Your Majesty,” the priest said nervously.

“I like this already, so what power does he have?” the king demanded.

“Uhm, I don’t know your Majesty, the Gods just called it Linking,” the priest answered with a stammer. The other priests looked at each other questioningly and then shrugged. The priest who had tested me continued, “It creates a link between two objects.”

“You mean like a Beastmaster?” the king asked with a furious look.

“Uhm, the Gods said objects, I think they mean items.” The junior priest looked like he was about to faint.

“Hah, what a useless ability,” one of the other kings mocked.

“He’ll be good for making manacrystals at least,” another said with a laugh.

The king in the middle throne shook his head. “What a shame, no useful power with a power rating of twelve. Could have been a great hero.”

I started to feel a bit hot under the collar, if the damn shirt had one that I had not already ripped. They were talking about me like I was not even there. I tempered my anger before I did something stupid.

“I want the next one,” the king that had gotten me said.

“No,” the others immediately said.

The king in the middle throne said, “The rotation was agreed upon. No deviation.”

“Fine, take him away,” my king ordered almost petulantly. I knew I had been dismissed, and I would do myself no favour, so I stepped over to the guard that had started to react.

I looked him up and down, and even though he had both a flintlock pistol and a knife or maybe it was a dagger, I felt fairly certain that I could take him. His hand inched closer to his dagger. Good, he feared me. I flashed him a toothy smile and said, “Lead the way.”

“Out the door,” he said immediately, clearly he did not want me walking behind him.

“Sure thing,” I said and strode out of the hall with as much dignity as I could muster. Again the shorter guard had to half-jog to keep up with me, which was of course a petty thing to do, but it made me feel a little better. Without looking back I heard the doors closing behind me, and I wondered what lay ahead for me.