Mai had endured many hardships since meeting Broken. But now, she was undergoing the worst of them all.

Mai was trapped under the rubble, barely able to move, let alone do much else. Broken and Ishad were somewhere near her, she thought. Mai heard Ishad coughing, and was glad to hear he was alive.

How long he was going to continue to live for was in question, however. The same question applied them all.

Mai, at that moment, knew she was going to die. She knew she was going to die slowly under all the rubble, and she knew she was going to die painfully.

“Broken?” Mai asked, coughing in dirt, as she realized she had not heard anything from him, yet. If he had died, and left Mai and Ishad to suffer, in the next life Mai would punish him. Assuming, of course, that Broken got to Elysium. That was in question. There was no answer for a moment, and Mai began to think that he was really dead. She should have known better.

“Get up,” said Broken. He sounded perfectly calm.

“What are you talking about?” asked Mai. “I can’t just get up: I’m buried under rubble and dirt. You get up!”

“Ah,” said Broken. “I already did. Now, I will help you to do the same.”

Mai felt weight being lifted and thrown off her, and then suddenly, strong arms pulled her to her feet.

They were still in the basement of the town hall. The stairs they had come down, and the immediate area around it, was buried in rubble, but the rest of the basement looked untouched. Solid. Mai had been caught at the edge of the rubble, but it seemed Broken and Ishad had not been touched by it.

Ishad coughed again, because of the dust. However, he was able to stand without support.

“Why didn’t the basement collapse like the rest?” asked Mai. She knew that when Broken was around, there were no chance occurrences of fate.

“To understand that question requires a history lesson,” said Broken.

“I’m listening,” said Mai, brushing the dirt off.

Broken took three high-backed chairs that had been stored in the corner of the basement, and placed them in a triangle in the center of the room. He, Mai, and Ishad all sat down.

“Back in the year eighty-four of the Arathou Dynasty,” said Broken, “there were the demon wars. Demons appeared from all around, and lay waste to countryside without any warning. None. They just seemed to appear out of thin air, and wreaked their havoc until they were killed, or they decided to disappear on their own.

“When there is no greater cause pushing them, people will stagnate. But humanity is ingenious in times of need. Bunkers were created at the base of every town hall, and spellweavers spent their time casting enchantments to reinforce them. For a thousand years, the bunkers have stood, even after the demon wars, even after the buildings above them were torn down and replaced.”

“So we’re in a bunker,” said Mai. “A thousand year old bunker, that you knew would be here. But if the bunkers were supposed to protect humanity,” she said, “why are they so small?”

She gestured around. “This room couldn’t hold more than twenty people, if a reasonable amount of supplies were brought in.”

“You of all people should know the answer to that question,” said. “You of all people, who once sat at the top of the social structure.”

“My God,” said Mai, in understanding. “The nobles didn’t care about the peasants.”

“Indeed,” said Broken. “But what they did was still fortuitous for us, a millennia later. We still live.”

“So, the Makini have no idea we survived,” said Ishad.

“Indeed,” said Broken. “What these bunkers were made for is not common knowledge. Only the sages really know, or care. They will think us dead, and move on.”

“We have no supplies,” said Ishad. “How can we stay here? And, can we even get out?”

“All bunkers have a second exit,” said Broken, “in the case--” he gestured at the rubble blocking the stairs, “--of something like this happening. We will wait here this day, and then at night, we will find in the town what supplies we need, and be gone.”

“So you want us to stay here for an entire day with no food or water,” asked Ishad.

“Indeed,” said Broken, for the third time. “You will live. There is enough air filtering down through the rubble to see to that.”

“But…” said Mai. “Ishad might be able to walk now, but he still needs rest. Starving him--”

“Starving him will save all of our lives,” said Broken. “And do not worry for the injustice, for you will be hungry as well, soon enough.”

And so they waited. There was nothing in the bunker but more furniture, and an absence of anything one would find in a typical basement, such as rats. The time spent waiting for the next nightfall was mind numbingly boring, for after the first hour, there was simply nothing to say. The only light trickled down from the rubble, and the room was dim.

For hours, as Mai and Ishad sat and waited, Broken alternated between doing exercises, and staring blankly into space. It truly was strange, to see Broken punching the air one moment, his entire body finely tuned, and then sitting down on the ground to fiddle aimlessly with a small bit of rubble.

But the hours passed, even though they felt like days. The light through the rubble filtered to blue, then dark blue, and then, to see anything, Mai had to make a prolonged effort.

“It is time,” said Broken.

Mai watched his dark form head to a wall that looked perfectly normal. Mai thought she saw his fingers pry something from the wall, and then, she saw a hole revealed, a hole that lead to a tunnel, so small that any inside would have to crawl on their hands and knees.

Broken disappeared into the tunnel, and then his voice emanated, “Follow!”

Mai and Ishad did.

Inside, the tunnel was framed and supported with what seemed to be stone, but Mai knew, acutely, that she was surrounded by thousands of pounds of dirt, on all sides. If the passageway was really a thousand years old, as Broken claimed, it seemed likely to Mai that it had developed some defects. Perhaps when the reached a certain point, it would all collapse, and they would be buried in dirt.

Broken continued to lead, as Ishad followed, and Mai brought up the rear. As she crawled on her hands and knees, the tunnel kept going and going, even when she could take no more. Mai had always had a fear of enclosed spaces, and as her head brushed against the top of the tunnel, even as she crawled, she felt everything coming in around her.

And then, for a reason Mai could barely comprehend, Broken stopped.

“Are we there?” she asked, calling up through the tunnel.

“Yes,” said Broken. “Now wait, and let me get the door open. The second doors were hid under dirt and grass, so they would not be noticeable. Now, it is likely that dirt and grass has grown quite a bit in the last thousand years.”

Mai quieted, left to her fears that the door would be stuck beyond even Broken’s abilities. Even he couldn’t move thousands of pounds of dirt.

A moment later, Broken said, “I got the door to open inwards.” A bit of dirt clogged the pitch-black tunnel, then there was a sort of wet noise, and then Broken said, in a sort of muffled way, “Follow.”

Ishad did, and then it was Mai’s turn. As she climbed up out of the ground, she felt as if she was rising from the dead.

And then she stepped away, and abruptly, she found herself in a forest, with Ishad and Broken.

“Where are we?” she asked. “This is not the town.”

“The tunnel went for a ways,” said Broken. “A very, very long ways. We’ve been crawling for three-quarters of an hour. Follow me.”

How Broken knew exactly how much time they had spent in the tunnel was beyond Mai. As she wondered, she and Ishad followed his lead through the forest. When Ishad needed help, Mai provided it, but all in all, he seemed to be in good shape, considering.

A while, but not all that long later, they emerged from the forest at the top of a hill. All around them were the remnants of a camp, a military camp by the looks of it. But here, everything was overturned, or destroyed. There were no bodies, but that just made everything look more ominous. A road traveled around the hill, and the destroyed camp.

“Taramad Hill,” said Broken. “Wait here for me. It is unlikely anyone will spot you, if you stay a ways in the forest. I’ll go into Bola, and get what we need.”

And so he left.

Mai and Ishad headed back a ways into the forest, and sat down. Together, they gazed out into the wreckage.

“My God,” said Mai slowly. “Did you ever see something so horrible?”

“No,” said Ishad. “Never anything like this. But Broken has.”

“How do you know?” asked Mai.

“I saw it in his eyes. I saw it in the way he spoke. He appreciated how the site was new to us, but he spoke as if he was a sage, explaining something he already knew by heart.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that he was in war,” said Mai. “I would have been surprised if he had not been.”

“You have told me everything you know about Broken,” said Ishad. “But I have a question for you. When was the last time a war hero returned home, unheard of, and unfamed?”

“What do you mean?” asked Mai.

“I mean, Broken worked for your dynasty. Someone of his talents in war would not have returned home without recognition.”

“I saw many war heroes paraded past me when I lived in the Occluded City,” said Mai. “And I can assure you, he was not one of them. From what he said, once, he seemed to have the job of a common guard.”

“Did he say that directly?” asked Ishad.

“No,” said Mai. “But…”

“Broken is a master of saying one thing and meaning another,” said Ishad. “He tricked you. Now, you say he never lies.”

“That’s what he says,” spoke Mai. “But that’s impossible.”

“What’s the most outlandish thing you heard him say?” asked Ishad.

“When he was drunk once, he said he was over a thousand years old,” said Mai.

“He was drunk,” said Ishad. “That doesn’t count. What else?”

“I don’t know,” said Mai. “Nothing else really comes to mind. What are you getting at?”

Somewhere in the forest, an owl hooted.

“I think he was an agent of your House,” said Ishad. “I think that’s why he was so quick to swear for you, when you first met. I think he’s trying to stay true to his duties by protecting you.”

Mai thought for a moment. “You mean, you think he was a spy for House Tachen?” she asked.

“More likely an assassin, but essentially, yes,” said Ishad.

Mai thought about the idea. It seemed to fit with Broken. All except two things. “Then why did he have an ancient sword?” she asked. Another question leapt unbidden to her. And why did he say he was within his rights to kill me, so great was his secret?

“That does not seem to fit,” agreed Ishad. “But perhaps, it was just a special heirloom.”

“An heirloom from the family of a commoner?” asked Mai, incredulous.

“Probably not,” said Ishad, rethinking. “Maybe it was given to him by the dynasty as a reward for good service.”

That explanation seemed to fit better, but still, not quite as well as it could have. As for the statement she could not share with Ishad, Mai had come up with a sort of half idea. Maybe he said he was within his rights to kill me, because as an assassin, he could kill me to restore some honor to the Arathou Dynasty. For I should, by the laws of honor, be dead.

But her answer was contradictory with what Ishad had said. If he was protecting her to maintain his sense of duty to House Tachen, he could not also think himself within his rights to kill her.

Maybe he just really is that conflicted, Mai thought. With Broken, that seemed very much possible.

“Your idea makes a little sense,” said Mai. “But why are we talking of Broken? He is not here right now, and but a day ago we were reminded of our mortality, and we discovered that you are not as incapacitated as a certain healer would have liked us to believe. We should be talking of something else.”

“What should we be talking about?” asked Ishad.

“Something else.”

They kissed.

Broken returned a few hours later. It was only when he showed them food that Mai realized how hungry she was. She and Ishad ate ravenously.

When they were done, Mai asked, “What kind of transportation did you find?”

“I got the cart,” Broken responded, “along with Swift and Stride.”

“What about Aruith?” asked Mai.

“Aruith is at the Makini camp,” said Broken. “There was no time to get him back.”

For a moment, Mai thought she felt a twinge of pain behind those words. If she did, she understood it. Aruith and Broken had been connected by a strange sort of bond, and now, that bond was broken.

“Then let’s go,” said Ishad.

“In a moment,” said Broken, as the owl that had hooted once hooted again. In a brief flash, he turned his body to look at it, perched on a tree. He had known exactly where the bird’s call had come from. “Now we will go,” said Broken.

They did, and at the road on the side of the forest, the run-down carriage was waiting for them. Swift and Stride were hitched in, but the harness for the third horse, the primary, the one that was supposed to be the forward point of the triangle of horses, was empty.

Mai and Ishad got inside, and Broken began to drive. There was food stored inside the carriage, food and supplies a plenty. She had already eaten, but Mai reached for a piece of bread.

A thought came to her. “Ishad?” she asked. “After everything we’ve been through, after all the times Broken has saved us, do you think we should really still be alive?”

“Life is unfair,” said Ishad. “Unfairness works both ways.”