He woke up on a soft bed, quite comfortable. A thin blanket had been placed over him, and his head rested on a thick pillow. There was some light in the room, coming from a lantern placed nearby. It cast a cozy, flickering light on the stone walls around him. It wasn’t bad, he thought. Then his memory kicked in, and he shot to his feet.

“Calm down, now,” a voice said. “The poison is still in your system, and your body will not work properly.”

He spun around in surprise, and promptly tripped on one of the legs of the bed and fell. With a sigh, the owner of the voice got off the chair he’d been occupying, set down the book he’d been holding, and walked slowly towards him. Eric scrambled back instinctively, his hand reaching to draw a sword that wasn’t there. The man stopped in his tracks, a concerned and slightly irritated look on his face.

“Really now,” he said with a sigh of exasperation. “If I wanted to hurt you, I could have stabbed you while you slept. Let me help you up.”

Eric paid his words no mind and continued to push himself clear. Once he felt sure he was at a safe distance, he struggled back to his feet and raised his fists, ready for a fight. The man noticed the posture, and let out another sigh. He seemed genuinely disappointed that the cordial conversation was failing. Eric blinked hard, shaking his head in an attempt to clear the fog that was claiming his mind.

“For crying out loud,” the man said. “You’re in no condition to fight, Outworlder. Sit down.”

Eric blinked again, this time in confusion. Had this man just called him Outworlder? It was the word listed for his race in the character sheet, but there was no way he could possibly know about that. He hesitated momentarily, and the man seized the chance. He was inside Eric’s reach at once, easily blocking the clumsy punch he threw. He grabbed Eric by the shoulder, spun him around, and pushed him back down onto the soft bed.

“That’s better,” he said. “Please stay down.”

Eric complied, but less out of respect and more out of concern for his own safety if he refused. The casual ease with which the man had grappled and thrown him down was frightening. It had seemed to take no effort at all. Eric might not have been a coward, but he also wasn’t stupid. He could tell at once that he stood no chance against this warrior, even if he’d been in perfect condition and fully armed. So instead of trying to rise again, he studied his captor’s features.

He was tall, and broad in the shoulders. He wore a well-fitted tunic that showed massive shoulder and back muscles, leading into strong arms and legs. He was clearly a warrior, and an expert one at that. He was dark-skinned, with odd tattoos inscribed on his face and arms in shining white ink. His eyes, strangely, weren’t brown, but a bright, calculating green.

“Who are you?” Eric asked. “And where is the man that attacked me?”

The warrior, seeming glad that he’d stopped fighting, answered him with a satisfied sigh. “I am Rajlen Taro. The man you speak of is Rajlen Korin, my brother.”

“Your brother,” Eric replied, staring pointedly at the warrior. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of doubt. “Right.”

Surprisingly, his response seemed to amuse Taro. He gave a quiet chuckle. “We are not brothers in blood, it is true. We’ve spilled enough of it over the years, however, so he is as close to a brother as I’ve ever had. We are brothers in battle, even if not in life.”

“That’s why you both have the same name,” Eric commented. “Rajlen.”

“That is our family’s name,” Taro replied. “Where I am from, the family name comes first. We have kept tradition for many years, ever since the first Rajlen.”

“You’re a family? A family of killers?”

“I prefer to be known as a warrior,” Taro said, frowning slightly. “But yes, we are a family. Our, er, father, Rajlen Matthias, adopted and trained us. We do what he asks us to.”

“Including abducting me.”

“Indeed. I do not know why he is concerned with an Outsider, but I follow his orders. I do apologize for the way that Korin took you. Apparently, he caused quite a scene, and frightened that girlfriend of yours.”

Eric flushed slightly. “Emma’s not my girlfriend.”

Taro grinned. “Uncomfortable subject, I see. Don’t worry, she is unharmed. We have great respect for her and her father’s work.”

“Why am I here?” Eric asked bluntly. “Right, you don’t know. How do you know that I’m an outworlder, then?”

Taro shrugged. “Father knows things, though I can’t understand how. You look like any other person I’ve ever seen. A bit more potential, but nothing out of the ordinary.”

In spite of himself, Eric felt his spine straighten a little with pride. The expert warrior giving him a compliment was a minor thing in the current situation. He shook himself angrily, forcing his mind to focus on his current predicament. His captor might be polite and unthreatening, but no amount of cordial words could change the fact that he was a prisoner.

“Are you going to release me?” He asked. “Or did you go through the trouble of capturing and imprisoning me only to kill me now?”

Taro shrugged again. “That’s for Father to decide when he arrives. It shouldn’t be long now.”

As if on cue, the door to the stone room opened, and two figures made their way in. The man in the lead was the crossbow user, the same man who had poisoned and abducted him. Just behind him was an older man, with long silver hair that swept down to his shoulders. Both were pale, and bore similar tatoos to Taro. The old man clutched a long wooden staff with a gem set into the top, and seemed to be grumbling in pain.

“I’m getting too old for stairs,” he said, just loud enough for Eric to hear. “Ah. Eric Breeden. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Is it?” Eric asked coldly, getting to his feet. “I don’t know how it works where you’re from, but kidnapping people isn’t a good way to introduce yourself.”

Korin grinned lazily at the comment, leaning against a wall by the door. The crossbow he’d used to shoot Eric was slung on his waist now, much like the other one, but that did nothing to assuage Eric’s anxiety. He willfully ignored Korin, forcing himself to focus only on the old man, whom he presumed to be Rajlen Matthias.

“Why am I here?” He asked forcefully. “Why did you send your lackey to attack me?”

“I needed to be sure you weren’t some kind of threat,” Matthias said at once. “Please, be seated, so that we may talk.”

In spite of his roiling anger and growing fear, Eric did as he was asked. Taro dragged over another chair for Matthias, and the older man sat with a grateful sigh, facing Eric and only a few feet away. If Eric wanted, he could reach out and strike him before the old man reacted. Or perhaps not, he thought. Even if he didn’t stop Eric, Taro was sure to. He’d already proven himself to be faster than his bulky frame suggested.

“How do you know that I’m not an Ahyan?” Eric asked. “I’ve been careful to keep that a secret.”

“Arcana told me,” Matthias said, as if the answer was obvious. “I assume you know who that is by now.”

Eric nodded. “God of Knowledge.”

“Quite so. Well, Korin was eating and drinking good food when he first saw you, and he thought something about you seemed… off. After you rescued his daughter, I looked into you. I prayed to Arcana, and he told me of your true origin.”

“So that was real then,” Eric commented, turning to stare darkly at Korin. “That really was your daughter. Why didn’t you go after her yourself if you’re so capable?”

“Under the laws of Issho-Ni, our family cannot be declared innocents,” Matthias explained. “As a result, killing those who took little Mari would have resulted in their anger being brought upon us. We needed a way to rescue her without notice, but I would not give Korin or Taro leave to run after her. But he saw you, and you performed what he could not.”

“Some thanks,” Eric said sourly. “I save your daughter from slavery, and you attack me?”

Finally, Korin did respond, offering him a slight shrug. “It was how Father requested I grab you. It had nothing to do with the debt between us.”

Eric snorted but didn’t challenge the response. It had finally sunk in that they didn’t intend to kill him, and he let out a quiet sigh. For the moment, at least, he was safe. As Taro had so eloquently put it, he could have died several times by now, if they’d been so inclined. He took a deep breath to focus his thoughts, and turned back to Matthias.

“So why are you concerned about me?” He asked. “I’m clearly no threat, as I couldn’t stand a chance against either of your sons.”

“At the moment,” Matthias said. “But I’ve made the mistake of ignoring a weak enemy before, only to have them rise up and strike me down before. I will not make that mistake again. And so, we will talk.”

The old man gave a brief wave of his hand through the air, and a small wooden table appeared out of nowhere. It held a large plate of food and a steaming mug of what looked like Mandra’s strawberry tea. He gave a little gesture for Eric to eat his fill, which, after a moment’s hesitation, he did.

“I don’t want to know anything about your world,” Matthias continued. “That information is, for the moment, useless, unless it has something to do with the reason that you are here.”

“The reason that I’m here,” Eric echoed, making it a statement rather than a question. “Why do you care about my reason for being here?”

“Well, Ahya is a great world,” Matthias said. “But we’ve had a few folks from outside our world before. They do a great deal of damage when they go off the hinge. Ahya tends to corrupt the minds of outworlders if they are not careful.”

“The strange thing,” he continued. “Is that you are very different from many of the outworlders that I have witnessed. For one, you have an Ahyan body. You did not come here with your own body. How did you achieve this?”

Eric opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated. Truth be told, he didn’t actually know the specifics of how he came here. He knew that Samuel had summoned him and crafted the body for him, but apart from that, he was as lost as Matthias claimed to be. He’d rather explain the situations to his captors’ satisfaction and put this all behind him, but he needed to make his answer sound convincing.

“I-.”

Before he could begin his answer, the sound of a knock interrupted him. All four of them, the Rajlens and Eric, turned towards the door. Even their reactions said that they weren’t expecting anyone else. Frowning, Matthias made a quick gesture to Korrin, who came off the wall and walked softly to the door. Unlatching one of the crossbows from his waist, he leveled it at chest height.

“Enter,” he said in a calm, level voice. “Door’s unlocked.”

“Only when you lower that crossbow, Rajlen Korin.”

Korin flinched in surprise, as did Eric, for a very different reason. He recognized the voice, muffled against the door as it was. Somehow, Samuel Bragg was outside.