The temple erupted into flames with a deafening sound. Egalo's vision slowly returned to him. His ears were ringing. He was inches from falling from the second floor of the shredded temple down to the ground. He vision was blurry but managed to make out a heavily armed group of men downstairs. The only light that illuminated the night sky was the bright orange light resulting from the burning temple.

He faded back out, coming to when the next thing he knew he was being carried over the shoulders of someone that was unmistakably a hunchback. He was soon carried downstairs and his carrier was sprinting with him over his back, following five others out the back door. Egalo noticed there were at least five back doors, so he was not certain there really even was a back door. He spied the red cloak from when he had first arrived from out of his peripheral. He must have been hit hard from the explosion because he could not move his legs when he tried. His head was pounding. He faded out of consciousness.

When he awoke, he was slung horizontally across the back of a steed. He tried to sit up, but his feet and hands were both bound. He glanced in front of him and counted four larger horses in front of him. One was behind him, and Egalo snuck a quick glance at him only to be met with a hostile glare from two dark, cold eyes.

The air was crisp, and the grass underfoot was slick with dew. They traversed a path that meandered through a thickly wooded area. The path was wide enough to fit nearly four horsebacks riders' side by side. Brown leaves littered the ground. The trees still clung hold to most of its colored leaves. The horses smelled of dung and the forest on either side of them gave off smells of earth. Egalo stared straight ahead at the sky above, which appeared to be a dark blue hue as the sun began its slow ascent.

He could hear low murmuring up ahead of him. Where are we headed? His heart suddenly raced; he shouldn't be here. This was a misunderstanding; he was meant to be on his way to becoming a Magi Knight by now. Maybe this was a dream. His hopes were quickly dashed when the wind sent the red cloak of the rider in front of him flying out from the back end of his horse. He looked beyond and made out the hunchback that he'd seen before blacking out from the explosion. He remembered those small beady eyes.

What on earth had happened at that temple? He remembered back to less than a week's time when he was sitting upon that rigid wooden chair of his that his father had made him, reading through old scrolls of tales from generations past. The smell of his mother's burnt rabid stew that they had seemed to have every other day would now have been a more than welcome smell. He tried with all his might to imagine that when he opened his eyes, he would see the tall, swaying grasses of home. His father hauling wood and logs in from the thickly wooded poplar trees by their home.

Instead, he opened his eyes and saw the green grasses of the path underfoot. This foreign path that he had no clue where it led, and no idea who his captives were that carried him upon it. He did not make so much as a sound though, for he did not want the hunchback, nor the red cloak man to see that he was awake. He remembered the beady yellow eyes and shivered.

He remembered his father's words when he was younger as he would sword fight with his father for fun. "If you fear that the wood will hit your fingers, then your fears will come true. The sword knows it, it can sense the fear in you." Egalo considered his options, but it lasted about a second before realizing he really only had one option. Bide his time, there was no escaping whatever this was—for now. He was bound and on horseback with no idea where he was headed.

It hit him suddenly some time later. He remembered that just as he was heading off for the Magi Temple, his mother had stuffed something in his small pocket of his cloak. His fingers just couldn't quite reach up to the pocket due to the bindings. He swayed his hip slightly to try to knock the item from the open pocket. Nothing fell out. He tried again, this time his heart jumped as he almost threw his own body off of the steed.

Yet, now he could see the small handle. It was a mini knife. "It's not much, but who knows, maybe you'll need it," mother had said as she handed off a small pocket-sized knife kept as a gift from her own father some time back. The tiny wooden handle was visibly hanging out of the woolen cloak pocket. He shook his torso but this time it all went wrong. The knife flung out much quicker than he was ready for and it flew down to the ground where the steed's back hove stepped on it in just the right way, rearing back and driving Egalo from its back and onto the hard ground. His body jolted as his back slammed against the packed dirt. Yet again, consciousness faded away from his control.

He awoke to the wind swaying his loosely, tattered robes from his body. He felt his hands and legs pinned back to a totem. The long, wooden pole was rooted into the ground upon a cliff overlooking a desert landscape as far as the eye could see. Above him was more orange cliff and rock. He was stationed at the opening of a cave that was just one of the many that scaled to his left and right. Out below him, men worked with minimal rags for clothes underneath the baking sun.

Suddenly the breeze that had awoken him had seemed long gone and the dry heat consumed all moisture from his body. Twisting violently, he tested the strength of the bondage holding him to no avail. Where even am I? His mind had not even processed the insanity of the last day. Had it only been a day? Where is the red-cloak man?

As if his thoughts had been read, footsteps were approaching from behind him from inside the cavernous opening. He came around front so that he was at eye level with Egalo. "I gave you a chance to leave, but now you're one of us. It's up to you how long you'll wait for us to break you. And believe me, we will break you." Egalo was too tired to react, instead he just stared mindlessly back at the red-cloak man.

"What do even say? Your name...don't know." Egalo hung his head, his neck was getting tired.

"They call me Randor. You are lucky I am a decent man. Strangers never ask an Eldzeki his name." He scrunched his face to show his displeasure at the request.

Egalo tried to tuck that away for future reference but he feared his mind was in no shape to remember anything.

"By the way," Randor continued, "resist this and you'll be lower than the slaves down there."

And with that, Randor walked briskly back inside the cave mouth, his red cloak flapping behind like a cape.

Egalo looked out over the cliff and saw the backs of thousands of men digging away with clubs and pikes. Chains kept each one to a boulder. Egalo wondered if anyone had been able to pull the boulder all the way to freedom. Before his thoughts could wonder any longer his body went limp again and his mind drifted off to sleep.