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As they walk along the docks, he sees Jiron and the others in the crowd. He shakes his head to prevent any ill fated rescue attempt. There are simply too many guards around for it to have any chance of success. Especially with his magic inoperable.

He is then marched up the gangplank and then escorted by several of the Ambassador’s guards to the hold where his manacles are secured to the wall by a chain. Over in one corner, ten children sit in a cage looking scared.

Once they are done with him, the guards leave the hold, leaving him there alone with the kids.

He sits there in the gloom of the hold, only a very small amount of light filtering down through the hatch from above. It isn’t long before he begins to feel the unmistakable motion of the ship moving out to sea.

One of the girls, a small child, is staring at him with her face pressed against the bars of the cage. He gives her a reassuring smile. She smiles back at him. “Are you Miko’s friend?” she asks.

He couldn’t have been more stunned than if she started singing the Star Spangled Banner. “What?” he asks.

“Are you Miko’s friend?” she repeats. One of the older girls in the cage with her perks up at that and joins her next to the bars.

“Yes,” he replies. “I know Miko.”

“He’s a nice man,” she says.

“I’ve always thought so,” he says. How in the world does she know him? And how could she possibly have connected him to me?

“We were helping to keep an eye on the Ambassador’s camp for him,” the older girl explains. “We got a little too close and they grabbed us.” After a brief pause, she asks, “What are they going to do with us?”

“Nothing if I can help it,” he says. “Miko and the others with him know where we are and where we are going. They’ll not sit back and do nothing.”

“I hope not,” the little one says. “I miss my sister.”

“My name is James by the way,” he tells her.

The older girl says, “I’m Gwynne and this here is Daria.”

“That’s me,” the younger girl explains to him.

“Nice to meet both of you,” he says. “I just wish it wasn’t here.”

Just then the hatch opens and James looks up to see the man who visited him in the dungeon. The man gazes down at him for a brief moment before stepping aside to allow the Ambassador to step onto the stairs leading down into the hold of the ship.

After the Ambassador has gone down a few steps, the man follows as does three guards, one of which has a crossbow.

The girls move away from the bars of their cage as the men come down the stairs. When they reach the bottom, they come directly to James and stop several feet away. Far enough to keep him from reaching them should he make the attempt.

“So this is the mage which has caused so much turmoil in the Empire?” questions the Ambassador. The guards flank him while the crossbowman keeps his crossbow aimed directly at James’ chest.

“Yes milord,” the other man says.

The Ambassador gives James a thorough once over before saying, “He doesn’t look like much.”

“Right now his ability to use his power has been blocked,” the man tells him. “If he had his power I assure you your opinion would be different.”

“Indeed,” the Ambassador says, unconvinced.

After a few moments of silence while the Ambassador contemplates James, the other man says, “We should return to the deck milord. The air down here is most foul for your lordship.”

Glancing to the other man, the Ambassador nods his head and says, “Perhaps you’re right.” Turning back to the stairs leading to the deck above, he moves away from James and the guards follow. As they ascend the stairs, the other man glances back to James just before exiting through the hatch.

When the hatch closes, the hold is once more plunged into darkness.

An hour or so later, he’s not sure exactly as time down in the hold is hard to measure, the hatch again opens and the three guards who accompanied the Ambassador earlier enter and come down the stairs.

They approach James and in the hand of one is a small vial. When the man holding the vial stops near, he holds it out to him and commands, “Here, drink this.”

Not