Mathieu (White Flame Trilogy) - By Paula Flumerfelt Page 0,14

smooth, flat stones. At the end of the road was a two-story black building standing imposingly against the beautifully carved wall. It took two of the men to wrench open the door and let them into the heavily air conditioned building. Mathieu looked around and realized that it was a clerical floor. A few people sat at wooden desks that we bolted to the floor. The workers looked grim, clicking away on their projector keyboards. He wished he had behaved well enough to not need to see this place.

One of the men bumped him, forcing him through a door to the right and down a set of stairs. The air was becoming still and stiflingly hot, making him cough. A weird smell was floating towards him, as well. At the bottom of the stairs was a moderate darkness, not quite pure, but dark enough to impair his vision. Mathieu reached out and ran his hand along the wall so he didn’t fall down.

“Log him and put him away. I don’t want to see that filth again.” The oldest man closed a door at the bottom of the stairs, shutting him down into the dark with the heat and stench. Only one man was left. In the minimal light cast by a lamp on the desk, he was able to read the name stitched onto the man’s shirt collar; “Michaels”.

“Where are we?” Mathieu queried. Looking around, details of the room were slowly becoming clear to him. There were little metal cells around the room, people chained to the walls within them. However, there were others doors recessed into the walls as well. A scream cut through the air.

Michaels, a clean cut, twenty-five-year-old man, looked at him with suspicion. “You’re in prison.” He said like Mathieu was stupid.

“…Bit unsanitary, isn’t it?” Mathieu asked, rubbing his nose against the smell he now realized was human decay.

The man stared silently at him.

“Just saying. So, what am I doing here?” He put his hands on his hips.

Reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Michaels sighed. “You were arrested for assaulting an officer of the King’s Court.”

“A who?” He tilted his head, confused. How was he supposed to know that people in black suits could land you in jail?

The man grabbed Mathieu by the shoulder and forced him to sit in a rather uncomfortable chair. “Do you know anything? Okay, so the enforcers of the law are all officers of the King’s Court. We’ve dedicated and sworn our lives to his cause and his rule.” Michaels said as he started to fill out some paperwork.

“That’s just stupid.” He sighed and pulled his braid over his shoulder, chewing on the end.

Michaels smirked. “I can’t believe McCorver was taken down by you. You might as well be a girl.” The man pulled Mathieu’s bag away from him.

“Hey! Give that back.”

“Or what, you’ll break my arm too?”

Standing and grabbing the strap of his bag, he glared at the other man. “Maybe I will. Give me back my damn bag.”

“No.” The man opened his bag and dug through it until he found the forged identification papers. “Here we go.” Skimming through them, he recorded Mathieu’s fake name, Mathieu Isaacs, and his information. Once done, he less-than-politely shoved the papers back in his bag and threw it onto the desk, out of Mathieu’s reach.

“Give it back.” Irritation was tingeing his voice and darkening it significantly.

Michaels gave him a dirty look. “You’re a prisoner of Ateri, you have no rights.” Grabbing his upper arm, the man dragged Mathieu towards a cell.

Not. Happening.

As they neared an open cell, Michaels’s grip loosened as he pushed Mathieu into it. Mathieu turned and punched him in the stomach. Unfortunately, the strike didn’t go over as well as planned. Michaels grabbed his wrist and bent it, dropping him to his knees. The next thing he saw was a boot as it flew at his face.

Instinct was the only thing that saved him. He dropped to the side, body half on the floor, half held up by Michaels. Wincing at the strain on his shoulder, he kicked the man square in the kneecap. Michaels screamed.

Heavy footfall alerted him that re-enforcements for the man had come. Mathieu really needed to stop beating people up when he couldn’t win.

It was the oldest man again. His collar read “Jaken”. “What’s the commotion about down here? Michaels?”

Michaels was on the floor next to him, panting and clutching his leg. This man had handled the pain of being hurt better than