by Guy Antibes
“I am putting money on a bond for my group,” Whit said, “with Prime Minister Carlia.”
“Travel in the highest circles, eh?” the pixie bank lord said. “Make sure you read the bond carefully so it is clear you will only forfeit the amount of actual loss.”
Whit nodded. “I intended to do that. There are other conditions I’ll be looking for?”
The bank lord and Whit discussed possible pitfalls common in pixie bond contracts. “Then I will provide you with a bank draft that Ornetta will accept.”
“You know her?”
“Nobles run in the same circles, young man. You don’t know Perisia, but it is much different than Ayce. Everyone is close.”
“And Piesson Nistia?”
“Pin is less close than many, but I’ve met him on many occasions before he chose to run to Festor.”
The bank draft was prepared and after a lot of employees grumbling having to work so hard at the end of the day, the documents were produced, and Whit signed more forms than he had expected including signing a letter explaining the withdrawal to be sent to the Bank of Ayce.
The bank lord walked Whit to the door with a large key in his hand. “We are about closed,” he said smiling. “I suggest you let us hold the paperwork overnight, and you can pick it up on your way to the Ornetta’s offices tomorrow.”
“Good idea,” Whit said handing all the papers over to the bank lord.
The man took most of them and gave a few that weren’t directly related to the bonds to Whit who felt better about everything as he walked out onto the street.
~
Despite the best assurances of the bank lord, Whit had a hard time sleeping, knowing how much money would be tied up with people he didn’t trust. It didn’t take much of an imagination to picture the prime minister seizing the funds and not paying them back.
Deechie had called him a fool, but that would have happened no matter what the outcome. Pin was still stunned by Whit’s gesture, but the pixie thought it was the kind of act that might dislodge a block in their pursuit of the Perisian parts. Yetti called him a fool, too, but there was no mistaking the awe in her voice.
The darkness lay on him like a blanket, and when he was about to go to sleep, something pricked his mind into sharpness. He knew someone had entered the room. Whit stood up ready to throw a water spell as he created a magic light.
A small woman dressed in black stood with her hands on her hips looking directly at him.
“You passed that test,” she said.
“Test?” Whit asked.
“You’ve been looking for me, and I was seeing if you were worth the trouble.”
“Ritta Misennia.” Whit said.
“Not elf-stupid, anyway,” she said.
Whit blinked. He’d never heard the term before, especially from a pixie, a member of the flightiest race on Fortia.
“Perhaps not,” Whit said. “I have been tasked to meet you.”
“And who tasked you?”
“Canis Bache, a member of the Aycean bureaucracy.”
Ritta nodded. “Then your task is done.” She made a move to leave, but Whit stopped her by grabbing her wrist.
“Aren’t you taking a chance putting your hand on a pixie woman in the middle of a pixie country?”
Whit shook his head. “I heard you are a rebel,” Whit said. “What are you rebelling against? It seems there are at least three factions in Garri and likely more.”
“More, but there are three principal influences in Perisia’s affairs.”
“The king, loyalists? Ornetta leads another, the bureaucracy and perhaps the nobles are allied under the interior minister, and then there is the Magician’s Circle.”
“Close enough. We are against them all,” Ritta said. “Even being pixies, Perisia is mismanaged to the detriment of us all. You traveled on the main road from Festor. Wasn’t it a smooth, pleasant ride?”
“For parts of it,” Whit said.
Ritta laughed. “All three factions long ago supported ripping up the road and the old capital to build Garri. The situation hasn’t gotten better in all that time.”
“You have a lot of mismanagement to cure, then,” Whit said.
“It can’t start until the barriers to progress are lifted.”
“And the barriers are standing firm for the status quo?” Whit asked.
“They are.”
Whit didn’t think that would ever change in any country under any circumstances.
“I have no reason to get involved in pixish affairs,” Whit said. “All I want to do is find artifacts that make up an ancient magical device. I’ll even return them to Perisia when I’m done.”
“Only borrow Perisian heritage, then? I don’t know what old magic you are talking about, but you don’t sound malicious like your advisor,” Ritta said.
“You’ve met Deechie?”
“Not as Ritta Misennia, but yes. His motivations aren’t as direct as yours, I’ll say.”
“That is a nice way of putting it,” Whit said.
She smiled. “It is, isn’t it. I’ll give these back to you.” She reached in her clothes and pulled out Whit’s bond receipts. She wouldn’t have been able to do anything with them, but it proved that the young woman wasn’t a typical pixie female, according to Whit’s experience. “You might want to meet this person,” she pulled out a slip of paper and wrote the name “Jonny Evia, Cornno’s Pub” and laid it on top of the papers. “Don’t take the pixie woman with you, should you choose to go. We will meet again. Perhaps the opportunity will arise where we can help each other.”
Whit didn’t know how he would be able to help a rebel, not when he had eight hundred guineas at risk. He looked down at his papers, and by the time he lifted his head, the woman was gone.
Whit sat on his bed and wondered if the meeting had been a dream. He shuffled through the papers and found a note that hadn’t been there before to join the slip of paper with the name Ritta had given him.
“Whit Varian. Room Seven, eight hundred guineas.”
Whit wasn’t a handwriting expert, but that wasn’t the same script as what the pixie intruder wrote. Ritta wasn’t alone in her rebellion, and her tentacles reached far enough to know where he was and how much he had withdrawn from the bank. He was sure Ritta knew a lot more than that.
Chapter Ten
~
W hit ate breakfast earlier than anyone else in the group, still anxious to get back to the prime minister’s offices to hand in the bond money, when Yetti plopped down next to him.
“You had a visitor last night?” she asked.
“I did. I haven’t told anyone yet. Did you have the same visitor?”
Yetti nodded. “If the burglar was a she.”
“Ritta Misennia?” Whit asked.
“If that is her real name. She had a partner who used mind-magic on me. That is definitely not acceptable pixie magic in Coria or in Ayce.” Yetti looked very angry. “I can’t trust a woman like that!”
“Can she trust you?” Whit asked.
“Of course not, but I wouldn’t force myself into her mind. She made me tell her all about your meeting with the prime minister.” She produced a pixish grunt. “Hateful female!”
“Who was her partner?” Whit asked.
Yetti shrugged. “He had to be a powerful pixie magician to get into my mind.”
“Could they have used something like that on me without me knowing it?” Whit asked.
“Maybe Torius Pott would know, but I don’t. I was aware the whole time. If I wanted to keep my mouth shut, the spell didn’t let me. I was a blabbermouth. Canis would be furious, but not as much as I am now.”
Whit was surprised by the comment. “He doesn’t know about the mind-magic?”
“I seriously doubt it,” Yetti said.
Whit wasn’t as sure as Yetti. “When we met, Ritta gave me a name and a place. Does Jonny Evia mean anything to you?”
Yetti shook her head. “I’m not from Perisi
a, remember?” She growled and put both hands on her head. “I feel so violated!”
The mind-magic was a real intrusion that affected Yetti more than Whit imagined it would affect him. He wondered if it had anything to do with the “prime pixie” concept that Pin had talked to him about. “Can you learn a defense?” Whit asked.
“I could go on a retreat for magical rehabilitation. They might have something that I don’t know. I need some help, I’m afraid.” Yetti said, looking miserable.
“There is such a thing in Perisia?” Whit asked.
Yetti nodded, looking more miserable. “It is a pixie thing. There are two kinds of retreats, one for your soul and another for your magic. Pixie magic can wear out.”
Whit had never heard about that. He wished Torius Pott was around to ask.
“Since we have contacted Ritta Misennia and Pin can guide us around Perisia, can you find a retreat? How long do you go?”
“You’ll let me go?”
“I’m not willing to pay for it, but we are all bonded by the government, or will be by midday.”
Yetti looked relieved. “No cost. There are tasks that the patients perform that compensate the treatment center for the two weeks I’ll be out of touch.”
“Then go. I’m sure we will be in Perisia for at least a few weeks,” Whit said.
“Thank you!” Yetti said as she ran back upstairs.
The break-ins were disconcerting, but Whit had no idea that Yetti’s reaction would be so extreme. He knew he didn’t have the ability to help her other than to let her leave the team. Their excursion in Perisia was nothing like Whit had anticipated, and he hoped he had the courage and stamina to stay with it.
“You look disturbed,” Zarl said, sitting down at the table. The chair creaked as the ogre joined Whit. “I would be, too, giving up eight hundred guineas not knowing if I’ll be able to get them back.”
Whit tried to smile and hoped it looked like he did. “That is one of my problems, the easiest one for me to handle. A burglar invaded my room and Yetti’s. Yetti was deeply disturbed by the experience and has asked to go to a pixie retreat of some kind to condition her magic or something. Have you heard of anything like that?”
“We don’t call them retreats, but magic clinics. People can get burned out or get afraid of their own power. It is a combination of rest for the mind, the body, and an ogre’s power source. Most folk have had to attend something like that. I haven’t, thank the Great All.”
There were magic healers in Whistle Vale, but Whit never remembered his parents needing one. Maybe they served a similar function. There was so much he didn’t know about living a normal life. He’d have to keep his eyes open and ask his friends lots of questions, but that was for later.
He tapped the portfolio with the money transfer documents. “Do you want to come with me to the prime minister’s office?”
Zarl raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Not me! I might break their furniture and hit my head on top of their doorjambs. I appreciate your asking me, though.”
Pin walked through the door. “Are you ready?” the pixie asked Whit.
Whit told him about the burglaries and what the male pixie did to Yetti.
“No wonder she is upset. Pixies have been killed for playing with mind-magic without the subject’s permission. It is a very bad thing that happened to her,” Pin said.
“She is going to a retreat to recondition her magic.”
Pin chuckled. “That is an interesting way to put it, but as accurate as a more polite way of her leaving. I wouldn’t stop her.”
“I didn’t intend to. I’m not familiar with the concept,” Whit said.
“You lived a very sheltered life, then,” Pin said.
“That’s what I think,” Zarl said. “This expedition will cure him of that.”
Pin nodded. “I agree,” he said. “Let’s get going so you can leave Garri and do some proper poking around. I’ve not quite done enough damage in the capital, so I’ll stay behind. If we leave now, we can get the bonds taken care of before Ornetta shows up.”
The pair left the inn and walked to the prime minister’s offices in the palace complex. Just as Pin had guessed the prime minister wouldn’t be in until midmorning, but the functionaries that issued bonds had arrived. It took more than an hour, but the bonds were issued with Whit taking two copies of travel authorizations for his group in exchange for an eight hundred guinea letter of credit. The state would take two percent of the bonds as a processing fee, something that wasn’t mentioned the previous day.
Whit caught Yetti before she left.
“You’ve found a retreat to take you already?” Pin asked her. “I know of a few nice ones.”
“I’m not looking for nice,” Yetti said, looking sorrowful. “Whit told you what they did to me?”
Pin nodded. “I wouldn’t have expected it of Ritta Misennia, from what I’ve heard, but perhaps the group she works with demanded verification of the truth. I wish you well. I’ve taken advantage of a retreat once in my life, and it helped me.”
“Thank you.”
Whit gave her a copy of her travel authorization. “Don’t lose it,” he said.
“And you don’t get into trouble.” Yetti smiled. “I already know that we have to tread carefully in Perisia. Right, uncle?”
“Right.”
Whit carried the single bag she had packed downstairs.
“Here is the key to my room. If you leave the inn permanently, don’t forget my other things,” Yetti said with a sniff. Her eyes were watering. “Thank you for allowing me to leave the team.”
“Losing you for two weeks is nothing if you will be able to join us for the rest of our expedition,” Whit said.
Yetti looked relieved. “That means a lot to me,” she said as Whit hailed a hired carriage and watched her disappear in the traffic.
“She can get to a retreat on her own?” Whit asked.
“They have their own transportation out of Garri. Most retreats are in the countryside. Did she tell you where she went?”
Whit shrugged. “I don’t know. Let’s go to her room.”
Pin picked up a note left by the pixie woman. “For you.”
After taking the note out of the envelope, he read it to Pin. “I will be at Forest Falls Retreat Center near Lilypond, Yetti,” Whit said.
“Then let’s hope Forest Falls is the place she needs,” Pin said. “Now you have your permissions, don’t you think it’s time to get everyone together to see what our next step will be?”
~
Deechie slouched in his chair as Whit explained to the team that Yetti had decided to take advantage of a Perisian retreat. Disappointment filled the small meeting room at the inn.
“The good news is that we have permission to freely move about Perisia,” Whit said. “I propose that we—”
Two uniformed men stepped into the room without knocking. “Piesson Nistia?”
Pin raised his hand. “That would be me,” he said.
“The minister of the interior will be here with two aides for dinner tonight at your expense to discuss your intended activities within Perisia.” The speaker put a card on the table and left with his companion as abruptly as he arrived.
Whit handed the document to Pin.
“Lullan Gastian will honor us with his presence at seven o’clock.” Pin looked around the room. “There is room enough for three more. Let’s see if we can have our dinner in here.”
“Why should we meet with him when we’ve already gotten permission?” Fistian said, folding his arms.
“Because Lulu, my nickname for the interior minister, is from the other of the two strongest factions,” Pin said. “I think we should accept his invitation, if that is what you choose to call it.” He slapped the card on the table. “At our expense! What a popinjay! That pair is part of his Interior police force. The constabularies are locally run, but Lulu’s police cover the entire country.”
“What would he want with
us?” Argien asked.
Pin shook his head. “He can’t stand to let Ornetta make a decision that will overrule his. I suggest we listen to what he has to say. If we can manage to mollify him, we will have a smoother time of it.”
“His men won’t hound us?” Gambol asked.
“Precisely.” Pin quickly glanced at Deechie. “It will also give us an advantage over the magic college team. We can be out in the field while they are duplicating what we’ve had to do.”
Deechie couldn’t resist grunting at the comment. The human had stayed quiet during the entire meeting.
“You have something to add?” Whit asked.
“All the permissions are a waste of time,” Deechie said. “If we find something valuable, the authorities will seize whatever it is. You saw how mean those goons were. We made a mistake coming into the city, and I suggest we move on to a different country. I am the advisor, you know.”
“An advisor that always gives the wrong advice,” Gambol said. “I propose we do just the opposite of what Deechie just suggested. By a show of hands?”
Everyone but Deechie raised their arms.
“Outvoted,” Pin said. “I don’t suggest telling Lulu anything different from what we told Ornetta.”
“I agree. They can always compare notes,” Gambol said, “and we don’t need to get in the middle of two of the three most powerful people in Perisia.”
“Any more than we have already,” Whit added.
~
Lullan Gastian strutted into the small dining room followed by his two lackeys, a man and a woman. The pixie trio were dressed in bright colors, and Pin had surprised Whit by wearing the same kind of colorful clothing as the minister and his aides.
“I’ll tell the staff we are ready,” Argien said, leaving them for a moment.
“You may sit at the head of the table,” Pin said, showing the interior minister to his seat.
“Introductions?” Lullan asked Pin.
After everyone was introduced, Argien returned with two servers bearing mugs of ale.
