by Guy Antibes
Jack wasn’t sure how that would turn out. They were farms everywhere around them. He was about to ask Helen, but Penny spoke up.
“How will we know where they are?”
Helen scanned the land ahead while she spoke. “Do you think two men taking a protesting woman will ask for lodging or protection at a farm? Look for abandoned structures. That is what I am doing. If you see something likely, point it out to me.”
Jack figured Helen would find prospective hiding places more thoroughly than either of them, but he guessed she wanted them to be involved as they continued on. He did as Helen said and just as the sun was setting, he spotted a rough lane leading to a broken-down barn standing next to a burnt out house.
“There!” Jack said, pointing to the barn. “Let’s see if there are horse tracks.”
Helen nodded. “We think alike.”
They took the lane and spotted hoof prints. Helen stopped them. “If we can see them, they can see us. Let’s proceed on foot.” She led them to a stand of trees to secure their horses.
Penny grunted as they trudged on the muddy ground. Helen kept them out of sight as they went from clumps of trees to clumps of bushes in line of sight of the barn. They reached a point where they could see the back of the barn. Three horses were tied up out of sight from the road.
Helen was about to leave their vantage point to get closer when someone exited the barn to hobble the horses. She jumped back and urged Jack and Penny to crouch down. The man looked around before relieving himself against the wall of the barn. Penny groaned and looked away.
“Did you recognize him?” Helen said.
The wizard’s apprentice made a disagreeable face. “The short one with the black beard.” She shivered. “Disgusting.”
Helen chuckled. “That’s something you do every day, sweetie.”
“Not outside.”
Helen put her hand on Penny’s shoulder. “It tells us they don’t suspect our presence, so I’m rather glad we got to witness what we did.”
Jack grinned. Helen was right about the kidnappers not expecting them. She took the lead. They bunched up at the door and she nodded to Jack to kick it in, but then held up her hand.
The trio began to talk. Myra joined in the conversation. It was obvious she was one of them. They talked about what to eat for dinner and if they needed to summon other crooks to help them.
Myra rejected the idea. “We must be halfway to Passoran by now.” Jack could hear Myra say. “It is too far from Bartonsee to expect timely help.”
A man’s voice said. “Robbing our way to Virora won’t be as lucrative as heading back to Bartonsee.”
“I’ve told you before, Fasher Tempest wants Grishel’s Feather. I’m sure he will pay a great deal for it. Money is no object for him. I have to get to Ullori monastery to get it. You can come with me or without me. It’s up to you,” Myra said.
Jack had heard enough, but Helen held up her hand before putting a finger to her lips.
“We can leave now,” one of the men said, “and come up behind the mercenary and the wizards and grab their stuff.”
Myra laughed. “Now, that is a foolish suggestion. Did you forget the boy? The three of us aren’t a match for him. No. We will spend the night and leave in the morning. If you want to rob them, do it at the hot springs. If Helen stops there, she won’t want to leave the same day. I won’t mind seeing what the hot springs are all about, myself.”
That was enough. Helen led them away. “We have a few choices. We can kill them while they sleep tonight and not have to worry about them, or we skip the hot springs and let them soak while we head toward Virora to find out where the Ullori monastery is.”
“Or?” Penny asked.
“We can go to the hot springs and fight them there.”
“That is an easy decision,” Jack said. “We ride to Virora.” He saw the protest forming on Penny’s face. “We can stop by the hot springs on the way back.”
Helen raised her eyebrows as she turned to Penny. “Would that be acceptable?”
“What trick are you trying to pull?” Penny said to Jack.
“No trick. I’d rather have them behind us than have Myra and her friends lying in wait ahead.” Jack gave them a curt nod and folded his arms. He hoped he was firm enough. If they still wanted to go to the hot springs, Jack was about ready to tell them to enjoy it. He’d be riding on without them.
“I agree with Jack. We got the real information we wanted out of Myra. Her names are probably fictitious. We can’t go looking for people who don’t exist. Directions to the Ullori monastery is probably why Fasher had us contact the woman.”
Penny looked like she swallowed a spider. “Fine.” She shook her finger at Jack. “If I don’t eventually get to the hot springs, you’ll pay for it.”
Jack figured he already was, so he nodded. “Let’s get back on the road to the next village,” he said. “We can get a few hours sleep and continue on to Passoran.”
“It is hard to travel with a person that you are uncertain about. I wanted to trust her! I hate being betrayed.” Penny said at the beginning of a long rant against the Passoranian wizardess.
Chapter Eight
~
“I t is three hours to the north? We thought it was only an hour from here,” Penny asked at the crossroads to the hot springs.
The roadside merchant nodded her head. “Most people go for a day and stay two or three. All the maps are wrong. I think the people who own the springs have done that on purpose. You aren’t the first to ask. Most folks just continue north.”
Penny looked pleadingly at Helen but ignored Jack.
“We can go another time,” Helen said. “There are sick people we are traveling for.”
“I understand. I’m thinking a bit selfishly, aren’t I?” Penny sighed and finally lifted her eye to Jack. “You get your way.”
“Myra is behind us, and Virora and unfinished business are ahead of us,” Jack said. He laughed inside. Who would have imagined that he would be the responsible one on this errand? He sighed to himself. Jack should have wanted to pull a lot of pranks on this trip, but he couldn’t generate the desire. “Aren’t you excited to travel to a foreign country?”
Penny nodded. “You are right, as much as I hate to say it. Lead on.”
They bought cups of fruit juice. Jack used his blue bracer to put a layer of ice that floated on top of the drink.
“A wizard, eh?” the vendor said. “I’d pay you well to stand there all day during the summer and do that.” She leaned over to look at the island of ice. “Can you do that for me?”
Jack obliged.
The woman sipped her own cup and sighed. “How refreshing! We can do something similar when it snows further up in the mountains, but when the weather does that, it’s too cold for a drink like this!”
They gave the cups back to the vendor. Penny crunched the remainder of the ice in her mouth, making Jack wince. If he had to endure the crackling all day long, he would go mad, but she actually looked a bit happy when they took the road into the mountains.
The road was wide, and there were switchbacks to keep the road from being too steep. Jack was surprised by the traffic, but then both countries treated this mountain road as a crossroads of sorts. Travelers funneled through the low pass from the north, the central part of Corand and the south where Raker Falls and Underville were. He imagined it was the same in Passoran.
Corandian guards threaded their way through the travelers until they reached the summit. Twin forts stood facing each other over a bridge made of foot-thick planks spanning a fifty-pace chasm.
The guard from Corand let them pass, but the Passoranian guard, decked out in a colorful uniform said, “You are now in Passoran. What is your business?”
“We are on a medical mission,” Helen said. “The master of these two is ill, and the remedy is something in Passoran.”
“You are too heavily armed to be healers.”
“I am not!” Penny
blurted out. “We’ve been assaulted on our way here. A Passoranian wizardess and her two henchmen are after us.”
“What’s this?” a senior guard, by the look of his uniform, said. “Do you have descriptions?”
Helen sighed. “We do.”
They spent the next half hour telling a tailored version of their Myra Pulini story. Jack related most of it to the guards, but eventually, they were let on their way.
“I knew we would be delayed,” Helen said. “We shouldn’t have said anything.” She looked pointedly at Penny.
“If we are delayed, think of what might happen to Myra when she enters her home country again,” Jack said, with a lopsided grin. “I can only hope they carry contraband in their saddlebags.”
“Jack!” Penny said. She looked shocked.
Helen cocked her head and then nodded. “You are right, onion boy. Let’s get going. The sooner we get to Virora, the sooner we will find the feather.”
~
Jack jammed his eyes tight to keep the sunlight from driving into his brain. He clutched the sheets and then sat up in the lumpy cot some might call a bed. Time to wash up, eat a quick breakfast, and then ride half a day to the city of Virora.
He yawned and looked around for his breeches. Jack blinked more sleep from his eyes and shook his head. Someone had cleaned out his room, including his weapons, his clothes, and all his objects of power. Even the boots that bore four gold crowns in the heels were gone.
He sat back in his underclothes and shook his head. His Lajian sword and matching knife were gone. He could only hope his armor and bracers were still under the care of the stable boys. Jack wrapped a sheet around his waist and padded down to the common room.
“I’ve been robbed,” he said to the innkeeper. “Everything I own was stripped out of my room.”
“The wizardess wasn’t your mother?” the innkeeper said, his eyes growing wide. “She said you were a trickster and she was playing a joke on you.”
Jack described Myra and her two henchmen.
The innkeeper nodded. “That’s them. I let them into your room after they described you perfectly. They wanted into your companions’ room, but the door was stuck.”
Jack wondered how they could have found them. He sighed. “Do you have any spare clothes? Did they take our horses?”
“I don’t think so,” the innkeeper said. “I have a big basket full of castoffs. You can find something to wear in there.” The man shook his head in dismay. “I will give you enough money to buy a new set of clothes. We have a good clothing shop in the village.”
Jack nodded. “Where is the basket?”
A few moments later, Jack returned to the common room wearing stale, smelly clothing and boots that were a bit too large. Penny and Helen were sitting at a table.
“What happened to you?” Helen asked.
“Myra happened. She stole all my objects of power last night.”
Helen nodded. “They might have tried to get in our room, but I jammed our only chair underneath the latch like I always do, and that kept them out. All your weapons are gone?”
Jack couldn’t feel worse. Even the names of Myra’s contacts were gone. He hoped Penny still had them memorized. He walked out to the stables and found that Myra had only taken her horse. The stable boys told Jack they wouldn’t let them take anything else.
If Jack had any coins, he would have rewarded them. He now had armor, but no weapons. The bracers were right where Jack had protected them. At least he had a little bit of luck since they were the only objects that he didn’t know how to duplicate.
Helen found him repacking his saddlebags. “They didn’t make it this far?”
“Not for lack of trying. The stable boys aren’t as feckless as the innkeeper. You’ll have to teach me what you did in your room.”
Helen laughed, but her expression turned into a sympathetic one. “It is so easy. I’m surprised Tanner didn’t teach you. You just tip a chair underneath the latch and jam it in.”
Jack just shook his head. “We can be on our way. The innkeeper said he’d pay for a set of new clothes.”
“And we can replace the rest in Virora. You will have to spend some time doing your wizard stuff to your weapons,” Helen said.
“If we can find Myra…”
Helen shook her head. “We don’t have time for that. At least they didn’t say farewell by cutting your throat. They could have done that, you know.”
Jack’s hand went to his neck. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Keep it in mind. I am always happy that my head is still attached each morning when I wake up,” Helen said.
Penny had a good laugh at Jack’s new outfit. Passoranian clothes were remarkably different from the more conservative Corandian styles. They were looser and more colorful. Jack chose the most conservative shirt, light coat, and breeches he could find. Luckily, he wore his socks to bed, or he’d be wearing red or blue socks. Penny called the styles flouncy. Jack didn’t quite know what flouncy was, but he now had an idea of what it meant.
The day was too hot to wear his cuirass over his new outfit, but his black bracers kept the loose sleeves in check. Virora finally appeared nestled within the confines of a lazy river in a wide valley. The city had a gate that led across a branch of the river to the other side.
After crossing a stone causeway spanning one hundred paces of the river, they entered a city that had as many canals as it had streets and lanes. Boats scuttled back and forth underneath the arched bridges. The city looked old, but like a painted lady, the colors of Passoran shone brightly on the ancient stone and brick walls.
They rode past a cathedral to Grishel. A massive hawk-like statue stood in the main square looking outward from the steps leading up to a church with round towers topped with tall conical spires.
“We will have to make that our first stop once we find an inn,” Helen said.
Jack agreed. They rode through the square and found a lane of inns. They had two fronts, one on the road and the other on the canal that ran behind them.
Helen stopped a few pedestrians and asked them for a referral to a reasonable traveler’s inn. They ended up at the Turtle’s Shell. The place had a clean stable and a presentable, but not opulent common room.
Jack didn’t have anything other than a saddlebag carrying his cast-off clothes and waited a bit downstairs for the two women to join him for a stroll back to the cathedral. He sat down and realized he was dressed much like the rest of the clientele, who didn’t give him a second glance. He even saw a man wearing a sword with red bracers covering his wrists like his.
Helen and Penny looked absolutely dour compared to the rest. They hadn’t broken out the Passoran accessories they bought in Bartonsee.
“Time for a little worship?” Jack asked.
Helen smiled, but Penny frowned. “What do you mean?”
“We are going to visit the cathedral to ask about the Ullori monastery. Should we go to a butcher shop instead?” Jack asked.
“No.” Penny swept from the room and stood outside, waiting for them.
“The trip would be more pleasant if you didn’t tease her. She is very sensitive when it comes to you,” Helen said.
“It happens when you have to work with your killer,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I can’t help it sometimes. I’ll try to do better.”
Helen only grunted and took Penny’s arm to get her going. Jack walked a few paces behind them. His attention swerved on their stroll to shop windows. They passed an armorer’s shop with swords in the window. Jack would visit that place on the way back. He would rely on the town market to get more clothes and other personal items. He scratched his new beard and would have to buy a shaving knife as well.
Myra had gotten a little revenge and some very valuable objects of power, although Jack wondered how many of his objects she could use. Jack could still invoke the spells, but they would quickly sap him of power that he would have to accumulate on his own.
Th
ey reached the square. It seemed that more people were heading toward the cathedral and when they walked up to the steps, they entered among other citizens of Virora going to a church service.
As they funneled into the church, Jack realized that it had six sides with a circular tower anchoring each point of the hexagon. A statue of Grishel, represented by a man with a bird’s head and wings, stood in the middle of the church on a ten-foot high plinth with a railing circling an echo of the hexagon shape of the outside walls.
Jack looked up at leaded windows cut into the roof, letting lacy light stream down illuminating the interior. The buzz of the crowd stopped as five priests entered from a door to one of the towers. They wore purple clothes in the loose Passoranian style, but draped over their shoulders were white cloaks with feathered borders. Each one had a feathered headdress with feathers dyed different colors. There were three male priests and two female priests.
The Grishelian priests took a curving stairway up to the walkway at the top of the plinth. Jack guessed each one stood between the points of the hexagon. They chanted in unison:
O, Great Grishel,
Bless us with your beneficence.
Keep Passoran free of the stain of sin.
Allow us, your adherents, to pray to your goodness and for your guidance.
Let us fly to your bosom when we have passed through this life.
We are yours forever,
Amen
Change the adjectives around, and an Alderachean priest could have uttered the prayer, Jack guessed. He had never been to an Eldoran service, but he expected the same. He snorted. The next time Eldora visited him, he’d have to ask her.
Through some kind of magic, one of the priests’ words filled the entire cathedral as he delivered a sermon about living a moral life that would make Grishel proud. Jack had lived a moral life, mostly, from what he heard. Myra Pulini hadn’t. Was that why she left Passoran? But didn’t she say she would attempt to be readmitted to the priesthood?
Jack wondered if she had spoken for their benefit, knowing Jack, Helen, and Penny were lurking outside or if she was serious? That would be another question if they could get an audience with one of the priests. The sermon had stopped, and the priests descended from the hexagonal pulpit and began to mingle with the crowds.
