The Battlebone

by Guy Antibes

  Jack easily complied. He pulled out his Masukaian knife and punched a hole in the first target and hit the second behind it. “I have access to a little more power than Grigar. I make up in strength what Grigar has with his finesse.”

  “You can use mind speech?” Can you? Torii asked in Jack’s mind.

  I’m not as adept as Grigar, I am sure, but he and I have communicated often enough, and I talk regularly to my mentor in Raker Falls, Jack replied.

  “You have tools that only you can use?”

  Jack nodded. “I do.” He lifted up his hands, showing his cuffs. “Red for water and blue for ice.”

  Torii nodded. “Your friends have told me stories.” The man looked at Jack with disdain. He obviously didn’t believe what he had heard. Jack didn’t know what he had heard, so he smiled and didn’t respond with the flippant comment that sprung to his mind.

  “Let us see how you’ve progressed with your swordsmanship.”

  The Deep Mist graduate removed his robe and drew his sword. His glare didn’t encourage Jack, but the man couldn’t be much better than his sword instructor.

  “My sword is the weakest weapon at my disposal,” Jack admitted.

  “We will observe the evidence of that. Okiku and Grigar are both healers should one be needed.”

  Jack pressed his lips together. It was to be a bloody test. He had suffered through them before in Deep Mist often enough.

  He drew his own sword and touched the void before the match began. His opponent didn’t waste any time in his attack. Jack wasn’t quite prepared for the unconventional opening, but the void slowed the man’s horizontal move enough for Jack to evade a gut spilling slice that no healer could repair.

  The move actually encouraged Jack. This man wasn’t as fast as his instructor, and Jack was able to successfully spar with the Deep Mist graduate using his speed to offset the man’s superior technique.

  Jack began to tap the man with the blunt edge of his blade with regularity until Torii called the match. Jack’s taps would still leave bruises.

  The Deep Mist graduate bowed deeply to Jack. “If that is the weakest of your weapons, your ranking is wrong, it should be higher.”

  “Bloody Hell!” Tanner said. “Where did you pick up that speed? You are still the sloppy swordsman I’ve always known but unworldly fast!”

  “I was using the wrong visualization. I’ll talk to you about it later,” Jack said.

  “Stars?” Torii said, pointing to a table with a stack of them. His expression no longer held disdain.

  “Tell me where you want them delivered and how fast,” Jack said matter-of-factly.

  “Three targets, five points: head; knee; heart; throat; shoulder in succession.”

  Jack looked at the targets as fifteen stars were placed on a stand. “I don’t know if I’ll remember the sequence properly, but we will see how I do.” He repeated: head, knee, throat, hand in his mind. No! Jack had forgotten the sequence. He would do head, throat, heart, hand, and groin instead and hope that was good enough.

  He took a quick breath, touched the void, and then concentrated on the sequence and moving fast through his quickened state and applied a touch of magic force to each throw.

  When he finished, the room was silent. “I’m sorry. I forgot the order,” Jack said.

  “Are all the stars halfway into the targets?” Torii Ishoru asked the Deep Mist person.

  “Every one.”

  “Where do you get the strength?” Torii said.

  “I am a wizard-warrior. A touch of magic speeds the stars up. I spent a year doing all this, after all,” Jack said. He heard Grigar and Tanner chuckling behind him.

  Torii shook his head. “An eleven, at the least. Your wizard friend and you will accompany me to my chambers, and we will talk.”

  Jack wanted to talk to Tanner and Helen, but he and Grigar were ushered out of the training room first. They were back in the leader’s audience room, but a few more attendees were present this time.

  “You are anxious to find the Battlebone?” Torii asked.

  “I am. I didn’t expect to spend so much time in Masukai to get it.”

  The leader shrugged and reminded them for the umpteenth time, “You wouldn’t have lasted a week in my country if Kiro Ganshi hadn’t taken you in.” Torii made a cutting gesture with his hand. “The past is the past. Let us look to the future. There have been developments since you two left for Deep Mist. The empire is slipping out of the emperor’s grasp.”

  Jack could sense another stall in his quest for the Battlebone. “And you want our help?”

  “I think we will need your help, in particular, to succeed. Since your training was truncated in Deep Mist, there are a few advanced wizard-warrior techniques that you will have to learn.”

  Okiku looked at them both. “A week of training, probably, and then a mission. This will not be a contrived test, but there is a book we must examine. It is in the library of one of the sect leaders outside of Yomomai.”

  “We are to retrieve it?” Grigar asked.

  “In a mansion outside the capital,” Okiku said. “Retrieve it and return it. To do that, you will have to learn a few secret techniques of the Pearl Mist. Are you up to it?”

  It wasn’t the first time Jack wondered if the Pearl Mist leadership was playing with them. What if the four of them…no, the five of them, left to find the Battlebone on their own? Jack was tempted, but what if they needed the techniques that Okiku could teach them? He had already learned more spells while in Masukai than he had on all his other errands.

  Jack sighed. “We are, aren’t we, Grigar?”

  The older wizard nodded. “Let us learn the new spells and then let’s get this over with. It is past time for us to fulfill our errand.”

  Torii Ishoru pursed his lips. “I understand, but we are facing an emerging crisis, and that needs your attention first. You have unique training that you need to repay. I assure you, we will help you recover the Battlebone shortly after the capital is settled down.”

  Jack wasn’t happy, but he tried not to show it. The Pearl Mist had tolerated them all this time. Tanner and Helen became a family in Yomomai, and Jack was sure they had used Masukaian healers. He didn’t like being obligated, but the tradition of obligation was part of Masukaian culture, so he really didn’t have a choice.

  “When do we start?”

  “At dawn tomorrow in the training room where you were tested today.”

  Torii Ishoru stood up and told them to get some rest. The two of them left the meeting before the others and headed to their own quarters.

  Tanner stood up when Grigar and Jack entered.

  “Are we ready to leave?” Tanner asked.

  Jack shook his head. “I would guess two or more missions for us. The Pearl Mist is going to teach Grigar and me some more magic spells we missed during our training in the south. Torii told us of political issues in Yomomai. It looks like we are back to a situation like Gameton.”

  “Not the same,” Tanner said. “We aren’t protecting a ruler, and you aren’t playing footsie with a god. There are power plays in every capital, Jack. If they think we can help them, then that is a good thing. Now, what about the visualization?”

  Jack didn’t like what Tanner had said, but he didn’t see an alternative. “I didn’t realize it, but the meditation technique is a fifth-level manipulation. The visualization that you use has an effect on the power of the spell.”

  “It is like using a trigger word that works, but not as well as another,” Grigar said. “I wasn’t trained in the technique, not being trusted to wield a sword, I guess, but Jack figured it out.”

  “So Helen can do a Fifth Level spell?” Tanner said. The shock was clear in his voice.

  Jack nodded. “Under Masukaian magic theory, there aren’t manipulations.”

  “I knew that,” Tanner said, “but I thought magic worked the same.”

  Grigar put up his hand to stop Tanner from saying anything else. “It d
oes work the same, but the theory we have created to explain magic isn’t quite correct.”

  Tanner rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know if Helen will be pleased, but we will have to work on it while you both are doing your mission.”

  “Will Jackie have an effect on your ability to fight?” Grigar asked.

  Jack thought it was a rude question, but Tanner didn’t seem to think so.

  “Of course she will, especially Helen. I think this might be her last errand for Fasher. We will have to find something else that gives her time with Jackie. We’ve talked about it enough. A baby changes the parents’ lives, you know.”

  “I see that as a good thing,” Grigar said. “You do what you need to.” The wizard yawned. “I’m headed to bed. We have to rise at dawn to learn more spells.” He left, leaving Jack and Tanner alone.

  “Are you okay with more delays?” Jack asked.

  Tanner shrugged. “Helen and I are enthralled by our little girl. That would have never happened in Corand. If being stuck in a hostile, foreign country for two years was what it took for us to have Jackie, it is more than worth it. You don’t need to worry about that. We haven’t retired, Jack. In fact, learning the Masukaian philosophy and techniques of fighting, I’d say we are better prepared to defend ourselves once we return to a more normal culture.”

  Jack was surprised by the answer. He had thought Tanner would provide him with an opportunity to commiserate, but his conversation had taken an unexpected turn.

  “I have to get back,” Tanner said. “It’s my turn to get up with Jackie, unless she is hungry, of course.”

  Jack smiled. “Of course. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ~

  W hen Grigar yawned, Jack couldn’t suppress one of his own. They looked across at Okiku, who looked even more tired than them, and a bright-eyed woman about Helen’s age wearing the pearl-white robe of a graduate wizard of Deep Mist.

  “I brought Misika, my assistant, to demonstrate the new techniques I will teach you,” Okiku said.

  The door to the training room opened, and four men carried parts of a wooden floor that they laid over the tile floor.

  “Walk on this,” Misika said to Grigar.

  The older wizard stepped gingerly onto the slats of the wooden floor. Jack noticed the creaking. It was as if the floor sang.

  “This is called a nightingale floor. It announces the presence of an intruder in a mansion. These are expensive and are installed in sensitive areas in a Masukaian noble’s mansion.”

  “What good does it do if it is an assassin?” Grigar asked. “If someone is in my room, it is too late to do something.”

  “Is it?” Okiku said. “Can you fire a wizard bolt from bed?”

  “Well I can,” Grigar admitted.

  “We all can,” Misika said. “A Masukaian warrior keeps a sword or a long knife by his bed. It would be enough time to put up a defense. An intruder doesn’t want anyone to know she or he is in the room.”

  Jack wasn’t so sure about that, but he kept his mouth shut since Grigar was voicing Jack’s own opinions.

  “Did we need a demonstration?” Grigar asked.

  “You haven’t had the demonstration yet,” Okiku said. She turned to Misika and nodded.

  The woman drew in a breath and held it. Jack recognized it as her own version of touching the void. She stepped on the floor, but her feet didn’t quite touch the floor as she moved around in silence.

  “Ah.” Grigar smiled. “Applied levitation. That is an interesting use of that spell.”

  “You think you understand how to do it so easily?” Misika said. “It isn’t levitation, at all.

  “It isn’t. Aren’t you levitating a few inches above the floor?” Grigar said.

  Jack had done some levitating in his time, but he always found that teleporting was easier. “Why wouldn’t levitation be the key to the spell?” he asked.

  Misika gave him a smile. “Levitating will get you in the air, but that doesn’t solve the problem of moving along. Teleporting will allow you to move, but where you teleport to will place you directly on the floor, or so we have found.”

  Her comment made the spell’s concept a lot more complicated in Jack’s mind. He looked forward to learning how to do it on his own.

  “The spell is more like laying a cushion of air on the soles of your feet. The cushion has just enough traction on the bottom to allow one to walk, but not so heavy as to make the floors squeak. The visualization is a difficult one.”

  It didn’t seem so difficult to Jack, but then he hadn’t tried it yet.

  “If the visualization is difficult, then tell us a more specific visualization. What kind of texture is the traction on the cushion? I can see three layers, the adhesion of the cushion on the foot or shoe, the pillow itself and the layer of texture,” Grigar said. “Please, I’m an old man and need a bit more help here.”

  Okiku snorted. “You want us to give the spell to you?”

  Jack raised his eyebrows. The woman irritated him, playing games at this point. “Isn’t that what you are here for?” he said. “If I’m going to put my life on the line for the Pearl Mist—I agree with Grigar—I’d rather deal in specifics.”

  “Feeling your ranking, young man?” Okiku said.

  Jack guessed that was a Masukaian term for not honoring your elder enough. “Then I guess I’ll have to work it out on my own.”

  Jack keyed in on Grigar’s description and visualized a pillow that lifted him up without applying pressure. As he thought of it, levitation kept returning to his mind, so he went with it. He spoke a trigger word as well, “Glide.” He suddenly was two inches higher.

  After stepping onto the floor, Jack took a few silent steps, but then slipped. The pillow was too slippery, he thought, as he crashed onto the wooden strips. He looked at Grigar and grinned.

  “Two out of three isn’t so bad,” Jack said. “I didn’t get the grippy stuff to work.”

  Okiku put a hand to her chin. “Better than I expected. We will work for the rest of the morning. You used a Corandian trigger word, and that isn’t acceptable. If anyone hears you speak, they will suspect a foreigner.”

  Glide didn’t work right anyway, Jack thought.

  “That gets us back to what visualization Misika uses, doesn’t it?” Grigar said.

  Misika pursed her lips. “I think of an air slipper. I am walking on glass with a slipper.

  “Slippers need to have a little grip,” Jack said, grinning. “I can try that. Walking on glass is also good because you can’t press hard on the glass.” Not that Jack had seen many glass windows in Masukai. Most windows were covered with paper of various kinds, and Jack thought that might be a better visualization, walking on stretched-out paper.

  Grigar had made better progress than Jack as they continued to work on the spell. Jack’s visualization still wasn’t working right. The air slipper on glass wasn’t light enough to keep the occasional creak from sounding off, and the air slipper on paper was nearly as slippery as the “Glide” trigger word.

  “I’m going to try something else,” Jack said, frustrated that he couldn’t get it right and Grigar was close to success.

  He thought of tiny teleportations, but he maintained the image of air slippers to keep from touching down on the floor. He didn’t know if it would work, but so far, he had failed time and again. He visualized a nightingale floor stretching across Eldora’s glade, and then Jack moved in tiny increments across the training floor in a series of teleportation jumps.

  Jack opened his eyes and created the visualization ten times. “I’ll try it again,” Jack said.

  He stood in front of the floor and made the visualization, instantly feeling the increase in height. He opened his eyes and began the tiny series of jumps as he moved from one side to the other of the floor and then from one corner to the other. The air slippers worked this time without a problem. He tried a step, but he could feel his feet shift a little
and went back to the teleportation method.

  “Come to face me,” Okiku said.

  Jack was now confident enough that he made a jump across the floor. “I can do it my way. I think coming up with Misika’s method just doesn’t work for me. Maybe it is my inexperience.” Jack knew that it was. “I’m good at this. The trick was visualizing teleporting with the air slippers.”

  “I didn’t expect innovation coming from you,” Okiku said. “But the mission is more important than you two using the same technique.”

  Okiku and Misika worked with Grigar for another hour until he performed as well as Jack.

  “We need to learn another technique?” Grigar asked.

  “How good are you both at memorization?” Okiku asked.

  Jack shook his head. “Magic doesn’t even help me there,” he said.

  “I’m a bit better than him, but not by a lot,” Grigar said.

  Jack thought Grigar was much better than Jack, but then neither of them were as good as Penny Ephram.

  “I suspected as much. There is a friend of yours that will join the group, but she won’t enter the mansion,” Okiku said. She nodded to Misika, who returned in a bit with Namori Ganshi, the girl whose father had taken them in and who, it turned out, had left Yomomai and returned while Jack and Grigar trained at Deep Mist.

  “I’ve heard wonderful things about you,” Namori said to Jack as she walked in.

  “I wish I could say the same,” Jack said. He put his hand over his face. “That might not have come out the way I meant it. I haven’t been here long enough to know how much progress you’ve made since you arrived in Yomomai.”

  Namori smiled. “That is better explained than how I heard it.”

  “You are the memory person?”

  Namori nodded. “It has become a specialty.”

  “We will test her tomorrow. You may have the rest of the day to yourselves. This afternoon we will put together a controlled simulation and then if that is successful, we will go to a Pearl Mist supporter’s mansion for a trial under similar circumstances. You might want to get re-acquainted with Namori over a midday meal.”