by Guy Antibes
Quest of the Wizardess
by Guy Antibes
Table of Contents
Map of the World of Gleanere
Chapter One
A Family Tragedy
~
Bellia sat on the edge of the porch, dangling her bare feet over the fifty feet that separated their house from the sandy ground below. She gazed out at the vast almond-colored dunes spread out far to the distant north. She pictured them as tan waves flowing out towards the sea. She could barely make out the ocean splitting the dunes from the sky with a hazy darker blue line. The heat of summer had given way to the cooler nights of autumn.
“Bellia, you know I don’t like you sitting on the edge. Get in here.” Her father stood behind the shimmer of the air curtain with one hand on his hip and another clutching one of his many scrolls. When her father pulled his reading spectacles down to talk to her, Bellia knew it was time to obey.
“Is Mom going to village shops today?” she said as she slipped through the curtain, moving from the dry air of the desert into the enchanted coolness of the House.
“I am. Perhaps you would like to come along?” her mother said with a crooked smile. She walked out of the kitchen with her supply bag over one shoulder tying her long blonde hair into a ponytail.
Even though Bellia was fourteen, she always liked getting away from the House and going to a village where she could play among trees and bushes and walk on real dirt. The life of a family of wizardly hermits living in a house that floated high above a desert floor didn’t appeal to her like it did to her father and two older brothers. She ran to get her shoes.
Her father rubbed his hand through short-cropped dark hair and looked disapprovingly at her with his piercing dark eyes. He thrust a paper into her hands. “This is the spell to get you back here, should you be separated from your mother.”
“I’ve got it memorized, Father,” Bellia said with a touch of backtalk. She knew her father still thought of her as a ten year old, yet she was nearly as tall as her two much older brothers. But Bellia had all of the spells memorized back then, too. All of the positions of the twelve villages her mother shopped--always at random were firmly committed in her memory as well as the way back.
She took the paper anyway and thrust it into the pocket of her vest.
“Ready?” Jilla said. Bellia grabbed her mother’s upper arm.
“Bye, Dad. See you in a few hours.” Her father had already turned, heading back to his study his head already bent down reading his scroll. Bellia thought, not for the first time, that if it wasn’t for her mother, she was certain she was born into the wrong family, but she had her mother’s light blue eyes and sandy hair.
She watched her two brothers head to her father’s study. Bellia wondered what magic they would have to learn today. Her father didn’t include her in his intense sessions. Most of her magical training came from her mother.
Jilla shook two dice on the table in their great room and examined the results. “Greenwell, it is. Good, I have something to pick up from the local blacksmith.” She made four gestures with her hands, punching the magic code into the air.
~
“Oh no,” her mother said as they materialized outside the village of Greenwell, 70 leagues southwest of the House.
Bellia looked down at the puddle of mud. Their shoes were covered. She looked up into the cold gray skies that somehow never dropped rain in the desert. Feeling sprinkles on her face, Bellia smiled. Reveling in the feel of the rain was somehow a way to get back at her father for plopping their house in the middle of a desert.
She took in the smells of fertile land and looked over at a nearby farm, watching the farmer drive his horse cart into a large blue barn.
“When do I need to be back?” Bellia asked her mother, as she pulled a thin oilcloth cloak from her bag. She couldn’t wipe the grin off of her face.
“Two hours ought to do it. I’m going to have some lunch at Kell’s Inn.” Her mother sighed with pleasure. “I can’t wait to eat someone else’s cooking. If you want to join me, I’ll be there in about an hour and a half.”
Bellia wouldn’t need to eat lunch. She had her heart set on stuffing as many fresh apples as she could steal from an orchard not too far away. She looked at the trees; leaves were just beginning to turn colors. She waved to her mother as she happily sloshed through the mud. It felt wonderful.
When she reached the orchard, the trees were just about picked clean. Bellia frowned in disappointment and put clenched fists on her hips. The only apples left, lay on the ground, food for animals and worms. She picked up a large one and threw it at a tree, enjoying the pulpy mess it made of itself.
The trees still held an attraction for the growing girl. She climbed a large tree that still might offer a few apples at the top. She worked her way up as far as she could until she heard a crack just below her feet and then felt herself falling through the branches.
“Oooo,” she said as she landed on her tailbone. The fall had robbed her breath. She just lay there feeling the pain course from her bottom to her back. She fought for breath that wouldn’t come.
Finally, she gasped and began heaving for air. It was then she realized she sat on a pile of rotten apples. She rolled over and tried to get up. Her wrist blazed with pain. In falling down, Bellia must have stuck out her hand.
Using the tree as support, she made her way to a standing position and began to shuffle towards the village. As she hobbled, she realized she smelled like a walking cider jug. When she could finally focus on something other than the pain, she dreaded meeting up with her mother.
Time seemed to stall. Each step hurt her bottom and brought another pulse of pain in her wrist. But Bellia didn’t have a choice. Slippery mud sometimes forced Bellia to take little steps. She thought she must look ridiculous inching her way along the muddy road towards Greenwell.
Smoke from kitchens and fireplaces in the village came into view above the treetops. Soon she made it to the town and dreaded the inevitable dressing down she’d receive from her mother. She kept to the back alleys of the village. Bellia did not want to be seen.
The smell of burning metal and coal suddenly assaulted her nose. She grimaced and hoped that her mother might still be at the blacksmith’s.
“Blacksmith Pock, has my mother been here?” Bellia sat down slowly on a worn down stump. She quickly got up again. The pain sucked the breath from her. She had to lean against the stone fence that outlined Pock’s smithy.
Pock was tall and seemed too thin to be a smith, but Bellia had seen the bald headed man in action. He had a gift for working metal that even a young girl could appreciate. Her mother came to Pock whenever metalwork needed to be purchased.
“Ah, lass. You just missed her. I do believe she’s gone to Kell’s for a bite to eat. I’ll be there presently with her order.” Pock looked down at the heavy dark iron platter he’d been working on. “I’m to bring this to her in a half hour or so. If you want a bite, you hurry along.”
Bellia nodded and tried not to hobble too much. The rain had stopped, so she struggled to get her arms out of the oilcloth cloak and continued to shuffle to Kell’s. It wasn’t far.
She found herself near the rear of the inn. Perhaps the back door would prove to be the best way into the place. She didn’t want to walk all the way around to the front. She settled down ten or fifteen paces leaning back on a split rail fence, not letting it touch her bottom.
The door flew open and she saw her mother in the clutches of five men. She struggled with the assailants and swung her supply sack at them. Two held her hands tight, so she couldn’t create a spell. Fear clutched at the muscles of her aching back bringing a cramp. Her voice didn’t seem to work, either. Bellia
wanted to help her mother, but with her broken wrist, she couldn’t punch out any magical codes. All she could do was watch in horror.
One man slapped her mother full in the face. Bellia yearned to run up and fight for her mother, but fear had frozen her body and no amount of effort could unlock her muscles and joints.
“You don’t have to beat her,” one of the men said. The man looked desperate. He nodded at the others and looked away as they started to slap and punch at her mother’s body. “We just want to get into the prince’s house.”
“Take us to your husband,” said another.
“I will, I will. Please don’t beat me.” Her glance caught Bellia. She could see her purse her lips, give her head a short shake and then turned her mournful gaze away. The signal was clear. Stay away.
They all grabbed one another as Bellia’s mother cried out. “Don’t go to the House!” She made the signs of return. “Leave—” The men and her mother vanished.
It was all too much for Bellia. The pain in her backside, the pain in her wrist and the shock of seeing her mother assaulted when she could do nothing to save her. She tried to make the signs of return, but her wrist wouldn’t allow more than two gestures of the four-punch magical code. Her father told her time and time again, mistakes punching out the two-handed magical codes could be fatal.
The shock of her situation and the visions of those men made her mind fuzzy. Bellia sensed her thoughts beginning to swirl into darkness.
~
“You’ve awakened! I’ll run and tell Uncle,” a girl about Bellia’s age said as she popped up from a chair at the side of the bed and ran out of the room.
Putting her right hand to her head, Bellia had found one of her arms encased in a plaster cast. She rubbed her eyes with her other fist and blinked. The room was small and plastered white. A high square window above her head welcomed in a little square of sunlight that brightened up the room. Its size reminded her that glass was an expensive commodity to commoners.
She figured that it must be morning. Her body felt stiff and as she moved and the dull ache at the bottom of her spine stopped her.
Bellia’s first thought was to get home, but the cast went out over her fingers. She’d have to cut the cast down. Her determination to find her mother prompted her to inch her way into a sitting position.
“I wouldn’t do that for a day or two, lass,” Pock said as he entered the room. “The wife’s away at her sister’s for a few days in another village, so I took you to the local healer. Hella and I…”
Bellia never thought that Pock’s small intelligent eyes, big nose and an expressive mouth would turn out to be an anchor in this sea of disaster.
“I found you out the back of Kell’s when I went to deliver the plate Someone said your mother’s been taken by a band of cutthroats. The sheriff’s men scoured the countryside all afternoon and he took a few more of the village men out searching this morning—nothing.” Pock shook his head and gently pushed Bellia back down on the bed.
“My mother,” Bellia choked up. “They took my mother.”
“Do you have any idea where they went?” The blacksmith leaned closer to Bellia.
“To the House. We live in the desert. My father’s a wizard, my Mom is too, along with the rest of us.”
The blacksmith looked at Bellia’s hand. “I sort of knew that. Your mother has a special look about her.” Pock looked at Bellia’s hand. “You can’t do a spell, now can you?”
Bellia shook her head. “Not with this cast on.” She lifted up her arm. “I’ve got to go back to the House. Mother took them all there and now—“ She raised her cast. “I can’t get back. Not until this is off.” She clamped her lips tight. It wouldn’t do to show any tears in front of Pock, but she seemed to be losing that fight.
“I’ll get you something to eat. Won’t be fancy, mind you. Told you we can’t cook here with Nillie gone.” Pock left the room.
He returned with a tray of cut up fruit and a cup of milk. “This’ll put something in your stomach.” Pock sat down next to Bellia. “You look like you’re a smart lass. I can clip the cast back a bit. Perhaps if the swelling’s down enough you might be able to make the magical gestures you wizards make and get back to them. We don’t see many of your kind in Greenwell anymore since King Rollack took a dislike to magical things.” He left Bellia alone again.
Bellia knew. The closest villages to the House were all on the other side of the mountains from the desert. Her father often reminded her not to practice magic when out with her mother. That was okay with Bellia since she didn’t really have the urge to use magic all that much. His father and brothers loved it. They spent all day in the library and in father’s workshop cataloging codes and whatever else real wizards did. Bellia had learned a lot more than her father thought, but when she showed something to her father, he merely shrugged or nodded or grunted, never acknowledging her talent.
She had easily grown bored from all of the wizard tutoring her mother gave her. Her mother often told her that she was at least as strong as her two brothers, but without her father’s approval it didn’t matter.
Bellia thought of her family and felt her stomach twist. She was a wizard too, but she didn’t do much more than clean the house and maintain the air curtain and cooling spells. Her mother would often cook without magic.
She wailed, hoping that a good cry would make her feel better. What happened to her family? She had to get back.
Pock returned with some snips. “Made these myself for cutting the sheet metal I get it from those new metal works in Worthyton. They have these big ceramic pots for melting metal, then pour it into sheets and run it through rollers. It’s all new to me. Buying the sheets makes it easier to make armor. I didn’t make that grilling plate out of plate steel. Forged it with my own hands, I did.” Pock took a better look at Bellia. “My, my, lass. You’ve been crying your eyes out.”
The pain of her predicament pulsed through her at the mention of the grilling plate. She had to pull herself together. Bellia clamped her eyes tight to keep the tears from falling as she thrust out her plastered arm, feeling a twinge of pain.
“Just enough to move your fingers?” Pock said.
Bellia just nodded as the blacksmith carefully cut through the plaster and the cloth. She wiggled her fingers and felt some pain, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop her.
“I can take it from here.” Bellia rose from the bed. Her tailbone ached, but Pock must have given her some medicine for the pain. It wasn’t as bad as when she fainted at Kell’s.
“If you want me to leave…” Pock rose from sitting on the bed.
“No. It doesn’t matter how close you are, if you’re not touching.” Bellia said. She wiggled her fingers. She could make the right gestures.
“If you need any help in the future, just let me know.” Pock slapped his meaty hand on Bellia’s shoulder. The girl winced as the blow sent a shock of pain down her back. “Sorry. Remember, I’ll be here if you need help.”
Bellia slowly punched the air with her fingers in the code positions.
~
A fly flew into her face, as she materialized in the House. Normally there were no flies allowed to pass the air curtain. Her mother’s supply sack lay at her feet, with the contents spilled out on the tiles. The sight turned Bellia cold. She walked deeper into the house and by the fireplace four piles of cinders sat on burned carpet.
“Hello? Mom? Dad?” she said as she eyed the ominous black piles. The flies continued to buzz in the room. Her tailbone ached as she squatted. She knew her family lay in ashes at her feet. The realization seemed to punch her in the stomach. She just stared at them.
Bellia knew from her magic schooling, that the way to thoroughly eliminate a wizard was burning. A wizard’s corpse could be resurrected, but burning was final.
No one could see the tears start to slip from her eyes, and now Bellia didn’t care. She collapsed on the long couch, crying with her eyes fixed on the awful ashes. How
could this happen? Her parents had deserted her, left her alone. She didn’t know if she could function any more.
After crying for a long time, Bellia knew she couldn’t just sit there forever. Bellia’s chest expanded with a huge sigh as she rose and looked for containers. It took her the rest of the day to set things as well as she could. She restored the air curtain the way her mother taught. She used the fireplace tools to clean up her family’s remains. Bellia emptied four urns that stored flour, sugar and other things. Washing them out was torture for the girl, but there wasn’t anything else she could do. Each pile went into an urn. She lined her family’s remains on the wide hearth of the fireplace. Bellia stood back, eyes fixed on the jars. She didn’t even know which urn held her mother’s ashes.
The dropped food from the sack was next. She picked up the food and supplies and put them in the kitchen. Bellia left the apples alone. Could she ever eat an apple again?
She sliced some ham and took a deep breath. What to do? Bellia began to wander through the House, eating the cured meat. She walked into her brothers’ rooms. It looked like they were all caught unawares.
Dexian’s floor was covered with papers. Dirty boot prints from the invaders made their marks on the litter. Her oldest brother, Mettian, didn’t go down easily. The body of one of the captors lay in a pool of blood. Flies still buzzed around the body. Bellia grabbed a sheet from her brother’s bed and struggled to roll the man’s body on the sheet. She dragged it through the air curtain and let it drop the fifty feet to the desert sand below. She pulled herself from the grisly sight and went back inside the House.
Four rooms remained. She’d save her own for last. A cyclone seemed to have destroyed her parent’s room. Muddy footprints darkened a large rug. Perhaps her father had been caught here. She could sense the lingering shards of expired magic spells. The wizard who led the group must have fought with her father. One of her father’s slippers lay in the hall, evidence her father had been subdued in the bedroom and dragged out the door to the tiled floor of the corridor leading to the Great Room.
