Quest of the Wizardess

by Guy Antibes

  Manatoka’s men laughed. “Men, eh?” He gave Bellia an appraising look. Bellia wasn’t sure she would be a good candidate to speak in this ritual.

  Manatoka looked at Bellia and Ulu. “This girl has the carriage of a warrior. The little one wears a sword of the plains. What grave did he take it from?”

  Jukuto smiled. “A grave of Temple robbers from Helevat, for he is a guardian.”

  Manatoka shrunk back. Ulu laughed, not knowing this was no part of the ritual.

  “Forgive him. He doesn’t understand the language of the Middab. He and I converse like birds singing in the sky,” Bellia said. Ulu’s behavior seemed to disturb the chief.

  “Show me this singing,” the chief said.

  “Ulu, stop laughing. I have told them you don’t know their language,” Bellia sang.

  Ulu sighed. “Your desire gives me a great pressure. I like not the laughing when I do not understand what is funny.” He smiled at Bellia as he sang.

  “The legends are true.” Manatoka put his hand his neck. “And the treasure?”

  “Protected still by guardians,” Jukuto said.

  “Would we take treasure across the plains to be prey of any Middab who chanced on our camp?” Bellia said laughing.

  Manatoka did not. He turned red in the face and drew his sword.

  “Not an appropriate insult?” Bellia said, her face reddening not with anger, but embarrassment.

  Jukuto shook his head, his expression grave. “One doesn’t call the Middab thieves. You will have to fight. It is a death insult.”

  “I didn’t mean what I said.” Bellia pled with Manatoka.

  “Have you no honor? Words once spoken are written into the great book of Winna. You wear a sword, so I can honorably fight you, woman.”

  Riders left, bringing the journey to a halt. A ring of men assembled. Three token chains hung from Manatoka’s neck. Bellia pulled out her wolf chain.

  Murmurs rose in the crowd. Manatoka walked up and picked up the wolf’s head hanging from Bellia’s neck. “Where did you get this?”

  “I defeated Yezza of the wolf clan in a duel. She gave it to me as a memento of the fight.”

  More murmurs. Manatoka stood back. “You defeated Yezza? She still lives?”

  “No, my man’s sword was hers. She died fighting another of my party at Helevat. I have no wish to fight, but if we must.”

  “We must, but I will not press a death insult on you. We fight until defeated, unless death occurs first.” Manatoka began to huff and puff. Bellia thought the man was trying to generate a battle frenzy all on his own.

  Manatoka pulled out a larger version of the sword Yezza used. He held it with two hands and used a windmill form with the blade circling one side of his body then the other as he advanced.

  Bellia pulled out both of her swords. She had no desire to slay the chief and knew how to defeat this form as well as the one Yezza had used.

  “I give you one more chance. I apologize for my words. I meant them as a token insult to be laughed at.” Bellia didn’t want to spill this man’s blood. It would only complicate their journey.

  Manatoka had worked himself up to the point that he could only shake his head to the negative.

  Bellia had no desire to spar with the chief. She didn’t know if the chief’s men would join the fight. A quick defeat seemed best.

  She slapped her sword against Manatoka’s forcing the chief to stumble and stop his windmill. The chief raised his sword over his head as Bellia brought her short sword around and cut a thin line through the man’s leather armor. It gaped open causing a smile of his exposed white belly without cutting into his skin. While Manatoka looked down, Bellia slammed the flat of her Pock sword down on Manatoka’s head before the chief had a chance to react.

  A thin rivulet of blood trickled into Manatoka’s left eye. He blinked it out and then his eyes rolled up as the chief collapsed to the ground.

  “You are much faster than I thought a warrior could possibly be, Bellia.” Jukuto said, shock plainly on his face. “I have never seen the like. Such strength coupled to such speed. No wonder Yezza presented you with a token.”

  Bellia fished in her pack and then took her water skin and a pocket cloth and walked over to the chief. She removed the sword out of the chief’s grasp and began to wash his head wound and face.

  The chief opened his eyes and flinched. “You have come to take my tokens?”

  “Lay back while I finish washing your wounds. It is too soon for you to join the Layer. I have one token, that is enough for me.” Bellia said. The men of the tribe closed in to hear their words. “I am sorry to impugn the honor of the Cat tribe. I give you this as a token of my sincerity.” She pulled out an emerald the size of the chief’s thumb, but oval-shaped with points on either end, looking like a cat’s eye. “It came from the Temple of Helevat. Make sure you treasure it. Winna, herself, might have touched it.”

  Manatoka quickly rose to a sitting position. Bellia let him press the cloth to his head wound as he stood. The chief held the stone in the palm of his hand. Tears came to his eyes. “In the memory of the Cat Tribe, no one has ever presented a chief with such an honor. Take my token. I bat away the insult and embrace the apology.” He took off his Cat token and put it around Bellia’s neck. “This is freely given. Should you need help from the Cat Tribe we are yours to command, for you have given us a new token that generation upon generation of chief will wear.”

  The embrace surprised her.

  “You will feast with us tonight.” Manatoka said. “We stop here!” he shouted to the stunned warriors.

  “I am astounded. What a gem. Do you have more in that bag?” Jukuto said as Bellia and he put up their tent next to the chief’s

  “I left the bulk of the treasure with the Reberrants but took some of the gems with me. That’s why I’m going to Togolath and Rullon. I trust him to find a safe place for the jewels. Each gem is extremely valuable, but I felt a gem was appropriate for the chief of the Cat tribe.”

  “You are amazing. Even I could not bear to part with one piece of the gods’ treasure.”

  “I’m not immune to the treasure’s call, but I am willing to share. At the appropriate time, perhaps at the end of our journey, whenever it may be, you will be likewise rewarded. That is if it hasn’t been stolen... but not by Middabs.” Both of them laughed.

  The nighttime feast in Manatoka’s tent lasted late into the night.

  “What other wonders did you bring from Helevat?”

  “A magic flute.” Bellia brought out the flute she bought at the store across from Pilkie’s Laughing Horse. She played a simple tune that was the most like the lullabies she knew. The tune was the one that created waves after waves of plains grass. This time Bellia imagined riding on an eagle above the Layer. Underneath passed a Middab tribe on a journey and another in camp. A herd of bison scattered as the vision passed over them and with their scattering the music ended and the vision faded.

  “You are a wizard?” Manatoka asked, his voice thick with emotion. Bellia merely put up her left hand.

  “No wizard here. It is the music. A gift, perhaps, from a god.” Bellia thought of the devotion of Ned to the Blind God and his counsel, freely given. She hadn’t realized until then that Ned had helped her to martial her thoughts and feelings as she worked through the traumas of her existence after the death of her family and the army disaster.

  “You are certainly favored by the gods.”

  Bellia smiled at that and said, “The gods have certainly preserved and protected my life. They have also put me in much peril along the way. Life, in its many guises, can make us all better men and women.”

  The people in the tent nodded.

  “That is the way of the Layer.” Manatoka looked at his people and yawned. She interpreted it as a signal. The rest of the feasters yawned as well. Bellia looked at Jukuto who yawned, too. Bellia couldn’t resist. The only talking at that point were whispers as they all filed out of the chief
’s tent.

  “The Middab know how to put on a good feast,” Bellia said. She sang the same words to Ulu, who smiled and rubbed his full stomach.

  “A magic flute? Are there other wonders to surprise me with?” Jukuto asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ve seen it all. Except I did make this sword.” She grabbed a pocket cloth and laid it on the blade and pulled it off, letting the sharper-than-sharp blade split the cloth.

  “I wondered how you pierced the chief’s leather armor so easily. I would have fainted at that point.” Jukuto laughed.

  Bellia sensed a falsehood. “I think you’re made of tougher stuff.”

  “Perhaps.” Jukuto said giving her a crooked grin.

  Bellia felt a little better at the man’s admission. That night, while sleep didn’t come easily after the exciting day, she wondered how much nudging was going on. The emerald token was such an impulse. Jukuto’s presence. What kind of web was the Blind God weaving? Did Bellia walk on the smooth strands of the spider’s web moving up and down the web? Or was she caught, tangled in such a mess that she was lost?

  ~~~

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Fight with Wolves

  ~

  The next morning, they broke camp as quickly as they could. Bellia felt uncomfortable with the adoration she received the previous night. They treated her like a messenger from Winna, but Bellia had no message to give. A trinket and the vision from her flute playing was all. But was that enough? It would have to be.

  “Remember,” Manatoka said, “Anytime you need help, you call and the Cat tribe will be at your side.” The green cat’s eye emerald already hung inside a silver circle at his throat.

  “I will.” They embraced. The trio took off at a canter trying to make the distance between themselves and the Cat tribe as large as possible.

  Ulu looked like he was bouncing to death when Jukuto slowed them down.

  “By tonight, we will be three or four leagues in front of them.”

  Bellia felt relieved. “How serious was Manatoka with his promise to help? Perhaps it’s a saying that is more ceremonial?”

  Jukuto shook his head. “No. He is serious. The Cat tribe is always at your service. At least as long as Manatoka is chief and that jewel is the chief’s token.”

  Bellia felt the two tribe-tokens on her chest. Two chiefs had worn these, she thought. This was much too much honor for a twenty-year-old. Yet she knew she won them fairly in duels.

  On they traveled through the plains for a string of endless days. Jukuto showed her how to find edible plants hidden by the tall grasses and trap rabbits and other less familiar animals. No one carried a spear or bow and arrows to bring down larger game. Bellia enjoyed the mindless travel.

  Jukuto didn’t insist on answers, but after a month of traveling across the plains, she had let him know most of her story.

  Towards the end of a day walking through a muddy stretch of plains, sloshing through the ponds Jukuto told her about, a large clan camp stretched before them after they reached a rise in the rolling grasslands.

  “Wolf.” Jukuto said. Bellia could see the faint sheen of sweat on Jukuto’s upper lip and the stiffening of his back as he sat on his horse. The Wolf tribe stretched for a league in all directions. “This is the biggest Middab tribe.”

  Bellia heard the words come out clipped and nervous. “Are you in peril?”

  “Yes. I hoped we would have missed them. The plains are large and the Middab constantly move from place to place.”

  Bellia wondered if this was yet another nudge. A group of ten riders approached them from all sides.

  “You ride to the Wolf camp?” one of the riders said, a woman.

  “We ride through or around, Meeni.”

  Her eyes lit with recognition. “Jukuto. I thought to never see you again. You are on forbidden soil.”

  “Not forbidden as I am not in journey. I accompany these two to Togolath.” Journey, Bellia had learned, was the never-ending wandering on the plains that made up Middab life.

  “That will be for the chief to decide.”

  Jukuto sighed. “I promise I will not flee according to the tribal law I can no longer follow. This woman wears two tribal tokens, Wolf and Cat. Treat her with honor.”

  “That is hard to believe, but I know you for a man who does not tell tales,” one of the men said.

  “And the little man?” Meeni asked.

  “A Guardian from Helevat. Treat him with caution.”

  The riders murmured at Jukuto’s words.

  “Strange company, all of you. Come, you will see the chief,” Meeni said, her eyes lingering on Jukuto.

  They rode for an hour through the camp. The Chief’s tent sat in the middle, a common layout for a longer-term Middab camp, Jukuto explained. Meeni rode ahead with Jukuto, talking quietly as they rode.

  Meeni disappeared into the Chief’s tent. Out came a woman that could have been Yezza’s twin followed by the tallest Middab Bellia had ever seen.

  “Jukuto, brother.” The chief came up to Jukuto and slapped his hand on the mounted man’s thigh.

  “Nokuto, brother. I ask for safe transit through the camp and beyond. I travel with these people to the city of Togolath.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps. Banishment is not something we trifle with.”

  “I know. I also know it is permitted to pass through the plains on the way out. I have never done so. My inn is at the plain’s edge. I choose the long way off of them.”

  “After fifteen years? We will hold a council to decide. Introduce your friends.”

  “This is Bellia. She served at the Temple of the Blind God.”

  Nokuto snorted. “Another scholar such as yourself? What has become of you?”

  “Pull the tokens out, Bellia. See? She wears the tokens of this clan and of the Cat. Yezza.” Those standing around the encounter began to buzz with conversation. “Yezza presented her with the Wolf token after she defeated Yezza in a duel. Manatoka was defeated likewise some weeks ago, again in a duel. This man,” Jukuto pointed to Ulu, “is a Guardian at the Temple of Helevat. It was there that Bellia met him.”

  “Distinguished company, if you are to be believed.” Nokuto snorted and walked over to Bellia. “Please dismount so that I might see for myself if you truly carry our original token.”

  “Certainly.” Bellia thought as there were no game of insults that this must be as serious as it could be. Perhaps she was in the bosom of her enemies. She dismounted and then stood as Nokuto examined the tokens at Bellia’s neck.

  “It is the one Yezza cut from our father’s neck, Jukuto.”

  “You didn’t believe me?” He dismounted himself.

  “I did. I had to see for myself. So the bitch is really dead.”

  “She is, but not at this woman’s hand. There is no blood price. They were members of a band seeking the treasure of Helevat. Bellia was the only survivor. They all fought one another for the treasure.”

  “So you found the god’s treasure?”

  “I did. The Reberrants, you call them guardians, keep it safe.”

  “And this little one is a guardian? He looks more like a youth.”

  “It is said he can be overcome by the fighting frenzy,” Jukuto said.

  “A superstition, Jukuto. But we will verify your claim. If this little man can defeat three of my warriors in a duel, you all may leave. Including you Jukuto.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Jukuto looked concerned.

  “Then you three will have lied and committed a blood insult and will have to fight to the death.” Nokuto looked back at Bellia. “It is time the old token once again hung around the chief’s neck.”

  Bellia saw a number of tokens around Nokuto’s neck. A wolf’s head being one of them was newer than the one hanging outside of her shirt.

  “You should reconsider, brother.” Jukuto said. “This woman has the Cat tribe’s pledge. She only has to call and they will come. Kill her and you are at war with the Cat tribe.”r />
  Nokuto spat on the ground. “That is what I think of Manatoka and the Cats. They would break their tender claws on the might of the Wolf.”

  “Hasty words brother,” Jukuto said.

  Nokuto walked up o Jukuto and pulled him off of his horse. He slapped him three times in succession driving him to the ground. “Take them to a secure tent. I want to see their belongings.”

  “No. The Middab aren’t common thieves,” Bellia said. “Those that seek lives without trial are cowards.” She wanted to bite her tongue, but the words flowed out of her mouth.

  “You call me a coward?” Nokuto towered above Bellia.

  “Not if you don’t rummage through out belongings.” Bellia was determined to give the chief a way out.

  Nokuto made to slap her, but Bellia grabbed the man’s wrist before his hand could reach her face.

  “Fast and strong. Perhaps you didn’t lie to my brother about Yezza. I would have thought you took my mother’s token after these savages...” He spit at Ulu’s horse. “ran her down in the jungle.”

  “You have no honor, Nokuto, even if you are the brother of Jukuto. I call blood insult on you.”

  Nokuto’s face turned red and the veins of his neck bulged in rage. “I make the rules in the Wolf tribe. Ten of us against three of you. You prevail and you are the chief.”

  A circle widened around the men and their horses. Meeni came up and gave Jukuto two swords and her riders took the four horses Bellia’s party brought with them.

  “We will make sure your belongings are safe while you fight,” she said.

  “Have the Wolf lost so much honor under my brother?” Jukuto spread his arms out at the circle of clan members.

  Meeni looked down and then lifted her chin. “Some have, perhaps. But honor still runs through the tribe.” She brushed a hand against Jukuto’s face. “Luck, husband.”

  Bellia’s mouth dropped open. Husband?

  She looked at Bellia and Ulu. “Luck, Jukuto’s companions.”

  Bellia pulled out her swords. Ulu stood, resting the point of Yezza’s sword on the dirt, not knowing it was a Middab insult. Jukuto flicked the swords in and out with as much skill as Yezza possessed.