by Guy Antibes
A look of alarm blossomed on Kela’s face. “Really? I don’t mind learning new spells. My parents wanted me protected, but fighting songs?”
“See why I am concerned?”
“Is that why you have this book out?”
Ricky tapped the book again. “I want us to learn more than what Mistress Lonsi teaches us. We may need to use magic to defend ourselves when we refuse to fight Master Mattia’s fight.”
“I see,” Kela said. She went silent for a bit and looked at Ricky with serious eyes. “I agree. Let us learn something.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon puzzling out the spells. Ricky listed a set of them that appeared to be something they could learn on their own.
“That’s enough for today. We will have to practice these away from others. I have an idea,” Ricky said, putting his list in the book.
Henni looked up as he blinked away the effects of a nap. “What is it?”
“Is there a room down here where we can practice magic? One that’s empty?”
Henni pursed his lips. “That might be against Home rules, you know.”
“We are taking a sorcery class and want to practice on our own.”
“Since it is for an actual class, I guess so. I’ll move some things around tomorrow morning, will that work?”
Ricky nodded. “We’ll need some space.”
“Don’t worry; we have cells of all sizes down here. You two need to leave to make the dinner bell.”
Ricky and Kela walked up the stairs. “You have to keep this a secret,” Ricky said. “No talking to your friends about what we’re doing.”
“Friends?” Kela asked.
“The girls you eat with. Aren’t you friends with them?”
Kela shook her head. “I’m their foreign pet. They don’t care about me. All they want is to hear my accent and laugh. It’s better than eating alone.”
Ricky hadn’t expected such a reaction. He’d seen her interact with the girls and Ricky didn’t think she was ill-treated, but then what did he know?
They split up. Ricky headed back down to the basement and crept past a napping Henni. He tried a few of the cell doors with his master key, and they all opened. Armed with that good news, he returned to the dining hall and ate a full meal. At least his appetite had returned to normal.
~
Henni showed them a large, dusty, musty room. Ricky paced off the dimensions, five paces by six. It should be big enough.
“I found a couple of sturdy chairs and a small table.” Henni pointed to the only furnishings in the room. “Here is the key.”
Ricky almost didn’t take it but caught his mistake before it happened. “I’ll give it to Kela since she probably won’t have to work out in the training hall.”
“Sounds good to me. I can always open it up.” Henni dangled a ring of keys. He obviously didn’t have a master.
Kela entered the room. “I saw the light from the lantern. Is this our practice room?”
Ricky nodded. “I think it’s big enough. Everything is covered with stone except for the heavy beams,” he said.
“Are you going to be slinging fire?” Henni said.
Ricky thought for a minute. “We’ll need a bucket of water in case a spell goes terribly wrong.” He thought of the academy students who showed evidence of burns. “Yes, that will be a requirement.”
“You can fetch a bucket yourself. There are plenty in the basement washroom,” Henni said.
Ricky laughed. For a moment he had thought of Henni as a servant. He wouldn’t do that again. “I will!” he said and returned with two. He hummed and willed a yard long tongue of flame to lick one of the walls.
“Don’t burn the place down!” Henni said.
“Do you see a scorch mark?”
Henni walked over the wall and pressed his hand against it. “It’s cool.”
“The flame is an illusion. I am good at creating illusions, but I’m not comfortable spelling the real thing inside a building,” Ricky said. “Well, maybe not.” He sang the spell that had frozen Frank’s heart and directed the cold to the wall for only a moment. “Feel that.”
Henni put out his hand on the frosted surface. “Ice cold!”
“That’s not an illusion,” Ricky said, his strength depleted. He had to sit on one of the chairs, looking on as Kela felt the cold stone.
“How did you do that?” she asked.
“It’s something I figured out when I had to defend myself,” Ricky said, hoping she would think he devised the spell in Tossa. “It takes too much energy.”
“How did you use freezing something to defend yourself?” Henni said.
Ricky instantly knew he made a mistake. He scrambled for a response, and he’d have to lie. “Attackers were stalking me through standing water in the winter. I froze the puddle solid and ran away.”
“Not exactly battle sorcery,” Kela said, “but it is wonderful.”
Ricky didn’t think wonderful would be the appropriate word, but he knew what Kela meant. “Right. Probably saved my life,” Ricky could say that, meaning every word.
He rose from the chair and staggered a bit. He smiled sheepishly. “I had my guardian with me to help flee. I’m drained after doing all that,” Ricky said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I’ll help you up the stairs,” Kela said.
Ricky waited for her to lock up their practice room and had to admit he needed assistance as he climbed up the steps to the main level.
She still held his arm as they passed the warden’s office. Warden Sarini saw them from the open door of her office.
“Bring him inside,” Sarini said.
After Kela helped Ricky to a chair, the warden dismissed the girl.
“I understand you’ve been missing some classes?”
Ricky nodded. “Mistress Lonsi said she would notify everyone.”
“She didn’t notify me.” The warden narrowed her eyes at Ricky. “How are you really feeling?”
“Drained, Warden,” Ricky said. “I tried a spell in the basement while I worked with Kela Torris, and it took its toll.”
“Go to your room and only come out for dinner. You look terrible. I can’t have someone from my gang unable to perform when I need him. Do you understand?”
Ricky nodded. “Yes, warden.”
“Now, have you learned anything from Siria Lonsi?”
Ricky clenched and unclenched his fists. “Mattia is assembling an army from the Home.”
“We already figured that out,” the warden said.
“But he’ll have two battle sorcerers, three if Mistress Lonsi joins us. “I think the others are distractions. We are to learn five spells.”
The warden nodded. “Continue to do what she says. I have no power over Mattia or Lonsi. If you learn something you think is significant, let me know.”
“I’m your spy?”
She nodded. “I’m afraid I’m going to need every snippet of information I can get. You can go now. Get lots of rest.”
Ricky rose to his feet. Sitting down for the chat helped him regain a bit of his strength. “Thank you, warden.”
“I’m the one who should be doing the thanking.” She shooed him out of her office. “Leave the door open, please.”
Ricky complied and walked slowly to his cell. He unlocked his door and locked it again when he closed the door and then slept through dinner.
~~~
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~
A POUNDING ON THE DOOR brought Ricky off his bed.
“What is it?” Ricky said, rubbing his eyes. He opened the door to see Master Pisan standing in front of the door with his arms folded.
“Put your shoes on and come out.”
Ricky quickly complied.
“Follow me,” Pisan said. He headed in the opposite direction of the main building.
Ricky noticed younger inmates standing at the door to their cells, watching them pass until Pisan stood at the door leading to the basement trai
ning room.
“Down. You are the last to show up,” Pisan said before turning around and heading back down the hall.
By the time Ricky reached the bottom of the steps, he had looked at two or three hundred inmates, mostly older boys looking back at him.
Mattia stood on a platform at the far end of the hall. “Our principal sorcerer has finally made it. It is time to leave the Home.”
The hall erupted as the inmates began to talk excitedly about Mattia’s announcement. The teacher held up his hands. “Quiet. We are going on a training mission in the field. Most of you have been training for months, and it is time to put your work to the test. We will split into units and spend a full week out in the field, and then we will return to the Home.”
“We have cloaks to give you all for now. Covered wagons are lined up at the back gate of the Home to take you to our camp.”
“Are you up to this?” Siria Lonsi said.
Kela stood at her side, looking somewhat disoriented at it all. Ricky wasn’t that much better.
“I guess I’ll find out. At least I had a good nap,” Ricky said. “A week in the woods. I imagined worse things happening before I came to Applia.”
He wished he had spent more time reading the sorcery books. “Will Master Mattia put the sorcerers in the same group?” he asked.
“I put the sorcerers together,” Siria said. “We’ll just start our class a few days early. A full week’s worth of training should be worth more than a month of classes. Mattia will assign inmates to their units when we arrive. We three will be in the last vehicle.”
Ricky walked through the inmates and collected cloaks for Kela and himself, taking the smallest size. She drowned in hers and Ricky’s fit well enough. They waited as the youth shuffled their way out a door and up steps.
He could feel the cold drizzle on his face as Mattia, Siria, and another man let Ricky and Kela proceed them. The traffic that preceded them had churned the damp ground to mud. Ricky smiled at the thought of the Head Gardener not having anyone to repair the soil.
After stepping through the gate, Ricky looked up at a large black carriage. All the other wagons had gone.
“In here?” he said.
“That’s our conveyance,” Mattia said. “Up you go.”
Ricky climbed up while Mattia helped Kela into the carriage. Siria rejected the help of both men and sat across from Ricky and next to Kela. The man sat next to Ricky while Mattia plopped down next to Siria. She grunted. Theirs didn’t look like a very friendly relationship.
Mattia pounded his fist on the roof. Ricky lurched in his seat as the carriage slid through the ruts created by the wagons until he heard hoofbeats finally clattering on cobbles as the carriage bumped itself onto a paved street.
“Young Valian, let me re-introduce Master Baco Poppi, the trainer of our little armed force.”
Baco turned to look at Ricky, but the carriage was dark inside so that all Ricky could see was the shadow of his head. “I greet the mighty sorcerer,” Baco said. Ricky could hear the heavy sarcasm in the man’s voice.
“You should say that to Mistress Lonsi, Master Poppi. I’m an apprentice at best.”
Ricky heard the man grunt in the darkness.
“You were sick?” Master Poppi asked.
“He is recuperating,” Siria said. “That is why he wasn’t at dinner when everyone was told to assemble in the basement.”
“I don’t see why we had to wait for an invalid,” Baco said.
“He is at the top of my class, Baco,” Mattia said. “He is young, but he has survived for years on his own. The boy blossomed at Doubli Academy. Even you said he was proficient enough to be a swordsman.”
“I did. But he’s still recuperating,” Siria said.
“Just how much did Crabacci teach you?” Baco said.
“Enough to know which end of a sword is the sharp one, Master Poppi,” Ricky said.
He heard Baco chuckle. “Ah, that’s right. You are the performance sorcerer, and this is a performance, complete with humorous repartee?”
The man’s ill-mannered comments tempted Ricky to show him a needle of fire, but the shades were up, and it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to light up a carriage with sorcerous light.
Siria cleared her throat. “You wait and see, Poppi. He’ll impress you well enough.”
Enough light invaded the carriage to let Ricky see the man sit with his arms folded, frowning. The rest of the time clattering through the streets of Applia they spent in silence. Once they left the cobbles of the city, the swaying of the carriage put Ricky to sleep.
Ricky woke when Baco Poppi flicked him on his forehead.
“Hey!” Ricky said, rubbing his forehead.
He opened his eyes. Siria and Kela were still slumbering, and it looked like Mattia had just woken up as well. Blackness filled his window, but he looked more closely and could see they were riding in a forest by the blur of dark trees passing the window of the carriage.
“We are about to arrive,” Baco said, loudly.
Siria woke next and gently shook Kela.
Ricky continued to look outside and spotted lights off to his left farther ahead. “That must be the camp.”
Baco grunted.
“It’s cold,” Kela said, wrapping the oversized coat more tightly around her.
Ricky didn’t care about the temperature. He’d been cold enough growing up on a shantyboat floating on the River Lironi.
Mattia cleared his throat. “You’ll have work to do when we arrive,” he said. “Since Kela is the only other female sorcerer, Siria has agreed to share her tent. She and Valian will set it up.”
“I don’t know how to do such a thing,” Kela said.
“I’m sure you two can figure it out. Valian will sleep in a tent by himself close to us. It’s all written out on a duty roster that should be posted by now,” Mattia said in the darkness.
The lights became closer. Ricky could hear a few shouts above the sound of the carriage. They finally passed boys standing by the edge of a clearing. Baco stuck his head out the window and told the inmates to give directions to the driver where the command tents were to be set up.
“Out!” Baco said. He jumped out of the carriage first and walked over to a supply wagon.
Mattia followed a bit more slowly. Ricky helped Kela out from his side of the carriage, but Siria Lonsi rejected his hand and exited without any assistance. So much for being nice, Ricky thought as he followed the others.
“Here is your tent, Valian,” Baco tossed a dirty canvas bag to Ricky. “This is Siria’s”
He dropped a much larger, heavier tent at Kela’s feet. “You have to put this up before you can go to sleep.” The trainer looked around and pointed to a spot. “Over there.”
Ricky took his bundle and picked up an end of Kela’s burden. “I’ll help,” he said.
“Are you up to it?” Siria said.
“If I’m not, I’m not.” Ricky looked around at adults he saw gathered in a cluster while inmates were struggling to put up their superiors’ tents. “I don’t see any other adult helping.”
Ricky located a spot that didn’t have any protruding roots that he could see. He kicked a pile of leaves into a mound. “We’ll set up your tent over there,” he said. Kela struggled to open the sack, but Ricky gently moved her aside.
“I’ve set up a few tents before. Shantyboat residents occasionally moved over to the shore during the summer months to tend their little farms. I made a few coins helping them.”
He found the floor of the tent and only needed Kela to hold tent pegs while he drove them in with a rock, and then she helped with the tent pole.
“There,” he said. “You can move in.”
Ricky watched the two women take blankets and disappear into their tent. Despite their late arrival, Siria’s tent was the first standing.
He looked at his own amidst a flood of weariness. He’d set it up in the morning. Ricky made another pile of leaves and laid the
floor of the tent on top. He grabbed a couple of blankets from another supply wagon and wrapped himself in the un-pitched tent, worn out from his efforts.
~
Voices in the dark woke Ricky from his slumber. He opened his eyes and looked out at the camp. A few fires burned in the darkness that was just beginning to lose to the coming dawn. He rubbed his face to wake up and found enough energy to pitch his tiny tent. He climbed back in for a little more sleep, but Baco spotted him and walked over. He jostled Ricky’s tent and grunted.
“Not bad.” He looked over at Siria’s tent and nodded. “You’ve had some experience in the field.”
“A little,” Ricky said.
“Come with me,” Baco said, leading Ricky into the woods.
Ricky stepped on a stick. It didn’t break, so he picked it up. It seemed sturdy enough to use as a switch and swung it while following Baco.
The trainer turned around. “What’s with you?” he said.
Ricky had no idea what the man asked. “Could you be more specific, Master Poppi?”
“What is it about you that makes Mattia sing your praises? Even Lonsi does.”
“I’m just another thief.”
“No, you aren’t. You are a murderer. I’ve read your file. You’re a sorcerer, too. Is that why they are impressed?”
The man's questions flummoxed Ricky. “I’ve had a year of concentrated education by the teachers at Doubli Academy in a few subjects, and I’ve trained with Saganet.”
The sound of a sword slithering out of a scabbard reached Ricky’s ears. He stepped back just as Baco turned around.
“Now what are you going to do?” the trainer asked.
“I can’t run,” Ricky said, knowing his strength would run out if he had to run at full speed.
“No, you can’t. How are you going to stop me?”
Ricky held up his stick. “I can’t stop you, exactly.” Ricky was losing his breath as fear began to seize his lungs. He would use his special trick if they were in Applia, but Ricky had no idea where they set up camp, and Mattia might report Baco missing. If that happened, Ricky would lose his freedom for a lot longer than nine months.
“A stick against a sword?”
“It is better than using my bare hand,” Ricky said. He took a deep breath. “I could always throw a spell, but Paranty forbids it. Perhaps if it means my life I’ll have to.”
