by Guy Antibes
Jac went over to the group of players that didn’t qualify and began to joke with them. He didn’t have to do that, and Ricky recognized that Jac showed leadership as well. Some of the first team joked among themselves, but Ricky wanted to learn how Jac talked with the second team, so he joined them and kept mostly silent, observing Jac’s interactions.
Ricky had led by being the best in the crowd and taking the initiative. Jac seemed to work on building relationships. To be a complete leader, Ricky figured that he’d need to learn to do everything.
The bell rang for the next class, breaking up the group conversation. Ricky drifted over to Saganet and Insippa.
“You gave me the position fair and square?” Ricky asked Insippa.
“The other two judges brought up your performance. There’s more to a team than raw ability,” Insippa said. “With Jac and you as leaders, our team is stronger.”
With the broomball instructor including Jac as a leader, some of the tension building in Ricky’s mind eased. Listening to Jac treat some bruised egos, Ricky was afraid that expectations of his leadership would have led to a lot of pressure.
Insippa was called away by a few of the new first-team players, leaving Saganet and Ricky alone.
“You did the same thing at Applia,” Saganet said.
“I had to if I wanted to survive,” Ricky said. “I guess I wanted to survive today, too.”
“You did that, all on your own.”
Ricky nodded. He thought of Jac’s response after the first team selection. “I have a lot more to learn.”
Saganet watched Jac leave the field. “From him?”
Ricky nodded. “He knows how to deal with people. I don’t have any idea.”
“You could do much worse than to emulate Jac Griama,” Saganet said, slapping Ricky on the back. “You have to go.”
That brought a grin to Ricky’s face. “I’m leaving the field much happier than when I arrived.”
“Good. Enjoy your accomplishment,” Saganet said. “Broomball training will only get tougher as you get closer to playing for real.”
~
Despite Jac’s conciliatory comments, three second-teamers confronted Ricky after lunch the next day, outside between buildings.
“You don’t deserve to be on the first team,” one of the older boys said.
Ricky knew the antagonist was particularly slow.
“I didn’t make the choice, did I?” Ricky said.
Another boy shoved him from behind. “Why should a charity case take one of our places?”
Ricky stood his ground. “I am not a charity case. I pay for my schooling out of what I earned practicing sorcery.” That wasn’t exactly true. Baron Mansali’s money to protect his business by not pursuing power-linking provided Ricky’s tuition. “Did you earn yours or did your daddy pay?”
The taunt came out of his mouth before he had a chance to stop it. He held up his hands, palms out. “Look, I don’t want to fight. We are on the same team. If I can’t perform on the field, do you think Insippa will allow me to drag the team down? I don’t think so.”
Ricky’s attempt to stop the ill feelings didn’t work. His words earned another shove, and the boys moved past him. He watched the trio duck into a third-year dormitory building. There were good nobles and bad nobles, he thought. No, he corrected himself. People acted positively and negatively regardless of their social standing. His body carried scars from nobles and thugs alike.
The bad boy trio glared at Ricky a few times during the next practice, but it seemed their dissatisfaction wasn’t focused on him alone. Two of them ganged up on Benno during a drill, shoving him to the ground.
Ricky helped his friend up. “They weren’t kind to me, either,” Ricky said, helping Benno brush himself off.
“You have to expect it, don’t you? Perhaps they were pressured to make the team from home. Some fathers are pretty adamant about their sons playing broomball.”
“A sign of manhood?” Ricky asked.
“Some like to relive past broomball victories through their sons.” Benno grinned. “I don’t have to worry about that. My father is an image of what I was last year. He would never think to step onto a broomball field.”
Ricky looked a Jac mixing it up across the field. “What about him?”
“Don’t think he doesn’t feel pressure. His parents expect great things from their second son. They wanted him to be the sorcerer of the family and…” Benno shrugged.
“He doesn’t have the strength?”
Benno shook his head. “There is no question of will and focus. It doesn’t matter to me. I haven’t had a better friend.”
Ricky didn’t take offense at Benno’s words. He guessed Jac made most people feel they were his best friend. Ricky thought of the three second-teamers. What would Jac have done? Perhaps he should ask.
Practice ended with an announcement. “We have set a date for our trip to Applia. I have permission to take the first team. We will play Briar Preparatory College. They have a solid reputation for sponsoring good broomball teams. The tour starts in six weeks, so make sure you are caught up in your studies. If you aren’t, you won’t go. I’m still trying to arrange for a few matches along the way to Applia. Our first local game is in ten days. That’s all for now,” Insippa said.
Ricky didn’t know if he wanted to return to Applia or not. His memories of the city weren’t positive, and two of his enemies lived there, Lady Taranta and Duke Noacci.
~
Broomball practice consisted of three sessions, breakfast, class, and after class. After a week of such a tough schedule, Ricky still had to drag his aching body to his room to continue to make sense out of the power-linking book after he had finished with his other classes. His knowledge of old Parantian had grown, but with all the new words, he would have to start at the beginning of the book to make sense of what everything meant.
He put the loose pages of the dictionary in order and opened the book to the beginning. Having spent so much time on the words, Ricky finally realized their meaning. The process unfolded before his eyes as he now read with the understanding that he lacked when he went through the book the first time. He could now begin to transcribe the book.
The book didn’t call it power-linking, but the ancients described mental linking as mind alignment. Ricky wrote down the words from the thin volume and spent too much of the night and early morning, but he finished.
There were five stages of mind alignment. They all relied on resonance to power the alignment. Ricky always knew songs represented resonance. Ricky had experienced three out of the five in one degree or another. The first stage required touch. Touch worked the best in creating the alignment that he had used to communicate with Mara and Professor Calasay.
Mirano Bespa’s healing was so specialized it required the solidity, as the book called it, of touch. Ricky suspected there was much more to the technique, but the book didn’t address it. Perhaps the Duterians had gone ahead of what the book revealed.
Alignment by mind was what Ricky had developed with Loria and what Baron Mansali’s sons used. It didn’t require affinity, but like actual physical contact, two willing participants made the technique work better.
The third technique was one that Ricky had read about in the basement library of the home, alignment by will. He had only scratched the surface of that method. There was more to the technique, and the book assumed that the reader knew about it. Using will was exhausting to the sorcerer because there was a natural resistance to the alignment. It was described as one to one alignment. Ricky guessed it required quite a bit of practice, since it wasn’t easy to perform.
Deep alignment was the height of one to one alignment and required two sorcerers to exactly match their resonances on their own. Alignment helped, but the link was very intense. The thoughts of each sorcerer were laid open to the other leaving them vulnerable. The book wasn’t very complete when explaining about deep alignment.
The last linking t
echnique seemed to be a different technique altogether. The book called it one-sided alignment. Ricky used his modern Parantian dictionary and found a better word was unilateral. It required much power and the book talked about using a sorcerer’s circle to generate that power. One of the unilateral techniques created a forced alignment. Ricky thought of it as one-way communication from the sorcerer or the sorcerer who led the circle to many people. He compared it to a general giving instructions to his officers over a great distance.
He also read that devices could be used to store the power to initiate unilateral alignment. The book described a spelled coin that could store resonance. Ricky didn’t see a description of how to create the devices, but in one of the manifestations, the sorcerer could shout out commands, and only those with a token linked to the sorcerer could hear.
Evidently, this technique was still in its infancy at the time of the book. In Paranty, such a technique was extinct. In fact, as far as Ricky could see, mind alignment wasn’t practiced anywhere except in Duteria or by Baron Mansali.
Ricky could see sorcerers spending their lifetime working through the alignment stages. Unilateral alignment didn’t require paired sorcerers, and a sorcerer with the tokens could distribute communications with any sorcerer. Maybe marriage partners wouldn’t have to be split. Sorcerers could spread news between cities with no lag. Unilateral alignment could speed up a lot of things. But Ricky wondered about the power required. He might have to chance asking Professor Petrolo Garini about sorcerer circles.
The night had turned into morning. Ricky went to bed knowing he’d have to get up again in less than a handful of hours. He smiled as he closed his eyes. The little book had clung onto its secrets for far too long before Ricky could grab them. Now Ricky would have to cling to the forbidden knowledge. He didn’t know when he could reveal the contents. He could only share the information with Mistress Merry and Mara, and they would have to keep their silence.
He sighed in the darkness, relieved that he could now concentrate on broomball.
~~~
CHAPTER TWELVE
~
R ICKY LOOKED ACROSS THE TABLE AT DUKE BARIANI. His progress in making the first team gave him the opportunity to continue to rub shoulders with noble peers, but the duke wanted Ricky to use the visit to Applia to pursue the retention of his father’s title.
Saganet clutched Ricky’s wrist and shook his head slightly as the duke concentrated on pouring himself more wine in the secret banquet room. Insippa Baldico didn’t appear this time; just the three of them talked alone.
“You wish to defy your Duke?” Bariani said petulantly.
“I wish to keep my head on my shoulders, sire. If you can guarantee my safety, I will do as you say,” Ricky said. “But what do I have to prove my lineage? I don’t trust Gobble Bangatelli to come to my defense. All he has to say is that I’m not Duke Valian’s son. Who can prove otherwise? If he seeks to become Noacci’s man, he has no motivation to side with me.”
“So he told you,” Duke Bariani said.
“Why would he lie?” Saganet took a sip of his wine. “I’m afraid I side with Ricky. The time isn’t right. King Leon can choose to make Noacci a landless duke and keep him installed in Applia. Then what have we gained? The time isn’t right. Seek out the counsel of those in Sealio. If they agree with you, then…” Saganet shrugged.
Ricky didn’t have the confidence of unknown Order members in the capital. “Just let me participate. I promise I’ll poke around and see if I can find out something about Duke Noacci.”
Bariani snorted. “You’re just a boy.”
Ricky took a deep breath. “Then why are you trying to make me a duke? I’m not ready for anything like that.”
The duke glared at Ricky and then looked away. He shook his head and pounded a fist on the table. “I can’t stand it when you are right, Saganet. Someday, you will step too far.”
“Did I go too far tonight, Duke?” Saganet asked.
“No. I am frustrated by Noacci and the way he’s manipulating the king. He’s much more dangerous than the former Duke of Applia ever was. Ricky’s right. Noacci is too clever to be caught out by Ricky.”
“Why don’t you visit our first broomball game?” Ricky said. “It’s in two days. If you call me over to talk, perhaps that might make some of my noble teammates regard me in a better light.”
Bariani glanced at Saganet and then at Ricky. “You are changing the subject.”
“Doesn’t the subject need to be changed, Duke Bariani?” Saganet said.
The duke sighed. “I suppose you are right, junior order member.” The man managed a smile. With a defeated voice, he said, “I will be there and do as you say. It will only be a moment’s audience.”
Ricky grinned. “I wouldn’t want it any other way. Just a little recognition, maybe just before the game starts.”
“Ordering your Duke around?” Bariani said, but the edge had disappeared from his voice.
Ricky shook his head. “I am merely taking the role of ducal councilor.”
“Very well. Tell me about your team and the players,” Duke Bariani said. “I also want to know how Insippa is doing.”
~
After morning rain, the broomball turf looked a little muddy. Insippa Baldico kept the boys off, and both teams warmed up on other fields to preserve the grass.
Insippa took Ricky aside. “I’m going to keep you out of the first half and put you in when everyone is tired from playing on mud. Can you keep from slipping all over the place?”
“I can only do my best, Instructor Insippa.”
The broomball coach grinned. “From now on, it’s Sippa, young Valian. I understand the Duke is to put in an appearance.”
“He is. I’m going to introduce him to Jac Griama.”
“That’s the plan. Better you than me for political reasons. It’s time to get your uniforms. I didn’t want them getting muddy during warm-ups. Get the team to the gymnasium.”
Ricky spotted Jac talking to Benno. “We need to change into uniforms. Can you two help me get the team to the gymnasium?”
Jac grinned. “I’ve been wondering what they are going to look like,” he said. Jac trotted one way. Ricky pointed Benno to another group, and soon all twelve first-teamers lined up at the locked gymnasium door.
Sippa poked out his head. “Shoes off, before you come in.”
Ricky complied and walked with the others into the gym. Sippa held up a blue jersey with a single diagonal silver stripe across the chest. The coach’s eyes flashed.
“Nice, eh? We’ll pair these up with gray pants. You wear your pads underneath,” Sippa said.
Ricky had never seen a professional broomball competition before, but he imagined the higher-level players would wear something nicer. Everyone grinned and laughed as they put on their uniforms. With all the mud, the team would be dressed in brown by the end of the game, anyway.
“File out together. Spectators should be on the field by now,” Sippa said.
Benno and Jac filled their jerseys out much better than Ricky, although, with pads on, everyone looked very fit. They walked out to the field in single file. A few of the players cracked jokes along the way, keeping nerves down; at least that was how Ricky perceived it. He was nervous enough, playing in his first real game.
The other school wore black jerseys and white pants. They were already soiled from warming up. Parents, teachers, and students lined both sides of the field. Ricky was surprised so many people stood on the sidelines. He spotted Mara and waved, but her eyes were fixed on Jac who did the same. Mara ignored Ricky and waved to Jac.
There were others to note in the crowds. Duke Bariani walked up with a crowd around him.
When the players reached their side of the field, Ricky took Jac and Benno. “Let’s meet Duke Bariani.”
Jac looked surprised. “You know him?”
“Through my guardian.” He led his two friends to the Duke.
“My grace,” Ricky said
, bowing to Duke Bariani, “I’d like to introduce you to Jac Griama of Dimani and Borial Vesteria, but we call him Benno. He’s one of your Tossan subjects.”
The Duke shook Benno’s hand. “I’ve heard of you, young Vesteria.” He turned, and his eyes brightened a bit. “Jac Griama, second son of Duke Forari Griama. You do Tossa an honor by choosing to attend Doubli Academy.”
Jac nodded and laughed. “Think nothing of it. My father insisted that I maximize my magical talents, and there is no better preparatory school than Doubli for that.”
The duke smiled back. “Good luck with your game today. Young Griama, send my greetings along to your father.”
Jac smiled broadly. “Of course. I am honored that Ricky Valian knows you well enough to introduce us. We will play our best.” He bowed, and the three boys returned to their stretching teammates.
Sippa drifted over. “Well done, Valian. Taking Benno with you was an unexpected pleasure to see. It made the introduction less obvious.”
Ricky nodded.
The whistle blew. All sixteen of the starting players lined up to face each other as the two referees went over an abbreviated version of the rules and penalties. One of them raised his hand towards the timekeeper who used a glass to note the time for the half. The timer’s table sported two flags, red and green. The timer took the red flag down as the game began.
The game seemed a bit rougher than practice, but Ricky could see Doubli’s team was better on both sides of the field. Sippa began substituting players a bit earlier, but he still kept Ricky out.
Ricky wondered if coach Sippa was trying to keep the game more even as he took the best players out as well. Ricky moved to Jac’s side as both of them watched Benno playing on the defensive part of the field.
“Did Professor Saganet put you up to introducing me to Duke Bariani?”
“He did,” Ricky said. There was no reason to hide the fact from his friend.
“Personally?”
Ricky nodded.
