by Guy Antibes
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
~
R ICKY ATE BREAKFAST IN HIS ROOM AND JOINED THE OTHERS in the gaming room just before mid-morning.
“Ticco had to return to the capital,” Jac said. “He usually does when the table conversation ends as it did last night. I thought we’d take a carriage ride into the forests. We have a cabin where we can eat lunch and then return.”
Ricky wondered about lunch, but when they boarded the carriage, a large wagon followed with servants and supplies. Ricky brought along his metal switch and tapped the wooden case on his foot as the two coaches rolled through the countryside until they reached the forest. The servant’s wagon took a different road.
“You’ll note the trees are different from the ones in Tossa. We have some hardwood species that only grow on Dimani. The wood is very dark and very hard.”
“It must be difficult to make furniture.”
Jac raised his finger. “That’s where sorcery comes in. Sorcerers work on the hardwood using their magic to shape furniture.”
“Have you ever done such a thing?”
“I never dared before, but after a year at Doubli, I think I can give it a try,” Jac said.
Ricky wondered if sorcerers could generate enough water or help plants grow sufficiently to stave off a starving country. The old texts talked about such things, but they didn’t mention scale. He wondered if Parantian sorcerers had developed techniques that were abruptly halted when King Leon’s dynasty took control. He doubted if a King Ticco would allow something that would eliminate contract labor.
Tobia seemed to accept his circumstances. Ricky wondered if he’d be meddling to talk to his servant more about the dynamics of long-term labor agreements. His musings ended as the carriage ground to a halt.
“There is a nice little waterfall not far from the road,” Jac said. “Come with me.”
He jumped out of the carriage and took off on a path into the thick woods.
Ubbo grunted with dissatisfaction but was the next person to disappear. Benno rushed after him, leaving Mara and Ricky to bring up the rear.
“I’m glad I brought walking shoes,” Mara said.
She straightened her dress and walked ahead of Ricky, who made sure he brought along his ‘cane’ containing his metal switch. The forest seemed to swallow them up, but the path was wide enough not to miss. Ricky looked far enough forward to see Benno ahead.
“I suppose we are heading in the right direction,” Ricky said.
After a few more minutes of walking and wondering how long they’d have to trudge through the uneven track, Ricky heard yelling. Benno appeared, breathing heavily.
“Some animal has Jac trapped between Ubbo and me!”
Ricky flipped out his metal switch. “Stay here with Mara,” Ricky said, running up the path. He tripped a few times but reached Ubbo without injury. What he saw ahead of him made his jaw drop.
“What’s that?”
“That’s a great boar,” Ubbo said.
Ricky looked at the matted reddish-brown back of a huge animal. It must have been seven or eight feet at the shoulder, snorting and pawing at the ground. Jac had to be in front of him, but the beast filled up the path.
“Get Benno and Mara back to the carriage and return with the driver,” Ricky said. “I’ll help Jac.”
Ubbo nearly had tears in his eyes. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Ricky shook his head. “I’ll be the judge of that,” He said. “Go.” He tried to keep the fear out of his voice as he sent Ubbo off.
Ricky had to get on the other side of the path, so he used his special spell and forged a path through the woods. He found a tiny path that ran parallel to theirs. He could hear the boar snort and Jac’s words trying to soothe the beast as time returned to normal.
He found the path and walked slowly up beside Jac. The boar paused as Ricky came into view.
“You need to leave,” Jac said, holding out a branch towards the beast.
“Why me? It seems you are the one in danger. I have a weapon, and you don’t.”
Jac made a sound that Ricky couldn’t interpret. “I usually take an armed servant with me into the forest, but our armed servants are currently preparing lunch. What can we do?”
“That was my question,” Ricky said, holding out his switch. He had other alternatives. He could just blast the thing with his magic. “Should I kill it?”
Jac ran his hand through his hair. “Of course you should! If you don’t, we are going to die. There aren’t that many great boars in this forest and encounters always end in death, and not of the boar.”
“So an armed servant wouldn’t be of much use.”
“He’d be the first one to die,” Jac said.
“That won’t happen today. Stand back.”
Jac took a step back, and the hog grunted.
Ricky didn’t want to kill such a huge animal, but he didn’t think either of them would escape if the beast charged them, and using a metal switch on the thing wouldn’t work at all.
“The blast will knock you off your feet, so when I push out the flame, drop to the ground, covering your face.“
Ricky tried to get a little more space, but the beast began to paw the ground, getting ready to charge. He took a deep breath and willed a two-feet thick tube of flame at the beast. It took a step back, so Ricky let it back up and then ended feeding the fireball.
“Down!”
Jac stood transfixed, staring at the boar. Ricky shouted his time spell and everything slowed up for him. He didn’t have much time, but it was enough to push Jac to the ground and cover him before the fireball exploded.
Ricky was just too close. As time returned, he felt the blast of heat ignite his clothes, and then they were splattered with boar. Something sharp from the beast ripped along Ricky’s back, but it didn’t go very deep.
He looked up as the remains of the boar had just about finished making a mess of the path. A large portion of the animal’s carcass burned and steamed in the middle of the path.
“Are you all right?” Ricky said, picking Jac up.
“I just froze looking at your fireball form, and then the next thing I knew, I was on the ground.” Jac’s eyes widened. “I’m fine, but your back is aflame!”
Ricky could feel his back burning. “Where are the falls?”
“Just ahead.”
Ricky ran and plunged into a pond. The heat on his body had been extinguished. He stood up in the mid-thigh deep water and dunked his body to remove whatever splattered on him. He finally had the opportunity to look at the meadow around the pond and at a cascade of water bubbling down a hill. Under other circumstances, the place would indeed be charming.
He walked back to Jac, who inspected the boar remains with the driver.
“Where’s Ubbo?” Ricky asked, picking up the metal switch, which had done duty as a wand. He would have to wash both of them when they reached the cabin.
“He’s back with the others.” The driver brushed dirt and other stuff off of Jac and then looked at Ricky. “Pardon my saying, my young lord, but you look a mess.”
“I feel like I’m a mess,” Ricky said.
Jac laughed, but the driver looked perplexed.
“When we are eating lunch, bring the other servants and salvage what you can of the meat.”
The driver nodded. They picked their way through the carnage and finally made it back to the carriage.
“We can get you treated at the cabin. We aren’t far,” The driver said.
“I’ll sit up with you. I don’t want to spoil the inside of the carriage,” Ricky said.
“Good thinking,” Jac said, still looking shocked as he disappeared into the carriage.
“What did you do?” the driver said.
“I’m a sorcerer. I used a fireball spell that I know. I couldn’t think of another fast enough that would save both of us.”
“The others had given the young master up for dead.”
/> “I’d have to return early from my summer in Paranty if that would have happened, now wouldn’t I?”
The driver pursed his lips, which turned into a smile. “I suppose that would be the case. Good thinking, Lord Valian.”
Ricky didn’t know if it was good thinking or not. On the way to the cabin, Ricky ran through all kinds of other spells that he knew, but other than using spells to scare it off, which might work, he had settled on the spell that would eliminate the threat. Using his metal switch as a poker would only have gotten Ricky killed by one of the boar’s tusks before he got close enough to thrust. The only thing he could have done differently would have been to fly away with Jac. It was too late to think about that.
He had never seen a beast so large. There were horses six feet at the shoulders, but the boar was nearly as wide as it was tall.
The carriage traveled around a bend and turned down a short, wide road into the carriage park of a large lodge with river rock walls. It was as big as the guest house and two stories high as well. So much for thinking of a cabin the size of Saganet’s cottage.
A few servants exited the lodge to see to their charges’ needs. Tobia looked at Ricky, sitting with the driver with rags for a shirt. He ran to the carriage ahead of the others.
“What happened?”
“A great boar nearly attacked Jac,” Ricky said. “I had to remove it. I didn’t do a very elegant job, did I?”
Jac hopped down from the carriage. “You didn’t, but that’s not what is important.” He turned to the servants. “Lord Valian is injured. Please see to his wounds.”
Tobia approached, but Ricky held out his arm to stop his servant and climbed down himself.
“Your back is a bloody mess,” Tobia said.
“Nothing unusual for me,” Ricky said, but the wounds on his back had been numb up until now, and the movement became very painful. “I think some help would be useful at this point.”
Tobia helped him in and had him lie on a table back in a large kitchen. “You’ll need stitches, but not many,” he said.
One of the female servants ended up sewing while Tobia washed out Ricky’s wounds with an alcohol-laden rag.
“The purer the alcohol, the less it will fester,” Tobia said. “And the more it will sting.”
“You didn’t say that before you began to torture me,” Ricky said.
“Ah, young master, but it is beneficial torture, and if I had asked your permission, it might have been declined.”
Ricky just nodded and endured the pain as he had learned to do at the Applia home. Tobia left Ricky still on his stomach on the table and returned with a shirt.
“The family keeps hunting clothes here. I’m sure Lord Griama won’t mind since you saved the life of his youngest son.”
After lunch, Ricky sat in a chair, filled with pillows to cushion his tender back. “I’m sorry I wasn’t very creative,” Ricky said. “At least I knew the fireball worked.”
“It bit you back,” Jac said. “You saved me from its effects, as well. I can’t believe I just froze when you cast the spell. Are you ready to leave?”
“I am,” Ricky said.
“About time,” Ubbo said. Ricky wasn’t very impressed by Ubbo’s performance. He even complained about lunch being late due to fixing Ricky’s injury.
They boarded the carriage. Tobia sat on top. Ricky noticed he wore a sword. His meager weapon lay on his lap, wiped clean of the encounter. Mara had never seen the boar, but its carcass lay in the carriage park along with larger pieces stacked beside it.
“It must have been huge,” she said. She looked at Jac. “What will you ever do with all that?”
Jac smiled, the shock from the experience had finally cleared from his eyes. “The servants know what to do. This is a hunting cabin, after all.”
~
Tobia had to trim Ricky’s hair short after one side was singed and the other wasn’t. He appeared at dinner a little late.
Lady Amira rose to greet him and escorted him to a seat beside her. “You saved my son’s life. Even Jac doesn’t quite remember everything.”
Ricky described the encounter with the beast. Jac barely could recollect turning around at the sound on the path behind him. He could hear the defeat in Jac’s voice.
“If he hadn’t picked up that branch, he wouldn’t be here,” Ricky said. “He stalled the boar long enough for me to reach him. Jac could have run—”
“And been killed,” Lady Amira said. “A servant with a spear might not have stopped such a beast. Your driver said the animal must have stood eight feet high.”
“Seven or eight feet,” Ricky said. “Still, I’ve never seen such a big animal.”
“You get credit for the kill,” Ubbo said.
“Using sorcery against an animal?” Ricky said. “Jac can take the credit.”
“No, I can’t. Even with sorcery, it takes courage to face such a beast. You didn’t have to come to my aid.”
Ricky shrugged. “Why should I lose my host? I told the driver on the way to your cabin that I didn’t want to leave Dimani so early.” He hoped his little joke would stop the conversation, and it did.
After dinner, he declined to learn the card game that had interested him the previous night. Tobia gave him a pain potion, and Ricky slept on his stomach for the rest of the night.
He woke the next day feeling a bit under the weather.
Tobia inspected Ricky’s back. “The alcohol didn’t work as well as I’d hoped. I’ll get some proper bandaging and return.”
Ricky spent the rest of the day in his apartment. Jac came to visit in the late afternoon.
“Feeling any better?” Jac asked.
Ricky sat up on the couch. “I am. The stitches still pull, but that’s what stitches do. I’ve had enough of them in the last year. Luckily, whatever hit me didn’t have a lot of force behind it, and whatever Tobia used this morning worked well enough. I stopped feeling ill in time to look forward to lunch.”
“Father arrives tonight. I’m sure he will give you an award, or something.”
Ricky shook his head. “I don’t need an award. Thanks from you is all, and I already got that from you and more from your mother.”
“Why did you save me? If I saw you facing a boar with a stick, I would turn around and run, just like Ubbo did.”
Ricky smiled. “I don’t believe that, but you never know until you are tested. I’ve had the unfortunate luck to be tested more times than I care to count. It’s not that I don’t feel fear, I do. I feel fear, but it doesn’t keep me from doing what needs to be done.” Ricky didn’t admit to the terrors he felt at the Applia Juvenile Home.
“But we both could have been killed,” Jac said.
Ricky felt his friend was searching for something in the conversation. If Jac looked for solace from him, he would probably be disappointed. Ricky didn’t know what else to say.
“I would have tried something else,” Ricky said, not wanting to reveal his special trick of freezing time. “I could have grabbed your collar so we could both fly away, but I don’t have full confidence in doing that,” Ricky said.
Jac nodded. “That’s what Mara told me.”
“I’m the one who paid for my sorcery, and it wasn’t a terrible price,” Ricky said. “Let’s just put it down to an adventure.”
“I could live with no more this summer.”
Ricky shrugged a bit too hard and felt the stitches pull again. “That would be nice. Tell your mother that I should feel good enough for dinner. Will you wait for your father to arrive before you eat?”
“He always times his arrival at the beginning of dinner, not the end.” Jac smiled. “I guess I’ll let you continue to recuperate.”
Ricky watched the door close and gingerly lay back against the couch.
“Does it hurt much?” Tobia said, stepping from the pantry.
“You heard?”
“A servant’s misfortune is always to hear more than they should. It’s the same
with bodyguards,” Tobia said.
Ricky nodded. Tobia had just taught him a lesson he would always try to remember. Listeners were everywhere, unwitting or not.
~
Lord Griama took after his oldest son. Ricky quickly learned that Jac’s father was probably the third smartest in the family after the mother and Jac. Ticco fell far down the intelligence scale in Ricky’s eyes. But one thing was certain, Lord Griama ruled the household, and in that he was in total control.
“You shouldn’t have gone to the falls without armed escorts,” Lord Griama said. “You know there are dangerous animals in the forest, and the most dangerous one attacked.”
“Ricky?” Jac said, earning an angry glare from his father.
Lord Griama looked at Ricky with much softer eyes. “We are, of course, thankful that a sorcerer of your abilities accompanied Jac to visit this summer. I can’t say how appreciative we all our for your gallantry and personal sacrifice.”
Ricky had endured enough thanks. “Perhaps you can count it as compensation for putting up with my friends and me this summer.”
“Fair enough,” Lord Griama said. He looked towards the middle of the table at another newcomer. “Vana, would you introduce yourself to Jac’s friends?”
The girl had arrived just as they sat for dinner. Ricky was very impressed by the girl’s beauty; in fact, he thought she was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Her smile lit up her face. Jac seemed disinterested. He must have had a previous relationship with Vana.
“I am Vana Rasso. My father is the mayor of the Griama’s port town of Lirra. We are friends of the family. Lady Griama suggested that I come for a few weeks, at least to start, to be a companion to Mara Torris.” She smiled at Mara. “We haven’t been introduced, but I’m sure we will get along just fine.”
Ricky looked at Jac, whose face told Ricky that he didn’t believe Vana’s assertion. Lady Griama’s face reflected her son’s, and Lord Griama looked impassively on.
Servants placed the main course in front of the diners.
