by Guy Antibes
“I know of a good apartment that is available. It is close by.” Tobia said. “You will like it.”
The carriage only went a few blocks and pulled up at a presentable house, lacking the fancy stonework Ricky had noticed on Ubbo’s home.
The driver and Tobia carried in their luggage and dropped it in the foyer. “We are on the second floor,” Tobia said. He went inside and spoke to someone on the main floor and came back with a key.
Ricky carried up his handbag and walked in after Tobia opened the door for him. The furnishings were newer. The colors in the room were muted, but somehow everything still seemed fresh.
“I like this. Do we have indoor plumbing?”
Tobia nodded. “We do. Water will have to be heated up, but for you and me that’s no problem.”
“Who owns this place?”
Tobia grinned at Ricky. “I do. Or I should say my wife and I own it. This is where most of what we earn goes. My wife is paid very well for what she does.”
Ricky suddenly felt awkward. “I can’t take advantage of you.”
“I’m your servant, Ricky. If I didn’t want you to stay here, we would have gone to an inn.”
Tobia took Ricky for a tour. This was more comfortable than the overly extravagant apartment he had used at Jac’s estate. Tobia showed him the master bedroom suite.
“You can stay in here,” Tobia said.
Ricky shook his head. “This is where you and your wife sleep. You can stay here. I’m only fifteen, and I’ve lived in much worse accommodations than one of the two other bedrooms.”
Tobia didn’t complain. He moved Ricky’s trunk to the larger of the other two bedrooms. It overlooked a pleasant garden in the back of the property.
“Very private. My wife and I spent time in the garden when we both lived in the capital. We didn’t have to worry about prying eyes.”
Ricky nodded. “Let’s get something to eat at a place where we can dine together.”
“Plenty of places for that,” Tobia said. He looked happy.
They walked out of the townhouse. Ricky looked back. It looked no different from others on the street. Respectable was the word that came to Ricky’s mind, although what that meant from a fifteen-year-old boy’s head didn’t count for much, other than get Jac’s summer guests riled up at each other.
Tobia took them to the back of a clean-looking establishment. He sat down, facing the door. Ricky sat to the side.
Ricky let Tobia order a local fish dish. While they waited for their order to cook, Ricky couldn’t let Ubbo’s comment go unchallenged.
“Ubbo said you had a history and that you were a killer,” Ricky said. “I’d like your side of that comment. Bodyguards do have to kill. I’ve been responsible for some deaths myself.”
Tobia looked at his hands for a moment and clasped them together. “I am cursed with a beautiful, smart wife,” Tobia said. “She is very attractive, even now that she has gotten a bit older. She’s a servant under contract. To some men, that means they can do anything they want. I’ve had to put a stop to that more than once.”
“Duels?”
“Once, but I don’t like to see my wife hurt. Ducri Wamia finally couldn’t put up with me watching out for her and sold my contract to the Griama estate,” Tobia said.
Ricky could understand. “Let’s see if we can get Ducri to part with your wife.”
“It won’t be easy or cheap,” Tobia said.
“I would like to talk to Lord Wamia anyway. Can you arrange it?”
Tobia nodded. “My wife keeps his appointments, and despite everything, I’m not on horrible terms with the man,” he said.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
~
R ICKY SAT IN THE FLAT’S LIVING ROOM while Tobia went out. He shuffled through the transcription of the power-linking book. He pulled out the coin that Duke Noacci had made for everyone on the broomball team and wondered if Tobia had enough sorcerous power to link through a coin.
Ricky laid the coin on a table and focused his will on the pitch of the song. He needed to sing powerfully to make this work. He took a deep breath and sang.
The tone began well enough, but just before he reached the resonance he sought, his voice cracked. The power dissipated quickly.
What was that? he thought.
Whenever he sang loudly at a certain pitch, his voice cracked. Ricky groaned. Professor Calasay and Professor Garini both told him that he was due for a voice change at any time. Some would-be sorcerers’ voices never recovered. They were forever delegated to a lower level sorcery. Ricky had never imagined such a thing happening to him.
He clutched his neck and cleared his throat and attempted to sing again, but his voice broke down. Ricky put his head in his hands. He had too much to do for this to be happening to him now! Ricky took a few deep breaths and rose to his feet to pace the room, frantically seeking a solution.
What could he do to lower the pressure on his singing? He rubbed his hands and dumped his bag on his bed and began to look through his belongings for the transcripts. Maybe they would have something to say, something he had missed.
He glanced at a leather tube sticking out from the pile on his bed. Maybe he needed a focus? Ricky unclasped the leather top. The quality of the wand’s case was marvelous. He pulled out the wand and examined the fine work. Finely etched carvings adorned the wood. Ricky hadn’t taken the time to look at the wand that closely, but he was even more impressed by the craftsmanship.
It dawned on him that the wand might serve as his focus. He returned to the living room and pointed the wand at the coin. He summoned all the will he could, thinking about imbuing the coin with an alignment with his mind. He still thought of it as a power-link and used that as his visualization. He found the resonance, but at a lower volume. He increased the power and found it filling him, but as he did, he increased his volume, and the voice cracked again.
Ricky tried a few more times, but finally found that if he went slowly with a lot of will, he could fill up with resonance before his voice cracked. He picked up the coin and tried to link to it. Something slid into place, but it was incomplete. It needed a sorcerer’s will to activate. The book confirmed his thought. Ricky would have to wait until Tobia returned.
With his difficulty getting the link established with the coin, Ricky wondered what else would give him trouble. He began to experiment frantically in the room, and most of his spells were intact, including his freeze spell, which he verified by looking out the window at pedestrians seemingly frozen. He still had a hard time adjusting to the fact that he was moving and thinking very fast rather than his original perception that everything was frozen.
Any performance activity would take practice to generate the spells without revealing his malady. He knew that the big circle illusion required a lot of vocal force and that might be lost to him until he could control his voice. Ricky wanted to test his ability to produce the exploding fireball, but that would have to wait until he traveled outside the capital city.
He sat back, exhausted from so much use of his magic. Ricky hadn’t realized how panicked he had become with the deterioration of his voice, and that must have contributed to his fatigue.
~
Tobia walked in, waking Ricky up.
“You’ve been working hard?”
Ricky looked up at his servant. “My voice is starting to change.”
“It happens to us all,” Tobia said with a smile.
“I tried a spell, but I couldn’t maintain the resonance before my voice broke down.”
Tobia’s face turned serious. “That is a problem. Can you still create a spell?”
Ricky nodded. “But there are some spells where the resonance is right, but my voice breaks.”
“I didn’t face that. I didn’t get any training until I had passed twenty. I can’t give you any advice.”
With no one to turn to, Ricky wondered if performance sorcerers coming from Paranty could help him. He wou
ld have to monitor his singing capabilities more closely. “Did you get an audience?”
Tobia shook his head. “Lord Wamia is in the South.”
“And your wife?”
Tobia smiled. “You will meet her tonight. She can’t stay here with Ducri out of town, but we can have dinner at Lord Wamia’s townhouse. Would that be all right?”
“Maybe I can get the information I seek from her.”
“That’s what I thought. We are free for another two hours.”
Ricky looked at the wand and the coin on the table. “There is something I’d like to try. Pick up that coin.”
“This?” Tobia said looking at both sides of the coin that Duke Noacci had made up. “The token that Duke Noacci presented everyone on your broomball team?”
Ricky activated the coin with a thought and felt a full linkage take place. Tobia’s eyes opened wider.
I have created a mind alignment with you. This is an ancient technique that is certainly not practiced in Paranty, Ricky said.
Tobia sat down. Ricky could see a slight tremor in his hands. He stared at Ricky. Can you hear me?
I can hear you. This must be kept absolutely secret.
After grasping the arm of the chair, he sat forward. No one would believe me if I told them.
So don’t.
How does it work, this mind alignment? Tobia said.
The sorcerers in Duteria can do this. They call it power-linking, and only powerful sorcerers can make it work unless the two magicians are touching or have a very close affinity.
Like me to my wife?
If she is a sorcerer, Ricky said.
She is. That is how we were attracted to each other, Tobia said.
There are five levels of power-linking. This was ranked the highest because it is a link of one to many. If I spell some coins, I can communicate to any with a coin. The book that I got this technique from didn’t go into the details, but now we know it works. I want you to use a bit of your will to close our link. Can you do that?
Tobia nodded, and Ricky felt the linkage disengage. He couldn’t help but grin. “Did you feel the link go?”
“I did,” Tobia said, staring at the coin. “Can I try to talk to you?”
“I think all you have to do is exercise your will. It shouldn’t require a song to link.”
Tobia closed his eyes. Ricky felt a link blossom in his mind. “It works!”
In your mind. Speak to me with your mind, Tobia said.
So simple, yet it took me more power to get it to work. I needed to use my new wand to concentrate the power of my song to activate the coin.
Ricky broke off the link. “That’s yours. We will have to experiment. I don’t know if you have to touch the coin or not. I don’t feel like it drained me of any power.”
“My talent does not last for long, but in this case, I don’t think I use much of my power, only my will.”
“I’m sure you used power. There is a lot of testing to do. Supposedly, I can talk to many who have a coin, but they can only link with me. That is how the alignment should work.”
“It gives us something to do while we are in the capital waiting for the performance rehearsals to start.”
“Oh,” Ricky said. “The king needs to know where I am staying. That won’t present a problem for you or your wife?”
Tobia shook his head. “I talked to Minnie about it, and she has already sent a message on your behalf to King Courer’s chamberlain notifying him where you can be reached.”
“I’m going to take a nap. Wake me when it is time to get ready for dinner.”
~
Ricky could see why Tobia could get angry with overly-friendly men. Minnie was a beautiful woman. She made Vana seem like a child. When Tobia introduced them, Ricky was struck by her seriousness, but her attitude wasn’t like Effie’s or Nania Sarini’s. In fact, she reminded him of a very attractive Dari Calasay as much as anybody.
“I am pleased to meet you, Lord Hendrico Valian.” She flashed him a smile that changed her countenance. Ricky was instantly flustered, and he could feel his face burn with embarrassment. He felt that way when the women had given him too much attention a year ago when he was learning to perform for Mistress Merry. “Come into the dining room. We are alone tonight except for a few of my fellow servants,” she said. “The rest headed south with Lord Wamia.”
She batted her eyelashes at her husband. “Toby, you didn’t warn him, did you?”
Ricky furrowed his brow. “Warn me?”
“My wife is exceptionally beautiful, and it can have a disarming effect on men,” Tobia said.
“M-m-men? I’m just a boy,” Ricky said.
“A growing boy,” She patted Ricky’s hand.
“Tobia said you were a sorceress.”
Minnie smiled again. “Of middling talent. Tobia is stronger than I am.”
Ricky wondered. He gave a hand to her, and she took it with a puzzled look.
The power-link grabbed her immediately. Can you hear me?
Her eyes grew wide. You aren’t supposed to be able to do that! she said.
Ricky took his hand away from her and looked at Tobia. “You already knew about power-linking, didn’t you?”
Tobia blushed and looked at Minnie, who nodded.
“We promised each other we would keep her talent a secret. She can easily link with me, but we can only initiate a link when we touch,” Tobia said.
“I think we can fix that. Tell her what happened this afternoon, Tobia,” Ricky said.
Ricky’s servant explained what had happened at the townhouse. He pulled out the coin and gave it to his wife. Ricky could feel the link engage, and Ricky and Minnie had a quick conversation.
“The link comes to the person who activates the coin or token or whatever it is that is spelled. I’ll teach you the song and the pattern of will to make one of those for you. Then Tobia can communicate when he wants to. Are you both from Duteria?”
They nodded as the couple held hands at Lord Wamia’s dinner table.
“Minnie was attacked by a sorcerer of the Fourth Ring not long after we married. She protected me magically while I protected her physically. The sorcerer went down, and we had to flee. We ended up in Dimani towards the end of an awful drought. Neither of us could find suitable employment here in the capital. Food was hard to come by, so Minnie found two open contracts, and we sold ourselves for a few crusts of bread. Thirteen years later, here we are.”
Ricky smiled at Minnie, who didn’t seem so forbidding and forbidden all of a sudden. “Where did you learn how to run Lord Wamia’s business?”
“I’m nobly born. Tobia isn’t.” She shrugged. “My mother ran the family estate—”
“Much like Lady Griama does,” Tobia said.
“I’ll buy your contract if Lord Wamia will sell it. You can come to Paranty with me.” Ricky said.
Minnie adopted a hopeful look. “We have tried to buy our own contracts out, but he has asked for too much.”
Ricky could believe that. “I have more money than I need, at present. I’ll pay what he asks, if it is reasonable.”
Minnie gave Ricky a figure, and it was less than what he had access to in Dimani. “I can do it. Shall we call it a loan, if Lord Wamia agrees?” Ricky said.
Minnie looked at Tobia with hope in her eyes. “I can pay you back five times over,” Minnie said, “given time.”
“Hey, I’m only fifteen years old. I have plenty of time.” Ricky knew he was impulsive, but he liked Tobia, and he was sure, once he got over Minnie’s glamor, he’d like her, too. At present, he still had to admit he was a bit awestruck by her. “I need to learn how to run a dukedom.”
“Ah,” Minnie said. “That’s right. You are the heir to Naparra. Insippa Baldico talked about you.”
“Sippa?” Ricky said. He had forgotten he came to get information. Tobia knew, so Ricky didn’t feel as though he was taking advantage of the situation.
“He regretted leaving you to the
wolves in Dimani.”
“Sippa has gone?”
She nodded her head. “He left yesterday. Lord Wamia and he are friendly rivals. Baldico said his work was done.”
“I understand,” Ricky said.
“You do?”
“Sippa represents Parantian interests. He’s a spy for King Leon. Ducri Wamia represents Vorrian interests. He is an agent for the Vorrians, using his influence on King Courer. Did I guess right?”
Minnie looked at Ricky with astonishment and then at Tobia. “You said he was quick.”
“I’m not quick,” Ricky said. “It’s just that is logical watching a political argument at Lord Griama’s estate. I saw the schisms in the political situation in Dimani played out in front of me.”
“He did, Minnie,” Tobia said, who had been mostly silent. “By the way, I’m getting hungry. Can’t we continue while we eat?”
Minnie blushed. “Of course, husband.” She rose, kissed him on the cheek and left the two of them sitting across from each other.
“I know what is happening, but I don’t know what to do, Tobia,” Ricky said. “I want to help Jac, most of all.”
During dinner and for a time afterward, the three of them talked all about the conversation confirming what Ricky had expected. What was surprising was that there was no proof of the extent of the gold deposits.
“What if there isn’t much gold in the north?” Ricky said. “Ticco will depose King Courer, and Paranty and Vorria will split up Dimani for nothing.”
“Not for nothing in the South,” Minnie said. “Vorria will continue to plunder Dimani forests.”
“Lord Wamia put Lord Griama and Vana’s father together, so Ticco could become heir with the proceeds of the forest land?”
“Legally, Lord Griama can’t do that,” Minnie said. “How did you figure that one out?”
Ricky told her of his trip with Vana.
“And the wand is in the case at your hip?”
“It is.”
“May I see it?”
Ricky gave Minnie the wand. She looked closely at the design and sang. He voice matched her looks. She shook the wand once, and a long thin blade grew from the metal tip.
