by Guy Antibes
“Certainly you’ve seen magic misused before,” Shro said.
“No. I’ve seen nasty men doing nasty things, but nothing like this. When you use sips of magic, it’s different than this compulsion spell. It’s, it’s,” Pol shivered. “I can’t put my repugnance into words. I can see why Kelso didn’t want Valiso Gasibli or Malden Gastoria to administer a truth spell to an assassin that needed questioning.”
“Who is this Valiso Gasibli?” Horker asked.
“One of the Emperor’s Seekers. He was a mentor to Pol Cissert. He taught him lesson’s on Seeking.” Pol said.
“So who is Pol Cissert?”
“Oh, Poldon Fairfield changed his name when he became disinherited and fled Borstall Castle.”
“Poldon Fairfield?” Horker said. “You know him?”
“What I said in the Little Throne Room was a fabrication. He came to Deftnis about the same time I did. He was undersized and looked malnourished, but he’s a good little magician. The monks did wonders with his puny body. We talked a lot, and that’s how I made up my story about Kelso.”
“You’ve never been to Borstall?” Shro said.
Pol didn’t know why she would ask him that when she knew his identity. “I didn’t say I’ve never been there.”
“How old are you?” Horker asked.
“I’m as old as I look, but I’ve been around a bit, for one my age,” Pol said. “Hey, this isn’t interrogate Nater time.” He looked seriously at Horker. “Captain, sir, the truth will be revealed when it’s ready to be revealed.”
Shro gave Pol one of her enigmatic looks. He suspected she wasn’t as intimidating as a man as she would be in her female form.
~
Although they waited for a summons, one didn’t come until sunset. Manda summoned Horker, specifically without Pol. Before Horker left, Pol placed shields on Horker, with his permission.
Shro and Pol watched Horker leave as they walked to the kitchens. One-third of the tables were occupied.
“You sit, and I’ll decide what we will eat.” Shro sauntered up to the assembly cooks and walked back to the end of an empty table.
“What did they have available?” Pol said.
“It’s a surprise,” Shro said.
Pol didn’t like the smile on her face, but then she didn’t know what Pol would or would not eat.
“Are you going to show me how to do that freeze spell? What did you call it?” Pol snapped his fingers. “Right, locking the pattern.”
Shro hit Pol on the wrist. “Quiet.”
Pol nodded, but he didn’t think he had said it that loudly.
She leaned forward, too far forward for Pol’s comfort. He hadn’t ever forgotten her feminine features. “You picture the person’s pattern becoming locked up, like rusted in place.”
“Or frozen?”
“It doesn’t freeze that often in Shinkya, but that might work.”
Pol nodded. “I find it easier to find a pattern I’m comfortable with and tweak that.”
“So you think that different magicians are tweaking different patterns? I hadn’t thought of magic like that.”
“I haven’t either, but I’ll bet you would see compulsion spells differently than I do.”
“I don’t know that I could ever get to the point to see into a person’s body.”
Pol nodded. “The instructor I overheard in the class on compulsion said it takes a skilled healer to remove a compulsion spell, but I used a weed concept when I did it.”
“Weed?”
Pol moved back a little bit. “I saw the spell as a patch of color on the surface of the brain and pulled it out along with long roots, like I’d pull a weed. Menkin’s was much more difficult than I would have guessed.”
“Are you really sixteen?” Shro asked. “Was the face you showed me really you?”
Pol smiled. “That’s me.”
Two assembly cooks brought out their meals.
Pol looked down at stewed fowl with rice on the side.
“It smells delicious,” Pol said.
“I am going to show you that I can eat rice without having it stick to my face.” She looked around and stuck her tongue out at Pol, and then Shro laughed.
Pol didn’t know what to think. He looked at this guy across the table from him and all he could see was Shro’s real face. He shook his head. “I’ll be watching,” he said.
“How do you live in the capital city?” Pol said.
Shro plucked out a chicken leg and cleaned the meat quickly, leaving a bone in her hand. “It’s more like the Tesnan monastery than anything, but I have real classes and no drudgery. There are one hundred students in each class who attend for four years, but only fifty or so are magicians.” She waved the bone around for emphasis as she went on about the rigor of the classes, without mentioning the subjects. “We learn to ride. Next year we’ll go to Southport and learn to sail.”
Pol let her talk throughout the meal. He could tell she loved her life in Shinkya, but because she still had classes left at the Academy, he posed a final question.
“How young do they permit students into the Academy?”
“Oh, everyone is fourteen. Education is regimented in Shinkya,” Shro said without thinking.
“So that means you can’t be older than seventeen,” Pol said looking down at his meal.
“What?” Shro went silent. “I can lapse into stupidity, can’t I?”
Pol looked up at her. “Everyone lapses into stupidity at one time or another. I seem to do it on a regular basis.”
She covered her eyes with a hand. “I’m a prodigy, just like you. I thought if I put four years on my age, you wouldn’t notice.”
“I only saw the real you for a moment,” Pol said. “It’s not like I studied your face.” Yet, he remembered every detail.
After waving her hands and wiping them on a napkin, she said, “Let’s change the subject. I’m done talking about home.”
Pol hadn’t finished yet. “How do I unlock the freeze?”
“You think about your tweak dissolving. It’s simple really. If you leave it in place, the spell will dissipate in less than ten minutes. It works that way, even with our best magicians. Sometimes it’s just easier to put your subject to sleep.”
Shro looked away from Pol, biting her lip. Pol knew well enough to drop the subject, for a while anyway. He wasn’t very keen on practicing the spell on another person and wondered if there were any animals close by.
Horker walked in. A hand covered an eye. “Pol, if you have a moment,” Horker said as he left the assembly kitchen and walked back to their rooms with Shro keeping pace behind.
Shro opened the door to his bedroom as all three of them walked in.
“Not a peaceful meeting?” Shro said.
The Captain shook his head slowly. “Manda wanted to show me where I fit into the pecking order. He was especially incensed when he found I could resist a mind-control spell. That’s when I got this.” Horker took his hand away from his eye. It was swollen shut.
“What did he hit you with?”
“One of his assistants, a big man with big fists. Knocked me right to the floor.”
Pol did what he could for the injury. He took away most of the swelling, but stopped his healing. “You can’t show up with this fully healed,” Pol said.
Horker nodded as he took a deep breath. “That hurt nearly as much as the punch, like it always does.”
“Healing is like that. Be glad you were out when I mended you in the street.”
Shro felt her once-damaged shoulder. “I agree. The pain is nearly as bad as the injury, but it doesn’t last. I’ve already forgotten mine.”
“What did he ask you? Did he want to know if you used a truth spell on Kelso?”
“You’re on a first name basis with Beastwell now?”
Shro hit Pol in the shoulder. “Don’t be too familiar with your betters. That’s been pounded into me enough in Shinkya.”
“I’m sorry,” P
ol said. How could Val keep his stories straight when he performed Seeking assignments? He tried to be careful. Pol could tell Shro had just told him that he could make mistakes, too, but he had already admitted doing so.
“Not doing so upset him. Manda does not like to be crossed, and he’s only become worse since he left the monastery.”
“So do we suspect him of being the source of Beastwell’s condition?”
“I’m not so sure unless his interrogation was all an act. He really did want the truth spell administered. He talked about Kelso Beastwell’s story not being reliable.”
Horker looked at his hand with his injured eye. “It works. I was afraid I’d never see out of that eye again.”
Pol gave his Captain a smile and shook his head. “It wasn’t damaged that much.”
That brought a sigh. “Good. I told him all that we know, except for the removal of the spells, of course. Manda’s more intent on the truth spell than what Beastwell has to say.”
“That’s his intent. His actions don’t indicate someone who would want you killed before you interrogated the North Salvan,” Pol said. “He wants a provocation, and of course you are intended to be the provocation. I think we have to look elsewhere. What about the relationship between Gartor and the Queen?”
“Why is that important?” Shro said.
“Why isn’t it? What if the Queen killed him in a pique of anger and needs to pin the murder onto someone else? Wouldn’t a North Salvan be a good choice for a few reasons? Kelso Beastwell’s conviction remains a convenient reason to go to war with North Salvan. It takes everyone’s eyes away from her as the culprit, and she has the resources to hire a powerful magician to compel soldiers to kill us. Beastwell’s actions under mind-control might implicate him, although I don’t see a motive.”
“Does the Queen need a motive?” Shro asked with a little accusation in her words.
“I wonder if we removed the planted motive from Beastwell’s mind,” Pol said, ignoring Shro’s comment.
Horker knit his brows. “What is going on between you two? Dinner didn’t agree with either of you?”
“A lingering disagreement,” Shro said.
“If you want to call it that, be my guest,” Pol said, feeling a little angry for being solicitous to the Shinkyan. “I was saying, I could have removed the motive without knowing it. Since there is no way any motive will come from Beastwell now, we can look for it to appear from somewhere else.” Pol looked at the ground in concentration. “It’s a pattern, anyway.”
Horker looked at Pol with amazement. “How did you come up with that?”
“I read a lot,” Pol said, somewhat embarrassed that he was the one coming up with the questions. Even if Shro was three years younger, assuming she was in her fourth year at the Shinkyan Academy, Pol still remained the youngest of the three.
They all started at the knock on Horker’s door. Shro rose from sitting on the other bed in the room and opened it. General Onkar of the Tesnan forces rushed in.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
“I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR SOCIAL NICETIES, and I am not here, understand?” Onkar wore plain clothes and now looked more like a merchant than the leader of the Tesnan army.
All three of them nodded their heads in unison. Horker jumped up.
“Sit, sit, sit,” Onkar said. “What is going on here? I thought you had a minor task to perform in Covial, but what’s this about murder and Astor’s justification to invade North Salvan? I don’t need any reason to invade. We do as Tesna guides.”
“As Tesna guides,” Pol said. The other two followed along. Horker definitely needed more practice, but he still held his hand to his eye.
“What’s with your hand, Captain?” Onkar said. He talked with impatience. Pol had never seen him act otherwise.
Horker took his hand away to show the black eye.
“What happened here? My officers are not supposed to engage in fighting.”
“Not only that, we were attacked by seven competent soldiers.”
Onkar narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips together. “And you lived to tell the tale?”
“Do you want to see my two scars? Luckily a competent magical healer attended to our wounds. What is important is the culprits who survived all bit their tongues off and died from their wounds. I suspect compulsion,” Horker said.
Onkar grunted. “What else could it be? You really haven’t been out much, Horker, even though you aren’t bad with a sword.” He looked at Shro and Pol. “You said ‘we’?”
“Nater and Shro are both tolerable at swinging swords. Nater defeated Spinner in a sparring match.”
“Which of you is Nater. You, I suppose?” Onkar looked at Pol, who nodded, but kept his mouth shut. “What about this murder?”
Horker filled him in about most of the information, liberally sprinkling in Nater’s name in handling the investigation.
Onkar looked up and down, appraising Pol. “A budding Seeker, eh? You might have been better served attending Deftnis; however, this Captain would be dead on the streets without you.”
“I live to serve Tesna,” Pol bowed.
“Live to serve Tesna,” Horker and Shro said. Horker’s timing was better, and Pol noticed that Onkar remained silent.
Onkar grunted. “So, Seeker Nater, what do you think I should do?”
“You?” Pol said in a squeaking voice. Onkar had a very intimidating presence, but quite a different feel to him than the Abbot, who also intimidated Pol.
“Me.”
Pol thought for a moment. “Do nothing. No, do what you are doing. It’s likely Astor wants a reason to head north and might think that reason will let him move independently of your army.” That little flash of enlightenment hit Pol just as he said it. It helped fit into the pattern and perhaps gave him a lead that he hadn’t thought of before.
“Captain Horker was abused by Manda, the Court Magician, which could mean the Queen’s independent involvement. Both the King and Queen might want Kelso Beastwell to admit to the murder, but for different reasons. Queen Isa could cover up Lord Gartor’s death and would want us killed. King Astor wants the Captain to administer a truth spell to a North Salvan rather than you that will spark his leading the war against North Salvan. I can’t come up with a better pattern.”
“Pattern? We deal with order at Tesna.”
“I followed around a Seeker while he solved a problem for my father. They use the pattern term. Please forgive me, General Onkar.” Pol bowed.
Onkar waved his hand. “Order, pattern. Let’s face it, they get us to the same place,” he said. “I think you are right. I won’t have Astor Hairo coming up with some scheme to use as an excuse to take command of the Guardians. That means getting the North Salvan out of Covial for a week or two until the Guardians are ready to march. Can you remove this Beastwell fellow from the dungeon, Horker? Without him, they won’t be able to claim a thing.”
“It might be difficult to get any cooperation from Queen Isa if she is behind this,” Pol said. “Captain Horker can keep an eye on Beastwell with the supply train. We can secure him inside a wagon.”
“I’ll take care of the Queen.” The General paused to think. “A covered wagon, so no one sees him. I like the idea.” Onkar slapped Horker on the shoulder. The Captain winced. “Injury? Sorry, Horker. You’ve gained some battle experience on this little diversion.” Onkar nodded with approval. “That is your plan. Execute it as soon as you can and move Beastwell to your camp. Keep him out of sight. I’ll figure out how he can best serve Tesna later.”
“Yes, General Onkar,” Horker said.
Onkar looked at Pol. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. If it stays on in the coming days, I see why Horker kept you close.” He eased the door open, and after looking both ways, slid out of Horker’s room.
Pol sat back down on the bed. “He’s a whirlwind,” he said.
“Likes you, though,” Shro said. “You can go far in th
e Tesnan army. He nearly said so.”
Pol could tell she was needling him, but Horker just looked impressed. “Are you sure you want to leave the Tesnan army? Onkar is a great leader. And what exactly is the Abbot? He’s a great leader, too, isn’t he?”
Horker bit his lip. He looked like a schoolboy caught doing something naughty. “Yes.”
Pol made fist out of both his hands and hit them together, knuckle-to-knuckle. “That’s what is going to happen to the Tesnan army. In the meantime, thousands of mind-controlled and compelled innocent men will be killed. That’s not my idea of a noble enterprise, regardless of how strong the leaders are.”
Shro looked at Pol in a disturbing way. Horker just nodded.
“I got carried away, I guess. He doesn’t need mind-control to get someone excited. I’ll bet you’ve complained about Onkar before.” Pol remembered Horker’s midnight conversation at camp that Pol overheard.
“I have, I’ll admit it. I’m sure you have some criticisms of me, best left unsaid.” Horker glared at Pol.
“There might be an odd one or two,” Pol said. “But I’ve been as open as I can with you.”
“That you have,” Horker said. “So do you agree with Onkar about spiriting Beastwell away from Covial?”
“I do, but what are the consequences to us? Leaving at the same time will point everyone’s fingers right at us,” Pol said. “At least we can eliminate Onkar as the one who sent the assassins.”
“I know how we can keep pointed fingers at bay. That’s easy. We don’t leave at the same time,” Shro said.
Horker looked at Shro with disbelieving eyes. “But how do we get Beastwell out of the city?”
Pol smiled and gave the answer. “We let him walk away on his own. I know he’s smart enough to make it to the camp.”
Horker snorted. “He won’t go to the camp. He’ll head directly north to Borstall.”
“No, he won’t,” Pol said quietly.
The Captain blinked his eyes before he understood that Pol was right. “You move too fast for me. Why won’t he?”
