by JD Hart
Friarwood stepped to the side and waved them through. “Just get on with it.” He watched their comical antics with detached interest. They were all so inept.
Marcantos’s pace stuttered as his eyes locked with Friarwood’s. The dark-clothed mentor silently shadowed Marcantos into the solace of the keep entry, then on up the stairwell. Copious ambled along behind, looking content to be in the cooler tower. Entering Friarwood’s quarters, Marcantos could no longer take his preceptor’s quiet nipping at his heels. “I know what you’re going to say, Blake, but I have made up my mind.”
Friarwood scanned the room, then turned his glare on his student. Of all of the qualities the younger man possessed, stubbornness was at the front of the line. But he had no intention of occupying these substandard living quarters longer than necessary. The room offered none of the luxuries Friarwood had come to appreciate since rising through the Warriors Order ranks. “Maybe you don’t fully appreciate how tenuous our current position is,” he said in a forced quiet voice.
Marcantos rounded on him. “And what is our position, Blake? As I see it, my position, my responsibility, is to be fully prepared for the honor of my Realm and my order to assume the reins as the next queen’s champion”—he threw his arms up in the air—“whenever that unfortunate moment arrives, Harmonics protect our queen. Every thought, decision, and deed I make is toward that goal. I thought you would see it that way, or at least not fight me over it.”
Friarwood patiently patted the air in front of him to soothe the younger man’s emotional state. “I do not question your goal, Marcantos. What I question is your strategy for achieving it.”
Disarmed, the younger Warrior sighed.
Friarwood took the advantage, considering how best to direct his pupil’s thinking. Creating the right mental condition in another was like making a potion, though it had been a long time since he had done that. Having the right ingredients was of no use if you did not know the right proportions and mix them in the proper sequence.
He continued. “This is not a matter of my not trusting your just cause.” Friarwood rolled his eyes skyward for dramatic effect. “Astral Beings help me, I do believe in your cause.” Another precisely timed pause would help before a gentle reminder of his seniority, at least in age, to keep Marcantos in doubt before he ran off making any more rash promises. “But what you do speaks of an inexperience I would expect from someone your age.”
“My actions in the ward are not as rash as you, or anyone else for that matter, might perceive, Blake,” Marcantos replied in his own defense. “Everything has been weighed and measured.” He spoke as a man trying to convince himself.
Friarwood gripped Marcantos by the shoulders. “If I am going to be your preceptor, you must trust me, Marcantos. You must rely on my wisdom as a swordsman.” He emphasized this last part while resting his hand on his pupil’s shoulder, a touch of pleading in his voice, laced with just enough respect to balance the inherent threat.
He continued more deliberately, giving his pupil a chance to consider his words. “If you do assume the reins as the next queen’s champion, and I see no reason why you won’t, don’t you want to be the best champion possible? Is it not noble to ensure that you offer Veressa and our Harmonic blessed Realm your full potential to guarantee the queen’s security?”
Marcantos responded. “That was the reason for my decision, Blake. But I feel off center, like the ground is shifting under my feet.” His voice had a haunting uncertainty as Marcantos considered the new sensations.
Friarwood’s artificial smile shifted to one of true delight. This was the piece of the puzzle he had been searching for. He patted Marcantos’s arm lightly. “What you feel is normal, Marcantos. That is why it is so critical to listen to my instructions. You are at an important juncture in your training. You must proceed unhindered by superfluous distractions.” Facing his student directly, he took a serious posture while gripping both of the younger man’s shoulders. “The Mental vision you experienced this morning is but a small taste of what is possible. But you must cultivate it, nurture it. You must learn to control it; otherwise, it will control you. Do you understand?”
Marcantos nodded submissively. “Of course, Blake. You are right, as always.”
Friarwood caught a slight movement at the corner of his eye. He glanced to the doorway of his quarters. Something about the shadows in the hall was off. Turning his back to Marcantos, he lightly waved his fingers. “Ora eftos anakaprosopo,” he whispered, casting a simple Earth spell, something no true Warrior could do or detect. Just past the door was the shallow breathing of a large man. His brow furrowed. “Good,” he said to Marcantos through clenched teeth. “Then we will make do with what we have to work with. Since you have assumed the duties over the keep’s Warrior apprentices, it is only proper you continue. But we must set a few limits; otherwise, we won’t have time to advance your skills. Are we in agreement?”
Marcantos hesitated, then diverted his eyes from Friarwood’s intense examination. “Of course,” he agreed with complete lack of conviction.
Palastar slipped from the doorway and retreated upstairs to his office, then sat at his desk for several minutes, drumming out stress with pudgy fingers. Sensing Palastar’s tension, Garren nudged his other hand with a nose dry from midday heat.
Palastar rubbed the wolf’s furry ears absently. He was not cut out for life this close to the Borderlands. He wished he had been properly instructed in the techniques of espionage. The idea of spies, intrigue, and secrets of the Realm made him queasy. He needed an easier job more central to the Realm.
After some mental exertion, he decided to send a message to the general straightaway, while events were fresh in his mind, even though Grimwaldt had only left that morning. Removing a small parchment from a drawer, he dipped his favorite ostrich-feather quill into the small bottle of ink. His message should be terse since others would read it before the general arrived. Carefully, tongue pressed against his lip to steady his hand, he wrote in flowery lettering:
General G., be aware, your concerns in the matter mentioned seem well justified. I will continue as instructed. —Colonel P.
Once certain the message contained no grammatical errors, he slipped the tightly rolled parchment inside a hollow metal band. He licked his lips nervously and, with some effort, proceeded up the long stairs to the top level in the tower, Garren at his side. There, a guard standing behind the stairs snapped to attention. Palastar jumped, nearly dropping the metal band down the stairwell.
“Colonel,” the guard said formally, eyes straight ahead.
Palastar hesitated, wondering if the guard had noticed his jump. Then stepping to the door on the right, he acknowledged the guard so as not to raise any suspicions. “Good work, soldier. I want to check the condition of the room here. Please make sure I am not disturbed.”
The guard nodded stoically.
Palastar waited, expecting a verbal reply, but when none came, he cautiously opened the door. The small room he entered was hot. He tried to ignore the intense, pungent odor as he closed the door behind, taking one last nervous look at the guard. Garren waited in the hall.
Except for a number of wooden cages on tables around the walls, the room was void of furnishings. A bucket of grain and one of water sat behind the door. Pieces of the same straw lining the bottoms of the cages littered the stone floor. In each cage were three to ten pigeons of various colors. Some nested in the thick straw while others paced about. In front of the cage doors were signs with names of various places in the three Realms.
Palastar stepped to the cage marked Loren Canyon. After observing the birds for a moment, he decided not to rely on any pigeon nesting contently. He reached in and snatched one near the door. Once the metal band was secured on the protesting pigeon’s leg, he stepped to the narrow window facing south and pushed the pigeon through the small gap.
Friarwood marked the minutes while he and his pupil discussed limits on Marcantos’s instructional time
. In the end, they agreed that Marcantos’s lessons would be conducted privately an hour after Hemera’s rise. This would ensure Friarwood the opportunity to work with Marcantos alone.
After Friarwood ushered Marcantos from his study with a groggy Copious lumbering behind, he stepped to Carnia’s perch. The peregrine falcon, her feathers ruffled, hopped lightly on his arm. He moved to the balcony.
Heat from the dark city wall made the vast plains shimmer. Friarwood waited. After a few minutes, a pigeon appeared from a narrow window farther up the keep’s tower, winging south. He lightly petted Carnia. “It seems you will eat well this afternoon.” He stretched his arm out and his bond took flight. The warm updrafts lifted her swiftly as she darted south, her meal in sight. Friarwood continued to wait anxiously on the hot terrace. It was not long before his eyes opened wide, his body tensing, letting the exalted rush of emotions from the falcon’s kill flood through him.
Shortly, Carnia flew back through the balcony and fluttered gracefully to her perch, the bloody carcass of a pigeon in her talons. Friarwood stroked his bird as he gently plucked the lifeless form from her grasp. He removed the metal band from the dangling leg, then tossed the remains to the grassy plains below.
Carnia screeched her frustration, but Friarwood was busy now. He opened the parchment, scowling at the flowery cursive before crushing the note in his bloody fist. As if dealing with Marcantos’s rash behavior was not enough, he would have to add one more item to the list of assorted tasks that had brought him to Cravenrock under the guise of Marcantos’s training. Yet another knife to juggle, even if only briefly.
No matter. Such was the way of those whose never-ending task was to sow chaos and discord. He would continue with what he did best: adapt to a changing situation. He pondered ways he might turn this new development to his advantage as he carefully lit the parchment with tinder he had removed from a box. The right push, an adjustment here, a nudge there, Friarwood could still achieve all his objectives. Dark smoke curled up as the paper turned to ash. It would require more attentive nurturing, more hands-on direction, and the assistance of the able assistant he had procured. There were always risks, but new seeds could be brought to bear good fruit.
Part III
Life’s meaning is found in the relationships developed over the course of time. Bonds are but one way to guide a Being toward a deeper understanding and expression of self. Family, friends, even strangers—each relationship is like a mirror into the soul. If one wants to truly see their essence, they need merely examine the relationships they cultivate.
—The Modei Book of Air (Second Book)
A Pact in the Dark
The stockade had been deathly quiet for several hours when the gloomy occupant heard the muffled voices outside the cell. The hall fell silent, and the cell’s occupant let out a discouraged sigh. But jingling keys and the metallic click of the door’s lock renewed his interest.
The wooden door swung wide in response to a booted kick, and a tall, thin man sailed through the dark portal, arms flailing in a futile attempt to control his descent to the stone floor. Even as the man let out an audible grunt from the impact, he was on his feet and running for the entrance. The door slammed shut, casting the cell into a blur of muted grays. “You should have paid for the disturbance!” A deep voice snarled from outside as the lock clicked back in place.
After the new arrival made several frantic attempts to pull the door open with his fingers, he stepped back and kicked it hard with another grunt. For several minutes he stared at the impassive door, then jumped as if stung. He patted down his sides and, after not finding what he was looking for, rummaged through the straw where he had been thrown. Shortly, the man dropped hard to the floor. Stuffing head in hands, he groaned yet again.
There was something familiar about the new occupant. Plans formed and the gloomy prisoner stirred from the shadows of the corner.
Defeat had taken Conner. How could everything go so wrong so quickly? All the emotional ups and downs of attempting to escape from a punishment for a crime he did not commit, and for what? To be stripped of all possessions and coin, then beaten by guardsmen bent on taking out their anger and indignation upon his ribs. He lightly touched the goose egg on his forehead, compliments of the master swordsman. Okay, Mom, where is the good in this? He turned his focus on his dank surroundings to fight off the growing sense of hopelessness.
The stockade was an old brick building butted against the north side of the keep’s wall. The repulsive stench was enough to reason why it had been constructed far from any city traffic. The guards had marched him past a large metal door on rollers where two more stood watch. One wide dirt hallway ran through the middle of the building. A vaulted ceiling extended nearly to the slanted thatched roof eight paces above. Along each side of the hall was a series of doors. It was through one of these that Conner had been so unceremoniously tossed.
With the weak light coming through the narrow slats in the poorly maintained roof far above, Conner surveyed his new residence. The room was square and large, with a gap between the side walls and the ceiling higher up. The door, which had no latch or pull, was made of tightly pressed hardwood boards held together with several strips of unfinished steel. Whoever had constructed the building had chosen to use the keep’s northern dark wall as the back of the cells; the remaining walls had been constructed from the same brick used throughout the city. The thatched roof ran diagonally downward from the keep’s wall, covering the entire stockade. A thick layer of damp straw, the source of the stockade’s smell, covered a mortared stone floor. In the front corner of the cell hung two buckets, one leaking water. The overall impression of the building was that it had been haphazardly converted from an old barn, likely once used to stable horses belonging to the keep’s soldiers.
From the back of the cell came the sound of rustling straw. Conner jumped, crouching low. The sodden straw fell away and he recognized the stirring form. “You!” he snarled, and lurched forward to throttle the source of his consternation.
Bandit threw his arms up to shield himself from the approaching angry farmer. “Please, don’t be hurtin’ me, sir. I know it was my fault you be in this, but you can’t be faultin’ me for doing my job.”
The Eastlander pulled up short, fists taut. “Did anyone ever tell you that you have a pathetic job?”
Bandit contemplated his short past. “A few, but since no one do be offerin’ me something better, I don’t be seein’ I have much choice in the matter.”
That defused the Eastlander’s anger. “It seems many of us are short on choices,” he stated with a sigh, as if reciting something he had heard recently. “What is your name?”
The boy lowered his arms. “People do be callin’ me Bandit, sir.” He peered at the Eastlander over knobby knees pulled tight to his chest.
The Eastlander squatted, unwilling to sit in the stink rising from the wet straw. “Don’t call me sir. My name is Conner.”
“As you will.”
“Bandit.” Conner considered the name. “I guess that explains a lot. Just how did you end up with this job of yours?”
Bandit grew unsettled. It was the first time anyone had asked him anything about his past. He studied the Eastlander, but he could detect no obscure meaning to Conner’s question. In spite of his nature, he told the truth.
At the age of six, hidden behind a wooden crate at the end of a dirty Cravenrock street, Bandit had watched his parents die at the hands of a gang for their few coins. After surviving on his own for several months, a transient woman trapper found him and, feeling some semblance of pity, fostered the boy. After a year of failed attempts, the trapper was resigned to the fact that the boy was a habitual thief. If the boy was going to steal, the trapper reasoned, then he needed to be good enough to stay out of prison. So the trapper trained the boy in a skill she had learned early in her life—the fine art of pickpocketing. The boy had exceptional talent and was a quick study. After his second year, it was clear the bo
y had learned everything the trapper could teach him. So she took the boy to Pirate, the leader of the Cravenrock Thieves Guild, who agreed to take care of him, giving him the name he used. Without a word, the trapper had walked away. Bandit never saw her again.
Bandit had not thought of the trapper in the three years since, but as he relayed his brief story, one of the trapper’s lessons came to him. If you want to bag a quality pelt, boy, there are four essential steps you must always follow. First you have to have the right bait to attract the right animal; otherwise you will needlessly waste an animal’s life and your time. Second, you have to take the time to hide the trap well. An animal won’t take the bait if it sees the trap, no matter how good the bait may be. Third, you must be patient. You never want to scare away your prize before it has sprung the trap, or it will surely get away. And lastly, and this is important, boy, having the animal in the trap does no good if you can’t get it out without damaging the pelt.
It was this lesson, Bandit realized, that would not only get him out of the stockade, but would get him back into Pirate’s good graces, the Cosmos willing. Tossing Conner in the cell with him was as good as tossing in the key to the door.
Bandit started probing into where Conner was from and how he had learned to climb walls, but these provided nothing valuable for Bandit’s plan. But when he asked Conner why he was in Cravenrock ...
“I am on my trek. As I said to that city guardsman, I am just passing through.” Conner hesitated, turning to gaze at, or through, the wall to the northwest. He snatched up a fistful of wet straw and threw it violently at the door. “I can’t stay here. I need to go.” His voice was anxious and lost.
