by Guy Antibes
After a mediocre dinner that made Jack miss his mother’s cooking, he slept soundly. After a better breakfast, Jack returned to the stable. The stableman brought out a saddled horse.
“That isn’t the horse I bought,” Jack said.
“He’s the same color,” the stableman said.
Jack shook his head. The man must have taken Jack for the country bumpkin that he was. “The horse I bought is a mare. Shall I describe her to you?” He went on about the condition of her teeth and the white spot on her left flank. “Will you get the horse I bought and the new bridle too.”
“You are too sharp for so early in the morning,” the stableman said.
“I just remember things from one day to the next,” Jack said with a sigh.
In a few minutes, Jack mounted the horse that he bought and rode out of Orderton. What he didn’t tell the stableman was that he didn’t ride as well as he groomed and it took a few unpleasant miles until Jack got through to the horse that he was the master.
He stopped at a little meadow by the side of the road. It had been used plenty of times but was currently empty. He tried to get a feel for the power of the wand that he had been touching for most of the morning, and it felt lively to him. Time for a little practice, he thought.
He found a suitable tree and took about ten paces away from the tree and pointed the wand. “ZAP!” he yelled. His hand really hurt and began to shake uncontrollably for a couple of minutes. When Jack regained his wits, he could see the tree was smoking.
He ran to fetch his water bottle and emptied it on the burning bark. He was about to pour some on his red hand only to find the water was gone and there wasn’t a water source in the clearing. He sat on a rock that had been worn smooth by many campers and looked at his wand. He could still feel power, so he hadn’t exhausted the stored magic, but he thought his hand couldn’t take another beating like that, so he got out a roll of leather lacing and fashioned a grip on the thick end.
Jack pointed it at a tree not far from where he sat and pronounced the spell word with less effort. He could see the thin line of power from the tip, and his hand only felt a buzz. Relieved he could use the wand without touching, he put it back in the sheath and mounted his horse. He would travel until he found a stopping place with water or a village where he could use the well.
He traveled for another two hours and found a suitable spot within a thick wood. He filled his jug after he watered and hobbled the horse so it could forage. The redness on his hand had mostly faded, but he soaked it in the spring at the side of the campsite. The sun was beginning to sink, and Jack decided he could spend the remaining part of the day practicing with his sword and wand.
After hefting the wand and practicing like he fought a battle, he spotted movement in the brush. A large rabbit bounded into the clearing and then stopped when it saw Jack. The wand was raised, aimed, and Jack spoke the trigger word. Using the wand was much easier than a bow and arrow, Jack thought, as he grabbed fresh dinner. The rabbit wasn’t dead, but stunned, so Jack made a mental note on the distance before he finished off his prize.
Dressing the animal reminded Jack of the trips with his older brothers and father in the woods around Raker Falls. After his brothers had left home and Jack became a teenager, the trips stopped. He could never figure out why his father didn’t bother with him, but those old experiences were now helping Jack fend for himself on his way toward Dorkansee.
The rabbit was covered with wrapping paper from his lunch, eaten on the road, while Jack foraged for enough sticks to make a fire. He had bought metal rods for a spit, and a firepit was already a feature of the campsite. After the fire had settled down, Jack put the rabbit on the spit and began to watch it, using the wand as a poker to move the rabbit.
“Surely, there is enough for two,” a voice said.
A man who appeared to be around thirty years old and wearing a leather breastplate stood among the branches, nearly hidden from Jack’s view.
“Stay where you are,” Jack said. He was about to draw his sword, but the man held up his hands. He hadn’t known if he should have zapped the man or tried to fend off a more experienced swordsman with his cheap weapon, so he was relieved when the man signaled he wasn’t an enemy. However, that didn’t make him a friend.
“The name is Tanner Simple. I suppose I’ve been following you since Orderton. Am I right?”
Jack nodded. “I guess so,” he said. “I am Jack Winder from Raker Falls.”
“I’ll pay for a bit of fresh meat,” Tanner said. “Really. I’m not an enemy. Far from it.”
Jack took his hand off the hilt of his sword, but merely lowered the wand. He had no idea if the zap would penetrate a leather breastplate, but he didn’t have to aim at the man’s chest. “I imagine you have a horse?”
Tanner grinned. “Oh, that. He is tied up, so I’ll go get him. I have some things to add to the meal.”
Jack was still a little skittish about sharing his dinner with a stranger, but, after taking a deep breath, he realized that he had to do these kinds of things if he was to fulfill his errand. The wand wouldn’t leave his hand until he had talked more to Tanner Simple.
The man had a helmet and metal epaulets tied to the back of the saddle. He was definitely a fighting man. Knights or soldiers rarely visited Raker Falls since it lay at the end of the road. The village was mostly surrounded by farmland except for the outcropping of the adjacent mountain range that provided the height for the falls that gave Jack’s village its name and reason for existence.
Tanner had some vegetables that were a little wilted, but suitable for flavoring a rabbit stew. Jack hadn’t thought about vegetables, not having had to cook much in his life. Tanner cut off some of the rabbit and put it in the pot.
“Putting in nearly-cooked meat won’t add much to the flavor, but it won’t take so much time, either,” Tanner said, amiably enough. He looked up at Jack. “Where are you headed?”
“The man I work for sent me to Dorkansee to fetch something, so I go there, secure what he wants, and head back to Raker Falls.”
“It must be something valuable to send a person to fetch it. Couldn’t he use the royal post? Surely that would be cheaper.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t ever questioned Fasher Tempest’s motives, and in the time he had known the wizard, Jack never saw anything that would cause him to distrust the man.
“I’m his helper,” Jack said. “If he tells me to do something reasonable, I do it. I haven’t been this far from my home, and it is a lot of fun, mostly.”
“Mostly?” Tanner asked.
Jack told the man about his ride on the onion cart and the switched horses. “I’m sure I will experience more.”
Tanner laughed. “I’m sure you will. Would you mind if we traveled together? Perhaps I can help you with your education about traveling in Corand. What do you say?”
Jack shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’ll admit I was a bit bored during all the travel today. If you’ll show me how to improve my swordsmanship, that would be nice.”
“I can do that. Show me your sword.”
Jack hesitated to disarm himself in front of the stranger, but if the man had wanted to rob him, he could have already done so already. “Here.”
“Cheap. Did you buy it, or did you get it as a present?”
“It was a gift for my eighteenth birthday,” Jack said. “I knew it wasn’t an expensive weapon.
“There is a sword-making enterprise in Dorkansee that makes these. I’ve seen them sold everywhere in Corand. The best part of the sword is its shine. Past that…” Tanner shook his head. “I don’t know how much you are attached to this, but I can find you a better, used sword than this in any good-sized village that we pass. Do you want fancy or do you want a serviceable weapon?”
Jack laughed. “Take a look at my horse. The only reason I bought a new bridle was that the stable didn’t have a used one as good. I’ll take used quality over new cheap any time. My f
ather makes the best furniture in Raker Falls. He drilled that into my head enough times.”
“Yet he gave you this?”
Jack sighed. “I am a lousy swordsman. Why throw diamonds into a pigpen?”
“You look big enough and strong enough to wield a blade. What is your problem?”
“My eyes, my brain, and my body don’t know how to communicate very well, or at least not well enough when I wield a sword.”
“Oh. I can’t fix clumsiness, but perhaps we can work on that. Maybe the goal is to give you enough training to defend against an average swordsman.”
Jack smiled. “I’d be more than satisfied with that. I just about got beaten by a girl.”
“Is there a story there? Sounds like it.”
Jack ended up telling Tanner all about Penny’s near-death and his helping Fasher Tempest revive her. Tanner was a good listener and reacted in all the right places to Jack’s story, so he told him everything.
“So you are a wizard on a quest for a magical orb. Sounds like it came straight from a bard’s story.”
“Not so dramatic. I see it as a country bumpkin fetching for his master. Except I have to go nearly the length of Corand to complete my errand.” Jack chuckled to himself. “The fact of the matter is, I’m enjoying being gone and on my own.”
“Too much to have me join you? If you’d rather…”
Jack shook his head. “No, not at all. I said I was about to get bored and I’m sure you have better stories than I have.”
“We will have the opportunity since Dorkansee is two weeks away if nothing goes wrong,” Tanner said. “Perhaps I might introduce myself. Tanner Simple is my name. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket if you understand my meaning.”
“Your mother brought you up?”
“She died giving birth to a still-born daughter on the right side of the blanket. My step-father didn’t want me to remind him of his wife, so I was shipped back to my real father, who also wanted nothing to do with me, so I was raised by his servants.”
“Oh,” Jack said.
“Don’t feel bad. I grew to hate my real father, but I loved my adopted parents. My real father had a tiny bit of conscience, so I had a bit of schooling along with my older half-brother, and that included full training with arms, so when I was old enough, I served in a noble’s army. I didn’t like the regimented life that much, so I became a wizard’s guard for a while, and now I am one of those swords-for-hire that you hear awful stories about. Most of us are trying to make a living and don’t go around pillaging villages and other nasty things.”
“How long has it been since you worked?”
“Three weeks ago, I think,” Tanner said. “I’m going to Dorkansee to visit my sister, my real father’s daughter as it turns out. She was very kind to me when I grew up. I would have been the youngest of my father’s children.”
“I’m the youngest,” Jack said. “My mother says I am just like every youngest child.”
“Meaning?”
“I have a reputation for being a bit unruly,” Jack said. “It is a well-earned reputation, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid. I was the only child of my adoptive parents, so I never did figure out how I should have turned out,” Tanner said. “I suppose, like you, I am still being turned out.”
“But you are so much older than I,” Jack said. “How can you change?”
Tanner shook his head. “In some ways, we are the same from birth to death, but in other ways, people can come out better or turn worse due to circumstances. Old people, my adoptive father used to say, all think like they did when they were your age. I’m not sure that is exactly correct, but human nature is a funny thing. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, someone or something comes along and ruins your conclusions.”
Jack thought Tanner had spoken some wisdom to him, but he couldn’t quite understand it all. Perhaps he hadn’t lived long enough to find out, except he did know people of all ages could do strange things.
They sat by the fire, with Jack tending the spitted rabbit and Tanner stirring the stewpot, in companionable silence.
“I think that rabbit is done,” Tanner said.
Jack nodded. He removed it from the spit and put it on his only metal plate. “I’ll go fetch water,” he said.
Tanner didn’t move while Jack did what he said. The older man tested a vegetable. “Good enough if you are hungry.”
Jack flashed his eyes. “Anything is good if you are hungry enough, and I am hungry.”
They ate the remains of the rabbit with their fingers. Jack put the stew in his only bowl, and Tanner ate out of the stewpot. Both of them finished off everything. Jack was more than satisfied and washed out his cooking stuff along with Tanner’s before gathering leaves to put under his bedroll. Twilight was quickly turning into night.
“No tent?”
Jack shook his head. “I have enough other stuff to carry.”
“I feel the same way,” Tanner said. “The next village isn’t so far away that we can’t have breakfast there. This campsite is generally used by people who don’t want to pay for a night’s sleep, but breakfast is different, to me, anyway. There is a market town we should hit tomorrow afternoon. We will buy you a decent sword and spend the night if you don’t mind.”
“I didn’t think to buy a map,” Jack said. “I might have gone on yesterday, but I was so thirsty, I needed to fill up my jug, and then I stayed.”
“I’m glad you stopped, or I might have missed you,” Tanner said.
Chapter Six
~
T he market town was bigger than Orderton and even had a wall, even though it was broken down in places. A few hundred years ago, Corand was a different place with many fiefs and constant wars. The current king’s great-great-grandfather conquered all the nobles and outlawed attacks on one another, although every noble was to train its citizens in arms and some used their armed forces to keep internal order. That was why all the boys in Raker Falls had to spend six months with the guard. Jack reminded himself of that as he rode through the town.
“This inn will suit us perfectly,” Tanner said. “I know the proprietor, and she serves good food and lets out clean rooms for a reasonable price. The drink isn’t bad, either.”
“Drink?” Jack asked. “I turned eighteen before I left home and haven’t had the opportunity to imbibe in a pub, just at home.”
Tanner grinned. “Let’s get you goodly drunk, then. I’m not a follower of Alerdrach, no way, no how,” he said.
The inn wasn’t far from the market, and once Tanner procured a room for the pair of them, they set off to buy a sword.
“You won’t get much for your cheapie,” Tanner said, “but it is in perfect shape.” Tanner looked at the wand at Jack’s side. “Why do you wear that long thin poker in a sheath?”
“It is my wand.”
“Wand? Oh, that’s right, the wizard’s helper. Does it work?”
Jack nodded. “It only does one thing magically, but I can do plenty of mundane things with it, as you noticed last night.”
“Turn the rabbit on a spit and stir coals. The point looks sharp enough to pierce an anxious hand.”
Jack shrugged. “I suppose so. It is still learning its place in my life,” he said.
Tanner laughed. “That explains the hole in your sheath. You are giving it power?”
“You know about wizardry?”
“I used to be a guard for one, remember? I’ve seen my share of objects of power. The wand is one, of course.”
“Of course,” Jack said. “I don’t know how to make one, but I can restore an object of power.”
“And that is the reason your wizard made you his helper?”
Jack nodded.
“You’ll have to give me a demonstration, later.”
“Later,” Jack said. “Now let us replace my gaudy blade for one better.”
“And less gaudy.”
“If a less gaudy one is better.”
/>
“Of course,” Tanner said.
“Of course,” echoed Jack.
They wandered around the large market until Tanner spotted a weapons tent.
“The good new swords won’t be sold at a market, but we should find a good used one.”
They stepped in. Odors of rust and oil mingled with other less identifiable smells as they walked through barrels of knives, sheaths, maces; armor in stacks; and swords intermingled among them all.
“Is this a good one?” Jack said, lifting a heavy blade. The edge was straight, and the metal wasn’t particularly polished to a sheen.
“No,” Tanner said. “The edge has been sharpened off. The sword is too old.”
Tanner continued to go through piles of swords. Jack didn’t see any used swords like his, but he did see a barrel of new swords of the same type his father had given him.
The merchant approached Tanner. “Looking for something specific?”
“A good sword the lad can grow into. He’s wearing one of your yokel specials.”
The merchant’s eyes drifted to Jack’s sword. “I see. I can’t give you very much for that.”
“No matter.” Tanner looked around the tent. “You have to have better stock than what’s here.”
“Used?”
Tanner nodded. “Used. It can be old, but not over sharpened. Straight and with a good balance.”
“It will cost you.”
Tanner smiled. “I didn’t see ‘free’ posted anywhere. Of course, it will cost me. The sword will determine how much.”
“This way,” the merchant said, leading them both to a corner of the tent. He pulled open a wide drawer in a large chest.
“Ah,” Tanner said. “Hiding your good stuff, so the dross gets sold?”
The merchant smiled and nodded. “I am, foremost, a merchant, and then a weapons seller.”
“Whatever that means,” Tanner said as he began sorting through the other drawers. He pulled out four swords. “Any of these are decent. Swing them and tell me which one feels better in your hand. You have been doing a bit of practice, haven’t you?”
“I have,” Jack said. He picked up the first. It felt fine if a little heavy. Was that a function of the balance? He did the same with all. One of them felt much livelier in his hand. As if it had a little power in it, but he wouldn’t be able to really tell unless he swung it in the open air.
