by Guy Antibes
“Oh. It needs your power to make it work. I didn’t believe my man. Come with us, or should I say, we will follow you.”
Tanner stepped in front of Jack. “I suggest that we head for the docks in the Second Ring. I wouldn’t want to venture into the Third without more of your men.”
The captain cleared his throat. “Good idea. Let’s go.”
Chapter Eleven
~
G are, the captain, and two more guards accompanied Jack and his group through the well-dressed throngs in the Second Ring until they arrived at a massive gate set in an equally massive wall.
“Since you haven’t been to Dorkansee before, the wall separates the rings from the docks which run the length of the city. It also acts as a defensive line from the sea,” Gare said.
They moved into the dock area, but Jack could recognize they were among warehouses, and he couldn’t even see the ocean from where they were. The captain took them to the wharf area where he asked Jack to check the seeker cube.
They all sighed when they saw the blue on the cube pointing southeast into the Third Ring.
“I will need more men,” the captain said. He looked around the wharf area and pointed to a pub. “That one isn’t too bad. Have something to eat and not much to drink,” he said drily, “and I will return with reinforcements. Gare will go with you.”
The captain turned, and the two other guards followed him heading back toward the Second Ring. Tanner led them to the pub across the wharf. As they went, Jack gawked at the ships in the vast harbor that ran north and south out of sight.
Gare went first and commandeered an empty table in a mostly empty pub. The place wasn’t too bad, but Jack didn’t particularly like the ever-present smell of the ocean inside the place.
“I’m not very hungry, especially out on a murder,” Gare said, “staring at a corpse for hours.”
“Speak for yourself,” Helen said. She looked around. “Maybe they have crab or lobster here.”
“Undoubtedly,” Quist said.
“Aren’t they like crayfish?” Jack asked.
A burly man with extraordinarily hairy arms walked up to them wearing a wet, smelly apron. “It’s a little early for dinner, but we have some fresh crab steaming. Perhaps you can share a few?”
“Enough for us all,” Helen said, “and some light ale to go with it.”
“Your wish is my command,” the server said. “The crab is about done, so I’ll have it right out.”
Gare rubbed his hands together with anticipation. “My wife doesn’t like shellfish, so this will be a treat. The fresh stuff doesn’t make it across Dorkansee to where I live.”
“Do you live in the Second Ring?” Jack asked.
Gare shook his head. “Not many of us can afford the Second. I live in the Fourth. The further from the docks, the cheaper the housing.”
Tanner started asking Gare about his typical day as a guard. “I was considering getting employment in the city,” Tanner said. “I have a sister that lives here and I wondered if I should move closer.”
“You seem a bit sharper than the typical guard, myself excluded. I am a sergeant, and even in my exalted state, I sometimes struggle to make ends meet, although I do have six children.”
Everyone laughed except for Jack, who wondered why a man would sire so many kids if he were having financial difficulties.
“I was actually thinking more of the royal guard. Are there any openings?” Tanner asked.
Gare pursed his lips. “It takes a noble to sponsor you.”
“That’s not a problem,” Jack blurted.
Tanner glared at him. “I believe I have sufficient connections along those lines. I have served as a mercenary for years.”
Gare nodded. “That business has fallen on hard times, at least in Corand.”
Helen shook her head. “You are right about that.”
“When we are finished helping Jack, I might investigate it more,” Tanner said. “Who would be best to contact? Work through a noble sponsor?”
“The office of the King’s Chamberlain would be the best. The royal guard reports to him.”
“I’ll remember that,” Tanner said.
The crab came. Jack had expected a stew of some kind, but the man brought pliers and a big bowl full of long orange legs. “These are best eaten fresh. I’ll get some tomato sauce.” The man returned with two pots of a thick red sauce, and two serving women arrived with tankards of ale.
Jack took a sip and found it very light, nearly like alcoholic water. He looked at how the others cracked the shell around the legs and pulled out long pieces of white meat. Helen was the first to extract something. When it slid into her mouth, she looked like she was in the embrace of Alderach.
It was time for Jack to try. He took one of the pliers and was unsuccessful at extracting the meat. He was a bit frustrated, but then he smiled and used a bit of magic to levitate the meat out of the leg. He grabbed it as it floated in the air and dipped it in the sauce. The taste was so different from crayfish that Jack was surprised.
The table had gone silent as every eye was on him.
“What did you do?” Gare asked.
Jack shrugged. “I ate some crab. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Quist laughed, breaking the astonished mood. “I’ve never seen a wizard use his magic to extract the meat from a crab leg! Astounding, and I wish I could do the same.”
For the rest of the meal, everyone handed Jack their crab legs after they had cracked them. “I never imagined I would be using magic to serve,” he quipped, but then he remembered the patriarch that he met in Bartonsee saying something about serving others.
“Sergeant Gare!” the captain said from the doorway. We don’t have much time.”
The guard stood up. They were about done anyway.
“Do you want the last piece?” Jack asked the captain.
The man looked outside and then hurried to the table. Jack levitated a strip of meat into the Captain’s hand who looked shocked, and he was so amazed that he forgot to dip the meat in some sauce and gobbled it down. “Don’t tell the men.”
They walked out. The captain had assembled twenty mounted men. In a moment they headed toward the dreaded Third Ring to capture the murderer of Derr Mason.
~
Jack looked through the large, well-defended gate into the buildings of the Third Ring wearing his helmet. Not one person in their party looked comfortable. He didn’t know if it was his own fear or if everyone shared how he felt. They began to trot with a nod from their captain.
The buildings were in that same state of disrepair that Jack noticed earlier in the day when they rode through the ring toward the Second Ring. Some people scurried through the throngs of people on the streets, while others leaned against buildings looking curiously at the little procession.
Jack held the seeker cube as they forged ahead into the uneasy atmosphere of the Third Ring. The captain called him to the front.
“Right,” Jack said, showing the cube to the captain. They wound their way through streets and little lanes. The stares became more hostile as they burrowed their way deeper into the disheveled buildings.
They passed a newly refurbished dwelling.
“Gang lord, most likely,” the captain said. “Gangs rule the Third Ring better than the king ever could.”
“What?” Jack said, not believing his ears.
“That is the purpose of the Third Ring. Criminals have a haven, but they can’t leave this place without being arrested. The exit points are well guarded, and my men have detailed descriptions of wanted criminals,” the captain said.
“We need to go left,” Jack said.
The captain nodded, and they took another street. Jack couldn’t imagine a place this large could hold a determined criminal. The walls around the Third Ring weren’t that high, he thought. He guessed the ring was a deterrent for the average criminal and a harbor for those down and out. The place gave him shivers.
Jack looked at the cube and realized that the blue color had shifted. “The wizard is on the move!”
The captain’s gaze turned from the cube to behind him. “We might have fallen into a trap.”
Jack followed his eyes to see a mass of citizens blocking the street behind him. He looked ahead and saw nothing, but going ahead didn’t feel right either.
Helen and Tanner rode up. “We suggest wheeling around and punching through the people behind us.”
The captain found Gare. “Your opinion?”
“I agree with these two. The closest gate lies behind us, not in front.”
“Draw swords!” the captain said.
Jack had never practiced fighting from horseback, so he pulled out his wand.
The captain looked at it. “A little short, isn’t it?”
“I hope you don’t have to see its bite,” Jack said.
“Wheel, now!” the captain ordered.
The guards turned their horses in the middle of the street. Jack found himself struggling with the maneuver and ended up in the back with a few nervous guards.
“Don’t get left behind!” Quist said from the middle of the pack.
Jack nodded and grasped his wand as tightly as he could. His knees started to shake causing the horse to shy. “Not now!” Jack cried out as it sidestepped away from the other guards.
He tightened the reins and looked up at the sky, hoping for intervention from Alderach, when he noticed men creeping along the rooftops.
“Charge!” the captain said from up front.
Jack noticed a man aim a crossbow. He raised his wand and shouted, “ZAP!” The man fell to the ground, and Jack nearly dropped the wand from the jolt that went up his arm. He looked at the wand and saw the meat of his palm covering the bare metal through the hole the leather worker had made. He quickly adjusted his grip, so he didn’t touch the metal. He aimed at another rooftop assassin and followed his descent with his eyes. The jolt was muted this time.
A guard looked back at him. “Keep that up.”
Just then Jack heard a roar behind him and another, larger group of thugs entered the street from the direction that they might have gone had they moved forward. The battle proceeded with Jack fighting the ambushers on the roofs, and soon the group plunged ahead through the men and out into open streets, leaving their adversaries all behind.
Jack was still in the rear, but he made sure to keep close. An arrow bounced off his metal cap making him hunch down as he concentrated on maintaining contact with the soldiers. One of the soldiers fell off his horse. Jack stopped to lift the man back over his saddle and lead the horse on toward a gate to the Second Ring that lay at the end of the street.
Their pursuers were far behind them as they scurried through the gate to safety. The fallen guard was taken off his horse and ushered into a guard house. Jack dismounted and leaned against a wall, exhausted from the battle. His worst dreams had come true. Not worst, exactly, that would be getting stuck within the Third Ring without weapons.
He pulled out the cube and the orb had moved again.
The captain rushed to his side. “Where is it?”
Jack pointed in the direction.
“The murderer is on the docks! Mount up!”
Without giving the horses much of a breather, the diminished party galloped west toward the docks and then south down through the vast wharves that lined the shoreline of Dorkansee.
Jack kept looking at his cube, and suddenly the blue edge began to move westward, pointing toward the ocean. “The murderer is on a ship!”
They reached the dock from which the ship must have sailed.
“You just missed her. The Limping Lizard just weighed anchor for Reoja, the capital of Lajia,” a dockhand said.
Jack gawked out at the ocean. It was the first time he had been so close to the sea, but the awe that he should have felt was filled with disappointment as the ship that held the Serpent’s Orb was still visible, yet out of his grasp.
Tanner jumped off his horse and ran into a larger building not far away, while the others rested their horses. He emerged and joined them with a paper in his hand.
“The ship filed a passenger list,” he said. “Here are the names.”
Jack looked over the shoulder of the captain as he examined the document.
“I don’t recognize any of the names. Gare?”
The sergeant looked it over and shook his head, but Quist pointed to one name. “He is a wizard, but I wouldn’t think he had the power to kill Mason.”
“What about the foreign name?” Jack said. “Could the wizard have a companion?”
“Simara Khotes,” Helen said. “That is a woman’s name. Could she be the one?”
Quist looked out at sea. The vessel had disappeared from view. “We might be able to find out. There is a wizard registry in the First Ring.”
“But the orb…” Jack said.
“The orb is on its way to Lajia,” Helen said. “We will have to book passage on another ship to follow it. You still have your orb seeker.”
Jack nodded. “I do, don’t I?” He never imagined he would have to go to another country to retrieve Fasher’s object.
~
A weary foursome returned to their house in the Fourth Ring. It was too late to visit the wizard registry and return before dark. Jack didn’t want to risk another episode in the Third Ring, ever.
He looked at the angry red welt on his palm. “I’m going to have to buy some gloves,” he said to no one in particular as they tended to their horses before heading inside.
“You saved some lives today,” Tanner said, clapping Jack on the shoulder.
“The wand is better than a sword.”
“For some things,” Helen said. “If someone attacked you from the ground wearing a metal breastplate, would you have been able to defend yourself?”
“I have my sword for that.”
Tanner laughed as they walked into the house. “You would have the presence of mind to draw it?”
Jack made a face that said he didn’t know if he would. “I might need a little more training.”
Helen snorted. “Little? Nevertheless, you showed some bravery, plucking up that guard. The captain had told us to leave any fallen men, so we didn’t jeopardize the others.”
“I didn’t hear him,” Jack said.
“And a good thing,” Helen said. “The mob would have certainly killed him.”
“He might be dead, anyway,” Jack said.
Helen shook her head. “Nope. Your wand saved others. I wouldn’t have thought it would be able to punch through the air to drop them. You did a good job, today.”
Coming from Helen, Jack thought the praise was well-earned. “Thank you.”
“Now that that’s out of the way, you can start peeling potatoes for a stew,” she said.
Jack nodded and went back to the kitchen where their morning purchases lay. Soon all of them were helping get dinner started. When Jack’s contribution was finished, he headed toward the sitting room where he pulled the book out of his shirt. It had been with him all day, and he had nearly forgotten about it.
He began with the First Manipulation and sat up as he read more. The book was blunt about the possibilities to use and misuse wizardry. The Alderachean book was scrubbed clean of such stuff. There was even a section on teleportation, of which the volume Fasher had given him was silent.
Quist drifted into the room. “Oh, you are already reading that.”
Jack sat up straighter. “Have you read this book?”
“I recognized the title, but I haven’t read it. Why?”
“It is plain talk about wizardry,” Jack said. “It talks about the manipulations and what is good and what is dangerous, but once I get past a certain point, I can’t understand a lot of it.”
Quist snorted. “There is a lot of danger. Look at me. I burned out trying a First Manipulation spell to protect people from fire, and I am still without magic.”
Ja
ck nodded. “There are plenty of opportunities according to this.” In fact, the book had made Jack realize how foolhardy he had been to attempt teleportation. It worked, so he was lucky, but there were lots of spells and many opportunities to damage himself. He had thought Fasher was overly cautious, but Jack realized the wizard was right.
“I’ve been stupid about magic,” Jack said. “I thought you just did it, but that isn’t the case, is it?”
“You can still try everything out at the same level, but the outcome might not work.”
Jack looked at Quist. “Why didn’t you stop me from teleporting?”
The wizard looked at the floor. “I honestly didn’t think you could do it. It took me years to get to the level that you achieved in minutes.”
“Don’t let me go like that again,” Jack said. “I may be foolhardy, but I am far from home, and I want to return.”
Quist nodded, looking somewhat chastened.
“Dinner is ready,” Tanner said, poking his head in the sitting room.
~
They entered the string of wharves from the Fourth Ring and quickly found one of the harbormaster buildings like the one Tanner had entered to secure the passenger list for The Limping Lizard.
“The next ship that has posted Reoja as its next port leaves tomorrow at dusk. Do you want to know where the ship is berthed?”
Tanner nodded. “We do.”
“It is 1-23.” The clerk scratched out the name and number on a scrap of parchment and handed it to Tanner.
They filed outside. “This will be an expensive trip. The 1 designation means it is at slip 23 in the First Ring. Only the best ships dock there.”
“We have to leave tomorrow. Who is willing to travel with Jack?” Tanner said. “I’ve never been to Lajia, so now is as good a time as any.”
Helen looked out to sea. “An ocean voyage wasn’t what I had in mind when I committed to Jack, but,” she took a deep breath, “you can count me in.”
Quist shrunk under everyone’s gaze. “I am the most experienced wizard, but not the most powerful.” He looked at Jack. “Your chances of survival are greater with me.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll go.”
“Good,” Tanner said. “There is one more person who must be willing to go. Jack?”
