by Guy Antibes
“Did he go into the house?” Moshin said, pacing in Panix’s office at the mansion.
“No. He’d be too smart for that. We played cat and mouse for a while and then both gave up. I am sure he is the control, but we need to make sure. I’ll have to see Polla one more time, you see. Kevox is sure to be there.”
“I didn’t know you were seeing her this time,” said Panix, steepling his hands, as he swung back and forth in his office chair. He wasn’t happy about the continuing of Sovad’s amorous affair with his estranged stepmother, but he resigned himself to let Sovad, be Sovad. Finally he felt he understood what Moshin had said. Give these people long, long reins. If he didn’t, the team wouldn’t know about this Kevox fellow.
“We are leaping into extremely dangerous territory,” Moshin said. “You know that Sovad. I’m not so sure our young associates do. The stakes have been raised exponentially. You can’t see her again.”
Sovad clamped his lips shut and closed his eyes. “I must. You of all people know that.”
Their discussion was one seasoned professional to another. Panix’s position of leader tempted him to intervene, but he didn’t possess the experience to do so.
“I…” Moshin dropped his head. “It’s your decision. Chances of surviving an encounter on Mirrok’s terms are slim.”
Sovad’s forehead beaded with sweat. He looked at Panix and Lorna and then grabbed Lorna’s new hand and held it while he spoke to her. “It’s the only way we can bring Mirrok out into the open. A sacrifice.” Sovad looked at Panix, who could only nod at the bleakness in Sovad’s eyes.
“You won’t exactly be alone,” Panix said. “The communication button. You’ll have to wear one on your lapel and we’ll be close by, ready to rescue you, if we can.”
Panix felt he owed it to Sovad to provide him with all the support he needed, from him, personally, and from the team.
~
Sovad accepted an invitation from Polla for brunch at her house.
“This is a trap, Sovad,” Moshin said. “She’s never invited you to anything.”
“You don’t have to go through with this.” Panix wrung his hands. Sending Sovad into this very dangerous situation upset him.
“I can handle Kevox,” Sovad said. “I taught him all he knows.” Panix could see through the bravado to the tenseness Sovad felt.
“But that was quite a while ago. What if he has picked up a few new tricks,” Moshin put his hand on Sovad’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t go. We can monitor their house and capture Kevox when he comes to visit.”
“If I was Kevox, I wouldn’t have even been around their house with a blown operation. I’ll be all right, I’ve learned a few new tricks, myself.” He touched the button. “Anyway, we need to capture or kill him.”
Moshin looked at Panix. “He’s right. At present, we only know for sure that the cell was Aston’s.”
Panix frowned. “Let’s do it.”
~
The team sat in a coach in front of a neighbor’s house listening in on the conversation.
“Horvo, I missed you so much.” She put her arms around him and gave him an audible kiss.
Those listening in the coach all pursed their mouths, except for Panix, who sat there grimly folding his arms.
“I missed you too, Polla, but you don’t have to hold me so tight.”
Moshin straightened and looked at Panix. He opened the door and began to run towards the house. Panix talked into another of their communication devices. “Go in now!” He could only hope Harlan and Tellus could break down Polla’s back door or go through a window. They had to move now.
“Goodbye, Sovad.” The team heard a male voice. It wasn’t Aston’s. The team made it to the door and Panix broke down the door. Moshin ran in behind Panix’s back, sword in hand.
Kevox stood, realizing his exits were blocked, holding one end of a bloody Murgontian garrote. Polla adjusted her bloody gown, wide eyed at the intruders. Sovad lay on the floor, eyes wide-open, seeing nothing, as his life’s blood poured from his mangled throat. Kevox tried to run, but Panix twisted his insides with all of his power, dropping him to the floor.
Harlan and Tellus struggled with Aston, dragging him into the room. Aston stood and adjusted his ruffled coat. “What is the meaning of this intrusion?” He stopped short. “Panix, you know you’re not welcome here.” Panix threw a punch, knocking his brother to the ground.
Lorna knelt down and brushed Sovad’s cheek, tears streaming down her face. “Can we send for healers?” She looked up at Panix.
“Tellus?”
Tellus quickly checked Sovad’s pulse and shook his head and then he stood and then knelt behind Aston and touched him on his neck. Aston Gavid, Murgontian agent, crumpled to the ground, senseless with Tellus’s hand still on his neck.
“Don’t kill him, Tellus. Release the vein and let the blood flow. Moshin, please tie him up, very well.” Panix said in a low voice. He looked at Polla and then down at now-reviving Aston, holding his bleeding nose. “I’m not sure how you will be charged, but you deserve the worst punishment Korvanna can give you. Murder and espionage.” He knelt down and pulled Lorna away from Sovad’s body, surprised at the tears in his own eyes. They hugged, consoling each other and left the house. Panix took a pre-written message from his pocket and pulled out a coin. He whispered the spell and the message disappeared.
In a few minutes the Mellan police arrived to take the bodies of two Murgontians and the two traitors away.
~~~
Chapter 35
Panix stood, watching Foald Baltac pace back and forth in the great room of the team’s mansion waiting for his daughter. Foald wasn’t very friendly when he showed up early in the morning. Not even one of Panix’s big breakfasts could cure the man of his suspicious glares. Foald’s eyes brightened, as he put out his hands when Lorna walked in.
“Teleporting isn’t cheap, my dear, but I had to come.” He looked at her hands, ignoring Panix. “Which one?”
“Does it matter, father?” She looked into his eyes. “It’s so good to see you again after all that has happened, even if we left angry at each other.
“I guess not.” He looked abashed. “Let’s sit.” He sat with her on a sofa. “I’ll not beat around the bush, Lorna. Fennel Derrac has been a disaster. Now that you have some magic about you, I’d like you to come back and learn to run my factory.”
Lorna was shocked. “You’d really let me do it? I don’t even know what kind of magic I can do. So far all I’ve learned are little things. I can make air lights, work messaging devices and I can tell when people are telling the truth or not. I’m afraid I can’t look into a stone and see the minerals.”
“That’s not a lot, but that’s a start. I can do little more than that, myself,” her father said. “I need you to come with me. She doesn’t want me to announce it yet, but I’m marrying the Marquessa. I want you to forgive us both and come back to Pent and run my factory. I’m going to help the Marquessa run Pent as her husband. There, I’ve said it.” Foald’s head shone with beads of sweat as he dragged out a handkerchief and wiped his brow.
“Father!” Lorna hugged Foald. She looked very surprised. “I am so happy. She’s a wonderful woman. She’s intimidating, but wonderful.” She kissed her father on his cheek. “I’ll have to come with you, but on one condition… Panix Gavid comes with us.”
“Panix? The man who took you away from me?” Foald said. Her father darkened just a bit.
“We still have a relationship, Father. In spite of, or because of what happened, I’m not quite sure what kind of relationship,” she said half to herself. “There is something we want to do in Helvanna and that’s halfway to Pent, anyway. I can’t give you my answer yet, but I will between now and when we get to Pent City.”
Foald looked intently at his daughter and grabbed her shoulder. “I thought you would jump at the chance. But if that’s what you want, I agree.” He smiled and they hugged once more.
~
/> The float carriage towed a shrouded floater through the empty lanes of White Water in Helvanna. It took a turn past the white three-story inn and went down a lane to a derelict graveyard.
A young man stood next to a large hole in the ground. The carriage stopped. Panix Gavid and Lorna Baltac walked back to the floater. Panix unhooked it and pushed it around to the hole. Lorna helped him uncover the coffin that lay beneath. Her heart felt so heavy, she thought that she wished Panix could lift her mood with his magic.
Panix raised his arm and the coffin lifted from the floater. He moved it over the hole and gently lowered it into the grave.
“Two men who loved your stepmother and thought of you like a son, lay side by side.” Lorna took a shovel and threw dirt into the hole over Sovad Mustak’s coffin, tears streaming down her face. “Such a rogue.” She blinked back her tears. “Such loyalty and honor.”
Such a friend tried to kill her, but gave her such respect when they worked on the same team. He’d confessed to Panix because of her—because of her he had to confront Kevox. How could she not be moved?
She handed the shovel to Panix who held it, as he raised most of the dirt with his magic and let it settle in the hole. He walked back to the carriage and returned with a weathered stake. “It reads Sovad Tasler, but it is really someone else,” he said to the young man, who first led Panix to his father’s grave as a boy. “The man ended up as an unexpected hero.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There’s always a chance at redemption. My father always said. Remember that.
Panix jammed the stake in the ground. He backed away. Side by side. Rennis Gavid and his killer would greet eternity together. Lorna put her arm around Panix’s waist and put her head to his shoulder as they both stood there. He touched her hand. Panix didn’t care which hand, she knew that for a fact.
Lorna stepped inside the car and waited for Panix to seat himself. They left behind the floater with supplies for the KII’s new Helvannan recruit. Panix looked back as they made their way to the main road.
The coach’s fourth passenger stood some distance away. He held Panix’s picture and positioned himself. “You two stand there, just behind the door,” the picture mage said.
Lorna and Panix posed next to each other and smiled.
“Hold that pose while I burn your image into my mind.” He paused and squinted his eyes a bit. “Let’s go back into the coach and see what we’ve got.”
Foald, Lorna and Panix leaned towards the square tray on the mage’s lap. He shook some black soot-like particles over a white card and shut his eyes. In seconds, an image appeared.
Panix took the picture of his father and compared the two. He smiled. “I’m giving this picture to you as a model. I’d like this tinted to look alike.”
Lorna hoped the new picture would be the object for Panix’s obsession in the future. She sat back in her seat and ran through her emotions. Happiness, sadness. The closing of a chapter, the opening of a new one. She peered at her father as the coach began to move.
She took a deep breath.”No.”
“No?” Foald said. His eyebrows flew up.
“I’m staying with Panix.” She grabbed his hand as they sat side by side. “There are better people out there to run the company, I realize that now.” She lifted her new hand and looked at it. “But there is no better place to be than with Panix’s team. I’ll be returning to Mella after your very, very exciting wedding.” She grinned at her father, who after a moment smiled and nodded. She couldn’t believe the huge weight lifting from her shoulders. She realized that she had carried it ever since her own mother’s death.
She grinned at Panix, but he was still looking back out the window at the inn. He turned and took her by the shoulders. In front of a surprised father and a surprised Lorna, Panix showed his opinion of her decision with a long, lingering kiss.
~~~~
A Bit About Guy
With a lifelong passion for speculative fiction, Guy Antibes found that he rather enjoyed writing fantasy as well as reading it. So a career was born and Guy happily is adding his own flavor of writing to the world. Guy lives in the western part of the United States and is happily married with enough children to meet or exceed the human replacement rate.
The length of his works go from flash fiction (less that 1,000 words) on up to novel series.
You can contact Guy at his website: www.guyantibes.com.
Other Guy Antibes books
The Power Bearer
How Norra obtained the power and the extraordinary lengths she went through to rid herself of it.
What’s a girl to do when all of the wizards in her world are after her? She runs. But this girl runs towards the source of her power, not away from it. Along the way she picks up, among others, a wizard, a ghost, a highwaywoman and a sentient cloud. Through thick and thin, they help Norra towards her goal of finding a solution in a far off land that no one in her world has even heard of. YOUNG ADULT EPIC FANTASY
The Sword of Spells
A rollicking romp of a world’s only battle-mage. The major problem with the calling is that there aren’t any battles, so Brull has to make his way as a bounty hunter. He’s rather unique in that he uses his Sword of Spells to bring in magic practitioners who have gone astray. A number of his adventures are chronicled in this collection. EPIC FANTASY
The Nile City Adventurers – Egypt: Trouble with Temples
Two kids, twelve and fifteen, get transported to ancient Egypt and have to find a way to get back to the present. Along the way they accumulate the town Peace Keeper, a High Priest of an ignored Egyptian god and a telepathic cat. The High Priestess of a rival temple is after them all. Can she destroy their lives before they can escape? The usual running around ensues with a bit of Egyptian magic thrown in to make things interesting. YOUNG ADULT HISTORICAL FANTASY
The Shattuk Downs novels
Set in Shattuk Downs, a reclusive land in the kingdom of Parthy. Sara Featherwood could be a Jane Austen heroine with a sword in her hand. There are no magicians, wizards, dragons, elves or dwarves in Shattuk Downs, but there is intrigue, nobility, hidden secrets and plenty of adventure with a touch of romance in this fictional world. YOUNG ADULT FANTASY
Daughter Bereaved
When Sara Featherwood’s mother dies, her sixteen-year-old life is thrown into turmoil at Brightlings Manor in a remote district of Shattuk Downs. Life becomes worse when her father, the Squire, sets his roving eye on her best friend. Dreading her new life, Sara escapes to the Obridge Women’s School. Seeking solace in education doesn’t work as her world becomes embroiled with spies, revolution, and to top it all off, her best friend becomes her worst enemy.
Daughter Disinherited
If you were a young woman who had just saved the family’s estate from ruin, you’d think your father would be proud, wouldn’t you? Sara Featherwood is thrown out of her childhood home and now faces life on her own terms at age seventeen. She returns to the Tarrey Abbey Women’s School and is drafted to help with the establishment of the first Women’s College in the kingdom of Parthy. Now in the King’s capital of Parth, life confronts Sara as she learns about family secrets which threaten to disrupt her life and about resurgent political turmoil back home that turns her scholarly pursuits upside down as she must take action to save her family and her beloved Shattuk Downs.
Daughter Betrayed
At nineteen, Sara Featherwood has done all she can to help establish the first Women’s College in the kingdom of Parthy. That includes a pact with the kingdom’s Interior Minister, to go on a student exchange program as payment for eliminating opposition to the college. Little does Sara know that her trip to a rival country is not what it seems and as the secrets of the true purpose of her trip unravel, she must escape through hostile territory with vital secrets, but as she does, she finds herself drawn back to Shattuk Downs and must confront awful truths about those close to her.
~~~
Guy Antibes books are available at book re
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