by Guy Antibes
The magician frowned. “She’s not a prisoner. You saw how she is treated.”
“Behind bars,” Pol said. “That makes her a prisoner.”
“Suit yourself. Is that the last of the meat?”
Pol nodded. “It is. Can I watch you freeze them?”
“You may, but you won’t understand any of what I do.”
Pol shrugged. “I’d still like to watch. The chef wanted to know who did the freezing.”
“He’ll be pleased to know that Haipelai did the work. Watch. It won’t take long,” the man said.
Pol looked at the meat with his magical sight and watched the magician tweak a pattern. Oddly, he could feel an increase in the room’s temperature.
“Amazing!” Pol said when the magician had finished. “You are powerful.”
The man puffed out his chest somewhat and pointed to his hat. “I wear the —”
Pol didn’t understand the word, but it indicated his rank.
“I must go,” Pol said, running back up the stairs. He could feel his legs ache, but he forced himself to leave quickly.
Takai chatted with one of the cooks, munching on a piece of chicken.
“I’m done. Where is the chef? I need to tell him the magician’s name.” Pol looked around the kitchen and spotted him.
“All done?” the man said. “Takai always takes longer.”
Pol shrugged. He wouldn’t respond to that comment if he wanted another ride into the fortress. “Haipelai did the freezing.”
“That charlatan? He knows the freezing spell, but,” the chef shook his head, “what shape was his hat?”
“It looked like a mushroom to me. He gave me his rank, but I didn’t understand the word.” Pol tried to repeat it.
“You wouldn’t. I swear they’ve made up all of their ranking names. He is two ranks lower than that. The man must have heard you were taking down the meat.” The chef laughed. “He’s a strange one, but he does know how to get my meat frozen.”
“Won’t it unfreeze?” Pol said. He didn’t know the proper word for ‘thaw’ in Shardian.
“No. The spell works for a few days, and then we have to do it all over again. The meat is better the sooner we use it, though.”
Pol nodded. “I would have never guessed.”
“You learn something every day,” the chef said. “Get yourself some food before Takai leaves.”
“I will,” Pol said, and gave the cook the kind of bow that Pua taught him.
~
Shira walked into a conversation between Pua and Pol.
Pol looked up. “Getting in can be easy if you can stand the ride in.”
“Covered in carcasses?” Shira shivered and rubbed her arms after she put the food that she had purchased on the kitchen table. “Maybe I could disguise myself as you. I’d gladly trade places.”
“Takai knows me too well. You’d never be able to disguise your voice.”
Shira hit Pol in the shoulder. “I wasn’t serious, you dolt!” she said.
Pol could feel his face heat up. Shira had gotten him that time.
“I didn’t see any wards around her cell.”
“We’ll look again when we save her. When is the meat carter’s next delivery?”
“Eight days, depending on when the ship from the Big Island arrives.”
Pua nodded. “Then I’ll arrange for us to stay here. I’ll leave for myself early in the morning and tell the others. When you head to the fortress, I’ll summon them from my house.”
“What about a ship?” Shira said.
“I bought one,” Pol said. “It’s not very large, but Pua converted some of my Lions into the local currency. Between Fadden and Koakai, we can get the vessel to the Big Island. We just have to head south, and we’ll eventually bump into the island. It is the biggest in The Shards.”
“Is it sea-worthy?” Shira asked Pua.
“Enough. Pol said he could fix it.”
Shira narrowed her eyes and looked at Pol. “Promise me you won’t be left behind in the fortress.”
“I promise,” Pol said. He fully intended on keeping his word, but those wards still worried him. Even with his invisibility spell, the wards would sense his touch.
~
All of them arrived at the port early. Fadden insisted that they not talk to each other until after Shira and Pol returned with Loa. Fadden supervised the work on the ship, while Pol took various odd jobs around the town.
“If we don’t return, then head to Wailua without us,” Pol said, meeting Fadden and Koakai by the docks the night before Takai’s boat was scheduled to arrive.
Light floated above them in the distance. “What are those?” Pol asked.
“They are prayer bags,” Koakai said.
That didn’t make sense.
“They write prayers to their family gods on bags of thin paper, then they turn them upside down and attach them to a wide shallow candle with five or six wicks. Air, when it heats up, rises so the air in the bag rises, taking the bag and the prayer with it into the sky. When the candle goes out, the prayer bag falls into the sea. It is always done when it is night and the wind has turned back towards the water.”
They walked closer to the docks, and Pol could see how they worked. “I didn’t read anything about that in my book,” he said mostly to himself. “I wish we could fly all the way to Fassin like that.”
“The winds wouldn’t permit it,” Koakai said. They don’t blow reliably one way or the other.”
“Still…”
“Still you need to concentrate on rescuing the Chief’s daughter,” Fadden said.
“I will. If we don’t survive the rescue attempt, head to the Big Island,” Pol said.
“We won’t leave until we know your fate,” Fadden said.
Pol saw a ship pull into port in the darkness. He noticed Takai’s face lit by a torch on the dock. His ride into the fortress was about to begin.
“Run to Shira and tell her that the meat has just arrived.”
Pol didn’t feel ready, but this was their chance. He walked up to Takai.
“I was poking around the docks. Did your shipment just come in?”
The man nodded. “I paid you too much last time,” he said.
“Cut it in half,” Pol said. “I’d like to see the inside of the fortress again.”
Takai laughed. “Want to be a magician? It won’t happen. By the time a boy is your age, the magic has started.”
Pol tried to look disappointed, but then he brightened. “I want to see the funny hats again.”
The man nodded. “They do look ridiculous, don’t they? Very well. We will have to wait a bit for the ship’s inspection.”
Pol yawned after an hour standing next to Takai. He asked the carter if he’d ever been to Big Island.
“Been all the way to Wailua once. I hated it there. Too many people, and they all think that Phairoon revolves around them. I’ll bet most haven’t been to the rest of The Shards, or they wouldn’t say such a thing. You wouldn’t like it.”
Pol paused for a second. “Maybe not. Do they wear funny hats there?”
Takai shook his head. “No, but they wear funny clothes with bright colors, and the women paint their faces.” He shivered.
“Takai!” a voice called in the darkness.
“Time to load up,” Takai said.
They both looked up to see a net swinging from the ship and lowered to the dock. This was the same place they had met before, except instead of Pol helping Takai, Pol loaded all of the sides of meat, but he left a space for Shira.
“Time to go.” Takai jumped up on the cart’s seat after marking a paper for a ship’s officer documenting that he had taken the load.
Pol climbed up. They began to roll through the town. Pol used his locator sense to see how many people were out and about, and he noticed a dot moving towards the cart. Suddenly Takai froze. Pol had to take the reins while Shira climbed into the back. She wore a black, hooded oilskin to keep her so
mewhat clean for the trip.
“Ugh. These stink,” she said.
“It’s for a good cause,” Pol said.
“We could have just gone to Wailua and left the Chief’s daughter to her fate,” Shira said.
Pol shook his head. “We made a trade, freedom for trying to save her. If we can’t get her out of the fortress, at least we tried.”
Shira made a face. “You’re a better person than you ought to be.”
Pol shrugged, wondering about the Shinkyan culture. Did they practice honor? He knew that not everybody did in the Empire. He was reminded of that every day that he had spent in Borstall Castle. He put the reins back into Takai’s hands.
“You can unfreeze him now,” Pol said. He looked back to note that Shira couldn’t be seen in the dark.
Takai’s eyes blinked. “Must have dropped off for a moment. You’ll need to keep me awake when we get close to the fortress. Bad things have happened to those who stray off the road.”
“You mentioned that on our last trip,” Pol said.
“Yes. Some of them acted like they were stuck to the ground. Others went into convulsions. Horses were thrown into the air. Lightning struck a friend of mine, and he died.” Takai shivered. “All kinds of things. But the magicians will string lights in the middle of the road, so when we get close, if it’s not dawn yet, keep me awake.”
“I will,” Pol said. He found the partial moon in the sky and determined that it would light the way well enough until it set, but that might be prior to dawn.
Takai didn’t have as much to say as he had on their first trip, and finally handed the reins over to Pol and yawned. “You drive.”
Pol kept to the road, and soon Takai’s head drooped, and he began to snore. Pol had slept in the saddle before, so he let the man sleep. Before too much further, Pol put Takai to sleep with a tweak, just to make sure.
“How are you doing back there?” Pol said.
“Not well,” Shira said. She poked her head up enough to look forward. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to eat meat again.”
Pol laughed. “I think you’ll find a way.” He could imagine a pout on Shira’s face, and sure enough he felt a pinch on his side.
“Hey! What did I do?”
“You suggested that I’d become fat.”
Pol shook his head. “I did not. I said you’d find a way to eat meat, not eat a whole side of pork.”
“Hmpf,” was all he got in return from his objection.
“We can wait to awaken Takai up when we reach the wards. They should be stunning in the dark.”
“Stunning literally or figuratively?” Shira said.
Pol looked down to see a smile on her face.
“I guess both, but we won’t test out the literal meaning.”
“I agree,” she said.
~
Pol’s eyes popped open after he felt someone pinch his side. Shira. He looked over at Takai, still sleeping. The donkeys had stopped in the middle of the road, but there were surrounded by wards. In the darkness some of them glowed, and some didn’t. A line of dim magician lighted pointed out the way.
“Are you awake?”
“I am now. Good job of staying awake,” Shira said. “I’ve never seen such…robust wards. It seems like another world out here.”
“Better seeing it from the road rather than experiencing them more intimately,” Pol said. “I’ll wake up Takai.
The man sputtered as he woke from the sleeping spell. Pol wondered how relaxing the spell had been, but he decided he’d just continue to move the cart.
“The moon is gone?” Takai said.
Pol nodded in the dark. “I let the donkeys walk a bit slower at night.”
Takai yawned and stretched his arms out. “They generally do. I’ll take the reins.”
Pol gladly handed them over and folded his arms, looking out at the field of wards.
“It’s peaceful out here,” he said. “What happens if you arrive too early at the gate?”
Takai shrugged. “I wait until they open. The kitchen hours are long, and the cooks are always busy when I arrive.”
Pol figured they would be up early baking for breakfast. That would mean fresh bread and morning pastries, if they made such things in The Shards. He doubted that. The Shardians didn’t have much sugar in their diets. Their food was either bland or blazingly hot, it seemed.
~~~
Chapter Seventeen
~
The fortress appeared as a block of color in the darkness, but as they got closer, Pol could see the wards spaced the same as his first visit. The wall wards were more like those on Abbot Festor’s door at Tesna monastery. Pol was glad they wouldn’t have to negotiate them.
It was a while before the doors opened. Pol noticed that dawn was just lightening the sky.
“An early arrival?” one of the magicians said, yawning as he walked towards the cart. He couldn’t quite make out the shape of the man’s hat in the darkness.
“Late at night,” Takai said. “The sooner these are frozen the better they will taste.”
“Right. We won’t take long to inspect your cart.”
Pol hoped that Shira had used her camouflage spell, and that the magicians were as perfunctory as they sounded. He felt hot and swiped the sweat from his forehead until the magicians walked forward again.
“Hurry and get those cold,” the magician said.
Other than a magician hurrying here or there on their way to the kitchen, the fortress grounds were deserted. If they moved quickly, they could escape before too many magicians showed up.
They both walked through the shimmering wall that covered the open space to the kitchen. In the darkness the ward took on a bluish glow. Both men disregarded it, but Pol had to force himself to cross the ward. He felt like he escaped into the kitchen.
He half-listened to the two men talking to one another. He wanted to get Shira downstairs so they could rescue Loa.
“Get started,” Takai said as he sat at a table, obviously waiting for breakfast.
Pol let down the back gate to the cart and grabbed the first side of meat.
“Hurry, I can’t hold this disguise for long,” Shira said.
Pol lifted Shira. She didn’t feel like a slab of pork, but no one paid attention as he carried her down the stairs to the meat locker. He noticed there was one side left from his previous delivery, but he quickly gave Shira instructions on where Loa could be found.
He hustled back up the stairs. Takai and the chef were laughing and didn’t pay any attention to Pol. So it went for the next half hour until Pol took down the last side of meat. This was beef, and it was the heaviest. He struggled down and put it on the pile. He thought hooks might be better than just laying on the stone pavement, but he’d never eat any of it.
A middle-aged magician stood in place. He had a scarf around his neck, indicating a high rank, and his hat was like a wreath of flames coming out of the sides.
“Are you finished?”
Pol nodded. “I am.”
“Where is the man who normally provides us with our meat?”
Pol looked back upstairs. “Having breakfast with the chef.”
The magician nodded and froze the meat. His spell was more effective than the last magician, and it was easier to see the tweak that the magician used.
The man squinted at Pol in the dim light. “You were intent on watching me. Do you have any questions?”
Normally, Pol would have a number of questions, but he couldn’t reveal his talent. “I do. What do the hats signify? There are white ones and black ones, but they all have fun—I mean, unique shapes.”
“Your accent is strange.”
“My mother is from Botarra, and my father was a pirate. He died, and we moved to the port village not long ago. They speak Shardian differently where I’m from.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard the dialect. We have a special person who is from the north edge of The Shards. You might
know her.”
Pol just shrugged. “What village is she from?”
“Fauali. It’s a pirate town.”
“My parents didn’t want me to sail, so we lived a few villages inland from the sea, but not from Fauali.”
“But you’ve heard of it.”
Pol nodded.
“I see. You’d better be on your way.” The magician stood with his arms folded, but he collapsed when Pol put him to sleep.
Pol shifted the frozen meat to make a place for him. He tried to calm his breathing and walked to Loa’s cell. Just as he turned the corner, he saw two magicians standing on either side of the door.
“What are you doing here?” a magician asked.
“I came to see the Star. I was told by the cooks that she was down here.”
They looked at Pol suspiciously.
Pol looked through the bars and saw two figures sitting on Loa’s bed. Shira had been caught. He tried to think furiously.
“I thought there was only one?”
“An interloper. She walked through a ward using magic.” The magician smiled. “The Circle has all kinds of traps in the fortress. We caught her while she conversed with the Star.”
Pol tried to look confused. “I’m sorry to have intruded.”
The man’s eyes glazed over as Pol stood there. The other magician stood still and silent as well.
“About time,” Shira said. “I still can’t figure out how to look inside a lock. Will you let us out?”
Pol pulled the key that hung from one of the magician’s pockets and jingled it in front of Shira. “There are other ways to get out.”
She stuck her tongue out at Pol. At least she wasn’t in pinching distance, thought Pol.
“Carry them into the cell and we’ll put them to sleep together with the covers over them,” Shira said.
“You might remember that we met last week. Are you ready to escape?” Pol said to the tall, dark girl. She wasn’t beautiful, but Pol liked the intelligence in her eyes.
“I am, and you are Pol?”
He nodded as he moved the stiff figures to the bed and put them to sleep before Shira unfroze them. “Put their hats on,” Pol said.
He led them to the meat locker and grabbed the hat and stole of the other magician. “Take this.” He shoved the magician’s things into Shira’s hands. “You can’t use magic to walk through the door. It sets off an alarm. Keep your heads down.”
