by Guy Antibes
They walked up the stairs. Pol followed the two women as they entered the kitchens. No one bothered to stop the two magicians in their funny hats as they walked out the door. As far as Pol could tell, neither of them used any magic as they walked to the cart.
The sun hadn’t risen above the ridges, and only a few more magicians were about when Pol looked behind him as Takai drove the wagon through the large courtyard. Shira and Loa’s forms looked like rough bumps on the wooden floor of the cart.
Just as before, no one challenged them as they drove beneath the gate. They hadn’t quite made it past the worst of the wards when magicians began to shout behind them. Takai turned.
“Make the donkeys go faster,” Pol said, as he put on the senior magician’s hat and stole.
“Our pursuers are running faster than the cart,” Shira said.
Takai’s eyes bulged when he looked back and saw two magicians in his cart.
“You can stop now,” Pol said. “Just sit here and do nothing.”
The three of them jumped out of the cart and began to run along the road. Pol tweaked a shield behind them not long before an arrow bounced against it.
“They are enhancing their aim!” Shira said.
Loa ducked and headed down the road. She ran considerably faster than Shira.
“Stop,” Pol said. He picked up the arrow and sent it at the leading magician. The man fell, and the others stopped to help him up, but groaned when they saw their leader had fallen.
“You’re a magician!” Takai screamed from behind, still sitting in the cart, shaking his fist.
“And I want to be a live one!” Pol yelled back.
He tweaked the shield again and they took off, leaving the magicians to run around Takai’s cart.
“I’ll take this horrid thing off now,” Shira said, shrugging the stinking oilskin coat and flinging it behind her.
Loa twisted around and held out her hand. The coat flew up and floated towards the magicians. They stopped, and Loa threw fire at the coat. As it burned, it fell among the cluster of men.
“Not bad,” Shira said.
“I wish I could cast off my magic like that,” Loa said between breaths. “What a curse!”
The magicians began to fall behind as the three continued to run. Pol noticed that they passed fewer wards. “Let’s get off the road.”
“How do you avoid the wards?” Loa said.
Pol and Shira began to shrink the caterpillars. “Be careful. Crouch down and follow me,” Shira said, as they made their way through the field of wards.
She began to shrink wards, and Pol expanded them after they passed. They had gone some distance before Pol told them to sit in a safe area.
“I’ll make us invisible,” he said.
They all collected their breaths, but they couldn’t see over the wards. Pol heard hooves beating along the road. “They have horses,” he said.
“We would have been caught if we stayed on the road.” Loa gazed at Pol and then at Shira. “Now, who are you two?”
“Seekers from the Empire,” Shira said, winking at Pol.
“Seekers from Eastril, and we are both magicians.” He winked back.
“What’s a Seeker?”
“We solve problems that other’s can’t. Sometimes we spy,” Pol said. “We do whatever is needed.”
“Kill?”
“If it comes to that,” Pol said. “Right now we are saving you from the Magicians Circle.”
They heard more horses.
“Why can’t they see us?” Loa asked.
Pol laughed. “Can you see the road?”
Loa shook her head. “There are too many wards. Oh, we are hiding in plain sight.”
“Pretty much, Shira said. “That cart driver would be able to point us out since he’s not a magician and can’t see the wards.”
“Most of the magicians can’t see the wards,” Loa said.
“That’s why we are currently invisible. Shira can tweak a camouflage, but I can do invisibility.” Pol glanced at Shira and quickly said, “Both spells have their advantages. If they have anyone who can locate, we’ll soon be exposed.”
“What is locate?”
Pol smiled. Loa had much to learn, but they couldn’t do it sitting in the open. “Locators can find people in the dark, behind walls, and behind wards. I’m rested enough. We’ll walk over that ridge where we can’t be visibly seen and continue to the village.”
“Shira told me that my father commanded you to save me.”
“He did. We were paid with passes from the pirates if we take you away from The Shards.”
Loa looked sorrowful. “I don’t want to leave the islands, but I have no choice.”
“So here we are. We help you to escape, and that helps us to escape,” Pol said. That remark got him a kick in the back of his calf.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing,” Shira said.
Pol didn’t understand Shira’s comment and didn’t dare say another word as they made their way up over the ridge and down to the next valley. The wards were less dense, here. Pol began to notice small bones among the wards. There wouldn’t be much in the way of wildlife in the valleys around the fortress.
Just as Pol was about to relax, Loa tripped and fell into Shira. They both fell onto a ward. Pol watched them shudder and shake. He teleported their bodies off the shrunken ward, and their conditions stopped.
Would the magicians detect their presence, or did the magicians think their wards were enough? Pol hadn’t seen any human bones on the valley floor, so that meant the Circle might retrieve the fallen. He worried that magicians would soon be after them, but Shira and Loa were now unconscious. He expanded the ward again, hoping that the magicians might have thought a bird or an animal disrupted the thing, or restoring the ward might stop a signal, if there was one.
He had to think of something. Pol couldn’t drag them all the way to the port, and he didn’t have the strength to teleport them all the way. He looked at birds flitting around in the air. It prompted the image of the floating prayer bags that Pol had observed at the port. He only needed to raise the two women above the wards.
He already knew how to tweak an air cushion and this wouldn’t be much different. He could make one out of hardened air, since Pol could certainly heat air up. He didn’t have any time to waste, so he made a bubble of hardened air in the shape of the back of Takai’s cart.
He dragged both girls, still out, onto the surface. It looked like they floated, but that didn’t matter. He heated the air beneath with a tweak. In a few moments, the bubble rose. Pol found he could tweak a bit of wind to push the bubble ahead of him, but he didn’t want the girls to float away, so he tweaked a tether of the same hardened air and attached it to his wrist.
His pace was slow, but he was able to shrink the wards and expand them again without worrying about Shira and Loa. Pol had to keep an eye on the bubble so that he could keep heating up the air to provide lift. His stomach began to ache, and he felt a bit weaker, prompting Pol to remember that he hadn’t had anything to eat since the previous night when he went out with Fadden and Koakai.
The forest loomed up ahead, and perhaps there might be a spring where Pol could have a drink.
He heard a shout and saw magicians far behind him. Pol didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t let Loa be re-captured, not to mention Shira. He lowered the bubble by cooling the air and jumped aboard.
He cast an invisibility spell and raised the bubble into the air. Pol could see the magicians fanning out below him, but they ran past his position and into the woods.
Pol tweaked some wind and let the bubble take them up to the top of the ridge and on into the village. He could feel his energy begin to falter, but he grit his teeth, and continued on until he found an empty space on the outskirts of the village, and then let the bubble down. Once on the ground he collapsed, his energy depleted. He looked up at the late afternoon sky, surprised he had been running from the magicians
for so long. It had seemed like a lifetime.
“Where am I?” Shira said, rubbing her forehead. “I feel awful.” But she sat up well enough.
Pol turned his head, unable to do much else. “We are in the port village.”
“How did we get here?”
Pol didn’t want to tell them that he flew them. “Loa tripped, and you both fell into a ward. You’ve been out for hours. I was able to use my magic to find transportation, but I paid a price.”
She looked over at him. “You look wrung out.”
“I feel about the same,” Pol said, hoping she wouldn’t ask him anything else.
Shira shook Loa’s shoulder, and the girl stirred. Loa sat up as well, leaned on one arm, and held her head with the other.
“I feel terrible,” Loa said.
“You look terrible.” Shira pointed to her head. “We are still wearing our magician hats,” Shira said with half a smile.
“Souvenirs,” Pol said, sitting up and taking off the ridiculous hat and scarf. “We have to get to Pua’s house. Let’s put these things away.”
“Pua?” Loa said.
“We will introduce you to some new friends. You might know Koakai,” Shira said.
“One of my father’s magicians?”
Pol nodded.
“He is a member of the Circle! He’s the one that was behind my father sending me to Mauki,” Loa said, putting her hand to her mouth.
~
Pol took another bite of meat grilled on a metal skewer. It was his fifth. He drank lots of filtered fruit-flavored water. His strength recovered a bit with the food and drink.
Shira, wearing Shro’s face, returned from walking past Pua’s house. “Two magicians in the front and probably some inside. I didn’t see any in the alley in the back.
“Back with the hats,” Pol said, putting his hat on again.
“I hoped they would remain souvenirs,” Shira said, nearly pouting.
Loa looked up from finishing her drink. “I have power, but I don’t know much magic,” she admitted.
“Can you move a person like you did that cloak?”
“I tried to do that with a dog once and was very tired afterward,” Loa said.
“Then get tired if the time comes. You don’t have to move a person very far. Push them into a wall, or just move their feet so they will fall.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” she said with a little wonder in her voice and a slight smile.
“Do. Using the pattern is much more useful if you can be creative.”
“I don’t like magic, but it seems to be our only defense,” Loa said.
“Maybe we can get creative,” Pol said, as he bought more meat and grabbed the metal skewers they had used. “For these,” Pol lifted his fistful of skewers to show the food cart server and tossed a few more coins her way.
While they walked to Pua’s house, Pol used his magic to cut the skewers into three-inch lengths, and let them jingle in his pocket.
“You said there wasn’t anyone in the back. Were there wards in place?” Pol said.
“I couldn’t see any, but I wasn’t very close.”
“Then we’ll attack from the rear of the house.” Pol felt a bit better with the food and exercise.
When they got closer, they put on the magician hats, with Shira and Loa tucking their hair underneath.
“Ah, reinforcements,” a magician said, stepping out from a small stable opposite the house next to Shira.
“Are there others to relieve?” Pol said.
Two doors down.” The magician looked at Shira and Loa.
“What’s this? The Sta—” The magician slumped to the ground.
“An admirer?” Shira said to Loa as she dragged him into the stable.
Loa shook her head.
“You two stay here,” Pol said, as he walked as confidently as he could towards another stable.
Pol knocked on the crude door. “Relief!”
The door opened, and Pol recognized Haipelai, the first Circle magician who froze the meat. Fate had thrown an obstacle Pol’s way. “You! You’re no magician.”
“I beg to differ,” Pol said.
The magician tweaked a massive headache.
Pol hadn’t thought to renew the shield he had in place during their escape. His hands automatically went to his head. Pol refused to be defeated by a mind spell, so he forced his eyes open and plunged a hand into his pocket, and grabbed one of the segments of skewers, and teleported it into the magician’s heart. He saw the man fold up and collapse. Pol hadn’t meant to kill him, but the headache was close to disabling Pol, and he would have lost his ability to tweak. He quickly put up a shield in his mind. He wobbled on his feet, but gathered enough strength to drag Haipelai’s body into the outbuilding, and then staggered over to Shira and Loa.
“They can induce headaches,” Pol said.
Loa nodded. “Of course they can. That’s how they get people to submit.”
“Is there a defense?” Shira said.
“A mind shield, but I don’t know how to do it. Everyone has always said I’m strong, but no one wanted to teach me,” Loa said.
“We’ll wait to teach you, but maybe this will help.” Pol tweaked a shield over Loa’s mind.
“I can do my own, thank you,” Shira said.
“Suit yourself,” Pol said.
“I generally do.”
“I know,” Pol said, much to his dismay when Shira kicked him in the shin. “Maybe you can restrain yourself until after we’re on board ship?”
“Oh.” Shira looked a bit chastened.
Closer to the door, Pol peeked through the window. He could see his friends on the floor, hands tied. No one looked towards the back. Koakai stood with other magicians, now wearing one of the stupid hats. The pirate magician extended his hand towards Pua. Her entire body burst into flames.
Pol stood up and kicked the door open. He tweaked a sleeping spell for everyone in the room, but that drained what little power remained in his body. The two magicians rushed in from the front, but Shira took care of them with a freeze spell.
A magician stirred. Loa sent him spinning into the wall. He didn’t stir again. She had to lean on a chair for support, obviously having exceeded her reserves, like Pol.
Pua’s body continued to burn until Shira poured water from a pitcher on her body and rolled the woman up in a rug from the kitchen, but it was too late. Pol could sense that Akonai’s mother had died
He managed to release the spell from Fadden, Kell, and Paki. He searched Koakai’s clothes and pulled out the five pirate passes the Chief had originally given Pol. They would likely need those to safely navigate the seas.
“Is the ship ready?” Pol asked Fadden.
The ex-Seeker nodded. “Ready or not, we have to leave Mauki as soon as possible. There will be more magicians converging on this town. They beat you here.”
They retrieved their weapons from the other room in the house. Fadden brought all of Pol’s weapons and bags and laid them at his feet. He returned with his own things. “One more thing before we leave.” He thrust his sword into Koakai before Pol could stop him.
“I can’t forgive him for killing Pua,” Fadden said. “I’m sure he is a traitor many times over.”
“That is true,” Loa said. “My father never trusted him and kept him on his ships as much as possible. Koakai’s the one who betrayed me to the Circle.”
Pol reflected on Koakai’s words and actions. The Chief had given Koakai odd looks and never mentioned the magician accompanying them. No wonder he acted once he received word of the escape. Koakai showed them to the rented house and just had to wait for the escapees to show up.
“He probably sent word to the fortress about the Pua’s village as our destination,” Fadden said. “Koakai hadn’t known about Pua or the real extent of our capabilities.”
Valiso Gasibli had killed the Borstall Castle stable master when Pol was still a prince, and Pol had had a hard time forgiving the
Seeker. But as he looked at the charred body of Pua, he didn’t think that way anymore. Koakai deserved death, and Pol didn’t regard the act as abhorrent, like he had when Valiso did much the same thing. The pirate had underestimated them as a team and paid the price. Pol took off his magician’s hat and was about to throw it to the floor.
Shira grabbed his wrist. “Keep it. We might need the souvenir again.”
Pol shoved it in his bags as they all walked out and hurried to their ship.
Fadden took them through alleys and backways until they arrived at an out-of-the-way dock.
“This is our ship?” Loa asked.
The ramshackle vessel bobbed with the tide. The three triangular sails were a patchwork of fabrics.
“It’s seaworthy enough. No one will want to bother us,” Paki said, grinning. He took a long look at Loa.
“As long as you don’t bother a certain someone,” Pol said following Paki’s gaze.
They stowed their bags. There was a bit too much water in the bilge for his comfort. Pol would have to work on that during their trip.
“There isn’t a breath of wind,” Loa said.
“Wind isn’t our problem,” Pol said. “I am good at tweaking.”
Pol tweaked enough wind in the still air to get the ship underway. They scanned the docks for signs of magicians, but didn’t see any as they made their way through the waters of the small harbor and out onto the sea. Paki stood in a strategic spot as the small craft began to bob in the waves. The masts swayed back and forth as it negotiated the increasingly large swells.
He heard sounds of Paki’s discomfort. Pol wouldn’t have to worry about his best friend bothering Loa for some time.
~~~
Chapter Eighteen
~
The ship limped into a small port on the Big Island coast. Pol wouldn’t know which one until they tied up alongside one of the two small docks. The trip across the ocean from Mauki Isle was uneventful except for the continual leaks in the hull.
Pol would have preferred to work above, but he spent most of the trip below repairing the ship, except for mandatory periods of rest. He didn’t have the opportunity to fully regain the strength that he had drained during their escape from the Magicians Circle fortress, but now they were finished with the vessel, and it could sink at its berth for all he cared.
