by Guy Antibes
They found Fadden and Namion talking, not arguing. Paki and Kell looked a little bored, but Kell perked up when Loa walked to his side. Paki looked a little deflated. Pol realized that Paki probably felt the same way he had when Shira and Loa had become good friends. Now Pol spent more time with Shira as Kell’s relationship with Loa became warmer and warmer.
“Pol, come over here,” Fadden said.
Pol gave Shira a gentle shove towards the two Seekers. “I found the perpetrators,” Pol said.
“Magicians disguised as merchants?” Namion stood with his arms folded.
“There were at least two working in the crowds.”
“And that’s when you decided to upset the entire council?” Namion said.
Pol nodded. “I wanted them stopped, so I guess I went overboard.”
“You tweaked a gust of wind and blew away the wards?” Namion said.
Pol nodded again. “A wave. It was an apt tweak.”
“And what did you accomplish with that?”
“I stopped the council. King Ricord’s man and the merchant guild are together in this. They were the only two of the five men on the dais that were unaffected. They were speaking to each other at the break. You can probably detect the pattern.”
“I can’t,” Shira said.
Namion folded his arms. “Humor us.”
“The merchants are restricted in what they can sell. They can’t export to other countries, only to Bossom. If they can open their market to Botarra, a country with low output, they stand to make a lot more money. I don’t know what motivates the King’s representative. Perhaps he comes from a merchant family.” Pol shrugged, but continued. “Homan might know. It is a dangerous situation because the magicians probably don’t have a single person who can detect wards.”
“That means Botarrans would help an invasion along by providing the magicians,” Shira said. “Now I see. I was thinking it was all about a power struggle.”
“That still exists,” Namion said. “It hasn’t gone away, but it’s not as severe as we thought.”
Pol nodded “I hope I pointed that out to Homan and the magicians’ guild master.”
“You are a danger,” Namion said.
“The question is to whom are you a danger,” Fadden said. “I’m glad I’m on your side.”
Namion grunted. “Good work.” It seemed Namion struggled to say it. “Did you advise Homan what to do?”
Pol shook his head. “It’s not my place to inject myself into a decision, just provide my observations.”
Fadden laughed. “We have a perfect Seeker, Namion.” That was the friendliest comment Pol had heard from Fadden’s mouth in relation to Namion.
Trumpets sounded from within the hall, calling the participants back to the council proceedings. The hall had emptied significantly, and the leaders had just finished their statements before the first day’s activities were adjourned much earlier than intended.
Homan had found lodgings for Pol’s group in the same inn that he used and sat with them at dinner along with Captain Deaz.
“I actually had a proper conversation with Sasio. He’s the magicians’ guild master. We made more progress in an hour than in all of my time as Prelate. I am encouraged, and I suppose a common foe does that.”
Homan had a keen mind helped by an objective viewpoint, in Pol’s estimation.
“You were responsible for that, intentional or not,” the Prelate said. “I am indebted.”
Pol colored at the comment, but he felt good inside. He didn’t feel patronized or the object of anger or jealousy. He liked it. “Thank you,” Pol said.
Dinner was served, but a soldier rushed up to Deaz and spoke in his ear.
The Captain looked up at them. “A band of magicians and trackers have crossed the border looking for young people matching your descriptions.”
Fadden put his knife down. “Pontifer’s Hounds,” he said. “We will have to leave.”
Namion nodded and looked at Pol. “If we stay here, they will be able to hide and strike us anywhere in the city, but they won’t be welcomed in Bossom.”
Homan closed his eyes as if in pain. “I wish you would remain, but I see the wisdom of your friends. Eat up and leave. I have a purse of Bossomian coinage that I will give you. My gift for your assistance at the Council. You must visit Missibes on your way north. I will write an introduction.”
“What about defense against the wards?” Pol said.
“I am not without resources. I just needed a few hints of what I should do.” He smiled without elaborating.
Pol decided the Prelate had a few magician-priests better than any magician in the guild. He decided that he wouldn’t want Homan as an enemy. “Then we leave immediately.”
“Your things are being loaded onto your horses as we speak, so hurry to the border,” Deaz said.
~~~
Bossom
Chapter Twenty-Five
~
They left the city before nightfall and headed over one of the city bridges across the Paraliz River. Deaz said he would post soldiers at each bridge and delay whoever tried to cross. The Hounds wouldn’t want to make a fuss, the Captain claimed.
Fadden wasn’t so sure, but any acts to delay their pursuers would be appreciated. They rode into the night and never saw evidence of the Hounds, who were certain to be riding behind them all the way to Bossom.
They dragged themselves to the border, crossing a few hours after sun-up on the fourth day out of Malcia. Pol looked at the placid scene of a small Fistyran guardhouse and Bossomian guard quarters three or four times larger some five hundred paces from the top of the little rise where they stopped.
Pol poured water on his face and rubbed it off. They all had ridden with chainmail on and weapons within reach, and he thought they all looked exhausted. Pol didn’t know what to expect leaving Fistyra or entering Bossom. Namion and Fadden didn’t think they would have any trouble with Homan’s letter permitting them to cross the border.
The horses were tired, and Pol looked forward to resting his mount, along with himself. He checked his weapons, hopefully for one last time, while the others did the same. The horses cantered towards the crossing while Pol exercised his location sense.
Not believing what his senses told him, he stopped Namion and Fadden. “There are twelve people jammed into the Fistyran guardhouse.”
Fadden shook his head. “I can’t locate that far.”
Namion looked at Pol. “I can’t either, but I can count horses in the corral, and you’re right. The Hounds must have taken a quicker route to the border.”
“Or they sent a bird on ahead of them to allies in order to delay us in Fistyra,” Fadden said.
“I think I might be able to help that. Give me the Prelate’s pass,” Pol said. He dismounted and ran on the other side of the ridge out of sight of the guard station until he was far from the road. Then he tweaked invisibility and made his way to the guardhouse.
Armed men sat on every horizontal surface in the shack. Pol didn’t put them to sleep, but he began to go around the shack and tweaked the wooden window sashes and the two doors to their frames. By the time the men could get out of the shack, Pol and his group should be past the Bossom guardhouse.
He did put the two guards that stood outside the shack to sleep, and then became visible and waved his group towards the border.
Pol ran to the Bossomians and showed them the pass. “Those men in the shack are under orders from Botarra. Let my group in.”
The guard read the short pass and ran into the guardhouse and exited with an officer, who now held the message.
“Open the barrier,” the officer said, making a motion to slide the tall gate open.
Shira had reached the Bossomian side first and stopped on the other side of the guardhouse.
As Loa and Kell crossed the border, one of the Fistyran guard shack inhabitants kicked out a window and crawled out.
“Draw your weapons!” Fadden said.
The officer stood at the open barrier. “These people are now under Bossomian law.”
An unarmed Fistyran raised his hand, blew the officer down, and then used magic to open the gate. He stopped when Shira shot an arrow into him, but the barrier kept moving.
“Shields!” Pol said.
The Bossomians flooded out of the guardhouse and clustered around Pol’s group. The attackers could see they were outnumbered without their magician. Two of them continued to move towards the border, but were quickly cut down by Fadden and Pol. The rest climbed into the broken window of the shack and re-emerged with their belongings, and then fled on their horses.
The officer waved the Prelate’s message. “I am assuming this is genuine?”
Namion nodded. “I am known in Missibes. We will be on our way, but there are as many men coming to join those who tried to stop us, and they will have a number of magicians.”
The officer nodded. “After we process your travel documents, I will send a man with you as far as one of our larger encampments. He will bring back reinforcements…including magicians of our own.”
They had to wait for half an hour to let the Bossomian bureaucracy grind, but soon the group headed north into Bossom and to their next major stop, Missibes, the capital of Bossom, Volia’s most powerful country.
~
Namion suggested that they stay for two days in Barandy, a good-sized Bossomian city five days from Missibes. Their horses needed the rest after their long ride from the border. Although they arrived late at night, the innkeeper seemed amenable enough.
Pol woke up first the next morning. He looked out the window in the room he shared with Kell and Paki. From his vantage point, he observed a city that appeared a bit smaller than Borstall. Barandy looked like an Eastrilian city, except the spires were built to resemble balls that had been slammed down over spear heads. Searl’s son-in-law would be happy to see all the decorative wrought iron on the windows and balconies.
Namion tutored Paki, Kell, and Loa, while Fadden worked with Pol and Shira. Pol had no desire to be taught anything by Namion.
At midday, Fadden suggested that Namion and he grill Paki, who needed personal help. That left Pol, Shira, Kell, and Loa free time, so they decided to chance the city.
“Do they negotiate in Bossom?” Pol asked of Namion.
“They do not,” Namion said. “Bossom is a much different place where everyone follows the rules.”
The four of them walked out of their inn, and Pol saw clean cobblestones. Poorly dressed men with carts and brooms were stationed every few streets to clean whatever hit the cobbles. Barandy was the cleanest city he had visited except for Tree Town in South Parsimol.
“Is there a market in the town?” Kell asked one of the men.
“You are a foreigner? No market for you.”
Kell looked at Shira. “What did he say? No market?”
She nodded. “Perhaps markets are only allowed for Bossomians.”
They had spoken in Eastrilian, and the man moved away from them.
Pol stored that piece of information in his head as he continued to build a pattern for Bossom. Their travel documents instructed them to keep the papers in their possessions at all times, and Namion reinforced that advice. Pol hadn’t progressed to reading Bossomian very well, even though the script was close enough to Fistyran.
They continued up the street and were stopped by a pair of city guards.
“Papers, please,” the guard said.
They pulled out their documents and let the guard peruse them all. Rather than closely examining one and letting them all go, he had to read each one. “You may proceed.”
“We wanted to go to a market, but the street cleaner said you don’t allow foreigners to shop,” Shira said.
“That is correct. You may purchase goods at shops licensed to sell to non-Barandians.” He pointed to a restaurant that had a green circle in the window, filled with writing.
“Our inn is permissible?”
“Inns must be licensed, so you may return there if you wish.”
“Do we have any other restrictions?” Pol asked.
“You may only talk to a Barandian for a few minutes. Extended conversations are not allowed, and if observed, will result in a fine for you and the citizen that you talk to.”
“I suppose that you are exempted?”
The guard looked flustered. “I am not. Have a good day.” He and his partner walked ten paces away and stood looking at them.
“I want to see what the styles are like here,” Loa said and pulled Kell farther down the street.
Pol looked back and noted that the guards were now following them. Shira pulled him forward. They walked into a clothing shop. There were few goods on display, but as Pol looked at the prices and did some conversion, he found that they weren’t very expensive.
“May I help you? Foreigners?”
“We’ve been traveling through Volia and just came from Fistyra,” Shira said. “Are these the latest styles?”
The woman made a disagreeable face. “Those are the approved styles for Barandy. Each city has its own variation on what they can sell.”
“We are on our way to Missibes—”
“Buy your clothes there if you’ll be spending any time in our capital. They only have one approved style.” The shopkeeper looked nervously over their shoulders. Pol followed her gaze to see the guards peering in the shop. “You’ve already picked up your minders,” she said.
Kell and Loa didn’t know the word, but Pol did. “Thank you, anyway.”
He waited for Shira to finish her tour of the clothes. She pulled away a curtain on the other side of the shop and shut it quickly.
“Time to go. I don’t think we will find much here,” Shira said.
Back at the inn, after their midday meal, Pol sat in a nice reception area looking out onto the front and studied his Bossomian vocabulary. He noticed the two guards had stationed themselves across the street.
Shira joined him. “This is stifling,” she said.
“Stifling, but safe. Now I see why Namion didn’t worry about the Hounds in Bossom. This is a highly repressive country. Documents, selling restrictions, and minders…” he looked at the guards, “even speech!”
“I found something interesting,” Shira said.
“What was that?”
Shira nearly giggled. “Not all is what it seems. The clothes the woman really sells are in the back of her shop. I glimpsed racks of much nicer clothing, hidden from view.”
“An alternate market.”
She nodded. “In Shinkya we call it a black market, where goods are sold in secret, but those goods are illegal.”
“Stylish clothes probably are, too, in Bossom. I wonder what Missibes will be like?”
“It’s the capital,” Shira said, “so they will have clothes for the commoners and clothes for the aristocrats. You wait and see. If Namion does know the rulers of this paradise, then we will be shown stores with better stuff.”
“I wonder how free the Bossomians are?”
“We have two-thirds of the country to pass through to get to Gekelmar. I think you’ll get plenty of opportunity to find out,” Kell said.
“Is Shinkya like this?”
Shira made a face. “Not this bad, but we do have a robust bureaucracy. That’s all I’ll admit to.” She folded her arms.
Pol just learned another little Shinkyan nugget. Shira was very stingy with them.
~
As they traveled closer to the Bossomian capital of Missibes, the group encountered checkpoints across the road with increasing frequency.
Pol presented his travel documents to a guard about a day away from Missibes. “I did this yesterday,” he said with his improving Bossomian.
The guard turned the document over and put a stamp in a square. “And it is a good thing that you did. I
f you had missed one, we would have to hold you for interrogation.”
“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” Pol said.
The guard glared at him. “Watch your tongue while you are in my country.”
Paki smirked at Pol and then handed his documents over to the same guard.
“The same goes for you,” the guard said.
“Yes, sir,” Paki said in a small voice.
Pol had to keep from laughing. He knew his friend well enough to know that even then he had just mocked the guard, but luckily the man didn’t notice.
Fadden waited on the other side of the checkpoint. Pol walked over to him.
“Have you been in Bossom before? You know the language well.”
“So do you, Pol,” Fadden said. “Namion is the expert, since he was born in Bossom, but not in Missibes. I’ve come through here twice before, on my way out of Volia and when I returned back home. Bosom is not my favorite country.”
“Why did you bother to learn the language?” Paki said as he joined them.
“Can you imagine spending days in this country not understanding all of the silly orders and regulations these people have?” Fadden said.
“I agree,” Paki said, “but I’m not going to waste my time learning anymore Bossomian.”
Pol just shrugged and waited for Shira to get her papers approved. Namion finally made it through the checkpoint after their packhorses were thoroughly searched.
“Why do they do so much checking?” Loa asked the Seeker.
“The country is built on paranoia, at least internally,” Namion said.
“But how does that differ from Botarra or South Parsimol?”
“Control. The government controls everything. Botarra and South Parsimol have minuscule bureaucracies. As long as everyone pays taxes, it’s live and let live, among the nobles. Below them it’s whoever has the sharper sword or the fattest purse. Here they regulate everything. You mentioned the clothing designated for Barandy some days ago? It’s that way throughout the country.”
