by Guy Antibes
“That can’t be me,” Pol said, feeling very uncomfortable.
“Not yet,” Fadden said. “The Prelate saw something special in you as soon as he met you. I wouldn’t think too ill of the man for wanting to keep you in Bossom. If he could have convinced you to stay in Fistyra, I would imagine he would have given that a try, but I doubt he had the confidence. The Bossomians know how to train magicians, so I think he wanted to stash you away until you aged a bit.”
“People see me as no more than a tool?” The thought chilled Pol.
Fadden laughed. “We are all tools of someone. Even Hazett III is a tool of his people. You currently are a tool of that Shinkyan girl.”
Fadden’s comment enraged Pol. He jumped to his feet. “Take that back!”
The ex-Seeker just chuckled. “She’s a tool for you, too, so settle down. I’m talking about entangled alliances here. Didn’t you study something of the sort from Farthia Wissingbel?”
Pol settled down. He shouldn’t have lost his temper, but the conversation had already become much too personal. “How do you know her?”
“I worked for Ranno, her father. Nothing mysterious about that. I know she tutored you for some time in Borstall, and that’s why I knew all about what happened in North Salvan. That was just before I left for Botarra.”
“She did teach me about that, but she was referring to states, not people.”
“It applies to people as well. Think about a personal pattern. It’s never simple. A person might love their father more than their mother. A man might feel more obligated to his local lord rather than the King or vice versa. Relationships get all tangled up in life, and it’s up to us to determine which entanglement is more important, but it’s often not very clear. Everything gets stirred up to make life more complex. That’s what I’m talking about. Your relationship with Shira isn’t an easy one. She has to fight against embedded cultural restraints to like you. She uses her regard for you as a tool to rebel against her seniors, but in order to do that, Shira really has to like you.”
“Oh. I see,” Pol said. “A tool is something you use, not necessarily something you exploit.”
Fadden nodded his head. “But there is plenty of exploitation in relationships, even if you don’t realize that you are the one doing the manipulation.”
“You make it sound like a hopeless task.”
“It is if you seek to make things simple. That’s what gives those who use patterns an edge. It’s easier to deal with the complexity if you can understand it.”
“So getting back to my future. I can’t just sit on anyone’s throne, so I can’t be a ruler.” Pol couldn’t accept such a thing, especially now that he was irrevocably disinherited, and Grostin sat on the North Salvan throne.
“Then let’s scale it back. You are suited for leadership. Maybe not on a very big scale now, but in the future. It’s hard to lead when you are sixteen, isn’t it?”
Pol nodded. “Not many people look up to someone years younger. Luckily, I’ve good leaders, like you.”
“Mentors, not leaders. I’ve never really led, you know. We aren’t heading to Fassin for my benefit.”
~
Pol woke in the dark. Something bothered him. He located and found five riders chased by over ten attackers. One of the five riders was the orange dot of Paki.
“Up!” Pol said. “The Hounds have found Shira!”
Pol jumped up and found his chainmail. He checked all of his weapons and knives. “You can follow me!” He saddled his horse and took off.
Pol headed on an interception course towards the five dots. He couldn’t travel as fast as he wanted due to the uneven ground, but he realized that he could cast a broad beam of his magician’s light and that enabled his horse to move faster.
When he reached his friends, the Hounds were nearly upon them. Pol extinguished his light and decided to attack the Hounds from the rear. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t give any quarter. This was a fight to the death. He had to protect his friends.
Fadden’s comment about ruling bothered Pol, but he had to shove that to the back of his brain. He had to do what he could to keep Shira alive.
He could now hear the hooves of the Hounds and made out the shouting among the pursuers. Pol grabbed a handful of his metal splinters and was nearly close enough to begin a rear action.
He tried to calm down. He could only afford sips of magic. Pol had no idea how many magicians fought ahead of him. The first clanging of a sword spurred him on. He approached the back of two riders trying to catch up, but they were as hampered by the terrain as he was.
Pol teleported the two slivers into the hearts of the men. They both slumped in their saddles and fell off. Pol picked his way through the rocks and saw a magician rear up to tweak some kind of spell. He froze the magician but as the spell had been cast, a flame, but Pol had stopped the magician before he could move the flames forward. The magician erupted into a ball of flame and didn’t utter a cry as he fell off the horse.
That got the rest of the Hounds’ attention. He took care of another with a sliver, but three of the Hounds converged. Pol couldn’t rely solely on his magic facing three men simultaneously. He drew his sword and tested it, using his knees to move his mount, and the horse responded. Fadden had chosen well.
He grabbed his short sword, knowing it would be less effective on horseback, but he had no shield. Pol hadn’t trained in fighting from a horse, and now he’d have to learn quickly or die. The three opponents ran at him. Pol threw a spell of hardened air at one horse. The attacker flew over the horse’s head after then animal slammed into Pol’s barrier. He slashed at the Hound on the way down.
He took a deep breath. That trick took too much out of him. He concentrated on the patterns of both his remaining opponents. Pol thrust and parried, gradually moving his mount so the two men couldn’t come at him from both sides. He saw the opening he looked for, where the two men were side by side, and Pol attacked the closest. The other rider couldn’t engage Pol without putting his partner in peril. Using sips of magic to increase his speed, Pol took care of that man.
Now he faced a single Hound. He noticed that Fadden had joined the fight ahead of him, and his opponent followed his eyes, giving Pol the opportunity to grab a Shinkyan knife. He threw it at his opponent, who used magic to duck out of the way of the knife, but before he straightened up Pol was upon him. As the man went down, Pol realized his opponent was a Shardian. He must have been a Circle swordsman.
All of a sudden, Pol felt a tremendous pressure. He created three shields, one for wards, one for mind-control, and one for compulsion, hoping it would keep out whatever the magician ahead used. The pulsing stopped, but Fadden had fallen from his horse. Pol slashed at Fadden’s attacker, and they fought quickly on horseback. The man cut deep into the horse’s neck, and Pol was thrown from the mount. He picked himself up and teleported his short sword into the attacker’s side and realized his magic was draining. He noticed one of the attackers flee into the night.
He looked around for more Hounds. Two remained mounted, and they were both magicians. Pol tried to teleport to another sliver, and one of the magicians went down. That left Pol with the last opponent. All of Pol’s friends lay on the ground, writhing in pain.
“You missed me!” Pol said. He attempted another teleportation, but the sliver remained in his hand.
The magician turned around, in shock that someone had withstood his onslaught. Pol staggered up to the magician’s horse, and ignoring the magician’s magic shield, plunged his sword upward using, his last bit of enhanced strength. There was more than one way to a man’s heart, Pol thought. He collapsed to the ground, exhausted, and trying to collect his wits.
Fadden stood and shook his head. He went to each attacker and made sure they wouldn’t rise again.
Pol gathered enough strength to look for his friends. Namion stirred.
He ran to Shira, who had blood streaming from a cut in her scalp. He was frantic to see how bad
ly the Hounds had injured her. Paki, Kell, and Loa were still, but Pol didn’t see any blood. Perhaps the magician’s spell was meant to disable. Pol checked her breathing and the wound in her head. Her skull didn’t sustain any damage, so he stopped the bleeding, heated the site, and then closed it up.
“That was some spell,” Namion said, holding his hand to his forehead. “I think Shira was the only casualty. She fell from her horse.”
Pol tried to maximize his focus while he healed the deepest of the nicks and cuts that they had all suffered.
The other three began to wake up. They all had severe headaches.
“One got away,” Fadden said.
“It will take the Pontifer time to raise more Hounds,” Pol said. “I’m drained.”
“You should be. You fought like a man possessed,” Fadden said. “A pretty effective protector, I’d say.”
Pol glared at Fadden and then at Namion, who obviously didn’t understand the comment.
“I’ll take a watch. You get some rest. Your horse is dead, but there are plenty of replacements,” Fadden said.
Pol could only nod. He lay on his side and curled up. The next thing he knew, the sky was brightening, and Shira pressed her foot down on his shoulder and shook him.
“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t like to keep saying that but…”
“You’re welcome. We weren’t that far from each other.”
“Once he located the Hounds, Namion led us east towards you, so it wasn’t just chance,” Shira said.
Pol could smell cooking. He sat up and felt much better.
There were a few dead horses in the field, and someone had already lined up the bodies.
“I think we should let them stay as they are and give the poor animals in this area a feast,” Paki said.
“Bury them,” Pol said. “They were still humans. Their graves don’t have to be very deep, though.”
Fadden chuckled. “That’s a proper compromise, Pol.” He stirred bacon around in a pan. “I retrieved our packhorse and grabbed your things. If you don’t mind horsemeat, we can eat fresh for a few days.”
“Horsemeat?” Loa said. Her opinion was clear in the inflection of her voice.
“It’s not permitted,” Shira said. “Shinkyans don’t eat horses.”
Pol thought of Demeron. He wondered how his horse had fared. He hoped his Shinkyan stallion wasn’t dead or diseased. If any horse could survive, Pol expected Demeron could.
“That’s fine. We have enough other food between us to eat well for more than a week,” Fadden said.
Pol wasn’t keen on eating horsemeat, but if they had to, he’d do what he had to do to survive. He didn’t think the Pontifer would give up as long as they were on Volia, but Pol felt they could make it to Fassin unimpeded.
~~~
Gekelmar
Chapter Twenty-Nine
~
Pol looked across the bridge to Fassin. All the buildings were black. Black rocks lined the riverbank in front of the city. The sky began to lower, making everything dark and bleak. Fassin was a town with a jumble of black buildings with dark gray roofs, climbing a hill to a large cathedral with a towering spire. A castle sat on an outcropping on the other side of the city.
It began to rain hard, and they hurried down to the bridge that would take them to Pol’s goal. He felt fear and excitement at the same time. He would stand before the Sleeping God, Demron, at long last. He could remember the conversation he had had with his mother about his father being from the north and reading about Fassin in his book on the world’s religions.
Despite the dour view, Pol felt triumphant. For all the trouble he had put his friends through, they had successfully delivered him to his goal.
He couldn’t repress a grin when his horse began to cross the heavy timbers of the bridge that spanned the river guarding the southern wall of Fassin. Even with the pouring rain, and the sudden shock of cold air that accompanied the downpour, he was the first to pass through the open city gate.
People noticed Pol’s conical hat as they rode through the surprisingly busy city. Pol would have thought they would be sitting by their fires, like the rest of the villages and towns they had passed through to get to Fassin.
The country people in Gekelmar were very suspicious of strangers and grudgingly dealt with them as they spent nights in dirty inns and bought supplies that Pol would have passed over in other countries. But other than staring at his hat, the citizens of Fassin let them pass without much notice, and they didn’t seem odd at all. Fadden stopped them to get directions to an inn.
“They like your hat,” Shira said, poking her riding crop in Pol’s side. “I’m jealous of the attention. I’ll have to get one.”
“Jealous,” Pol snorted. “That will be the day.”
“That day has come more than once,” Shira said.
Pol turned to her and saw a serious Shinkyan.
“What do you have to be jealous of?” Pol said, with a conscious smile.
Shira returned his smile a little too tightly. “Not here.” She blew a kiss to him.
They continued through the town and arrived at a large market square. In the center of the square stood a towering bronze statue of a man dressed in flowing clothes, with a conical hat like Pol’s.
He immediately snatched the hat off and tucked it in his bag after he had thrown the hood to his cloak over his head.
“I’m not jealous anymore,” Shira said, looking at the massive statue, and then at Pol. “Tell me that doesn’t mean anything.”
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Pol said.
A clear area permitted them to ride to the statue and then around. Pol could read the script on the statue’s base since it was very similar to Eastrilian.
“Demron, The Sleeping God,” Fadden said. “Are you awake, Pol?” He laughed when he said it.
The coincidence unsettled Pol. He wondered what other surprises his visit to Fassin held. He looked up at the statue and saw a face similar to the one he had seen in the mirror when he first learned to disguise his features. Sharp planes defined the statue’s face. Where did they get that image, from the Sleeping God himself?
They continued on and found a whole row of inns on the other side of the market square.
“The person I asked recommended The Landed Fish, but I don’t think we will take that one,” Fadden said after looking at the tired edifice and the clientele coming in and out.
“The Prophet’s Wake looks better,” Namion said.
Pol actually saw a smile on a man walking into that inn. “I vote for The Prophet’s Wake.”
So they decided to see if the Prophet’s Wake had rooms. Pol was happy that they did, and he rode around to the stableyard. It looked like their inn shared the stableyard with the next-door establishment.
Pol kept his hat hidden as they walked through a small lobby to a front desk. He would share rooms with Paki, and Kell would sleep with Fadden. Namion took a single room. After washing up, they assembled down in the common room.
Pol looked over and saw that the inn had a dining room as well. Shira and Loa might like eating there. The inn attracted a lively crowd of better-dressed people than the more common folk they saw on their way in.
He waited for Paki to splash a few drops on his face and smooth back his hair before he washed the anticipation off his own. He grinned at himself in the tiny mirror that hung over the washbasin.
Fassin. Pol had never been able to actually place himself in the city. It had always been a point on a map to reach. He scrubbed his face and found a brush in his things and took care of his tangled locks.
Pol would have to find out about the hat and Demron tomorrow, but today he would celebrate making it all the way to the top of Volia.
Being the last down to join his friends, Pol spread his arms. “Welcome to my city,” he said, beaming. “We made it.”
“Now what?” Namion said. It was obvious he didn’t share the feeling of accomplishment the others
felt.
“I will go to the cathedral tomorrow to pay my respects to the Sleeping God and figure that out.”
“You’ll be doing it without me,” Namion said. “I was commanded to accompany you to Fassin, and I have. There is business in Ducharl, the capital and largest port of Duchary. If I am still there, I’ll be staying at the Purple Pearl. Fadden knows it.”
“I spent three nights there, sicker than I’ve ever been,” Fadden said. “It was—”
“Spare me the story.” Namion rose. He looked disturbed. “I will be leaving before sunrise.” He bowed to the others. “I hope you find what you seek, and watch yourself in Duchary. It is every bit as treacherous to travel through as Bossom.” He bowed again to the ladies and left them without giving Pol a chance to thank him.
The table sat in silence for a bit.
“We’ll have a better time without him,” Paki said, raising a mug of ale. “We can drink in Fassin!” He beamed, and then gulped down a large portion of his mug.
Kell looked relieved to see Namion go and touched mugs with Paki.
Pol wasn’t relieved at all. Namion’s abrupt departure seemed out of character. He looked over at Fadden, who didn’t look ecstatic either. Shira looked like she felt the same.
“Your thoughts?” Fadden said.
“Even Val would have joined us for a meal. Something is eating at Namion. The hard-heart is troubled?” Pol said.
Fadden took a sip of ale. “Perhaps. Namion’s behavior is odd, even for him. Maybe we will have to wait until we reach the end of your Volian experience at The Purple Pearl in Ducharl to find out.”
~
He took a deep breath. He couldn’t believe he stood in front of the Cathedral of the Sleeping God. He would have been tempted to pinch himself, but Shira had just done the honors when Pol asked her if she really wanted to come along.
A worshipper muttered something as she pushed between both of them to get in. Pol pulled Shira’s hand to go ahead of him.
