by Guy Antibes
“Thank you, uh, Coffun. I won’t let you down.”
“It takes quite a bit to do that. Get along now.”
Trak left, wondering if he even wanted to meet Mr. Feely. Coffun Cricket seemed to be more than competent and friendlier that he would have imagined.
Now that he had means, he would buy a few more clothes and maybe even a knife. He saw them on enough hips. He spent all morning wandering around the market and had spent an entire gold on two sets of clothes, a new pair of boots and a used, but very serviceable knife. Neel had taught him what to look for in any kind of weapon that he might purchase. This one cost as much as some new knives he looked at, but would have been many times their cost new.
He didn’t see Esmera around at lunchtime and remembered the mysterious late-night meeting. Trak changed into one of his new set of clothes and set out for the dance studio. He turned the corner and saw a girl about his own age enter the shop. Trak really didn’t want to see anyone in the shop, so he waited a few minutes for the person to leave. She didn’t. He fought entering. Should he embarrass himself in front of a person he’d never met or should he be late? The horror of facing Honor Fidelia late won out. He reluctantly shuffled to the dance studio and then looked around. He didn’t know why he felt so guilty, but he did, and then he ducked inside.
“Tardiness doesn’t become you, Trak Bluntwithe,” Honor said as he quickly shut the door. The girl stood with her back to him looking at dresses on a rack. “I have taken another student to work alongside the both of us. Today we will assess how strong each of you are.”
The girl turned around so fast her golden curls bounced in the light from the windows and smiled at Trak. He blinked in the dimness of the shop to make sure that the pretty face wasn’t part of his imagination.
She giggled and thrust out her hand. “I’m Valanna Sleekbottle. I suppose your name is Trak Bluntwine?” She looked at Honor.
Trak stood immobile for a moment and then took her hand and shook it. Her skin was so soft, but she returned his grasp with some strength. He had shaken girls’ hands before and most of them had weak limp shakes. “Bluntwithe,” he corrected, “Trak Bluntwithe. I am pleased to meet you, Miss Sleekbottle.”
Honor frowned. “You can wipe that silly grin off of your face. You two will be seeing each other every day, while you are under my instruction. This isn’t a place for emotional relationships. Magic is serious business.”
He had to clear his throat and give his head a slight shake to break the spell of Valanna’s beauty. All of a sudden he looked forward to his magic lessons.
“In the back studio,” Honor said as she put out a ‘closed’ sign in the window and locked the door.
Trak followed Valanna down the dark corridor, and then into a brightly illuminated room. Trak looked up at the skylights. He had assumed they would be learning arcane arts in a dungeon deep in the earth, but that didn’t seem to be the case. It was fine by him. He could see Valanna better this way.
Honor instructed the pair to grab seats from a row along one of the walls and put them in the center of the room, facing her.
“Today you will learn the basics. Valanna, you may know quite a bit of this, but our friend, Trak, is pretty clueless about magic. However, he did subdue a shark in the middle of the ocean, unwittingly, so I know he has some power. I know you do, too.” She must have said that for Trak’s benefit. He appreciated any little tidbit of information he could get about Valanna.
She brought a chair of her own and placed it in front of them. “Magic is merely the channeling of the earth’s own power. We are conduits, but how we create the channel for magic to flow through determines how it will be deployed. Do you understand what I just said, Trak?”
Trak folded his arms. “I may not know how to read or write, but I do have an adequate talking and listening vocabulary.”
“Good,” Honor said, blushing slightly. Perhaps she thought she had gone too far, Trak thought. “So we invoke magic with a pose. That pose provides the shape of the power that we will deliver. The actual spell is triggered by a word of power. If I want to project a yellow flame, I’ll strike the appropriate pose and say the power word for yellow flame. If I want to project a blue flame, I’ll make the very same pose, but use a different power word or change the pose slightly.”
“So if I hadn’t shouted ‘stop’ when the shark attacked, nothing would have happened?”
“Yes, something would have happened. Large chunks of your body would currently be digesting in the shark’s stomach,” Honor said in a scolding manner.
Valanna’s eyes grew and she put her hand over her mouth. “You really were attacked by a shark?”
Trak nodded. He didn’t know if he should present himself as a hero or as an idiot for what he did.
“To continue. What I will teach you are a few basic poses and keywords. The poses must be precise or the magic will not be invoked in the proper way. The words must be precise or the effect becomes, shall we say, unpredictable. In Pestledown, twenty years ago, the court magician had too much to drink and was called upon to kill a rat that had appeared at a royal banquet. Instead of killing the rat, the magician killed the king’s wife and the chamberlain.”
“I know the rest of that story. The magician’s name was Youngblood,” Valanna said. “That’s when magic was outlawed in Pestle. My father, a journeyman magician in Pestledown at the time, tried to get it reinstated, but had to run for his life instead.”
“Were you originally from Pestle?” Trak said.
“Yes, but not from Pestledown. My aunt moved here and we came to visit. My father liked it so well that he wanted to stay. We all had to flee to Warish, since they tolerate magicians. I was born in Warish. My mother died soon after my birth and my father died three years ago.” She went silent. Trak could tell there was more to her story. He had no desire to press her, as it would have certainly brought more sadness.
Trak bit his lip when he realized that his grandfather had been responsible for making magic illegal in Pestledown. The king’s guard was probably on the lookout for his mother and his aunt, anyway. He felt awful, but he had to hide it from Honor and Valanna Sleekbottle.
“Are we through sharing our life stories?” Honor said. Trak realized that the woman had a talent for taking all of the charm out of a conversation. He wondered what her story was? Perhaps Neel might be persuaded to tell him sometime since he said he knew her growing up. “As I said, precision in pose and diction are paramount. We will learn two basic poses and various key words in the next month. I will then test you to see if you deserve further training. Remember, the practice of magic is forbidden in Pestle, so you are required to be discrete.”
“What about all of your previous students?” Valanna said. The same question had blossomed in Trak’s mind.
“The very few I have taught have left Pestle. Why would they stay?”
“Why do you stay?” Trak said. “I’m sorry if this requires a life story.” He regretted the tone of his statement as soon as he said it.
“You are smarter than you look,” Honor said with that disapproving expression looking at him sideways. “You certainly have a smart mouth.”
Trak said, “I’m sorry.” He suspected he’d be apologizing for some comment or another regularly for the next month.
“I have my reasons. They are not particularly personal… maybe a little, but I’m not prepared to share anything at this point. We will learn a simple pose and power word, and then I will use that to test you.”
Honor asked Valanna to stand. “This is the pose. Right arm is held straight out, left arm pointed to the side. Your head follows your left hand. Posture is straight and your legs should be together. Like this.” Honor made the pose and softly said the word ‘blow’. A mist shot out of her left hand and dissipated about a pace away.
“Now you, Valanna.”
Valanna smiled confidently and assumed a poor imitation of the pose and said ‘blow.’ Nothing happened. Honor adjust
ed her arms and moved her legs a bit closer together. “Now try it.” Trak had thought the girl would have known a basic pose. But then he didn’t know any poses, not really.
“Blow,” she said. A mist collected at her left fingertips and pushed out a few hands.
“Success,” Honor said. “Now you.” She looked at Trak while Valanna returned to her seat.
Trak collected his thoughts for a moment and thought of the precise forms he had practiced when he took care of his father’s little farm and when he did, work around the stable. He closed his eyes, remembering Honor’s pose and duplicated it. “Blow!” he said loudly right after he popped his eyes open. A jet of fog erupted from his hand and smashed up against the wall five paces away, making the wall drip with water. He closed his hand and the effect stopped.
Honor jumped back from the water collecting on the floor. “Speak it as a whisper, you dolt!” she said.
He did so and he duplicated Honor’s affect. Trak stood in shock, barely moving from his original pose. How could he have generated water out of thin air? He shook his head in disbelief. Trak couldn’t deny he had an ability that he never knew existed.
“That’s amazing,” Valanna said.
“Stand back against the wall.” Honor nodded to the wall opposite to the one Trak drenched. She quickly assumed a different pose and said a word that Trak didn’t understand and the water disappeared.
“What did you do?” Valanna said.
“I banished the water to the other side of the wall into the alley, using a Colcanan word.”
Valanna said, “So much to learn. I didn’t realize what father lost. He had a stroke and I never understood why he never practiced magic again.”
Trak kept silent, still trying to comprehend what he had just done. He hadn’t expected his first, no, his third attempt to be so successful.
“You have exceptional aptitude,” Honor said, looking at Trak. Her gaze made him uncomfortable. He really hadn’t wanted to learn magic and now he was afraid of what he might inadvertently do. She took his hand. “I’ve never seen one as young as you strike an accurate pose by just observing me.”
“I guess I’m lucky. Neel taught me how to go through forms to practice with weapons. I usually practice forms all day long. I guess that’s why I can duplicate the poses that work so well.” Trak didn’t really believe it had been luck. He knew how hard he practiced his military forms. He knew how to control his body and transferred the ability to these magical poses that Honor talked about. However, this unwanted talent brought a fear along with it. The king’s guard could kill him for what he had just done.
“Be careful you don’t practice magic where anyone can see you,” Honor said. “Now that I know both of you are capable of manipulating magic, I want you to practice the pose,” she glared at Trak, “and use the power word so it is second nature, and then you will be done for the day.”
~
Trak bought a portfolio along with paper and a few pencils. He might not be able to write letters, but he knew how to draw well enough. He wrote down the two poses he learned and drew a picture depicting the power word for fog and then wrote down the pose he thought he used against the shark and drew an upright hand for ‘stop’. The drawings had to be very precise and he wished he knew his letters so he could make notes about the poses. He thought that sooner would be better. Now he knew a few poses and power words.
He hid the portfolio behind a loose strip of paneling. It wouldn’t do for a housemaid to change his linens and see the portfolio lying around. What would Horsent Beanmouth call it? Incriminating evidence. Neel had talked to him about such things in the last few years, but not concerning magic.
What did one do with magic? Other than perform a few tricks, Trak didn’t know, but when he thought back to the way that stream of force slammed Honor against the wall, probably a lot more than he could imagine. Now that he thought of it, the witch could have been seriously hurt. Maybe there were risks to teaching magic and he had just witnessed one.
Tomorrow, he’d spend mornings at one tutor and afternoons at another. Honor had said when he knew his schedule they would fix a regular time for magic lessons as well. Valanna didn’t know for sure when she could meet, either. The shock of his power or talent or whatever it was had pushed the pretty girl back a bit in his mind. He walked down the stairs and into the dining room for dinner thinking about her.
Blonde curly hair, bright blue eyes. Trak laughed. That might be used to describe him. Although the blond curls of his youth had already begun to darken. Valanna’s hadn’t. He liked her smile and the shape of her face. He had to admit, she beat any other girl he had ever met in Greenbrook, not that there were more than a few in his home village, and he might get to see her every day for the next month.
Esmera walked up to him. “How are you getting on? I saw you poking around the clothes stalls in the market.”
He smiled up at the innkeeper. “I’m fine. I start my tutoring tomorrow and I didn’t want to rely on two sets of clothes.” Trak wondered if he should tell Esmera about his few hours in the afternoon with Honor Fidelia and decided not to. He still wondered about the strange interchange from the last evening, but cast that aside while Esmera gave him three options for his dinner. She left him to his thoughts.
He really wanted to trust Esmera more than anyone due to her knowing his family, but his father and Neel had, a few years ago, begun to talk to him about the honesty of anyone he might meet even before he heard the merchant’s warning. The messenger from Herring’s Bone had betrayed him and stolen his traveling money, not to mention his near-impressment by the ship’s captain.
In one sense he felt alone, but in another way, began to look at his education as a grand adventure. All grand adventures, Neel had told him time and again, were filled with peril. He’d already had a good taste of that.
His food was set before him by a serving maid and the smell made Trak’s stomach growl. He cast his worries aside and began the serious work of filling his stomach. When he returned to his rooms, he finished rearranging the plain, but serviceable furniture. He wanted enough room to practice poses and weapons forms, which he did until he had finished performing all that he knew.
Exhausted, he finally went to bed. Tomorrow a new life would begin for him.
~~~
Chapter Five
TRAK HAD TO ASK ESMERA FOR DIRECTIONS to Leaf Gougepenny’s home. Not knowing how to read had real disadvantages in Pestledown. He knew where everyone lived in Greenbrook. She lived above a women’s hat maker on the other side of the city. He walked up the stairs entering a door at the side of the shop, and walked up the stairs. The walls were painted a yellow that had likely been applied long before Trak had been born.
After knocking on the door, a slight woman answered after a bit of a wait. She used a cane to get around, perhaps her legs didn’t have much strength. She had dark red hair with a blonde streak down the side and freckles that indicated that she at least made it down the stairs and into the sun often enough. The streak reminded him of Honor’s hair.
“I hope you don’t mind being tutored by a crippled woman,” she said, apologizing before she even introduced herself.
“No, no, your brains aren’t on crutches are they?” Trak grinned. He often joked with customers at his father’s inn to put them at ease.
His comment made her laugh. “Certainly not.” She smiled at him. “And you are Trak Bluntwithe, who doesn’t know his letters?”
“That describes me,” Trak said.
She hobbled aside and let him walk in. “Sit down by that table.” She nodded towards a kitchen table. Paper and pencils and a few books covered its surface. “We will start by seeing how much you know.”
Trak had heard that approach the previous day. At least he wouldn’t be in a position to knock Miss Gougepenny over.
“I know most of the alphabet and can puzzle through a few words, but it takes me a long time. I do numbers a bit better.”
She
wrote a word down on a piece of paper. “What is this word?”
“B-O-Y. Boy. Am I right?”
“Indeed you are. What you need is practice, lots and lots of practice. We’ll also teach you how to write with block letters first, and then handwriting. In the midst of all that, you will learn grammar, which is the correct placement of words. You speak rather well for an illiterate farm boy, so you will recognize the mechanics.”
“I’m not a farm boy. I ran the stable at my father’s inn. I heard people speak properly and improperly all day long and can tell the difference.” He didn’t really run the stable, but since he was the only one to do the work outside, he could say it.
“Hearing people speak with proper grammar will help you. I’ve had some students right off of the farm and they couldn’t put two proper words together,” she smiled, “At least you’ve got a bit of an advantage. Let’s get to work. You can call me Leaf, if you’d like. Some tutors prefer you address them formally, but I’m not that way.”
“I’m Trak, then.”
She smiled and straightened out her dress a bit. Trak thought that she might be forty years old, old enough to be his mother. A bit too pretty for an old maid, he thought. Too bad, she spoke well and he liked her cheerful attitude.
~
Leaf gave him the two books on the table, but he told her that he had enough paper and pencils in his rooms to copy exercises out of the book. He had enough time to eat lunch and do all of the day’s exercises before his session with Tim Saddlebug.
Esmera gave him directions to his place of business. This time it was a formal school. It looked like it might have been a bakery or something at one time. It had a large, multi-paned window in front and Trak noticed small desks lined up in rows facing a slate board on the far wall. There was a sign, but Trak couldn’t read it.
He entered the school and a little bell rang in the back.
