by Guy Antibes
He took Master Riotro aside. “What do I do now?”
“Take the day to contemplate, Bluntwithe. Tomorrow after breakfast, report to Nullia’s office. She will begin your next stage of education.”
Trak finished his cake and walked out, alone, finding the area where he had restored the ivy. Someone had already trimmed the ivy from the gravel-covered ground. He noticed the fragments of burned leaves left from cleaning the maze room.
He picked one up and sat on the bench, wondering what to do next, He stared at the wall, hoping for some inspiration, but nothing came to mind. He looked forward to learning more power words, since that was missing in his pose collection, but how could he keep from slipping up? A memory, an offhand reference to his life before the guild, and then his situation would be exposed. He wondered if he’d have to tattoo ‘worry’ on to his wrist or something.
Trak heard the grinding of gravel signaling that someone approached. Honor stuck her head into the area.
“I’m sorry to intrude, Master Bluntwithe.” He saw the ghost of a smile. “Do you mind if we chat for a few moments.”
His heart raced. He wanted her to be free from the guild like he had become. Trak would have to watch his words until she said something.
“We will be leaving soon,” she said, quietly. “An assignment that will take us beyond the walls of the guild, far beyond. Does that scare you?”
Trak wondered what he should say, but he decided he would maintain his role. “Of course. It is hostile territory outside of these walls. It is hostile territory outside of Espozia, isn’t it?”
“Not as hostile as you might have once thought, Master Bluntwithe,” her voice became barely a whisper, “We may be heading to another land. Be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.” She spoke more loudly, “Again I must congratulate you. Perhaps you might teach me one of your poses. You demonstrate them so beautifully, it’s more like something you would see come out of a dance studio.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it before she stood and left.
Trak sat looking blankly at the wall. He took a deep breath, and then smiled. He only had one thing to do to prepare, wear a shirt and trousers under his robes at all times.
~
That night, Trak barely slept, expecting a scratching at his door. The sun came up and disappointment filled him. The sooner he could leave the guild, the happier he would be.
After breakfast he sat on a bench in front of Mistress Nullia’s door. She still outranked him by virtue of the darker shade of purple that she wore. He really didn’t think his color made much difference inside of him. He still felt like a dirty Yellow in front of all of the Masters except for Honor. But as he thought about it, he felt like a Yellow in front of her, too.
Malena walked by and sat beside him. “I know I am but a worm compared to you, Master Bluntwithe. But thank you for letting me witness your esteemed rise.”
Trak snorted. “As if either of us had a choice in the matter.”
She looked a bit hurt by his statement. Trak had never been particularly smooth around girls and that included Val. This girl didn’t remind him at all of her. “I mean, I mean if you thought that my performance was worthwhile, then I’m glad you got to see it.” He smiled at her.
She bit her lip and nodded, and then gave him the smile that he knew would make her pretty. It did. She clutched his hand and shot up and hurried away.
Trak watched her go, and then he realized she had left a scrap of paper in his hand. He unrolled it and read:South end maze after session. H.
He stared at the note. Nullia opened the door, startling Trak so he quickly stuffed the paper in his mouth and began to chew.
“You didn’t get enough to eat for breakfast?” She looked more perturbed than angry.
Trak gulped the paper down. It had tasted awful. “I am ready now, Mistress.”
“Nullia, my dear. We are nearly equals in the guild, you know.”
“Not really,” Trak said.
She squinted at him. “And why is that?”
Trak began to sweat a bit. “I know so few things and have never been out of the guild’s grounds. You know more poses and power words than I do, even though I can dance through my poses.”
“Now that is as good an answer as any. You haven’t looked comfortable since your elevation.”
He shook his head.
“I can see why. Let’s try to ease your inner pain, shall we?”
She began the training with a lecture. “Formal poses are the starting point to advanced magic that only a select few know, Bluntwithe. There are a myriad variations but the art of our craft is to find how poses and power words interact.” She looked down from her window at the brick maze. “That is what the maze is for. You’ve used it, I heard. A growing spell?”
“That was after.”
“After what?”
“I burned an entire wall and cooked about all of the ivy. I remembered the pose of plant restoration and…” he shrugged.
Nullia laughed and bobbed her head up and down. “Exactly, I think it would be wise for you to take an assignment outside of the walls. I don’t have the time, but I’ve decided to assign a Dark Red to accompany you along with a Yellow to take as a servant. Don’t worry.” She spoke worry with emphasis. “They will take care of you.”
Trak bent down to look at his hands. He didn’t want to reveal whatever emotions played on his face, since he didn’t know how he felt about that. Nullia was free as well. He took a deep breath and looked up. “When do I leave?”
“Now would do,” she said.
~
Trak didn’t waste any time. He had the breeches and two shirts underneath his robes as well as his extra pair of sandals. He had nothing else to bring.
The south end of the maze backed up against a taller wall. He couldn’t see any of the guild buildings from where they stood. Honor stood, talking to Malena.
Honor nodded to him, back to her stern manner. “We leave now, through this door.” She posed and the outline of a door appeared in the wall. “Quickly.”
He let Malena precede him and then went through himself into an alleyway not much wider than the space between the maze and the wall. Honor followed and looked up and down the alleyway, and then assumed the same pose. Her word closed the door. Trak recognized the pose, but didn’t ever learn the word or how it was used in this instance.
Malena threw off her robe and stuffed it in a bag that she had worn underneath her robe. Trak recognized the dress. Honor did the same.
“I didn’t have a bag to bring,” he said.
“Throw it on the ground.” Honor quickly posed a transfer spell. Trak nearly asked her where she sent it, but he didn’t dare since she took off in Malena’s direction. He followed the other two. He dearly wished he had his sword. He’d feel much more comfortable, even though he could use magic to defend them.
Trak wasn’t very familiar with this part of Espozia even though it was still on the Estia side, so he just followed the two women as they walked briskly through alleys and crossed busy streets and walked down the street with barely another person in sight.
Malena looked behind her and ducked inside the door of a modest two-story house in a row of others just like it.
Trak closed the door as soon as he entered and sat down on a bench in the tiny foyer.
“Get up, we’re not at our hiding room, yet,” Honor said as she hurried down a basement stairway in front of Malena. She opened a closet door in the basement and descended, yet again, into a furnished sub-basement.
Malena sat down on a settee. Honor leaned against an empty fireplace and breathed deeply. Trak stood despite his relief that they finally had stopped running.
“I suppose you know that I’m not under the guild’s spell, and what’s with Nullia?”
Malena looked up at him. “She’s a Colcanan.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
Honor gave Trak a curt smile. “I’m a Colcanan. Malena is, too. We ar
e always at war with the Espozia Magicians guild, even if they don’t know it.”
Trak suddenly felt like a little ball being bounced back and forth between people more powerful than himself. “So am I still a prisoner, but with a different group?”
“Do you feel like a prisoner?” Honor said.
“No. I did feel like a prisoner in Dalistro’s house.”
She nodded. “You were. Once Dalistro left, you became exposed, so I told the Guild where you were and then brought you here.”
“Why didn’t you just bring me here? It would have saved weeks of mindlessness.”
“Education, Trak. You need to know what the Santasian Magicians Guild is really like. Now you do.”
“I do, indeed. I loved the days kneeling on cold stone floors and steps scrubbing.”
Honor threw her hand towards him. “It kept you in shape. Malena told me you turned your duties into forms. Very clever.”
That brought a blush. Malena had been spying on him all this time.
“What about Borega?”
Malena giggled. “He is easy to manipulate.” She batted her eyelashes. “It would have been harder without him. Yellows don’t approach Purples.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You didn’t spend enough time in the guild to know, and that’s just useless knowledge for you.”
Trak furrowed his brow as he realized something. “You’re better than any Red.”
Honor gave him a full smile. “I am at least as powerful as Nullia.”
“So you know how to dissemble and with the two of you,” he looked at Malena, “three of you, if you get caught up in the capture spell, you can tell the other to use ‘worry’. Very good.” He smiled himself.
“I still don’t know how you remembered your spells,” Honor said. “Malena said you mentioned threads of memory.”
“I did. They would come, triggered by a thought or something else and when I followed them in my mind, they just broke.” He shrugged.
“Impressive, your entire time at the guild was impressive, but now they know that you are as powerful as any of them, we will be sought out.”
“Can’t you go back?”
Malena shook her head. “We will never go back to the guild, nor will you.”
“Not as a guild member,” Honor said. She walked across the room to a small buffet. Trak didn’t notice that food and drink had been set out. “Eat and drink. We will rest until dark, and then start our journey to Colcan.”
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE CASTLE SHOOK AND SHUDDERED with Prince Nez’s anger. His father finally summoned him to his personal chambers.
“Get over it, Nez,” King Marom said. “She has gone with your uncle Asem to Espozia. And a good thing, if you ask me. She is still useful to Warish and if you spoil her like you do all of your other playthings, she won’t be.”
“How is she useful to you?” Nez knew that Asem had betrayed him. If he had in this, then he had other times in other ways. He couldn’t keep a sneer off of his face.
“She knows what the Bluntwithe boy looks like, for one. Do you?”
His father now disrespected him. Nez narrowed his eyes. “Of course not. He’s just another Pestlan brat.”
“And this girl isn’t?”
Nez drew back. His father had struck a nerve. Of course she was, but he wouldn’t give his father the point. “She is blonde and pretty. She also knows magic.”
“And that makes her a better lover? Asem said she was only a fair magician.”
Nez pouted. He knew he didn’t look very forceful when he did, but his father was right again.
“Very well. I can find others.”
Marom laughed. “You already have, I know.”
His father knew everything. No, he didn’t know everything.
“Go and cease your destructive behavior. Asem will return with the girl and if you feel the same way, we will talk about it then. You may go.”
Nez stalked out of his father’s chambers in no better mood than when he went in. He would show him who the better man was. He sequestered himself in his tower and drew out the letter from its hiding place and re-read it.
He might be a bit emotional, but Nez considered himself smart enough to read between the lines of writing. The author was not a native Warishian. A country, un-named, wanted to place him on the throne of Warish. All he had to do were a few little jobs. His father didn’t understand him and the lure of the Pestlan throne didn’t really move him. To rule over all Warish did, however.
The letter wanted a reply within a week through a certain person in an embassy. Nez would think about it a bit more, only to show that he wasn’t too eager. He knew otherwise, but his soon-to-be-partners didn’t. He’d show his father and that traitor Asem. They were as good as gone.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Four
WHY ASEM DIDN’T HIRE A CARRIAGE CONFOUNDED VALANNA and she didn’t think horsemen traveled any better than sailors. Her backside and thighs were very sore, very. The pain lessened as they traveled, but she still hobbled when they stopped for breaks and at night. At least her stomach didn’t protest.
Kulara hadn’t insisted on learning new poses the first three days of travel. Valanna didn’t think her body could hold any kind of position for more than a moment or two. However, they spent the third night in an inn, after sleeping under the stars the first two nights.
Asem laid out a map on their table in the common room at breakfast. This inn wasn’t anything to compare to The Witch’s Tree in Tachium.
“Where are we headed?” Valanna asked Asem.
“Our first stop is here,” he pointed to a city called Bitrium. “There is a magician’s college, the best in the country. I need to get some information on Honor Fidelia.”
“What is there that I can’t tell you about the woman?” Valanna said. She tried to figure out how many days to Bitrium. It looked like four or five with only one sizeable town along the way.
Asem continued to look at the map, and then looked up at her from his seat. “Where is she really from? How strong is she in magic? What are her real alliances? Did she ever spend time in Espozia? If she did, the Magicians Guild likely captured her. Captured magicians are rarely seen again since they sort of blend in with all the rest. Are any Pestlans, that escaped to Espozia, in that guild. Do the Colcanan magicians have any way to communicate magically? If so, that will save us a long trip to Espozia. Is that enough, or should I go on?”
He had never been so sharp with her. Did he have a fight with Kulara last night?
“Ah, I see by your face that you thought me rude.”
“Perhaps,” Valanna said.
“I might have been, a little. In my line of work, the more you know about the background of a person, the better prepared you are when you meet them. You might remember that.”
Valanna nodded her head as she sat down. “There is so much I need to learn.”
“Don’t overwhelm yourself, but pick things up as you go,” He said in a more conciliatory manner. “Feel free to ask questions; just don’t be upset if I give you information that might not be very pleasant. All right?”
“All right.” She smiled. Asem now had a new place in her new plan of becoming educated.
~
Valanna had worked most of the pain and irritation away, so by a night or two away from Bitrium, she asked Kulara for a lesson.
Kulara led her away from the camp to a little hollow. There weren’t many trees about. “Can you conjure a light globe?”
“Like this?” Valanna produced a nice bright little ball.
“How long will it last?”
Valanna tried to remember. “About twenty minutes. I haven’t created one of those in some time.”
“Good. Your lesson will take twenty minutes long or until the light goes out,”
They didn’t have a clock with them, so it would have to be when the globe dissipated, thought Valanna.
&nbs
p; “Did you write a list of the poses that you know?”
Valanna had written the list in the last inn they stayed at the previous night and demonstrated each pose to Kulara’s satisfaction. She pulled it out of her pocket and presented it to Kulara, who read the list under the light of the little globe.
Kulara straightened out the tunic she wore over riding pants, very similar to the outfit that Valanna wore. “This pose is for pulling water out of the air. You need a container and it helps to have a wand or even a little stick to collect the water. The power word is ‘dowa’.”
“Dowa.” Valanna nodded.
Kulara looked around on the ground and found a length of dried grass. It looked just like a straw. She showed Valanna the pose and pointed the stick towards the ground. “Dowa.” Kulara didn’t use much concentration and the stick began to collect the water in the air. Valanna saw it drip down from the straw and make a small puddle.
“Got it?”
Valanna closed her eyes and committed the pose to memory. She took a pencil out of her pocket and found a little dip in the ground. She assumed the pose.
“Your pose looks good to me.”
“Dowa.” Valanna said with more force that Kulara. She could feel the air get sucked towards the pencil and the water began to flow as if it was on a spigot. The air began to feel dry so she stood up to close the spell.
“Now, do it again,” Kulara said. “Let’s see if you can make it drip like my attempt.”
Valanna assumed the position again and spoke the word without much force. She achieved the same kind of dripping action that Kulara asked for.
“Good. Now if you are in a land like Colcan, you can always use that spell to get water. It won’t work as well in the Arid Lands because there is not as much water in the air. Using more force will get more water, but the moisture will also be drawn from your skin. People have died of desiccation, drying out too much, when using that spell at the wrong time. Always be aware of what your spell does and where it draws it effect. I want you to spend the rest of your evening thinking about that. Can you extinguish your light?”
