by Guy Antibes
“Is that control enough?” Trak said as he put the knife back in its sheath at his waist.
The men were speechless, but managed nods.
“Where did you find this boy?” Willing said hoarsely, still staring at Trak, who sat back in his chair.
“He is the grandson of the magician whose mistake ended magic in Pestledown. His father,” she looked sideways at Trak, “is a magician as well as a Colcan, although he has sworn he will never utter another power word. I will tell you his real identity later.”
Neel, a magician? That shocked Trak. As long as he knew the man, Neel had kept to that vow. He was a Colcanan, like Honor and that meant that Trak had Colcan blood as well.
Service’s eyes went wide as he took a deep breath. The astonishment surprised him, but Honor’s revelation surprised him more. “Nellus’s son. Where did you learn to use the knife as a focus?”
“I figured that one out on my own. If one can use a wand, then what does it matter what made up the wand. The steel and the point on a blade help to direct the magic in a more controlled stream. Did Honor tell you about how I stopped the advance on our position at the woods leading to Colcan? I’m sorry but I don’t know the name of the place.”
They all looked at Honor.
“I didn’t tell you, because I wanted you to witness this first hand. He focused a lightning pose through a sword creating a flexible stream of lightning that he swept back and forth,” she cleared her throat as she might have remembered the scene, “and eliminated the threat. An awesome display of power.”
“You don’t need to do that here, Master Bluntwithe. I would hardly call that raw power, but you have acquired impeccable control. I personally would like you to demonstrate the lightning technique, but not here, for obvious reasons.”
Trak nodded. “Yes, sir, can I get further instruction?”
Berin looked at Willing and Service who nodded as he looked at them. “Of course, of course. Especially since we now know you are one of us.”
“I am half Pestlan, sir.”
“Yes, yes, Honor will start with your advanced training. No one has your power, but as is well known among us, power is only one aspect of a magician’s overall ability. There is another we will assign that we will bring out of retirement, if he will agree.”
“Strength?” Honor said.
Where did these Colcanans get their first names? Berin’s was fine, but Willing, Service, Honor and now, Strength?
The men nodded. “I will convince Father,” Service said as they all stood.
Trak and Honor rose and she kept him in the room as the others filed out.
She sat Trak down. “It’s time to learn a little more about your father.”
“What is his real name?”
“Nellus Fidelia.”
“Your brother?”
Honor nodded. “My brother, damn him. Neel Cardswallow. Such a name! He’s been the black sheep of the family ever since he could utter the curse words he heard Father use when Nellus could barely walk.”
Trak smiled. “So that’s why he could get you to tutor me.”
“That helped. He and our Father had many fallings out until Colcan wasn’t big enough for the two of them and he left Bitrium and finally ended up in Pestledown. There he met your mother and married her. When she died after being exposed by her brother for using magic, he refused then and there to make another pose.”
“But he is a swordsman!”
“If he couldn’t defend himself with a spell, what else could he use? He left you with the innkeeper and learned a number of new crafts, an expert armsman being one of them. He also learned how to gamble and lie and cheat and become a rebel. Nellus vowed to take a dangerous path to eventually rid Pestle of the king, but it was not to be. One man against a nation? He still blunts his sword on an impregnable castle wall. That was why Able raised you as his son. So if Nellus did something incredibly stupid, you wouldn’t be harmed by a direct connection.”
“Did he do anything incredibly stupid?”
“More times that I think you could count, but nothing bad enough to cost him his life, until recently. The world has become a very unstable place.”
Trak Fidelia, his real name. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to that or calling Neel anything but Neel. He would call him Father before he would blurt out Nellus.
“So, you are my auntie.”
“I guess I am. Don’t go about thinking you will get out of any work. Strength, if he agrees to help, is requires you to stretch your thinking. I didn’t like him when I was learning.”
“He must be old,” Trak said.
“Old enough. He likes his peculiar ways.”
~
Honor and he had decided not to let Asem know about Trak’s heritage. He might already know it, but Asem could reveal such knowledge when he wished, She told Berin to be silent about it to Asem, as well. No one knew just how Asem would use the information. Everyone trusted Asem to a point, but no one knew exactly what that point might be.
A few days later, Trak waited in the practice room for Strength to appear. He had expected a little old bent-over bearded and bald-headed man walking in, heavily leaning on a staff all dressed in the dark gray that most other people wore. To his surprise, Strength huffed his way in on his own power. He sported a clean-shaven chin, a luxurious shock of white hair with a light purple streak running through it. Colcanans liked the little flash of color in their hair, perhaps something to relieve them from the severity of their city. Strength also wore a suit of clothes in navy blue with a light gray tunic underneath his coat. Perhaps the dress code lightened up once one retired.
“Sit, sit,” Strength said with a strong deep bass voice. “You are Trak Fidelia, of course.”
“You can call me Trak.” He didn’t know if the offer was impertinent.
“Good. Call me Ben. My old name is Biennium Nomia and I find myself thinking of myself as Ben, these days. Is that all right?”
“Fine, Ben,” Trak said, glancing a bit uncertainly at Honor.
Ben pulled up a chair so that the three of them faced each other in a triangle, “You want to learn how all this magic stuff works?” He didn’t seem at all imposing.
“I know how it works, I’d like to learn how to do different things without killing myself.”
“A lofty goal. As you can see, I was mostly successful, although I hope you won’t mind if I don’t show you my scars.” Ben grinned while Honor grimaced. Trak had heard much the same from Dalistro. He didn’t doubt either man’s claim to experience.
Trak wondered if Honor hadn’t heard this all before. She looked like she had.
“It is a matter of focus and careful posing. Most magicians don’t get to the level where they can truly innovate. Honor has. You can tell by her name. That’s not her real one. She was born—“
“That’s enough, Strength. You are on the verge of being very rude,” she said, snapping at him.
“Ah, yes, you see, Trak, that when you reach the level of innovation, you take on a new prosaic name. It is similar to Master colors in Santasia. You went right to Purple, I understand. Weren’t you a Red, Honor?”
“Dark Red,” she said.
“Right, Dark Red. Those mean nothing to us as there is only one magician in all of Santasia who can innovate.”
“Riotro the Black,” Trak said.
Ben nodded and grinned. “Precisely, Riotro, what a cad he is. I’ve met him before, you know.” Ben made a face. “An ill-fated trip to Espozia to try for a reconciliation between the guild and the college.” He shook his head. “As long as he is head of their guild, the Espozian magicians will always be our enemy.”
Trak wondered if most countries rose and fell through the personalities of their highest leader. That was another question for Asem, not Ben. The king of Pestle certainly showed his weakness and Asem had been instrumental in helping craft the fall of Trak’s country, but if the Pestle king exhibited more strength, the Warishian subversio
n would have failed long ago.
“Why does Riotro dislike the Colcanans so much?” Trak said.
“This is a magic class, not politics, but I’ll answer from the Colcanan point of view. Quite simply, he has a massive ego and thinks that we should join his guild, with Riotro in charge, of course. We have at least three or four magicians as powerful as he, not including you.” Ben smiled. “Now, let’s talk about the principal of innovation.”
“I’ll leave now that you two have met,” Honor said, standing up.
Ben frowned. “You don’t want to participate?”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t and you know why, Strength.”
He looked like she had hurt him. He waved his hand at her. “Go. But you are free to participate.”
Honor scowled, but nodded. “I might later on.”
Trak watched her leave the practice room. “What is that all about?”
“You will find out in due time. It’s a family matter.”
Trak had to say, “Aren’t I family?”
“Technically, yes, but you aren’t Colcanan born and bred and that makes a difference.”
“I understand. I don’t feel like a Colcanan and I’m not used to Honor being my aunt. In fact, I’m not used to Neel being Nellus. So…” he shrugged his shoulders.
Ben gave Trak a sideways look. “Back to magic?”
“Back to magic.”
After clearing his throat, Ben launched into a familiar description of magic, power, poses and magic words. Trak had heard it all before, but he didn’t mind hearing it again from a different point of view. However, Ben’s explanation was pretty much the way Honor described it.
Ben finished his initial lecture. “So, innovation requires knowing the poses and looking inside at the flow.”
“But how do the power words work? I know they are needed and they make the magic produce different effects,” Trak said. Now Ben was getting somewhere interesting.
“Good.” Ben smiled. “That is exactly the right question to ask, and I will tell you the great secret, since I know you are ready for it. You can turn any word into a power word. Any word. It is the intent that controls the release of the magic. Without a power word to prime the reaction, it just doesn’t happen.”
“I don’t believe it,” Trak said. “The word is the trigger. But you say it’s only a focus to channel the power in the right way?”
Ben nodded his head. “You are right. The problem is that, for most people, a mental trigger is too fuzzy, for lack of a better word. That could lead to—“
Trak was eager to complete Ben’s sentence. “No reaction all the way to the wrong reaction. I keep saying that I must have been lucky the night I fended off a shark with a pose in the ocean, but it’s true.”
“In the ocean, you say?”
Trak nodded. “The shark was headed for me. I posed as if I had a war hammer and yelled ‘Stop’. I think my pose was similar to the destruction one. The shark sunk from sight. Honor said I inadvertently used magic.”
“You were lucky you were the one that didn’t sink to the bottom of the ocean. But note that you said a word rather than tried to invoke power with a thought. We don’t know how many people have been killed trying to say a word orally but thinking of a different word mentally.”
Trak wouldn’t have that explanation either. “It’s the intent. The word that controls the spell is the word that is thought, not the word that is spoken. Should we try it out?”
Ben rose from his chair. “Go ahead. You know there is a risk…”
“I do. Shall I make a light?”
“The word the Santasians usually use is ‘lukee’. I’ll bet that is different from the one you know,” Ben said.
“I know them both.”
Trak pulled out his knife and stood in the pose of creating a light. He held the knife out, like he did in the demonstration to the Deans. “Buckle.” A light a foot high flew up, burning from the knife’s tip. He moved his arm and the light went out.
He held the light out again and said, “Daisy.” A blue light a foot high appeared. “I’ll try it again.”
“Buckle.” The blue light appeared again.
Trak smiled and held out the knife. An explosion blew him off of his feet on to his backside. The front of his tunic was scorched from the flame as well as his face and singed hair. “I see what you mean,” he said, getting up, brushing the embers off of his front. “Fuzzy.”
Ben had already moved to his side. “Are you all right?” Trak could see the concern in the old man’s eyes.
“I am. I suppose I needed to be taught a little humility.”
“Perhaps a lot,” Ben said. He picked up the knife. The tip had been blown off. “It’s a good thing you didn’t use a finger.” He grinned at Trak and ruffled his hair. “A lesson you’ll do well to learn.”
Trak had learned it well enough, but he would practice it some more, just not in front of his tutor. There were too many advantages in not having to mouth the words, he had to admit. The important thing was that he triggered the magic. The rest would come with practice, just like learning weapons forms, but these were new and required much more mental discipline.
“I think you’ve done enough damage for today. What I’d like you to do is practice with the alternate words. You’ve seen the danger to rely on pronouncing them in your head. Take this twisted knife and put it somewhere you can see it often as a reminder that it could have been worse, much worse.”
~~~
Chapter Thirty-Four
NEEL WOKE UP TO THE KNOCKING ON THE DOOR of the stable flat at Esmera’s inn. He staggered to the door; the alcohol in his system still flowed from his drinking the night before.
He threw the door open, not concerned that he was only dressed in his underclothes. “What do you want?” he yelled.
A woman, not quite middle aged, winced and drew back from Neel’s wretched state. “I bring a message from Trak Bluntwithe.”
“Trak?” Neel blinked his eyes open and suddenly gained control of his faculties. “Come in. I apologize, I’ve been,” he hiccupped, “drinking.”
“My name is Leaf, Leaf Gougepenny,” she said primly, pushing her way into the flat. “I’ll sit here while you wash up and change your clothes.” She looked at the door at the unmade bed in the next room.
“Of course,” Neel managed a smile and then pushed his hair out of his eyes as he retreated to the bedroom, closing the door.
The room was actually quite orderly, other than the mess Neel had made of the bed during a drunken night, not able to erase the ever-present demons that plagued his soul.
“Trak,” he mumbled as he tried to focus on making himself presentable. He rubbed water on his face and wiped it off. No time for a shave, but he did pour the remains of the water pitcher on his head and toweled it dry. “Now, clothes.” He looked at the wardrobe and threw the first things he could lay his hands on and then ran a brush through his hair.
He gazed at the mirror and groaned. “That will have to do.” He knew he didn’t normally talk to himself, but the drink still muddled his mind a bit. Neel threw open the door and bowed.
“Forgive me.”
The woman, Gougepenny? She sat with her back away from the table chair, feet together and hands folded. Where did he hear the name before? Trak…Gougepenny. One of his tutors? Ah yes, now that his head began to clear, he remembered her as a Colcanan spy.
“Mrs. Gougepenny, I am at your service.” He bowed a bit too quickly and had to restrain, clutching at his now-pounding head. He sat. “Forgive me, I have nothing to offer you in the way of refreshment.”
“That is quite all right, Mr. Cardswallow, or should I say Nellus Fidelia. I have had my luncheon. My married name is not Gougepenny.”
“Berin’s bride, if I remember.”
Her eyes flashed. She looked rather attractive once she shed the emotional stiffness of every Colcan Neel ever knew, except for Ben. Old Strength had to have either died or retired by now
. He was the only person who ever understood him.
“What of Trak?”
“I could write it down, but for some bizarre reason, I thought I should present Berin’s message in person.”
“I like that sarcasm, Leaf. You don’t mind if I call you Leaf. Call me Neel. I like it ever so much better than Nellus. Go ahead.”
She pursed her lips and took a deep breath. Neel thought it looked more like an indignant sigh. “Trak was taken by Misson Dalistro to Espozia in Santasia.”
“I know that. Dalistro told me he was going to take my sister, since you know who I am, and Trak away before the king’s guard caught them.”
Leaf nodded and looked reluctant to continue.
“Look, would you rather us go down and sit in Esmera’s dining room?”
“No.” Leaf looked around and probably noticed for the first time that the flat was in reasonably orderly shape for a man living alone. Neel even had to clean up after Trak. The thought brought a smile to his face.
“How is he doing? Isn’t Dalistro still tutoring him?”
“Since Dalistro left, Misson has returned to Pestledown and visited other places, and then he left to return to Santasia.”
You could never trust a spy, Neel thought. In fact, why was he trusting Leaf? She had bad news, but she didn’t look like she bore ill tidings. “He didn’t even visit me when he was here.” He said that more to himself than to Leaf.
“Trak was captured by the Espozian Magicians Guild.”
Neel shot to his feet. “Have they converted him? I’m ready—“
Leaf held up her hand to stop his tirade. “He’s already escaped. He’s had some adventures, but he is all right and has found his way to Bitrium. Honor and Strength wanted you to know.”
Neel sat back down and folded his arms. “Strength, you say? He’s still alive.” He smiled. “That’s good, I hope he’s going to have a say in how Trak is treated. I don’t trust Honor very much, not in Bitrium.”
