by Guy Antibes
“Sure, you do. The counterspell for compulsion is one of them. The enchantment that covered Pira stopped when the sorcerer died, so there must be some linkage between the sorcerer and the subject spelled.” Ricky thought about what he just said. “What if we could isolate the spell from the sorcerer?”
“What do you mean?”
“The sorcerer died. The link between the man and Pira stopped. We can always kill the sorcerer, but what if we don’t need to do that?”
Hemo nodded. “I see what you mean. Put the person in a magical bubble?”
“Right. It will be hard to test, but I think it is worth a try,” Ricky said.
Posing a problem and solving it were two different activities. Ricky was certain he’d need to learn the spell before finding a way to thwart it, but that might be a good task for Hemo. That was something the Vorrian sorcerer could do while Ricky visited the remaining kingdoms of Jarrace and Cralt.
He left Greda and Hemo and found a quiet place in the woods. He leaned against a tree in the cool shade and linked with Baron Mansali.
This is Ricky. Do you have more time, Baron? Ricky asked.
I do. Wait just a moment. The baron replied after a pause. I heard from Brollo Giani that you performed your sorcery on King Korlia just as you did to Duke Bariani.
I did. Unfortunately, Princess Pira’s bodyguard gave her life to save us. That was a blow to Pira and a sad event for me. You know that Queen Ula considers Brollo her man?
He is her person with my permission. It makes my Fisttian business operate much more smoothly by having a notable patron. You had something more to say?
Ricky swallowed. Sometimes the Baron could be intimidating. I am going to Cralt and Jarrace to determine whether the heads of state are under the influence of the Botoyans. Do you have people there I can contact?
I have trading established with both. Go to the docks, find the Mansali Trading signs, and speak with the managers. Both are faithful to me, and they will help you with an interpreter if they can’t fill the role themselves. I will say that neither country has a monarch that has changed their behavior as much as King Korlia did. Good luck. I must go now. The baron broke the link.
Ricky returned to the castle and found Pira still mired in paperwork, with Nania sitting across from the desk.
Pira looked up at him. “You should be doing this, you know.”
“You need to get used to practical ruling,” Ricky said with a smile.
“This isn’t some prank, is it?” She folded her arms. “It isn’t fun.”
Nania looked at Ricky and then back at Pira, smiling like Ricky. “No, it is not. I had to do this kind of work when I ran the Applia Juvenile Home.”
“You think it is funny?” Pira said. She gave Ricky a nasty look and then broke into a smile. “It’s how to silence a smart-aleck princess, isn’t it?”
“Maybe provide some perspective,” Nania said.
“Perhaps I’m getting too much of that,” Pira said, her smile fading from her face. Ricky could tell the instant when Ciara’s death entered her thoughts.
“I’m going to Cralt and Jarrace tomorrow,” Ricky said. “Do you have any tips about the two countries that I should know?”
Pira took a deep breath. “You are going to leave me behind?”
Ricky nodded. “I needed you in Fisttia, but Baron Mansali has trading offices in both capitals. He said they will provide interpreters. As far as he knows, the rulers aren’t behaving irrationally.”
“I’ll let you go if you promise me one thing,” Pira said.
“What might that be?” Ricky waited for her comment.
“If the situation appears to be dangerous, return to Samira for help.”
Ricky grinned. “I can do that. I’ll take less than a week unless either of them take their time like the Vorrians.”
Pira shook her head. “They don’t.”
She spent the next two hours lecturing Ricky on the monarchs, their families, and the political situations. By the end of the session, Pira was back to making humorous comments about the two countries.
~
Jarracians thought they enjoyed the most sophisticated society on the Kerrothian continent. The architecture of their capital city of Raircoo did nothing to dispel their claim. Pira had told him that this was all a front.
In ancient times, the Jarracians held influence over all Kerrothia, but once they had used up all their natural resources to support their empire, they retreated back to their borders and became inwardly focused. Ricky didn’t know what to expect, but Pira said they were somewhat decadent. They had turned away from their gods, and morals were looser in Jarrace than in any other country.
Ricky didn’t know if that would help or hinder his goal of meeting the Jarracian king. The relationship between Paranty and Jarrace was cool, at best, but since they didn’t share a common border, there hadn’t been a reason for conflict for a long, long time.
With the weather warming up, Ricky thought his flight to Jarrace would be comfortable, but he was unprepared for his trip over the mountainous spine that separated Jarrace and Cralt from the rest of the continent. However, he finally reached the plains that ran to the sea and returned to comfortable temperatures.
He flew over farmland. Villages were mostly topped with thatched roofs rather than the stone or tile that dominated the west. The fields were all made out of orderly squares with stone walls or hedgerows. Each village was punctuated by a building with a round tower protected by a conical roof. His reserves were wearing thin, so he decided to chance a night in a town. It had three of the Jarracian towers. He walked in from where he had landed in a small wood as the sun was setting.
Every inn looked pretty much the same everywhere on Kerrothia, no matter what the country. Ricky walked in to find a similar layout, a common room with a bar on one side. The rooms were on the upper floors. He walked up to the tall, thin woman busily wiping down the bar after three men left their cups and staggered outside. Jarracians had darker complexions than Parantians, and most had straight black hair.
She said something to Ricky that he didn’t understand. Ricky had to shake his head and make motions for sleeping and eating. He poured a few coins from his purse and held them out in his hand. The woman leaned over and took a silver coin and mimicked his sleeping motion and took two large copper coins and pretended to eat.
“Thank you,” Ricky said and nodded.
The woman replied in her own language and just smiled. She grabbed a wooden key off the hook filled with them and led him upstairs. After showing him how to lock and unlock his door, she led him back downstairs after Ricky put his bag in the room. He kept his Naparran sword, retrieved from the guards in Fisttia when he left Coliat, and his wand case.
She showed him a table for two and said something. Ricky guessed it was to sit, so he sat and waited. A stew of some kind was delivered by a young serving maid, who batted her eyelashes. He returned her attention with a modest smile and purposely turned his attention to his meal.
A mug of ale and a plate of bread came a minute later. Ricky ate a piece of bread first. So far, so good, he thought. He tasted the ale and nearly coughed it out. That was strong stuff, he thought. The stew was a different matter. The meat tasted like beef, and it was well seasoned, quite a contrast to what was served in the Fisttian capital. He finished it, gravy and all, leaving the ale.
The woman who took his money sat down with one of the inn’s patrons.
Ricky smiled at both of them. The woman said something to the older man.
“You are Parantian?” he asked in poorly-accented Parantian. “Gissel said you looked Parantian, and I agree. I spent a few years in Tossa building trade relationships.”
“I am from Tossa,” Ricky said. “Did you ever talk to Baron Mansali?”
The man’s eyes sparkled. “I spent some time with him. He decided to establish trade from Raircoo, our capital. Are you here to trade?”
Ricky shook his head. “I am jou
rneying to Raircoo. I have business with Baron Mansali’s trading office.”
The man told the innkeeper who smiled and said something else.
“You are walking? I can arrange a carriage or a cart.”
Ricky smiled. “I prefer to travel on my own. Jarracians, so far, have proven friendly to a person who doesn’t speak their language.”
The man nodded. “If we weren’t so isolated, there would be more travelers. However, Jarrace is big enough so we can do well enough by ourselves. The baron imports many fine goods, though.”
The innkeeper leaned over to see Ricky’s unfinished ale and talked to the man.
“Was there something wrong with your drink?” the man asked.
“I am unaccustomed to ale so strong. I don’t like imbibing” Ricky looked around the room, and it appeared that others didn’t share his view.
“Gissel will water this down. It isn’t good to drink untreated water in our country.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Ricky said. “Could you ask her if I can have more of this delicious stew?”
“Certainly. If you will excuse me, I will return to my friends.” The man nodded and joined a table of five other men.
They chattered and looked back at Ricky, all smiling and nodded. Ricky smiled and nodded back. Gissel took Ricky’s ale and returned with something more palatable. The server provided another bowlful of stew, which Ricky finished. He stood and bowed to the woman at the bar and retreated to his room.
Ricky looked out the window to the cobbled stableyard below. Other than the thatched roof, it didn’t look any different from any other he’d see outside of a city. He sealed the wood together with a song and lay on the lumpy straw-filled mattress. Lots of straw in rural Jarrace he thought.
He didn’t know how long he slept until he woke up to a pounding on his door. Yells in Jarracian filled the air. They didn’t sound friendly, unfortunately. A disappointed Ricky packed his things up and opened the window, flying out and into the nighttime sky.
It took a few moments for Ricky to get his bearings, but soon he headed east towards the sea and the capital city of Raircoo. He reached the capital before sunrise. The blue and bluer shapes of the buildings began to color as dawn beckoned. The towers he had seen in the villages popped up all around the town.
Ricky found an unoccupied square close to the docks and landed. He headed towards lower ground and soon found the docks and located the Mansali Trading sign. Like Coliat, everything else on the sign was unreadable. He didn’t see any activity in the building, so he huddled in the cool of the morning and waited for dawn to break and more life to return to Raircoo’s docks.
After quite a while, Ricky noticed a few souls huddled around the door to the baron’s office building, and a Jarracian woman came to open the place up. Ricky waited for the sun to warm up the docks, which had become a beehive of activity.
He entered the building and went to the counter. Inside it looked like a twin of the office in Coliat.
“Does anyone speak Parantian?” he asked.
The woman who had opened the door rose from her seat and walked to the counter. “I do. Have you just come off a ship?” She looked a bit confused. “We aren’t expecting one from Sealio for another week.”
“You are the manager of the office?” Ricky asked.
“I am. Who are you?”
“Hendrico Valian. I know the baron,” he said.
“How did you get here so quickly, fly?” she said, the astonishment was plain on her face. “We thought you’d be another three weeks. I heard about your arrival yesterday.”
“You can link with the baron?”
She looked around the room at two of the worker's heads that shot up and stared at them. “It is a closely-held secret in this office.”
“One that I share. Is there a place we can talk more privately?”
The woman nodded and took him out the front. They sat where Ricky had spent the early morning. “The baron wishes me to introduce you to Emperor Hanni.”
“Emperor? The title persists from old times?”
“That and little else,” the woman said. “I am Laria Bwasee. As it happens, I am a tiny little remote branch of the imperial family and can get you an audience, if you don’t mind me accompanying you.”
Ricky told her of his experience at the inn.
“If I had known you were traveling overland, I would have suggested that you not enter any towns or villages. They seem to be nice, but many travelers disappear as they travel through Jarrace. I’m surprised you survived.”
Ricky smiled. “I am uniquely resourceful.”
Laria nodded. “An interesting phrase, but I am sure you are. Porio tells me that Raircoo is much like any other capital. It has a bite, but not like the interior of my country. What is your business? Porio didn’t have time to say very much other than you wanted to see the Emperor.”
Since the woman referred to the baron by his first name, he assumed she had a close personal relationship with Mansali.
It took a while, but Ricky gave her the whole story of the disruption the Botoyans were causing in the western countries.
“I doubt that Hanni is affected. There is no evidence of tampering with his mind, although he is without issue. The Emperor is my age.” Which in Ricky’s opinion was mid-thirties.
“You are a sorcerer?” Ricky asked.
She smiled. It made her face soften. “I am. Jarrace isn’t blessed with many, but enough to send a few to the Rings every year. You are familiar with the Duterian Rings?”
“Did you attend the Rings? I did,” Ricky said.
“I was impossibly stuck in the Fourth Ring and couldn’t progress. It was probably for the better, since I missed my family. I like Raircoo better. You are too young to have progressed very far.”
He thought she would have to be powerful to link with the baron. He didn’t want it to sound like boasting, but he said, “I am a Tower sorcerer. Everyone thought I was a prodigy. I flew from Paranty.”
Her eyes went to Ricky’s sword. “You aren’t going to kill yourself, are you?”
Ricky laughed. “I found a way to fly using a different spell. It doesn’t have any side effects that I am aware of.”
“You’ll have to teach me.”
“Consider it a reward after a successful meeting with Emperor Hanni,” Ricky said.
“That will be worth the pain,” Laria said.
“Pain?”
She nodded. “Hanni is not kind to his relations. I don’t mean physical pain, but he disparages everyone he meets. He has for as long as I have known him, and I have known Hanni for a very long time.”
“I will endure it along with you,” Ricky said.
“You are a brave man.”
“Bravery is what is needed to thwart the Botoyans,” Ricky said.
~~~
Chapter Fifteen
~
T he spire that rose next to the Imperial palace rivaled the Tower in Duteria. It looked very old, but it sported a gleaming conical copper roof.
“What are the towers for? They look religious,” Ricky asked Laria, now dressed to meet her relation.
“They are. Jarracians have one religion. We worship Afena. She was originally a goddess of war, but after the Empire crumbled, Afena became a fertility goddess.”
Ricky raised his eyebrows. “The churches are brothels?”
“Not that kind of fertility. She was originally more of an agricultural deity. Everyone prayed for better harvests, since Jarrace had exhausted all its other resources. Now every one prays to her for good fortune, fertile fields, fertile businesses, that kind of thing. To be honest, you can go to any service in Raircoo and get a different sermon. Afena is female, but past that, it is up to the priest or priestess how she is worshipped and how her blessings are manifested. We are required to attend a service every month. Afena worship is a state religion.”
“Is there anything I need to worry about when I am in the Emperor’s presen
ce?” Ricky asked.
Laria shook her head. “Just don’t denigrate Afena.”
“I won’t,” Ricky said.
She took a deep breath when they reached the gate to the palace. “Here we go. I haven’t been inside for three years.”
“And it was painful?”
“Very. You’ll see.”
They stepped through the gates after a brief conversation in Jarracian that Ricky couldn’t follow at all. Laria ran her fingers through her luxurious long, dark hair and walked briskly across a massive courtyard filled with a combination of ancient and new cobbles. The steps had been worn by centuries of feet as they ascended to the palace.
He looked up at the distinctive architecture. The rest of the city compared favorably to any other capital that Ricky had visited, but the palace was old and incredibly massive. The wall surrounding the doors seemed to be ten feet thick. Windows were recessed at least that far. He wondered what environment prompted such a solid structure. Ricky would have to fly over it before he returned to Paranty.
“This was the Imperial Palace when Jarrace ruled the world?” Ricky asked.
“It is. It alone stands to remind us of our past. You’ll find some churches as old, but they are nothing like this. I shouldn’t need to tell you not to speak. Hanni speaks Parantian as well as all the languages of Kerrothia. All Jarracian emperors are required to know the languages of their former subject states.”
Ricky nodded. He would speak when spoken to.
The corridors weren’t very wide, but they were tall. She led them to golden doors twenty feet high.
“You see before you much of Jarrace’s wealth. The doors are real gold.”
The doors had wheels on the bottom. The tracks had worn six inches deep in the stone, but the doors were open. Ricky wondered if they moved them very often or at all.
Laria took his hand and led him into a cavernous throne room. The ceiling had a round hole in the middle letting in a shaft of sunlight that lit up the space. No one sat on the throne on the dais ten feet above the floor.
