by Guy Antibes
They had appeared farther from the enclave than Trevor would have liked, but they didn’t want to risk another encounter with a second transfer. Finally, they reached an open-air entertainment zone at the ocean’s edge. Music of all kinds added to the excitement. He wished Lissa were with him, and Trevor suspected Brother Yvan would rather have Reena at his side.
They walked in the shadows toward the enclave and listened to the marketgoers. Brother Yvan stepped over to a booth selling cheap jewelry as Trevor looked over inexpensive books. No one seemed bothered by the fact that armies were moving through their country toward Khartoo. Trevor expected an underlying tension, but these citizens didn’t seem bothered.
“Do you sell maps?” Trevor asked, thumbing through a romance he had read when he resided in the Tarviston castle tower.
“What are you interested in?” the merchant asked, pulling out a bin of used maps.
“Khartoo,” Trevor said. “I’m writing a novel, like this one,” he held up the romance, “and I want to make sure the action takes place in real places.”
“You can’t walk the streets yourself?” the seller asked.
“Have you ever written anything?” Trevor asked.
“I sell books. I don’t write them.”
“Then you wouldn’t know that you don’t want to interrupt your writing to go out to make sure you have a distance right, to the east side of the wharf from the Dryden church, for example,” Trevor said.
“Have a look. There is probably something in there that is useful.”
Trevor began to look at the maps. Most had a description of the map on the outside. He selected plans of the city’s gates and finally found what he sought, three maps of the enclave.
“How accurate are these?” Trevor asked.
The merchant shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t know many people who have been to the enclave.”
Trevor didn’t know if he should believe the man, but it didn’t matter. He opened the maps, and with a quick comparison, found similarities and discrepancies. Perhaps they could piece together something that might be somewhat reliable.
“I’ll take these,” Trevor said.
“All of them?”
Trevor raised his eyebrows. “They are for sale, aren’t they?”
“Indeed. Today is my lucky day,” the merchant said. “I’ve held onto those for too long.”
Trevor paid the man in Maskumite coins that he had earned by being a smuggling caravan’s guard.
Brother Yvan still talked to the jewelry seller. Trevor sauntered over after visiting a food stand selling fried fish strips. Trevor didn’t care as much for the fish as for the batter used to fry them.
“Find anything for Reena?” Trevor asked.
“A trinket or two. Lissa might like this one,” Brother Yvan pointed to a medallion made of tiny glass pieces joined together with lead. It was like a miniature stained-glass window.
“I’ll buy whatever you found,” Trevor said.
He paid for Brother Yvan’s jewelry and the one Brother Yvan pointed out and more of the fried fish strips.
Brother Yvan took a bite and raised his eyebrows. “This is delightful!” he said. “I take it you were successful?”
Trevor nodded. “I have maps of the city that we will send to our friends,” he said in case anyone listened in.
They walked through the market and watched a few little dramas that the Khartooian citizens stood and watched. Trevor hadn’t seen those before. Again, he couldn’t detect any kind of concern about the impending invasion. They almost reached the end of the market when the hubbub around them silenced.
Men and women stepped out of the darkness and surrounded them. His heart sunk when he saw Gareeze Plissaki walk into the circle of magic light.
“Trevor Arcwin. You have been a busy little man,” the Maskumite magician said with a sneer. “You won’t be able to jump out a window this time. When you are dead, the armies arrayed against Khartoo will fade away.”
Trevor shook his head with the barest of a smile on his lips. “I’m not that indispensable,” he said.
“We will see. I have a little surprise for you tonight.” Plissaki raised his hands as Trevor put his arm around Brother Yvan’s shoulder. If there weren’t so many magicians standing around them, Trevor might have considered fighting his way out of the situation, but Brother Yvan didn’t have the protection that Trevor had.
“We will transfer,” Trevor said quietly to Brother Yvan when an orange bolt emerged from an ornate rod in Plissaki’s hand before Trevor could complete the transfer. The bolt struck Trevor in the arm just as he thought of transferring to the camp.
Trevor felt an agonizing pain slicing into his left arm. He screamed with pain which seemed to have persisted through the transfer. All of Trevor’s consciousness focused on the agony burning into his arm. In his mind, the arm was burned off as he fell to the ground.
Brother Yvan put his hand on Trevor’s head. He imagined that the cleric had tried to put him asleep. “That didn’t work!” Trevor said.
Gorian Custik jammed a wineskin into Trevor’s mouth. His mouth burned from the liquor. Through the pain, Trevor felt, at least he could feel the fire of the alcohol compete with the fire on his arm as consciousness faded away.
~
Trevor woke with a splitting headache. Someone wrapped his arm in a bandage, but relief flooded him when he found he could wiggle his fingers sticking out of the end of the wrappings.
Glynna looked down at him, sitting next to his cot. “Brother Yvan saved your arm,” she said. “Have some of this.”
She unstoppered a wineskin, but this time a fruit juice of some kind slid down Trevor’s throat.
“I’m not invulnerable,” Trevor said after he drained most of the skin.
“So Brother Yvan said. I’ve never heard of an orange lightning bolt before. Gorian thinks Gareeze Plissaki used some kind of an old magic rod, something like the way Gorian can infuse your cuirass with magic, an ancient spell powered by modern magic. That is why it went through your arm. The bolt would have killed you if you hadn’t worn the cuirass,” Glynna said, lifting the cuirass, which now had a deep scorch mark halfway across the front. “You weren’t the only item affected by the orange bolt.”
Trevor closed his eyes. “What am I going to do?” Trevor said.
“Potur Lott and Brother Yvan wanted me to let them know when you woke up. Your work isn’t finished,” Glynna said.
Trevor looked at his arm after Glynna left the tent. The teleportation hadn’t mended his arm the way he would have expected. Plissaki had wielded a magic weapon that could kill him. It was the first that Trevor had encountered after he had entered the mound in the Gnarled Wood in West Moreton. Not that he hadn’t been injured enough by mundane means, but he felt exposed, and Trevor didn’t know what to think of it.
“When we arrived in the camp, your wound was sealed but not healed,” Brother Yvan said with the ghost of a smile. “What do you think it was?”
Gorian Custik stood next to Glynna just outside the tent. “Old magic,” he said. “Yvan, and I think it was.”
Trevor nodded. “That is what Glynna said when I woke up. I’m glad the cuirass gives me some protection. I can’t wear armor plate into the enclave if I’m to explore on my own. We might have to come up with a different approach.”
Potur Lott laughed. “You’re just scared a little magic has touched you,” he said. “Give it a day or so, and you’ll come around.”
“I hope it will be so easy,” Trevor said. “Somehow, I don’t think so. I was disappointed my lunge didn’t get to Gareeze Plissaki.”
“So was the Brachian commander. He said he never liked the man when he hovered around King Worto,” Potur said. “Now, we need to go over the maps that you brought back.”
“The maps,” Trevor said. He flexed the fingers of his injured arm, glad they moved without pain. He wished the arm was the same, but it pulsed, making him grimace a bit. “The three
enclave maps aren’t the same. If all three show the same path, then we can assume that could be accurate.”
“It’s better than that,” Brother Yvan said. “Potur and I have been doing just that while you slept in this morning. We know which cabal drew which maps.”
Trevor tried to remove a few cobwebs from his brain left over from all the alcohol poured down his throat the previous night. “Why would we trust one version any better than another?”
Potur frowned. “There is that. Take a look at them. They are spread out on a table outside your tent.”
Trevor rose from his bed but sat down again, fighting off a bit of dizziness. Brother Yvan held out his hand and helped him out to the table. The maps showed different pathways and room designations in the enclave. They even displayed all the levels differently.
Looking at the three maps as a game, Trevor focused on the main pathways and corridors first. “We can outline the similar pathways in red,” he said. He traced his finger along the main thoroughfare. Although it wasn’t wide enough for two carriages, the Khartooians used rickshaws like the Jarkanese did, which would have to be the most common transportation method through the enclave outside of walking.
“It’s like an anthill,” Gorian Custik said. “I think trying to take it from the outside is a waste of time.”
Trevor looked up at the magician. “And what do you suggest?”
“Blow it up with magic or make it so ward-infested that the inhabitants have to leave,” Custik said.
“Or better yet, a combination of both,” Trevor said. He had to agree—the best solution wasn’t to fight their way into every nook and cranny but to flush the magicians out. “Let’s plan both ways. It is plain we’ll have to wait for the other armies to surround the enclave from land and sea.”
He thought he wouldn’t be able to think tactically with his injury, but the solution that seemed right flooded his brain. “We plan on a siege but watch all approaches all the time. Wherever the magicians leave the enclave will be weak points. We need to give them room to maneuver, but in a way that they won’t think we’re watching.” And for that, he’d need Lissa and her camouflage spell.
“Let’s go through the other maps to the city and get them out to the armies,” Trevor said.
They spent the next half hour going through the other maps and sent three-person scouting units with copies of the maps and a terse set of orders to the commanders in the field.
Brother Yvan helped roll up maps and notes for orders to be written and sent out. “When are we leaving?” the cleric asked.
“I’m going alone so I can bring Lissa back. I’ll need her hiding spell if I have to enter the enclave. I’d like her to spend some time with Custik working on a ward strategy.”
“Will you still need me?” Brother Yvan asked.
Trevor gingerly lifted his wounded arm. “I trust your healing more than anyone’s,” he said. He put the cuirass back on and buckled on his sword before disappearing from Maskum.
Chapter Twenty-Five
~
T revor checked his wound first and found it hadn’t changed very much due to the teleportation to the headquarters of the seers. The ancient room was dark, but Trevor had appeared there enough that he quickly found the door and searched for Lissa. He found her in the refectory talking to younger clerics.
She spotted Trevor at the door and ran to his side. “You’re hurt!”
“Not so much now,” Trevor said, hugging her. “Are you ready to return?”
Lissa nodded. “I wouldn’t say I’m in fighting trim, but I’m well enough to power your transfers.”
“I might need a little more of that. Let’s find the head seer and give him an update before we return to Maskum,” Trevor said.
The head seer was otherwise occupied, and Trevor was told to get something to eat at the refectory, and the seer would meet him there. It gave Trevor some time to provide Lissa with a more detailed account of his adventure on the Khartoo dock. He ended by giving Lissa the little stained glass pendant he had bought in the market.
Lister Vale finally showed up. Trevor brought him up to date.
“I’m worried about that,” the head seer said. “What kind of charm would hold up to that kind of power?”
Trevor lifted his tunic. “Scorched but not destroyed,” he said. “I’m sure he used an old artifact as a wand. That may mean only one Maskumite magician can handle such a weapon. He won’t be protected against an arrow.”
“So he stays holed up in the enclave,” Vale said.
“If I could get all the Maskumite magicians to stay in the enclave, we wouldn’t have needed to bring the armies,” Trevor said. “I need enough use of my arm to hold straight enough to shoot a bow.”
“Or you take a crossbow,” Lissa said.
“I didn’t think of that,” Trevor said. “I’m not as accurate, but do I have to be inside the enclave?”
“No,” she said, folding her arms. “I want you to wear a helmet.”
“We’ll see. The maps are getting combined as we speak, and in a few days, the armies will be positioned and ready, encircling Khartoo.”
“Let me have our best healer take a look at both of you,” the head seer said, “then you can be on your way.
~
Trevor took Lissa with him as he walked to the command tent. Everyone was standing around waiting for the finished enclave maps.
“We received messages from the other armies,” the Brachian commander said. “We can discuss their status while we wait. Resistance has increased on all fronts as our forces have gotten closer to Khartoo. We thought all forces would be in place the day after tomorrow, but as of now, it looks like the invasion can take place in less than five days.”
“And that makes our position more precarious,” Trevor said. “We can’t wait. The Maskumite forces can attack and finish with us before they turn to defend Khartoo against the other armies.”
“The other columns of the Brachian army should join us sometime tomorrow,” the Brachian commander said. “That solidifies our position and the entire west and northwest side of the enclave.”
Trevor looked down at the map of Khartoo. Colored blocks of wood were now in place, representing the troops’ final disposition encircling the capital. He looked at the others in the tent. “What are your recommendations?”
“Wait,” most of them said.
“If you attack hard enough to bloody their nose, that might delay the response from the enclave for a day or two,” Brother Yvan said. “I don’t recommend waiting, looking indecisive, especially since they have a secret weapon, and they know that we are here.”
Trevor stared at the map. He wanted his war game skills to give him an answer, but he decided Brother Yvan’s plan was best for now. The other armies needed time, and he had to face a hard truth. The combined forces might be needed to clean out the enclave. “Then let’s get the enclave maps in and see if we can create a punch hard enough to delay their attack on us.”
What had Trevor forgotten? He kept concentrating on the broad outlines of the enclave. His eyes went across the wharf, and then he knew who he had disregarded. He needed to get to Samar Doford and talk to him about the enclave’s exposure to the blockade and the Sirlandian vulnerability from the enclave’s naval defenses, of which Trevor knew nothing.
“I’m going on another excursion. Lissa will accompany me this time,” he said. “A quick jump to the wharf, far from the enclave, and then I need to reach the Sirlandian ships.” He looked at the Brachian commander. “Do you know of any kind of magical strategy that Gareeze Plissaki suggested to King Worto?”
The commander shook his head. “If he had one, it was talked about above my rank.”
“Then I’ll have to talk to General Brightwork about that,” Trevor said.
The commander pointed to a spot on the map. “He is marching down the main road in the mountains. You might be able to catch him late today if you leave right now.”
As
much as Trevor wanted to ride Snowflake, he decided he would make a few jumps instead. It might test Lissa’s magical capacity, but he would risk it. Trevor changed into his diving outfit and waited for Lissa to change into something more durable than what she had worn in the seers’ headquarters.
“Are you ready?” Trevor said to Lissa.
She nodded. He squeezed her hand, and they ended up on the main road they had taken with the caravan of smugglers on their first foray to Khartoo. Trevor examined the road and didn’t see evidence of a large force moving through the road recently.
“I’ll be taking short jumps from here,” Trevor said.
He looked down the road and began to teleport to the end of his sight until they spotted two scouts. As they got closer, Trevor could see they were Maskumites. They walked toward the scouts. Trevor drew his sword, but the men must have seen the black suit and thought Trevor was one of them.
“Are you two lost?” one of the scouts called out to them. The man squinted. “You aren’t Maskumites!”
The men drew their weapons and charged. Lissa shot a lightning bolt at one of them. The man must have had a charm, but it wasn’t up to her bolt. He clutched his chest, but her initial attack wasn’t strong enough to knock the man off his horse. Her second bolt was, and the man leaned back in his saddle before falling to the ground. By the time that happened, the other guard was attacking Trevor.
Trevor had trained fighting mounted men, but his injured arm hampered his movements. His height gave him an advantage over an average fighter, but mounted men always had the superior position. The fight was awkward for both men, but the scout’s slashes almost scored more times than Trevor wished.
He could feel a shred of panic begin to shorten his breath when he realized that the man had at least as much experience as he, but when Trevor saw the other scout fall, he teleported to the saddle of the second scout. The horse reared, but Trevor managed to hang on long enough to grab the reins with one hand.
The other scout’s eyes grew wide as he observed Trevor’s move to equalize the fight. Trevor advanced on the man. His confidence grew, and he saw doubt begin to enter his opponent’s expression. The battle suddenly turned in Trevor’s favor with his longer reach, and within a few moments, he cut deeply into the scout’s bicep, making the man drop the sword.
