The Warded Box

by Guy Antibes

  Helen looked back with a scowl on her face. Tanner gave her an innocent look that made her say something to Ralinn, and everything settled back down until they reached the town.

  “Back to your old tricks,” Helen said.

  Tanner frowned and then winked at Jack. “Jack and I were about to nod off in the back. Didn’t my ruse liven things up?”

  “You didn’t fool anyone.” Helen glared at the mercenary.

  Jack looked at Ralinn standing next to her brother as they signed papers that permitted them to spend the night. When they returned, Lark cleared his throat. The veils hadn’t come off the entire day.

  “We are permitted to stay here tonight only, but we all must register at the town hall at first light.”

  “Before breakfast?” Jack asked. He was only joking, but Lark didn’t seem to have caught on.

  “If you can beg something from the kitchen, you won’t die of starvation while you wait,” the Tesorian said.

  ~

  Even though Jack and Tanner had managed to split a loaf of bread, Jack’s stomach still growled. Helen stood in line with them but didn’t complain about the lack of food.

  “Have you had to do this before?” she asked Tanner.

  “Once,” the mercenary said. “It seems the rules get more strict the closer you move to Gameton. I didn’t get too far into Tesoria. I escorted a Tesorian merchant back to his home in Appington. He wore one of those veils too.”

  “You don’t like the practice?” Jack asked. He could tell Tanner didn’t but wanted to draw the man’s reason out.

  “I like to look my enemies and my friends in the face. If Bartonsee had such a rule, I would eliminate it as my first declaration when I became a duke.”

  Actually, Jack felt much the same way, but he guessed he was more tolerant of it than Tanner. They reached the head of the line. Helen went first.

  “Why are you in this line?” the clerk asked.

  “I am traveling to Wilton from Corand and back.”

  The clerk wrote a few words down. “Why?”

  “I am a bodyguard for two Tesorian wizards and one Corandian wizard.” Helen looked back at Jack and gave him a wry smile.

  “They can’t take care of themselves?”

  “You will have to ask them,” Helen said.

  The clerk grunted. “Hometown in Corand?”

  “Raker Falls,” Helen said.

  “You have two months. This pass is only good in Loyalist-controlled areas. I assume you know there are insurgencies in Tesoria. Do you read?”

  “I do,” Helen said.

  The man gave Helen five pages with printing on both sides. “Make sure you abide by our rules, or you may find yourself incarcerated.”

  “Do I sign anything?”

  The clerk looked up into her eyes. “Here.” He handed her a blank slip of paper.

  Helen signed, and the clerk snatched it back.

  Tanner’s interview was identical, but Jack’s started out different.

  “Hometown?”

  “Raker Falls.”

  The clerk sighed. “I don’t believe you. These other two are from Raker Falls.”

  “And they are here to protect me. I am the Corandian wizard.”

  “You aren’t that far from having whiskers begin to sprout on your face, lad,” the clerk said.

  “Kitty is back in my room. The key thing to promote the licking is putting the right enticement on your face,” Jack said, smiling.

  “Don’t get smart with me, young man. Why are you here in Tesoria?”

  “My master, the healing wizard of Raker Falls, sent a box with me to the grand wizard of Tesoria in Wilton. It is warded and must be opened by the grand wizard and me simultaneously.”

  “You aren’t a wizard,” the clerk said.

  “Shift,” Jack said. He tapped the clerk on the back of his shoulder, now that he stood behind him after teleporting. “Do you believe me now?”

  The clerk rose to his feet, knocking the chair into Jack.

  “You did that?”

  “You weren’t the one who moved, were you?” Jack said with a smile.

  The man narrowed his eyes at Jack. “Get on the other side of the counter.”

  “Shift,” Jack said. He looked across the countertop at the clerk.

  “Wizard.” The clerk scribbled on the page. He ripped another blank piece of paper out of the drawer. “Sign.”

  Jack wrote Fasher Tempest’s name. The clerk didn’t even bother to look and shoved the papers at Jack. “Begone. I’ll suffer no more of your foolishness today.”

  They walked back to their inn. Helen couldn’t keep from laughing. “You need to be more humble, Jack.”

  “I would have been, but the man didn’t believe me. He warranted a demonstration, so I provided him with one. It was harmless. If I shot him with a wizard’s bolt, it wouldn’t be. Besides, it was fun to watch him react when I tapped him on the shoulder,” Jack said.

  “It ended well,” Tanner said with a grin. “One of these days your cheekiness will get the better of you. I think I prefer the young man with his eyes filled with wonder four months ago when we set out together.”

  “I’m the same person, but I don’t have the same distractions so my true character can come out.”

  Helen pursed her lips. “I wonder what your true character really is?”

  “I’m not like Lark Handercraft, that is for certain,” Jack said.

  “That is truly for certain,” Tanner said.

  They didn’t waste time returning to the inn for a real breakfast. Tanner and Jack rubbed their hands in anticipation as they sat at the table where Lark and Ralinn sat.

  “Is food all you think about?” Lark asked.

  “If you asked me after breakfast, I would have said no,” Tanner said. “But right now, right here, that is my focus.”

  Tanner raised his hand and soon enough they had plates in front of them.

  “I assume they gave you paperwork,” Lark said.

  Jack pulled the folded five pages from a pocket in his breeches and waved them to Lark. “I haven’t read them yet, but I don’t need to go to sleep yet,”

  Lark nearly smiled at the comment. “I’m not sure any of you are smart enough, except for Helen, of course, but it is important to know what the rules are. The last thing any of us want is to have our progress impeded by someone having to do jail time for an infraction.”

  “I’ll read the rules,” Jack said. He looked at Ralinn. “And I’ll memorize them, too.”

  “Good,” Lark said.

  Somehow Jack didn’t think Lark believed him.

  Chapter Six

  ~

  J ack stepped out onto the beach looking out at the Middle Sea that looked no different from the Northern Sea. They were between villages and Lark decided it would be pleasant to rest the horses for a day and stay at a roadside inn that looked over the ocean.

  Helen and Ralinn stood at his side. The Tesorian young woman still wore a veil but had changed into a dress before coming down to the ocean. Tanner was still at the inn, but Jack looked back to see Lark walking across the road to the beach.

  “I never did get a chance to walk on the sand when we were in Dorkansee,” Jack said to Helen. “It is pleasant in the sun, listening to the roar of the ocean without hurrying about.”

  “This is your first time on the sand?” Ralinn asked.

  Jack nodded. “I’ve sailed across the Northern Sea, but from dock to dock.”

  “It is nice for an hour or so,” Helen said as Lark joined them, “but then the wind blows sand into your eyes, nose, and ears.” She made a face.

  “I agree,” Lark said, “but if it isn’t windy, it is very relaxing and very nice, just like it is now.”

  Jack walked down to the water and let the waves chase him back and forth. He took his boots and socks off and rolled up his breeches and did a little wading.

  Ralinn joined him, bare feet and all. She was about to fall into the water,
but Jack caught her.

  “I guess you have to watch out for the water, it is strong enough to knock you off your feet. It is as tricky as negotiating a fast running river. That is where we wade in Raker Falls.”

  “Thank you,” she said looking up into his eyes. “I didn’t want to get soaked.”

  The veil certainly made her beauty less striking, but she was a pretty woman, after all, and the proximity made Jack’s heart beat a little faster. With her face covered, he didn’t know how she reacted to his help.

  “Are you all right?”

  She laughed, one of the few times, Jack had heard her do so other than the onion boy story that Helen had told.

  “I’m not that fragile,” she said, just as an unexpectedly strong surge knocked them both off their feet. “Oh!”

  The veil came off, so Jack retrieved that before the sea claimed it while Ralinn got to her feet.

  Jack took her in his arms and carried her to where the others stood. “I’m not that fragile, either, but the sea caught us both.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. “Sit here and dry off while I fetch your shoes.”

  At least he had the opportunity to look at her face. That was a feast for him, but he gave her the veil, which went back on in an instant.

  Ralinn’s shoes were dry, but Jack’s boots had been victims of the incoming wave. He walked back up toward the inn, feet covered in sand, boots sandy and dripping, and stockings wet. He only had the one set of boots so the rest of the day would be uncomfortable.

  “You’d better take those into the inn and get them by a fire, but not too close. I’ve learned that you ruin boots if you get them too close to the flames,” Tanner said.

  Jack wished he knew a First Manipulation spell that would help him, but he didn’t. He put the boots on without socks and headed back to the inn.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ralinn said. Her eyes seemed to smile. “I’m sure it isn’t the first time the innkeeper has had customers fall into the ocean.”

  “I didn’t fall, I was swept off my feet,” Jack said with a grin. His comment had a double meaning, but Ralinn didn’t catch it.

  “Same difference,” she said. “At least we won’t have to deal with camping and sitting in front of a smoking campfire.”

  They walked into the inn, spotting a small fire burning in the common room’s large fireplace. “I’ll meet you here when we change?” she said.

  Jack nodded. “Me and my only boots.” He took the dripping shoes up to his room and padded to the bathroom for a towel and did his best to wipe the sand from his body before changing into his second and only spare set of clothes before walking down to the fireplace. He set his boots close, but not too close, to the fire.

  He waited for what seemed like a very long time before Ralinn showed up wearing a different veil and her traveling clothes.

  “I wanted to wear something else for a change.”

  “Well, you changed,” Jack said with a smile.

  He didn’t know if she returned it, but she scooted her chair a little closer to him.

  “I’m still a bit chilled from the dunking. I’m not that experienced walking on the shore.”

  “I’m a novice,” Jack said. “First time and I enjoyed it, even getting caught by a wave.”

  She leaned a little closer. “It was fun, wasn’t it? I’m sorry about your boots.”

  “Not your fault,” Jack said, enjoying the normal conversation with a girl. He hadn’t done so since before he became Fasher’s helper. “Have you been to Wilton before?”

  She nodded her head. “Wilton is the headquarters for wizards in Tesoria.”

  “What about the rebellious areas?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t know, and Lark isn’t sure. The Black Finger Society is strong in some areas, and in others, it is anyone’s guess.”

  “I know all about the Black Fingers,” Jack said. “They were thick in Lajia. We had to fight some.”

  “You fought wizard to wizard? I thought you were just an apprentice.”

  “Wizard’s helper.”

  “I forgot. You are very powerful?”

  Jack laughed. “Powerful, but mostly ignorant. I know enough spells to get me in trouble, but no more. I’m sure you know more than I do.”

  “Maybe so,” she said. “I’ve been practicing to become a wizardess since I was young. I’ve been learning from Lark for a few years, and sometimes it is hard.”

  “You aren’t a couple are you?” Jack said.

  Ralinn burst into laughter. “How absurd. Of course not.”

  Jack didn’t see why not, but he let the denunciation stay. It gave him a chance, not that he had anything other than a dalliance in his mind.

  “I think we have talked about this enough,” she said, getting up and walking out of the common room.

  Jack sighed and watched her go. It wasn’t the first girl he had driven off. The problem was he was going to see her every day for the foreseeable future, at least until they met with the grand wizard in Wilton unless Jack really messed things up at some point.

  He grabbed the poker at the side of the fireplace and stirred the coals, providing a bit more heat before turning his boots, this time soles first. He had no problem poking and prodding Penny Ephram. She took everything he threw her way. Ralinn was a different kind of person. As far as he could tell, she was more sensitive yet still confident. Jack knew he lacked the skills to reconcile the two parts of her personality, but he would still try.

  Helen and Lark walked into the common room. Helen nodded to him, but they didn’t join him at the fire and took a table at the opposite end of the nearly empty space. They talked in low tones, which surprised Jack. Helen rarely did anything in a subtle way. She wasn’t boisterous, but where Ralinn was quietly confident, Helen wore her confidence in a more brazen way. At least that was how Jack thought of it, but with Lark, she acted more like Ralinn.

  He continued to slowly stir the coals as the buoyant feelings he had when he first stepped out on the beach gave way to a kind of melancholy, and Jack couldn’t figure out why.

  ~

  Tanner rode past the front windows of the inn in the late afternoon sun. So he had been out on an errand of some kind, Jack thought. He tested his boots, and they were dry enough, so he put them on and walked out to the stable yard.

  “You have been busy?” Jack asked while Tanner took his own saddle off.

  His friend nodded. “How have you fared while I was gone?”

  “I tried to do a little wooing and lost.”

  “Ralinn?” Tanner frowned. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”

  “It wasn’t,” Jack said. “I made the mistake of asking her if Lark and she were a couple. That is exactly how I phrased it.”

  Tanner laughed. “And she took offense and left you, wherever you were?”

  “She did. I didn’t leer or anything. We were having a nice time at the ocean’s edge, and then we were both knocked over by a wave and came in here to dry off.”

  “And you took that as a shared experience?”

  “It was,” Jack said, “but not shared enough.”

  “No, I wouldn’t expect so,” Tanner said. “Don’t get your hopes up, Jack. Those two aren’t Corandians. They don’t think like Corandians, and they weren’t brought up like we were.”

  “You were brought up like a noble.”

  “Not quite,” Tanner said. “You are a furniture maker’s son. Their pedigrees are higher than ours.”

  “Nobles? Both of them?”

  “That is what I think,” Tanner said. “I went to the next town to ask, and no one had heard of them, which isn’t surprising, but I spent some time at a high-class tavern and asked about their behavior.”

  “And?”

  “It is consistent with nobles traveling in Tesoria. I talked about their clothes and the kinds of veils they wore. So, just watch yourself. If she becomes interested, bear that in mind.”

  Jack pursed his lips and nodded. “I will. You
might want to give Helen the same lecture.”

  “Helen?” Tanner said, his eyebrows rising.

  “She spent a good part of the afternoon talking to Lark. They didn’t include me, since I was drying out my boots.”

  The mercenary chewed his lip for a moment. “Let us go inside and pretend nothing happened to anyone. Can you do that?”

  “That is what I usually do, regardless of the circumstances.”

  Tanner clapped Jack on the shoulder. “I’ve noticed.”

  They walked inside to see Lark and Ralinn seated at a table for six. Tanner put his saddlebag on the floor next to a seat and joined them along with Jack.

  “Was your ride productive?” Lark asked.

  “Productive enough,” Tanner said. “I bought a map in the next town and sketched out what has been happening in the area. It should be good for the next two or three days.” He pulled a map from his saddlebag and laid it on the table.

  “The margins have shifted,” Lark said.

  Jack took a look at the faint shading Tanner made to the map. Jack sat in as the two of them talked about the changes and where the different factions operated. Ralinn looked a little bored, but she actually contributed to Lark’s observations. Jack, of course, had nothing to add.

  Helen came down wearing one of her more feminine outfits including a bit of lip rouge. Both Lark and Tanner shot to their feet. She ended up sitting down between them. Tanner gave her a quick review of what they had just finished discussing. Jack needed the refresher since he had been paying more attention to Ralinn toward the end.

  Ralinn didn’t seem to hold anything against him. Jack had experience at rejection during his adolescent years in Raker Falls.

  Tanner folded up the map and rubbed his hands before raising his arm in the Tesorian way to grab the attention of a server.

  Jack had expected fish of some kind but was surprised that the serving maid suggested roast goose. There was no fresh catch for dinner, and there were only two choices. Goose was more Jack’s style anyway, so he elected that. Tanner and Ralinn ordered what Jack did, but Helen and Lark both elected to eat the pork stew. Jack was never a fan of that in Raker Falls.

  As he ate, he observed the interactions of the others. Ralinn spent most of her time listening to Lark and Helen engaged in conversation. Tanner looked a little out of sorts, and Jack thought he might appear that way, as well.