by Guy Antibes
Jack hadn’t even known what kind of spells Grigar knew, but the Lajian knew a lot more than Jack, that was for sure. Jack dismounted when a Red Heron wizard bolt fell short. It wasn’t fair to shoot these wizards from a distance. He stalked forward. He hadn’t imbued his new sword, but it was nice and shiny. He used it like a wand and spelled a gout of flame that shot forward, backing the Red Herons up.
Grigar held a dart of some kind. The wizard was full of surprises on this trip. He threw it at the Red Heron he had blown over. The speed was enhanced by the Lajian’s magic. When it hit the Red Heron in the chest, the man was thrown three paces back.
“Holding out on me?” Jack said.
Grigar gave him a reluctant smile, but not before a flame burst from one of the other wizards, setting Grigar’s robe on fire. Jack used his red cuff to drench Grigar and his wand to finish off the Red Heron, leaving one man left.
“The odds are diminished,” Jack said. “What are you going to do now?”
Jack felt pressure again. He pointed at the wizard who cringed.
“Clean!” he said.
The spell had no effect. Jack had hoped it would. The Red Heron backed up, but he pulled a wand from a pocket in his robe. Grigar sent another dart into the man’s chest, and the threat was over.
The workers gradually gathered around the dead Red Herons. The bodies suffered a few kicks from the workers.
“Were you slaves?” Grigar asked the men.
They nodded.
Jack noticed that their eyes were a bit glazed. He cleansed each one, and they all brightened up. One of them summoned more slaves from the mine, and twelve men faced them.
“Where do you come from?” Grigar asked.
“A few of us are from a village close by, but our former masters,” the man glanced at the four Red Herons lined up on the ground, “dragged most of us from the other side of the mountains.”
“You are free,” Jack said.
“To be caught again,” one of the other slaves said.
Jack saw faces of the defeated in front of him. “How much gold is there?”
“Gold?” One of the slaves said. He blinked and looked at the box filled with gold nuggets. “I thought.” He looked again. “We were bewitched. I thought we were mining iron ore. Gold.”
“Aren’t you going to take it from us?” another said.
“Not me,” Jack said, “but I have an idea. Why don’t you give half or a third of the gold to the village back the way we came. They were bewitched just like you were. Maybe those of you who don’t want to return to the other side of the mountains can make a life there. A few of the villagers were killed—”
“That was some of us. The Red Herons told them that we were dead.”
“Then suit yourselves.” Grigar nudged Jack. “What?”
“We will take a handful apiece as the price for saving you,” Grigar said. “When our business is finished to the south, we will come back through here to make sure none of you did anything you would regret.”
“We won’t,” the slaves said.
Jack wasn’t prepared to deal with any situation that might occur. He doubted that any gold mine would stay ignored for long. In fact, as he thought about it, the slaves would soon be rich men.
Grigar and Jack took a handful of gold nuggets and poured them into their saddlebags. If nothing else they would convince the Deep Mist that there was a gold mine in the mountains. They moved on through the foothills and looked at the track that took them straight south into the southern steppes.
“I’m not very happy about leaving the slaves,” Jack said.
“With a box of gold. We might have found even more, but we didn’t search the tents.” Grigar said. “We can’t be their nursemaids.”
Jack felt a bit guilty, especially if there was a fight for the gold. Jack didn’t consider himself greedy, but he had known greedy men in Raker Falls and elsewhere. Aramore Gant, the Patriarch of Dorkansee, was a greedy man. He was capable of anything before he died.
“Where did you learn the dart trick?”
“One of the few useful things I learned while you were playing soldier with Tanner and Helen. The darts are bad enough by themselves, but when you speed them up with magic, they are obviously lethal.”
“Did you learn anything else?”
“Good secrets to keep from you until the time is right,” Grigar said, grinning. “I’ve been around magic and wizardry for a very long time. I know many spells, but I lack the power you have. That little dart trick is my first try at having a longer-range weapon. I can’t throw wizard bolts nearly as far as you can, but the darts are a different story.”
“I won’t pry,” Jack said. “Anyway, maybe we both will learn some new tricks in Deep Mist.”
“I think that is the reason Torii Ishoru has us traveling this far.”
Chapter Seventeen
~
“T hirsty yet?” Grigar said. “I am.”
It was the middle of the second day out on the southern steppes. They were surrounded by gray sand. The sun was hot, and the air was very dry. Nothing wanted to grow in the sand. The next village was a day away. Jack didn’t know how anyone could scratch a living on ground so hostile to life.
Grigar’s request was an easy one. Jack filled the wizard’s water bag from his red cuff and then encased the bag in ice from his blue cuff.
“Here. Enjoy,” Jack said.
Grigar grinned. “You know how to keep an old man happy.” Grigar let the ice melt as he put the water bottle on his face. He then unstoppered the plug and took a deep draught of Eldora’s water. “Happy.”
Jack smiled and did the same with his and thought of the long talk with Grigar after the battle with the Red Heron wizards. He still couldn’t think of why they needed to come all this way to learn a few new spells.
They traveled onward and were happy to arrive at the last village before striking out for Deep Mist. The air was hot, but there was enough water from somewhere to green up the lands around the village. They observed sheep and goats munching on the grass. The problem was the map ended at the village. They rode into the village and spotted the inn, the only two-story building in the place.
“Iced wine?” Jack said with a smile.
He got a smile back. “Sure,” the innkeeper said. “Coming right up.”
Jack felt the wine bottle and smiled. It was room temperature.
“Thank you.” Jack used his cup to cool down the wine and put a little frost on the outside of the ceramic container. He lifted the bottle to show the innkeeper and poured the cool liquid into a cup.
The man returned to the table and grasped the bottle. He shook his head in wonder. “I’ve never seen that before,” he said. “I suppose you are looking for directions to Deep Mist?”
“That is why we have come all this way.”
“Someone will be here to take you there tomorrow. I won’t bother to test you,” he said, waving the neck of the bottle. “Will you cool some for me?”
“I will if you tell me if there are any Red Herons around.”
“Not this far into the steppes. They aren’t that stupid.”
Jack nodded.
After a mediocre meal and a less than mediocre bed to spend the night in, Jack walked downstairs ahead of Grigar, but not ahead of Pearl Mist members. Three warriors sat at a table talking to the innkeeper. Jack knew they were warriors from their dress.
“You have been sent from Yomomai? Do you have your ranking card?”
“I do,” Jack said.
He gave it to the warrior who asked.
The man looked up at Jack. “You are obviously the person they sent, but rules are rules, uh, Sakoru Sinda.”
“That is me,” Jack said.
Grigar joined them a few moments later and showed them his card.
“Don’t bother with breakfast. Deep Mist isn’t far,” the warrior said.
Jack looked at the innkeeper, who nodded in agreement.
When th
ey rode out of the village not long after meeting, Jack looked for buildings in the flat steppes but didn’t see a thing. The warriors took a track from the road, now leading west.
The track led somewhere, since it had seen plenty of traffic wearing down the grass. They rode for half an hour until Jack saw a dark line in the distance. When they reached the line, Jack looked down at a village sunken below the surface of the steppe. A lazy river flowed right through the middle, far below.
“This way.” The warrior escort rode a quarter of the circle before taking a road down to the bottom. When they reached the village level, one warrior turned to them and said. “Welcome to Deep Mist. This is an old sinkhole, carved out from days when the river ran much faster. In those days, the villagers could see a pillar of mist coming up from here.”
“What if the river speeds up?” Jack asked.
“Glad you asked. Two channels will take the river around each side of the village. You can sleep safely.” The man smiled and then took them to a stable where they dismounted, unsaddled, and took their things off the packhorse that served them well on their trek to Deep Mist.
They were taken into a two-story building. All the buildings were multi-story, not surprising since buildable land was fully utilized.
“Gigaru Zinza and Sakoru Sinda,” the warrior said.
“Cards, please,” the woman behind the counter asked.
Jack produced his first.
“Sakoru Sinda, also known as Jack Winder. Am I correct?”
“Correct.”
She also spoke Grigar’s Masukaian and Lajian names.
“Welcome to Deep Mist. One of our wizards was telepathically briefed on your arrival.”
She gave them a printed map of the buildings and told them which one held their rooms. They lugged their possessions through the village to the three-story building. Grigar’s room seemed to be on the first floor, which was fine with Grigar, but Jack had to trudge all the way to the third. The advantage he had, once he opened the door to his room was that he could see much of the village from his window. Their building was at the edge of the village, and the edges were elevated from the rest of the structures.
He put his things away and walked back down to meet Grigar. They had been instructed to return once they had settled in their rooms.
“I have a bigger room than in Yomomai,” Grigar said.
“I do, too, and I actually have a bit of a view.” Jack stopped in the middle of the street and pointed to his window.
“Was the view worth traveling all the way here?” Grigar said.
“No. But I do have a fistful of gold nuggets,” Jack said, pulling out the few he had brought with him to show whomever they were to meet.
No one bothered to look at them as they made their way through the sunken village. Jack looked up at the sky. The hole was huge since it still seemed as bright inside as it was outside. The place had a distinctively different feel to it than Grishel’s Cavern in Passoran. That was dour and depressing. Deep Mist was much less so.
The woman was still behind the counter, sitting on a real chair. Jack still liked real chairs better. His room didn’t have one, but it did have a stack of four cushions in a corner and low table shoved against a wall. He guessed that was it, that and the bed.
“I will show you to the master’s chamber,” the woman said.
Jack and Grigar followed the woman up two flights of stairs and down to the end of the hall. She knocked on a double set of sliding doors.
“The Corandians are here.”
“Send them in.”
The woman opened one of the doors and let them in.
Four men, sitting two on either side, left a wide aisle in the middle. They had writing tables in front of them with stacks of paper. Valises sat at their side.
“Sit on the cushions,” the man at the end of the audience chamber said.
Jack and Grigar bowed and sat down.
“I am Ruki Sinda.” The man at the end smiled. “Yomomai sent a relative to me. I am sure was on purpose. Sometimes the Pearl Mist in Yomomai can be a little playful,” the leader of the Deep Mist said. “How was your journey? Uneventful?”
Jack shook his head and told them the Red Heron story. He stood up and placed a few of the gold nuggets on the leader’s table and then returned to his seat.
“You didn’t take the rest of the gold?”
“We didn’t earn it,” Jack said. “The slaves were the ones who deserved the gold. I suggested they give some to the village, but that is hope. I didn’t solve all their problems,” Jack said. “We took enough to prove our story. I don’t know what will happen to the mine.”
“We will tell the village headman above us. It will be up to him. They may do nothing, just like you. That is probably similar to what I would decide. It has no bearing on your being here.”
“It wasn’t a test?” Grigar asked.
“With four men dead. Would that be a test for the Pearl Mist?”
Jack remembered that Tanner had just about died in a test, but he kept his mouth shut.
“I suppose not,” Grigar said. He bowed. “Forgive me for asking.”
Ruki returned with a quick nod of the head.
“You will be assigned to a mentor.
“Gigaru, you will go with Zeki. Sakoru, Miru will be your mentor. They will fill you in on your training here. Realistically, you will be here a year for minimum training. We will decide when you are ready to return to the world.”
Two of the men on Ruki’s left side stood. One of the men walked over to Grigar, and the other nodded to Jack and motioned him to his side.
“You will work with a different group of people than your friend. Come with me.”
They followed Grigar and his mentor all the way down to the bottom floor, but when they walked out of the building, they went in opposite directions. Grigar looked back at Jack and shrugged.
“I am a master of the wizard-warriors of the Pearl Mist. We are the most elite of all groups in the society,” Miru said.
“You mix martial art and wizardry?”
“I suppose that is why we are called wizard-warriors.” Miru smiled drily. Jack liked him already. A Masukaian with a sense of humor. “Don’t think you won’t train hard. We are elite, and that status is earned many times over.”
Jack got the idea that the training he would do at Deep Mist would be much, much more difficult than dueling with his friends before being absorbed into the Raker Falls guard. And to think that was his focus three years ago.
The wizard-warrior took Jack out of the building and into another. This one had a training field in the back that ran all the way down to the river.
“Are there any warriors trained at Deep Mist?” Jack asked.
Miru nodded his head. “We train men and women who work hard to raise their skills to elite status.”
“Okiku?”
Miru nodded. “She is a very, very good wizardess, but there are reasons she remains in Yomomai.” He pushed a gate open into a small courtyard. “Here we are. I will take you to your first instructor.”
“How many wizard-warriors are trained at a time?” Jack asked.
“We’ve had as many as fifty, but right now, twenty-four, twenty-five with you. We just started a class, so you have a little catching up to do. Everyone gets lots of attention, but you will get extra attention since you are Akkora’s blessed.”
“I don’t need the attention I’m getting,” Jack said. “Just treat me like a normal candidate.”
Miru grimaced. “We have no normal students. Everyone is special, so think of your time here as training with peers. You are on the edge of showing cowardice, and that is not a good sign at the beginning of our training program.”
Jack had lost honor in the eyes of Miru. The man lost his humor in a hurry. He stopped and bowed to the man.
“It is a cultural reaction,” Jack said. “I do not like arrogance in other people, and I like it less in myself.”
Miru gave
Jack a cruel smile. “Arrogance is something that comes from being a wizard-warrior. Our graduates are put above everyone in the Pearl Mist except for our leaders. If you choose to be humble, that is up to you. It is easier to survive the training if you don’t dissemble.”
Jack pressed his lips together. He was making a mess of his start. “I’m not for apologies either.”
“Then keep humble thoughts to yourself. From what I have heard, you will prove yourself early on,” Miru said.
Jack thought silence might be the best approach, but the problem was Jack never had practiced being silent.
They walked into a classroom. Like all other study places in Masukai, the students sat on cushions in front of low desks. His bedroom was no different. He counted eleven students, busily writing in pen and ink. Most of them paused and looked back at Jack and Miru.
“A new member of our current class,” Miru said. “This is Sakoru Sinda, a Corandian on a joint mission with the Pearl Mist. We thought it prudent to train him, so he has a chance of survival.”
The woman at the head of the class bowed to Miru. Jack’s new classmates nodded to Miru without getting up, but they all eyed Jack with suspicion. That was fair. He was a foreigner, and most Masukaians distrusted outsiders.
“There is his desk. He can get writing materials from the cabinet.” She looked at the students. “You can get back to your assignments.”
“She will tell you where to go next,” Miru said. He left without allowing Jack to thank him.
“Up here,” the woman said.
Jack walked along the side of the room.
“We are writing an essay on how to infiltrate into a noble’s manor. Can you do something like that?”
Jack nodded. “I can, but am I with a group or on my own? Can I use magic? Do I assume what the defenses are?”
The woman smiled. “Whatever you decide. You can take the front desk, and the cabinet with the materials is over there.” She pointed to the only vacant desk on the front row and to the cabinet beyond.
Jack didn’t think the task too difficult, but he would have to define the place he infiltrated first so he could describe how to defeat the defenses and exit safely.