by Guy Antibes
The Power Bearer
How Norra Obtained the Power and
the Extraordinary Lengths She Went Through
To Rid Herself of It.
By Guy Antibes
The Power Bearer
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Published by Guy Antibes, 2012
Copyright ©2012 by Guy Antibes. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in print or electronic form without the permission of the author.
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This is a work of fiction. The locations, places and characters it depicts are products of the author’s imagination and are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, locations or places, dead or alive are purely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
Needless to say, I’ve had a lot of help in bringing this novel to life. I’d like to thank Meredith, a writer’s group pal for her great comments and my wife Bev for her many hours poring over my many grammatical mistakes.
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The Power Bearer
How Norra Obtained the Power and
the Extraordinary Lengths She Went Through
To Rid Herself of It.
Chapter One
The Transfer
~
Dappled sunlight fell upon the ground, making Norra’s task of finding edible mushrooms all the harder. A butterfly caught her gaze and, feeling like she was six rather than sixteen, she followed it, idly hoping the yellow-speckled thing would lead her to some wonderful specimens. One last foray into her father’s forest before she gave up her role as the Squire’s little girl. Tomorrow she’d be on her way to Fellingham and Miss Podingoode’s Finishing School for Young Women.
She thought back to the many hours of fun she spent among the trees with the other girls from her father’s manor lands. They would run through the forest and laugh when the birds and other creatures would scuttle or jump or slither away when they came near. She loved traveling with her father out to the fields and working with their tenants bringing in the harvest. A real lady wouldn’t be allowed to work with the more common folk. When she returned from finishing school, she might very well be a different person altogether. It made her sad.
The butterfly continued to flit and flutter until she lost it. She came to the main path that wound its way among the trunks of trees. Norra jumped over a log onto the path, regretting she had lost the butterfly, but a different sight captured her eyes. An old man lay in the path, his breathing labored, his eyes covered with the back of his hands.
Norra ran to his side. “Can I help?”
“You are a woman? No, no. You should be a boy or man.” He tilted his head up slightly. “A young woman.” He shook his head and tried to sit up, but couldn’t gather the strength. “You just won’t do.”
“Stay. I’ll give you a drink of water from my flask,” she said and helped the man back down. Why wouldn’t a young woman ‘do’? Did the old man hate women? He seemed so distressed about it.
He barely made a sound. She put her ear close to the old man’s face. “No. No water for me,” he croaked. “I’m about to die and I’ll have to give you something. I’m loathe to do it. My journey was to take me to Barleywood, but I’m failing. Failing.” He moaned and put his shaking arm over his eyes. “You must go to there.”
He seemed to be ranting, but the man was clearly in distress and might, indeed, be dying. Norra’s carefree attitude evaporated as she kneeled down at his side. This couldn’t be happening out in the middle of the forest. She looked up and down the path, but didn’t see a soul. How could he demand her to go to Barleywood, wherever that was? It wouldn’t do to tell him no—not in his condition
“Hold my hand in yours and don’t let go.” His face screwed up in pain. “Oh, damn. I’m in the wrong spot to die.” He weakly moved his head back and forth in protest, but stopped. He took one hand away from his eyes and offered it to Norra. She felt she had no choice, but to take his hand. It was old, bony and the skin felt like warm paper. He pressed his lips together and furrowed his long hoary brows even deeper.
This couldn’t be happening to her. She wanted to flee and she closed her eyes to will the man away, but all she felt was the old man’s grip weakening. Desperation clutched at her heart. “Don’t die, I’ll go get my father. He’s the local squire and I’m sure he can get help.”
The old man gasped. “No time,” he said. “No time at all. Quickly grab both of my hands.”
Norra withdrew her hand in frustration, shook it in frustration, and then let him grasp her fingers while he cautioned her, “Don’t let go.” Norra grasped his hands tighter. She didn’t want him to die. He uttered a string of words she didn’t understand and then he arched his back and let out a groan, falling back senseless.
Norra’s heart shook in sympathy, but fear of this man dying in her presence confused her mind. She didn’t know what to think as tears began trickling down her face. She was about to let go to see if the old man had expired when a column of sparkled light twirled and curled up from his heart. His hands still clutched at hers and she couldn’t let them go. The motes coalesced into a younger image of the man floating a foot above the old man’s body. Could this be the man’s ghost? No. The estate’s ghost had no color at all. This thing was all color and vitality made up of myriad of tiny dots of light.
“I am giving you my magic.” The words seemed to originate within her skull. She tried to ignore them, but her mind filled with the message. “Go to Barleywood and speak to the ghost. He knows what I hid long ago that will help you find my Tower in Magia. You will have to secure the help of a mage to take you to the tower, but you must find one you can trust. That may be the biggest part of the task. He will find a way to transfer the power. Transfer comes at a heavy cost, girl. I am giving a terrible gift to you, a woman who has no ability to use the power you now bear.” He shook his head in dismay. “In these evil times, keep it secret, for there are those who would rip your heart out for what you bear.” The spirit shook its head. “The power is not for you. You probably don’t even know of the curse that keeps all women from using or even understanding magic. I am sorry to give you an impossible task, but there it is.”
The image faded away, but the sparkling light still spiraled over the old man’s chest. Norra’s heart pounded and tears rushed into her eyes. “I don’t care about your power, come back to life, please!” She didn’t want this man to die. Not today. Not here. She didn’t want an impossible task. Anyway, magic was a dirty word. It was something that the people of Polda had banished centuries and centuries ago, although even she knew of wizards coming back.
The colors swirled again and the lights plunged like a spear into her body. She tried again to let go of the man’s hands, but couldn’t. She tried to speak, to scream, to shake her head, but her mouth wouldn’t move. Her blood felt a flash of intense heat and she became lightheaded.
Suddenly the man’s body began to fade. His hands vanished like mist from within hers and she saw his body, staff and satchel sink into the dirt of the path and disappear. Her own mind began to finally fragment as if her thoughts had turned to dust and clouded her mind as she fainted.
She woke and the sun had hardly moved. A dream? Was the old man a dream? She felt her clothes and looked at her hands, dirty from the path. She shook her head and rose. Norra decided that she’d picked enough mushrooms for the afternoon and, while walking home, tried to convince herself that the old wizard was a dream. Even if he wasn’t, how could she go to Barleywood? How could she find a tower in a place she’d never heard of. Magia? She shook her head. Find a mage she trusted? Impossible. The old wizard had that right. Impossible, indeed!
~
“Well, girl, you’ve finally made it hom
e. I thought I’d have to call out the men to go searching for you again.” Her mother put out her hand for the basket, shaking her head, and the light in her eye portended another one of her mother’s meaningless lectures. “Oh, you’ve found some nice ones, but I don’t know why you didn’t let Midred or Tersia do the picking today. I don’t know why I let you go out all by yourself. You aren’t even close to being ready to leave.” Her mother chattered away after taking the basket into the kitchen. More complaints. More nagging. She just wouldn’t stop and gave Norra no time to discuss the wonder in the woods. Norra felt a little relieved at that.
Norra escaped upstairs to her room. Dolls sat on a shelf, all in a row, and the books in the bookcase now looked a bit shabbier and told stories that interested a child. She wasn’t a child any more, but it was fun to run in the woods for the last time—until her encounter.
She brought down one of her dearest treasures, a hand-tinted storybook, full of fairy tales. Norra wished her experience that afternoon were a fairy tale. A shiver went down her spine. She shoved the experience into the back of her mind. Her schoolbooks had already been taken down and boxed up. Her father and, to a lesser extent, her mother, taught her mathematics, geography, history and the more practical things about running an estate. Now she’d learn how to be a woman in polite society. Was she ready for it? Norra sighed. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow she would be on her way to finding out.
She pulled the shutters open and absorbed the view of the lawn and the topiary bordering the gravel drive. Beyond that, Bordon Forest stood, the namesake of her father’s estate. Norra knew she had to grow up. The next time she stood at this window, she’d be a different girl. No, not a girl, a young woman. Norra fought off the desire to curl up on her bed, clutching a pillow to her stomach. Finishing School would be a new stage in her life and what followed would be settling down with a husband. She knew she wasn’t ready for that.
Her hand drifted along the woolen mane of her old rocking horse as she sat on her bed and folded her hands in her lap. Her travel chest sat on the braided rug, open at her feet. New dresses, shoes and underclothes were neatly folded within. Her mother didn’t realize that Norra had packed the night before. It didn’t matter. Soon she’d be away from her mother’s constant nagging. Sometimes she wondered if the woman even liked her. It had only gotten worse as Norra approached womanhood. She became convinced her mother thought of her as a rival. What nonsense!
With a sigh, she rose and took an old doll from her toy shelf. This ragged little thing kept Norra happy from the time she barely walked. She leaned over and tucked it down into the travel chest so no one would find it—her only childhood treasure that would make the journey. On the one hand, she wanted to become a lady, but on the other, she wanted to stay her father’s daughter.
Was she prepared to face the world? Fellingham was just the entry point. She’d been there before, but not much past it. They were so sophisticated in Fellingham. She’d be the unsophisticated country girl. She felt like it, helping her father out in the fields at harvest time. Playing with the ‘estate folk’, those who rented her father’s land. Friends with the old ghost who flitted about in the abandoned cottage in the woods. She’d miss them all, yet something pulled her away.
“Norrie!” Her father walked into her bedroom. He held out his arms and she ran into them and let him circle her with the love she always felt when he hugged her. He held her tight and lifted her up to twirl in the room.
“Stop,” Norra said, laughing along with him. “I’m too big to do that anymore.”
Her father sat down in the chair by her desk, puffing away. “I do believe you’re right, precious. I’m not the shape I used to be.” He gave her a sly look. “And neither are you.”
“Father!” she said. She drank in his image so she could remember him better. He smiled at her with those dimples in his large cheeks. She loved his shiny bald head with the chin whiskers, now going gray, that she used to pull on when she was younger. He’d put on weight in the last few years, but that just made him more adorable. Rennet Bordon was the perfect country squire, perhaps not as rich as most, but she never felt a lack for anything she desired, especially his love.
“No. Look at you, Norrie. You’ve got the shape of a woman. Taller and slimmer than your mother ever was. Don’t tell her I said that.” He put his finger to his nose. “And now you’re going to leave me.” He sighed. Her father was a master of sighs and this one made her laugh.
She sat in his lap and put her arm around his neck. “I’ll only be in Fellingham. It’s only barely a day by carriage or less if you ride.” She kissed him on the cheek. “But I’ll miss you, too.”
“Dinner!” Midred called from below.
“Ah! Our last dinner together. Don’t rush through your food like you always do, Norrie. Let’s savor the moment for a bit. I won’t be seeing you off tomorrow. I’m taking some men, before you awaken, to the eastern boundary to unclog a stream. It’s a bit of an emergency, I’m afraid. Willif will have the carriage at the front door and you’ll be gone before 8 o’clock in the morning. You’re to be at the school before 3 in the afternoon. But don’t worry, I’ll be in Fellingham enough to see you.” He patted her hand.
“Father, “ Norra paused. Should she tell him? “I had a dream today when I was out picking mushrooms.”
“A dream? In the middle of the day?” He raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.
“More of a nightmare really.” She told him about her experience on the main path through the forest.
“Did it seem real? No fairies, witches, or dragons?” He laughed as if he didn’t believe her. Perhaps if he did, she could pretend it didn’t happen.
“No. Just the one scene and I can still remember every little detail.”
Her father sucked in his lip and thought for a moment, as his face turned serious. “I wouldn’t tell anybody about this, Norrie. And you know that means your mother. You know, we’ve never talked much about magic. It’s not a topic among polite people. He was right about women and magic, though. The fairer sex were our fiercest defenders in the Mage War, long, long ago. It’s told the mages cursed all of the women in the world in order to save themselves, yet they were already defeated. The mages lost and were banished somewhere no one knows.” He shook his head. “It’s a dangerous world outside, it is. The shadow of magic is darkening Polda once again. I’m not exactly saying your dream was real, but,” he shivered, “but the very thought of you ever dealing with those evil folk distresses me. Promise me you won’t ever get involved with magic. Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart, unless my dream is true,” she said, laughing. Perhaps he really did believe her. Norra felt somewhat distressed and decided she would try to forget about the whole thing. But as she sat down to dinner, she wondered if she really could. If she did possess the wizard’s power, she was already involved. Her father’s words about mage wars had scared her more than he intended.
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Chapter Two
Finishing School
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Norra stepped down from the coach in front of Miss Podingoode’s Finishing School for Young Women. Slatted wood painted a pale yellow clad the four-story building and all of the windows were trimmed in white with frilly curtains adorning all of the windows. She stepped into the coolish darkness of the front lobby. An unoccupied desk stood close to the door with a little bell standing on the polished surface. Norra picked it up and gave it a little ring.
An older woman, taller than her, with a straight back, walked into the room, taking tiny little steps. She wore small spectacles, perched on her nose. “Yes?” The woman lifted her chin and looked down. The woman had pulled her dark hair back so tightly, it made her eyes appear to be in a perpetual squint. Her mouth seemed to be drawn in an arch, giving her a perpetual frown. Norra didn’t like her dress. Some kind of a frilly thing Norra might have worn ten years ago when she was six. A fine net apron with painted white polka dots covered the light yellow dr
ess with a frilled collar and a frilled neck. She matched the outside of the building.
“I’m Norra of Bordon Forest. My father is the squire?”
The woman pinched her face and pursed her lips as she looked down at a list on the desk. “I’m Miss Nonci,” she said as she continued to peruse the paper. “Yes, I do believe you start tomorrow. Get your roommate and she will help you with your trunk.” She pointed her finger towards the ceiling “Room 403, at the very tip-top of the house.” She gave Norra an ornate bow and then turned around, returning to the room she had left.
“Get the roommate?” she muttered. “Where are the servants?”
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“Servants?” Delia, her new roommate, looked at Norra quizzically. “No servants here. There’s the pity. Miss Podingoode, Poddy to us girls, makes us do everything. She says how can a lady know how to properly direct her servants if she has no feel for the work?”
Norra sat on her trunk, her heart pounding and wiped the perspiration from her forehead and neck. “Humpf. I can deal with that.” She wasn’t quite sure that she could do everything that servants had done for her in her life, but that didn’t stop her from dragging her trunk up four flights of stairs by herself. Not that she wanted to. Perhaps the lack of servants contributed pennies to Miss Podingoode’s purse.
“Do you know any boys in Fellingham?” Delia fanned herself and played with her golden curls. Norra admired how Delia’s hair shined and curled down. She had always worn her long brown hair bound with a ribbon or a single braid flowing down her back.
“No. I don’t come in too often. We live five hours away and I only come in to buy clothes and things.” Norra opened her trunk and Delia stepped over to look.
“Country girl, eh? Oh that’s a nice dress,” she said as Norra began to unpack. “That wardrobe is yours.” Delia pointed to one of the two corner wardrobes in the room. “May I help you hang things up?”