by Guy Antibes
Namen waved his hand and the picture vanished. “Abducted by natives.”
“Aren’t you a native, Kendro?”
“Not me. Natives are an old race that lived here before the rest of us came from the other countries of Polda. They have there own ways. Most of the remote villages are matriarchal. Probably the only places ruled by women in the world. Perhaps they heard she’s a queen and they wanted her for their village. You can see how they treated her with respect after they put her out.”
“How can we find her?” Norra said.
Kendro shook his head. “We can take a look behind the inn in the morning. If we don’t see any tracks, she could be anywhere south of the river. I don’t have the men to go looking for her. I’m sorry. I suggest you move on. You could spend months or years trying to find her.”
Norra couldn’t stand to lose another of her party. Clint, she didn’t care about, but the loss of Fenning always brought a catch to her throat, and Delia and Herran were now gone. She didn’t know when Cloud would return. She wrung her hands.
As much as she loved her, she couldn’t take so much time from her quest to find Delia. They could do some looking on their way to Yulga’s Pass. She realized that of the three who set out from Fellingham, only she remained.
~
The countryside lost its color for Norra and she found it necessary to force herself to move on. Still no Cloud and soon the path must take them southwest from the caravan and they’d be on their own.
She had to shake off this malaise and get a better attitude. Norra had never been down for so long before. All of the awful things that had happened on her journey preyed upon her mind and she found it difficult to think of anything good or positive from her quest.
After they camped for their last night with the caravan, she woke and decided to walk along the river. The moon shone brightly on the leaves and turned the water on the river to flashing sparkles. The serenity of it all began to calm her down. It seemed that anxiety and depression filled her thoughts as she approached Magia. Was it her imagination or something else? She breathed in the air and smelled the cool mist from the river mixed with the aromatic leaves on the trees. It seemed to help.
“Are you feeling better?” Gristan said, appearing at her side. “I noticed you’ve been rather morose so I’ve let you wander in your bit of malaise. Among the whispering of these leaves and the soft hissing of the river, I saw your step lighten, so I thought I’d come over and chat.”
Norra grunted. “I’m not better, just distracted. But that might be good for me anyway. I feel abandoned.”
“I’m here.”
“You have to be here Gristan, but I don’t mean it that way. My dear Barleywood ghost has been true and I do believe you’d be with me even if we weren’t bound.”
“If not my former self, which you might not have liked so much, at least my present one certainly won’t desert you.” Gristan pulled himself up into the trees and decided to pretend to walk on the leaves. The distraction made her smile.
She turned serious again. “But others have left voluntarily or involuntarily. I guess Herran has decided to return to the city. It would have been nice to have a message or something. Cloud isn’t due to check in, but I’m increasingly worried that Namen will scare him away.”
“And Namen?”
“What a puzzle. He travels with us, but rarely talks, except to Kendro at his campfire. I wonder what’s going on in his head? Bloggo is funny in his own way, but even he keeps his distance. Did you know he’s the mage’s brother? You’d never believe it the way Namen treats him,” Norra said. “In Magia, people without talent have less rights than a dog or a cat.”
Gristan dropped to the ground and said, “I have a little assignment for you. Think of it as one from Miss Poddy. Tomorrow watch Lily’s interaction with Namen. You might be surprised. Think of it as an opportunity for a distraction, like tonight.”
They walked in silence and turned around to head back towards the camp when Bloggo ran up to them. The servant kept his distance from Gristan as always. He put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Something was wrong, very wrong.
~~~~
Chapter Twelve
Abduction
~
“You must come. Now Lily has disappeared and my brother is…” He paused and stood wringing his hands. “…he’s been bound by wizards.”
When they all returned to camp, Kendro stood by the rear gate to their wagon. Namen lay rigid with eyes open.
“He’s breathing, but I’ve never seen this before. We didn’t think there were any wizards in our company that could do this kind of thing. Namen walked around when he first came here and only your group had any real power. What’s worse, Lily’s gone.”
Norra just about collapsed and had to sit down on the ground. How could this happen? She wrapped her arms around herself. Herran, gone. Cloud, gone. Delia, gone. Lily, gone. Namen. How did he ever, ever become part of her group? Namen, frozen. Clint didn’t count. Most likely he abducted Lily. That left her with Bloggo, as nice and noble of a person that he was, the servant wouldn’t be enough to help her on her journey.
How could her quest to Magia crumble in the space of a few weeks on the road? She felt deserted, left bereft. She’d never felt so alone and so isolated in her life. She always had her parents at Bordon Forest to help her out if she skinned her knee or broke her wrist as she did once playing in the barn. Even at Miss Podingoode’s, Delia helped her through those first few months. Fenning—her heart went out to the memory of the little wizard—was a true friend and support. Norra realized that she had two options, curl into a little weeping ball and feel bad about her plight or—Lily’s image popped into her mind—fight for her life and her identity. She had the power to go after Lily and that’s what she’d do. No other path seemed clear.
“I have to go after her.” A cold hard anger started as a ball in her stomach and spread throughout her body. She stood up and glared, thinking that she would not be treated this way by any fates that might be working against her. She’d find Lily and she’d get Namen on his feet again.
She rose and spoke to Bloggo. “If you would put him in the wagon, I have to collect my wits and then go collect Lily.”
She walked to the river’s edge. “I won’t accept this, Gristan. I won’t. I’ll fight with magic and with the sword to get these two back with us. If Cloud or Herran return while I am gone, tell them to seek me out.”
“I will Norra. There is only so much I can do.”
She quickly changed her mind. “Come with me instead. Right now I’d kill anyone who’s taken Lily and I just might need a restraining presence.” She let her anger energize her resolve and then stalked to the wagon and looked inside. There was definitely a struggle and this time, they found their money gone from underneath the seat. She even found some blood, but Lily’s sword had been cast to the side.
“Bloggo, do you know any spells?”
“Me? I don’t have any talent.” She could see him turn white even by the light of the lamp.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard Namen recite a incantation.”
Bloggo motioned her to leave the wagon and walk with him. She realized that Namen might be able to hear and whatever Bloggo wanted to say, he would only say it outside.
“Let’s see if the horses are ready to go,” Norra said to give the man cover for leaving.
He dragged her by the arm past another wagon. “I don’t have any talent, but I do know the words to a few spells that I can teach you. What kind of thing do you want to know?”
Norra’s hopes increased. “Have you ever seen him make any wizard immobile like he is now?” Bloggo shook his head. “I need to know something defensive or offensive to use against the magicians. My sword might work against one, but not two.”
“But I saw the two you killed in the forest.”
“Lucky. They thought Fenning had all the power. If they forced Lily to show them where my money is
, then I have to assume they think I can do magic.”
Bloggo taught her a fire lance spell and the spell Namen used to find magicians. He mentioned a protective bubble to use against other magicians that would protect her from other magic weapons, but not from natural objects and taught her that as well.
“Does it work the other way? Can I use a sword?” Bloggo nodded and Norra now felt a bit more in control of the situation. “That works for me. If you can write, that would be better. Write them down while I talk to Kendro.”
She found the caravan master just beginning to get the company started.
“Bloggo will take the wagon as far as the track that branches south about ten miles further on?”
“You’re going south? Not to the Pass?”
Norra thought a minute. “I still would like to seek out Delia if I could. There are more natives that way. Have him stay there three days. If I don’t return, let Bloggo take the wagon wherever he wishes with Namen. Perhaps the magicians at the Pass will be able to cure him. They took my money, but I will give you my horse back in payment if it turns up.”
She loved her horse, but these were desperate times and Norra realized that she might not return. She wrote notes to Herran and Cloud.
“Bloggo, you don’t know Herran, but he’s young, handsome and tall.” Norra sounded like a smitten schoolgirl, which she admitted she was. “Kendro knows him. Give him this note and this will seem silly, but a talking cloud might come by. Read this note to him if he does.”
She made sure water, food, and her doll were in her saddlebags. She didn’t take any more of her clothes, but grabbed Lily’s sword as well as her own. It seemed like her heart was going leap from her chest and she couldn’t take a full breath, but she found the strength to move and to act. She mounted her horse.
“Gristan are you aboard?” she said, as they rode through camp northwards.
“Indeed I am. Do you know your spells? Will you forget them like you did Fenning’s?”
“I’ve burned the three Bloggo taught me into my memory and he’s written them down on a slip of parchment. I want you with me. At the least you can act as my eyes among the abductors.” Onward they rode until the camp dwindled in the distance. Time for spell number one.
She dismounted and stood, looking south towards the caravan. She recited the spell. She threw her hands and could see a bright blue light not too far away. That must be Namen. There were other lights within range but they were like lightning bugs to a roaring fire. Bloggo said Namen couldn’t detect any one further away than twenty miles. She closed her eyes and saw a few more dim lights, like faint stars. They seemed farther than twenty miles away, but she had no idea how far.
Norra turned around and looked towards the north and did the same thing. She spied two bright silver lights farther away than Namen’s but they felt close enough to be in rideable distance. Off to the left to the northwest a bright point of blue light seemed to float in the air, but too distant to be the wizards. Farther on, the horizon glowed with wizard light. Magia, she thought.
“They are ahead of us. If they stopped for the night, we can catch them,” Norra said. She began to ride and felt a bit lightheaded. The spell extracted a price in energy. She hoped the protective bubble would help her before she wore out if she had to fight all of them. She hoped her anger would propel her. She dared not to worry. Fear could crumble her fragile bravery.
“Do you want me to learn the spells as well so I can whisper them in your ear?”
“Can you see in the dark?”
“I can, but you will have to lay the paper down. Even as a ghost my memory still works just fine.”
“I know,” Norra said. Gristan was a comfort and she gave herself the luxury of a smile.
Dawn had not begun to lighten the sky when she closed upon a camp of a few wagons, set up for the night. No one had begun to stir, that she could see. She tied the horse to a tree branch and held out the paper for Gristan to read as they crept up in the dark towards the camp.
~
Lily
Voices outside of the wagon woke up Lily. She went to grab her sword, but a closed fist clipped her in the jaw making her see stars. Her sword still lay within her grasp and she brought it up towards her opponent.
“Damn you!” Clint cried out and punched her again as the close quarters of the wagon kept her from striking again.
She woke, tied to the back of a horse speeding away from the caravan. Struggling, she found herself well trussed and gagged.
“She’s awake,” Clint said. Lily couldn’t look up towards Clint.
“And she mumbles.” He laughed and then said. “You are pretty enough to fetch a fair price as a slave in Magia, my dear. Worth more than the other junk I took from the wagon combined. My friends laughed at me when I showed them the fans.” He slapped her bottom so hard that Lily thought it was sure to leave a bruise. “I brought wizards to subdue Norra but, to my surprise, they found a mage. Where did you pick him up? He scared my wizards mindless when they found out, but that doesn’t matter, because he slept they were able to combine forces to silence him. We’ll be long gone before Kendro finds another to reverse the spell. You’ll be dancing for a mage somewhere by then.”
Lily endured Clint’s droning on and on about himself and his triumphs of petty crime until they came to a disheveled group of wagons.
“Welcome to a slaver’s caravan. I’ll bet you were itching to see one.” He slapped her bottom again in the same spot and this time it really hurt.
A man dressed in dirty silk robes walked up to Clint as he rode into the firelight. “I thought you said two women.”
“She wasn’t there. They had a mage with them and the wizards didn’t want to stick around. So here we are.”
Clint dumped her from the horse. A pain, that bought tears to her eyes, shot up through Lily’s shoulder as she landed. She screamed. Someone shoved a lantern in her face.
“Comely enough and this is the robber? What fire in her eyes! Take her into my tent.” The man rummaged around in Clint’s saddlebag. “And what is this?”
“I was going to get to that.” Even Lily could detect a mixture of fear and evasion in Clint’s voice.
“There is gold and silver in this bag.” Lily heard the clinking of coins. “Holding out on your old captain, Clint?” The man drew a knife from his robes and cleaned his fingernails for effect.
“No, it was to be a surprise.” Clint backed away.
The man merely said, “Take her to my tent.” The menace in his voice chilled Lily.
She hurt her shoulder again as Clint threw her into a tent. How could she let this happen? Had she gone so soft while she traveled with Norra? Would she have screamed like that a few months ago? And where was Norra? Walking around moping? Well, now it was her turn to mope. She felt a pain-caused tear flow out of the corner of her eye and over the bridge of her nose. Lily rolled over the other direction from her shoulder and looked up at the firelight making orange patterns on the tent. How to get out of these ropes? She wriggled furiously but finally caught herself as pain flooded her shoulder again.
Captive. A slave. Her sword, miles away. She’d known that she could defeat Clint even using her left hand, but Clint, the sailor, certainly knew his knots. If she had a knife she’d slit her own throat and laugh at Clint while she did it. But would she really? Was she so weak, after all?
The man in the silk robes opened the flap to the tent. “Rest up, my sweet, we will leave after breakfast.” He held her chin in his hands and touched her where she didn’t want to be touched, but then yawned. He removed his robes and laid himself down on a pallet across the tent from her, showing her the sword that lay by his bed.
She heard someone kicking at the dirt outside. The firelight diminished. She wondered if it wouldn’t be better for them to kill her. The camp slept while she couldn’t.
Her thoughts centered on taking her own life. Anything would be better than being a slave, but as the prospects of dea
th wound throughout her thoughts, she realized that she’d rather live. If she lived there would be a chance at escape. If she took her own life, her escape route went only one way, and in a direction she couldn’t face. Then there was Namen. She couldn’t believe their nemesis on the way to Taxia would affect her as he did.
Her world turned upside down when she got to know him on their journey. She couldn’t kill herself if there was a chance to see him again. She grimaced in the dark. When did she become so weak, like any other woman? Lily had long ago set aside such thoughts, yet they’d come back.
~
Norra
“Gristan, can you check out the camp and tell me where Lily is?” Norra strapped Lily’s sword across her back and loosened her own in its scabbard at her waist. She waited impatiently, looking towards the brightening horizon.
“She reposes, awake in the large tent, bound and gagged. A man sleeps there with a sword as well. Our friend Clint snores by the banked campfire.”
“How many?”
“The two wizards share the wagon on the right and five more, including Clint, litter the ground, sleeping. There is booty in the other two wagons. I suggest you deal with the wizards first and then try and get a sword to Lily to help you with the others,” Gristan said. “Apart from that, all I can offer is moral support.”
Norra looked at the ghost. “Do your best to scare them when they wake. Any distraction you make will be very appreciated, my dear friend.” Norra put her hand to his cheek and held it in the air where she saw him. “I may not make it, but thank you. If the unthinkable should happen and you can get back to the caravan, let Kendro know.”
“You will prevail.”
She picked up the scrap with the spells and then they both crept into the midst of the caravan. Norra let out the barest of sounds when she stumbled over Clint. It wasn’t time for him, yet. Gristan pointed to the wagon where the wizards slept. One side of the flap was opened and Norra looked at the inert forms. She took a deep breath and muttered the fire lance spell. A blaze of light shot out of her pointed finger and consumed one of the wizards. The other clambered out on the other side before Norra could manage another spell.