by Guy Antibes
Namen still knew how to hunt and kept his eyes on the sides of their way to capture animals and birds. They kept what rations that weren’t perishable in their packs. The meat wasn’t very tasty, but everyone focused on expecting the worst on this trip.
“It’s starting to get colder,” Norra said on the third night after the sun set. They rested in a tiny meadow that gave their horses enough grass to forage. On this side of the mountains, that was at least an hour sooner than what she thought was usual. The fire crackled and she wrapped her coat more tightly in the increasing cold.
“We should reach the snow level sometime tomorrow.” Namen walked to their little fire and droppedas carcass that looked similar to a goat onto the ground. “What does everybody have in the way of warm clothes?” He dragged the creature to the other side of the path and began to skin their dinner.”
“I managed my leather outfit and a suede skirt and a blanket,” Lily said.
“A blanket and a coat I brought with me from Hiddington and what I have on.” Norra looked at the patched black leather outfit. She wore her coat, but the blanket sat on her horse.
“Just what I have on,” Namen said. “However, I can use my power to treat this skin. It won’t cover much of me, but anything is better than what I wear. Once it gets cold, I think we’ll have to sleep together to keep each other warm. I hope you girls don’t mind.” Norra looked at him and realized that he wasn’t joking.
She steeled herself for a struggle but Norra knew Lily was made of stern stuff. Namen would take such suffering in stride, except for the continued gap in his life made by the death of Bloggo. She knew of such a feeling when Fenning died protecting them. It all seemed like so long ago. She shook her head and realized that sentiment was cropping up in her mind more often. She had to focus on the future and respect the past, and leave the dark thoughts behind to be thought of later.
“Is there some kind of spell I can learn to make us warmer?” Norra said. She didn’t want to use her power, but they had to survive.
“I think you can manage an air spell that shouldn’t tire you too much. It’s a much easier version of the barrier that I put up against the slavers. We can sleep on it over the ice. That won’t get us warmer, but it will keep us from getting a lot colder. If we use a heating spell on the snow, we’ll just get wet.” The ghost of a grin or just a grimace? Norra hoped a grin.
“About all I can do is stand watch and wake you should danger approach,” Gristan said. “Not much to scare up here. I don’t even know if animals notice me. I will say, I’ve been keeping track of your food and you are all doing a marvelous job of conservation.”
Namen had the carcass of the animal on a spit over the fire. Lily worked on scraping the animal’s skin with her knife. Despite its being a wild animal, Norra felt the pull of the sizzling meat and waited impatiently for it to be cooked.
~
The next morning, they all clutched their blankets as they led their horses. Namen wrapped the skin around his shoulders like a large shawl. Patches of ice began to litter the trail and there were spots where a slip would send them careening down the mountainside. As they passed by mountain grass, they began to shove it into their saddlebags made more spacious by their dwindling supplies. Horses had to eat too.
Onward they went until the icy patches turned into sheets of ice and the pathway turned into a snowfield. The footing was too chancy to ride, so all dismounted. Still the path led upward. The air became thinner and their speed of travel dwindled.
“I don’t know if I can go forward,” Gristan said. “I don’t have the energy to appear.” The cold nipped at their noses.
“One foot in front of the other,” Lily said. “Can you ride on a horse? I just realized I don’t know what you can or can’t do, damned ghost.”
“So I’m a damned Gristan, am I? Well I can ride and I never thought of it. I just got into the habit of plodding along like you.” The next thing Norra heard was Gristan’s voice from above her black horse. “This is much better. Thank you so much Lily.”
Soon their conversation stopped all together. They were ten days from the village when they arrived at the top of the mountain. To the east lay the plains of Taxia. Norra could see the mounds clearly outlined in the afternoon sun. The rest of Taxia lay in a haze. How could she be so cold when Taxia was so hot?
“Should we stop here or move on?” Lily asked.
“I suggest that we move on until we have to stop. The sooner we reach the lower slopes, the sooner we can find food again,” Namen said.
Gristan only grunted when Norra checked on him from time to time. She bent over and picked up a handful of the chunky snow. “At least I don’t thirst,” he said weakly. She put some into her mouth and turned to look into Magia.
Where Taxia was brown, Magia shone like an emerald in the afternoon sun. Puffy clouds lay below them, but as they looked towards the horizon, the clouds became dense. She could see thunderheads in the distance. It all looked different to her from up here. Down amongst the green, sat the Tower of the Master Mage and perhaps release from her power. She thought briefly of the wizard battles and wondered how much worse Magia could be.
She walked over to Namen who sat with his skin shawl underneath him on the ice. “What will you do once we are finished in Magia?”
“I will find a wizard who thinks as I do, go back to Polda and continue as before. It’s not a task for a lone man. Bloggo saved my life more times than I remember. Even when we were in that damned beach town in Taulone, I would have perished in the street if he hadn’t gotten me to a healer.”
“I’m still sorry about that,” Norra said.
“Don’t be. If the tables were turned, I would have done worse, much worse. I think we better be off. Mountain paths are always harder to go down than up.”
Norra helped Lily up. They both staggered to their horses and put some of the grass in their horses’ mouths before they pushed onward.
Namen described the descent in the correct terms. Norra’s muscles from walking instead of riding in Taxia helped her up the mountain, but a different set were used in the descent and she found her muscles quivering and had to stop a number of times as they descended from the top of the pass.
Tufts of mountain grass began to grow in the crags. The horses were fed better than the humans, once off the ice sheet. They crossed a myriad of little streams heading down the mountain from the melting snows. They finally came to a clearing that was surrounded by gnarly stunted trees. A white long-haired goat stood chewing grass. Namen shot a bolt of fire and dropped the creature.
“We should stay here for a day and rest up. It’s still cold but we have meat and the means to cook it. We should take some with us for the trip down. Besides I don’t think I can walk another step and another skin might help with this damned cold,” Namen admitted.
The statement amazed Norra. Namen kept silent the entire time about his physical status while Lily complained a few times and all Norra could recollect was her own constant whining. She nodded her head and sat on a rock, thankful they had made it to Magia.
~
“This looks just like Bordon Forest,” Norra said as they entered into a dense wood. “However, at home, the trees don’t grow from the side of a mountain.” Her spirits lifted significantly when they began to ride their horses again.
“It is beautiful, but in my mind it looks more like Barleywood, I’m sure.” Gristan also regained his vitality. The air felt like early spring and the deciduous trees all sported their little light green leaves.
The trail widened and Lily and Namen, now wearing a white wooly cape, began to ride together more often. After their flight from the native village at the entrance to the pass and the trials of crossing the mountains, Norra thought of little besides survival and she was sure the rest of them felt the same way.
Namen stopped up ahead and Lily looked back, waiting for her to catch up. She found out why as she approached them. They came across a recently-traveled
path. One went northwest and the other led northeast.
“Do you know where these lead to?” Norra said, scratching her head.
He looked one way, and then another. “Obviously they will lead us to different fiefs. The question is, which one do we want to go to? The eastern path goes to the Tower of Bistomer which is on a direct line to the Master Mage’s lands. He and I have had our issues. The western one goes to the Tower of Win. That’s the new mage’s domain. He is said to have freed his serfs. The path to Win is longer, but I think the wiser choice. “
“I vote for the freer of slaves rather than the taker of slaves,” Norra said.
“Bistomer’s tower is closer,” Namen said.
“I agree with Norra. Perhaps the new mage might take Norra more seriously if he is as flexible as Cloud said.” Lily rode a few paces on the left side and then a few paces into the right path and back. “The left feels better.” She looked evenly at Namen as if testing him.
He shook his head. “I’ll be darned if ‘flexibility’ was the deciding factor on anything, but I was just testing you. I like the left hand side a lot better because I don’t trust Bistomer. If you recall your geography, that’s where the other pass ends up and he makes much money from the taxes he charges on slave sales.”
“Gristan?” Norra said, not knowing where the Ghost was.
“Definitely the left. If Cloud thought we should go to the Tower of Win, that’s where I’d go. He didn’t tell me the mage’s name, but he mentioned seeking out the new mage.”
“That is four against none, five if you count the dearly departed Cloud. Let’s hope our collective wisdom is right,” Namen said.
~
The land remained hilly, but Namen continued to prove himself an able hunter and Norra proved to be an expert gatherer of mushrooms, forest vegetables and berries.
“What I wouldn’t give for some salt and pepper,” Namen said over a campfire. He cut off a morsel from the haunch of a deer that still sat on their spit. The Tower of Win has the worst agricultural lands of the Nine. I understand there is mining to the south of us and all of the farming land surrounds the Tower.”
“These Towers, what are they like?” Lily said taking a drink and then walking a few paces away and rinsing her hands.
“I suppose the towers are equivalent to the ruined castles in Polda, except there is a large tower in the midst of normal castle buildings and they all rise up at least one hundred paces into the air. I’ve been in a few. They look great from the outside, but there just isn’t that much room on the inside. Take out the stairways and the landing areas for each flight and you’d be surprised what little rooms the mages live in. They are ridiculously inefficient, but I wanted one.” Namen sighed. “An monument to a monumental ego, eh?”
“If they are anything like you, I agree. Can’t they teleport from level to level and do away with the stairs?” Lily said.
“Only the strongest mages can teleport. I’ve been able to move from one room into another in the past, but the spell used up all of my power doing it. Besides, how will the servants clean and dust and deliver food and remove waste? No. The towers are an affectation and a symbol of the Nine’s power.”
“Did the Master Mage know how to teleport?” Norra said. It was time she learned more about her mysterious benefactor.
“I’m not sure. You ran into him walking on a pathway and Gristan interacted with him at Barleywood. I’m sure teleportation wasn’t a barrier to his moving around.”
Gristan appeared in the fire and walked out of it. “I never said he hiked all the way to my father’s house. He might have teleported and walked just a little bit.”
“And I never saw the wizard walk at all. I came upon him lying on the ground. He was very weak, however, and might not have been able to transport himself very far.”
Namen stirred the fire. “So perhaps he did know how. Others may know, too. Herran proved to us that he has that ability. The mage that created Cloud can do something akin to teleporting. As for the Master Mage, I saw him only a few times and talked to him as part of a larger group.”
Lily rose and folded her arms. “What fief are you from?”
“Tower Cestre, far to the north in the eastern arm. There is a mountain range that plunges from the top of the Polda to a third of the way down and that divides the northern part of Magia in two. There is an eastern arm and a western arm. I’m from the eastern part. We have a tiny pass up there, much like Yulga’s Pass and that’s how I entered Polda in the first place.”
Norra pulled out Herran’s copy of Yulga’s map but there were few details in the large area marked out as Magia. “This is no help. Herran only drew the line from the river to the pass and didn’t bother to extend it further.”
“Let me see,” Namen put out his hand and Norra gave him the map. Tower Bistomer and Win could be seen as well as another two Towers adjacent to Master Mage lands to the west. The Master Mage lands hugged the mountains bordering Polda.
“Where might we be?” Gristan said, lifting his chin to get a better look.
“We are…” he looked closely at the map, “…about here.” His finger pointed to a spot that indicated they still had some time to travel before they made it to Tower Win. “We are still in Bistomer’s domain and had I realized that, we would have traveled a bit more carefully.”
~~~~
Chapter Seventeen
Escape from Mage Bistomer’s Domain
~
Namen closed his eyes. “Too late. We have friends on three sides.” He grabbed Norra and held her to his side.
“And so you do.” Four wizards walked out from the dense woods. “I just heard you admit your unauthorized presence on Mage Bistomer’s fief. What is your reason for being here?”
Norra could tell Namen was weighing his chances among these lesser magicians. The only spell she could vaguely remember was the air cushion to sleep on that he re-taught her the previous night. All of the others had drifted from her mind. When he looked at her, she shook her head and looked at her sword tied to her horse’s saddle. Lily’s sword was likewise inaccessible.
Gristan appeared. “You might as well know, they are escorting me to Tower Win. We have come from Taxia over Yulga’s Pass and wished to travel unnoticed.” The wizards eyed Gristan and then tried to ignore him.
“There is no Yulga’s Pass. Did you sneak around from the pass from Taxia? If you did you owe an entry fee to Mage Bistomer,” one of the wizards said.
“Are you hungry?” Norra said. She couldn’t fight them, but perhaps she could kill them with kindness. “We have much more venison that we dare eat. Perhaps you’d like to join us. As you can see, we mean you no harm.”
“Did you really come from Taxia?” their leader said. “I didn’t even know there were mages on the other side of the pass.” The leader peered at Namen, still holding Norra. “It seems you have some kind of a double mage light. That’s really strange.”
“We had to leave the last village rather hastily and I was… damaged. I recommend, should you try the Yulga Pass, to avoid the village. Most of our possessions were left behind, but I was lucky enough to escape with my slaves,” Namen said. “Come sit. Do you see Lily’s buckskin trousers?”
Lily stood and pushed aside her coat. “These are from Taxia. The village of Laput.”
The leader raised his eyes and took out a knife. “Come on, let’s eat, I’m famished.” He cut off a piece from the flank. The others followed suit. They gave Namen sideways looks as they ate.
“So, are all of you from Magia?”
“Only me. I grew up at Tower Cestre and have spent the last few years in Polda.”
The leader took a few bites and talked while eating. “I wanted to go, but Mage Bistomer wanted us here. There’s a lot of booty in Polda and no one to stop us. We can take what we can and then be ready for the Mage war that’s coming when the Nine reclaim Polda, but then there’s that mage over there.”
“Really, what mage?” Nam
en said.
“A rogue mage wanders around stopping wizard battles. For example, in Hiddington wizards had taken over most of the city and then he came and cleared out the whole lot of wizards. No one wants to run into him so I hear we now avoid Hestvestia.”
Namen rubbed his hands by the fire and looked at Norra. “I’m glad I stayed close to Taxia. Robbing for booty hasn’t really appealed to me.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t appeal to me either, traveling with two women and a ghost.” The leader eyed Gristan who kept walking back and forth through the deer carcass still roasting over the fire.
Talked turned to recent conditions in Magia.
“Don’t spend too much time at Tower Win. They have strange ideas. Mage Merran has freed his serfs and wouldn’t he have all the luck? They didn’t have the crop failures that the rest of Magia did last year. Drop off the ghost and then come back to Tower Bistomer. We have plenty to interest a freelance mage and Bistomer is always on the lookout for some good female slaves as well. He might buy these from you.” His eyes appraised Norra and then Lily. “In fact, if I had enough gold, I’d buy them myself.”
Norra could feel the tension rise in the wizards, as they rose to face Namen. Their leader dropped his meat on the ground and the others followed.
“I’m afraid we’re going to insist that you change your plans and accompany us to Tower Bistomer.”
Lily growled. She had risen during the conversation and slipped to the horses. She grasped her sword and Norra’s.
The wizards looked over at Lily as she threw her sword over the heads of the wizards. Naman whispered a spell in her ear as Norra caught the sword by the hilt. A lucky catch. Gristan howled and Norra spelled as big of an air blanket as she could, and then threw it over the wizards. They struggled with the semi-solidified air as the fight began.
She drew her sword and Namen threw bolts into their midst. A firebolt whizzed past her face setting the ends of Norra’s hair on fire. She couldn’t stop to put it out and began to skewer the wizards under the air blanket.