by Guy Antibes
Baco stood in front of him; his sword still pointed down towards the ground. Ricky backed up another step to be out of Baco’s reach.
Baco swung his sword so that it pointed at Ricky. “How did you kill the Pestella boy?”
Ricky kept his mouth shut.
“Sorcery is the only answer I could think of. No one seems to want to admit it. Is Lady Taranta afraid of you? Is that it?” Baco said.
Ricky backed up a little farther. Even Baco Poppi knew of Lady Taranta’s attempt to kill him. Could he be in her employ, as well?
Baco swung his sword. To Ricky, it was a lazy swipe. Perhaps Baco tested Ricky’s resolve.
Ricky hummed and threw a thread of fire, an illusion, at Baco. The white of the trainer’s eyes shone in the darkness as they widened while the flame splattered harmlessly against his chest.
The trainer backed up with his free hand feeling for burns. “You didn’t burn me!” he said, astonished.
“I could have,” Ricky said. “I have no reason to if you put up your blade.”
Baco sheathed his sword. “What would you have done if I had really attacked you?”
Ricky whipped the branch close to Baco’s face. “I might have stung you a bit with this,” he said. “I’m still too weak to run very far.”
The little glade where they stood had brightened a bit during their confrontation. Ricky wouldn’t even have had darkness as a possible cover if he had to flee. He felt drained again, now that it appeared Baco’s feigned attack seemed over.
“Was this a test?”
Baco peered at Ricky intently. “Not the only one you’ll have. I daresay you passed. I didn’t realize you could have burned me to a crisp. I still don’t know how you took care of Pestella.”
And if Ricky had his way, Master Poppi would never know. “Can we return?”
“Yes.”
Ricky was surprised when Baco put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder. “I can see why Mattia is impressed. You have a good head and good judgment for someone with your background. I’ll expect to see more. But don’t get me wrong. I’ll run you into the ground just like the rest when you’ve recovered your strength. Tell me, what was your performance like at the Tossa Novice Competition?”
~~~
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~
T HE FOOD LINE WAS UP AND RUNNING by the time Ricky and Baco Poppi made it back to camp. Baco left him on his own, so Ricky decided he was more than hungry. He got in line. Kela joined him.
“What was Master Poppi doing with you?”
“A test,” Ricky said. “He said I passed.”
“He is a mean man.”
Maybe not as mean as he showed, Ricky thought. “I guess it’s what makes him a good trainer. I’ve had three, and they can all be like him, at times.”
Kela nodded. “Thank you for putting up our tent. A few of the command tents fell last night because the inmates didn’t do a very good job,” Kela said quietly.
“They just need a bit of experience,” Ricky said. “As I said, I’ve put up a few.”
“What do we do next?”
Ricky shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t see them trying to make you swing a sword. I suppose we should ask Siria. But first I need some food in me. I’m still too weak, but my appetite is back, especially after all the work last night.”
The inmates spread all over the camp, finding stumps and fallen trees to use as seats while they ate. Ricky led Kela back over to the command tents. He smelled bacon in the air coming from that direction. Looking at his porridge with a raisin or two to add a little taste, he felt his mouth water.
“The commanders eat better than we do,” Ricky said, wondering if that’s how they thought of themselves.
He sat on the remains of a fallen tree. “This will do,” he said, sitting.
Kela sat down beside him. “Siria snores,” she said. “None of my cellmates snore.”
Ricky just about snorted his porridge through his nose. He swallowed and then laughed. “Do you snore?”
“Of course not.”
“How do you know?”
Kela blushed a bit. “I just do.” She spooned a small amount of porridge and took a dainty bite.
“No one knows if they snore or not,” Ricky said. “It’s something you have to tolerate. I’d live with it if I were you. The girls who are fighting in the army aren’t like you.”
Kela raised her eyebrows. “How are they not like me?”
“They walk and talk and act like the older boys. They try to show masculine swagger.”
“What is ‘swagger’?”
“Think about it.”
“Oh, they prance around trying to look like men?”
Ricky nodded.
“Do you try to act like a man?”
Kela visibly shuddered. “Why would I do that?” She shook her head. “I suppose I can put up with a snore.”
“A snore or more,” Ricky said, enjoying the conversation.
She finally smiled. “You are making fun of me.”
“Maybe,” Ricky said.
Siria walked up. “Finish your breakfast and then meet me at my tent.” She turned and left them.
“Our tent,” Kela said, nearly laughing out loud.
~
The five other ‘sorcerers’ looked apprehensively at Siria when Ricky and Kela walked up.
“Good, you are all here. We were going to begin our lessons next week, but now we get the opportunity to get more done. What have you been able to accomplish? We’ll start with you and finish up with Kela Torris and Hendrico Valian.”
“I can make a sorcerer’s light,” the first boy said.
“Show me.” Siria folded her arms.
He sang out and then held a tiny ball of light in his hand. Ricky could see him sweating.
“What else?”
“What do you mean? That’s my trick. I don’t know any others.”
The rest of the boys couldn’t do much more than create a light or a flame no bigger than what would top a candle.
“Torris?” Siria said.
Kela belted out a very clear tone and adjusted it slightly. Ricky noticed her expression change as the resonance filled her with power. She held out both her hands about two feet apart, and a rainbow of light appeared stretching from one hand to the other.
“Pretty,” Ricky said. “Did your parents teach you that?”
Kela nodded. “It’s an illusion,” she said as it disappeared.
“Valian, can you do an illusion?”
He pointed to the first boy and chanted for a moment. Ricky raised his hand, and a torrent of green flame licked against the inmate’s upper body. He fell backward to the ground.
Ricky stepped over and helped the boy up. “Mine is an illusion as well. I should have warned you.”
“I accept your apology,” the boy said in a small voice. “Can you do that for real?”
Ricky shook his head. “I’ve never tried. Sorcerers can be injured playing with fire. I burned the tip of my finger holding onto a candle flame for too long.”
Siria cleared her throat. “As you can see, Valian is a bit ahead of the rest of you. He will act as my assistant, and you will treat him with the same respect you will treat me.”
Ricky looked at the faces of the boys. He could see the wheels turn in two boys’ minds. He expected they wouldn’t treat Siria or him with much respect.
She directed the cadre of magic users to the long log that Ricky and Kela had used. Siria produced a low note and pointed to the middle of the log. A fissure appeared in the wood, and with a loud crack, the log split.
“Drag one of the logs and form a vee,” she made the shape with her two hands. “This will be our classroom. Valian will work with two of you, and I’ll take the rest. We will work for the rest of the day learning to control candle flames.”
Ricky took his two students to the end of the log and sat them down. He remembered enough of Professor Callasay’s lessons to know what to
do.
“Becoming a sorcerer is learning to do three things,” he began, “Sing to create a resonance that powers your body, exert your will to produce magic, and, finally, control what you produce.”
He hummed and created a small candle flame. He willed the flame to grow and then to shrink before he extinguished it before his finger burned.
“The power is the same, but I control the size of the flame with my will.”
One of the boys asked, “Does the song make the spell work?”
Ricky shook his head. “Remember three things. What sets a sorcerer apart from other people is the ability to create the resonance that draws magical power into your body. Will is used to create the spell from the resonance. The ability to use both separates a good sorcerer from a poor one. Control regulates the spell. Getting the resonance to generate sufficient power is different from person to person.”
“Why is yours so strong?”
“My parents were performance sorcerers,” Ricky said. “I guess I inherited their abilities.”
“Why are you in the Home, then? You must be rich.”
Ricky gave that boy a half-smile. “I don’t even remember my parents; they died so long ago. My grandfather raised me on a shantyboat. I was very, very poor and often went hungry.” Ricky modified his answer in his mind. His granduncle stole his inheritance and declared Ricky dead, sticking him in Shantyboat Town.
“Oh,” the boy said. “Did you scare Pestella to death with a flame?”
Ricky jerked his head side to side to signal no. “I didn’t.” He let it go at that.
“Now let’s work on controlling a candle flame.”
After an hour of work, both boys were fatigued from practicing simple magic. Ricky looked over at Siria, and it appeared the other three boys were in the same shape.
“Mistress Lonsi, I think my students need to rest for an hour or more.”
Siria peered at her students and nodded. “Come back here in an hour,” she said. “Kela, you stay here with Ricky.”
The sorceress watched the others get out of hearing before she began. “They are weaker than I thought. I doubt any will learn much in the time we have with them.” She sighed. “At least they can all improve enough to create sorcerous lights and small flames to ignite things. They will pass Pacci’s flame test. None of them are powerful enough to create a simple fainting spell.”
“A tinderbox can do as much as the two I worked with,” Ricky said.
Siria looked at both of them. “So that leaves the two of you.” She turned to Kela. “I will teach you the five spells that Pacci wants. I’ve told Ricky: fire, fainting, mortar, distance killing, and deflection. Deflection is the most difficult, oddly enough, because it requires the most control.”
“Killing?” Kela said with a gulp.
“You two can learn those in a week or two. You both know fire.” Siria looked at Ricky. “Not the illusion kind. So we practice fainting. Ricky has picked it up already.”
Both of them described the spell to Kela, who had to overcome her fears to get her will to work. After an hour of hounding by Siria, she managed to make Ricky light-headed. They stopped when the other boys drifted over.
“More flame work,” Siria said. “This time you will show how much control you have.”
After a full day of work, Ricky realized that she worked Kela and him for an hour and then the other inmates for an hour. Siria understood that she pushed all of them to learn more quickly, but too much challenging sorcery would burn them out.
Ricky climbed into his tent. He lit a faint sorcerous light and watched the steam from his breath bounce against the low roof. He felt tired, so he looked forward to sleeping through the night.
~~~
CHAPTER TWENTY
~
D ESPITE WANTING A FULL NIGHT’S SLEEP, he woke to footsteps and low voices. He popped his head out and saw most of the camp mustering in silence. Baco must have told them to move without a sound. Ricky crept out and stood behind a tree watching the boys assemble. Whispers reached his ears from across the camp. He looked for Mattia or Siria, but Baco was the only adult.
He was impressed by the discipline required to assemble without a sound. The inmates marched off. Ricky quickly put his boots on and followed. He reached almost to the end of the marchers and then maintained his distance. They traveled for an hour, leaving the forest and walking on a dirt track with farmlands and dark farmhouses lining the way.
The whispers began to build, and a few peals of laughter punctuated the night. He could see Baco’s form, taller than most of the inmates, flick a switch on the back of a boy. Ricky expected the boy to cry out, but he suppressed a moan.
Baco took the lead and walked down an even smaller track. The boys surrounded a farmhouse. Baco pounded on the door.
“Open up!” he said.
Lantern light filled a window.
“Why are you disturbing peaceful folk so late at night? Come back tomorrow morning,” a voice called out from within the house.
“Burn them out,” Baco said.
This couldn’t be happening, Ricky thought. He ran behind a haystack and stepped on a pitchfork and just about cried out, but he kept his mouth shut. He let out a sigh of relief when the tines didn’t puncture his boot.
The boys lit a bunch of brands. Maybe they had brought them. Ricky didn’t know, but the house began to burn.
As the flames licked the outside of the wood-framed structure, a family of seven ran out. The farmer had a wife and five children. The two oldest appeared to be girls.
“Kill them!” Baco said.
The inmates converged on the family. The farmer had a sword at his side and fought off five or six boys, but fell to their swords. Ricky thought they would have brought practice swords, but he heard steel on steel.
Then the worst happened. Baco’s boys pulled the women and the girls away and did unspeakable acts as other inmates slaughtered the three youngest children. Ricky clenched his fists, powerless to act.
The fire still raged when Baco stopped the brutality and instructed the boys to toss the bodies into the fire. He had the boys line up in rows.
“Now you are bloodied. You know what it is to fight as an army. I want you to return to the camp while a small group will follow to clean up our tracks.” Baco pulled out three of the older boys while the others left. “No speaking. Total silence. Go to your beds and try to sleep.”
How could the animals he shared the Home with sleep after what they had just done? Ricky watched Baco and his helpers walk into the farmer’s barn. He distributed various tools to the others, and they began to clean up the ground by the light of the fire, covering the blood with dirt.
“We’ll leave using the cart inside,” Baco said as he handed out tools. “We’ll make it look like brigands.” Baco even had the gall to laugh as if he had done something fun. The three boys began excitedly talking about the horrors they had done to the innocent farming family.
Ricky couldn’t leave this unpunished. He leaned down and grabbed the pitchfork. He crept as close as he could. He stood up and shouted.
Everything stopped, including the fire. Ricky plunged the pitchfork into the three boys and just as he did the same to Baco, time sped up again.
“What are you doing here?” Baco said. His eyes grew wide when he saw the inmates on the ground.
“Performing a little justice,” Ricky said.
Baco’s sword lay in a pile with the others. The man swung a rake at Ricky’s head. Ricky ducked. He shouted again. His will was fragmented, so the trick didn’t work when Baco attacked. Ricky fended off the next attack, using skills Saganet had taught him. This time his staff had sharp tines. He poked the fork into Baco’s upper torso, making the man back up.
“You are dead, Valian. I should have killed you last night, but too many people saw us leave.” Baco grinned. “No one saw you leave, so I’ll take advantage of dispatching you now. Lady Taranta doesn’t want you to leave the Home alive. I�
��ll satisfy her most sincere wish now,” Baco said. He rubbed his chest, looking at the blood.
The distraction prompted Ricky to jam the fork into Baco’s thigh. He cried out and dropped the rake. Ricky didn’t stop. He hit Baco over his bald head with the blunt end of the pitchfork. Baco put up his hands to ward off another blow, but Ricky reversed his weapon and thrust the fork deep into Baco’s stomach.
Baco went to his knees and glared at Ricky. “Saganet taught you too well.”
Ricky spotted the farmer’s sword lying in the dirt. Baco followed his eyes, and he began to crawl towards the weapon. Baco was too good with a sword to give Ricky any chance of survival. He took a deep breath to calm his nerves and shouted.
The world went still, yet again. Ricky rushed to the farmer’s sword and plunged it into Baco’s back and leaned on it hard enough to make it go all the way through the man’s chest. He flung the sword into the blazing fire and grabbed the rake to cover his tracks.
Ricky made a sorcery light and continued along the dirt lane, smearing his tracks when he saw them. He reached the main road, tossed the rake as far away as he could into the woods, and walked on the stubbled field on the other side of the road.
Occasionally, he shouted and used the speed to run further ahead, soon catching up with the other boys and hustled on past them, reaching the camp long before they did. He bent over with his hands on his knees to regain his breath and his strength for a bit before he stepped into the woods and re-entered the camp close to his tent.
He burrowed into his covers, totally out of energy, both physical and emotional.
~
“Wake up, Valian,” Siria said.
Dawn had just broken when he poked his head out of his tent, bleary-eyed. “Time to get up?”
“Time to leave. Break down your tent and help Kela with mine. Something’s come up, and we are heading back to the Home.”
Ricky stepped out, putting on his boots. “Won’t we be traveling into Applia in the daylight?”
“Mattia will take the risk. He’ll tell you what’s happened in the carriage.”