by Guy Antibes
~
“Did Nakara thank you for creating his mask?” Sam said as he invited her to his larger cabin to begin Vaarekian cursive lessons.
“He was deliriously happy about it and wanted to learn more about mask-making, which, along with wards, isn’t taught in Wollia. Why are we beginning our lessons so soon after leaving Wollia?”
“Do I need a reason?” Sam said.
“You always do. It is either learn more about pollen, or now it is Vaarekian cursive.”
“I still want to learn more about pollen. I haven’t yet figured out how to interpret layers.”
“Not now. So why am I here?”
Sam took a deep breath. “Desmon and Nakara want to work with you in your fight against Viktar Kreb. They asked me if that would be acceptable to you?”
Her eyes turned brighter all of a sudden. “Two experienced Wollian spies? Of course!” Her expression dimmed a little. “Won’t you feel uncomfortable joining them?”
“I won’t be joining them,” Sam said. “The less I know about your affairs in Tolloy, the better for me.”
She stared at him with an impassive face, and that made Sam distinctly uncomfortable. “You learned a bit in Wollia, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” Sam said. “Different factions often learn to live together. I saw it in action. Some truces are more uneasy than others. I don’t look at ours as particularly uneasy, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
“A bit of wisdom expressed that you already had within you,” Banna said. “I would be happy to talk to Nakara and Desmon. You realize we will be keeping secrets from you.”
“I have no loyalty towards Viktar Kreb, so those will be secrets I don’t think I’ll care about.” Sam left unsaid that he would care about her manipulating people, but he felt that Desmon and Nakara might be a neutralizing force. Both of them were stronger than Lennard Lager, the lord of Mountain View and her partner in the Summer Revolt fiasco.
“Good. You may tell the two Wollians that I will receive them when they are ready.”
“Can we learn about layered wards?” Sam asked.
“I’m not really prepared for Vaarekian cursive, anyway, so we might as well. There isn’t much to it, but unfortunately, I am a pollen magician, and you aren’t. Part of detecting layers is using a bit of magic to do so. I can peer into the ward. It isn’t as much a sight thing as it is a feeling that the magic gives me.” She shrugged. “But we can try. Don’t be disappointed.”
“Go ahead.”
“This is better done on the decks. Then we can toss the ward into the ocean. We will just need scraps of anything, presumably wooden scraps,” Banna said.
Being an assistant purser and having climbed through the entire ship, Sam knew just the place. He found crates that had just been opened that had carried supplies and would be burned in the galley kitchens. He grabbed a stack of the broken slats of wood and found Banna, who sat on the steering deck. Emmy curled up at the bottom of the stairs.
“Well done,” Banna said. “Captain Darter gave her permission to have this particular lesson in the stern. It wouldn’t be polite to toss a ward into the ocean and have it blow against the hull and explode, now would it?”
Sam smiled at her comment. The woman rarely joked. “It would be impolite, to say the least.”
“Exactly. Now give me a board. What we are doing is dangerous, don’t forget.”
Sam nodded, knowing that danger was relative in regards to Banna Plunk.
She leaned over a board, concentrating on the surface and handed it to Sam.
He immediately noticed the sheen through his spectacles.
“Can you tell me how many layers that ward has?”
Sam looked closely and tilted the surface, but he couldn’t see anything but the sheen.
“What did I tell you?” Banna said. “You should have seen faint lines in the ward crisscrossing when the layers were applied. They never go on aligned.”
“Can everyone see the sheen?” Sam asked.
“No, but those glasses improve your pollen-vision.”
“They give me pollen-vision,” Sam said, correcting his teacher.
“Right.” Banna sighed. “It is like telling a blind man how to see.”
“I am a blind man until I put on these,” Sam said. “Back to my question. Who can see the lines in the ward?”
“As far as I know, only a pollen magician. My sister was a pollen-artist, but she couldn’t see layers.”
Sam kept silent about Banna’s sister. He had been instrumental in her death, after all. “So do the lines in the layers just appear? Does your magic enhance your sight?”
Banna frowned. “Of course not! I keep my eyes open to see the layers, and they appear. Perhaps they appear in my mind.” She thought for a moment. “Let me try something. Hand me the board.”
Banna leaned back and closed her eyes. She held up the board and made a sound of surprise before she spoke. “It is the magic,” she said. “I can see the ward and the lines with my eyes closed. I’ve never tried it before.” She tossed the board overboard. As soon as it hit the water, it exploded, but there was more of a splash than a sound.
“Don’t worry, I warned the captain and the helmsman,” Banna said. She looked back at the man minding the wheel, who stared back at her.
“You did, but I still ducked for cover,” he said.
Banna was about to get up. “Let me try with my eyes closed,” Sam said.
“But you aren’t a magician.”
“What does it hurt to try? Maybe the spectacles might help, after all.”
She shrugged and grabbed another board. “It is useless, you know.”
“I can try.”
Sam watched Banna make another ward. The sheen seemed to sparkle. Sam wondered if that was when layers were being put on.
“Here.”
Sam took the board and closed his eyes. He thought he could see something in his mind. He could see the board, but he might be seeing the outline of the ward. After opening his eyes and shutting them a few times, Sam said, “I can see the ward’s outline with my eyes closed!”
“Give me the board. You point where I move it. I don’t believe you.”
Sam successfully tracked the ward. He took his glasses off, and the image disappeared. “Maybe I need more gold,” he said. “I’ll get a gold tip.”
“I’m not going to hold an active ward that long.” She took a gold bracelet from her wrist. “I got these in Port Hassin to protect me from green pollen after we returned from Rakwall. Hold this.”
Sam did as he was told. He closed his eyes and could immediately see the ward. He couldn’t see the lines, but he tried moving the bracelet around, and the image’s intensity changed. He even tried looking through the bracelet, but it didn’t help make the image clearer. He finally put the bracelet against his forehead, and the lines appeared.
“I can see the lines!” Sam said. “They appeared as soon as the gold touched my forehead!”
“Unbelievable. Tell me how many layers and which way the lines go.”
“Four layers,” Sam said. He then told her where the lines were oriented. He finally opened his eyes. Why can I do what others can’t?”
Banna shook her head and experimented with the gold. “It doesn’t help at all,” she said.
She called the helmsman over while Sam held the wheel steady. The sailor couldn’t see the ward with or without the gold bracelet.
“That lightning sure messed with your mind, Sam. However, since you can see the lines, I can teach you how to interpret them. Everyone makes a ward differently, but there are some similar characteristics to what the layers will do. I will have to think about what we can do with this discovery. When you get to Tolloy, you will have to have gold frames made. They are easy to come by if you provide the frame-makers with the gold. I will gift you enough to make a few pairs.”
Sam wasn’t sure if he wanted any gold from Banna’s horde, since it was all ill-gotten. He never
did get a reward for retrieving the stolen weapon wagons.
“Perhaps my pollen talent was transformed rather than burnt out.”
Banna shook her head. “I don’t know, but you should get in touch with my father. He would know if anybody does.” She looked at the helmsman. “Prepare yourself, sailor.”
She tossed the board out from the stern. Like with the other, a plume of water rose from the wake and settled down, disappearing as it drifted behind them.
Sam squinted at the wake. “Could someone ward arrows?”
“What?” Banna said, looking confused at Sam’s change of subject. “Of course, why?”
“Toraltia isn’t a very creative place, is it?”
Banna smiled. “On purpose,” she said. “Issak Bolt told me that the nobility had made sure the school curriculum didn’t include much other than basic ward-making. The army made sure all wards were created and defeated by specialists in their ranks.”
Glory’s brother, Sam thought, and Glory herself.
Banna brushed off her dress. “We are finished for today?” She held out her hand.
“I think so,” Sam said, presenting her bracelets to her. He had gold tips he could experiment with.
~
Try as he might, Sam couldn’t create a mite’s breath of pollen, but with his gold wand tip held to his forehead, he could certainly see pollen much more clearly and colored pollen more vividly, yet he still had to use his spectacles to see it.
At least seeing the stuff and being able to identify wards made Sam feel he could be more useful as a snoop. His ward detection ability didn’t require Banna’s presence anymore. That was a surprising relief to Sam. Banna and he as a team couldn’t last any longer than their voyage to Tolloy, and if she counseled with the two Wollian spies, she was sure to leave him on his own in Vaarek’s capital.
Jordi had Nakara and Sam do the cargo inspections that the purser and Sam had done on a regular basis. When they emerged from the hold, Sam ran into Professor Smallbug’s group listening to one of the girls in the group. As she talked, Sam found out she often referred to life in ’the Rift.’ Sam assumed it was the Lashaku Rift and wondered if Nakara would know of her or her family.
He watched her, trying to memorize features that were unique to the Lashakans, now that he had Nakara’s face to compare. As he did so, he realized that they might be a different race from the other Wollians and the nomads Sam had met on his recent adventures.
Did Lashakans hold themselves aloof because of that? He thought it might have been territorial, since most of them lived in the rift. Sam found the girl’s features were rather attractive.
What kind of group was this, Sam wondered, that included a Toraltian, a Lashakan, a Wollian, from what Sam could tell, and others? He guessed. Glory could tell him if Smallbug’s second-in-command ever permitted it.
“That is enough for today. Practice the next pollen assignment in your folders,” Smallbug said. “I will check your progress tomorrow. I know some of you are still stricken with some of the sea illness.”
Most of the students drifted towards their cabins, disappearing through the doors beneath the steering deck. Others went to the railing or the bow. Glory came straight to Sam.
“I saw you ogling the chieftain’s daughter.”
“Chieftain, as in Lashakan chieftain?”
She looked surprised. “How did you know?”
“I was listening in. I’ve heard of the Lashaku Rift.”
Glory nodded. “Someone said the ship was held in port for weeks, waiting for our group. The professor never seemed rushed. We would go from site to site as if we had all the time in the world. I think Smallbug and his son are really doing this to take themselves on an intercontinental tour.”
“Why did you join them?”
“He is taking international students of promise to Tolloy University. We all have scholarships waiting for us.”
“Did you have to pass tests?”
Glory smiled. “I passed, if that was your question. They teach advanced wards at the university, and we are to complete pollen exercises before we arrive. I’ve already completed them all, so I don’t have to scurry around like the others.”
Sam had an awful thought. “Is there a condition to your scholarship?”
“Of course. Do you think they would give such a thing to total strangers?”
“Is it government service?” Sam asked.
“How did you know? Three years working with the Vaarekian military on research.”
Sam could imagine what kind of research in the field against Viktar Kreb’s enemies. Smallbug was recruiting potential pollen magicians for Kreb’s designs on world conquest. At least Sam was sure that was how Banna Plunk would look at it.
“We also have to learn Vaarekian. Did I hear you speaking it to one of the sailors?” She looked at him more closely. “Were you a noble in disguise at Cherryton?”
Sam laughed. “Think back. When did you ever not see me as my father’s son? We went to school together, Glory. But I did have the opportunity to learn Vaarekian during my apprenticeship in Baskin.
“Baskin! You made it to all the way to Baskin?”
Sam shook his head, smiling. “Where have your wits gone? You were always a smart girl. Of course, I was in Baskin. How do you think I made it on board?”
“But you aren’t a sailor. It seems you are a passenger just like me.”
“Not like you,” Sam said. “I was exiled from Toraltia by the king, himself.”
“You met the king?”
“And he didn’t like me any more than Wally Scrivener or Gob Carter.”
Glory made a nasty face. “Cretins, both of them. They gave me nearly as much trouble as they gave you.”
“Jealousy for you, and I don’t know what for me.”
“Still jealousy,” Glory said. “In spite of your disability, you managed to show them up time and again.”
“Until they nearly beat me to death. That’s why Harrison Dimple took me under his wing, and how I ended up on a ship to Tolloy. I’m taking this voyage to find my home in exile,” Sam said.
She looked up at him. “My, you’ve changed. I always thought you were smart, but I sort of considered you to be inconsequential. You appear to have made a lot of adult friends.”
“Is that why you stole my wheel idea, because I was inconsequential?”
Glory colored. “It is. I shouldn’t have done it.” She paused for a moment. To Sam, she looked repentant enough. “My father rushed the tires into production and nearly went bankrupt because he didn’t make the tires good enough, and good enough meant a lot more time putting down layers of much tougher pollen to make the tires flexible instead of one thick piece that broke apart much more quickly. He is doing better now,” she said. “You said you were an apprentice?”
“An apprentice snoop,” Sam said. “Harrison and I were intimately involved in the Summer Revolt. He saw some promise in me and shipped me off to Baskin, where I spent a year learning that I did indeed have some promise, too much, because the king decided to make me promise never to return to Toraltia.”
“You still can’t make pollen?” Glory said. “If you can, I’m sure Professor Smallbug would be willing to test you.”
“Nope. Pollen and I don’t have a very good relationship. I did find out that if I wear gold-coated spectacles, I can at least see it. That’s part of the promise I had as a snoop. If someone hid something behind a pollen disguise, I could look right through it, and, as it happens, when I wear my spectacles, I can see pollen better than most people, and that includes someone like you looking through them.”
“There were cases involving pollen like that?”
Sam nodded. “Enough to keep me busy and enough to get me into trouble with the nobles, some anyway. Since I had to interface with nobles, I had a Vaarekian tutor. She was a nice lady who made jewelry as her principal business in Baskin.”
“Maybe you can help me with my pronunciation,” Glory sai
d.
“Perhaps, if Smaller Smallbug allows it. Here he comes.”
Now that Sam knew the young man was Smallbug’s son, the similarities were easier to see. “Students are not allowed to fraternize with the crew,” Smaller said.
“I’m not really crew. I have a cabin in the passenger section just like you,” Sam said. “Captain Darter gave me a temporary commission as assistant purser, so I could have something to do on a long, long boring voyage to Tolloy.”
“He can speak Vaarekian,” Glory said in the Toraltian they had been speaking.
“Is that so?” Smaller said in perfect Vaarekian.
“It certainly is. I hope you can persuade yourself to allow me to take some of the pressure off you to teach Glory some Vaarekian.”
Smaller looked a bit peeved. “You have had some excellent teachers. If you didn’t look so much like a Toraltian, I would have guessed you were from an educated Tolloyan family. I suppose you can help her and perhaps the new girl, as well.”
“The Lashakan?”
Smaller nodded, a bit less friendly. “She speaks a little Vaarekian, but with the worse accent I’ve ever heard. It grates just to listen to her. I still need Glory to come with me.”
Sam watched the pair disappear belowdecks. Smaller came out to retrieve more students. It seemed that Smallbug kept a tight leash on his potential pollen magicians. He wondered what Banna would do when he told her. He didn’t see a reason not to let her know, so he went to her cabin.
Desmon and Nakara stood in front of Banna’s door.
“Looking for Banna?” Desmon said. “She will be back. Emmy doesn’t like us in her cabin without her.”
“Maybe Banna doesn’t either,” Sam said. “Two Wollian spies?”
“You have a point,” Nakara said.
“And so does every tooth in Emmy’s head.” Sam looked up and down the corridor. “We can go inside.”
Sam knocked on the door to hear Emmy’s growl. “It’s me,” he said.
Emmy barked.
“It’s okay,” Sam said. He opened the door, and Emmy nudged him with her nose.