Magician In Captivity: Power of Poses - Book Three

by Guy Antibes

  “For a different reason,” Kulara said.

  She nodded. “Yes, for a different reason. I’ll have to school myself with patience.”

  Asem narrowed his eyes. “Always a good practice.”

  Valanna sensed the serious turn in his words and nodded again to him. “I’m not looking forward to Balbaam,” she said.

  Asem cleared his throat. “Neither am I.” He pulled out the instructions that had hastened their departure from Amorim and waved it in the air. “This worries me principally because of the unknown implications. I wish I had made contact in Amorim.”

  Kulara put her hand on Asem’s wrist. “And Valanna wishes she had made better contact in Amorim.”

  “Two failures,” Asem said, looking at his wife.

  “Don’t look at me, I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Asem raised the side of his mouth into half of a smile. “Not this time.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Three

  ~

  TRAK TWISTED BACK TO LOOK AT THE GATE, while the end of the caravan had just passed by. He looked at his traveling companion. “I’m Trak Bluntwithe, by the way.” He couldn’t extend his hand or even give her a proper bow, holding onto the reins.

  “Mori Tamoda.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have any Bennin blood in you?”

  “I’m from Pestle, not Torya like my companions.”

  “Pestle,” Mori said, her eyes unfocused a little as she thought. “So you don’t do magic? All Toryans are magicians.”

  The way she said magic gave Trak pause. “Not all Toryans are. Why do you ask?”

  “Magic is forbidden in Bennin, except some of the high born.”

  Trak would have to have words with Sirul and Tembul as soon as he could. He wondered, yet again, why the Toryans sent him to Bennin if they prohibited magic? Nothing made sense to him. Perhaps he naively thought that once they left Homiko, the answers would suddenly pop into his head. That didn’t happen.

  He wondered if the princess practiced magic. Sirul had said so, but then she was high-born, and Trak certainly wasn’t, so she might not face any danger.

  “Are magicians forbidden in Bennin or just the practice of magic?” Trak ventured to ask.

  “The practice, but what magician doesn’t use magic? I see that all three of you carry swords, so you might not be magicians, eh?”

  “I am reasonably adept with a sword,” Trak said. “What are the chances I’ll be showing you how good I am?” He wanted to change the subject.

  “High enough.” Mori turned her head towards the forest. Nothing grew within a few hundred paces of the wall.

  “That’s not what the merchant who hired us said.”

  Mori grunted and shrugged her shoulders. “Why tell you that your lives might be in danger if he didn’t have to?”

  The Benninese had a flexible relationship with the truth, it seemed. He had seen nothing but duplicity, and now he didn’t know if he should believe Mori’s indication that their trip would be very dangerous. But then why make the trip if it would cost everyone’s life? His conversation with Mori only left him confused, and that might not be a very safe condition either.

  Neither of them said much of anything else until they entered a large clearing in the lush forest. Trak made his way to Tembul, with Sirul in tow. “Did you know the practice of magic is forbidden?”

  Tembul looked over Sirul’s shoulder at the circle of wagons. “Paka told us we couldn’t use flyers, so now we know why. I don’t need magic to travel in this land.”

  “Nor I,” Sirul said.

  “Evidently the high-born can,” Trak said. “That probably means Lenis.” Just his name sliding across his lips seemed distasteful to Trak. He glanced at Sirul. “Aren’t you a noble?”

  “Barely. I’m cousin to the princess, but with irregularities in regards to parentage,” Sirul said. “How could I prove royal blood anyway?”

  “What about Lenis?” Trak said.

  “Lenis?” Tembul laughed. “How could anyone mistake the man’s arrogance-filled actions for anything else?”

  Trak could only nod in agreement. “We should practice with our swords when we are settled for the night, just to show these people that we really are proficient in the use of weapons. Mori knows that Toryans practice magic. In fact, she thinks all Toryans do.”

  Sirul chuckled. “I am glad we won’t have to.”

  Tembul grinned because, although Sirul had more talent than Lenis, he was still a mediocre magician. “As for swordplay, the exercise will do me some good.”

  Trak left his companions and returned the Mori’s wagon. “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready for night?”

  She looked at him sideways as she fussed with a box. She finally stopped. “Can you cook?”

  That wasn’t Trak’s strong point, but he knew enough, having done his share of stew-making at Able’s inn. “I can boil water, cut things up and throw them in the pot. I don’t know how to use your spices. From the smells in Homika, you cook differently than in Pestle.”

  “Watch me tonight. I will loosen my tongue if you help me with the meals. I sell my food to other merchants while we travel. You might make a few more coins. Toryan money is not well-received in Bennin.”

  Trak nodded. “We’ve already found that out.”

  She shrugged and pulled out bags of food. Mori pointed to symbols on the bags. “Note the markings on the bags. These are the spices. They are used in much the same proportion for all of our meals.”

  Trak didn’t know the Bennin word for stew, so he just watched her work. It appeared that they ate rice as their staple. Santasians ate more noodles, and in Pestle, potatoes were most popular. Trak had made a few rice dishes, so cooking the grain didn’t daunt him.

  Mori handed him a large pot. “Water, two thirds the way up. The stream is over that way,” she pointed into the woods with her chin. Trak noticed others heading in that direction.

  He returned, lugging the pot. “Now what?”

  Mori ignored him as she tossed spices into a large bowl while Trak concentrated on what she put into the mixture and then he watched as she cooked the rice in the large pot and then removed the rice with a strainer, saving the water to throw in vegetables, dried meat, and herbs and spices. She would only answer Trak’s questions on what herbs she used.

  Trak sampled the soup every step of the way, trying to remember how the taste progressed.

  When she finally put the top of the lid on the pot, the sun began to set, and a surprising large line of caravaners began to form.

  “Serve. One ladle of each,” Mori said.

  Trak began to dispense the food until the line ended. He looked down into the pot and found perhaps a quarter of the soup left.

  “You may feed yourself and your two companions after you have served me,” Mori said. “There should be just enough.”

  After he had finished ladling out a helping to Mori, he put out three bowls and filled them. She nodded, and then he sat down with his two Toryan companions with his food. Amazingly, there were less than two servings left. Mori knew how to control portions.

  “Different, but good,” Sirul said.

  “Nourishing,” Tembul said without enthusiasm, but Trak noticed how quickly he finished the meal.

  Trak took his friends’ bowls to Mori. “Do I clean up?”

  She nodded and gave him instructions on how to do it the Benninese way. He couldn’t tell the difference between the Pestlan and Benninese methods of scouring pots.

  Although Trak nearly succumbed to using the dishwashing pose that he learned in the Espozia Magicians Guild, he still finished soon enough and returned the two large pots to Mori.

  She squinted at the pots in the darkness and grunted. “Fine enough. Cook the same thing tomorrow morning,” she said after she had stowed her cooking utensils. Trak rolled out his blankets next to her cooking fire. Tembul and Sirul ended up joining him, and so ended the first half-day on his journey to Beniko.

>   ~

  Trak squinted up at the brightening sky and then at the person who had solidly nudged him in the ribs.

  “Up!” Mori said. “People are hungry.”

  He suppressed a groan and jumped to his feet. “I’ll get right on it.” He grabbed a pot and rushed towards the stream. Trak remembered the steps that Mori had shown him the previous evening.

  “Fair,” Mori said when she tried out Trak’s offerings. “You can continue to cook for us.” She walked away with the ghost of a smile on her face.

  Trak hadn’t expected to earn his way to Beniko hovering over steaming pots of rice and soup, but if it helped him get to the capital city, then Trak would cook with a smile.

  Tembul and Sirul helped him get everything back into Mori’s wagon. When would he ever get time to practice his swordsmanship?

  The journey resumed. Trak noticed the different flora and fauna along the road. Mori now answered his questions as he worked hard on improving his Benninese. He felt his new cooking job was just payment to the new tutor.

  Mori shoved a cloth sack that she had pulled from just behind her. “I’ll take the reins. See that tree with the orange fruit just on the other side of the bend up ahead? They weren’t quite ripe enough when we passed heading north.”

  Trak looked ahead of the first wagon and saw the tree with its boughs bending from all the fruit. “I do.”

  “You run ahead and pick as much of them as you can and then run up and catch up to me. If we don’t act soon, the other wagons will get their fill. Go now!”

  He grabbed the sack and took off towards the tree. In a few moments he began picking the fruit. The overripe ones had brown spots and by the time he had filled half of the sack, others had come to get theirs while the wagons all passed.

  “Stop right there!” a voice called out from within the forest. The whine of an arrow passed over their heads.

  Trak pulled out his sword and backed away from the tree, holding his sack of fruit in front of him like a shield. The other pickers dropped their fruit and ran away, leaving Trak by himself.

  Two men and a woman walked out of the dense forest and confronted Trak on the road.

  “You want our oranges?”

  Trak looked at the fruit. “Oranges. Yes. The tree is on the side of the road. Why do you claim them?” He knew he baited the outlaws.

  “Because we can!” one of the men said as he raised his sword. “A youngling like you will soon paint the side of the road with your blood.” Trak looked at the man’s single-bladed sword. It sported the hint of a curve. He had seen something similar in Gio’s collection when he took lessons from the man in Espozia.

  Trak refused to give an inch. Another arrow flew from the brush and clipped Trak’s left shoulder, ripping his shirt and drawing a thin line of blood. He heard a scream, and Tembul came out of the woods dragging the bowman. “Thank you,” Trak said. He bowed to Tembul and gently dropped the bag of oranges, a fruit he had never seen before. Trak looked at the bandits while he drew his sword. “Now, show me how well you fight.”

  His opponent dropped back to his two companions. They all raised their blades. Trak backed up, and they advanced, while Trak saw Tembul and Sirul slip out from the woods behind the man and the woman.

  “Come on,” Trak said, beckoning with his fingers.

  The woman shot out, her sword whirling. She closed with Trak, who had seen that kind of attack before, and he began to slam his blade against the woman’s, throwing off the balance in her attack. He quickly moved inside and bumped her to the ground with his shoulder. The point of his sword drew a drop of blood on her throat. He looked up at the two men who threatened, but Trak could tell from their stances that they weren’t going to attack.

  “Look behind you,” Trak said to the men.

  All the while, Tembul and Sirul had been silent and surprised the men when they saw opponents behind them.

  “We will let you go, but do not disturb this caravan again. If you do, I will lend her a few inches of steel.” Trak tried to look as intimidating as possible, and he hoped that he spoke the right Benninese words to the bandits. He backed up and nodded to Tembul and Sirul, who likewise got out of the way and created a path to safety.

  The men helped the woman to her feet, but Trak wouldn’t let her take her sword.

  “You’ll have to get another, perhaps from the bowman who won’t be needing one any more,” Tembul said.

  She scowled, but in the end quickly scurried into the woods after the other bandits.

  Fellow caravaners, who had watched the conflict from a number of paces off, ran to collect the dropped oranges. Trak picked his sack up along with the woman’s sword and walked to the now-stopped caravan. The merchants gave him a variety of looks, including encouragement and a surprising number of scowls.

  He tucked the oranges into the back of the wagon and climbed up front. Mori had climbed down to observe the episode and climbed back up on the seat of her wagon after Trak.

  “You are definitely proficient with a sword,” she said, and then she laughed. “And you have a nice respect for oranges.”

  Trak grinned as he got the wagon underway. Mori could smile! “I do indeed. Are they any good? Those things don’t grow in Pestle or Santasia.”

  “They don’t? A merchant’s dream, if only they would survive five or six weeks at sea,” she said. “Try one when we stop at midday.”

  “What happens to the bandits?”

  Mori looked back and shrugged. “Nothing, although I know they will think hard about confronting you and your friends again,”

  Trak went over the confrontation in his head. “Why didn’t any of the other guards come to our assistance?”

  “Why should they? Guards are paid to protect the wagons. What if there were more bandits than the four you fought?”

  “Oh, then the attack on the orange pickers would have drawn the guards from the wagons.”

  Mori nodded her head. “Smart boy. Away from a city it’s every person on their own.” She picked up a wooden shield stored against the side of the seat box. Trak looked down and saw one on his side. “Protection against arrows.”

  “Do the other guards use shields?”

  Mori just nodded.

  Trak looked at his wounded shoulder on the other side of the seat from Mori. “That would have been useful. I was grazed as it was.”

  Mori looked alarmed. “You were? Show me.”

  Trak twisted around to show his wound. He couldn’t see it very well, but he could tell the bleeding had stopped. “Only a graze, as I said.”

  “I’ll take care of that when we stop,” she said, her eyes still wide with alarm. “Are you brave, or are you stupid, fighting while injured?”

  The comment made Trak laugh. “I think a little bit of both.” His mind slipped back to Amorim, when he last saw Valanna. “I’ve done stupid very well in the past,” he said.

  ~

  Trak sat with Tembul and Sirul, next to the cooking fire where they always slept. No one else bothered them, and the time together gave them a chance to speak Toryan, which Trak continually improved on while he did the same with the Benninese he shared with Mori during the day. He took a deep breath of the cooling night air.

  “Two more days,” Sirul said. “I’ll be glad to sleep in a room again, even if it’s on a hard Benninese floor.”

  His companions laughed. Trak had grown to enjoy the trip. They hadn’t had a serious run-in with bandits since their little battle by the orange tree. He heard a cry in the darkness.

  “Trouble,” he said. “Get your shields ready.” Trak jumped up and slipped the wooden shield from the side of the driving box in front of the wagon. His companions did the same, and then he ran into the woods and moved as silently as Tembul had taught him through the dense foliage with his sword held by his side.

  The moon lit speckled patches of the forest through gaps in the trees, and Trak caught a ripple in the light. Four bandits silently made the light waver as they
walked through it. Trak slipped up and joined them from the rear. If there were four here then there might be a larger band attacking the merchants.

  They raised their swords. One of them turned to the others. “You three kill the blond Toryan first, if you can. Anika said the blond one was an expert swordsman. The rest of the foreigners should be easier.”

  Three of the bandits bowed to the speaker.

  “You won’t have far to find me,” Trak said, jumping in a clear space of ground, his sword ready. If he stopped these bandits now, he wouldn’t have to worry about others being hurt or interfering with his swordplay. He also could fight in the darkness without holding back on his ability.

  “Get him!” The man giving the orders lunged at Trak and found his hand dangling from his wrist. He promptly fell down on his rear end, holding his bleeding arm tightly to his body, wailing away.

  The others jumped back, and then rushed Trak all at once. Trak had chosen his footing well when one of the bandits tripped on some unseen root or rock and fell, dragging down one of his partners. These men were not particularly well-schooled in the art of swordplay, but a wild swing in the dark could be just as dangerous as an intended one.

  Trak squinted his eyes and made quick work of the second man. He didn’t want to kill him, but in the dark, he couldn’t afford a mistake, so he plunged his sword into the man’s chest before the other two regained their feet. They waved their swords, trying to score a hit on Trak, but the reflexes developed fighting multiple swordsmen he had learned under Gio paid off. In moments another bandit was dead at his feet, and another fell close to their leader, nursing a grievous wound.

  He didn’t care what happened to them and launched into the clearing where he could hear continued fighting. Trak looked for Tembul and Sirul and joined them fighting another group of bandits, three women and two men. He didn’t relish fighting women, but there were innocent lives to save.

  Sirul would only play a defensive strategy with the women and was rewarded with a sliced upper sword arm. He dropped his weapon and slumped against the wagon just as Trak jumped into the fray and took care of one of the two women who had attacked him with slashes and thrusts. She was gone in a moment.