Magician In Captivity: Power of Poses - Book Three

by Guy Antibes

  On the way back to the inn, she felt the full force of the shame that had been festering inside her. She wiped away a tear and took a deep breath before she plunged back into the warm interior of The Blunted Sword.

  Two men sat at her table. They looked at her expectantly as she entered.

  “You’ve seen Trak recently?”

  “Not quite two months ago,” Valanna said. “He passed through Amorim on the way to Bennin.”

  “Bennin! Ah, the boy’s turned into a world traveler,” one of them said and stood up, dragging the other up with him. “You might be wondering who we are. I’m Terry Grindingbrook, blacksmith, and this is the village builder, Astun Dimple. We be friends of Able and Neel…and Trak, of course.”

  Valanna looked at the men quite blankly until it dawned on her that Trak had talked of these two men. “Oh, Able and Neel’s drinking companions.”

  The both looked a bit embarrassed. “You do know Trak, don’t you?” Terry said it as more of a statement than a question.

  “I fought by his side in the Santasian civil war. I suppose you haven’t heard the stories?”

  “You’ve been to Santasia?” Aston said. “That’s where Neel and Able went.”

  “Sit down, gentlemen. I fought with Neel, too. Able, I’ve never met, but he has his place in what I’ve got to tell you.” Valanna sat down herself and started with Trak’s adventures where they intersected with her own.

  By the time she had finished, night had fallen, and she had attracted ten or fifteen villagers wanting her to repeat what she had seen and done. She left out her magical role in the adventures, since she didn’t want to be arrested for practicing magic, but all of them knew Trak learned to use magic, so she attributed all of the magical credit to him.

  “After Trak had defeated Riotro in a duel, he left with Neel and his Toryan friends to free Able, but the Toryans kept both his fathers, forcing Trak to seek out the kidnapped princess in Bennin. He visited me briefly in Amorim and left the same day on a ship.” Valanna took a sip of her third small cup of ale and sat back answering questions.

  The time grew late as the men and women of the village had to return to their homes to get up early for the next day. Valanna and the two drivers sat by themselves. A few of the villagers had decided to continue to drink. The innkeeper washed mugs and tankards behind the counter, but her demeanor had changed during Valanna’s story.

  “I heard a different version of your story in Balbaam, Lady Valanna. You were more involved in what went on,” one of the drivers said.

  Valanna put her finger to her lips. “Not here. While in Pestle, the version you heard tonight will suffice. Am I understood?”

  The pair nodded their heads.

  “Good. I’m heading upstairs to my room.”

  Valanna heard the slap of a key on the counter.

  “Third one on the right. It’s our best,” the woman said. “I’ll be pleased to have you spend the night with us for free. You do know Esmera in Pestledown?”

  Valanna nodded. “I celebrated Trak’s fifteenth birthday in his room above her stable. It seems like a long time ago.”

  “It does indeed. I served in the kitchen of the Looking Inn at the time. You really are Trak’s friend. I’m sorry I doubted it all, even your fanciful story, but now I’m sure you are who you say who you are.”

  ~

  Valanna looked out at the angry sea. She didn’t like the feel of Herring’s Bone, where she parted ways with her drivers, and had to wait three days for a suitable ship to dock. Her stomach didn’t take kindly to the ship’s bobbing on the waves, but this voyage was nothing compared to her others.

  When the ship sighted Pestledown, Valanna wondered how far Trak had been out from the city when he jumped into the ocean. His first spell had been to defend himself from a shark in these very waters. She wondered what kind of sharks she would confront while she swam for information in Pestledown.

  Asem seemed to think that the unrest in Balbaam might have originated in Pestledown, not the other way around. Either way, she had to come up with enough intelligence to justify the King’s public release of Asem and Kulara.

  After the ship docked, Valanna found a carriage and took it to Esmera’s The Looking Inn. Valanna would start by contacting Coffun Cricket, who worked for Podor Feely, the spy Asem suspected of now working for the anti-Marom faction.

  The late-fall weather made the city dull and dreary. The current drizzle made the colors of the buildings look faded and caused the citizens of Pestle’s capital city to scurry around. She didn’t feel like being outside and felt a shock of relief when her carriage finally turned into The Looking Inn’s stable yard.

  She looked around the yard and noticed that Trak’s old quarters were dark. With a sigh of memories past, she walked through the double doors and into the dining room of the inn. Esmera stood marking up some paper behind a standing desk.

  “It has been a long time, Esmera Walkabout,” Valanna said.

  Esmera didn’t immediately recognize her. Valanna was older and dressed more maturely than when she was last in Pestledown. Valanna smiled when Esmera realized who she was.

  “Valanna…”

  “Almond. Valanna Almond. As I said it’s been a long time. I’m here to stay in Pestledown for a while and wondered if you had a room to rent. I noticed that Trak’s old room above the stable was dark. Is it available? I’ve got warm memories of the times Trak and I spent studying there.”

  Esmera narrowed her eyes. “It’s available, but we will have to have a bit of a talk before that happens.”

  “My luggage is on your porch, so I hope it won’t take too long,” Valanna said.

  “It is time for tea. Would you share some with me in my office?”

  Valanna smiled. “Certainly.” She followed Esmera to her office and sat on the offered leather overstuffed chair.

  “You are still a spy for Warish?” Esmera didn’t waste any time.

  “I am a spy for King Marom of Warish, yes, but there are now other factions, and I’m here to find out what is happening in Pestledown.”

  Esmera rubbed her chin with the back of her hand when a maid served them tea and left. “That would explain a few things.” She turned her chair towards the window and looked away from Valanna. “Crustwillow, our King, has been acting oddly, and we wondered why.”

  “Truthfully, I am not here to prepare for an invasion,” Valanna said. “I only seek to clarify the Warish position. I will share what I find with you and ask nothing other than a room above the stable and any information that you voluntarily think might be useful for me to know. If there is anything that isn’t to our mutual benefit, feel free to keep it to yourself.”

  Esmera turned to Valanna. “You know I am a member of the Pestlan underground.”

  Valanna nodded her head. “It’s not even a rebellion. I faced one of those in Santasia.”

  “You were in Santasia during their revolution. I just learned, not too long ago, that it was over.”

  “It is. I’ll give you a very detailed version if we come to an agreement.”

  Esmera smiled. “I always liked you. Trak liked you, and that made me very disappointed when you left him abruptly.”

  “I was called back to Balbaam at the time. I would hardly call myself a spy then, just a naive observer more than anything else.”

  “I can appreciate that. I think you have a deal. Who will you be seeing first?”

  “Coffun Cricket, if he is still around.”

  Esmera frowned. “He’s not a Warish spy like you, I know that for certain.”

  “No, but he works for one. Podor Feely is and seems to have gone over to the other side, whatever or whoever that is. That’s what I’m trying to find out. I will say this, any faction that comes to power in Warish will not treat Pestle as benignly as King Marom intends to.”

  Esmera waved her hand, dismissing Valanna’s comment. “How can I believe that?”

  “You can’t, but I’m not asking that
you do. We can discuss our impressions of the Warishian campaign another time.”

  Esmera stood. “Friendly enemies then?” She thrust out her hand.

  Valanna took it and shook the innkeeper’s hand firmly. “At least.”

  ~

  Valanna took a meal in the dining room while Esmera’s maids cleaned Trak’s old rooms. She followed two stableboys carrying her bags up the stairs and along the covered walkway that led to the small suite.

  She took a deep breath after the boys left and marveled that it still smelled like she remembered. The rooms consisted of a bathroom with water closet, separate bedroom, and a large room for cooking and living. A little porch had been added off of the main room facing the alley.

  The rooms weren’t decorated with a woman’s touch, but Valanna didn’t mind. She had had enough of silks and luxuries in Balbaam. This room seemed more real to her than the tower.

  After unpacking, she lifted up the false bottom of one of her bags and pulled out Trak’s portfolio and pre-addressed letters to common locations in Balbaam where they would be quickly forwarded to Asem. She remembered Trak showing her where he kept the beginnings of the portfolio and found that it still could be used. She tucked Trak’s work away before she started to unpack.

  Valanna had no idea how long she would be in Pestledown, but she figured she would be using the rooms for at least a month.

  She jumped at knocking on her door and felt her heart speed up. She clenched her fists and refused to act so skittishly. The knock repeated and Valanna opened the door. “Coffun Cricket, just the man I wanted to see. Come in.”

  The little old man quickly entered her room and let her close the door behind him.

  “You are in danger in Pestledown,” he began without even saying hello.

  “I know that,” Valanna said. “I have a mission to find out a few things, and then I’ll be back to Balbaam.”

  “Promise?” Coffun took a seat at the table where Trak and she had gone over their tutoring sessions.

  “I promise. If you want to be so abrupt, what is Feely up to?”

  Coffun laughed. “I don’t want to be so abrupt. Let’s change the subject. What are you up to? Esmera gave me some hints, like your continued allegiance to Warish.”

  “I’ll be as honest with you as I was to her.” Valanna told Coffun much the same story she had told Esmera. “I’m not here to advance the interests of Warish, but to protect King Marom.”

  “Why do you think your king needs protection?”

  “Revolution is bursting out on all the continents. I don’t know who, but it is not King Marom. He has a long-term interest in Pestle, but that is where his ambitions end, as far as I know.”

  “So you don’t know everything.” Coffun spoke it as a declaration.

  “Of course I don’t, do you?”

  Valanna’s retort took Coffun aback. “You aren’t quite the same girl who left us four years ago.”

  “I’m not, but I would guess you are pretty much the same.”

  That brought a smile to Coffun’s face. “You are pretty much right, my Lady. Let us suppose that King Marom is interested in a simple takeover of Pestle—”

  “He doesn’t seek a revolution or a violent overthrow. King Marom and his father, before that, have tried to engineer a soft invasion, changing the minds and hearts of Pestlans, so he could rule Pestle better than King Harl Crustwillow.”

  Coffun snorted. “It wouldn’t take much.”

  “He would increase trade and permit magic to be used in Pestle again. Would that hurt you very much?”

  “No.” Coffun ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Esmera called you a friendly enemy? I won’t tell you where my allegiances lie, but I think we are aligned well enough for your mission here.”

  Valanna let out her breath. She hadn’t realized how much tension she had been feeling during their meeting. “I’m not very adept at this, but I am especially worried that Vashta is poking around and causing trouble here.”

  “Ha!” Coffun barked. He sat back and folded his arms. “We are in precise agreement. I’ve suspected another foreign agent, and I’m glad that you have disclosed that you think it is Vashta.”

  “I fought them in Santasia.” She hadn’t told Coffun details on the last battle at first, but did then.

  He nodded his head in thought. “I’ll help you as much as I can. As for Podor, whoever is controlling him now is not very sophisticated.”

  “Could the Vashtans be using a few intermediaries?” Valanna said.

  “Undoubtedly, but who?”

  Valanna clapped her hands, startling the older man. “That is my mission. I return when I find out.”

  Coffun steepled his fingers together, grinned, and leaned closer to Valanna. “Then let’s discover them together.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Seven

  ~

  TRAK LEANED AGAINST THE WALL OF THE MINESHAFT after showing Jojo how he exercised using sword forms. Sweat glistened off of his brow. He handed the broken shovel handle that he used as a practice sword to Jojo. They had been exchanging stories for the past three weeks with Trak doing most of the talking.

  “You use the same technique in magician duels?” Jojo said, taking the stick and waving it in the air.

  “I use poses rather than the sword forms. I learned how to make them flow together. I fought another magician who had also mastered the technique.”

  Jojo looked down at the handle in his hand and then up at Trak. “You won, obviously.”

  “No. When we both used the technique we fought to a draw. He was the most powerful magician on Cokasan. We beat each other up pretty well.”

  “Then how did you defeat him?”

  Trak took the handle from Jojo’s grasp. “With this. I used the sword as a focus for my energies, like one would a wand. I knocked him out of his defensive pose and cut off his feet.”

  Jojo’s eyes grew. “You didn’t kill him? That was a mistake. He can fashion false feet and pose again.”

  “But a single pose. You need two good feet to rapidly move through the forms.”

  “Still a mistake, Trak. Deadly enemies have to be dead. You may meet him again.”

  “I might, but I wasn’t in the mood to kill, actually I’m never in the mood to kill.”

  Jojo sat down on the dirt floor. “But you have, a number of times, so you told me.”

  Why did his new friend have to bring that up? “I can only bring myself to kill others, if their deaths will save even more. That’s how I feel, and I’m not ashamed of it.” Trak paced the floor of the mineshaft and picked up a handful of iron ore from the full cart. “I haven’t hesitated to act.”

  Jojo’s eyebrow went up. “A justification?”

  “No.” Trak suppressed the urge to growl at where Jojo was inevitably heading. Trak had gone through the same line of thinking time and time again. He was too soft. He would be too tentative in a crisis. He was a coward. The cowardice possibility stung the most, but Trak didn’t consider himself a coward. However, he realized that was how he appeared to others. Tembul had even admitted it. ‘I act when the time comes,’ Trak always said when he justified his position.

  “Leadership is more than acting immediately. You claim to have read strategic documents, right? Leaders plan the battles of their armies in advance. Death comes in battle, therefore they plan the deaths of their soldiers before the soldiers die. Is that moral in your eyes?” Jojo looked up at Trak.

  “That’s different.”

  “No different at all,” Jojo shook his head. “If you wish to fight the Vashtans, the men and women in your army will face death as you have already personally faced death a number of times. Fighting a bloodless battle is an impossibility. Even when you parlayed with the Kandannans, lives were lost. You had to kill the magicians and the leaders.”

  “In order to save the rest of their army.”

  “But death occurred. I can see the reasons to minimize deaths, but victory inevitab
ly comes at a cost. You always have to assume there are no easy battles.”

  Trak sat down across from Jojo in the mineshaft. “Why do you talk of battles when you are a magician?”

  Jojo bowed his head and lifted it up again. “Because I was the Director of Defense of Bennin’s Central Committee. You would probably call me a General in Santasia. We fought with magic and with swords. I never learned how to use a sword well, since I could always rely on magic.”

  “Why did they let you go?” Trak said.

  Spreading his arms out wide, he said, “Does this look like they let me go? They thought to condemn me to spend the rest of my life doing heavy labor was worse than death, so I could contemplate my ‘sins’. They should have killed me just as you should have killed Riotro, the Black Master, right?”

  Trak nodded.

  “However, I am past wanting to make them pay. I just want Bennin back. I want magic back into our people’s lives. The bandits that preyed upon your caravan? That is a recent curse to our country, thanks to our feckless Emperor. A single magician would have ended their feeble attempts at thievery. I live to see my country made safe again. I can’t see how I can do that and worry about saving the lives of Bennin’s enemies.”

  Trak felt about twelve years old while he took in what Jojo said. He thought of personal perspective and remembered something that Misson Dalistro had said. ‘Generals succeed when they grasp the biggest picture possible. When their vision encompasses all action and reaction, stroke and counterstroke, they rise above their peers. It’s all there.’ Mission waved to the shelves of military histories in his library in Espozia. Trak had only read a fraction of them. But Misson had called most of them a documentation of mistakes and justifications for defeat.

  He knew he had all the tools he needed to take care of himself, but he had been put in positions of leading others and could now see how he might have let them down, disastrously, if he hadn’t been able to use his talents.

  “Can you teach me more about your concept of strategy? I thought I knew what one of my tutors taught me, but perhaps I lacked sufficient perspective then to really understand him.”