Magician In Captivity: Power of Poses - Book Three

by Guy Antibes

  ~

  “I refuse to travel with a dead body,” Princess Pullia said, lifting her chin.

  “Fine. You will ride with the Vashtans. Mori will be there as your, uh, chaperone.”

  Hana had already expressed her strong desire to fly apart from the princess.

  All of them stood by their respective flyers. Sirul, Trak, Tembul, Hana and Boriak’s body were to ride in one flyer and Ferikan, Markik, Mori and the princess traveled with Lenis’s slumbering form in the other. Trak didn’t think that the princess would lower herself to create wind in a pose, so he taught Ferikan the lift spells.

  They all climbed aboard, and Trak nodded to Ferikan. The two flyers lifted thirty stories into the air. All three of the women shrieked, Mori and Hana in fear, and, surprisingly, Princess Pullia squealed with delight and clapped her hands.

  Trak nodded to Ferikan, and they both assumed wind poses, although Trak didn’t have to, and flew out over the roofs of Beniko. Soon they left the capital city far behind. Even the castle, as tall as it was, fell from sight.

  After a morning of flying, Markik pointed to a clearing in the vast expanse of jungle. They landed both flyers, and everyone sought out the jungle for a bit. Ferikan and Markik carried Boriak’s body with them and after a half hour, they returned with grim faces. Trak had asked to go with them, but both immediately declined.

  They took off again and flew until dusk. Tembul took Trak’s place, and Markik proved himself to be sufficiently adept with the wind spell.

  Once they had eaten a meal that Mori prepared, the jungle sounds began to increase, but not enough to keep nine weary travelers from falling into deep sleeps.

  ~

  The next morning, Princess Pullia asked Ferikan if she could propel the flyer.

  “You can always put her to sleep and invoke the worry spell,” Trak said. “It will let the flyer float down gently,”

  Ferikan nodded, but Trak could tell his counsel hadn’t eliminated Ferikan’s skittishness.

  “She is not a nice person,” Ferikan said.

  “We all know that. Now that Boriak has been seen to,” Trak didn’t know what the Vashtans did to Boriak’s body, “she can fly with me in the afternoon, and you can take Hana and Sirul.”

  That made Ferikan relax.

  Princess Pullia kept to herself and, in the afternoon she shifted over to Trak’s flyer. She snorted at Sirul and Hana when they passed her. Trak felt that he could always pay more attention to Mori if the princess became too much of a bore. The princess’s good behavior didn’t last.

  “I won’t spend another night on the ground,” the princess said to Trak. “I won’t, and you will arrange for me to sleep in a proper bed tonight.”

  Trak wanted to protest, but the princess stood by his side and pointed out the roofs of a city not too far ahead. He signaled to Ferikan to stop. They glided to a stop in the air.

  Ferikan leaned over the flyer’s railing.

  “The princess demands a bed tonight. We can put the flyers down and walk to an inn.”

  Ferikan conferred with those in his group. “We will guard the flyers and keep Lenis asleep. You can take her into the city.”

  Trak nodded. He didn’t like the schism in the travelers that the princess caused, but at this point, he wanted to avoid the woman screaming at him all the way to Kizru.

  ~

  The city seemed on edge to Trak. People scurried from place to place. No one seemed to want to talk to them. When they reached the center of town, Trak spotted a fancy inn. Jojo had given them plenty of Benninese coins when they had left, so Trak really didn’t worry about cost.

  Princess Pullia stayed silent. She had at least put on the nondescript clothing that Mori had provided.

  They entered an inn, and Trak walked up to the little booth where he could secure a room.

  “Rooms for four,” he said.

  “Just about filled up with scared merchants.”

  Trak wondered about that. “What’s the matter?”

  “Riots in Homiko. If you are headed north, I suggest you think again,” the innkeeper said.

  “You probably haven’t heard, but birds have gone out to most cities with the news of a coup in Beniko. Homiko has a large number of merchants and bureaucrats loyal to the Emperor. It’s not safe in the city.”

  “But we want to sail to Amorim,” Trak said.

  “Won’t be a ship in that port for a month or more. I heard the rioters burned all the piers.”

  Trak’s vision of a quick exit from Bennin had just evaporated. “I’ve got to head north.”

  “I suppose you could head directly east to Paloa. There is a port—“

  “Lalalo,” Mori said. “I know of it. Not our best option. There are few ships coming and going to that port, but we might get lucky.”

  “Right. Most of the traffic out of Paloa heads for ports in southern Warish, Pestlan, and Sesta. If you are worried about catching a ship, there might be more using Lalao with Homiko closed. You could travel overland to Amorim via Balbaam. Might save you a lot of time, if the ships stay away from Homika for a while.”

  Trak looked at Mori, who nodded. “Thank you for the information. Now about those rooms?”

  “I have two left. The women can share a room, and you three can have a room with two beds. That’s all I have.”

  Trak settled up with the innkeeper, and the five of them ate a cooked meal in the dining room.

  “At least the food is decent,” Mori said.

  It was apparent the princess disagreed, but she had the good sense to maintain her silence after a glare from Mori.

  Trak didn’t much like the hard bed, virtually sleeping on the floor, but the princess seemed content enough to eat her breakfast quietly by herself in the dining room before they left.

  After conferring with Ferikan and Mori, Trak decided to head east. It would take them a day and maybe a bit more to travel to Lalalo. A spine of mountains separated the countries of Paloa and Bennin. Bennin enjoyed a humid climate, but once over the mountains, Paloa was very different from the jungle-covered Bennin. Trak wondered if the Arid Lands were drier than this country. Grasses covered the descending plains that flowed towards the Southern Sea. Trees dotted the land in clumps, and they could see herd animals covering large areas of the plains.

  Villages popped up from time to time. The houses were mostly circular affairs with yellowish thatched roofs radiating from a hole in the center. Trak could see smoke flowing up from a few of those holes. Mori said that the land wasn’t good for much in Paloa, and Bennin’s bureaucracy had no interest in annexing the land.

  They spent the night among a cluster of towering trees rising straight up from the plains and then fanning into canopies. Tembul remarked how he had never seen such trees before.

  Just before midday, Trak noticed a bluish tinge along the horizon, and soon they came to the coast. Mori figured that they would have to follow the coast north to run into Lalalo, and within an hour, they could see the harbor in the distance.

  With only two ships in the harbor, Trak’s hopes for a quick departure plummeted. This time, only Mori and Trak entered Lalalo’s harbormaster office, little more than a large hut.

  “No departures for two weeks at least,” the grizzled dark-skinned man said to Mori. “We are waiting on a harvest of kakle nuts. The two ships in the harbor will be heading to Sesta.

  Trak had no idea what kakle nuts were, and stalked out of the office frustrated that he had to refuse booking the passage on one of the two ships that Mori urged. He stood at the breakwater and looked out to sea, thinking of alternatives until he found one.

  “We’ll buy some canvas and make a cover for the flyers,” he said to Mori. “I’ll take us across the ocean to Warish.”

  “We can’t fly that far. We’ll all be exhausted before we reach the other side.”

  Trak shook off Mori’s objection. “I’ll teleport from horizon to horizon, but we will have to physically connect the two flyers to do
that, and if we have to go through rain, I don’t want our possessions ruined.”

  Mori stood looking at Trak. “You really think you can do it?”

  He nodded. “If the double flyer begins to dip after a jump, we will need a magician to take it back up to at least twenty stories.” Trak looked at Mori and saw the doubt in her expression. “Why don’t we do this? We can do a test jump at one story above the ground. If it fails, we wait.”

  She looked relieved. “It is a deal,” she said. “Let’s get provisions, including plenty of waterskins.”

  ~

  Thanks to Sirul’s construction skills, the two flyers looked like they would hold together as one long platform. Trak thought of the thing as the deck of a ship. The canvas cover stretched from the railing to a peak held up by poles that Sirul had attached to the decks of the flyers. Tembul had fashioned holes in the canvas to allow them to look where they were going. There was an opening in the front and in the back.

  Tembul and Ferikan took the craft up and flew it around for a few minutes, and then lowered the big flyer to the ground.

  “We can use two magicians to push the flyer, if we need to. One just won’t take us very far before he is exhausted,” Ferikan said.

  “There are five of us strong enough to do that,” Trak said, but let’s test out teleporting. Everybody get aboard."

  Everyone except Princess Pullia pitched in, loading everything, including Lenis’s sleeping and trussed-up form into the flyer. Tembul took it up thirty stories and looked at Trak, who stood looking out the front.

  “I thought we agreed to keep it to one story,” Trak said.

  Tembul looked solemnly at Trak. “I believe in you.”

  Trak put his hand on Tembul’s shoulder. “Very well, everyone hold on. Tembul, prepare yourself to bring us back to the right height." Trak concentrated on a spot in the air a league away and made the teleportation happen.

  He looked down at the changed landscape. The flyer maintained altitude, and Trak didn’t feel drained at all.

  “I guess we can go now,” Trak said. Everyone nodded, including Princess Pullia, who had held on tightly to Mori’s hand. Had she been that afraid? Trak didn’t think anyone was as anxious as he, but perhaps everyone felt a bit of relief after the trial.

  He began to teleport. He tried to jump all the way to the horizon, but that didn’t work, so he cut the jump in half, in his mind, and that seemed to work just fine. They began to jump their way across the ocean. Trak consulted with Tembul and Mori, who seemed to have the best sense of direction.

  They stopped in the middle of a squall and rested high above the waters. Trak didn’t care if the wind blew them off course a bit since their target of hitting the shores of Warish was huge. Until Trak sat down, he didn’t realize how drained he had become. He lay down and closed his eyes.

  Trak opened his eyes again in darkness. Everyone slept around him. He stood and looked out the window at the open sea below. The calm water reflected the light of the moon, making the surface shimmer from his vantage point. As he looked at the moon, he found the bearing that he needed, and keeping the moon in the same place, he began to make more jumps. By the time he could see the edge of dawn, he looked down at the shore of Warish far below. He had no idea where they were, so he continued to jump until he saw the smudge of a village ahead.

  Lowering the flyer to three stories, he shortened his jumps and landed in a cluster of stunted trees. The craft landed with a thump, and that woke up his fellow travelers.

  “We have arrived?” Sirul said.

  “We have,” Trak said, trying to rub away the intense pain in his forehead. He took a few steps to get some water and collapsed, falling on the still sleeping form of Princess Pullia.

  ~

  Trak turned and opened his eyes and saw the beautiful face of princess Pullia smiling at him, twirling his hair in her fingers.

  “Our hero awakes!” she said.

  Trak sat up, his face burning. “Where are we?”

  “Halfway to Balbaam,” Tembul said. “Ferikan speaks a little Warish and found out where we were in the Arid Lands. We waited for you to wake up before deciding what to do.”

  Trak bowed to the princess, who gave him another smile. What caused the change in her demeanor? He didn’t know if he would rather have her friendly than unpleasant. Her beauty couldn’t help but make him blush, and that made him think of Valanna. He looked at his bags. Valanna’s silk dress was tucked away in there. Trak realized that he didn’t know if he would ever get to Balbaam again and decided that he had to take the opportunity to visit Valanna, even if it meant that he had to leave their party.

  “I have someone I have to see in the capital city,” Trak said. “You can continue on to Amorim. Just fly northwest to the Pusuun River and follow it all the way to the sea. I’ll probably be there before you are.”

  “Valanna?” Tembul said.

  Trak nodded.

  “Go, boy. You might not get another chance.”

  “You have enough supplies?” Trak said.

  “We do, thanks to your impressive all night teleporting.” Mori winked at Trak and tossed his pack to him. “Take what you need.”

  He dug out his black Benninese cloak, Valanna’s package, and took a smaller purse with gold coins. He had never been in a place where a gold coin wasn’t worth at least something.

  “I’ll see you in Amorim,” Trak said. He walked outside the flyer and teleported leagues away.

  ~~~

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ~

  VALANNA SCURRIED IN THE DARK OF NIGHT through the streets of Balbaam, hurrying back to the palace. She chided herself for drinking alcohol before venturing out from the tavern into the city. After shaking her head to clear it in the crisp air, she continued her journey to the palace. By the time she reached the palace, Valanna felt a stab of fear in her stomach when she realized that she strolled unchallenged through the palace gate. Something was definitely wrong.

  A pair of hands held her arms to her side and lifted her up.

  “No posing for you,” the voice said. Her feet were quickly bound together, and she struggled unsuccessfully to get free.

  Her captors took her around the side of the palace to an obscure door she had never been through before and took her down a flight of steps. Valanna knew her next stop would be in a dungeon, that is, if she wasn’t killed outright. She gasped for air as the implications of her capture took her breath away.

  She tried to flail, but the bonds were too tight. After descending down stair after stair for what seemed like forever, a door opened, and her captors tossed her on the floor.

  “I see you have returned,” Asem said in the darkness. “I hope dinner was adequate.”

  “Huh?” Kulara must have been asleep.

  “What of the King?” Valanna said.

  “What of me?” King Marom’s voice only made her fear grow.

  “They haven’t killed us yet,” Asem said. “So as long as I breathe, there is hope.”

  “So long as I live, you have a chance to keep your head,” Marom said, his voice ominous with implication.

  Valanna shook her head. She breathed deeply for a bit and found she could struggle to a sitting position. “I discovered that the traitors were in the castle or close to it.”

  “You can count that as a fact,” King Marom said, drily. “All we need now is an army to eliminate them and free us.”

  Valanna thought of Trak and yearned to see him before the traitors executed her.

  ~

  Trak stood across the Pusuun River from Balsam looking at twinkling lights of the sleeping city. He had arrived before midnight and wondered if he should wait until morning before he entering the city. He found that teleporting alone, without the weight of the loaded flyers, gave him the ability to easily go from horizon to horizon.

  What would the city guard do to a Pestlan wandering around? Trak only knew a few words of Warishian, but maybe he could claim he was a Colca
n, although his blond hair would betray that assertion, and he looked nothing like a Vashtan. Perhaps night might be the best time.

  He took a series of quick jumps, including one from a few hundred paces in front of the closed city gate to the square beyond, just visible in the moonlight. He could sense tension in the city, like he had in the Benninese town, but wouldn’t be able to find out what had happened from a Warishian. There were few people in the streets, so he jumped towards the palace. Valanna had told him that was where Prince Asem was instructed to report.

  Guards patrolled the areas closer to the King’s residence, keeping Trak to small jumps. He looked across a square at six guards lined up in front of the open palace gate. That didn’t do anything to intimidate him, so he jumped on the other side and ran to the edge of the palace wall. He remembered Asem saying something about a north tower. Trak had no idea where else to go, so he made his way around the palace ground to a tower on the northwest side of the palace. The door inside was unguarded, so he slipped in.

  A guard challenged Trak speaking Warishian. Trak stopped and raised his hands. He could defend himself well enough with his magic, but in his haste to leave the others, he had left his sword behind with the flyer.

  “Do you speak Pestlan?” Trak said.

  “A Pestlan, here?” the voice said. The challenge had left the voice. “Who do you seek?”

  “Valanna Almond. Does she live in this tower?”

  “Did,” The guard said. The man lit a flame in a tinderbox and used it to start a lamp. Trak noticed at once that the man wasn’t an ordinary guard. “I am Captain Mizor, an ally of Prince Asem. I guard his empty tower as penance for my loyalty.”

  An ally? What had happened in Balbaam? “My name is Trak Bluntwithe.”

  “Valanna’s friend?”

  Trak nodded. “Fresh from Bennin. I brought this for her. He opened his cloak and pulled out the package containing the silk dress.

  “I’m afraid she won’t be able to accept it,” Mizor said.

  “I came all this way,” Trak said, and regretted sounding like he whined.