Magician In Captivity: Power of Poses - Book Three

by Guy Antibes

  “A coup has taken place, and Valanna, Asem, Kulara, and others of the King’s Court loyal to King Marom have been imprisoned.”

  “I can rescue her.”

  “That’s quite brash, even for the hero of the Santasia Civil War.”

  “I had help.”

  “So I heard,” Mizor said. “I can’t get past all of the guards, even if I wanted to.”

  The urge to save Valanna overtook Trak’s thoughts. “I can. Where are the dungeons?”

  “Do you think you can free them?” Mizor said.

  Trak nodded. “I’ll do what I can, if you can guide me.”

  “Follow and don’t say a word. Someone speaking Pestlan will likely be captured or killed immediately.”

  “Even if I’m from Colcan?” Trak said.

  “Anyone with power, too.”

  Trak followed Mizor and said nothing.

  The Captain stopped in front of a door and cursed in Warishian. “Locked, and the key is guarded on the other side of the palace,” Mizor whispered in Trak’s ear. “If you can get through there, then I will happily join you in your efforts to free the King.”

  “It’s not King Marom I’m concerned about,” he said, while standing in front of the door and working the mechanism. The locks in Balbaam were obviously a bit more sophisticated than those in Bennin, but he soon lifted the latch. “Good. Then no one will suspect we’re inside.” Trak took Mizor by the arm and pulled him inside.

  Mizor looked at Trak in amazement. “I thought they were exaggerations. I am yours to command,” Mizor said, grinning.

  “Where to now?” Trak said. “You might have noticed that I’ve learned a few new tricks. That was one of the simple ones.”

  Trak spelled a light that helped them quickly descend until they spotted another light coming from around a corner.

  “No friends ahead?” Trak said.

  Mizor shook his head. Trak slid up to the corner and peeked around it. Five guards sat around a table. Three played cards, and the other two snored with the heads on the table. The guards who were awake had put snacks on the sleeper’s heads and were munching from little piles heaped on the slumberer’s skulls.

  Trak put them all to sleep and slipped a sword from the scabbard of one of the guards. “This is an awful blade. I didn’t think I’d need my own,” he said as he let Mizor lead again. The tableau played out twice more. They searched the cells without finding Valanna until Mizor told Trak they might be held on the bottom level, where Mizor thought the King would likely be.

  Taking a set of keys from the last guard station, Trak tried them all, opening all of the cells. Men staggered out into the hallway. The fourth cell revealed Valanna, Asem, Kulara, and King Marom all tied up, lying or sitting on the floor, except for the King, who had managed to stand and lean against the wall.

  “I assume you would like to be rescued?” Trak said, lighting up his face by making the mage light stronger.

  “You assume correctly,” Asem said. “And welcome to Balbaam.”

  “I brought a souvenir from Bennin for Valanna, but I think it’s an inappropriate time to present it to her.”

  “You can talk directly to me,” Valanna said. Trak and Mizor bent down and began untying their bonds.

  Kulara rubbed her wrists and looked particularly vengeful. Valanna took Trak in her arms and gave him a long kiss. Trak’s head spun from their embrace and the implication behind it.

  “I thought I would never see you again,” she said breathlessly, letting him hold her in his arms.

  “Same here, but as I was passing by, I thought I would visit,” Trak said and kissed her again. She pushed him away. “There’s not time for any more. We have a kingdom to save.”

  “Indeed,” King Marom said, finally standing, and addressed the Captain in Warishian. “Mizor, why did you untie me last?”

  The Captain bowed deeply to his monarch. “Forgive me, sire.”

  Marom just grunted and pushed past them into the corridor.

  “How did you make it all the way down here?” Marom said, looking up at the ceiling of the corridor.

  Trak didn’t understand any of the conversation in Warishian between the King and Mizor, but he thought he figured out what the King was saying.

  “I guess I can help get you all out,” Trak said. “Do you want to take the long way or the short way out of here?”

  They all looked at Trak uncomprehendingly.

  “I can take you to the base of Asem’s tower.”

  “They are all my towers,” Marom said in heavily accented Pestlan.

  Trak shrugged. “Do you want all of these people with you?”

  Marom picked out his fighters and told the rest that they would be safer in the dungeon.

  “Get ready,” Trak said and teleported six people to the tower where he had met Mizor.

  The Captain knew whom the King wanted and returned with Trak until twenty-two people had gathered, whispering in a language that Trak couldn’t understand.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?” Asem said. “I couldn’t even figure out your pose.”

  Trak just shrugged again. He figured that he would be doing a lot of shrugging for the next few hours. “Something I picked up working in the mines of a prison camp in Bennin.”

  “Prison camp!” Valanna said, putting her hand to her mouth in alarm.

  “I had a few unwanted adventures.”

  “Did you save your princess?” Asem said.

  “She’s not mine, but she is on her way to Amorim. I can tell you later.”

  “We will be back,” Kulara said taking Valanna’s hand and running up the stairs of their tower.

  Trak tried to talk to King Marom, but the King ignored him, so Trak took Asem aside. “What does the King intend to do?”

  “Kill everyone who opposes him. That’s what king’s do when challenged.”

  “He won’t listen to me?”

  Asem put his hand on Trak’s shoulder. “You are an enemy in his eyes, but right now you are the enemy of his enemy, so you are tolerated. I wouldn’t push things.”

  “But I can be useful.” Trak said. He looked up the stairway, wanting to follow Valanna to protect her from the violence that would most certainly come.

  “Just wait. You will get your chance, but stay close to me and the girls.”

  “Valanna and Kulara?” Trak said.

  Asem nodded. “The King and his men will talk for far too long before they act. Now that the traitors have come out in the open, we can take the fight to them.” He looked down at the sword Trak still held in his hand. “What is that?”

  Trak looked at the guard’s crude sword that he had taken. “I took it from the dungeon.”

  “Follow me,” Asem said. He ran across a wide hallway and took the branch from a corridor and stepped into a small armory. “Find the weapon you need.”

  Trak walked to a wall filled with swords. He spotted a Santasian blade made a bit narrower than normal, like the one he had practiced with when he trained in Espozia. The scabbard was stacked with others on a low table beneath the display.

  “This one,” The sword that he chose was no guard’s weapon. Trak couldn’t help but smile as he marveled at the balance of the sword in his hand, since it nearly matched his Benninese blade. He imagined all the weapons in this room were masterpieces.

  “Good choice. Now we need to return,” Asem said, as they were soon joined by Asem’s people seeking suitable weapons.

  Once they left the armory, Trak heard the sounds of fighting. Asem rushed past him, his sword now bare. Trak did the same, but he didn’t know who was an enemy or a friend. He observed Asem fighting against two men and stepped in to take on one of Asem’s opponents.

  The fight was evenly matched until Trak began to use the worry spell and got a better sense of whom he needed to fight. The clothing on the men incarcerated, quite frankly, smelled worse than others, but that helped him determine enemy from foe. Trak looked around the large hallway a
t the bottom of Asem’s tower and began to administer the sleep spell to Asem’s enemies as they clashed. Soon, only King Marom’s men stood. They all breathed heavily, and some dripped blood on the floor.

  “You did that?” King Marom said. “Stay close to me.”

  Asem winked at Trak as he followed the King deeper into the palace.

  A hand slipped into Trak’s. He looked over at her. She mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,’ He said. “You got my letter?”

  She nodded and smiled. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” He smiled back and squeezed her hand. Suddenly all was right with the world, and the uncertainty that he felt in Amorim seemed to melt away.

  “Quiet,” the King said. He turned and glared at Trak while he stalked deeper into the palace.

  Trak let Marom move ahead before he told Kulara and Valanna, “Use worry where you can. It might save lives.”

  Kulara nodded. “We know.”

  The King stopped at the entrance to a large domed entry hall. Trak had no idea how the palace had been laid out.

  “Have you already sent a message to your Vashtan friends?” the King said to Valanna.

  “I have,” she said. “They should be joining us any moment.”

  Marom nodded and sent men to guard the entry points to the hall and began to confer with Asem and a few others who looked like desert people.

  “Vashtans? I hope they are Blue Swans,” Trak said.

  Kulara and Valanna looked at Trak with astonished faces. “You know about them?”

  “I am taking two of them with me to Torya. We eliminated the Yellow Fox clan in Beniko.”

  “There is a group of Blue Swans living in Balbaam. I ran into some in the Arid Lands,” Valanna said. “I can’t believe you know about them.”

  “I took them out of the Beniko Castle dungeons, just like I did you.”

  “With the princess?” Valanna said.

  Trak shook his head. “The Emperor treated her like royalty, and she lived in the Emperor’s quarters at the top of the castle.”

  “I think we have a lot to talk about,” Valanna said.

  Trak smiled at another squeeze. This was how he had dreamed Valanna would react when she met him. Perhaps she wasn’t ready in Santasia when they fought, but now?

  “Our lives are still complicated,” he said.

  “They are indeed.” Valanna looked up at him. “You’ve grown a bit taller and, uh, wider.” She colored a bit when she said it.

  “And you are even prettier.”

  Asem walked up and cleared his throat. “Now is not the time for a reunion. Valanna, your Vashtan friends have arrived.”

  Trak followed Asem’s gaze. Eight Vashtans, including two Vashtan women, paced confidently through the corridor and stopped at Valanna.

  “Blue Swan clan?” Trak said. “Do any of you know Ferikan?” He didn’t even know if any of them spoke Pestlan.

  A Vashtan woman nodded. “He is a cousin." A few Vashtans nodded and smirked.

  “I brought him with me out of Bennin. He is on his way to Amorim and then to Torya.”

  “Torya?” the woman brightened. “We’ve never been welcome there before.”

  “He will be. He finished his mission in Bennin.”

  “What about the Yellow Fox clan?” Hope made the woman’s eyes glitter.

  Trak thought she was attractive for a Vashtan. Like Ferikan, these didn’t have the flat noses of the Yellow Foxes, and that made them look better to Trak’s eyes. “They were all killed. There is a new leader of the bureaucracy, Lord Jomio.”

  “You know him?” Asem said.

  “He is a friend, I hope. We served in the mines together. I learned quite a bit from him,” Trak said.

  “I have met him. Intimidating,” Asem said.

  “Silence!” King Marom said through his teeth. He held up his hand while two men ran up to him speaking in Warishian. Trak knew they were agitated.

  “Some of the traitors fled when the palace guards learned Marom has escaped his cell,” Asem said. “They are setting up barriers in front of Marom’s audience hall.

  Trak realized that he would rather fight a coup than a war. There would be fewer innocents pressed into service, he thought. He would do what he could to make this short. He didn’t like Marom at all, but he hated the Yellow Fox clan of the Vashtans. They had upset the world and their threat had to be extinguished.

  “Where is this room?” Trak looked at Valanna and then at Asem.

  “Do you think you can fight them alone?” Asem said. He put his hand to his chin. “You can, can’t you?”

  Trak nodded. “Stay behind me and watch my back. We can use the Vashtans as a rear guard. Tell the King we will go first,” Trak said.

  Asem spoke to the King in Warishian.

  “He says to go ahead and soften them up for him.”

  That was a wise choice of words, Trak thought, since he wouldn’t have to worry about the King countermanding his actions. “Show me the way, but stay behind,” he said to Kulara. “Have everyone use worry on whoever we pass.”

  Kulara nodded. “I told you we know how to do that." Trak smiled at her familiar prickliness. She gave Trak directions. As he walked, he pulled out his sword. He liked the familiar feel to the blade and created a shield with the tip of the sword on the other side of the shield. He continued on to a long, high narrow hall. One side consisted of glass, and the other was decorated with banners. To Trak’s eye, the banners looked barbaric, like he had always thought of Asem’s people. Their path had been deserted until they reached midway.

  An arrow flew through a slit high in the wall and struck Trak in the shoulder. He dipped down, but grit his teeth. Another struck a Vashtan in the back. His fellow Vashtans moved him next to the wall

  “Break the shaft,” he said, blinking away the tears. He could have just been killed. “Have the Vashtans fire bolts through the arrow slits up along the interior wall.”

  Bolts of fire from the Vashtans began to fly. A few of the banners began to burn, but no more arrows flew. Armed men filed into the hallway through a set of ornate double doors and lined up to stop them.

  Trak stopped. He looked behind him. Marom and his men stood at the far end of the hall where they had entered. At least ten paces separated Trak’s group from King Marom. “Make sure no one flanks us. Please, Your Majesty.” Trak heard someone translate for the assembled fighters. He turned.

  “I give you a chance to lay down your arms. You may sue for terms of surrender with your King. I have no idea what the result may be, but if you persist in fighting me, I only can promise your death.”

  Valanna stood at his side. “Do you do that every time?”

  “Every time I can. I can’t make their decisions, but I can give them a warning and a choice. It sits better with me after I have done what I do. Would you tell them the same in Warishian?”

  The men ahead of him didn’t move after Valanna spoke, but a few must have had second thoughts. Trak saw them lower their weapons. He would save them for last.

  Three Vashtans broke through and before they could assume poses, Trak killed them with lightning bolts. Now the traitor ranks began to buckle as Trak began to take aim at those whose faces showed no fear. A few men began to peel off until only a few were left to defend the door. Trak took care of those as a stream of fire flowed from the door and bathed Trak in flames. He expanded the shield so those behind him wouldn’t burn.

  “How do you do that?” Valanna said. “I don’t even see a pose.”

  “My new trick. Poseless magic,” he said quietly in Santasian, so no one else would hear. He walked forward and pointed his sword towards the door. The flames began to ebb, but Trak walked slowly on. He blew the posing Vashtan against a wall and stepped into the audience hall.

  Trak had expected opulence, gilding, paintings, and more tapestries, but simple chairs lined the walls, and at the far end was a throne of dry, gnarled wood. Mar
om expressed his roots from the Arid Lands in this room. Trak could think no more while he was bathed with lightning, flames, and wind. The forces pushed him back a few paces, but he thrust out the tip of the sword and began to eliminate the sources of the magical attacks one by one.

  The traitors, who still outnumbered Marom’s group, began to attack. Trak called water out of the air and then froze the water on the floor. Men slipped and slid into each other before they even reached Trak, while the stream of Marom’s men began filling the room behind him.

  His shoulder blazed in pain, but Trak couldn’t stop yet. He put his hands to his knees, Trak’s right hand still holding the sword forward and the shield still intact as he tried to collect enough strength to end the coup. He stood and began to sway. This was the time for a desperate measure before he passed out. He thrust his sword out and bathed all of Marom’s opponents in fire. The men on the floor began to burn, and the Throne Room became a pyre.

  Trak couldn’t move a muscle. Pain attacked his brain and his shoulder. He fell to the floor, spent. He thought that fainting while fighting was a very bad idea, but the last thing he remembered was the Blue Swan Vashtans rushing forward to make sure their Yellow Fox brethren were dead.

  ~~~

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ~

  WAKING UP BANDAGED WAS NOT TRAK’S IDEA of what would transpire during his visit with Valanna, but he could stand it if every time he woke she held his hand.

  “The coup?” he said.

  “Destroyed. The traitors fought in other areas of the castle, but King Marom is in full control once again. The guards knew they would be dead men if they fought on the traitor’s side once the King walked the halls of his palace again.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “It is midday,” Valanna said.

  Trak wondered if he even wanted to go to Kizru, even with Able and Neel waiting for him. Certainly Tembul delivering Princess Pullia would be enough for the Toryans to release his fathers. He never wanted to leave Valanna’s side again.

  “Where are my clothes?”

  “Bloody, torn, and thrown away,” Valanna said. “We have sturdy clothes in the style of Balbaam ready for you. King Marom has called for a ceremony in two hours. You were commanded to attend, awake or asleep.”