The Apprentice Stone (Shadows of Time Book 1)

by Darrell Newton

  “Sancho!” Francisco jumped up.

  Sancho smiled and held back the shield. “Hungry for more?”

  Thankfully, no one seemed to know what Sancho was talking about except Francisco, who laughed and tried to grab the shield.

  “You know what I want to see?” Mateo asked. “I want to see what our Forger here got from La Grande. I got my scabbard, Sancho his sword, and Goliath here his much-needed helmet, but you—”

  “Yes,” Sancho said, “We know where it is. You have it wrapped in your pack and will not tell any of us.”

  “All in due time, my friends. Now give me back my shield.”

  Without warning, Miyuki heard Angelo’s call through the link. Join me when you can. He gave no proper greeting or update. After eleven days of silence, all she heard was this abrupt command.

  Greetings, sensei. I hope all is well.

  Yes, yes. Come.

  Where?

  A shallow cave over the next hill to the west. Use your oc-lok.

  Oh, you can set a beacon? Are the Key’ari gone? Can I use stealth?

  Yes, yes, and yes if you want to.

  Miyuki slipped into the darkness before Francisco’s conversation finished. Out of the campfire light, she switched into stealth mode, and stepped past the sentries as quietly as she could. With the aid of the beacon to guide her oc-lok, the cave should not be hard to find. The stubby trees at the edge of the campsite gave way to brush that she pushed through. The land sloped up the rock strewn grassy hill. Even with her oc-lok night vision, the way was treacherous. Boulders as tall as trees seemed to punch through the soil.

  She switched on her kinesis implant, and, with her heightened dexterity, she covered the ground quickly. The world slowed, her reaction time decreased, and she became acutely aware of every muscle. She could easily plan the best move five or six steps ahead. More than once coming down the back side of the hill, she found the ground drop out before her. With the speed she was running, if she were not using her kinesis implant, she would have plunged over the edge into darkness. The hill was shaped in a natural terrace of shelf-like drops until it came to one final cliff. When she stood at the cliff’s edge, she couldn’t see the bottom. The beacon showed directly beneath her, not over the edge of the cliff, but underfoot as if she stood on top of it. She moved her foot to be sure she wasn’t stepping on the thumb-sized beacon. Nothing but grass and soil lay underneath. She looked around for Angelo.

  Where is he?

  As she looked down and moved her head from side to side, she noticed the beacon’s indicator in her image moved with her. The beacon was buried underground. How? The soil was not freshly disturbed. She stepped closer to the cliff’s edge. Alongside the cliff’s wall, more than a pole-arm’s distance down, jutted out a wide ledge. Her oc-lok superimposed measurements of distance and angles over the ledge. There seemed to be no easy way to climb down. If she didn’t have kinesis and other bone and ligament strengthening implants, she would break a leg jumping down on the ledge. She quickly calculated the best location, stepped off the cliff, and landed on the ledge in a crouched position.

  The ledge ran along the cliff face for several paces and cut back into the rock in a shallow, wide cave where Angelo stood. He turned off the beacon and slipped it into his pocket. She could only see him in the near darkness with the aid of her oc-lok.

  Before she could greet him properly, he said aloud, “The kings are desperate.” His voice nearly shook with urgency. Even over their incom link, she felt a tremor from his tone. “Both King Pedro of Aragon and King Sancho of Navarre are advising King Alfonso this very hour to retreat.” Angelo paced and combed his fingers through his hair. “Thankfully Alfonso wants to go on.”

  Attributing Angelo’s abruptness to a typical problem of those with froneesis brain implants, Miyuki tried to gently draw her master back to a proper greeting. “When you left me, it was because you could not show your face. You needed—”

  “Oh, yes. The Key’ari.” He waved his hand dismissively. “They left days ago. I can return with you in my own appearance, but we have something this very hour before it’s too late: we must help the Spanish kingdoms. I can’t do this alone. Well, I can, but shouldn’t.”

  Her eyes narrowed. She hadn’t seen Angelo like this before.

  Angelo avoided eye contact as he explained and paced, “Mohammed al Nasir, as you have probably figured out, is luring the Spanish army far away from its supply lines. A sound strategy. He has fortified the only pass through the mountains for ambush. Brilliant. But he kept his main forces on the plains. Not so smart, because the plains give little advantage to his light cavalry but are perfect for the Spanish knights. Why? I’m glad you asked. Because the knight’s—”

  “Is my master not breaking the laws of noninterference?” She had never interrupted him before, but her anger could not be contained. She hoped he felt it over the link, the red-hot burning. This was betrayal.

  He took a step back.

  Yes, he felt it.

  “After I agreed to become Sittiri,” she said, “you kept me from helping my clan against the Taira. I am sure you, Angelo Tenishi-san, remember. Many died that day. I could have saved them. So, are you not breaking the laws of noninterference for the sake of saving your own people?”

  “No.”

  “No? May I remind my master that he has shown his own face to Francisco out of his love for these people? If my master … that means you … if you do not see your error, then I am honor-bound to show you.”

  Angelo had stopped pacing. “Do I need to remind my apprentice who killed my people?” He held his head down. He spoke calmly and paused between phrases. “Indeed, this is the land of my birth, but my kin are a people no more.” He looked her in the eyes. “I do not deny my sentiments or my wanting to help. It is because of this that I have delayed involvement until the very last.” He took a step closer to her. “Do you feel it, Miyuki, feel it in your onyo? A major battle must be engaged soon if the Ox Shalay is to be fulfilled. The One of Six is the hero who falls in battle and the student who trains in slavery. Check for yourself.”

  She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. Perhaps he had seen something she had not. She relaxed and thought of how she would help the Spanish kings in battle. There was no slightly sour taste in the back of her mouth and no sickening feeling in her heart. These were the sensations she got when her onyo had sensed the action would create a rift or deepen the impasuko.

  She thought about doing more than fighting. She envisioned herself standing with the kings at their planning table and giving them strategic advice. This thought gave her a warm feeling of satisfaction. The sensation was not the one she got when she rested after a hard day’s travel. It was more like the wholeness she felt the day after the earthquake when she was sixteen. She had traveled all day through the snowy mountains. The terrain was rough and her fingers red and stiff with the cold. She climbed the hills with her father and seven of his men, all of them and her with heavy packs on their backs. The earthquake had nearly devastated a mountain village and destroyed the only bridge leading to it. When she and her father’s men arrived and opened their packs of provisions, the peasants’ gratitude was overwhelming. If she were to put what she felt then into a phrase, it would be ‘sweet wholeness.’

  She felt sweet wholeness now. Giving advice to the Spanish kings was a strong onyo ‘yes.’

  She opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said, “we should help.”

  Angelo looked up past the cave roof towards the sky. “God of heaven and earth,” he spoke aloud, “we ask for your help in our need with direction and courage.” Miyuki placed her hands together at chest level, palms flat, and agreed with a nod.

  “I wanted to show you something,” Angelo said, “the reason why we met in this cave.”

  He pulled a light from his pocket, and pointed it at the wall. “We can risk a little light,” he said. On the wall were faint hand-painted images in orange, brown, and black stains. The images we
re figures of people and animals with their proportions wrong, but it clearly told the story of a hunt.

  “Are these your people?”

  “No, we lived far to the south, but we called them the Baratos.” He turned the light off. “Yes, Miyuki, your instinct was correct. It is difficult to be here and not want to help, but I could also help the Almohads.”

  “Aren’t they the invaders?”

  “Just over five hundred years ago, yes. But by now, this land is as much theirs as the Castilians or the Aragonese or the Portuguese or any of their kin who descended from the Visigoths that invaded eight hundred years ago and mingled with the Romans. And the Romans were also invaders hundreds of years before them. They took it from the Carthaginians, and the Carthaginians from the people of my time. So, you see, my nostalgia is for naught. I can only fight for specific principles now, not for specific people.”

  “One day,” Miyuki said, “if I recruit and jump forward like you, my people may be so mingled that they may be no more.”

  “Nippon?” He laughed. “I don’t think so. Come, we waste time.”

  He stepped out onto the cliff ledge and must have switched the pod’s stealth mode off. What had appeared to be a boulder on the edge melted and revealed the pod’s interior: a bench that would comfortably seat two—four if needed—with controls on two swing platforms before it.

  “Where are we going?

  “We’ll use our pod and recorders to find a weakness in the Almohad forces.”

  “Tenishi-san, if you give that information to the Spanish kings, it would definitely be a violation.”

  Angelo sighed. “You are correct. But I’m hoping a better answer may present itself.”

  Chapter 29

  Miyuki

  Sierra Morena Mountains

  Local Date: 13 July 1212

  IF HOVERING HIGH ABOVE THE GROUND in a pod was Miyuki’s most exhilarating experience, then hovering at night made it the most frightening, especially the way Angelo flew the pod with abandon. The dimly lit pod controls before her gave her a false sense of security. Beneath her feet, the pod floor was transparent. Her oc-lok superimposed the outline of the cliff and mountain faces with lines representing changes in height. Moving spots of red, orange, or yellow showed body heat of living creatures with their names in Vantu letters above them. Wherever she looked, a closer image of it appeared to her left with more details. The pod had ways to see in the dark and sense the world around it, but Angelo enhanced it by releasing a handful of beetle-like recorders into the air before they left the ground. The pod sent this information to her oc-lok via a wireless link. Her vision was “locked-in” to the pod.

  She saw dots of campfire below her to the south. “Is that the Almohad camp?” she asked. “So many.” Again, before he answered, the close-up display showed the number of human bodies, over eighty thousand. Her heart sank. “Eighty thousand?”

  “We’re at a bad angle. There may be more. As much as I want to fly over Mohammed al Nasir’s army to reconnoiter and drop a few recorders, we should look for an alternate route for the Spaniards.” He looked forward and summoned the pod’s artificial intelligence interface, “C-22.”

  A ghost-like image of a man appeared on the platform with his hands clasped behind his back. The artificial intelligence interface wore an old Avarian43 style dark-blue uniform and looked like an Asian man in his late twenties, of average height and medium build. Miyuki had found him attractive, but wouldn’t admit it.

  “Good evening, Commander Angelo,” C-22 said.

  “Survey the terrain and look for both human and animal foot paths from Alfonso’s camp to al-Nasir’s.”

  C-22 blinked, and on the view-screen, green lines flowed, branched, and converged over the mountains and foothills below at a spot on the cliff face. Angelo moved his hand in a zigzag pattern and said, “Remove all routes that are impassible by wagons.” Five lines remained. “Remove all except the most recently used and most direct.” Only one line remained. “Is there evidence of human traffic on this path? And if so, how long ago?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” C-22 said. This level of analysis requires recorders on-site.”

  “Release recorders.”

  With a barely perceptible click and whir, a small hatch on the pod’s exterior opened and released five recorders. A moment later, the analysis appeared in the close-up image. “This route is not commonly traveled,” the AI reported, “but it appears that one person used it within the last week.”

  Angelo turned to Miyuki and said, “Somebody knows about this pass. We need to find him.”

  “Why?” Miyuki asked. “If the path leads all the way down and horses can traverse it, why not tell the kings ourselves? Are you not in good standing with them?”

  “Nonintervention.”

  “Ah, I see. Nonintervention,” Miyuki said, pleased that Angelo was not flagrantly breaking Sittiri law, only bending it. “You would not tell the kings directly, but would use one of their subjects as your messenger?” She scanned the terrain for anything connected to the path. “So, would those in that cottage on the third rise to the west be the ones who have traveled this path?”

  “Yes! Excellent. That would be them. Well done. You may have the honor of bringing us there.” He switched the pod to be under her control. It lurched, and she corrected the trajectory with a gasp. It was not much of an honor, but Miyuki was pleased to see her sensei was not upset with her for confronting him earlier. She brought the pod down to the north of the modest, stone cottage in a clump of bushes next to a pasture. When they stood up and walked off the platform, C-22 disappeared, and the pod automatically assumed a benign appearance. The platform melted up and covered the seat and controls like a shell and changed texture and color to match the other stone outcroppings on the mountain.

  “We should shift into Castilian colors,” Angelo cast, patting his chest. Both still wore the mantle of Toulouse over their chainmail. “The colors of the Franks are out of fashion of late.”

  She complied and they both appeared as Castilian knights.

  As they walked along a large livestock pen enclosed by a short stone wall, they spooked half a dozen sheep. Their ruckus announced the Sittiri’s presence. The door to the cottage opened, pouring light across the field. A head poked out. A woman’s.

  “Hail, countryman,” Angelo said in Castilian.

  “Which country?” The woman’s voice cracked with sleep. She spoke in Castilian with a slight Arabic accent. “Us mountain folk care naught for lowland kings.” Then she must have seen their armor when they stepped into the light. “Except if they be armed.” The door slammed with her on the other side. “Martin,” she could be heard yelling through the thin walls. “Martin, get up. It’s knights from the north asking for you. Don’t go giv’n them none of our sheep now. Chickens only.”

  The door opened, and out stepped a feral little man in his fourth decade who appeared to be dressed in little more than tattered deer leather.

  Please, Angelo, Miyuki cast, allow me to handle this one alone.

  Very well.

  The shepherd eyed them wearily. “Are you real knights, real knights? Hem?”

  “No,” Miyuki answered, her voice sounding like the husky Sir Mascaro. “We are bandits dressed in costly linen and fine chainmail here to rob a poor shepherd of his rags.”

  The man blinked and then laughed in a high-pitched squeal.

  Angelo glanced at her and cast, Now that was funny.

  “Well, I am called Martin Halaja,” the shepherd said, placing his hand to his gut. “I’ve not had a good laugh from visitors in many months. No, not at all. Not that I’ve had visitors in months either.” He laughed-squealed again. Never had such a soft-spoken man with gentle features immediately put Miyuki’s nerves on edge. “Not in years. Now what you be doing waking a simple shepherd this time of night? My guess is you need provisions for your army down there.” He waved his hand toward Al-Nasir’s army below. “Down there. He, he, hem, yes. Woul
d it be too much to ask for a fair price? Or will you just kill me and take my flock?”

  “You believe we came from that army down there?”

  “Yes, ehem, yes.” He nodded. “Where else?” He tilted his head and examined her.

  “How do you suppose we got here?”

  “Up my path, the veiled way.” He looked between both Miyuki and Angelo. “You did come up my path, did you not? The one where dogs die?”

  “So, you know of the path?” Miyuki asked.

  “What path?”

  “The path up the cliff side?”

  Martin hesitated. “There is no path up the cliff side.” His eyes flicked back and forth between them. “I was jesting, no? Martin Halaja is very funny.” He forced a smile.

  Miyuki put her hand to her sword, but thought the better of it. Her onyo gave her that sick feeling. “Martin,” she said, “we would gladly allow you to keep all your livestock if you tell our king of your path.”

  Martin took off his leather cap and scratched his head. He looked down at the ground and kicked a clump of dirt. “You put this simple shepherd in a bad place, a bad place. I must live with the Moors at my back. If they—”

  “We will buy all the sheep you want to sell,” Miyuki said, “and chickens.”

  Martin gaped. “And my wife?”

  “You want to sell your wife?”

  “No, I want to tell her first.” The little man balled up his fists in rage. “If you are the type who want to buy my wife, then I will have nothing to do with you and your king. He can find his own wife, his own wife, yes.”

  “No,” Miyuki said with her hands up. “Please keep your wife. We are only interested in sheep, chickens, and the path.”

  Martin laughed-squealed. “Ha. I fooled a knight. Two of them, two. He, he, hem, yes. And please, buy my sheep if you offer a good price. That one there.” He pointed with his chin. “Take that one for free.” His lip curled. He leaned closer to Miyuki and whispered, “She’s always jumping the wall. Teaching the others bad habits, bad habits. He, he, hem, yes.”