The Witches of Ne'arth (The Star Wizards Trilogy Book 2)

by Joseph Schembrie

  The clerk placed the coin in a money box and handed a smaller coin and a book to Savora, who bowed and thanked him. Matt suppressed a desire to yell. He strode over and took her arm roughly, ignoring her saccharine smile. He briskly escorted her outside.

  When they were out of earshot of the shop, he let her have it: “You gave him a haddie!”

  “The book cost forty grams. I didn't have exact change.”

  “A haddie! A coin with the image of the Emperor Hadron!”

  “I know what a haddie is, Matt. Have I not mentioned that my father is a merchant?”

  “Don't you get it? That coin comes from the other side of the world, on the other side of the Storm Barrier! That clerk has never seen a coin like that. What if he thought it was counterfeit?”

  “He weighed it and tested for content. He knows he received fair silver.”

  “The words 'Empire of Rome' are stamped on the coin! Don't you think he might have wondered how we got a coin from the other side of the world? We were trying to keep our point of origin secret, remember? What if he reports us?”

  Savora blinked. “Who would he report us to, and what crime would he report?”

  Matt's argument began to crumble even in his own eyes. When he had been in Rome, he'd seen many coins in circulation, not just those of the Empire but also of neighboring realms. When it came to accepting coins, what Roman merchants had cared about was metal content and weight, not the ephemeral coming and going of the leaders depicted on the obverse sides. Besides, if the rest of the world was sealed from the Amero Archipelago, it was doubtful that the clerk had any idea there was an Empire of Rome, let alone that it was on the Other Side of the world.

  “Don't you want to see what I bought?” Savora cheerfully asked. She held the book up to his face. “I think it will be very useful!”

  Matt read the title: AIR TRAVELER'S ATLAS AND GUIDE.

  “I already have a map of the planet in my head.”

  “Not a good one, by your own admission. This book is also a guide. It contains all kinds of information that we need in order to fly the Good Witch through these skies – like traffic codes, approved airlanes, repair stations, refueling depots. Don't you think it will be useful?”

  Again she was right. And yet, there was something wrong about the way that she was right.

  “Look, Savora. You yourself said that I was in charge of this mission. Well, how about consulting with me before doing things?”

  “All I did was buy a book. Don't you want to see what's inside?”

  Matt did want to see what was inside the book, but he didn't want to give her the pleasure of watching him admit it. At any rate, the sun was casting long shadows down the street, and Ivan's chronometer confirmed the shortening day. It gave him an opportunity to seize the initiative. “That can wait. We don't have much more time. Let's look around the city and see what else we can find.”

  He sighed and stormed away from the shop front. She scurried alongside.

  “It seems that she is trying to be helpful,” Ivan offered.

  “Too helpful,” Matt replied. “Ivan, I just get the feeling that I'm being led along. She led us right to this island, and then she led us right to that book shop. I feel like I'm being herded with an invisible cattle prod. I'm beginning to wonder how long she's been leading me. Maybe all the way from Britan.”

  “You made the decision to come to the Other Side many weeks before you encountered Savora.”

  “Maybe it was my idea, maybe it wasn't.” Matt himself wasn't sure what he meant by that.

  Savora was reading his face. “You're still worried about Carrot, aren't you?”

  “Yes I am,” he growled. “I was crazy to come here. We should go back to Britan right now and be on station in case she needs us.”

  “After only a day of travel? After only two hours of exploration? Your brother deserves more.”

  “He's not my – “ Matt forced himself calm. “Look, we don't even know if he's alive.”

  “I'm sure that he is.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I – I just know. I can feel it.” There was strong certainty in her voice. Either she meant it, or she was a good actor.

  As they continued to roam the streets, Matt became impressed with how narrowing travel could be. Sure, you go to a different land and you see different architecture, different people. But as with any public space, the buildings are only facades and the faces are only masks. It can take years to see past appearances.

  Savora abruptly halted, tilting her head. Matt listened; a bell was ringing from one block over.

  “We should investigate that,” she said. “Don't you think?”

  “Our time is really short and we need to prioritize, and I don't think a bell qualifies as something we need to investigate.“

  As if she hadn't heard, she trotted briskly around the corner. He growled and chased after. She was standing halfway down the block on the sidewalk, facing a building. The building had only a single story yet towered above the adjoining multistory tenements. The windows on the side of the building were tall and multicolored and Matt saw that they were covered with illustrations of some type.

  A spire ascended from the top of the building, and atop the spire, a bell was peeling. At the base of the tower, at the front of the building, a man in robes was yanking the rope that pulled the bell. A small crowd of mostly elderly people had formed at the entrance, shuffling past another man in fancier robes, who greeted them warmly.

  When the ringing halted, Savora said, “It appears to be a church.”

  “I know,” Matt said. “They used to have them on Earth.”

  As soon as he said that, it was as if a little warning light had gone off in the back of his head. Something was wrong about this. Very wrong . . . .

  “I wonder what they worship,” Savora said. “We should go inside and investigate. It might tell us a lot about the society on this side of the world.”

  She started toward the line. Matt stood his ground. Savora halted and faced him inquisitively.

  “Matt, this could be very important to our mission.”

  “Savora,” Matt said quietly. “There's no organized religion in Britan. They don't have churches in Britan. They don't even have the word 'church.' How do you know about churches?”

  “I've been to Londa, Matt. There's a church for the Sisters of Wisdom in Londa – “

  “That's a temple. There are temples in Londa. There is nothing called a 'church' in Londa, or anywhere else in the Yuro Archipelago. They don't use the word 'church.' How do you know the word 'church?'”

  She held up the travel guide. “I read the word in here, Matt.”

  “You only had enough time in the shop to browse through the book, Savora. So you just happened to see the word 'church,' and you just happened to wander near a church as the bell went off? How did you know that churches have bells – did you just 'assume' that too? You seem to have lot of assumptions, Savora.”

  “Matt – why are you making such a big deal over one little word?”

  “I'm tired of playing along, Savora. Tell me where you come from.”

  “I come from Stone Brook. It's a village in – “

  “Stop it!” His shout drew glares from the crowd. “You know what I mean. The truth!”

  “I agree, Matt. The truth is what we came here for.” She was injecting a wobble in her voice, as if she were physically afraid of him. That too, he knew, was an act. “Matt, the church may be the key to all of this. I just feel it, I know it. Think about it! Given all the myths in Britan about the Star Wizards, what if on this side of the world there's a religion that – “

  “Savora, it doesn't matter to me what kind of nonsense they use to brainwash – “

  The rest of the sentence caught in his throat. He saw the look in her eye. He knew she wasn't listening. She was calculating. She wore the expression of a laboratory technician about to apply voltage to the electrodes embedded in a specimen's co
rtex.

  Brainwash. To have done that, she would have had to use hypnotic suggestion . . . memory gaps.

  He saw the thinness of her lips as she parted them and started to speak. Instinctively, he knew that he was one word away from becoming her slave.

  “Ivan!” Matt cried. “Mute!”

  Reflexively, he cringed and shut his eyes. His rational mind took over and he immediately realized that the danger he faced wasn't the kind that curling into a ball would protect him from. He opened his eyes. Savora was gone.

  Before Matt could ask, Ivan flashed an arrow toward a street corner. Matt charged after.

  “Ivan, you have an anti-hypnosis program, right?”

  “I have a suite of utilities to neutralize the effects of involuntary hypnotic suggestion. Do you wish – “

  “Yes! Now!”

  He spotted Savora well ahead. She wove through the sidewalk crowds with the speed of a sprinter despite the uphill slope. As they neared the edge of town the crowds thinned and without obstacles to impair her flight, the gap between them increased. Matt huffed and Ivan optimized bodily resources and the distance closed. And then Savora streaked away as if gravity had tilted just for her.

  “She appears to have gone into – “

  “I know!”

  “Do you wish to also – “

  “No. She'll exhaust herself in hypermode and then we'll catch up.”

  Tortoise and hare, he thought. He hoped the fable had practical application.

  She had gone into low-scent mode, but still had to perspire to throw off body heat and the sweat was laden with her DNA and Ivan never lost the maze-like trail. As they moved from one street to the next, the presence of tenements became less common, cottages more. As typical in frontier towns, there was a border where streets abruptly stopped and virgin forest immediately began. Matt pressed on through the shrubbery

  With post-hypnotic suggestions cleared and his hearing unmuted, he heard thrashing ahead. Her fleeing IR silhouette shimmered in the shade beneath the canopy of leaves. Then light broke through ahead and he saw her dash into the open. Distance closing as post-hypermode exhaustion claimed her strength, he climbed over the fence and burst into a pasture.

  Under the high gray sky was a tidy farmhouse. Several cows grazed nearby, unmindful of the intruders. Savora stood a few meters away, regaining her breath. Her expression was a mixture of serenity and melancholy.

  “Oh Matt! You had to find out what you shouldn't have! You've ruined everything!”

  “What do you mean, Savora?” he shouted.

  “Matt, let me explain. I'm really your friend from Earth, Synesthesia. I came to help you find your archival clone, who is my husband. I wanted to help you, Matt, but now you've ruined everything.”

  “I – I don't understand.”

  But why did her story sound familiar? Because she hypnotized you, he answered himself. He realized he couldn't trust his feelings. He wanted to believe she was Synth. Therefore, he had to force himself to suspect that she wasn't.

  “Matt, I'm here on this planet illegally. If they find out, I can't help you anymore. Listen to me, Matt. They have Ivan uploading his telemetry to them every few minutes, and unless you instruct him to wipe his archives, they'll find out from their review of his telemetry that I'm here. And you must wipe your short-term memory too, or they'll notice the discrepancy. Please, Matt. You must agree to do this. This is our last chance to be together and help your brother.”

  Matt wondered how she could think that he was so gullible as to fall for a story like that. Then he thought . . . memory gaps. Maybe he had already fallen for the story, more than once.

  Not this time.

  “Savora, I know that's not the truth. Now tell me the truth.”

  “It is the truth, Matt. You must believe me!”

  “It's not the truth, Savora. And I'm not letting you go anywhere until you do tell me the truth.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I'm sorry, Matt. It's too late now.”

  A cow bleated, and then so did the rest. Distracted, Matt saw that they had stopped chewing and were looking toward a point above the farm house. He saw only a speck in the sky at first – and then the cows wailed in unison. They stampeded toward the edge of the pasture – toward Matt. He jumped in time and stared at the approaching dark form as it glided over the farm house.

  It was like a bird, only lizard-like, with silvery scales, horns, and fangs. It reminded Matt of Inoldia's bird-of-prey transformation, only much bigger. The creature's jaws alone were big enough to have chomped Inoldia in two.

  It swooped toward Savora. Matt watched helplessly, expecting an attack. Instead, the monster flared and alighted on the grass. There it waited, spike-tipped tail twitching, as Savora approached without any display of fear.

  “Oh Silvanus!” she cooed. “I have missed you, dear!”

  The creature bowed its two-meter neck and Savora stroked it. It made little grunts and sniffs as it nuzzled against her chest. Savora scratched its tufted ears and it blinked its saucer-sized eyes. Massive lungs heaved a growl that, several magnitudes quieter, might have been taken as a dog's sigh of contentment.

  Savora glanced at Matt. “I'm sorry, Matt. I can't risk being around you right now. I'll try to help, but for now I must go before they come to take me off-planet for good.”

  She patted the creature on the belly. It raised its neck straight and the chest parted in the middle, revealing a coffin-like cavity. Savora stepped inside, faced outward, crossed her arms over her chest in imitation of a mummy in repose.

  “Savora!” Matt called.

  The creature hissed and glared. Matt backstepped.

  “I'm Synesthesia,” she replied. “Save him, Matt. Go there and save him!”

  “Go where?”

  “It's in the book.”

  “Savora!” Matt shouted. “Synth!”

  The chest flaps closed seamlessly, sealing Savora within. The creature spun about, made a hopping run and flapped its wings. Matt felt the gust and shielded his face. The creature leaped and climbed into the air, its undulating tail barely clearing the shingles of the farm house.

  The dragon named Silvanus flew into the sunset at a speed well above that of the Good Witch, ascending into the clouds, whereupon it vanished from sight.

  The cows resumed chewing. Matt stood and stared. Ivan broke the silence.

  “Matt. Do you believe that Savora is actually your friend Synesthesia from Earth?”

  “I believe that's what she wants us to believe.”

  The slanting sunlight reflected upon a rectangle near where Savora had stood. Matt picked up the atlas. The shop receipt had been tucked as a bookmark. Matt opened to the page.

  The title of the map read, Municipality of Blinti and Environs, Including Abbey of Klun. A large central building within the Abbey enclave had been heavily circled in pencil. Beneath the circle, Savora's navigation pencil had inscribed, BROTHER.

  Matt snapped the book shut.

  The sun was behind the hills by the time he returned to the road. The road might have been too gloomy to see by normal vision, but the trees were glowing. Or rather, their clusters of 'globular fruit' were glowing, illuminating the pavement in their soft blue light. The path of the road through the dark landscape gleamed as a blue ribbon fringed by clusters of blue stars. Carriage and wagon lanterns bobbled along its length like fireflies on parade.

  “It's beautiful,” he said softly. “I wish Carrot could see this.”

  The uplifting of his spirit was only temporary, for then he remembered again how he had been manipulated into abandoning Carrot. Feeling hollow and empty, ashamed and humiliated, and most of all violated and angry, he headed toward the rendezvous point.

  13.

  The part of Inoldia that was still Matlid found the sensation of flight to be exhilarating, especially the soaring and gliding. It was the freedom, the ability to see so much of the world in a single gaze. It was with regret after the many hours am
ong clouds that she at last spotted Londa in the first rays of dawn.

  Londa was similar to the city of Tur in Frans, which was Matlid's childhood home – yet that comparison was no source of joy. Seeing the buildings with the Roman colonial architecture of white stucco and red tiled roofs reminded her of the life of an abandoned child, of hunger and begging and thievery upon muddy streets, and a society that despised her very existence. She had faced death by exposure and starvation – until a woman came who had rescued her from all of it.

  You have much to thank me for, the part of her that was Inoldia said.

  Thank you, the part of her that was Matlid sincerely replied.

  She spilled air from her wings and swooped over Government House, dropping a triplet of rocks in prearranged signal. The house guard, hearing the sequential thumps, rushed to the roof. She descended with a flare and they enclosed her in blankets and escorted her to the Governor's office. Her arrival created a minor panic among the staff, and hastily they brought dress and food. She ate behind a screen, regaining weight as she transformed again into a resemblance to humanity.

  General Bivera arrived and called from the other side of the screen: “Lady Inoldia, I welcome you. I apologize for any inadequacy in our hosting, for we had been given the impression that . . . . “

  “That I was dead?” she called back, smiling at the discomfort that she sensed in his voice.

  By then she was reasonably human in appearance again. She removed the screen and continued eating. Bivera stared, half-dressed, open-mouthed. Matlid had met Bivera once before, in the company of Inoldia, and Bivera had ignored her. Then he was a colonel and now he was both general and governor, but she had been promoted to demigoddess, and the deference in his demeanor was considerable. Also quite amusing, she thought, suppressing a smile.

  She continued, “I am grateful for any hospitality you are able to extend on such short notice.”

  “You . . . you are?”

  The relief in his voice was evident. She wondered at that, until she glanced down at the office rug and remembered why it was new.