To Be Victorious: The Maestro Chronicles Book 6

by John Buttrick

  -----

  Terroll Barnes, Grand Maestro of Aakadon, sat in his office near the pinnacle of the ruby pyramid. On the ceiling was a mural depicting in brilliant colors, the Grand Maestro as champion against all forms of violence and corruption in the world. He wore eight rings, four on each hand, representing the seven guilds, and the eighth and largest of all was the ruby pyramid, representing the office of Grand Maestro. Those were a constant reminder of the responsibilities that were in his hands. His green and crimson silk hooded-cloak was hanging neatly from a hook off a stand placed in arms reach. Stitched into the shoulders were four golden lightning bolts, two on the right and two on the left, displaying his standing as a Four-bolt Accomplished.

  There was only one chair in the room; his, which he decided had to change, thinking three in front of his desk would be best. The soft turquoise padding of his seat matched the thick carpet and was comfortable. He glanced at the wall where each guild was currently represented by a three dimensional image. A bird of prey identified the Eagle Guild, the keepers of order and seekers of truth. A five-pronged plant represented the Aloe Guild, known primarily for healing. A circle with jagged lines radiating outward represented the Sun Guild, the conjurers of fire and lightning. The rock and hammer represented the Stone Guild, the architects and builders. The letter, Z, denoted his former Guild, the Zephyr, manipulators of wind and air. A branch with lance-shaped leaves hanging down represented the Willow Guild, known for making vegetation grow, and a golden drop symbolized the Aqua Guild, the manipulators of water.

  It was late and not a mark in the night one would normally be in the office, but the war changed what would be normal. None of the decorations held his interest while the communication from Johan Reed took place, mind to mind, through the communication amulet Terroll had given him. “Johan, you did the right thing by taking charge after Senior Soarer Trenquest and his flock of Soarers died on the lead boats and also in seizing control of Tolamay. I will send you reinforcements so we can keep it.”

  A sense of disappointment came from the Senior Cyclone through the mental link along with the words, “Grand Maestro, by the time we reached the skyship base it was burning. Our mission was to destroy it,” hence the feelings of disappointment, “the objective had already been accomplished and finishing off what remained of the installation would have required us to battle several hundred Anacondas that were swarming the river at that point. I decided it would be prudent to secure Tolamay, which had far fewer defenses.”

  Terroll took a deep breath while trying to ignore the man standing patiently in front of his desk. Talmon Reese, Maestro of the Eagle Guild, deeply tanned with dark hair and eyes, understood about mental communications and was purposely diverting his sight toward the image representing his guild. Terroll appreciated the politeness extended, but had a few more things to add before ending the private conversation. “As I said, you did the right thing. I am curious to know what initially broke up the blockade after the Secuse and Belleam were destroyed.”

  A sense of wonder tinted with a hint of confusion accompanied Johan’s words. “Something struck them from under the water. Accomplished Quesn, whom we pulled from the river, reported seeing a huge-something swimming by him and felt the Ripple Effect of spells emanating from it. Visibility is low at night, especially from under the water and he never saw a clear view of the object. Forester Suaana told me something under the water repaired the keel of her boat. Whatever it was, helped us and did serious damage to the Anacondas.”

  “I thank you for briefing me on this matter,” Terroll replied and then felt the connection end, which meant the gem of the amulet was no longer in contact with Johan’s forehead.

  The report verified parts of the account, which had included the defection of Fenton Chen, given by the Maestro shortly before the communication with the Senior Cyclone began. No one had suspected the Senior Practitioner of the Aloe Guild as being an agent of the Serpent Guild. If such a respected Accomplished could go bad with nobody the wiser, who knew how far the corruption went? How many more Serpents were living in Aakadon? First Judas Scarott, then Vance Cummin, although Daniel had given warning of that man’s duplicity, and most recently Chen; the traitors had everybody in Aakadon suspicious of one another.

  Terroll fixed his gaze on the guild leader in front of him whose responsibility it was to get to the truth of the matter, and in the current case, ferret out the secret Serpents. Maestro Varroon had teams devoted to looking for the missing Senior Practitioner who had become an embarrassment to her guild, although Terroll doubted the Healers would be better at tracking and apprehending the culprit than the Senior Soarers of the Eagle Guild.

  Even though the conversation had been silent, Reese turned his head, as if he knew the end had come. It was unwise to underestimate his peripheral vision. The man missed very little. “The loss of nine of our paddlewheel boats on the Hirus reported to me through the surviving Eagles is only one of many reports I have received in an evening full of losses. The Serpents and their allies still hold the entire east coast and nearly half of the southern. We are not winning this war, merely slowing it down. You were elected to this office because of the relationship between you and Daniel Benhannon, yet we have not seen a hint of cooperation, and not so much as a word from him or even a representative.”

  No one, absolutely no one, was more frustrated by the lack of communication between him and Daniel than was Terroll. He had personally handed a communication amulet to the young Maestro, so the silence was by choice. Apparently, changing the legal status of the Atlantan Guild had not been enough. As to Talmon’s string of losses, none of the reports had been good, except the taking of Tolamay, and that had not even been the objective. No reports came in from the northern kingdoms, not since the beginning of the war. Sources spoke of the Atlantan Guild at least holding its own in Ducaun, Lobenia, and in the Taltin Sea, but other than a successful raid on Kay Toll in Fon Kay, there had been no other word on new attacks directed at the enemy homelands. Unless it was Daniel’s people who took out the skyship base, which was almost a certainty, who else would or could have done it? What occurred there changed little in the broader scope of the war and the inability to know what was happening across the continent did not help, nor did the King Eagle’s tone of voice.

  Terroll leaned back in his chair and pointed a finger the color of ebony at the man. “He removed the shield on your potential, making it possible for you to retain your office of Maestro. I call that more than a hint of cooperation.”

  Talmon gave a slight nod of acknowledgement. “Like you, I have worked with Maestro Benhannon in the past, and found him to be reasonable. He only became unreasonable when Efferin ordered me to break my word and later when the former Grand Maestro ordered us to subdue and arrest Daniel at the conference. That situation will not happen again, since you would deal honorably, and so would I.”

  Terroll glanced at the five golden lightning bolts on the man’s black and crimson cloak and wanted a clarification of those last three words. “Do you mean honorably as Maestro of the Eagle Guild or as Grand Maestro?” It was a dangerous question, but best to have it answered sooner rather than later.

  A slow smile spread across Talmon’s face. “I will deal honorably as the Maestro of the Eagle Guild. I think it premature to challenge you for the leadership of Aakadon but, if you are unable to negotiate an alliance with the Chosen Vessel, I will make the challenge. You are wise enough to know this is a warning, not a threat, and any of the other Five-bolt Maestros would make the challenge if I failed to do so.”

  Terroll did know. His repertoire was so large he likely would win a challenge because knowledge, skill, and wisdom could overcome a challenger who was more powerful but not as clever. Even so, a fight over the leadership would spell disaster on a scale that could hand victory after victory to Tarin Conn, and end with the Serpents at the very gates of Aakadon.

  He was about to start his fourth day as Grand Maestro and yet was suppos
ed to instantly clean up the mess of his predecessor. Well, that was to be expected and came with the job. “Put your mind at ease. I will soon be contacting Maestro Benhannon. You may want to relay that to Scholar Sander, since your man is likely to see Daniel before me. Also, dispatch ten ships with ten flocks, ten teams of Coronas, and a school of Reservoirs along with a team of Artisans to Tolamay.”

  Talmon did not seem in the least surprised by the orders, which meant he likely agreed with the decision. "Your will be done, Grand Maestro,” he replied.

  When the Maestro exited the office, Terroll made up his mind: In two days, I am going to be speaking with Daniel, one way or another.

  -----

  Ferren Duzolta did not mind being five and a half cubits tall, short for a Ducaunan. People tended to dismiss him as being harmless, non-threatening, and those tendencies often worked to his favor. Having had been an orphan growing up on the streets of Zoltair prepared him for a hard life, making him very good at sneaking into the homes of the wealthy. He also had quick hands, a light touch, and could pick a pocket in the blink of an eye. Accomplisheds of the Serpent Guild snatched him away when his Potential was discovered at the age of ten and he went on to learn even better ways of infiltrating strongholds, even those of Daniel Benhannon. His wiry frame gave him an agility no one he had ever met could match, until he laid eyes on a second level Talented, three years younger than he, and who likely would not survive the tests required by the Serpent Guild to progress to level three. Both of them were dark of eye and hair, sharp nosed, and had the fortitude of a hungry ferret that had caught sight of a delicious mouse.

  He had plucked the young man from the Halls of Learning, within Mount Suteck, only days before the exams that would have left an Aakacarn like him a dried out husk. Leon Laroo was a No-bolt and might never gain enough potential to rate a single lightning bolt on his shoulder, even if he lived to the age of three hundred, but those other skills made him useful. The seventeen year-old was snatched from a farming community on the outskirts of Zane at a young age and, like Ferren, had practically been raised by the guild.

  Ferren stared at the young man who temporarily shared his room at the Excursion. Both of them were dressed in nondescript clothing rather than silks so they would blend in. The inn stood seven stories high and took up one entire block in the city of Ducanton. He liked the idea of hiding in plain sight. They were on the second floor in a room with two narrow beds, a night-table, and a couple of chairs. The rentals on the seventh floor had four rooms within them, a greeting room and three bedrooms. Up there Ferren would have stood out as someone of importance, down on the lower floor, he was just another person visiting the city.

  “You never did tell me why I am being given this opportunity,” Leon said, and then sat down on the chair. Standing, he would be less than five cubits tall, and sitting or standing, he was thin as a rail.

  “You know I am one of four Accomplisheds who are part of First Lady Serena’s inner circle, otherwise I doubt you would have agreed to come here with me,” Ferren replied and then sat down in the other chair. “You could have gone back with the traveling circle that brought us here.”

  Leon smiled. “And then I would be forced to cast spells that would mummify me. No thank you. I know why I came. For me it is a matter of survival. Everybody knows of the Ferret, the only member of our guild that successfully struck down Benhannon and lived to tell the tale, and I figured whatever you had in mind is far better than the alternative.”

  Ferren nodded his head. This one knows how to survive. “You are clever, sneaky, and quick, which are some of the reasons I chose you out of all the Talenteds and Accomplisheds I had to choose from. I have been sent here to spy on Daniel Benhannon’s comings and goings. Serena is not pleased with what Oliver Ogdennmyer is reporting, which is a bunch of useless and mundane details.”

  Hands together, thumbs twirling, Leon glanced at the floor, and then back up. “I am probably the weakest in Potential, even counting the level ones just starting their educations. I have seven basic low power spells in my repertoire and I do not yet know what additional Melodies are within my ability to cast safely. I can help you spy, but I doubt I would be much use as back up in a spell-fight.”

  Ferren appreciated the frankness, especially since few people in the Serpent Guild would admit to being so weak. “If I wanted a powerhouse potential to back me up, I would have requisitioned one when Serena offered to send whatever I needed to accomplish my mission. You will be my spy and you will be stationed in Lanta, within Benhannon’s jurisdiction. The town has grown in the last few months and is drawing a good amount of skilled and unskilled labor. It will soon be a center of trading in the region. For the most part, the residents are the relatives of those who serve in the Benhannon Guard or in the force known as the Chosen’s Sentinels, but people who come to trade or to make an honest living are not turned away. I want you to go there and learn what makes those soldiers hard to kill, about their weapons, why they are so willing to use weapons that drain away their life-forces, and a give me a layout of the Benhannon Estate.”

  Leon chuckled and his thumbs twirled faster. “Would you like me to get you an invitation to dine with Daniel Benhannon while I am at it?”

  “Talented, this is no joke. You will move to Lanta and will shine shoes and particularly the boots of the soldiers. Make friends with them and keep your eyes and ears open for information. This you will do during the day. At night, you will sneak onto the estate and quietly learn all you can, but be discrete. The only spell I want you to cast is, Unnoticeable, it is a low power spell meant to be cast without the aid of a crescendo, and will allow you to be invisible to the naked eye and impossible to locate with any find-spell. Beware of summing potential while under the influence of Unnoticeable, your glow will be visible to a fellow Melody Wielder. If you do the job at the level I believe you are capable of, you will need no other spells. The hue of your potential is that of a diamond and therefore hard to distinguish from the life-force energy of a non-Aakacarn. If Benhannon or any of his Accomplisheds focuses a scan your way while you are shining foot-ware in Lanta, it is unlikely they will even notice you, and if they did, they would likely believe you to be a non-Aakacarn with slightly more energy than normal. No one else in the Serpent Guild has a chance of getting as close to the enemy Maestro as you do.”

  Leon’s thumbs came to rest and his sharp nose pointed southwest, in the direction of Lanta. “I can levitate light-weight objects, light small fires, mend a broken mug, grow a few berries, draw water from a nearby source, locate a nearby Potential, and the most aggressive spell I can cast is Slumber. I can get close to Daniel Benhannon,” he stated confidently, “but I am not the Ferret. I have no chance of striking down a Seven-bolt Accomplished.”

  Ferret was the nickname given by Ursula Duggan, another member of Serena’s inner circle, while on the mission to recover the lost trumpet of Tarin Conn. The mission had failed, but the name stuck. Ferren took no offense, if for no other reason than it was often spoken with respect. His reputation within the Serpent Guild was growing. “This is the best opportunity you are going to have, not only resulting in your continued survival, but in giving valuable service to our Supreme Maestro, Tarin Conn. I will not try to deceive you into thinking the mission is in any way safe or without risk, but it is not quite as hazardous as you seem to think. All I want you to do is sneak around and learn what you can. I am warning you, do not engage the enemy, do not cast any spells except Unnoticeable, and report what you learn to me. I will decide what to do from there. You are of no use to me dead. I need you to live and make reports.”

  “I have no desire to die and so will take your words and this mission to heart. So, when are you going to teach me this new Melody?” Leon replied as his thumps started up again, a good sign he was eager to begin what promised to be a mutually advantageous relationship.

  Ferren removed his flute from its case. “Get your instrument, the lesson begins now, and you may
move to Lanta when I am satisfied you can perform the Melody mentally.”

  Chapter Five: Fight to the Finish

  Daniel appeared outside the command pavilion along with Sero, Carlos, the Teki couple, and Simon, who had cast the spell, Conveyance, using Seymour the buzzard to supply the visual. Silvia and David had insisted on coming even though her grandmother and Troupe Chief were still at the naval facility being entertained by Ronn and Miriam. The Symphonic, Find All, had a Da Capo, and was playing over and over again in Daniel’s mind without him having to pay it much mind. It was the sudden awareness of every animal, person, and thing, within a five span radius of where he stood that held his attention in the moments after arriving. Tens of thousands of people were over to the west near a large body of water, along with the typical amount of domesticated animals for a community of that size.

  Frogs and crickets began signaling their presence after a brief pause, while nocturnal creatures scurried, scampered, and slithered throughout the surrounding forest, reminding Daniel of his former life as a Ducaunan back-woodsman. The sounds were similar but the land was flat, with a few over-sized mounds people in the region called, hills, but were small bumps compared to Mount Tannakonna. He inhaled warm and muggy air. The spell, Personal Shield, kept him from actually feeling the temperature on his skin, and he was grateful for the side effect.

  Seymour was perched on the lowest branch in the tree to the left. Daniel had noticed a slight movement and spotted the carrion-eater in the dim amethyst light coming from the pavilion. Other than the fact that his Chief Aid had perhaps hundreds of creatures linked to him, scattered all over Lobenia and Ducaun, Daniel wondered how his friend managed to have one of those animals where Leah happened to be, unless it was the swirling of events that worked to the favor of the Chosen Vessel. More likely, Simon and Leah were communicating far more frequently than Daniel had been aware of.