by Guy Antibes
“Neel Cardswallow?” the man said in accented Pestlan.
Neel, looking up, recognized him and brought his right hand to the hilt of his sword. “Asem of the Ferezan. What brings you to Mozira?” What could have brought the Warishian to Santasia? He eyed his enemy as Asem dismounted.
“Let us walk together,” Asem said nodding to the woman. “Let me introduce you to my second wife, Kulara.”
Neel nodded at the attractive woman. Asem was at least a decade older than he, but she seemed to match Neel in age. Asem held onto his wife’s reins while they walked out of the tent city and into a copse of woods.
“We can talk a bit more privately here and then proceed to get something to eat,” Asem said. “And you can take your hand away from your sword. We are in the Santasian fight together.”
“I assume we are on neutral ground?” Neel said.
Asem brought an easy smile to his face. “Of course. I think we are more aligned than you may think, Neel Cardswallow. Why don’t you introduce us to your friend?”
Neel felt himself blush at the social faux pas. He had only met Asem once before in a rather tense meeting in Pestledown some time before he knew of the Warish grand scheme. “This is Able Bluntwithe of Greenbrook.”
“The owner of The Blunted Sword?” Asem’s wife said. “I have heard of your inn from Trak.”
“You’ve met my son?” Able said.
Asem looked at Neel. “Whose son is Trak?”
Trak must have told the pair more than enough so Neel would gain nothing from denying his fatherhood. “I sired him and Able raised him,” he said. “Trak is our son.” He pointed to Able and to himself.
With the introduction behind them and the resulting truce, they walked to the dining area of the camp where a few soldiers still ate. “Sit,” Asem said.
Neel had no problem letting the older man lead the discussion. Anything that he found out would be new information that he didn’t have. “You have heard about Prince Nez?”
Neel nodded. “News travels all the way to southern Santasia.”
“And to Colcan,” Kulara said. “We rescued Trak not far from here. The Magician’s Guild had taken him and he escaped.”
“I know that story from my own sources,” Neel said.
“A Colcanan link in Pestledown?” Asem said. “Leaf? I have known her husband for some time.”
“You have the better of me,” Neel admitted.
“Better? I don’t know. Were you the one who instigated Nez’s demise? My sources could only trace the notes to Pestledown.”
Neel looked into Asem’s eyes for hostility, but saw none. “I did. He would have ruined Pestle.”
Asem put out his hand. “I thank you. If only I could have had the courage to stop him sooner. You knew him by reputation but I knew him personally. An untalented wastrel and a disgrace to the Ferezan.”
Ignoring Asem’s hand, Neel just nodded. “What will Marom do now?”
Asem shrugged. “Anyone will be better than Nez, I assure you. Anyone will be better than your current king.”
Neel pursed his lips. He knew his expression gave his thinking away. “I am not a supporter of King Harl.”
Asem’s face lightened up again. “Something we can definitely agree on. You are heading where?”
There was no benefit for Asem to know where he headed, so Neel freely told him. “I go to meet with Strength of Colcan while he journeys to the Toryans. I’ve dealt with them more than Strength.”
“Ben.” Asem nodded.
How much did this Warishian agent know?
Asem continued, “We ran across him two days ago. Honor Fidelia and a Colcanan scout joined him.”
“Two days. What are your plans, now that you know mine?” Neel said.
“I am a man at large,” Asem said. His wife chuckled. Some joke between them, obviously, Neel thought. “I will join Dalistro as he heads towards Espozia. I want to meet your son again and talk about his future.”
Neel stood up, suddenly angry. “His future is with me and a free Pestle. I lost my wife to your country’s tricks, and I won’t lose my son.”
Asem raised his hands to signify surrender. He sat at a large table with his wife, unable to strike a pose, should he have magic, something rumored, but never verified to Neel. “I have no designs on him. Kulara and I realized that when we lived in the same house with him in Bitrium. His importance is larger than any squabble between Warish and Pestle.”
“I hardly call what you’ve done in Pestle a squabble.”
The Warish spy shrugged. “There is more going on in the world than what you or I might have thought months ago. Kandanna fights Santasia, Warish fights Pestle. Who knows what is going on in Bennin or the Vashtan continent? Someone is stirring up the world. I want to find out who, and I think your son has a larger role to play in fighting against a hidden power.”
Asem’s word struck Neel dumb. He sat down. Such a thing had been in the back of his mind while he worked in Pestle after Trak fled with Dalistro, but he had never been able to put his suspicions into words like Asem.
“I’m not for chaos and I’ll not support a worldwide empire. No good can come of such a thing. The last one on Vashta ended up in centuries of suffering for those people,” Neel said, thinking of the forced expulsion of the race of people who would become Colcanans, Santasians, and Kandannans.
“We again find something to agree upon. I will share this with you, after I help secure Espozia for the Dalistro father and son, I will take Valanna Almond back with me to Warish. You might have known her by the name of Miss Sleekbottle. If you find yourself in Balbaam, seek me out.”
Neel noted Valanna’s real last name. He recalled that the court magician that caused all of the outrage in the kingdom had that name. “What will you do if you find my son?”
“He seeks his own path. All I want to do is talk with him from time to time, as I have talked to you, nothing more. I’ll be honest, when I first came to Cokasan, my intentions were to make sure he stayed in the Guild permanently. He has changed my mind. Trak has a destiny far greater than either of our beloved countries.”
Neel didn’t know if he agreed. When he last met with Trak, he had only shown a tiny bit of the promise that Neel knew lurked within. “Let him know where I went, will you?”
“I will. May your path be uncluttered,” Asem said. That must have been some Ferezan farewell since he and his wife both stood after he said it.
“I wish the same to you. I hope circumstances don’t arise where we clutter each other’s path,” Neel said.
“We share the same hope,” Kulara said, crossing her arms across her chest and bowing, likely another Warishian affectation.
Neel looked at Able, who had sat silent throughout the meeting. They mounted their horses and rode west to catch up to Ben.
Once they were well out of earshot, Able peered at Neel. “Didn’t you tell him too much? Do you trust him?”
Neel laughed. “He is more trustworthy than any other Warishian you are likely to meet. I think our Trak impressed him quite a bit.”
~
“What do you think of Neel Cardswallow, my love?” Asem said when they began threading their way through the tent city towards Mozira.
“I wish he were on our side. Handsome, but not as dashing as you, my dear. Tortured, as well. You can tell that he has regularly drowned his sorrows. He is capable?”
“He is Honor Fidelia’s brother and nearly as powerful a magician as his son, to hear Honor tell of him. She didn’t mention his name, but I already knew. Nellus Fidelia. When his wife was killed, he swore off poses and power. Neel is rumored to be a vicious swordsman and I would imagine that he taught quite a bit to a younger Trak Bluntwithe.”
“Are you going to have him killed?”
Asem shook his head. “I am certain that we will need him nearly as much as his son before all of this is over.”
~~~
Chapter Five
~
T
he platform began to wobble and stood still in the air before descending. Trak called out to Nullia. “What is going on?”
“I can’t maintain a pose while we are bucking to and fro,” she said, clutching the single pole on the platform in the descent below the treetops.
Trak couldn’t do a thing as it settled to the ground in a clearing. Tomio leapt off of the platform and helped Nullia down. Trak stepped out of the straps and couldn’t understand why their contraption stopped working.
“I didn’t change poses,” Trak said. “Did you do something?” He couldn’t help but scratch his head.
Nullia shook her head. “The lift pose is a stable spell. I’ve used it more times than I can count when I lived in Bitrium.”
The bushes shivered as oddly-dressed men and women soon surrounded them pointing arrows in their direction from very short double-curved bows. They spoke to each other in an unfamiliar language.
“Toryans,” Nullia gasped.
Trak looked down at the platform. “They have the ability to kill our spells from a distance, it seems.” He gazed up into the skies and then down at the ground. He hadn’t known of any spells that could project out so far, but then he had to admit there were a lot of things he didn’t know. Should he be afraid? From the look on Nullia and Tomio’s faces, he should.
“You are not welcome in these lands,” an older Toryan said in heavily accented Santasian. He looked to be Neel’s age.
“Do you speak Pestlan any better?” Nullia said in Pestlan.
The grim face turned a bit less hostile. “Colcanan?”
“We are sort of a mixed lot,” Trak said. “I’m a Pestlan, she’s from Colcan and Tomio is from Santasia. We are escapees from the Espozian Magicians Guild.”
“No guild member would be able to fly like you just did,” the Toryan said. He eyed them suspiciously. “You are not allowed in our lands.”
“According to whose laws?” Nullia said. Trak could see her face redden with anger.
“Ours. We live here, you don’t,” the man said. The others looked at him as if he led the band.
The Toryans were dressed in various shades of green, brown, and tan. They were a bit lighter complexioned than either Colcanans or Santasians and their facial and physical structure was blockier with slanted eyes. They reminded him a bit of Neel.
“You have news of Espozia?” the leader said. His Pestlan was better than his command of Santasian.
“We were there two days ago.” Nullia looked around at the men and women surrounding them, while they repacked their belongings into something they could carry.
The man eyed them with continued suspicion. “You flew from there?” His eyes narrowed.
Trak nodded. “Why have you taken us?”
“You are my prisoners and I see that I need to take you with me.”
Trak clamped his lips shut with frustration, but restrained taking any action. “Where is that?”
“South, to our capital.”
“Capital?” Trak said. He had always pictured Toryans as forest people living among the trees in rude huts and subsisting on whatever the forest gave them. How could they have a capital? “How many Toryans are there?”
The leader glared at Trak. “Not for you to know. All three of you are magicians? What are your Santasian ranks?”
Trak considered not telling the man anything, but Nullia spoke up. “I am a Purple, as is the boy. The other, Tomio, is a dark Yellow, if you know what the colors mean.”
The leader looked them over, posed, and then closed his eyes. He opened them and gave Trak a curious look, but returned his eyes towards Nullia. “The boy is stronger than you. As strong as any among us. We will guide you south, but you will have to agree to have one of your arms bound at your side. You will not like the alternative.”
Nullia nodded her head. “I agree.”
Tomio bowed his head in submission, and Trak wondered if he should, but then he wouldn’t want his two companions to suffer for his actions, so he ducked his head as well. Trak didn’t even think about escaping since the Toryans could use their weapons, magical or physical. “I would rather walk free, but I understand. We won’t be able to carry our burdens very well.”
“We will take care of them. Follow me.”
The group of ten Toryans and the three ex-guild members walked north to a rough encampment. The leader had them bound and let them sit while the band broke their camp. They put their tents, supplies and the guild members’ packs into five large bags. One of the women struck a pose and said a word that Trak couldn’t understand, and the bags rose three feet into the air.
Five of the Toryans took bags, towing them behind them. Trak noticed that a stout pole hung down from each bag and dragged on the ground. That would restrain the bags from swinging to and fro while they walked.
They headed south and passed back through the glade where they had landed. It seemed that Trak’s idea hadn’t been the first to use levitation to carry things. What other uses would the Toryans have developed for magic?
Trak couldn’t discern a trail, but he could sense that they headed in the same direction no matter how dense or lightly-forested the path. He stumbled a few times, but recovered easily enough. Nullia fell more than once, so Trak eventually held her hand to give them both better stability. It seemed to help. Tomio walked just fine and didn’t say a word.
On they walked. The Toryans didn’t respond to their questions, but did they didn’t treat them badly. When they took a break from their hike in another pleasant little meadow, their captors gave them some kind of dried grain and fruit mix and as much water as they needed. Trak asked Nullia what she knew about the Toryan race, but he quickly found that she knew no more than what they had just observed.
The sky had begun to darken when they stopped to put up a simple camp. The Toryans built a lean-to shelter from tree and bush branches. The older Toryan man helped them with their blankets. Everyone had more of the dried grain mix and more water for an evening meal and went to bed not much later than sunset.
They awoke to a dark, misty morning. The Toryans gave them pouches of the grain mix and skins of water. “Eat up. This is all you will have until evening,” the leader said.
By the time Trak and Tomio disassembled the lean-to, with their arms still bound, the rest of the camp had been cleared and they resumed their journey. His captors kept up a steady pace, just slow enough to allow Nullia to keep up.
Trak examined their clothes and equipment. The clothes were neatly sewn, although obviously crafted for heavy use with thick cloth and leather patches at high-wear points. They wore boots that had metal latches rather than shoelaces. The bows were made of multi-layered strips of wood. Trak wondered how they would shoot, but he didn’t really want to find out.
He had expected savages roaming the forests in patched animal pelts with wild hair and paint on their faces. That’s how Able had described them when he grew up. He never recalled such tales from Neel, but the rest of Able’s friends would scare him. These people were much different. They weren’t friendly, but they seemed civilized, and that struck Trak as very much at odds with what he had always perceived as general knowledge. He ached to talk to Nullia or Tomio about it, but whenever he tried an extended conversation with one of his fellow magicians, a Toryan nudged him with one of their walking staffs.
The trail they followed was barely better than a game trail, but the woods weren’t overgrown, so they had little trouble walking with one arm bound to their side. Trak fell into the rhythm of the hike. If he weren’t bound and under constant guard, Trak could really enjoy the journey. They didn’t feel mistreated, since the Toryans ate the same trail food that they were given that morning.
Just before midday, a scout ran up to the leader and excitedly said something to him. Another soon followed, coming from another direction. The messages caused an uproar. The levitated carriers were dropped, and the Toryans began to shove supplies into their packs.
The leader came up t
o them, looking rather distressed. “We have walked into the middle of a Kandannan military column and have managed to become surrounded. Hopefully a few of us will make it through to warn others of this incursion. They have magicians hiding their movements, that’s why we didn’t detect them. I will continue to escort you, but there is a likelihood of capture.”
“I can help you fight them,” Trak said. “I’m good with a sword and with spells.”
The man looked at Trak for a moment and shook his head. “How do I know you won’t turn on me the minute I loosen your bonds? You’ve just told me you’re a dangerous young man.”
Trak could only stammer a weak reply and eventually fell silent under the Toryan’s stern gaze. Trak was a dangerous man and he really didn’t know what he’d do. He felt embarrassed at his inability to come up with an argument to convince the Toryan.
By the time Trak ran out of protestations, only four Toryans guarded Trak, Nullia and Tomio. The others had disappeared into the forest. The bundles were retied and levitated, and they continued along the trail.
Nullia and Tomio looked as nervous as Trak felt. The nearly-pleasant stroll had turned into an anxious march. The leader’s face looked grim as he often stopped to look around. They walked through a rock fall and turned a corner, confronting a group of Kandannan soldiers. Tomio turned around and ran, but a soldier skewered his back with an arrow, and he fell onto the dirt trail, motionless.
Nullia wailed and Trak stood speechless, as the Toryans were fully bound. Trak had rarely seen death, and the scene reminded him of the near-fatality of Malena on his escape from Espozia the first time. Life in Greenbrook helping at his father’s inn never seemed more appealing. He lost his breath, when he gazed at Tomio’s body once more. He glared at the soldier, who glared back after he had notched another arrow into his bow.
The Toryan leader looked at the soldier and Trak and said, “Don’t do anything, or you’ll get us all killed.” He spoke to a soldier who wore a more ornate uniform than the others. Trak couldn’t understand the discussion that went on in a different language than the one the leader spoke to his band. It must have been Kandannan.