by Guy Antibes
The three of them all wore the swords they previously had wrapped up in their possessions, now that they would be used to get employment. “Yes, we are. Do you need to test us?” Trak said. He hoped he got all of the words out properly.
“No, no. The last few who traveled to Peskoa weren’t molested at all. I have a contract for each of you. I will sign and you will sign, so you can obtain travel documents at your alien retention center.”
Track hadn’t been exposed to so many forms. Perhaps the lawyer who had handled his initial inheritance had to navigate through so many. Santasia didn’t operate on paperwork, but Bennin certainly seemed to.
They hurried back to the building where they had to leave their possessions hostage and exchanged both papers and coinage to get travel permits that would allow them to be in Bennin for six months. Then they would have to provide more employment proof after that.
Once they had returned to the caravan assembly ground, they found the caravan loading up.
“Do we walk or ride horses or what?” Tembul said to the merchant.
“No horses. The merchants like the guards to help them drive. Closer protection,” the merchant said chuckling. We will also carry your possessions on the wagons. If you had horses, your pay would have been the same… close protection.” He smiled again and offered Tembul a ride.
An older woman, dressed in linen rather than silks walked up to Trak. “You can ride with me, boy, as long as you are good with that sword.”
Track grinned. “I am, and more.”
The woman’s visage darkened. “Don’t tell me what ‘more’ is. Stow your possessions on the fourth wagon and take the reins. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve had a word with your merchant friend.”
Trak’s smile slid from his face. He really had no idea what he had said to offend the woman. Perhaps he pronounced ‘more’ incorrectly. He walked back and climbed up on the wagon. Sirul waved to him as he put his gear in the wagon just ahead of Trak’s. He looked back at the curving line of wagons and saw men and women wearing swords on most of the other wagons and every so often he noticed a mounted guard or two.
Not all of the merchants were as confident as the one who had contracted with them. Maybe the woman who had taken him would give him a more accurate idea of what dangers he rode into.
She returned to the wagon. Her face didn’t look very happy. She grunted a greeting and nodded as Sirul’s wagon began to roll.
“How long to Peskoa?” Trak said. The woman didn’t reply and looked off on her side, avoiding his gaze and his question.
He hadn’t handled a wagon since his first escape from Santasia, but he had plenty of practice at Able’s inn, The Blunted Sword in Greenbrook. Pestle seemed so far away in space and time at the moment, but the feel for the reins soon came back and he settled in for the ride.
They spent the next hour riding through the inhabited fringe of Homika with its fields and farms. They passed shops in clusters, hugging the road as they continued.
“Get your papers ready,” the woman said. “The city gate is just ahead.” She began to rummage around inside an old leather satchel that sat between her feet. Trak’s papers were still safe inside the pocket of his coat.
Trak looked up from watching the horses follow Sirul’s wagon and noticed the stone wall jutting up ten paces high. He had never seen a wall that enclosed farms before. If the city thought it needed to protect its farms, then Bennin didn’t seem very safe. The caravan might be a better mode of transportation than the carriage that Lenis had taken after all.
~
Valanna Almond watched the shore of the Pusuun River from the carriage that clattered on the cobbled road from Amorim to Balbaam. Much of the ride had been in sheer misery. How could she have let Trak leave the Ferezan palace like he did? Kulara had not been kind as she gave her opinion of how Valanna had botched up their reunion.
She had to agree with Asem’s second wife. She had been so distraught when they landed in Amorim. Asem warned her that it didn’t matter what she did in Santasia when she set foot in Warish. Women weren’t respected and Valanna had made the mistake to forget.
By the time Trak had shown up, her confidence had shriveled and she behaved poorly. Valanna didn’t blame Trak for his behavior. She realized, once they were on the road after seeing his ship dwindle as it sailed out to sea, that she might have acted exactly the same way. The fact that he was gone for six months or more only made matters worse. She couldn’t exactly send him a letter of apology.
She sighed after a large bump in the road, there were many along this stretch of shore, and realized that she likely had seen the last of him. She wiped away a tear of sorrow, one of many in the past and there were likely more to come in the future.
“Don’t be so sad,” Asem said. “You are both young and neither of you are tied down to a single location. I imagine Trak will intrude on your life some time in the future. I rather look forward to it.” He turned to Kulara at his side. “Don’t you?”
Kulara pursed her lips. “She will hurt for sometime, Asem.” She punched her husband in the shoulder. “You insensitive beast.”
Asem let a smile drift across his face. “But I am your beast.”
“I am, for better or worse.”
“Oh, it’s always better.”
Valanna looked up and smiled. Their banter had long since ceased to shock her, but it always lightened Valanna’s heart. “I’m better for now.”
“For a different reason,” Kulara said.
She nodded. “Yes, for a different reason. I’ll have to school myself with patience.”
Asem narrowed his eyes. “Always a good practice.”
Valanna sensed the serious turn in his words and nodded again to him. “I’m not looking forward to Balbaam,” she said.
Asem cleared his throat. “Neither am I.” He pulled out the instructions that had hastened their departure from Amorim and waved it in the air. “This worries me principally because of the unknown implications. I wish I had made contact in Amorim.”
Kulara put her hand on Asem’s wrist. “And Valanna wishes she had made better contact in Amorim.”
“Two failures,” Asem said, looking at his wife.
“Don’t look at me, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Asem raised the side of his mouth into half of a smile. “Not this time.”
~
Trak twisted back to look at the gate. The end of the caravan had just passed by. He looked at his traveling companion. “I’m Trak Bluntwithe, by the way.” He couldn’t extend his hand or even give her a proper bow, holding onto the reins.
“Mori Tamoda.” She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have Bennin blood in you?”
“I’m from Pestle, not Torya like my companions.”
“Pestle,” Mori said, her eyes unfocused a little as she thought. “So you don’t do magic? All Toryans are magicians.”
The way she said magic gave Trak pause. “Not all Toryans are. Why do you ask?”
“Magic is forbidden in Bennin, except for the high born.”
Trak would have to have words with Sirul and Tembul as soon as he could. Why did the Toryans send him to Bennin if they had prohibited magic? Nothing made sense to him at this point. Didn’t the Princess practice magic? Sirul had said so, but then she was high born and Trak certainly wasn’t.
“Are magicians forbidden in Bennin or the practice of magic?” Trak ventured to ask.
“The practice, but what magician doesn’t use magic? I see that all three of you carry swords, so you might not be magicians, eh?”
“I am reasonably adept with a sword,” Trak said. “What are the chances I’ll be showing you how good I am?”
“Very high.” Mori turned her head towards the forest. Nothing grew within a few hundred paces of the wall.
“That’s not what the merchant who hired us said.”
Mori grunted. “Why tell you that your lives might be in danger if he didn’t have to?”
The Benninese had a fl
exible relationship with the truth, it seemed. He had seen nothing but duplicity and now he didn’t know if he should believe Mori’s indication that their trip would be very dangerous. But then why make the trip if it might cost lives? His conversation with Mori only left him confused and that might not be very safe either.
Neither of them said much of anything else until they entered a large clearing in the lush forest. Trak made his way to Tembul, with Sirul in tow. “The practice of magic is forbidden.”
Tembul looked over Sirul’s shoulder at the circle of wagons. “Paka told us we couldn’t use flyers. Now we know why. I don’t need magic to travel in this land.”
“Nor I,” Sirul said.
“High Born can,” Trak said. “That probably means Lenis.” Just his name sliding across his lips seemed distasteful to Trak. He glanced at Sirul. “Aren’t you a noble?”
“Barely. I’m cousin to the Princess, but with irregularities in regards to parentage,” Sirul said. “How could I prove royal blood anyway?”
“What about Lenis?” Trak said.
“Lenis?” Tembul laughed. “How could anyone mistake the man’s arrogance filled action for anything else?”
Trak could only nod in agreement. “We should practice when we are settled for the night, just to show these people that we really do know how to use our weapons. Mori knows that Toryans practice magic. In fact, she thinks all Toryans do.”
Sirul chuckled. “I am glad we do not.”
Tembul grinned. “As for swordplay, I will be glad for it. I’d rather be walking than riding, anyway, so the exercise will do me some good.”
Trak left his companions and returned the Mori’s wagon. “Is there anything I can do to help you get ready for night?”
She looked at him sideways as she fussed with a box. “Can you cook?”
That wasn’t Trak’s strong point, but he knew enough, having done his share of stew-making at Able’s inn. “I don’t know how to use your spices. From the smells in Homika, you cook differently than in Pestle.”
“Watch me tonight. I will loosen my tongue if you help me with the meals. I sell my food to other merchants while we travel. You might make a few more coins. Your Toryan money is not well received in Bennin.”
Trak nodded. “We’ve already found that out.”
She shrugged and pulled out bags of food. “Note the spices. They are used in much the same proportion for all of our meals.”
Trak didn’t know the Bennin word for stew, so he just watched her work. It appeared that they ate rice as their staple. Santasians ate more noodles and in Pestle, potatoes were most popular. Trak had made a few rice dishes, so cooking the grain didn’t daunt him.
Mori handed him a large pot. “Water, two thirds the way up. The stream is over that way,” she pointed into the woods with her chin. Trak noticed others heading in that direction.
He returned lugging the pot. “Now what?”
Mori ignored all he said while Trak concentrated on what she used and how much as she cooked the rice in the large pot and then removed the rice with a strainer, saving the water to throw vegetables dried meat and herbs and spices into the pot. She would only answer Trak’s questions on what herbs she used.
Trak sampled the soup, since it was too watery for stew, every step of the way, trying to remember how the taste progressed.
When she finally put the top of the lid on the pot, the sun began to set and a surprising large line of caravaners began to form.
“Serve. One ladle of each,” Mori said.
Trak began to dispense the food until the line ended. He looked down into the pot and found perhaps a quarter of the soup left.
“You may feed yourself and your two companions after you have served me,” Mori said. “There should be just enough.
After he had finished, he sat down with his two Toryan companions with his food. Amazingly there was less than two servings left. Mori knew how to control portions.
“Different, but good,” Sirul said.
“Nourishing,” Tembul said without enthusiasm, but Trak noticed how quickly he finished the meal.
Trak took his friends’ bowls to Mori. “Do I clean up?”
She nodded and gave him instructions on how to do it the Benninese way. He couldn’t tell the difference between Pestle and Bennin methods of scouring two pots.
Although Trak nearly succumbed to using the dishwashing pose that he learned in the Espozia Magicians Guild, he still finished soon enough and returned the two large pots to Mori.
She squinted at the pots in the darkness and grunted. “Fine enough. Cook the same thing tomorrow morning,” she said after she had stowed her cooking utensils. Trak rolled out his blankets next to her cooking fire. Tembul and Sirul ended up joining him and so ended his first half day on his journey to Beniko.
~~~
Table of Contents
Map of Trak’s World: Pestle and Cokasan Continents
Characters, Countries, Locations
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Excerpt from Magician In Captivity
Copyright Page
Author’s Note
A Bit About Guy
Books by Guy Antibes
Characters, Locations, Countries
in Magician in Exile
Characters
Pestlans
Able Bluntwithe - Innkeeper of the shabby, out-of-the-way inn The Blunted Sword Trak’s adoptive father
Trak Bluntwithe - Son of Able and biological son of Neel Cardswallow.
Neel Cardswallow – Known publically as a ne’er do well. Has always come and gone from The Blunted Sword.
Honor Fidelia - Mage. Black hair with a coppery strand. Served as a spy for Santasia in Pestledown and fled with Trak to Santasia where she was a double spy for Colcan.
Galinda Youngblood - Trak’s Mother and Neel’s wife. Daughter of the magician that made the mistake, banishing magic from Pestle, leading to the Warish insinuation. Not a character in the books
Esmera Walkalot - innkeeper of The Looking Inn.
Valanna Sleekbottle (Almond) – A Pestlan living in Balbaam, Warish. Spy for Warish in Pestledown.
Harl Crustwillow, King of Pestle.
Santasians
Misson Dalistro - Geography and History Tutor for Trak and Val. Spy for Santasia.
Captain Glasanda - master of the ship ownded by the Dalistros that brought Trak to Espozia
Ferano - a sailor that worked with Trak
Arman Gio - Swordmaster to the school of the nobles in Espozia and Trak’s sword instructor.
Sereni Barazzi - Madame Barazzi, a courtesan hired by Misson Dalistro in Espozia to give Trak manners lessons as well as lessons on how to be comfortable in Court.
Senior Garono Dalistro - head of Santasian Council. Father of Misson. Senior is the title of the Council leader.
Master Borega - A mid-blue master in the Santasian Magicians Guild
Mistress Nullia - A high Purple Master, instrumental in Trak’s first escape from the Magicians Guild
. A double spy like Honor.
Adolphus Niamo - Military leader of the Loyalist Santasian forces.
Bonigo - A Purple magician and leader of the Moziran guild.
Lieutenant Navino - Military head of Valanna’s expeditionary unit.
Sanda Pillora - Rebel, masquerading as a Loyalist in the city of Teraviza
Colonel Mirona - Leader of the Eastern Santasian military force
Captain Liasta - Liaison with the Far Eastern army attached to Colonel Mirona’s staff.
Warishians
Nez Ferez - A prince of Warish, killed in book one by Neel’s machinations.
Asem Ferez - A third cousin to the king and one of his tribe. Former fighter and now spy for King Marom
Marom Ferez - King of the Warish - Leader of the Warish Tribes.
Ferezan - Tribe of Nez of whom Asem and the King are members.
Kulara - Asem’s second and most favorite wife. She is adept in magic and ends up mentoring Valanna.
Colcanans
Berin Titrius - Friend of Asem
Willing Nomia - A Dean
Service Nomia (Benium or Ben) – Willing Nomia’s father and a retired Innovator, the highest level of magic in Colcan.
Sunbeam - Colcanan double agent in Goriza.
Rasia Menta - Scout leader at Bitrium and Honor’s friend.
Toryans
Tembul - Toryan scout leader
Lenis - Toryan noble. Has relationship with abducted Princess. Antagonist
Sirul - Young Toryan officer. Assigned as army liaison and becomes friends w/Trak
King Basiul - Elected king of the Eastern Toryans.
Kandannans
Gamaru - Kandannan wizard at the advanced army camp
Countries
Torya
Small Indigenous race to the Covansian continent. Reclusive and confined to the Mountainous forests that cling to the borders of Colcan, Santasia and Kandanna. Stronger in magic, not perceived as civilized. Horrid reputation, but looked on as bogeymen. Natural culture, not aggressive, but will defend their lives and families.
Santasia
Large fertile country. The culture is like a Spanish-Italian mix with people with that kind of appearance. Warm, more hot-blooded. Less magical, but its guild will absorb any magician. Ruled by a Council, appointed from aristocracy and elected headed by the Senior.