A Sorcerer Rises

by Guy Antibes

  Ricky slowly walked across the hallway. He paused before he knocked on the door and took a deep breath. The Baron intimidated him, but Ricky would have to endure it.

  The door opened just as Ricky was about to knock.

  “I thought that was you,” the Baron said and turned, walking to his chair. “Have a seat.” He waved his hand to a nearby chair without turning around.

  Ricky sank down into the soft leather upholstery.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Ricky took a deep breath. “In regards to what?”

  “Putting my daughter in danger.”

  “I had no idea that I would be the target of an assault,” Ricky said, using another new word. “I’m not without the ability to evade pursuers.”

  Baron Mansali narrowed his eyes and looked down at a piece of paper. “It’s apparent that you aren’t. I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings—”

  Ricky prepared himself for the inevitable tirade.

  “I’d like you to continue to be friends with my daughter, Loria.”

  “What?” Ricky said. He pressed his lips together, but the word had already escaped.

  “Loria is a unique person, and she looks up to you. I’m not sure, but I think it’s because you are a very talented student. Her brothers protected her before she became a teenager, but years ago they were too old to give her attention. She had no other significant female friends. I’ve tried to get her to know others, but they were inevitably scared off.”

  Ricky wondered why. Did they operate that far from Parantian law? Were other girls’ parents afraid of the Baron?

  “I can’t take the place of a girl, my Lord.”

  The Baron made a disagreeable face and waved off Ricky’s comment. “Not that, boy. Just don’t get too intimate. No kissing or anything worse. Be the friend you’ve already become. You are unsuitable for anything else, but you are welcome here when accompanied by my daughter.”

  The Baron rose, so Ricky did the same. The man extended his hand. Ricky shook it.

  “I am pleased to meet you,” Ricky said.

  “I hope I’m pleased to meet you.” The Baron waved Ricky off. “There is a carriage waiting to take both of you back to the academy.”

  On the return trip to the academy, Ricky looked at parts of Tossa he had never thought to visit.

  “Did my father warn you off?” Loria said.

  “No. He told me to continue to be your friend.” Ricky lifted the sack of candy and examined the rough cloth.

  “He said that?”

  Ricky nodded. “He made me swear not to kiss you or do anything like that.”

  Loria grabbed Ricky’s free hand. “Can we hold hands?”

  “I think he didn’t want that either. Friends, just friends.”

  Loria put a pout on her lips. “We can start there,” she said beaming.

  “Isn’t Benno a friend?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. We are acquaintances, and that’s all.”

  Ricky knew that’s not what Benno felt. He squeezed Loria’s hand and let it go. “Your brothers don’t seem to be like your father.”

  “Varanio inherits the title, but none of them have the grit Father does. At present they are just workers at Father’s business. It’s not that they don’t like him, but he is their boss. In any event, they all try to keep their opinions to themselves.”

  The change in subject seemed to work, and soon they drove through the gates of the academy.

  ~

  “The same attackers?” Saganet said to Ricky.

  “Oh, my!” Mistress Doubli said.

  The three of them sat in the cottage’s living room.

  “Since we received a note from Baron Mansali, there won’t be any violation of academy rules for your staying out late, and your probation won’t be violated,” Mistress Doubli said. “But it is distressing that every time you leave the academy, you are assaulted.”

  Saganet stood and paced the room. “Someone is tipping the attackers off that you are outside.”

  “We are outside,” Ricky said to Saganet. “You’ve been attacked twice, too. I think it is Victor Taranta.”

  “He would have known about the dinner, but no one knew about the Sorcerer performance,” Saganet said.

  “One person did,” Ricky said. “I sent a note to Frank telling him we wouldn’t be studying because we were going to a Sorcerer’s performance.”

  “Franken Pestella isn’t Victor Taranta.”

  “He’s part of Victor’s group now. Perhaps he always was, and he could have slipped the message to Victor.”

  “Who definitely can get a message outside the academy,” Mistress Doubli said. “But why take things to such a personal extent?”

  Saganet shook his head. “I don’t know. Me, I can understand. Maybe the motives shifted.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Mistress Doubli said. “Political for you, and Ricky’s situation is personal.”

  “No one would be after Loria, would they?” Ricky asked.

  “Few people wish to cross Baron Mansali. I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t have some of his people seeking out the attackers.”

  Ricky doubted it. The Baron didn’t seem overly exercised that someone attacked his daughter. He appeared to be more upset that she showed up unexpectedly on his back doorstep.

  “I’ll have some people do some investigating of Franken’s parents to see why they might have aligned with the Tarantas.”

  Mistress Doubli rose. “There’s nothing more I can do. I’ll return to my apartment. Please let me know what you find, Saggy.”

  Ricky and Saganet stood as well and saw the Dean out of their cottage.

  “How was Karian Grandari? Maybe it’s time I had a talk with him.”

  “He is connected to Baron Mansali?” Ricky asked. “The Baron knew we had visited Karian’s shop.”

  Saganet laughed. “I’ll bet Mansali had people scurrying around Tossa last night finding all they could about you. Karian’s father was once a retainer of the Baron’s, but most people think the relationship died with the father. It hasn’t died, but faded into the background, on purpose. Karian occasionally does some discreet business for the Baron at his shop.”

  “What kind?” Ricky asked.

  “It is discreet, so I don’t know,” Saganet said.

  “How do you know Karian?”

  “For much the same reason, but we don’t share business interests, just opinions.”

  “Politics?”

  Saganet gave Ricky a sly smile. “I’ve been eying that sack of candy. Why don’t you share a piece with me?”

  ~

  “I’ve had enough!” Benno said after running around the gymnasium fifty times.

  He dragged himself to a bench and sat down.

  Ricky had already finished and had begun practicing staff forms. He poked Benno in the stomach.

  “Want to be a warrior? Get rid of that. You’ve already lost some weight in the last month.”

  Benno shook his head. “I’m not there yet, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”

  “Yes, you will. Just give yourself a chance,” Ricky said. “Get up and let’s practice staff forms. It’s not as taxing as sparring.”

  The older boy nodded and stood. He bent backward to stretch and shuffled to the rack that held staffs. Soon, he and Ricky were going through the forms in unison until Saganet called them over to say their time was up.

  “Actually, I can feel the difference from when I started,” Benno admitted. “It’s just that it’s hard to keep the energy up.”

  Saganet walked over. “That’s the difference between a good soldier and a dead one. If you keep your energy up, you survive. You lose your energy, you don’t. Fighting isn’t a game like sparring or going through forms in a gymnasium.”

  Ricky thought about Saganet’s comments while he finished cleaning the gymnasium’s floor. If he wanted to accomplish anything in life, he had to keep going…a
t least keep the momentum up. Ricky sometimes looked at his tutoring sessions with Benno as doing more than he needed to, but he realized that was shortsighted. He needed to keep going in the same direction and inject more energy into his learning. A few months worth of exercise didn’t make a soldier out of Benno, and the same buried in books didn’t make Ricky a professor, but both of them had made progress.

  Before Mistress Doubli rescued him from the Juvenile Home in Applia, Ricky was going to spend the rest of his life in Shantyboat Town. Now he had options that he never dreamed of before, and the option still included going back to his old life.

  The thought made Ricky laugh as he pushed the mop.

  ~~~

  Chapter Seventeen

  ~

  “I won’t be around for Spring Recess,” Saganet said.

  “You told me before,” Ricky said as he put the pot of stew in the middle of their kitchen table. “I can still stay here?”

  Saganet nodded. “The commissary still operates, but the selections are pretty slim. You understand, of course.”

  Ricky nodded. “I do. No gymnasium cleaning?”

  His guardian smiled. “I have something for you.” Saganet went to his bedroom and returned with a long slim box.

  Ricky slipped the cover to see a slim knife displayed next to a simple sheath.

  “What is this for?”

  “Protection. Open the card.”

  Ricky pulled out an envelope tucked beneath the weapon and its cover.

  “This is a permit to carry a weapon?”

  Saganet nodded. “Don’t use your magic unless your life is in the balance. I can’t let you leave the academy on your own without some means of protection. Merry and I had to sign off on this. We are responsible for anything that happens to you when you are out of the academy.”

  “But you are responsible for me now,” Ricky said.

  “Ah, but your probation has ended. You are no longer a criminal. Any violation of Paranty and Tossan laws are new. You are a free person. You could walk out of here during Spring Recess and not turn back.”

  Ricky looked at Saganet. “I have no reason for doing that. I like it here, and I like living here with you.”

  Saganet reached over and took Ricky’s wrist. “I feel the same way. I never imagined that I would, but we are good for each other. You will have to take care of yourself, but I’ll leave a heavy purse for you when I go, along with a key to the man door in the gate.”

  Ricky sat back, stunned. His life had changed so much that he hadn’t even thought about the end of his probation. He picked up the knife.

  “This only works against thugs without swords.”

  “Ah. There is a length limit for those under twenty, so you can’t carry anything longer. The intent is not for you to kill anyone, but give you enough time to do that shout of yours and run away.”

  “But the Compact doesn’t permit magic.”

  “You aren’t fighting with magic if you get out of harm’s way, are you?”

  Ricky didn’t have an answer to that. He had already used his shout to save Loria that cold day last winter.

  “I have a task for you. There is a package that I’ll put out on the table in the main room. Deliver that to your friend Karian,” Saganet said.

  “What’s in it?”

  “A book.”

  “With opinions that align with his?”

  Saganet smiled. “You can think of it that way. Don’t open it.”

  Ricky nodded. “Why don’t you take it yourself?”

  “I’m being watched,” Saganet said. “You can drop it by on your way to your little shantyboat. I imagine you’ll want to see how it survived the winter?”

  Ricky hadn’t thought of doing that, but it seemed like a good idea. Saganet had just given him a reason for heading to Upper Tossa. He smiled.

  “You are a devious man,” Ricky said.

  Saganet gave Ricky a conspiratorial smile. “We’ll talk about my opinions when I return.”

  ~

  With Saganet gone, Ricky dropped by the commissary for lunch. He was surprised to see Loria eating by herself.

  “Why aren’t you home?”

  “Oh, Father is on a business trip to Jarrace, on the lookout for excellent wine and cheese he can import. Varanio went with him, and with both of them out of the house, I’d be by myself the entire recess, so I decided to stay here and study.”

  “I’m going to my shantyboat tomorrow. Do you want to come? We should be safe if we visit during daylight.”

  Loria’s eyes lit up. “I’d love to. Maybe you can buy me some sweets at your friend’s shop.”

  Ricky smiled. “Let’s do that. I have something to show you, anyway.”

  After sharing some time with Loria going through her sorcery text, he passed by the gymnasium to check if the doors were locked.

  As he passed an alley leading to the dormitory quadrangle, he noticed Victor leaving with Frank. Both of them carried satchels. He followed them at a discreet distance out to the gate. Both of them entered a waiting carriage. He memorized the crest on the doors.

  Back in the cottage, Ricky pulled out Saganet’s old book on Parantian Coats of Arms. An index had a listing of devices on various coats of arms. He located one that had crossed battleaxes. As he suspected, it was the Taranta crest. He read the description and the family tree that followed it. Victor’s father was the third son of an Earl. Good enough to use the family’s crest, but not good enough for the family title. He located the Mansali crest. It was charging boar on a field of yellow and white. That seemed to fit the Tarantas he knew.

  Just for fun, he looked up his last name, Valian, and was surprised to see a crest. It had to be a different family. The book listed an Adapo Valian as the Duke of Naparra. He knew he had heard of the name before. Professor Calasay had asked Ricky if he was related to the man, a performance sorcerer. The crest consisted of an oval featuring a white rearing horse with torches on either side on a field of maroon.

  Each crest had a paragraph dedicated to the meaning of the devices. The horse stood for courage and intelligence. The torches represented magic. Maroon signified rich blood, whatever that meant. He stared at the crest thinking he approved of that one for himself.

  He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. He stared at the package for Karian. He didn’t want to leave it out, so he hid it underneath the sack of dirty clothes in his bedroom. Ricky walked back and forth in the empty cottage and decided he wanted to do something physical.

  He found Jock loading a cart of what smelled like cow dung. “Need any help?”

  Jock turned around and beamed. “Young Hendrico!”

  “Ricky. I’m still Ricky.”

  “What brings you to my place of employment? The smell of fertilizer?” Jock grinned.

  Ricky smiled. “What else? Do you need any help?”

  “Ah, yes. I could use some. I gave the other gardeners the day off, and then this came in. If you don’t mind, I’d be happy to have you work as my assistant again.”

  “Good,” Ricky said. He grabbed gloves and an apron and began to work. It took them the rest of the afternoon and an hour into dark to get everything spread out.

  “Don’t worry about working it into the dirt,” Jock said. “My boys will do a good job of doing that over the coming days.”

  “It was fun working with you again.”

  Jock took his gloves off and slapped Ricky on the shoulders. “Anytime you miss working in soil, you just come on by.”

  Ricky nodded and returned to the cottage for a bath. His work clothes wreaked of dung, so Ricky took the stinky bag of soiled clothes to the academy laundry. They were closed for the night, so he just dumped the sack in front of the door.

  ~

  “Where could it be?” Ricky said out loud as he searched through the cottage for the package he had to deliver to Karian. He walked into his room and couldn’t see the book, but he did look at the empty spot where his clothes bag generall
y sat. “The laundry!”

  He ran outside and to the cottage. He stepped through the open door into the laundry. The steam nearly drove him out, but he found one of the laundresses.

  “Did you find a package in my clothing sack?”

  “You are?”

  “Hendrico Valian.”

  “Over here,” another laundress said. “Are you looking for this?” The woman held out a book.

  Ricky sighed. “I think so.”

  “I put it on the top of the clothes,” she said. “The cover was dripping, so I put it on top to dry.

  Ricky took the book. The cover was still damp, but he thumbed through the pages. They appeared to be intact. “Thank you,” he said with relief. He didn’t know what Saganet would do if he didn’t deliver the package.

  The day certainly appeared brighter as he stepped outside the academy gate. He wore his knife on his belt and the permit in his pocket. He definitely would not be spending any time out at night.

  “I thought you were going to leave without me,” Loria said, breathlessly from behind. “I saw you walking across the grounds dressed to go out, so I thought you forgot.”

  “My mind was on other things this morning,” Ricky said. The book was tied up with new paper and in his left hand.

  “My mind was on strolling with you on a pleasant spring day.”

  “Would your father approve? Remember what happened the last time we walked the streets of Tossa together?”

  She smiled and took his arm. “I do.” She squinted up at the sun. “It’s daylight, and there are more people about.” She touched his sword. “I have the universal woman’s weapon against thugs, a scream.”

  Ricky had to chuckle. “It works well, doesn’t it?”

  “If you need attention and there are lots of people around. Where are we going?”

  “We’ll be visiting Karian, remember?”

  “The man with the sweets. I do indeed,” Loria said. “Let’s go.”

  Halfway to Karian’s shop, Loria asked, “How is Benno doing?”

  “You haven’t talked to him lately?”

  She shook her head. “He’s been avoiding me for some reason.”

  Ricky could think of a big reason. Benno’s conditioning efforts were paying off, and he looked much better. He thought that Benno was waiting a bit longer before he appeared to his childhood friend in a different shape.