A Sorcerer Rises

by Guy Antibes

  “We’re here,” the constable said, tossing his bag to him. “You were smart not to bring any valuables.” He put out his hand. “I know you don’t deserve this punishment, nor does the chief constable of the Upper Tossa constabulary. Good luck, and watch yourself, all right?” He gave Ricky an encouraging smile before he shoved a big envelope into his hands. “Give this to the warden. She always greets the inmates on the first day.”

  Ricky stepped out of the coach and looked at the massive, dark gray building. His imagination had produced an edifice that was much the same. It screamed of terror, pain, and hate. He shuffled forward a few steps and stopped.

  He sensed fear trying to paralyze him. Ricky took a deep breath and looked again at the forbidding building. He felt a new feeling overcome him. He wouldn’t let the Home defeat him for the next nine months. Ricky would define his own experience, and he would take advantage of his stay at the Juvenile Home. He inhaled again and walked towards a new opportunity.

  ~~~~

  If you liked A Sorcerer Rises, please leave a review where you bought the book. I would greatly appreciate it.

  An excerpt from

  Song of Sorcery – Book Two

  Chapter One

  ~

  T he relentless drizzle chilled Ricky to the bone as the constable’s coach clattered over the wet cobbles of the city of Applia. The feeling of foreboding crept up on him the farther he traveled from his friends in Tossa and the closer he got to the Applia Juvenile Home, that sense of darkness, began to suffocate him.

  He loosened his collar, and peered through the misty fog as they passed by dark buildings. They finally stopped at the gate. Ricky poked his head out the small coach window and looked at the dark gray wall of roughly cut stone. He had arrived.

  The constables began to gather their belongings. Ricky had only the satchel, filled with used clothes and a few odds and ends, at his feet. The coach jerked to a stop. One of the guards tossed his bag to him and forced a thick envelope on him. Ricky barely heard words of apology and well wishes. He couldn’t imagine anything turning out well, but he clenched his teeth and nodded.

  “I will make this an opportunity,” he vowed to no one but himself, as he stepped into the wetness.

  “This way,” a Home guard, dressed in dark green, led him up the steps into the building Ricky feared more than any other.

  A surprisingly younger woman greeted him, if one could call her narrowed eyes and grunts a greeting. She snatched his envelope before he had a chance to offer it.

  She read his name on the front. “Hendrico Valian.” The woman peered into Ricky’s eyes. “Nine months? You are only with us a short while. Such a pity.” She clucked her tongue. “Such a pity,” she repeated. “We will make sure it is memorable. Come this way,”

  Ricky looked at the woman’s back, watching her long ponytail swing with every step. In a way, she reminded him of Effilia Asucco, a former bodyguard to Princess Pira of Paranty. She looked fit and walked with confidence. He straightened his back, mimicking her erect posture and followed her into a dismal office.

  He saw little in the way of feminine or even personal touches in the room. He sat on the hard wooden chair that sat in front of a large old desk. The woman slapped his folder down and stood in front of her plain wooden desk chair.

  “You will address me as Warden Sarini or ma’am.” She shook a finger at Ricky. “I don’t put up with inmates with airs, got it?”

  “I don’t have any ‘airs’, ma’am.”

  She grunted and glared at him as she pulled the papers out of the envelope and sat down to go through Ricky’s documentation.

  “A killer?” She looked up at Ricky. “You don’t look like one.”

  “In self defense,” Ricky said. “I’ve been attacked a number of times in the past year.”

  She didn’t respond but continued to read. “A thief, too?”

  “I don’t steal anymore. My grandfather made me.”

  The warden grunted again and shook her head while she continued. She paused and put the papers down. “You are a sorcerer? You won a performance competition?”

  “I had a partner,” Ricky said, trying to minimize his contribution. “It was a novice contest in Tossa.”

  “No one likes sorcerers in the Home, and that includes me. The prohibition on sorcery as a weapon applies in the Juvenile Home just like it does outside. We’ve never had a real sorcerer before, just young inmates with a little talent.”

  “I won’t use magic as a weapon,” Ricky said. “I hope it doesn’t get to that.”

  Warden Sarini pursed her lips. “It will. No one makes it out of the Applia Juvenile Home unscathed, even if you are here for just nine months. I will have my eye on you and we will meet regularly, young Valian.”

  Ricky bowed his head and looked up. He didn’t expect any favors from this severe woman.

  “How do I find my way around?”

  The warden folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Everyone lives in a cell. You’ll go into a single. In your case it might be for your protection, but for most it’s to protect the inmates from the newcomers.”

  Ricky didn’t believe her. Putting someone in a cell was a pure intimidation tactic. He stared at the warden.

  “Then a building supervisor will take you for a tour.” The warden stood, making Ricky rise with her. She rang a bell at her desk.

  “Yes, Warden Sarini?” a green-garbed guard said, poking his head into the office.

  “Cellblock 2. A single cell with a window.”

  The guard grinned and nodded. “Come along, you.”

  Ricky grabbed his satchel and trailed after the guard. As they walked the stone-paved floors, Ricky looked at the old blackened beams and old-fashioned architecture.

  “How old is the Home?” Ricky said.

  “This place? It used to be the ancient castle of Applia before the unification of Paranty, so it has to be four or five hundred years old.” The guard shook his head and chuckled. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

  “I was just curious,” Ricky said. He never had seen such an old building in Tossa. If the Home had a library, he’d do some historical checking.

  They climbed up a few steps to a different wing. This building looked a bit newer and much less fancy.

  “An inmate just graduated,” the guard said. “I can let you have this one.” He unlocked a door and showed Ricky into a room larger than his bedroom at the academy.

  The furnishings reminded Ricky of Gobble’s shantyboat in Tossa’s Shantyboat Town, but Ricky would have some room to move around. He had expected walls made of bars like the holding cells at the constabulary.

  “What do I do now?”

  “Wait. The supervisor for this building will be down to orient you before dinner.” The guard considered Ricky for a moment. “You look to be an intelligent boy. Keep your head down and don’t get involved in any of the gangs around here if you can help it. That is the fastest way to get your sentence extended.”

  “Thank you,” Ricky said to the closing door.

  He heard the key move in the lock. The room might be bigger than expected, but Ricky was locked in a room just the same.

  He took an inventory of his belongings. Other than a well-used advanced sorcery textbook that Petro Garini, a professor at Doubli Academy, gave him. Ricky had nothing of real value. He made up his bed from the rumpled stack of linen on the lumpy, stained mattress.

  He wondered if he should empty his satchel when he heard the lock on the door move.

  A short fat man pushed the door open and let it hit the wall.

  “Master Leon Pisano. I am your supervisor and you are…” he looked down at the clipboard in his hand, “Hendrico Valian, age fourteen?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “Answer me with your voice, not with your head bobbing,” the man said. His voice plainly communicated his irritability.

  “I am Hendrico Valian, Master Pisan,” Ricky said. “I’ll be fifteen
in a few months.”

  The man smiled. The smile was condescending. Master Pisan would not be a friend.

  “Nickname?”

  “Ricky, Master Pisan.”

  Pisan smiled again. “Ricky. Do you know what you do here at the Home?”

  Ricky was about the shake his head, but said, “I do not.”

  “You will learn and you will work. This says you can you read?”

  “I can, Master Pisan.”

  Pisan made a notation. “We have classes for those who read and those who don’t, but don’t get any ideas you’ll be working less. I will take you to the dining hall where you will take all your meals. Check the outside of your door tomorrow morning for your schedule for the rest of the week. Warden Sarini likes things orderly at the Home. See that you help her do that or you will regret it.”

  Ricky didn’t consider himself a disorganized person, so that wouldn’t be a problem, but he did wonder what kind of work he would be doing along with the other inmates.

  “Any questions?”

  “How many inmates are at the Home?”

  Pisan had to think for a bit. “It varies, but we have space for four hundred boys and girls. We always have more boys than girls.”

  Ricky nodded, but Pisan wasn’t looking.

  “Come with me.”

  Ricky followed Pisan after he locked up Ricky’s cell door. Boys were exiting their rooms as they made their way through the hallways. The dining room was back in the main building, the old castle. It must have been the court room, with taller windows. Boys and a few girls were already sitting down chattering away, eating from wooden bowls on battered metal trays.

  “Join that line,” Pisan pointed to an archway. “I suggest you eat by yourself. Stay seated until I come to escort you back to your cell.”

  “Yes, Master Pisan.”

  Ricky stepped to the line and looked back to see Master Pisan walking through another door. Perhaps that was the staff dining room. He inched his way forward and did what the younger boy in front of him did.

  The trays were in a pile in a wooden box. Ricky looked down. They were all so battered that they he’d be surprised if any of them would stack. He grabbed one and took a bowl, a wooden spoon, and a metal cup in no better condition than the tray from another wooden box.

  He exited the meal line with some kind of a stew, a lump of bread that didn’t seem too stale and cup filled with water. He missed the food in the commissary at the academy already, but a year ago, what he held in his tray would have been a feast.

  Ricky looked across a sea of long tables. He found an empty one and began to eat. He had finished all of the bread and half the stew when his head rocked from a slap from behind.

  “Hey!” Ricky said standing up, holding a painful ear. He turned around and looked up at the eyes of an older, taller boy the size of a man. At his side Ricky saw a familiar face. Franken Pestella, the boy who had helped the late Victor Taranta try to murder him, glared and pushed Ricky against the table.

  “Welcome to the Applia Juvenile Home,” Franken said with hard eyes in an unhappy face. Franken followed the other boys as they joined the meal line.

  Master Pisan must have observed the altercation. He sauntered up to Ricky. “Friends of yours?”

  “Just Franken. I knew him at Doubli Academy.” Ricky said still rubbing his ear.

  “A lord in Tossa arranged his detention for something to do with his son. He’s already found a gang to his liking,” Pisan said, looking at the group of boys. “You should, too, if you want protection.”

  That didn’t jibe with the guard’s advice, Ricky thought. He’d rather not become a gang member, so he didn’t respond.

  “Finished?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “Then I’ll take you back to your cell.”

  When Pisan opened the door to Ricky’s room, he presented Ricky with a key. “Keep your door locked if you want to retain your possessions. We don’t even try to find those who steal from other inmates. There is a breakfast bell. You can read your schedule while you eat. I suggest you lock your door when I leave. There is a chamber pot in the room.”

  Ricky did as Master Pisan suggested and emptied his satchel in the old broken down chest of drawers. He didn’t really have anything else to do, so he laid down and closed his eyes.

  He woke in darkness. He couldn’t find a candle and wondered if the inmates didn’t get any. He lit a magic light and took out his sorcery textbook.

  Ricky read a few pages in a chapter on performance sorcery, when he heard pounding on his door. Keys rattled and the door flew open.

  “What are you doing?” Master Pisan said, breathless. Two concerned guards looked over Pisan’s shoulders.

  “Reading,” Ricky said.

  “What’s that?” Pisan pointed to Ricky’s glowing globe, floating in the air above the textbook.

  “I’m a sorcerer and that is a magic light. It’s hard to read in darkness, Master Pisan,” Ricky said.

  The supervisor scowled. “You aren’t supposed to perform sorcery on the grounds.”

  Ricky looked at the guards. “Is that the truth?”

  The men looked at each other and shook their heads.

  Pisan turned red and slapped Ricky on the other side of the head from Frank’s fellow gang member. “Don’t question me!” the supervisor said. “Get that thing extinguished and go to sleep.”

  At least the first ear quit hurting, Ricky thought as the door closed, only after Pisan witnessed the light going out. His first day at the Home wasn’t what Ricky had expected. The trouble was, Ricky didn’t know if it was better than he thought, or worse.

  ~~~

  A BIT ABOUT GUY

  ~

  With a lifelong passion for speculative fiction, Guy Antibes found that he rather enjoyed writing fantasy, as well as reading it. So a career was born, and Guy anxiously engaged in adding his own flavor of writing to the world. Guy lives in the western part of the United States and is happily married with enough children to meet or exceed the human replacement rate.

  You can contact Guy at his website: www.guyantibes.com.

  †

  BOOKS BY GUY ANTIBES

  THE DISINHERITED PRINCE

  Book One: The Disinherited Prince

  Poldon Fairfield, a fourteen-year-old prince, has no desire to rule since his poor health has convinced him that he will not live long enough to sit on any throne. Matters take a turn for the worse when his father, the King of North Salvan, decides his oldest will rule the country where Pol’s mother is first in the line of succession, followed by Pol, her only child. Pol learns he has developed a talent for magic, and that may do him more harm than good, as he must struggle to survive among his siblings, now turned lethally hostile.

  Book Two: The Monk’s Habit

  With his health failing, Pol Cissert takes refuge in a monastery dedicated to magic, healing, and swordsmanship. As a disinherited prince, he thinks his troubles are behind him so he can concentrate on learning magic and getting his body repaired. He soon finds that his sanctuary isn’t the protection he hoped for.

  Book Three: A Sip of Magic

  Expecting to resume his studies after a long absence, Pol Cissert is disappointed when he is drafted by the Emperor’s Seeker to infiltrate into Tesna Monastery. His mission is to verify rumors of a new army being raised by the South Salvan King, a man he perceives as a personal enemy. Pol will face new challenges, not the least of which will be figuring out the mysterious roommate who arrives not long after he learns about the Tesnan’s plans to take over the world.

  Book Four: The Sleeping God

  Carrying an amulet given to him by his late mother, Pol Cissert seizes an opportunity to travel to a far-off city in search of his roots. He has no idea that the journey will be no easy jaunt. Chased by magicians, thugs, pirates, and priests, he searches for his legacy by seeking the Cathedral of the Sleeping God. Pol finds that the truth isn’t always something everyone wants.


  Demeron: A Horse’s Tale - A Disinherited Prince Novella

  Demeron, a Shinkyan stallion who can speak to human magicians, is cut off from his master and must find a way to return hundreds of miles to Deftnis Monastery, his master’s home. To do so, Demeron must travel through the country of his birth, eluding humans who would eagerly take possession of him. Sixty pages long, Demeron, A Horse’s Tale is best read between A Sip of Magic and The Emperor’s Pet.

  Book Five: The Emperor’s Pet

  On his way to return Shira to her home in Shinkya, Pol Cissert is called upon to solve two mysteries. His reward is something he does not desire, but he must put that aside while he travels to Tishiko, the exotic and dangerous capital city of the country of Shira’s birth. He finds that deadly politics badgers him every step along his journey.

  Book Six: The Misplaced Prince

  Pol can’t remember his name or his origin when washed up on the shore of a strange continent. Demeron, his horse, must find a way to get Pol to a magician powerful enough to remove his curse. Without his magic or his memories, it may take years to find the right person, and until then Pol has become the Misplaced Prince.

  Book Seven: The Fractured Empire

  In the final installment of the series, Pol Cissert Pastelle returns home after four years abroad to find The Baccusol Empire breaking apart with civil war erupting on multiple fronts. He reunites with Shira, the Shinkyan Princess, and gets to work trying to save his stepfather’s Empire. He finds more insidious spells invoked by the enemy, a society of magicians that has dedicated itself to domination. Pol has his own challenges as he navigates his way through drastic situations, not the least of which is a series of confrontations with old and new enemies.