by Guy Antibes
Kell stepped out eating a piece of fruit. “I agree with Paki,” he said. “I’ll bet you’ve grown an inch or two since we stepped off the boat at Port Molla.”
It had been nearly two months since then. Pol looked at his hands. They looked stronger, and he felt stronger physically. He hadn’t taken the time to notice. He rubbed his chin, and the few chin hairs that he had found in South Parsimol suddenly had more friends.
“I can shave?”
Paki laughed. “Maybe not yet.”
“Let me see your swords,” Pol said. “I want to try something.”
He took one of Kell’s two full-sized swords and examined it for cuts, nicks, and straightness. He thought of joining bones and looked within the sword for the best section to duplicate.
“I’m going to fix it, like I would a bone.”
Pol laid his hands on the sword and had an idea. He found his Shinkyan sword and perceived a unique pattern in the steel. He memorized the pattern, and starting at the hilt, ran his hand slowly up Kell’s blade. The metal grew hot, but not like the knives. He closed his eyes and replicated the pattern of the Shinkyan steel all the way to the tip.
He opened his eyes to look at the same pattern as his Shinkyan sword. “There you go. Let’s see how you swing it.”
Kell’s eyes were on the new look of his sword. They stepped out into the clearing and began to go through a few warm-up forms. Then they bowed to each other and touched blades. Pol instinctively stepped back and Kell advanced, obviously knowing Pol’s pattern. He pulled back his sword and Pol held his up to parry. As the two blades hit, Kell’s sword broke off at the hilt, the sharp end of the blade spun halfway across the clearing.
“You ruined it,” Kell said, looking at the hilt. “What happened? The blade looked perfect.”
“Let me see,” Pol took the hilt from Kell and looked through the handle at the tang. “I made a big mistake.”
“You certainly did,” Kell said.
Pol nearly flinched from the anger that radiated from his friend. “I didn’t extend the pattern all the way through the sword. I unintentionally created a boundary weakness at the hilt where I started the new pattern. I can fix this.”
“Please do,” Kell said, retreating into the house. “Call me when you’re done.”
Pol used his magic to disassemble the hilt. He took the broken edges and joined the two pieces, using the same pattern all the way through to the end of the tang. The sword was re-treated using the Shinkyan pattern again to make sure no boundary existed that Pol could detect with his normal eyesight or his pattern sense. He made sure the blade was balanced, and after a few tweaks, he reassembled the hilt and called Kell back out.
“Let’s try this again.”
They went through virtually the same moves, except this time the sword stayed in one piece.
“The balance is even better. I took the blade from the pirates’ armory because of the balance, but now it swings like a new blade.”
“It is new. Every grain in that steel has been rearranged from top to bottom.”
Kell grinned and ran back into the house to show Paki.
Pol stood in the middle of the clearing as it began to rain. “Thank you, Kell,” he said to no one within hearing. He had learned a valuable lesson about patterns. He never had to worry about bones before, but those were joined with a different technique, and Pol sought to knit the new bone with the old. With metal, however, the knitting didn’t work. Unless he re-patterned the entire blade, that boundary layer would still exist, weakening the weapon.
Did the Emperor approach the Empire in the same way? Is that why the Baccusol Empire had lasted for 800 years?
Cultural boundaries had to be politically dangerous. If the patterns were too different, any attempt to force the two cultures would shatter at their intersection. The cultural matrix that held the Empire together was like bone. It was easy to knit, at least it was to Pol’s senses.
Was that the reason Shinkya had never become part of the Empire? Was its culture based on different principles, and the boundary between the two would likely never knit unless you re-patterned one or the other? Shira never really talked about life in Shinkya, other than to admit that there were many factions, but now Pol felt the Shinkyan culture would be incompatible with the Empire.
Pol vowed to remember this lesson and test it as he continued to travel through Volia, if they made it out of The Shards intact.
~
In the two prior weeks, Pol had traded Pua healing lessons for Shardian language sessions, and now they were ready to plan the escape.
Pua, Shira, and Pol now walked the lanes of the little port that supported the Magicians Circle’s fortress. They roamed around the town being seen, not wearing their weapons, letting people get used to them.
Pol spent time among the local merchants and at the port where supplies came in. He asked drivers if he could help them with their loads. None of them seemed to need help, but he stood watching a meat supplier load a cart with sides of pork and beef from a ship. The older man’s grip slipped and Pol helped him keep the meat from falling to the ground, and then he helped the man with the rest of his order.
“That’s a lot for you to load,” Pol said. “Do you need any help with it when you unload?”
The man squinted at Pol. “Are you looking for work?”
Pol shrugged his shoulders. “I come from a house where every little bit helps. If I help you, can I get paid a little bit?”
The Shardian moved his mouth as he thought. “Sure. It’ll take most of the day getting to the fortress and back.”
Pol grinned. “Fortress? I don’t have anything else to do. Let me tell my mother where I’ll be.”
“You do that, but I won’t wait long.”
Pol took off, but Shira and Pua weren’t far from where he had left them, out of sight from the cart.
“I have a ride to the fortress. I won’t get back until late.”
“Then stay the night at that house. Shira and I will investigate transport to Big Island and spend the night as well.” Pua pointed to a house with wall panels of concrete and wood.
“I will see you then,” Pol said.
He ran back to the man, who had just taken off and climbed up on the seat to join him while the cart was underway.
“My name is Polakai,” Pol said, making his name sound Shardian.
“Takai is mine. You don’t look too Shardian, now that I look at you a little closer.”
Pol had only colored his hair darker. He didn’t want to be caught using a disguise by some extra-powerful Shardian magician.
“My father was a pirate and married a Bottaran captive,” Pol said as part of the cover story he had developed with Pua’s help. “He died, and my mother moved us closer to his family here at the port not too long ago.”
Takai nodded. “There are plenty who have done that. I used to know everyone in town, but no longer.” He shook his head at the thought. “Your family gods were pleased with that, I’d imagine.”
“They were,” Pol said and remained silent.
“Ever been to the fortress before?”
Pol shook his head. “My mother doesn’t like magicians.”
“Few do,” Takai said. “Just keep your head down and try not to gawk. Magicians don’t like common folk like you or me to look them in the eye.”
“I’ll take your advice. Do we actually have to go inside the place?”
Takai’s mouth turned up. “All the way to the kitchens,” he said. “Don’t get off the cart until I tell you. The magicians have spells covering the place. If you try to walk where you’re not supposed to, you’ll pay for it.”
“Have you ever walked into a spell?” Pol said.
Takai nodded solemnly. “I’ve never felt such pain. It was as if my muscles turned to jelly and began to —.”
Pol didn’t know the word, but it was probably a shock of some kind. He’d had plenty given to him by his brothers when they shuffled their sho
es on carpets at Borstall Castle when he was younger, but probably much worse.
“I’ll be careful,” Pol said. He grinned and kept an eye on the road. They hadn’t come across any wards yet, as they traveled through fields separated by clumps of forest.
“Are you hungry?” Takai asked.
“I am,” Pol said, and he really was.
“They serve food and water at the fortress. Hold out until then.”
Takai smiled to himself after he gave the answer. The man enjoyed needling him, but if that was the price Pol had to pay to get inside the fortress, it was worth it.
Their way began to get steeper. Wards began just up ahead, but none touched the road itself. When the fortress came into view, Pol noticed wards covering the ground and many extended six feet into the air like poisonous vines. Pol looked at Takai, who blithely drove his cart through the net of wards, unaware of the fortress’s prime defense.
Pol put his hand to his forehead. He hadn’t seen the density of wards from their vantage point a few ridges distant. There had to be a way, but as he looked out at the colors and shapes of what looked like malevolent caterpillars crawling over each other, they couldn’t escape through these wards with any kind of speed.
~~~
Chapter Sixteen
~
Looking up at the fortress walls as they approached, Pol saw a few figures, but none looked to be soldiers or lookouts. Why would they need such a thing, he thought, with the protection of such an abundance of wards?
He idly wondered what each ward would do, but he hoped he would never have to find out. They had just caught up to the wagon ahead of them. A magician motioned them forward and closed his eyes, probably using a location tweak, but he frowned and walked to Takai.
“What do you carry?”
“Sides of pork and beef.”
“Beef, eh? No wonder. I’ll enjoy the beef. We’ve been out of that for awhile,” the magician said waving them through.
Pol hadn’t thought to use his own location skills to look at the cart, and sure enough, he could sense the meat, but the slabs didn’t appear as colored dots, but smudges of gray. He glanced at the magician on the way in, wondering what the magician saw.
They rolled through a large gate and onto a paved courtyard. The wheels and shod hooves of the two donkeys that pulled them clattered on the stones. Magicians walked in the courtyard, making Takai stop numerous times as few of them allowed the cart to pass.
These magicians didn’t wear robes, but wore the same light clothes that most of the Shardians did. What set them apart were hats, most of which were black and others were white. They seemed to be made out of some kind of starched fabric that was molded into different shapes.
Pol thought his conical hat with the wide brim had looked a bit silly, but these seemed outlandish. He counted seven different distinctive shapes. Young magicians wore white hats, so Pol guessed that they were acolytes of some kind. He also noticed a few magicians wearing scarves that had distinctive geometric designs.
“What kind of magician is he?” Pol asked, pointing out a scarfed magician.
“High up. That’s all I know. They do look a bit silly in their hats, but don’t laugh at them. They will turn you into a frog or a snake.”
Pol turned and smiled. Takai liked to tease, and the man didn’t know Pol was a magician. They continued to thread their way through the buildings within the fortress walls. The place was larger than Pol had imagined, which would make finding Loa a daunting task. He would have to chance talking to the kitchen staff.
Never being in the fortress before gave Pol the cover to be a wide-eyed visitor while he memorized what he could of the layout.
Takai turned a corner and stopped behind open double doors. Pol noticed a shimmer across the opening. He hopped off the cart and followed Takai through the spell and into a bustling kitchen. A man dressed in white greeted them. Pol wondered why cooks always dressed that way. Most of them had smudges and stains by the end of the day.
“Brought a helper?” the man said. “It’s about time. I’ve been worrying about your back.”
Takai waved the comment away. “It’s not my back you need to be worried about. The price of meat has gone up. You’ll be worried about my prices.”
“Doesn’t matter to the Circle.” The chef looked around to make sure he wasn’t heard. “They make their own coin.”
That made the old man laugh. “Who doesn’t know that?”
“I don’t,” Pol said. In Pol’s experience, it wasn’t worth the drain on his power to transform a metal. “I’m new to this island. Never been to a place like this before.” Pol looked around and didn’t see a single ward. He also didn’t see any flies buzzing around, and he looked back at the opening. Perhaps the shimmer was a tweak that acted as an insect barrier. He had never imagined such a thing, but he also hadn’t thought he’d ever see wards looking like huge caterpillars either.
“There isn’t a place like this in all of Phairoon. The God of the Magicians Circle smiles on this fortress.”
“Are you a magician?” Pol said.
The chef’s eyes rolled. “I wish. No, I reserve my magic for cooking food.”
Takai laughed along with Pol and the chef.
“Are there families up here, or are all the magicians males?” Pol asked.
The chef rubbed Pol’s hair. “You didn’t look very closely when you two rolled in. The women dress like men, but they tuck their long hair up in their hats. No families though.” The man in white looked at Takai. “Where did this person come from? He should know this.”
“I think he recently moved here from Fauali or some other pirate town.”
“Oh. Your mother isn’t Shardian, then?”
Pol nodded.
“You don’t look particularly Shardian to me, but what do I know?” The chef winked at Takai. “Time to bring in my stuff.”
Pol walked out with Takai, who opened the back of the cart. “My back is bad,” Takai said.
It had looked healthy enough when Pol watched the man load up his cart.
“No problem. I enjoyed the ride,” Pol said as he hefted a side of pork and walked inside.
The chef motioned Pol. “Follow me. We keep our food downstairs where it’s colder. Magicians help us out from time to time. One will be down their soon enough to freeze these carcasses.
Freezing using magic, thought Pol. That was new to him. He shook his head as he followed the chef. His jaunt had ended up being more of an education than Pol would have ever thought. He lugged the side down wide stairs and into a barred room.
“This looks like a dungeon,” Pol said.
The chef turned around. “Have you ever been in a dungeon before? There are only a few in all The Shards.”
“I like to read books. The Chief let me read his library. I had to learn Bottaran,” Pol said.
“You pirates,” the chef snorted. “You all use Bottaran words mixed up in proper Shardian.”
“But I did learn about dungeons and castles and pointed towers.”
The chef scoffed again. “Pointed towers. Why would anyone build such things?”
Pol just shrugged and headed back up the stairs behind the chef. “Now that you know the way, you can stack the meat up. Stick around until a magician comes to freeze the meat, get his name, and then let me know before you go.”
“I will, sir,” Pol said.
“I’ll be waiting for you, boy,” Takai said to Pol, but winking at the chef.
Pol continued his task. He kept his ears open, but all he learned was what the cooks were preparing for the evening meal. He did manage to ask how many magicians lived at the fortress.
“Usually two hundred and fifty,” a cook said, “but that will go up by about fifty or so. The magicians do their sacrifice thing in a few weeks.”
“What gets sacrificed?” Pol asked as he put the side of pork down.
“A Star.”
Pol furrowed his brow and tried to look confused.
“A Star is a powerful female magician that will be offered up—”
“Human sacrifice?” Pol said.
The cook nodded. “Yes. This one is young and pretty. It’s such a shame.”
“What does she look like?”
A smile brightened up the cook’s face. “She’s down in the dungeons, not far from our storage cells. They put her there to make it easy for us to deliver meals. Take a right, and you’ll find her four or five cells down. We feed her as well as we do the Chief Magician.”
Pol worked his mouth to look as if he were afraid.
“Don’t worry, all of us have taken a peek at her.”
“Maybe I will,” Pol said. He hefted the meat and went down the stairs. The magician hadn’t shown up yet, so Pol wandered off to look for Loa. He used his locator skill to find her.
She sat, looking morose in her cell. The magicians had put rugs on the floor, along with decent furniture. Loa didn’t look deprived.
“Come to gawk?” she said.
“They said you’d be down here. I bring greetings from your father, Chief Holianai. You are Loa, correct?”
“Who else would I be?”
“Someone different, I imagine,” Pol said.
She scowled at Pol. “You’ve given his greetings. Now you can go.”
“Do you want to leave the fortress?”
“In one piece? You are damned right I do,” Loa said using the pirate dialect.
“I will return. I can’t tell you when, but soon,” Pol said. “Don’t tell anyone I’ll be back.”
Loa looked at Pol with fists on her hips, not believing a word that he said.
Not wanting to be discovered, Pol left her. He shouldn’t have had a conversation with her, but now he could only hope she wouldn’t say anything. He had four more sides to lug down. On his last trip, a magician waited for him in the cell with his arms folded. He wore a black hat shaped like one of the fortress’s mushroom domes.
“You saw the Star?”
Pol assumed a confused look, and then lifted his eyebrows. “The pretty prisoner?”