by Guy Antibes
“Or he is ashamed Namion Threshell tricked him?”
Pol thought about Val, and found himself ambivalent if he came or not. At one time, he would not have wanted to walk across the street in Borstall without Val, but that was then, and now, he had other ways of protecting himself, and he knew he had changed quite a bit from Prince Poldon.
~~~
Chapter Sixteen
~
V al was scrubbing down his horse in the stable when Pol finally caught up to him.
“Other than keeping your horse clean, what are you doing?” Pol said.
“I am keeping busy until I am called to do something else.”
“Who is doing the calling?” Pol asked.
Val shrugged and kept brushing.
“Do you want to come to Tishiko with Shira and me? Do you know any Shinkyan?”
“I know a little bit,” Val said in Shira’s language. “I couldn’t pass for a Shinkyan, but I can understand more than I can speak.”
Val surprised Pol with his response. “Is that a yes?”
The Seeker paused and looked at Pol. “Do you want me to go? It doesn’t seem like it to me.”
Pol stared at Val, trying to determine his true feelings. Had he outgrown Val in some way? Could Val be useful? He knew he would, but their relationship would be different on this trip.
“I would like some Imperial backup, and you are uniquely qualified, so the answer is yes. I’d like you to join us.”
“Backup? You don’t want me to lead?” Val found the essence of Pol’s problem.
“No,” Pol said. “I am going to Shinkya to become the Great Ancestor. I don’t know what I’ll face, so in that, I’m on my own. However, I’d like Shira and you to help me be effective. I’ve never played at being a god before, and I can’t afford to mess this up like I did the last time I visited Tishiko.”
“Harona and Karo told me about that. I can see myself doing the same thing you did, even at my age.” He shook his head. “I did so not too long ago, remember?”
Pol nodded. “We learn from our mistakes, and there are always new mistakes to be made.”
“At any age,” Val said.
“At any age,” Pol repeated. “Will you come or not?”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I will still go, but I may not get the perspective I need from an Imperial point of view.”
Val snorted. “And I am the perfect Imperial?”
“No,” Pol said. “But you can think like one, and that’s what I need.”
“I’ll come on one condition.”
“What is that?”
“I want to see what kind of a pattern-master you are.”
“You don’t have to make that a condition since I’ll happily spar with anyone.”
“Now?” Val said.
Pol had the old-Shinkyan sword at his hip. “Sure.”
Val picked up his arms, and took the scabbard from the sword. He held the sheath in one hand and his sword in the other. Pol did the same thing. They walked out into the yard and saluted one another, Imperial fashion.
Pol had never fought Val since their training sessions on the way to Tesna and had not fought with him since they had left South Salvan with Queen Isa. That was years ago, Pol thought.
They circled each other. Pol wondered who had the advantage, the teacher of long ago, or the person Pol had become after years of practice in Daera. He stopped the woolgathering when Val’s muscles bunched. The Seeker attacked with a flurry of unconventional approaches. He used forms that Pol had never learned.
Pol let Val push him back, but he found the pattern in the forms that he sought and defended using sips of magic in three instances. Val stepped back, looking a bit out of breath.
“You have improved. Now you come at me.”
Pol rarely attacked first, but that was not because he didn’t know how. He needed to do something unconventional, so he thought of a Kirian defensive form and reversed it in his mind. He and Anaori had practiced the maneuver many times.
He stutter-stepped forward and brought his sword up, reversing the blade so the blunt end would be used. Pol used a sip of magic at the beginning to put Val on the defensive. He slapped Val’s scabbard aside with his own and let the Seeker bring his blade back to address Pol, but his blade met Pol’s blunt side coming from the opposite direction. Pol slid the heavy blunt edge along Val’s sword and let it hit Val’s guard and then pushed down, making Val’s blade slip. Pol punched his scabbard into Val’s stomach a bit harder than he intended.
Val went back on his rear and looked up at Pol, who touched Val’s sword arm. The Seeker raised his hand in submission. “Where did you learn that?”
“It is based on a defensive form that the Kirian’s use. I reversed it and changed the end.”
Val dropped the scabbard and raised his hand for Pol to help him up. He slipped his blade towards Pol as Pol helped him up, but Pol helped him up with his scabbard arm, as well, and met Val’s sword with his own. Val had used a healthy dose of magic to bring up his sword. Pol had the leverage, and with a shock of magic on his own behalf, twisted Val’s sword out of his hand.
He finished helping Val up. “Are we through with our match?”
Val gave Pol one of his grim smiles. “We are, and I’ll go with you to Tishiko willingly. You’ve learned a lot in the last five years. You didn’t use much magic, did you?”
“I’m glad you had to ask. A bit here and there. You didn’t use much more than I did.”
Val chewed on his lip. “I did, and you caught it. Very good. I don’t think I can defeat you now. You learned from a good sword master in Daera?”
“I spent two years under a Kitangan weapons master, learning swordsmanship without any magic.”
“I don’t doubt our match would be much the same without it.”
Pol smiled. “No doubt about that. I still don’t have the experience you have.”
“Different experience,” Val said. “With our history, I will go as your advisor, not a follower.”
“As intended, Val.”
His former mentor clapped him on the back. “Now that’s settled, help me with my horse, and we can get something to eat and drink. Especially drink.”
~
Pol, Shira, Ako, and Val rode among fifty Fearless soldiers cycling back to Shinkya. Karo Nagoya traveled up front with a Sister-Commander and four other officers. A similarly-sized column of Bureaucracy troops followed behind with packhorses.
They used the new pass that South Salvan shared at the northern edge with Shinkya. Pol arranged a rapid pace. The Fearless soldiers knew of the disguised riders, since they all knew that the four of them rode Shinkyan horses. Demeron had surprised Val with a choice of Shinkyan stallions that were willing to bond with him. Pol had never seen Val so touched before, and the Seeker spent much of the time on the ride conversing with his new companion.
Pol used the face he had on Daera, and Val found a Shinkyan soldier to model his features. The Seeker had an easy way of changing the disguise to suit his own face.
“I can hardly tell you are wearing a disguise,” Val said, as they rode for a while on the column’s first night on Shinkyan soil.
“I’ve managed to dampen the magic. It took some practice, but my time with the Demron essence gave me a little extra power that helped me do that.”
Val looked at Pol with an intensity that nearly made him shrink away from the Seeker. “That alien is truly gone?”
Pol nodded. “The consciousness is far, far away from Phairoon. I still retain memories of my experience with him, but I know he is truly gone.”
“Good. As your advisor, a distraction at the wrong moment will be disastrous.”
“We both agree,” Shira said. “Pol is definitely different from when he left Tishiko and even when he returned. The essence made him feel quite odd.” She looked at Pol and raised her eyebrows, “But not too odd.” She laughed. “That feeling is gone.”
Val close
d his eyes. “So that was it,” he said. “I thought Pol had changed after five years, but I see what you mean.” He nodded. “I haven’t been as observant as I usually am. I’m still recovering from a nasty experience.”
Pol could see that Val’s confidence had become a fragile thing, and Val had not really been tested since his easy defeat at the hands of Grimwell, the former Imperial Magician in Baccusol. Could he rely on Val’s opinions? Pol decided that he could, but he might have to exercise greater judgment in evaluating what counsel Val gave him.
“It matters not,” Pol said. “I’ll take any observation an Imperial Seeker can give me.”
“And then you will mull it over in your mind to see if it is useful,” Val said.
“As I do now, even with my own thoughts.” Pol would not have Val second-guessing him. “We live in perilous times, and various points of view are useful.”
Had Val played games with him in Redearth? He could tell that Val had not given him chances during their sparring other than the usual efforts not to cut the opponent.
“I am free to offer you my observations as I see them?”
The conversation seemed tedious. What did Val have to prove? Was he testing Pol somehow? “If you don’t, bringing you along is a mistake on both our parts.”
“Why a mistake on my part?” Val said.
“Tishiko is a harsh place. I should know. It is harder to be a Seeker. The political power alignments shift back and forth, but in some ways, they are not flexible, especially in accepting outsiders.”
“But I am Fearless,” Val said.
“Your Shinkyan is adequate for an Imperial, but not for a Shinkyan,” Ako said. “You may think you are Fearless, but you are not. Pol, for all his ability with the language, did not succeed with the cultural aspects.”
Val nodded. “The cultural aspects. Of course. I had forgotten that Shinkyans aren’t humans.”
Pol wondered why Val accepted his invitation to join them if he felt that way.
“Watch yourself,” Shira said. “Perhaps you should return to Redearth, Valiso Gasibli.”
Pol cringed at Shira’s unfriendly words. However it would be better for Val to return if he continued to bathe in this negativity. Pol wondered if he could discern a pattern in Val’s comments. Could it be Val goaded them to prove out a pattern the Seeker built as they rode? That would make more sense than anything else would.
“Shinkyans don’t think of themselves as humans,” Pol said. “That is correct. It has to do with their relationship with the Demrons, who brought the Shinkyans here from their world, which is pretty much dead at this point.” Pol had shared the details of his battle with the Demron essence only with Shira. “The essence ripped me out of this existence and fought with me on the world that the Demrons escaped. Their sun looked ready to fall to their world. Nothing lived, nothing but dark gray dust covered everything.”
“A figment of your imagination?”
“Does it matter?” Pol said. “The Shinkyans came here with the Demrons as their servants. The Demrons really existed, and the Shinkyans still do.” Pol purposely did not use the term slaves. “Humans were already here, and the Demrons came with, in some ways, a higher level of civilization, so the Shinkyans thought humans beneath them. The Zasosians successfully poisoned the Demrons. The Shinkyans fled to the south, and I think I now know why.”
Shira looked at him, surprised. “You do?”
Pol ignored Shira’s question. “They originally settled with the Kirians and were asked to leave, so they came to a land that wasn’t settled. Shinkya is not the most fertile place, but it gave the Shinkyans a place to grow. They never shrugged off the arrogance that forced them out of two countries, Teriland and Kiria.”
“Oh,” Shira said. “That makes sense.”
“Not quite,” Val said. “Why did they travel halfway around the world?”
Pol shook his head. “I wasn’t there, so I don’t know why. Perhaps they wandered from place to place. The Kirians still don’t like Shinkyans. The Shinkyans are an insular people, even now.”
Val nodded his head. “That’s what I wanted to know.” He didn’t utter another word until they finally stopped for the night.
~
“What is Val doing?” Shira said to Pol when they walked away from the camp.
“Building a pattern that he didn’t have. I can’t say I agree with his approach. It wasn’t that I withheld anything from him.”
She looked back at the campfires. “Val wants to earn his information,” she said.
Pol put his arm around her and squeezed. “Spoken like a Sister. Good insight that I had missed. I knew he filled out a pattern, but that explains his behavior. He is still shaken by his failure to protect himself from Grimwell.” Pol nodded as he put more of Val’s pattern in place. “We can’t overtly help him, but we can be patient.”
“Aren’t you shaken by letting your guard down?”
“Not shaken. I will curse that moment of stupidity for the rest of my life. I’m sure you won’t let me forget, will you?”
Shira looked down at the ground. “Maybe.” She looked up and smiled. Pol could see her white teeth in the moonlight.
“I’m over it if that’s what you mean. I learned from my mistake, and I gained unique experiences that I won’t forget. Val has no one to lean on, so his mistake affected him more deeply.”
Shira looked away. “We shouldn’t have brought him.”
“He needs us, Shira. We have to make sure we use him, that’s all.”
“That’s your job as his leader.”
“No one leads Valiso Gasibli. I thought on this trip that I would, but that won’t happen.” That also fit in the pattern that Pol had not quite finished working out.
~
Val spent most of the time talking to Ako in Shinkyan. From what Pol heard, his diction improved as they traveled. He did not ignore Pol, but he did not act like a friend. Pol remembered that Val never really did.
They reached a good-sized town. The highest-ranking Bureaucracy officer slipped into an office very similar to the one where Pol had gotten his papers when he first visited Shinkya. He returned in a few minutes with papers for Pol and Val. Pol shuffled through the thin leather portfolio and saw two versions, one with his Imperial name and another with a Shinkyan name.
Pol showed his new papers to Shira. “I am Tomio Hadori.”
“You don’t look like a Tomio,” she said, smiling, but the smile abruptly stopped. “The real Tomio likely died fighting for Redearth.”
That wiped the smile off Pol’s face, too. “I will do my best to give him honor while I am in Shinkya.”
“I’m sure he would think the same, lending his name to the Great Ancestor. Make sure the papers with your Imperial name are folded so they can’t be seen. There might be others asking for our papers. The bureaucrats at this office will soon be out to document our passage in the usual way.”
“We don’t have to enter?”
“Not a military detachment.”
Six bureaucrats walked out in pairs. One examined each soldier’s papers while the other wrote down who entered Shinkya. Pol made sure he looked like every other soldier, not quite relaxed when someone perused your papers, anxious for no unforeseen problems.
He looked around the town. It looked very Shinkyan, he thought. Kirian towns and villages were more like Shardian villages with thatched roofs, although the Kirians used more concrete in their building. Kitanga was a different story. It looked more like Tishiko than Tishiko without the proliferation of pagodas. The wide tiled roofs stacked on each other at every story looked very similar.
Pol did not know if it was because of Shira, but he liked Shinkyan architecture better than Kitangan. It was cleaner and a little more severe. Perhaps that’s what the Shinkyans contributed to their own building. The larger the Shinkyan town, the fewer thatched roofs, but even the style of the thatch had become more ‘Shinkyan.'
“We will stay at a Shinkyan barrac
ks tonight instead of camping. Shinkyan soldiers billet together, and the cultural barriers between men and women are, uh, more relaxed.”
“Will I get to see the skin of Sisters?” Pol said.
“Not this Sister,” Shira said, “but yes. The army does not permit hugging and kissing and more along those lines.”
Pol understood. “So does Val need to be warned?”
Shira looked at Val’s back. “That man is too cold for such things. Ice cold,”
“You’d be surprised, but I don’t think Val is ready to relax under any circumstances,” Pol said.
The Bureaucrats asked for their papers. Pol handed over his documents, but he kept the leather portfolio and let his eyes wander again about the town. When the men moved on, Pol said, “Where are the things I left behind?”
“Your stupid hat, for example?” Shira’s face made it clear what she thought of the thing.
“My Great Ancestor hat,” Pol said. “I have my Demron steel splinters and throwing knives and clothes.”
“We didn’t find your weapons. You said you left them in the wall of the Pagoda in the Fearless compound. We didn’t go looking.”
“If we are Fearless warriors, perhaps we can stay in their compound in the same Pagoda.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged, now that Elder Furima is leading the Foxes,” Shira said.
“That’s a very good thing,” Pol said. “I’m sure I’ll say something inappropriate when I see her again.”
“The time will come for that, but we keep a low profile for a few days while we distribute rune books to a few strategic parties and get a true feel for what the factions are doing. We’ve both been gone for a long time.”
“But you’ve kept in contact.”
Shira shrugged. “Second and third-hand information is not the same.”
“Indeed it isn’t,” Val said turning around.
Pol did not know how much Val had heard, but he certainly had tweaked better hearing for a few minutes anyway.
The bureaucrats waved the soldiers on.
“How many times will we have our papers examined?” Val asked.