by Guy Antibes
“This?”
She scanned the coin and sensed the enchantment. Valanna nodded her head.
“I will move away from here and drop it far away from the studio.” He grabbed his hat and cane and quickly left the studio.
Valanna posed again to make sure that Coffun wasn’t likewise adorned. “Which way is the palace?” she asked.
Coffun and Asem pointed in the same direction towards the front right of the shop. She could sense more than one amulet in that direction. A closer one must have been Snively. Valanna made a slow circle in the room, and pointed towards the back of the shop. “At least another in that direction,” she said.
“I think we can chance going in that direction,” Asem said. “We are not ready for the palace, yet.”
“Now you certainly can’t stay here. I will summon a carriage and send Esmera a note that one of her conspirators may be in the employ of King Harl or the Vashtans,” Coffun said. “Gather your things, I have a safe house that I didn’t want to use at this point, but,” he looked out the door, “you have no choice.”
~
“After all of our work!” Kulara said as she plopped down next to Asem on a much nicer sofa than anything that existed in Honor’s studio.
“Should Neel return to Pestledown, we have done him a favor,” Asem said with half of a smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll remind him, my lovely cleaning lady.”
“I’d better be,” Kulara said through clenched teeth, punching her husband in the shoulder.
Valanna stood at the window, holding open the curtain, looking out on a nicely-kept garden in the back. There was even a larger area for their flyer. “We should bring the flyer here. It’s twilight now. I can teleport it.”
Kulara patted Asem’s knee and then used it to help her jump to her feet. “I’ll put out four candles in a square so you won’t be able to miss the garden.”
“I’ll change into dark clothes,” Valanna said.
Up in her rooms, she scattered her clothes on the bed. The room was larger and already clean. She smiled. Coffun Cricket certainly kept his resources close to him until they were absolutely needed. This time she was glad that he did. She shivered to imagine Vashtans and the King’s Guard smashing through Honor’s door. If Asem hadn’t asked about Vashtans, they might now be trussed up and on their way to the dungeons in the palace.
Valanna still had the written permission to perform magic that she had carried on her last foray into Pestledown, but King Harl’s signature meant nothing at this point. She changed her clothes and tied a dark cloak at the neck and descended the stairs. Kulara and Asem still sat on Coffun’s sofa talking quietly to one another.
Kulara looked up. “Take a look in the back. I put three candles on the south side of the square, so you won’t miss getting back here,” she said.
Valanna nodded and leaned over for the teleport pose and said the power word.
The flyer looked undisturbed. Valanna checked it out, even using the amulet detection pose. Sure enough, she sensed an amulet on the flyer. The Vashtans were aggressively trying to locate them. She found the amulet, a charmed nail of all things, sticking out from the back of the flyer. Valanna would have never thought of such a thing. She used a levitation spell to remove it and let it fall. She took the nail, placed it away from the flyer, and checked it again, finding a metal badge lodged between the slanted glass and the wooden sill. After removing that, she couldn’t find another amulet, so she took the flyer up into the air.
She flew high above Pestledown and easily spotted the five tiny lights in the dark back garden, and then set the flyer down.
“The flyer had been located,” Valanna said breathlessly, when she came in from the cold night. “They put two charmed items on it.” She shook her head. “The Vashtans are determined to find us. Maybe they were the ones to pay off the guards and the caretakers, not King Harl.”
“Why do you think that?” Asem said.
“They would be the ones to use the amulets to locate us. King Harl would have sent more guards or thugs or whatever,” Kulara said. “What doesn’t make sense is why would one of Esmera’s men leave an amulet in the shop? He could just as easily have just told them where we were?”
“He wouldn’t have had to contact the Vashtans, and that would have maintained an alibi?” Valanna said.
Asem played with his beard. “Perhaps. Maybe they meant the amulet to be found. Let’s hope Snively got rid of it soon after he left Honor’s studio.”
Valanna sat down in an overstuffed chair, holding her forehead. “This is too convoluted for me.”
“Get used to it, Queen Valanna,” Asem said. “It will likely get worse after you are crowned.”
“Crowned by some thick piece of wood or metal and in the grave, or crowned with an expensive piece of metal and in a different type of grave,” Valanna said. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
Kulara sat on the edge of the chair and put her arm around her. “None of us wanted any of this, but life has a way of throwing challenges our way. A farmer might have to face a failed crop that might starve his family. Is that any better than this?”
Valanna put her hand on Kulara’s. “I’ll have to remember that,” she said. “Life tests us all.”
Kulara just nodded.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Asem said.
“We need to find the Blue Vashtans that came from Warish.” Valanna stood up and closed her eyes, assuming the pose to locate amulets. This time she could make out the faint sense of the two amulets that once were on the flyer, but they were closer to a third source. Valanna pointed. “That way.”
“I’ll get your cloaks. There is no better time to find our Blue Swan Vashtan friends than right now. At least we were able to keep their definite presence a secret from the other spies in Pestledown.”
Valanna felt a little guilty about that, but Asem felt it important to have some kind of reserves available. He still didn’t fully trust any of the others. Esmera’s friend had proven that caution.
They bundled up in the cold, and walked into the dark night in the direction that Valanna pointed.
~~~
Chapter Twelve
~
Trak had taken a knit hat from the pile of clothes their abductors had brought with them and jammed it over his head. His blond hair was more of a giveaway of his Pestlan heritage than anything else. As they teleported from spot to spot, steadily heading north, he couldn’t stay very warm, yet Lia hadn’t complained. Perhaps she had on an additional layer that Trak didn’t know, but he was just warm enough to keep from shivering in the cold.
“We’ll need to find shelter,” Trak said as his teeth began to chatter. “I can make us one.”
Lia looked up at him, admiration plainly in her eyes. “You can do that, too?”
“Stop it. I’m not a hero, but Tembul taught me some woodcraft on our way to Beniko, and I’ve never put it into practice.”
They stopped in a clearing. Fir trees surrounded them, and that was why Trak chose that spot. He used his sword to cut down branches.
“I know Toryan’s don’t like cutting trees down—”
“Eastern Toryans more than Western Toryans,” Lia said. “We love our trees as much as they do, but the our sisters to the east made it a religion. We just keep as many trees intact as a defense against the Kandannans.”
“Before your sisters joined up with them,” Trak said.
Lia looked embarrassed and nodded, but stayed silent while Trak began to fashion a hut around a small tree that he had denuded. “We will use the little tree branches as a mattress of sorts, and these larger branches will be the wall of our hut.”
While Trak had worked, Lia stomped around and slapped her arms around her to stay warm. The snow had begun to fall again as Trak finished by spreading armfuls of pine needles on the floor of the conical shelter.
“If we were to stay longer than the night, I would tie the branches together,” Trak said.
&n
bsp; A coating of snow already covered the outside walls. Trak pushed away an opening and tossed their bags inside.
“In here?”
Trak nodded. “We can eat what the men brought.”
Lia spelled a light and crawled inside. “These are prickly,” she said sitting up and rubbing her hands.
“Better prickly than muddy.” Trak said. He rummaged around in the bag and pulled out a small loaf of bread and a sausage. “Dinner.”
“How are we going to heat this space up? A fire will burn it down.”
Trak grinned. “I brought along a pot.” He left the hut to fill the pot with packed snow.
He pushed some branches aside, and put the pot in the dirt.
“You can’t perform a pose for heat in here!” Lia said.
“Who needs to pose?” Trak concentrated on the pot. The pot turned red, melting the snow. The steam escaped through the holes left by the branches, but there was enough heat to warm their hands.
“Are you going to do that all night?”
“Just until we are asleep.” Trak poked his torso out of the tent and made a large snowball and plopped it into the water and reheated the pot.
“Are we going to sleep together again?” Lia said. Trak detected a hidden emotion in her request, although the question nearly came out like a whine.
“It depends if you want to be cold or not.”
She made a face. “Together again.” She sighed and laid out the blankets.
The small tree trunk would separate them anyway, Trak thought. Wouldn’t Madame Barazzi, his Santasian manners teacher, be shocked? But then he grinned. Madame Barazzi was a courtesan. She might not be shocked at all.
~
Trak heated up fresh water in the pot to wash his face in the morning before Lia woke. The hot water felt good and made him more alert. When she woke, he encouraged Lia to do the same. She looked flush and fresh after a night’s sleep. She really was naturally pretty, but no one would guess she was Princess Pullia with scraggly hair and pink cheeks.
A foot of snow had fallen in the night. Trak shuffled off into the woods and let Lia head in the opposite direction. Once he was ready to return to the clearing, he heard a scream. Trak ran as fast as he could towards the sound and found Lia posing, shooting weak firebolts at three wolves lined up in front of her. She hadn’t been able to pose properly and her attempts had only kept the wolves at bay.
Trak pulled his knife. If anyone saw burnt pelts, they might suspect them, so he blew the wolves away with focused gusts the way he had taken care of Shinowa, the Benninese magician.
He looked around. “There might be more.” As he led her to their hut, he heard growling. Four more wolves fought over the food they had ripped out of one of their bags. There weren’t any close trees to blow them into, so he used lightning to kill them. That made less burning, but their coats were still singed.
“Our food is ruined,” Lia said, arms on her hips. She stamped her foot.
Trak smiled despite the danger they were just in. That might work in a palace, but it looked ludicrous in the middle of the woods.
“Do you want a wolf coat?” Trak said. “There are enough pelts.”
“No!” Lia almost fainted when she realized what Trak would have to do to skin the wolves, but her shock turned to laughter, and Trak soon joined her.
They rolled around on the snowy ground unable to control themselves.
He rose to his knees. “Remember this morning. You found something funny to laugh about after you were in danger.”
Her face turned serious. “I guess it’s all a release,” she said. “It was just you and me out here alone, but we aren’t alone, are we?”
“Not really.” Trak put his hand out to help Lia up. “There are wolves around you all the time; in Bennin, in Eastern Torya, and in Western Torya. You have to fight to survive. You have to fight to find peace. It sounds ironic, doesn’t it?”
Lia looked at Trak. “You are no simple stableboy, are you?”
Trak grinned. “Once I was. It wasn’t the happiest time of my life, but there were happy times mixed in with not-so-happy times. I had to fight sometimes to find peace. The fighting then consisted of village rivals and surly customers. My stepfather always took the side of the customers.”
“Last night, before I drifted off, I felt happy.” She looked at Trak, searching his eyes. For what, Trak didn’t know. “I could have been beside you forever and be satisfied, warm and cozy, knowing that it stormed outside, but that feeling doesn’t last.”
Trak put his arm around her shoulders and gave her an encouraging sideways hug. “It doesn’t, but remember the feeling. It will give you motivation to get through the bad parts.” He thought of Valanna and wished he was sharing the conversation with her instead. He sighed and crawled inside the hut.
“It’s a mess in here. Most of our food was spoiled by the wolves.” He put everything together as best he could and put the bags outside of the hut before he disassembled it.
“Our first house,” Lia said, a little too wistfully for Trak’s comfort.
He just grunted as he threw the branches into the forest. “Another snowfall, and no one will ever know we were here.”
“But we will know.”
“We will.” Trak said.
“A happy memory.”
“It was.” Trak had to admit that he enjoyed the interlude, even with a thought of Valanna intruding on their morning.
~
They traveled north for three days, teleporting short distances, past Zamiel and nearly parallel to the Lizanti Pass. Lia knew of a larger town that might be more tolerant of a blond Toryan. At meal times, Lia taught Trak the rudiments of the Kandannan language. He noticed that it was closer to Santasian than he originally thought, with nearly identical grammar. Now he could speak and interpret common one-word commands.
“Are you up to an inn?” Trak said. “You said there were plenty of towns along the Lizanti Pass road to Zamiel that happily serve foreigners.”
Lia just sighed. “I am filthy.” She ran her hand through her tangled hair. “I am scraggly. I look more like a forest crone than a princess, don’t you think?”
“We’ll be more prepared. I don’t think anyone will think of us as coming from the north, if they thought we were heading for Zamiel through the village of Coriasku.”
“Let’s hope,” Lia said.
This time they chose a better inn in a larger town. Trak pulled down his knit hat and let Lia do the talking.
“You’ll be taking a bath before you lay down on my beds,” the woman innkeeper said in Toryan. “Husband and wife?”
“As good as,” Trak said, his confidence rising a little.
Lia gave him an elbow in the ribs. That only made the innkeeper laugh.
“Men like a lively lass, eh? I was lively enough in my time.” She batted her eyelashes at Trak.
“This one is as much as I can handle.” Lia said.
“Two of you?”
Trak grinned and shook his head.
The woman laughed again. “What kind of coin do you carry?”
“Eastern Toryan, if you’ll take it.” Lia said. “A silver?”
“That will work.”
Lia poked Trak in the ribs again. “Where is the bath room?” she said in Kandannan. Trak barely made out the request.
“Door beneath the stairs,” the woman said in Toryan, all friendliness gone from her face. “You’ll have to share. He won’t mind.” The innkeeper grinned at Trak.
“Not at all.” Trak said and winked at the woman.
“We speak Toryan as a rule around here. You from the south?”
Trak nodded. “We’re on our way from Coriasku to visit my sister further north. They think differently down there.”
“They sure do. Kandanna-lovers.”
Lia looked at Trak. “We’ll remember to speak the right language,” she said and smiled as sweetly as she could manage.
The innkeeper smiled at Trak, but ga
ve Lia a dirty look. “Bath first. Room Seven up the stairs. A nice bouncy big bed.”
Trak nodded and followed Lia towards the bath room. “We go in together,” he said quietly.
Her head barely nodded, but she pushed forward, opening the door. A large wooden tub filled up most of the room. A few benches lined the walls, and one was stacked with towels.
“You first,” Trak said. “I promise I won’t look.”
“Ah, so you don’t want to die, eh? Make sure you keep your head covered.” She took her cloak off and draped it over Trak’s head.
He took the cloak off and shed his own. The room was warm.
“Water’s ready” a voice called from behind the wall. Steaming water rushed down a spout and began to fill the tub. The water was pre-measured somehow because the flow stopped when the level was about six inches from the top of the big tub.
“Cloak on,” Lia said as she began to shed her clothes.
Trak could hear her step up the little ladder and slip into the water.
“Cloak off, but stay seated,” she said.
Trak pulled the cloak from his head. All he saw was the top part of Lia’s face. It was flush from the hot water.
“This is heaven,” she said as she swished around in the water.
“A happy memory?”
She nodded her head. “I needed a bath, so I could be smothered in warmth,” she said. “You aren’t a bad substitute, but this is better.”
Trak didn’t know what to make of her comment. Did Lia seek to play with him? She had become more familiar in her speech and in her actions during their trip. She had shed her truculence, but Trak expected that to return once they reached Zamiel. He didn’t want to care, but he found himself attracted to the princess.
He felt that he was betraying Valanna. Trak didn’t really understand what he felt inside when he thought of Valanna, but he still felt a quickening of his heart and a desire to see Lia’s face. He shook his head and countered that thought with the notion that the princess had that effect on many people. No, she didn’t, he corrected himself. Most people had never seen the woman that he now traveled with.