by Guy Antibes
The chamberlain pointed to the throne. “She just has to sit there.”
“That’s all?” Trak said.
The man nodded his head. “If she dare.”
Lia began to move towards the throne, but Trak held her by her wrist. “Stop.” He looked back at the chamberlain. “Why do you warn her?”
“I have served Torya’s monarchs all of my life. Of all, she may be on the throne for the shortest time. For her own safety, I suggest that she leave Zamiel and not return for many years.”
“And why is that, Malkul?” Pullia said. Trak didn’t like her tone of voice. She must have known the Chamberlain for all of her life.
“The monarchy has no strength and hasn’t since your father ceased to resist the Kandannans. Your former army is out there, and most of them are Separatists. Other than the guards in the capital, you have no one to take up arms in your behalf.” Malkul looked at Trak. “You have East Toryan blood, and they hate you. You have Colcan blood, and the Colcanans hate you. You shouldn’t stay either.”
Trak had been exiled before and had never expected a home in Western Torya, despite Lia’s idle talk.
Pullia sat on the throne. “I have fulfilled my destiny. I will do what I can to unite all factions, even if I die.”
“You will, Princess Pullia. You will.” Malkul stepped back and slammed his long rod on the metal floor. “The Princess of Torya has returned and has taken the throne, which is hers by blood. Hail to the Queen!”
“Hail to the Queen.” The few people in the throne room echoed the pledge.
“We can leave at any time,” Trak said quietly to Lia.
Pullia’s eyes flared. “Not now. I am the Queen of Torya.”
Trak wondered if he just saw Lia die in his eyes. It seemed that the new Queen of Torya had regained her body. “I will help you unite your people, as best I can,” Trak said.
“Malkul, call back the courtiers. I wish to speak with them as Queen.”
The Chamberlain bowed deeply. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
~
Trak, Tembul, and Malkul sat in Malkul’s small study not far from the throne room. The princess had left them to choose ladies in waiting to befit her newly elevated position, and Tembul had just returned to report.
“There is no one you should trust, but me,” Malkul said. “I am old enough and loyal enough to finish my days serving the monarchy.”
Trak didn’t really believe him, but he had no other options. The man had been absolutely truthful with him so far, but he would be until he wasn’t. The currents of uncertainty ran swiftly in the castle and in the city.
“We have made agreements for a parlay just outside the city walls in three days,” Tembul said. “Lenis and Namiul are adamant about a marriage with Queen Pullia, and King Basiul, who accompanies them, agrees. The Separatists want the Queen to abdicate. The Kandannans want to ensure they have a say in the governance of Western Torya.”
“That’s an alliance that won’t last,” Malkul said. “The Kandannans will use the Separatists, and then they will try to kill them.” He shook his head. “It is my opinion that an ugly war is inevitable without a happy outcome.”
Trak cleared his throat. “What of the Colcanans?”
Malkul shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea why they are here. They are obviously in league with King Basiul’s people. Perhaps they want to support the Eastern Toryan boy’s position.”
“Tembul, any thoughts?” Trak said.
“This is the first I’ve heard of any expansionary talk on the part of my people. In the past we’ve always sought seclusion as the best defense of our people and our culture. I am worried about this sudden alliance with Colcan. Nothing good will come of it.”
“You might want to keep those thoughts to yourself,” Malkul said.
“I already know that,” Tembul said.
“I have drifted around in the city for the last three days since Pullia made herself Queen. The people don’t really support her. I got a sense that most people want the Separatists to win. I heard enough comments of people dreading outsider influence, and that includes the Toryans headed by King Basiul,” Trak said.
Tembul nodded his head. “I can relate to that. Perhaps my people will join with the Separatists in fighting the Kandannans.”
Trak considered that a strong possibility. He remembered how Tembul disliked the Blue Swan Vashtans coming to Kizru. He had already tried to reason with Pullia, but she seemed to have forgotten about their relationship. He would try to save her as best he could, but Trak concurred with Malkul’s view of the situation.
~
Since the queen had moved to the Royal Apartments, Trak had moved in with Tembul and shared his rooms. They walked through the corridors to change their clothes. Trak was going to train with the castle guard, both to assess their readiness and to get some practice with his sword.
“What kind of shape is the flyer in?” Trak said.
“It works. Even now, it is superior to the flyers that the Colcanans use, but I have heard rumors that Sirul has finally convinced the Separatists to build flyers. The world must face a new way to wage war, but the Queen has withheld funds from building any flyers for the monarchists,” Tembul said.
“I know. She wants to use the Royal Treasury, which has little in it, to pay for the defenders. I can’t say that I blame her. She is making all the decisions on her own, and just lets me poke around here and there.”
Tembul shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? I never knew what I expected from her. Her personality changed on our journey here, but it snapped back to Pullia soon after she sat on that throne. Our relationship ended when she became Queen, and now she treats us all like servants.”
Tembul chuckled. “Isn’t that who we are, servants? I’ve never been anything but. Neither have you.”
Trak didn’t agree. “I’m not very submissive, so I wouldn’t make a very good servant, but I know duty.”
“Is there a difference?”
Trak raised his eyebrows, surprised that Tembul wouldn’t agree with him. “There is. Duty binds you to an ideal or to a person. A servant has no choice. They do what is required of them for no reason other than their master’s demands.”
“So if you force a person to do their duty, they are servants?”
Trak had never thought of it that way, but he nodded his head. “Perhaps that’s right.”
“Then Pullia doesn’t love you the same way she did when you first arrived in Zamiel.”
Trak nodded. “I said she has changed back once she moved into the Royal Apartment.”
“I agree. She even holds herself differently. Perhaps training she had as a child has surfaced.”
Perhaps that might account for her behavior, but Trak knew he couldn’t overcome Pullia’s ambition and inbred desire to rule. He couldn’t help but sigh.
They reached their room, and Trak changed his clothes.
“I’ve been invited to spar. Do you want to come along, perhaps swing a blade yourself?”
Tembul shook his head. “I’m still a long way from being recovered, but I’ll watch, if you don’t mind.”
Trak forced a grin. “Of course. Keep your ears sharp. You don’t know what you might pick up. See if there are guards who might indicate disloyalty to the queen.”
“Not Lia?”
“Pullia.”
~
They approached the practice yard. The sky dusted the field with tiny snowflakes that had stopped by the time Trak put on protective gear. He hadn’t fought for some time and wondered how rusty he might be. The Benninese sword had stayed in his room, so he chose from a rack of Toryan blades. He swung each one until he found one that seemed balanced well enough.
Toryan guards practiced their style of swordsmanship while Trak prepared to spar. Their actions were very similar to how Lenis fought. Trak tried to imitate the method while he warmed up with his forms. He couldn’t quite get their movements right,
but then none of his opponents would expect him to fight like they did.
Tembul sat on a bench behind a waist-high barrier that ran around the field, looking at the others spar. “You won’t have any problems here. Lenis fought better that any of these.”
Trak looked at a group of men just sauntering into the yard.
“I’ll bet those are your opponents. Look at them for magic,” Tembul said.
Trak kept his eyes open and split his mind. All of them were nearly as strong as Tembul, and Trak wondered if Western Toryans allowed the practice of magic when they fought. He was glad he had already established the habit of dampening the appearance of his power flow. If they fought fair, then he would.
One of the men approached Trak. “You would like to practice, foreigner? I might find you suitable to spar.” The man’s arrogance matched that of Lenis.
“I would like that. Are there any rules I should know about? Do we stop at the first touch or the first cut? Are there prohibitions on using magic while sparring? There are in Eastern Torya.”
“No magic poses from the combatant,” the man said. The man’s words held a deeper meaning.
“No help from your friends?” Trak said.
His opponent’s eyes widened for a split second. “No. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
What would be fair to these men? Perhaps they regarded outsiders as little more than animals. He hadn’t noticed that among the common people, but nobles seemed to hold different views.
“Good enough.” Trak nodded to Tembul, and followed his opponent to the center of the yard. All sparring stopped, and the swordsman took to the barriers, while both of them began to warm up.
His opponent made a great show as he moved through his forms. This was a better swordsman than Lenis. Perhaps he was one of the best swordsmen in Zamiel. Trak’s own performance consisted of making mistakes as he went through his practice without his usual flow. The man’s friends obviously jested about his warm up, and that played to Trak’s advantage. He always felt more comfortable hiding his abilities before a serious match, rather than flaunting them like his opponent did.
“I’m ready,” Trak said. He gave his opponent a Santasian salute, and assumed a common guard position.
The man in front of him sneered and began to whirl his sword. Trak parried the continual attacks and finally knocked the man’s blade away, touching him on the side, and then withdrew. His opponent hadn’t shown any flair up to this point.
“Touch,” Tembul said.
“Blood. You’ll have to draw blood,” his opponent said.
Trak nodded and used the same guard position, but this time the swordsman employed an unusual style that Trak hadn’t seen before. The man used a series of thrusts and swipes, and displayed intricate footwork missing in their first match.
It didn’t matter to Trak, since he had long since been trained to treat each move as an element to be defended without paying attention to style. He concentrated on observing anything that repeated. Once he noticed the pattern in the man’s attack, Trak moved inside and grabbed his opponent’s sword wrist, and gently sliced the man’s side in precisely the same place where he had touched him before.
“First blood,” Tembul said, entering the practice ground with a guard carrying a medical kit.
The swordsman ignored Tembul and attacked Trak again. This time the man didn’t hold anything back. Trak could tell from his opponent’s expression that he meant to kill.
Trak tried to grab the man’s wrist again, but now the man was shielded. Trak backtracked enough to gain enough space to look over at his opponent’s friends. Two of them posed. Trak could feel a blast of wind.
“Tell your friends to stop posing,” Trak said. “You said no magic.”
“No magic for sparring, but we aren’t sparring anymore, foreigner.” The man gritted his teeth and began to attack Trak again.
Trak send a powerful blast of wind at the posers and blew all of the men over before his opponent had the opportunity to strike. “I warn you. If you use magic, so can I. I’ve already proven I can beat you with blades. If you want a match using magic, I will prevail.”
His opponent leered. “Very well. We are Zamiel’s best. A magic duel against all of us at once.” The man ran back to his fellows, still helping the two posers up from the ground.
Trak didn’t want to fight them, but he needed to know what faction they had aligned with.
“Who do you follow? The Separatists? Kandanna?”
“We don’t want a spoiled queen ruling Torya,” one of the men said.
That made them enemies of Pullia, so Trak set up a strong shield and let them pose away until their energies began to fade. Then he lifted them all five paces into the air and let them fall to the ground. He walked over to the men twisted in a groaning pile.
“I don’t like to kill, but I have in the past and,” Trak sighed with genuine feeling, “I will have to in the future. Now you know I am as powerful as rumored. Go back to your leaders and tell them that I will be attending the parlay in two days.”
Trak turned away from him, but set a shield to protect his back. He still held the sword in his hand as he walked back to Tembul. A blast of fire lit up the ground at his back, showing his shadow from the flame. Trak turned and raised his sword, killing the one who posed. “I am sorry. I really do mean what I say.” He turned again and left the practice field with Tembul.
“No one will spar with you now,” Tembul said.
Trak sighed at having to kill a man and became angry with himself. “You think that saddens me? I need to take a bath to wash off their dishonor.” He wished he could cleanse his mind. The anger that the men displayed only made Trak worry about Pullia’s future in Zamiel. He hadn’t done anything to them until they provoked him. Even then, Trak never felt anger, but he couldn’t let the men kill him, could he? Where would he ever feel safe? He thought of returning to Beniko and finding a remote village he could live near, but that wouldn’t work. Trak liked being around people and doing things. He thought he could retreat behind the walls of a university. If Warish ever prevailed against King Harl, maybe he could return and study at the University of Pestle.
He barked out a laugh, which made Tembul look at him. “I’m just dreaming of what to do after Torya.”
“After Lia?”
Trak twisted his lips. “I’m afraid it may already be after Lia,” he said. His disappointment threatened to swallow him up.
Tembul kept quiet after that statement, and for that Trak was grateful.
~~~
Chapter Twenty-Seven
~
Valanna looked at the man but refused to give up. Valanna would not let this brute take away her future. She pulled deep for anything she could use, or her life would end. She remembered Trak’s brief discussion on poseless magic. Pull the power from yourself rather than think about a pose. Without another choice, Valanna closed her eyes.
“I wouldn’t want to see my death either,” the man who towered over her said, chuckling.
Valanna called up every bit of her power, picturing it flow through her and out of the point of her sword as a bolt of lightning. She opened her eyes and feebly pointed her much shorter sword at the man’s chest, shouted, “DIE!” and lost consciousness.
She came to a moment later. The Colcan warrior lay across the corridor, his chest a smoking ruin. Valanna looked up at Kulara standing over her.
“Are you all right?” Kulara said, glancing over at Valanna’s dead opponent. “He puts any Ferezan warrior to shame.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Don’t tell Asem I said that.”
Kulara helped Valanna to her feet. “No one has come from that door. Can you function?” She looked worriedly at Valanna’s burned breastplate.
Valanna nodded her head. “I can.” She posed and felt fine controlling a light wind. The use of poseless magic had managed to save her life, but she would need to practice it in a less hostile situation, now that she knew it was possible. Tra
k was lucky he didn’t faint and drown when he inadvertently used poseless magic long ago in Pestledown harbor.
She picked up her sword. She could see a bend in the blade, but it would work just fine for magical purposes, and took one last look at the Colcan’s body. She had never been exposed so intimately to such an intimidating magician. Trak didn’t intimidate her, quite the opposite, but she wondered if that man would have given Trak problems.
Kulara tried the door, which was locked. She pulled a thick hairpin out of her hair. “Not all my talents are related to magic,” she said. After fiddling with the lock, Kulara gently tested the latch. She grinned at Valanna, “Trak’s not the only one who can open a locked door; it’s just that my methods are a little less magical.”
Valanna couldn’t restrain a smile, despite the tension that she still felt. “Let’s go.”
Kulara threw the door open while Valanna posed a shield. Three more unaccounted-for Vashtans had their backs turned to them, while they waited for a door on the other side of the room to break open, and then they turned. Flashes of fire and lightning assaulted Valanna and Kulara, but none of the Vashtans possessed the power of the dead man outside. Valanna spotted Harl, Puddingfan, and two other courtiers she didn’t know cowering in the corner.
The door opposite blew open, and when the Vashtans in the room began to turn, Valanna and Kulara attacked them. Caught between the magical crossfire, the last remaining Vashtans in Pestledown couldn’t put up an adequate defense.
“Tie the king and his cronies up, tightly,” Valanna said. She sat heavily down on one of Harl’s chairs, with just enough strength to observe Derit, Ferikan and Kulara binding the four Pestlans.
Harl looked at them with astonishment. “How did you—?”
“Kill the Colcanan?” Valanna said. “It wasn’t easy.” She looked down at the still-smoking fabric around the hole in her breastplate. “Desperate situations call for desperate measures, and I was quite desperate.” She put her head back in the chair. “Let me rest for a minute, and then we will take care of the guards on the walls.”
“I will see how Asem is,” Kulara said before she leaned over and winked out.