by B J Hanlon
“Leave me be,” Edin screamed turning on her. “Shut the door on your way out!”
“You’re a piece of trash that should be hauled out by the muckraker. Are you too stupid to know there’s a bigger world out there and it needs our help, our people need a strong leader.”
“You found him I guess, have a good time taking back the kingdom. How many lives people will die when you invade?”
She looked away.
“You are…” Edin realized. “What is the plan, invade and destroy so you can take back the kingdom stolen from you?”
“Yes. Magi are hunted like we were. We’ll reunite the lands, standardize the world with roads, currency, trade… we’ll be merciful to our people like my father was. We won’t hunt men and women down just because of their talent.”
“We… you and Casitas then? He’ll be your king then? Maybe it doesn’t take coin, I’ve heard of whores who bed clients for other offerings. I guess your price is the world.”
Arianne shrieked and slapped Edin. A moment later, he felt a gust of wind throw him into the stairs. The door flew open, she ran out and it shut.
Edin sat there for a moment staring at the door and not letting himself cry. He found the whiskey and poured himself a drink. That was it. It was over and now he had to leave. There was no way he could live here. Not with her. She wanted more, more than he could offer.
He went to the third floor and drank until he could barely stand. His body wobbled, his stomach sloshed. Everything seemed to shake.
Edin closed his eyes and passed out.
Some unknown time later, a very loud and obtrusive person said. “Kid, what’s wrong?”
“Ugh…” Edin’s head felt like it’d been chopped in two. He groaned and looked up. It was Le Fie standing above him. He grabbed the bottle, shook it. Half gone.
“You drank all of this?”
Edin looked at him with one eye open, then then the bottle and then back up. “Must have.”
“Gods, are you able to move? Do I need the healer?”
“I’m fine… I’m just lying here.” He remembered the fight with Arianne. “And preparing my exit.”
“Exit? From where?”
“Here… all this bull,” Edin said. He sat up and stuck his feet to the warm wooden floor. “Can’t do this anymore, I’m getting off these bloody islands.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter…” Edin said.
“Listen Edin, you must stay,” Le Fie said. “I’ve been… consulting. Tell me, did you use your talent in the jail?”
Edin said nothing. It didn’t matter.
“You did. You’re the one from the foretelling, the prophecy.”
For a moment, he was curious then shook his head. “I don’t care. I don’t care about this place or the magi or any of your little problems. I came here because it was my mother’s final wish. And she didn’t want me to go to war.”
“War? How do you…” Le Fie started then shook his head. “We need you, there’s no way…”
“You don’t need me, no one does.”
“You’re the Ecta Mastrino…”
Edin sighed, he turned to Le Fie and eyed him. “I don’t care.”
“Ecta Mastrino is a prophesized mage with all the talents. The magi is supposed to help bring about a golden age of peace between magi and mundane and lead them against something… an ancient enemy.”
“Peace? You’ve got to be kidding me… I tried peace, someone tried to kill me, I’m shunned and the woman I love is…” He felt the anger rising again. “It doesn’t matter.”
Le Fie’s mouth grew firm. His tone reflected it. “You must stay, I need help, the isle needs help. I know about the plans but there’s something else going on. If you could only know the foretelling.”
“I don’t care. How many times…”
“It will help you, maybe turn you into a man instead of a whiny little child.” Le Fie grabbed the bottle and shoved it into Edin’s face. “Or you could drink yourself into oblivion while the world burns. How many of us will die because of your inaction? If you are the one, more lives will be spared. Mine maybe, maybe Placisus, Flack, Dorset… even your princess.”
Edin shook his head and went to the stairs, “more lies from the spy…” Edin felt like he could use water… or maybe the whiskey again.
At his cot he looked over his small possessions. A sword, clothes, and a bedroll. Le Fie followed him and sat on Dorset’s bed.
Le Fie sighed, “they’re words, not lies and if you must leave, I will not stop you… but I have not asked for a favor in exchange for saving Arianne’s life.”
“I made a deal with Yassima.”
“To get you both off the mainland if you lived after the assault. I didn’t have to save her.”
Edin stared at the man. “That’s callous, even for an assassin.”
Le Fie shrugged.
“I’m not your chosen one,” Edin growled, why wouldn’t this man listen. Why did he insist on… “What is it you want of me?”
“There is a place, deep beneath the Boganthean Tower. It is said a creature that holds the prophecy and will only give it up when the one with whom it is meant for shows up.”
“So, the prophecy or foretelling… you don’t even know what it says?”
“Just bits, clues really. It hasn’t been heard by human ears in a long time.”
“What type of creature…” He thought about the dematians or maybe that great serpent beast, the ponnoa.
“It won’t harm you.”
“I’m not worried about myself…”
“Please,” Le Fie pleaded, “just come with me to the tower, if I’m correct or incorrect and you still want to leave, I’ll get you off this island if I have to swim with you on my back.” There was a sincerity to his voice. A desperation.
Edin sighed. He looked at the man who was once his father’s friend, who’d helped save Arianne, who kept him in the infirmary. “Fine, well go now… then I’m leaving.”
“Not yet we can’t, it’s guarded.”
Edin shook his head, “I got there weeks ago. No problems…”
“Not in the cellar, not where the creature is. We’ll need a distraction. The ball in your honor…”
“I’m not going,” Edin yelled.
“It’ll be our only chance, you show up and we sneak out the back.”
Edin looked him up and down, the spy had a plan and a part of Edin was curious about it. He was a bit curious about the creature also, but more so about the prophecy. If something was written about him, maybe he was destined for something that’d make all his pain worth it. He nodded.
“Good, then I’ll make you one of my men. You are now a member of the Darsol Rose.”
10
The Party of Parties
No one from the Praesidium or the farm attempted to reach him. The next three weeks, Edin was able to return to fighting fit. He used the sword and a quarterstaff that Le Fie had requisitioned for him to train.
The time he wasn’t training was spent studying the spells and their power words, he learned a sleep spell, hypnosio, a confusion spell, blatheri, and a terror spell, temorus. According to Dorset, they didn’t work on people with strong mental resistance, one that Edin didn’t have. This was evidenced by him waking in strange locations after having nightmares.
The only one Edin could practice on was Flack and after the first time getting the terror spell to work, Flack declined to return.
There were many nightmares. In some, Merik came. The justicar with his twisted and devout grin ready to gut him. Others had Arianne loosing her arrow at his chest telling him it was justice. His mother, Grent, Horston, and Dephina all died again and again. Berka had stood over him with a serpentine wan stone blade ready to thrust into his chest. There was no recognition in his friend’s face.
“You’ll need to get better,” Dorset said shaking his head. “Try meditation to fortify your mind.”
Flac
k finally came back one day, he was hesitant and made Edin promise not to use the terror spell on him again.
Edin had forgotten about his promise to watch over the kid but he looked to be in good spirits.
Le Fie recruited the former thief to teach him about locks and even produced a small set of picks for Edin. They started on easy ones, then moved to more difficult ones. “You have to feel inside of the lock, know what you are feeling, and make them move.”
Dorset didn’t know why Edin was learning to pick locks, he apparently had no idea of the plan.
One day Le Fie appeared with a set of drawings, of the Boganthean Tower, drawn by hand.
“I borrowed them from the castle,” Le Fie said and winked. It was very unlike Dephina’s.
A few times, Placisus showed up to check on him. “So, what is this staff and sword form I keep hearing about?” the guard captain said briskly.
Edin shrugged, “it’s just something I picked up.”
“I hear it looks deadly, mind giving me a demonstration?”
Edin ran his tongue along the inside of his teeth. He was tired already after three hours of training. But he nodded.
The thick guard captain, Placisus, said nothing, he only watched but a few days later, Dorset heard Placisus was trying it behind the castle walls.
Dorset was getting stronger having completed the Oret Nakosu and the first two sword forms. He even got a sword of his own from the his family. One that didn’t visit him.
But there was something else Edin noticed. Something his roommate wasn’t telling him. A few times, he’d returned home late with a grin that could not be wiped from his face.
Edin worked hard to not think about Arianne. He trained, studied, and practiced the lock picking, but her face kept appearing like a rash that wouldn’t go away.
Edin received chits but was ordered to stay out of the city so Dorset picked up the food and Baili provided the drink. A part of him wanted to start something with Baili, but he always ended up picturing Arianne and couldn’t.
Finally the day of the ball came, and with it, a package delivered by Nan, Belothann’s man.
Edin thanked him but the sour servant galloped away with a dower expression on his face. Only later did Edin find out that Nan expected a tip.
“That seems to go against the rules of the isle…” Edin said to Dorset as he looked at the brilliant cloths from the package. A fine black tunic and trousers, a white cape with a golden broach. He noticed two large cats leaping up to fight on it.
“Crillio?” Edin asked.
“Someone spread a rumor that you’ve killed three,” Dorset said. “I guess trying to add the third would make it look awkward.”
Dorset’s clothes were black with a green cape to symbolize his being a terestios. An earth mage. Both sets were custom fitted and hung perfectly for a formal event.
Dorset pulled back his hair and tied it with a pink ribbon. His blue eyes seemed large beneath his spectacles.
“What’s with the ribbon?” Edin asked but Dorset just offered a sheepish grin.
He wasn’t thrilled about going to the ball and wished he could just skip it and go directly to the tower. But there was also the chance that Arianne would show up and he may be able to apologize before he left the isle, and her, for good.
Le Fie said he had a boat ready if Edin was dead set on going.
A part of him didn’t know if he could. Who was in the wrong between him and Arianne? He was, she was, or both of them. The third seemed most appropriate.
It was nearing the end of summer and the sun was lower in the sky. It was almost six in the evening when they left for the mansion on Alcor’s Row. Belo offered to send a carriage, Edin declined.
They walked a long way with a pair of city guards. Tomin and Teu. The Tee-tees. They seemed like good folk, quiet for the most part but keenly interested in Edin’s training regimen. They were the first guards they’d had and came back nearly every day since. They’d escort the pair to the gates and then return home.
The gated community known as Alcor’s Row was past the castle and the tower nestled near the western shore. It was filled with large mansions set on half acre estates. Unlike the rest of the city that felt overly crowded for space, the opulent houses were set back behind large stone walls and the gates had large family crests. He didn’t know any of them, but Dorset pointed out Mersett’s home. The crest held a watchful owl on tree with a forest behind it.
“That’s my family home,” Dorset said. “Mersett is my great uncle on my mother’s side.”
“Your father?”
“He’s an accountant…not a member of the gentry.”
“I hate accounting,” Edin said.
“Me too.”
They passed the Otembo residence. The crest had a dragon on a field of green and a third that caused him to stop. Harlscot, a shield with a staff and sword crossed on a field of light blue.
“That’s my father’s?” Edin asked looking at the shaded windows.
“Odd how you train with your family’s crest weapons, isn’t it?”
Edin nodded.
“It’s an old family. One of the oldest,” Dorset said.
Edin’s eyes were drawn to movement in a second story window. A curtain was pulled back and he saw the head of a small child looking down. Questions suddenly battered him like a gale at sea.
Was he or she related to Edin? Did his father have brothers or sisters? Did they all despise Edin? It wasn’t like it was unknown that Rihkar’s son was on the island. But like Dorset’s family, none of them came to visit or even enquired about him. A pang of sadness ran through him. This was his family. And they didn’t want anything to do with him.
Edin raised a hand to wave and the kid disappeared.
A warm breeze flowed through the city carrying on it the scents of flowers, perfume, and cooking meats.
They passed a carriage and Edin caught a glimpse of the person inside, a long-faced man with a stumpy nose and wide set eyes. The facial expression was somewhere between confused and angry. Edin just nodded.
While the suit fit well, it was tight in all the wrong places for a lot of movement. Le Fie supposedly left a set of more applicable clothes behind one of the estates on a trail that ran between them, a small private forest and then the volcano.
At the gate, they slipped in between the carriages. A guard eyed them for a moment but Dorset held up their invitations that had been delivered with the clothes.
They entered on the long oval drive with a grand staircase at the entrance to the house. Four columns crossed the expanse holding up a long porch dotted with statues.
The staircase held a scattering assortment of brightly dressed and jovial people chatting and blocking the entrance. At the top, Edin noticed Placisus standing near the door behind a guard who was checking the list. The leader of the guard caught Edin’s eye, looked at his man, and then nodded for Edin to come up.
Placisus stood before him with his chin up and his shoulders back. An intimating and possibly prideful pose. “I still don’t know why you’re here… has it to do with all of the special training you’ve been up to?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Placisus looked to Dorset then back to Edin.
“The spellcraft and what that boy Flack is teaching you...”
“He’s a very smart kid, we’re learning Ulstapish together,” Edin said.
“And if I tell you to leave?”
“I’m the guest of honor. You’ll have to arrest me.” Edin started past him. “I’m no princess to be stuck in a tower.”
Placisus’ hand shot out and gripped him around the crillio scars. His fingers dug into Edin’s arm with more strength than Edin thought necessary. “Stay vigilant… and don’t do anything foolish.”
Edin laughed. “I won’t.” Then shrugged the man’s grip off.
“Darsol Rose and their secrets.” He sighed.
He nodded toward Dorset who was moving to stand befo
re a young woman in a large gown.
Dorset and her eyes met and the woman blushed.
“That’s Cannopina. The woman you saved.” The girl looked sixteen or seventeen with a round face and wide set, circular eyes. She wore her brownish red hair in a bun and had a long slender neck. Large golden earrings hung down toward her bare shoulders. She curtsied before him and Dorset bowed back with the salute of the isles. Still, it looked like someone offering food or a place to sit.
“They’re…”
“Seeing each other I guess… rumors have it that Belo isn’t happy. But he dotes on her.”
Edin remembered the late nights and goofy grins. He smiled.
Dorset took her hand kissed it and then glanced back toward Edin. He turned a slighter shade of red then waived Edin over.
Edin looked back to Placisus.
“Watch your back,” the head of the guard said.
Edin bowed when he was within a yard of Cannopina. “My lady,” Edin said.
“Master Edin I take it, Dorset has told me much about you.”
“He is a talker.” Edin said eyeing his roommate and smiling, “it is a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“Oh gods, what are you talking about, you saved my life.” She turned to Dorset, “I mean you both did. You’re both so strong and courageous. I just cannot be more indebted to you. If there’s anything you want, please ask.”
“Thank you.” This seemed like the time to part, “for inviting us to the party my lady. I do not wish to hold you up any longer…” Edin turned to leave. But Dorset did wish to hold her up.
He lingered for a moment longer, Edin caught them squeezing each other’s hands ever so carefully as to not draw attention. It didn’t work. More than a few of the gentry caught sight and pointed it out.
When they walked further into the party, Edin pulled Dorset aside, “when did this happen?”
He grinned sheepishly and glanced back at the woman. “She came to my office to thank me and… we talked. Then it happened the next day and the next. Then…” He turned redder and whispered, “she kissed me. It was like I was lifted by the gods to the sky and,” he shook his head, “I’ve never kissed a woman before.”