by Guy Antibes
The seer nodded. “Stoolage is a good man, if a little old.” He pursed his lips for a few seconds before turning to the head seer. “What is it you want of me?”
“I want you to do a little Brachian singing, the magical kind.”
The young man looked at Trevor. “I don’t have a very good voice.”
“I don’t care about your voice, but your magic,” Trevor said. He stood and handed a charm to Lister Vale and another to Volst. “Let’s see how this works.”
The man began to sing. Volst and the head seer immediately began to relax, but then the head seer’s eyes grew, followed a bit later by Volst.
“Thank you. You may stop.” Lister Vale looked at Volst. “Did it work for you as it did for me?”
“I sent a pulse of magic through the charm, and the singer glowed. It was like turning on a light,” Volst said.
The head seer nodded. “Same here. If I can have a few of those, I’ll test it out with our brothers.”
Trevor let Volst keep one and handed another to the Seer. “Tell me what you think.”
Trevor and Volst were ushered out of the head seer’s office and returned to Trevor’s room.
“It only required a sip of magic,” Volst said, “and the object that projected the spell glowed green. They should see if the glow persists in the sunlight.”
Trevor nodded. “I’m sure we will need to know all kinds of things about the effect. It does mean that I can’t go alone to confront King Worto,” he said. “I can’t use the charms.”
“But then, you don’t need one,” Volst said. “I will, if we are to beard the lion in his den.”
“Who is the lion?” Trevor asked. “King Worto or Plissaki the Maskumite?”
~
“I’ll be giving you moral support,” Brother Yvan said as they rode westward through the Ginsterian countryside.
“With my ability to travel with a partner, you don’t have to come all this way,” Trevor said.
“It’s better that I don’t stray too far from Reena. She wanted to see Ginster since we had left her behind in Jilgrath,” Brother Yvan said. “Don’t worry. Everyone knows how to take care of themselves.”
They threaded their way through a string of army camps for the last half day to the River Fuler, which made up the eastern border with Fuleria. When Trevor dismounted, he walked through a short stretch of woods and came out on one side of the bridge that spanned the river.
“Why don’t the Ginsterians destroy the bridge?” Volst asked the officer who had interrogated the pair of them. The Presidonian ambassador hadn’t made the trip.
“Too much trade,” The officer said. “The Fulerians aren’t stupid. Anyway, we have traps built into the road for half a mile on our side. All we have to do is withdraw and watch them destroy themselves.”
Trevor solemnly nodded while Volst looked excited.
“They can ford the river at another location,” Trevor said. “That is what I would do.”
The officer nodded. “They can try. I imagine they’ve done the same on their side, so the bridge stays intact. Goods are still crossing from one country to the other.”
People did what they had to to survive, Trevor thought. “Volst and I will head across.”
“You aren’t going to wait until tomorrow?”
Trevor shook his head. “There might be Presidonian assassins in your army who might want to try something if I wait.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Let’s find a place you can retreat to,” Brother Yvan said. “I have most things we will need to keep you and Volst alive.”
They turned back and returned behind a herd of ten cows on their way to Ginster. Trevor hoped he wasn’t going to be slaughtered like the cows when he turned around and headed in the opposite direction.
Brother Yvan found a suitable place at the Ginsterian army camp’s edge to wait for Trevor’s return.
The last thing that Trevor wanted was to have to teleport back to Ginster. He’d lose Snowflake, and he might forfeit his domain. He took a deep breath and raised the white flag that the officer had given him.
Once they crossed the bridge, a squad of soldiers surrounded them, making them wait while they summoned a senior officer.
“I’d like to be taken to King Worto. I assume he still is in command at the borders,” Trevor said.
“You are well informed. Follow me,” the newly-arrived officer said. “You look a little young to be negotiating the Ginsterian surrender.”
“There is no surrender,” Trevor said, “since there is no war. Both sides are vigilantly guarding their respective borders as far as I can see. I bring a message to King Worto from the Dryden seer headquarters.”
“You don’t look much like a cleric,” the officer said, not very impressed by Trevor’s youth or appearance.
Trevor pulled the document that the prime and the head seer had produced for him.
“Trevor Arcwin? Should I have heard of you?” the officer asked, looking up at Trevor.
Volst sighed. “It is a tedious story. I’ve heard it too many times. Just let us proceed.”
The officer looked disgruntled by Volst’s dismissive attitude, but he mounted his horse. “Follow me. I don’t know if the king will entertain an audience.”
King Worto held court in a lavish tent surrounded by other, smaller, elegant tents. Despite the officer’s doubts, Trevor and Volst stood in the king’s presence after giving up their weapons.
“Arcwin. I thought I left you behind in Bassington,” Worto said.
“I am now Duke Arcwin of Listenwell.”
Worto sat up straighter. “You are the one who cleaned up Parkintown?”
Trevor nodded. “I have a much better man in charge, who is more honest than Regent Summer,” Trevor said. “I’m not here to discuss matters of fealty,” he said.
Worto looked down at the document the officer had given to the king. “This is an impressive document. They proclaim you Dryden’s Messenger. I know a little bit of history. Are the seers of Dryden lined up against me?”
Trevor looked around the tent but didn’t see Gareeze Plissaki. “I have news for your ears only.”
Worto narrowed his eyes and then fingered the edge of the document. “Out, all of you,” Worto said.
“I come with a gift,” Trevor said.
“All I want are Listenwell’s taxes to fund my army,” Worto said.
Trevor pulled out a charm and put it in the king’s outstretched hand. “This is a charm. It won’t harm you, but it will allow you to see your real enemies.”
Worto clutched the charm in his hand. “What kind of nonsense is this? Who are you to tell me who my enemies are? Aren’t you my enemy, representing Ginster?”
“As I asked the officer who escorted me here, are you at war with Ginster?”
Worto narrowed his eyes. “War is not declared. Perhaps I am waiting for the right moment.”
“And perhaps Ginster is doing the same,” Trevor said.
Gareeze Plissaki paused as he walked in and realized that Trevor was in the tent.
“Just put a small pulse of power into the charm.”
Worto grunted, but Plissaki continued to walk unnoticed to Worto’s side.
“A pulse, you say?” Worto asked.
Trevor nodded.
Worto clutched the charm and suddenly noticed Plissaki, who jumped back.
“What?” Worto asked his chief magician. “How did you get in here?”
Plissaki bowed. “I am doing the work of my masters,” the magician said as he raised his hands.
Trevor jumped between the two men and absorbed a thick bolt of lightning. He reached out for Plissaki, who turned and burned a hole in the tent to escape.
“You won’t find him unless you use these. I only have two more,” Trevor said. “He has been sneaking and whispering in your ear without you knowing it.”
“What just happened?” Worto said. “He glowed when I looked at him.”
Trevor explained the charm and then described the invisibility spell that had been developed by Maskumite magicians. He explained that he was immune to magic and that he had just saved Worto from death. “I am guessing he has been controlling you for years,” Trevor said.
Worto looked almost uncomprehendingly at Trevor. “He has advised me before I made a bid for the throne.” Worto took off the gold circlet he wore on his brow and ran his hand through his hair. “What have I done?”
With Plissaki exposed, Trevor had no idea what would happen next. “I don’t know,” Trevor said, “but I would guess Maskum is behind your efforts to take over the world and you didn’t know that you have been Plissaki’s tool.”
Trevor had to share his recent exploits with the king, who listened with shocked attention. “Gareeze handled all the subversion tactics,” King Worto said. “He never told me about invisible magicians. There are questions he never answered. I thought he had, but…” Worto shook his head.
“May I leave you to think about what has happened? The Ginster prime has no desire to fight your armies and would rather spend her money elsewhere than posting armed forces on the Fulerian border,” Trevor said.
Worto clutched Trevor’s document, crushing it in his hands. He slowly unfolded his fist and straightened out the parchment. “Tell the prime that I will soon send an emissary to Collet with my decision.” He held out the charm. “I can have this?”
“And two more, like I said. Gareeze Plissaki is very dangerous, and the charms might help protect you and others on your staff. I’m currently having more made.”
Worto took a deep breath. “You are a Dryden Messenger.” His eyes brightened for the first time since Trevor walked in. “And you are Listenwell’s duke, as well? That wasn’t just a story to placate me?”
“Not at all.” Trevor bowed to King Worto. “May I leave you to compose your message to the prime?”
Worto nodded and said, “We will talk again.” He gave the document back.
Trevor was thrilled to return to Ginster alive.
Chapter Nine
~
T he three negotiators rode east toward Collet after King Worto’s officers met Ginsterian leaders on the middle of the bridge to verify a truce. Even though there wasn’t a war, it was clear that Worto’s army had withdrawn from the bridge.
Trevor wondered what King Worto was going to do with his war machine. He had thousands of Fulerian and Brachian soldiers with no one to attack at present. Still, Worto had never really attacked anyone, and Trevor was convinced that Gareeze Plissaki had been playing a double game with the king. Worto seemed genuinely surprised by learning about the Maskumite magicians exposed in Okora and Ginster, insisting that he had nothing to do with it.
They stopped at an inn, but it was already full of Ginsterian officers not wanting to eat military food or sleep in tents any longer. They were able to secure a room in a boarding house. The place reminded Trevor of the boarding house where Desolation Boxster and Trevor had stayed while acting the part of spies in southern Presidon.
Trevor wondered what would have happened if Boxster had stayed behind with the landlady, whom he had fancied? Trevor sighed as he brushed out Snowflake. No Snowflake, no magical immunity, and he wouldn’t be on his way to Collet. Trevor would probably be dead in Tarviston, piled unceremoniously with the bodies of his sister and three brothers.
Dryden’s actions, moving him around like a chess piece, seemed cruel and heartless, but he couldn’t think of an outcome that would have been better. Trevor sought out a water source with a bucket in hand when he heard shouting in the house. His sword was in his room, but he grabbed a poker from the firepit the stable hands used to keep warm at night and ran into the house.
The place looked like a slaughterhouse. The landlady was bleeding out on the kitchen floor. Two of the residents were groaning in the hallway, another silent and motionless. Trevor ran up the stairs and found four swordsmen and two magicians banging on Brother Yvan’s door.
“Leave now!” Trevor shouted.
“The prince,” one of them said as all six of the men turned around. Fire and lightning bathed him, but as usual, that helped him more than his assailants. He slammed the poker down on the wrists of two of the swordsmen and took one of the fallen swords. Trevor plunged it into the chest of one of the two. He had two weapons to fight the assassins.
Volst opened his door, sword in front of him. A bolt of fire flashed at him. Volst’s fire charm held up to the onslaught, but then one of the magicians shot a bolt. The lightning was almost too much for Volst’s defenses, and he fell to the floor, clutching a wound in his upper chest. Trevor was about to swipe at the magician, but the two remaining swordsmen confronted him.
Brother Yvan’s door opened a crack, and one of the magicians bathed him with fire. The attack must have been unexpected because Brother Yvan fell back into the room. Trevor tore his eyes away from his mentor and furiously fought the two magicians and two swordsmen. With his friends down, Trevor didn’t have to worry about the magicians injuring him, but the swordsmen weren’t amateurs.
Trevor plunged a sword deep into a magician’s thigh. The blade was ripped out of his hand as the man fell to the floor. A blow to his back was covered by the cuirass, allowing Trevor to twist and plunge the poker into a swordsman’s stomach. It was now an unarmed Trevor, a magician, and a swordsman with an injured wrist.
“Take this,” Volst said, sliding his sword across the hallway floor to Trevor.
The magician furiously threw every spell at Trevor but finally missed and threw a bolt into the head of the last swordsman, who crumpled to the ground. Trevor didn’t waste a second before he plunged Volst’s sword into the chest of the magician.
Trevor was bleeding from many wounds, but he dragged himself to his room to retrieve his Jarkanese sword and the satchel with the messages from King Worto. Snowflake would have to wait. He helped Volst into Brother Yvan’s room. “I don’t know if this is going to work. Give me all the magic you can,” Trevor said.
In the blink of an eye, they landed in the ancient room. Volst and Brother Yvan collapsed, but Trevor staggered to the corridor and began shouting.
In moments the three of them were carried upstairs and placed in the headquarters infirmary. Trevor could barely move. Every muscle, ligament, and bone cried out in agony. Taking two magicians to Collet had almost killed him, he thought as he could do nothing but let others care for him.
A few healers tried to spell him to sleep, but that didn’t work. Trevor whispered to them that magic didn’t work on him, so they filled him with alcohol, and that did the trick.
He woke up in the same bed. He had expected tugs from stitches and bandages, but he was able to sit up. Brother Yvan still slept, and he didn’t see Volst anywhere. A healer walked through the ward. “You are awake.”
“Your eyes haven’t failed you yet,” Trevor said with a weary smile on his face. “We were attacked by assassins.”
“Your friend is with the head seer. Yvan is still asleep, but he will wake soon. Considering what Linwood Volst said about your fight, I expected all of you to be at death’s door, but you seem to be the only one with any persistent injuries.”
Trevor didn’t even remember how badly Brother Yvan was injured. All he could do when the fighting stopped was to get them to a healer. “They were after me,” Trevor said. “We were—”
The healer patted Trevor’s upper arm. “We have already sent a team to the boarding house. The prime sent her people as well to identify the assassins and retrieve your horses and your possessions.”
Trevor’s body rebelled at teleporting two magicians. He leaned his head back and realized that he had no option.
Volst walked in with Lister Vale. “They said Yvan needed rest more than anything. His burns miraculously healed, but he is still drained.”
“You will identify the culprits?” Trevor asked the head seer. “I’ll bet Presidon hired them.”
“I won’t take
that bet,” the head seer said. “We retained the ambassador once we received word of the assassination attempt. She was captured as she was approaching the Presidon border.”
Reena walked into the room and went straight to Brother Yvan’s bedside. “He is still asleep?” she asked one of the healers.
Trevor heard a loud snore from the cleric.
Reena fidgeted, and then she looked at Trevor. “What was the fight like?”
Trevor entertained the head seer, Reena, and Volst with an action-by-action description of the ambush.
“Those poor innocent people,” Reena said.
“I agree, but I’m also partial to poor me and my friends,” Volst said. “It is a bad business all around.”
“If I hadn’t gone to the stable to groom Snowflake, I’m afraid you would be standing over some dead bodies,” Trevor said to Reena. “We are also lucky since the teleportation spell, or whatever it is, does a great deal of healing during the transfer.” He didn’t tell her that there was less healing for him on this trip since Trevor dragged two magicians along with him.
~
“Do you feel well enough to meet a few Dryden dignitaries?” Brother Yvan asked. He said he woke up feeling better than Volst or Trevor.
“I suppose so.”
“We will walk across the square to the Dryden Cathedral,” the head seer said. “You will be meeting with the pontiff. You see, he is my counterpart as overseers of the Dryden faith in the world. I work with the seers, and he counsels the clerics. We would have taken you to meet them before, except for the emergency on the border.”
They stepped into an office at least twice the size of the head seer’s and sat down on plush seats. The outward-facing branch of Dryden’s church in Ginster seemed to live by different rules. A cleric dressed in white opened the door and announced the Pontiff of Ginster.
The pontiff wore a starched hat with a tall double peak. His robes were white with an intricate gold needlework design. Another cleric, wearing a purple robe with the same needlework design in white, followed him in.
“The Bishop of Ginster!” the same cleric who announced the pontiff introduced the bishop. Trevor thought it was pretty silly.