by Guy Antibes
“Don’t touch the cloth roof. I’ll only say it once,” the man said.
Sam wondered how many of the men were happy to have penetrated so deeply into Zogaz. The man turned away, but Sam could hardly tell in the darkness. He reached up and put his gold tip near the ward. He closed his eyes and could feel the ward withdraw. It was very thinly made and seemed to peel back. Once the ward was gone, Sam sat back down. He would tackle the roof at the right time.
The wagon rattled along. The lights of the town were soon a glow ahead of them. Sam watched as they crested a hill. The place looked a bit on the rustic side. He had seen similar villages in the mountains of Toraltia when he toured with Harrison Dimple three years ago.
It seemed like a few seasons ago, but Sam quickly filled in the blanks with memories during his time with Harrison. He hoped his erstwhile traveling companion was intact and still healing people in Toraltia.
“Riders!” one of the soldiers said.
Sam could hear swords loosening in their sheaths. He hoped he wouldn’t be circled by a bloodbath. The wagon containing his things drew up next to him. He could jump on it from the one he currently rode. He hoped Emmy could get out of the cage. Sam didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t.
Sam looked towards the village and saw five riders approach, but one of them peeled off and headed back into town, probably for reinforcements.
The village men didn’t come particularly close. “Why are you here rather than on the border?” one of the men said. Sam couldn’t make out their uniforms to see if they were the same.
“I’m looking for Hils Fornin and Rentatee Dink,” one of the soldiers said.
Sam nearly burst out laughing. They hadn’t learned the names very well. If that didn’t tip off the Zogazin in front of him, nothing would.
“They are staying the night in the village. Why do you need them?”
“Because, just because,” one of the soldiers said.
Sam heard the rest of the swords slide out of their scabbards. Sam thrust his gold tip above him and let it work on the pollen tarp. He had enough of a hole for himself, but the hole still wasn’t big enough for Emmy. He couldn’t wait. The soldiers charged the four Zogazin in front of him. They turned and headed back towards the village.
Sam couldn’t see any of the soldiers around the wagons, so he stood up, ripping the rest of the pollen tarp while he struggled to climb out. He jumped to the other wagon to retrieve his things. Emmy tried to bark, but couldn’t, so Sam quickly buckled on his Lashak sword and wand and jumped back. He used the sword to slice open the rest of the fabric top of the cage. Emmy had no problem struggling out, but fell sprawling on the ground. She bounced right up. Sam removed her muzzle before securing his bags and took off into the darkness.
He hadn’t gone very far when he heard exclamations behind him. “The boy has escaped. What happened to the cursed ward?”
Sam hoped the soldier would never find out as he continued to run from the wagon and then turned to angle toward the village. He heard hoofbeats behind him before Emmy barked. Sam turned and took out his wand. He would need all the protection he could muster, since he had never fought anyone in the dark before.
The horse came closer. “Stop, you!”
Emmy barked, and the horse reared up, dumping her rider. The man brushed himself off as far as Sam could tell. His sword must have fallen close by, since Sam could see a glint of the village lights reflected by the blade.
“Beware of my dog,” Sam warned. “She bites, hard.”
“What happened to the muzzle?”
Sam laughed. “What happened to my manacles? What happened to the ward and the cloth top?”
“What are you, a pollen magician?” the man said warily. “You don’t throw wards, do you?”
Sam realized he had gone too far in his exuberance. He should have kept his mouth shut. “I’m too young for wards, my teacher said.” He lied, but the man deserved a lie.
The soldier ran in Sam’s direction. Emmy barked again.
“Stay away, Emmy,” Sam called out. His Great Sanchian might be able to see better than Sam, but the man would be swinging wildly, and Sam didn’t want Emmy hurt.
Sam caught the man’s weapon raised as he closed in. He held up his Lashak blade as the man’s sword slammed into the Wollian weapon. Before Sam had landed in Tolloy, the blow would not have been so easily deflected, Sam thought in the split-second before he thrust with his wand, tip gone, with all his strength towards the soldier’s gut. His wand penetrated and the man fell back, gasping.
“Was that a ward?”
Sam said, “My own personal magic.” He spotted the man’s horse and ran towards it. He tossed his bags over the horse’s flank and rode into the darkness towards the Zogazin village.
His opponent probably never saw Sam’s dull black wand, he thought as Emmy and he picked their way towards the village. The fighting was still going on to his right. There had to have been a lot more Zogazin erupt from the village after Sam had left.
The horse stumbled in the darkness. Sam left his things on the beast and walked with Emmy, leading the horse into the village. It wasn’t walled, but an older woman carrying a scythe in one hand and a torch in the other stopped Sam.
“Stay away from here!” she said with a touch of panic in her voice.
“I’m with Hilsa Forinin and Renatee Dinik. I escaped from Tolloy with them.”
“You are the boy? You aren’t much of a boy, more like a man who has seen action, if I had to guess,” she said with the same accent Hilsa had.
“This is my dog, Emmy.”
Other villagers soon joined the older woman.
“You Sam Smith?” an elderly man said.
“I am,” Sam said.
“Say something in Toraltian?”
“I am pleased to meet you all and hope you will welcome me into your arms.”
The man nodded. “He is with us,” he said before hugging Sam, laughing as he did so. “I take you meant your words literally?” the man replied in abominably accented Toraltian.
Were all Zogazin jokesters? The man was acting a lot like Renatee.
“Come, I’ll take you to your friends,” the man said as he turned around and hobbled toward the center of the village.
Hilsa sat on the edge of a fountain in the center of town. Water bubbled from the top and fell on curving arms as it made its way toward a pool. It looked weird in the dark and probably would look odd in the light, too.
She looked towards the elderly man carrying a torch. “Sam and Emmy!” Hilsa said as she stood and ran to them. “You made it out of the conflict.”
“Not quite,” Sam said. “I had to fight one of them, but I prevailed.”
Hilsa laughed. “As you should, as you should.”
Sam looked back to see many riders returning from their clash with the Vaarekian soldiers.
One of the Zogazin spat on the ground. “They killed our border guards and donned their uniforms. They thought we would be easy pickings. We showed them the sharpness of our teeth, even though we are pussycats!”
Most people laughed. Sam didn’t quite understand the humor. He heard a mixture of Vaarekian and the similar language that must have been the Zogazin native tongue.
Renatee had come back with the villagers. He didn’t look as happy as the rest of the Zogazin.
“I wondered how they got to your dog, Sam,” Renatee said, walking up to Sam.
He quickly explained his recent adventure after he freed them. Renatee said, “Not many people use darts in Vaarek, so I guess we will have to be prepared for anything.”
“Did the Vaarekians just start a war?” Sam asked.
The villagers’ celebration calmed down.
“They might have, and if that is the case, we will have to move the village,” a uniformed Zogazin said. He might have been one of the four to confront the Vaarekians. “Two of them got away, but we have trackers out for them. It is not a nice thing to have our neighbors
attack the border post.”
Chapter Eighteen
~
H ilsa laughed at some joke Renatee said. Sam rode just behind them on the horse that used to belong to the soldier he had killed. Emmy barked as she walked alongside Sam. Hilsa was relieved, but the capture and escape had seemed to affect Renatee’s Zogazin sense of humor for a few days. It was good to see him joking.
They were deep into Zogaz. Fewer of the Zogazin spoke Vaarekian, so Renatee gave Sam a little dictionary. “The sentence structure is the same, but the vocabulary isn’t. If you learn the new words, you will be able to communicate with anyone, but most people speak a smattering of the common language of Polistia. We don’t call it Vaarekian in Zogaz,” Hilsa had said, “Polistian is the more accepted term.”
Sam could understand that. The Zogazin seemed to be an honest, forthright people, but he felt there was something below the surface, nothing sinister, but something weird. It took a few days, for Sam hadn’t realized how oppressive Tolloy had become, but he still couldn’t get used to all the humor the Zogazin employed in their day-to-day encounters with each other.
He had never heard so much laughter in his life. It was a constant that he felt as he met the friendly Zogazin, but if he wanted to stop the laughter, all he had to do was mention Viktar Kreb’s name, and the good humor turned sour.
Sam urged his mount up to walk next to Hilsa. “I’ve been wondering what the Vaarekian dictator did to Zogaz? It seems that the very mention of his name dampens everyone’s spirit.”
Hilsa managed a smile. It wasn’t a smile filled with laughter, but a smile filled with pity. “Kreb is Zogazin from his father. His Vaarekian mother was reportedly a sourpuss and turned the boy against his Zogazin half. Kreb took on his mother’s maiden name and left Zogaz with his mother when he was nine years old and vowed never to return.”
“It looks like he is anxious to break that promise,” Sam said. “Why did you have a business in Tolloy if Kreb hated Zogaz so much?”
“I ended up in Tolloy for just the opposite reason. I fell in love with a Vaarekian cook who toured Zogaz for inspiration.” Hilsa giggled. “I ended up being the inspired one, and we opened up our Zogazin restaurant long before Kreb came to power. I had no idea Viktar had our country’s blood flowing in his veins. My husband died not long after we got the restaurant going.” She sighed with more of the sad smile and was lost in memories for a bit, Sam thought.
“Did things get worse?” Sam asked.
Hilsa nodded. “The rest of Polistia thinks we are clowns, and they are mostly right, but we are people and have our own way of living. Most Tolloyans tolerate us in their midst, but we aren’t really friends, other than a few exceptions.”
“I’m a Toraltian,” Sam said defensively. “I harbor no preconceptions about Zogaz, other than I am not as prone to laughter.”
Hilsa laughed, all the same. “We know. That is why we invited you to come with us. It was just a matter of time before Kreb would want to use you for his campaigns. He will chew people up and spit out their bones in the end.” Her smile vanished. “I hope you will help us as you can.”
Sam didn’t see how. “I have little to offer,” he said.
“That isn’t what I think. You have a good mind, a strong heart, and a unique condition that Plantian shared with me.”
“Me?” Sam wondered why Plantian blurted out his secret to others.
“You are a magician. I’ve never seen you make something out of pollen, but I know what Plantian says when he calls a person a magician. They have extra powers.”
“I have a few special abilities,” Sam said, “but I’m not an accomplished pollen-maker. I can see pollen better than other people.”
“Perhaps that is good enough. Help us for a while before you figure out what you want to do or where you want to stay.”
For the first time in years, Sam admitted, “I’d like to return to Toraltia. Being thrust out of Tolloy actually made me homesick. I was thrust out of Baskin, the capital of Toraltia, you know.”
“Give us a year of your time,” Hilsa said with a smile. “That is a lot to ask a seventeen-year-old, but I am sure you will gain much, much more than you will lose.”
Sam smiled back. “A year, unless something untoward happens. Like an invasion.”
“Then we will need you even more.”
~
Sam looked down from a circle of hills surrounding Hizor, the major port of Zogaz and the capital of the nation. He had expected a small place the size of Cherryton or Mountain View in Toraltia, but it sprawled in the bowl of land that tilted down towards the sea, looking much the same size as Baskin.
“What is that big dome?” Sam said, pointing to a large building that looked like an orange had been cut in half.
“We use the National Auditorium for a lot of things,” Renatee said. “Sometimes we just like the look of a big building in the town.”
Sam guessed that was more of the Zogazin humor that constantly escaped him. “Is there a dueling tournament?”
The ex-professor shook his head. “Those kinds of things occur in outdoor venues, so the stink of blood, ha, ha, ha, doesn’t permeate the people’s theater.”
Sometimes, Sam didn’t know how accurate anyone’s words were in Zogaz, but he hadn’t seen evidence of lying or violence, so Renatee was joking.
“I detect I might have gone overboard,” Renatee said. “Actually, we are a cultural people, so we hold plays and musical presentations in the auditorium more than any kind of athletic contests. You might be interested in those blocks of taller buildings on the west side of Hizor. That is our Zogazin Academy, the country’s equivalent of the University of Tolloy. We will be headed there to see if you can continue your education.”
Sam nodded. “I still don’t know much of the language.”
“To enter the academy, one must have mastered Polistian, so you should manage,” Hilsa said.
“Did you go to the Zogazin Academy?” Sam asked.
“I graduated, but I think more than that is a story for another time,” she said. “You will pursue a First in Material Sciences?
Sam didn’t really know, so he just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have to admit I ended up being a duelist above everything else in Tolloy, but will my time at Tolloy mean anything at your academy?”
“It should,” Renatee said. “A Second in history will be especially valuable, since you can get a deep dose of the Zogazin version of the Polistian past.”
Sam smiled. “I can look forward to something, finally. I’ve been feeling like I am on the run, fleeing, but I understand some of the nuances of history, and I like the idea of getting your country’s perspective.”
~
Midway to the Academy, Sam and Renatee parted from Hilsa and her men. They transferred their possessions to a hired wagon and headed toward the blocky buildings. Emmy would get to ride the rest of the way.
Hizor architecture reflected the whimsical nature of the Zogazin. Painted scenes adorned many of the exposed sides of buildings all over the city. Many of the displays were very realistic pictures drawn up as some kind of trick. Some of them were clever and funny, and others didn’t seem to make much sense to Sam. It gave the city a festive air that was reinforced by the citizens walking around in every style and color imaginable.
Renatee stopped. “You must not speak unless spoken to within the walls of the Academy until you have been granted standing. There are some odd rules that must be adhered to. I left the Academy to teach in Tolloy because I didn’t like putting up with all the puffed-up foolishness. The proctors, the academy’s term for professors, feel like they are better than anyone else and have lost much of their Zogazin sense of humor. Just a warning, lad.”
Sam nodded. “I will keep my mouth shut.”
Renatee smiled and nodded to the wagon driver to continue. They reached the Academy as evidenced by a large arched gate in a bright blue-colored wall.
The ground floor had no windows, but above that, the wall looked much like a dormitory, with the top floor extending across the gate.
A woman uniformed in bright green, sporting a yellow hat with a black visor and chinstrap, stopped them.
“What have we here, tinkers?”
“Not at all. I am Proctor Dinik, returning from an assignment in Tolloy, and I dragged along a student who seemed to have lost his way in the Vaarekian capital city, so I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and here we are.”
She looked at a clipboard. “Renatee Dinik?”
Renatee nodded his head.
“And you, I take it, are Sam Smith, a Toraltian?”
Sam was surprised they were recognized, but then word could have easily gone ahead of them. They hadn’t exactly rushed to Hizor once they were safely inside the country.
“I am.”
“You will both proceed to the Yellow Swan to report.”
Sam was about to say something about the odd name, but Renatee put a finger to his lips. “You were about to say something. You may tell me now.”
“Yellow Swan? That isn’t even a good name for a tavern,” Sam said.
“All you are required to do is remember it. The dour attitudes of the Proctors are made up by the colors and decorations of their buildings,” Renatee said, “and maybe the names, too.”
Sam thought that he didn’t have to like his temporary home. He had committed to Hilsa to stay a year in Zogaz, but he didn’t know how she could keep him to the promise with such an odd place to live. They threaded their way through the blocks of buildings. The painted scenes persisted on the academy grounds.
He had to smile at how ingenious many of the painted decorations were. He slipped off his glasses, not very surprised to find out all the paintings were pollen-made. The Zogazin must have pollen-artists and even, perhaps, pollen magicians among them, he thought. He didn’t say anything to Renatee as they rode past all the artwork that appeared and disappeared as Sam looked at them, spectacles on and spectacles off.
Sam looked for pollen patching on the buildings that would make them look better, but he didn’t notice any as the wagon stopped.