The Sleeping God (The Disinherited Prince Series Book 4) Read online

  They both exited into the sunshine, eyes blinking from the darkness below. On the dock a group of armed Shardians mingled around Paki, Kell, and Fadden. Evidently, Pol and Shira were the last to emerge. The merchantman captain wasn’t in sight.

  “Pray to whatever Shinkyan gods you can. We will need some luck,” Fadden said.

  Shira snorted. “If there is one thing I’ve learned about you, it’s that you make your own luck.” She stepped closer, and then stopped, blushing. “I was about to do something stupid, boyfriend.”

  Pol laughed. “Thanks for calling me that.” He wanted to hold her hand as they stepped down the gangplank, but he settled for letting her go first. The sun looked a little brighter, but Pol had to suppress a grin. Now that they were on dry land, she seemed to really be back.

  The Shardians, along with the pirate captain and his magician, loosely walked with Pol and his group across a rough stone-paved square, past warehouses and mostly single-story structures to a three-story building. It was too small to be called a palace, but the construction was distinctly better than all that surrounded it.

  “The Chief will see you,” a guard said, with a mocking smile to the pirate captain.

  The pirate captain led them inside the building. Grass mats were used to wipe off the bottoms of their shoes, and then they had to tuck them under a row of low benches.

  “Leave your packs and weapons on the benches. No one will touch them,” Koakai said.

  Pol wasn’t particularly comfortable walking around in stockinged feet, but the Shardians didn’t mind it.

  They entered a large room. It wasn’t very large as throne rooms go, but for a local lord, it was good-sized. Perhaps there were more Pirate Chiefs in the Shards.

  “You brought us prisoners?” a large man said in good Bottaran. He reclined on a couch. He had long dark hair shot through with gray and wore a linen shirt and trousers. The chief played with a thick gold necklace, and Pol wondered if he did it to show off the jeweled rings on six of his fingers.

  “I did, Holianai. One of the boys is a very powerful magician. He resisted Koakai’s truth spell and displaced him three paces with his magic.”

  “A man three paces?” the chief, Holianai, sat up. “Show me,” he said, looking at Shira.

  Pol stepped forward. “What would you have me do?”

  “Put me in the air. That way I will know your power is no trick.”

  Pol thought for a moment about what he would do. He couldn’t do anything threatening, not with guards around. He concentrated and raised Holianai off his couch and let him down slowly next to Koakai.

  “You have other talents?” Holianai said.

  Pol merely nodded.

  “Guards, you may leave,” the Chief said. He didn’t walk back to his couch, but approached Pol. “I assume you wish to be free?”

  “Of course,” Pol said.

  “Then I have a task for you. First, we will have to stage a contest with another magician. You will win, of course,” the Chief said. “In The Shards, we have something called the Magicians Circle. They are more than a circle, and they control most of the magicians. Koakai isn’t one of them.” The Chief looked at his magician. “They came to Fauali and took my daughter five months ago.” The Chief glanced at Koakai uneasily.

  “That is a problem?” Pol said.

  “Listen first,” the Chief said impatiently. “The Circle replaced family gods with some of their own. Every Spring Equinox, a female magician is sacrificed to their primary god.”

  “H-h-human sacrifice?” Paki stuttered.

  The Chief nodded. “That is two months away.”

  Pol had missed Winter’s Day. How had that happened in all of their travels? He bowed slightly. “And what would you have us do?”

  “Rescue her, of course!” the Chief said. “However, she can’t return here. So you must take her away from The Shards.”

  “Never to return,” Koakai said. “The Circle is powerful. They could come to Fauali and destroy all this.”

  He waved his hand, indicating the Chief’s house, but Pol thought he indicated the entire town.

  “So you want us to take her with us? We are going to Fassin and then will return to Yastan.”

  “Baccusolians?” the Chief said, looking at them all.

  “I’m from Botarra, Fadden said, “but I’ll be accompanying them to the Empire.”

  The Chief stared at Shira. “Shinkyan?”

  “Fate has brought our group together. I do come from Shinkya and will return someday.”

  “We three came from North Salvan, an Imperial kingdom,” Pol said, pointing to Paki and Kell. Kell didn’t, but that wasn’t important at the moment.

  “I thought that my daughter would do well in Bossom, but I think she can live in your empire. Take my daughter with you and keep her safe. I know of Shardians who have done well under Hazett III’s rule.”

  Another Shardian entered the room and bowed to the Chief. “The testing awaits.”

  The Chief clapped his hands. “No time to lose.”

  Pol didn’t like being rushed from place to place, but he didn’t see an alternative. How could he refuse the Chief’s offer? Rescue the Chief’s daughter or…or…” Pol didn’t know what the pirates would do to them.

  Koakai led them outside. Someone had set out a ring of rope in front of the Chief’s house.

  “Your opponent is our strongest magician. The first magician to push the other out of the ring without touching will win.”

  Pol put heavier shields on his mind and walked into the ring with a hardened air shield. He had no idea what touching would mean. He could use wind or something else. If Pol was a different kind of person, he would have considered using the Tesnan compulsion spell, but he wouldn’t willingly put compulsion on another magician. He doubted if another magician in the town would have the expertise to remove it.

  Pirate men and women clustered around the ring.

  “They might try anything,” Fadden said.

  “I know.” Pol wanted to give Shira a hug, but couldn’t. He stepped inside the ring and stood in the middle.

  What else could they do? Move the ring? Pol didn’t think that would be a very strong possibility, but he looked down at the rope and he tweaked rope tendrils down into the earth. The Shardians would have to cut the rope to remove it.

  “What is this, a boy?” an older man said. He was dressed in a colorful robe made of strips of different colored and textured cloth.

  “A magician,” Pol said. He felt the pressure of a spell. It was somewhat like the Tesnan mind-control spell.

  Pol folded his arms. “Certainly you’ll have to do better than that.”

  The magician raised his arms. Pol didn’t know what the tweak was, but the magician looked down at the rope. He bent down and tried to pull it, but he couldn’t make the rope budge.

  Pol tweaked a blast of wind at the man while he pulled. His wind funneled around the magician’s shield. At least the magician would be a good opponent. He sent a blast of fire the magician’s way in order to see the shape of his opponent’s protection.

  The fire whipped around a flattish shield. The Shardians behind the magician quickly retreated, so they wouldn’t get burned. The other magician attacked Pol in the same way, but Pol expanded his shield and curved it so the flames reflected back at the magician.

  Pol had enough of the testing. He raised the magician into the air, and then blew him over the heads of the Shardians before using his power to lower the magician to the ground.

  “Are we finished?” Pol said in Botarran.

  The Chief walked over the rope and smiled, clapping Pol on the back. “We are.”

  Pol had to think of what his defense would have been if the magician had tried the same thing on him. He probably would have used a countervailing wind while he tweaked himself downwards before he left the ring.

  “That looked easy,” Koakai said.

  “You should try it to see how easy it is,” Pol sa
id.

  “I did. He is our champion. I thought he would have you with the mind spell.”

  “I demonstrated to you that I am pretty much immune to those things.” Pol said.

  “You are too powerful.” Koakai’s impression of Pol might have changed since their first encounter on the merchantman.

  ~~~

  Chapter Thirteen

  ~

  A Shardian woman walked up to them. “Come with me, and we will eat while I tell you about my daughter.”

  Pol watched the Chief walk back into his house and made to follow. The Chief turned around and pulled a string of metal plaques from his pocket. “Here, these five tokens can be used as passes to protect your ship from pirates should you be boarded. Don’t give them up to anybody. Get your story from the woman.”

  Pol turned back to the woman, who still stood with his friends.

  “I don’t live there,” she said, looking at the Chief’s house. “Please follow.”

  Why didn’t she live with her husband? Pol turned to Koakai, but the Shardian magician had disappeared. Fadden just shrugged and walked away, leaving Pol standing with Shira.

  “What is happening?” he said.

  “You are a thick one, sometimes,” Shira said. “They obviously aren’t married.”

  “What?”

  “A man and a woman can have a child between them and not be married.”

  Pol looked shocked at Shira. Of course they can. If someone had asked Cissert about his son, he wouldn’t have dared step foot in Borstall Castle where his mother, the Queen, lived with his stepfather. He shook his head at his dense thinking. “I should know that well enough,” he said and began walking towards the others.

  Shira slapped herself lightly on her cheek. “He is only sixteen,” she reminded herself while she caught up to him.

  Pol turned, “I heard that, and you’re only seventeen, at best.”

  “It’s a pretty good best,” Shira said, sticking her tongue out at Pol.

  He shrunk at her gesture. “Come on, Shro, they will leave us behind.”

  “Shro?” Shira looked at him, and then her eyes widened, “Of course, Pol. I’ll be right there,” she said in a slightly lower voice,

  Pol waited for her to catch up and then walked with her to the woman’s house. He knew it was the right one because he recognized his friends’ shoes lined up on the porch.

  “Welcome to my home. I am Ruala. I was one of the Chief’s concubines and provided him with a lovely, talented daughter, my Loa.” The woman spoke in accented Botarran.

  “We thank you for your kindness, Ruala,” Koakai said as he sneaked in behind Paki. He then got down on his knees and bowed to the woman, now seated on a low couch. “Please tell us about your Loa.” Koakai annoyed Pol, as the magician tried to wheedle his way into Pol’s group.

  “My only daughter is a wonderful girl. She grew up with love and kindness in this port town. My Chief loves his daughter and provided us with this house and all that we desire. Two years ago, my daughter began to show signs of recognizing the Pattern, and the magician you defeated today became her mentor.”

  “She allowed herself to be taken, even though she knew magic?” Pol said.

  “There are courtesies.” Ruala looked at Fadden for assistance.

  “I think she means customs or protocols,” Fadden said in Eastrilian.

  Pol understood. “She was bound to follow those of the Magicians Circle?”

  Ruala looked relieved by Pol’s understanding. “They tested my Loa and took her away.”

  “How did you find out about her selection to be sacrificed?”

  The woman shuddered. “She sent us a note. Loa said she was proud to be the one sent to appease the Magician’s god. We do not share the names of our gods. However, I know my daughter. She was forced or spelled to write the letter. You must save her.”

  “Where is she being kept?”

  “On Mauki Isle. It is three weeks away. Walk to the edge of the town and I will send someone to guide you. Here is a map.” She gave the rolled-up document to Fadden.

  The five of them walked out of Ruala’s house and proceeded to the last house.

  Koakai appeared.

  “How far is it to Wailua?” Pol said, disappointed that the irritating man would be their guide.

  “A month or more, if the seas are cooperative. You will be pursued all the way to Wailua once we rescue Loa,” the magician said.

  “We?” Pol said.

  Koakai bowed to them. “I will accompany you to Mauki.”

  Pol was surprised that the Chief would send one of his magicians on a dangerous mission. He didn’t trust the man, but if they had to travel in The Shards for a month, Pol would rather have a Shardian along.

  “And what happens to you if they catch us?” Fadden grabbed Koakai by the shoulder.

  “It will be a fight to the death.”

  Pol hadn’t expected a rescue to be easy, but the escape wasn’t any less perilous than the Pontifer’s Hounds. “What level will the magicians be?”

  “As strong as the one you fought today.”

  “Then we will need more weapons. Shro is adept with a bow and arrow. I will need throwing knives, if you have any.” Pol looked at Fadden and his friends.

  Koakai smiled. “We are pirates, so we collect lots of interesting items. Our weapons cache is at your disposal.”

  The magician led him to a low brick building with a slate roof. They walked into a space filled with barrels of weapons and stacks of shields and spears. “Whatever you need.”

  Pol and his group walked through crooked aisles filled with exotic weapons. For Pol, it was a step back into time. He pulled out swords of a style that he had only seen on the walls of Deftnis Monastery and Borstall Castle. There were long pikes and short pikes with metal heads with shapes that Pol would have only imagined before.

  Shira pored over unstrung bows laid out on tables. Her bow and arrows had been left behind in Demina.

  “Do you see any that you like?” Pol asked.

  “I like this one, and this, and this. I’ll have to string them to know for sure.” After making her selections, the armorer, who sat playing some kind of peg game with his assistant, provided her with fresh strings.

  She actually chose two. One was a short bow and another longer one. “If we have to sneak in a building, this short one will work best.”

  Then she searched for straight arrows in even more barrels sorted by length. Pol guessed that the armory stored thousands of arrows.

  Fadden cautioned them about plate armor not being practical for the kind of traveling they would do, but he ended up mostly talking to himself, as the others didn’t want to be burdened with lugging around armor while they hopped from island to island.

  Pol did find a helmet that he liked. It had wide slanting sides jutting out above the ears that would protect his neck, so he also picked up two segmented epaulets that would stop the blade coming off his helmet from taking off a shoulder.

  They spent over an hour picking through the cache and came out loaded with arms, except for Pol. Other than the three pieces of armor, all he needed were more throwing knives, and he couldn’t find anything close to the Shinkyan versions that he had, although his supply of the blades was dwindling. Perhaps he could re-pattern a similar-sized knife to match the Shinkyan, so he brought out a canvas sack filled with small knives.

  Koakai met them as they exited from the armory. He pointed to some carts lined up. Pol noticed that donkeys were hitched to the carts.

  “No horses?”

  Koakai shook his head. “Horses aren’t suited to The Shards. Our donkeys are smaller because of changes in terrain. You’ll see.”

  Fadden put a hand to his chin. “I thought we’d be sailing.”

  “We will, but it’s actually quicker overland on this island to reach the south side and sail to the next island from there. Our town is well located for pirating, but not for traveling through The Shards.”

>   Pol ran through his mental map of The Shards in his head, and if his reckoning was correct, this island’s land ran mostly from east to west and had skinnier places going north to south. That wouldn’t be the case for every island.

  “Then do we eat first?” Pol asked.

  “We won’t return to Fauali. The Chief wants you on your way now. We will pass a village in a few hours and will have something there. We don’t travel fast, but you can choose to ride or walk while we travel,” Koakai said.

  “Walk,” Shira and Pol said simultaneously.

  Shira giggled like a girl, but Koakai didn’t seem to notice. Pol had enough riding and sitting while on the boat. Fadden, Koakai, and Paki ended up riding, and Kell joined them as they started off into the luscious woods.

  “This is a jungle,” Shira said, looking at the profusion of flora. “We don’t have anything like this in Shinkya except for swamps at our northwestern corner, and I’ve never been there.”

  “Jungles aren’t particularly safe places,” Kell said. “Lots of places for angry animals to hide and biting insects are all over the place,” he said after he swatted something landing on his neck.

  “Do you include humans in your angry animal classification?” Shira said.

  “Of course, humans are the angriest of animals. Didn’t we just see that in Botarra? Rescuing you from the Hole brought out a horde of Hounds looking for us, just like poking a beehive.”

  “The pirates weren’t too bad,” Shira said.

  “That’s because we didn’t fight. My father has described his ships being attacked by the Shardians, and only a few, if any, of his sailors survived. Believe me, it happens. We were fortunate Pol let his magic be known,” Kell said. “The Shardians raid ships along the coast all the way to Gekelmar. The only reason my father can trade with Volia is because the Ducharans have a treaty with the pirates. My father’s trading profits with Volia are slim due to the Ducharan passage tax. I’m sure a lot of that finds Shardian pockets.”

  “All that means is that there are angry animals all over Phairoon,” Pol said.

  “The world is filled with them,” Kell confirmed, nodding his head.

  Shira took a deep breath. “Much less so in Shinkya. Let’s find other things to talk about.”