A Sorcerer Rises (Song of Sorcery Book 1) Read online

  Ricky could think of a big reason. Benno’s conditioning efforts were paying off, and he looked much better. He thought that Benno was waiting a bit longer before he appeared to his childhood friend in a different shape.

  In fact, Ricky was a bit jealous of the muscles that Benno had that didn’t seem to develop on Ricky, although Ricky was growing a bit bigger and stronger. He still could run rings around his tutoring friend, and Ricky defeated him with every weapon because of his speed.

  He looked at Loria, who smiled as she observed the doings of a bright spring morning. She clung to him, not Benno. Saganet, and even Gobble, told him that women were fickle. Ricky smiled. He wondered how easily Loria could transfer her feelings to a handsome, strong Benno.

  He thought of Frank entering Victor’s carriage and realized that boys could be fickle as well. Friendships came and went, he guessed.

  “He’s been a great help to me,” Ricky said. “I won’t need him next year.”

  “Are you going to audit again?”

  Ricky shook his head. “I don’t know. Mistress Doubli hasn’t told me what will happen. Saganet is my day-to-day guardian, but he does so at the Dean’s request.”

  “That doesn’t make your future very stable, does it?”

  Ricky grinned, although he didn’t feel like it. “Better than my future before.”

  She nodded and pressed her lips together. Ricky appreciated the silence. Loria knew how to act around other people, and socially, Ricky was still more comfortable toiling in Jock’s gardens. Even though she might turn away from him once she saw the new Benno, he had enjoyed her friendship where there were few willing to become acquaintances. Even Benno had ulterior motives that probably superseded any friendship.

  ~

  “Here it is!” Loria said. She walked ahead of him into Karian’s shop. “There is more here than I thought. The last time we were here, it was dark.”

  Ricky walked behind her, noting what she picked up and perused. He smiled as he thought of all the new words he used in this mind. Benno’s explanations of words were always better than Frank’s had been.

  “Ricky!” Karian said as he walked from the back. “Do you have the package that Saganet sent?”

  “I do,” Ricky said, handing the book over to his friend.

  Karian frowned. “I’ll be right back.”

  Ricky wondered what was wrong. Karian returned with a troubled face. “What happened to the packaging?”

  Ricky’s heart leaped to his throat. He found Loria on the other side of the shop so he could speak quietly. “The information was on the paper that covered the book?”

  Karian pursed his lips. “You are a quick thinker.” He nodded.

  Ricky put a hand to his heating face. “I left it outside last night, and something happened to the book.” He told Karian about hiding the book, working with Jock and inadvertently leaving the book on the laundry doorstep for anyone to read.

  “No wrapping and the book on top of the clothes in the sack means someone might have taken the information,” Karian said. “The bag had your name on it?”

  Ricky nodded, instantly understanding what the implication of that was. “I’m already targeted, though,” he said. “When we left here that last time we visited, thugs chased us.”

  “I heard that from one of my contacts,” Karian said. “Saganet and I will have to have a conversation with you when he returns from Sealio. You’ve implicated yourself in our project.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Ricky said.

  Karian barely showed a smile when he put his hand on Ricky’s shoulder. “I know.” He looked over at Loria. “Can I help you find something, Miss Mansali?”

  “You know my name?” she said, looking a bit embarrassed.

  “We were introduced the last time you were here with Ricky.”

  “Ah, yes, we were.”

  “You heard our conversation?” Ricky said.

  She nodded. “Most of it. Maybe I can help.”

  “Doing what?” Karian asked.

  Loria bit her lip before responding. “I’m friends with two of the laundresses. Maybe I can find out if someone discarded the paper when they dumped out the laundry. I assume you don’t want the wrapper to be discovered by your enemies?”

  Karian nodded. “Right. Hopefully, Saganet can reconstruct the information, but we can’t use the same method to communicate.”

  “Maybe you can use sorcerers?” Ricky said. “Baron Mansali uses his sons to help him with his business.”

  Karian’s eyes lit up. “He does, doesn’t he?” he asked Loria.

  She nodded. “I don’t know exactly what they do all day long. I’m not supposed to learn until I graduate from the academy.”

  “Perhaps your mistake might provide us with operating better.”

  Ricky didn’t know what kind of operations Karian talked about, but he supported anything to atone for his mistake. “I’ll get some, uh, supplies and get going,” Ricky said.

  Loria put an armful of various items on the counter while Ricky made up for lost time getting his purchases. Karian acted as if nothing untoward happened as he joked with them while they made their purchase.

  “Do you want to go to my shantyboat again?”

  Loria smiled. “Sure. Have you ever gone to the forest on the north bank?”

  “Lots of times. I’ll hire a boat.”

  Ricky had no idea where his little rowboat ended up, but he was surprised to see it tied up along with a string of other vessels the Shantyboat Town residents used. Few of the small, shabby craft were ever stolen.

  “Father must like you a little bit not to tear this up for kindling,” Loria said when Ricky poled his boat using one of the oars away from the long, rickety pier.

  “It looks like he even had someone do some repair work. See the tar repairs?”

  Loria squinted but evidently didn’t recognize what repairs looked like. Ricky just grinned as he rowed the boat across the river. He knew he’d been getting stronger since it was much easier to move the rowboat from one side of the river to the other. He maneuvered around the back of Shantyboat Town and found the little enclave where his own boat floated.

  “It hasn’t been touched,” Loria said.

  Ricky laughed. “Would you want to touch it?”

  She made a face. “So what does it look like inside? The last time we were here, it was dark, and I was very distracted.”

  “A little better than the exterior,” Ricky said. He untied the intricate knot and let her in. The room was untouched but dusty. Ricky hadn’t been so long away from his hideout before.

  Loria put her hand to her chin. “It wouldn’t take very much to make this nicer. A little paint and a few new pieces of furniture. Where is the privy?”

  Ricky felt his face heat up as he lifted up a hinged board. “Everyone uses the river. This enclave is a bit out of the way, so…”

  “Oh, of course. I didn’t think.”

  “It’s sort of a one-person shantyboat. I didn’t care before.”

  “Before the academy?”

  Ricky nodded. The place all of a sudden appeared shabbier.

  “It’s a practical solution,” Loria said. “The river takes it all away.”

  “Indeed it does. That’s why we have water sellers. No one drinks the river water. You never should anyway.”

  “Where do the water sellers get their water?”

  Ricky pointed out the little window. “The forest, or they boil river water and filter it. Do you want to take a walk?”

  “I’m your captive.”

  That was something Ricky didn’t want to hear. “You are my friend. Let’s go.”

  After a quick row to the northern bank, Ricky tied his skiff to one of five or six posts sunk into the shallow riverbed. Crude stone stairs led up from each post. Ricky helped Loria up to the edge.

  “Rustic,” she said.

  “It’s too far from Tossa to be of much interest to the citizens,” Ricky said, pointing
across the river.

  Loria’s eyes followed his finger. “It’s pretty from this far away, our city.”

  The city had built a stone wall rising from the river bank on the inside of a large loop of the river. Trees grew between the buildings, spreading their branches over the water.

  Ricky didn’t get a good look at the back of the Mansali mansion on the south side of Tossa where the rich people lived, but he expected it to be even nicer. If Shantyboat Town had started on the southern side facing the mansions, it wouldn’t have lasted more than a month or two. The nobles would have the eyesore removed. There were no residences on the north side, just warehouses, docks, shops, and markets.

  “There’s the Ducal Palace,” Loria said.

  Long ago, one of the Tossan dukes built a hill in the middle of the loop and placed the palace on the top. City administration buildings surrounded the hill, including the judicial building where Ricky had been tried.

  “I’ve been close to the palace once. That’s enough for me,” Ricky said.

  Loria tore her eyes away from the city. “Where do we go from here?”

  “I’ll take you to my farm,” Ricky said. “Let me show you my crops.”

  He took Loria deeper into the woods. There were plenty of paths to follow since the forest had been on the north side of the river for longer than Tossa had been a city.

  “See this cut on the tree? This is where I usually start to harvest. All the others strip the forest close to the bank, but after here, the pickings are better,” Ricky said.

  He took her off the trail and showed her berry patches with their leaves just coming out, herbs of various kinds and root vegetables.

  “It’s like someone planted these things together on purpose.”

  Ricky grinned. “It does.” He gave Loria a nod. “I did. This is my farm. If I didn’t have one, I would have starved living with Gobble. I ate most of what I collected on my own boat, but took some goods to Gobble because I’m sure he knew I spent time in the forest.”

  “You could have begged for coins in the streets,” Loria said. “I hear children can do rather well.”

  Ricky looked away for a moment. “I refused to beg. Gobble would beat me for refusing to do it. A few years ago, I learned to shout, so things slowed down. I showed Gobble, and he put me to work stealing after shouting. I would rather do that than beg. He still took the goods and sold them. He kept the money for himself. That’s when I decided to build my hideout and get my own rowboat. While I scrounged for moss to dip in tar to make my things float, I found a few berry bushes and then I talked to some of those who came to the forest and learned how to create my own farm. They gave me seeds and cuttings.”

  “How long have you been doing this, then?”

  “Probably about five years. Everyone has their own territory and respects the flashings on the trees, mostly. I suppose someone will take over my plot this summer since I won’t be here.”

  Loria took his hand. “Does that make you sad?”

  Ricky stared at her. “We shouldn’t touch when we are alone. Friends only.”

  “Did Father make you promise?”

  “He didn’t have to. You’re a noble, and I’m a shantyboat person. He wants us to be friends, but I think that’s all.”

  Loria snorted. “It’s not that we’ll marry.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Ricky said. “I want to be friends. I like you. Since you are friendly to me, I want to be friendly with you.”

  She straightened out her dress. “I like you, too.” She smiled, squeezed his hand and then let his go. “Don’t want to disappoint Father,” she said mimicking Baron Mansali’s voice.

  “Let me show you more crops.”

  He led her past thickets and to a little meadow with a tiny lake.

  “There is a spring feeding the pond. The water is safe for drinking, but it’s a long walk to the shore carrying a lot of water,” Ricky said. “Water sellers have sources much closer, and they can carry more than I ever could.”

  “I think you should buy some bottled water and take a case to your boat, so you’ll not have to worry.”

  Ricky brightened. “I never had the money, but that’s a great idea. We can store food that won’t spoil. I’ll even teach you how to untie my knot.”

  “Can’t someone just break into your boat?”

  “Not if we just fix it up and keep the outside looking as it is.”

  “We?”

  “We’re friends, right? We can share the shantyboat.”

  “I’m not sure I want to live there, but perhaps another time we’ll need a hideaway. You might become a wanted man.”

  “I’m wanted right now, and I think it will only get worse.”

  ~~~

  Chapter Eighteen

  ~

  R icky used more of the bank notes Saganet left behind and spent the rest of the next day painting and laying in supplies. He had already built hiding places in his shantyboat and used them for some of the food. The shantyboat already smelled better inside.

  Furniture would have to come later. Ricky wouldn’t walk the streets of Tossa after dark, so he didn’t know when he’d be able to carry anything across the river undetected.

  Inspired by Loria, he vowed to maintain his shantyboat as a refuge. He doubted that she would ever want to return, but if he kept the interior in good shape and she did have a chance to visit again, she wouldn’t be disappointed. He’d even fashioned a privacy screen around the privy hole.

  ~

  Ricky dreaded Saganet’s return, but he entered the cottage after working on his shantyboat to see his guardian’s satchel on the kitchen table. While he was washing up, Saganet walked through the door carrying a tray of food from the commissary.

  “Time to eat and talk,” he said. Ricky couldn’t mistake the seriousness in Saganet’s voice.

  Ricky put the satchel in his guardian’s bedroom while Saganet laid out the food.

  “I see you’ve kept busy.”

  Ricky nodded, nervous about what Saganet would say about his stupidity.

  “You didn’t need your little sticker while I was gone?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve already talked to Karian.”

  Here it comes, thought Ricky. “I’m sorry.”

  Saganet took a bite of roast beef and rolled it around in his mouth before he chewed and swallowed. “I suppose good deeds can lead to unintended consequences.”

  “Good deeds? I didn’t do any good deed,”

  “You worked for Jock until nightfall for free. I call that a good deed. I talked to him, too.”

  Ricky furrowed his brow. He was restless and didn’t see helping the gardener as anything special. “But that doesn’t make up for losing the book wrapper.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Saganet said. “It set us behind a few weeks, re-gathering the information, but whoever has the wrapper will have to break a code that has never been broken.”

  “I still let you down,” Ricky said.

  Saganet nodded. “Eat up. You are going to work off your misdeed in the gymnasium. There are a few more days of Spring Recess, and you will use them well.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ricky said. His appetite improved enough for him to eat a bit.

  “What have you been doing for the past few days? My little spies say you’ve left the academy just after breakfast and have returned just before dark.”

  “I visited Karian with Loria. I have a little project in Shantyboat Town that I worked on.”

  “Your little refuge?”

  “Did I ever tell you about it?” Ricky didn’t remember.

  “Karian.”

  Ricky had mentioned it to Karian before. Saganet and Karian were better friends than he thought.

  “I took Loria there. She suggested I make it a little more habitable.”

  “Your living standards have improved since you’ve been here, eh?”

  Ricky nodded. “The outside is the same, but I painted and stocked the inside wit
h water and preserved food.”

  “A refuge?”

  “It served Loria and me once as one. I hope I don’t have to take her there again, but if I do, she won’t be so uncomfortable.”

  “What is it between the two of you?”

  “Her father asked me to be her friend.”

  Saganet swished the wine in his goblet and took a swallow. “Be careful.”

  “I know,” Ricky said. He felt resentful about that. “We like each other, but she keeps wanting to hold my hand, and I’m not comfortable with that.”

  “Good!” Saganet laughed. The change from anger to amusement made Ricky feel a little better. “Don’t do anything to destroy your friendship, though. It’s always a bit touchy when you are involved with the opposite sex.”

  “Was it that way with your wife?”

  Saganet leaned back and poured a little more wine. “I think Merry put us together because our situations were much the same. Mina’s mother was a Doubli. She was smart and pretty and open. My dubious status in the army didn’t sit well with her father, but she persevered. I think I successfully convinced him that I would provide for his daughter.”

  “But she died.”

  Saganet sighed and nodded. “Her parents contracted Blood Lung disease during the epidemic in Sealio, years ago. She was the only one brave enough to tend to them until she caught it herself.” He sighed again and finished his wine. “No cure. Two less grandparents for Mina and no wife for me. Merry and I became closer, just friends, after that.”

  “I didn’t know,” Ricky said. “What about your parents?”

  “What about them? They fled to Fisttia to avoid the epidemic, and now they are stuck there.”

  “But you can see them?”

  Saganet’s face produced a rueful smile. “I get there every two or three years. They don’t really care about seeing me. My father advises the Fisttian King on agricultural matters.”

  “You are a noble?”

  “Not quite,” Saganet said. “Fourth son and a common soldier before I came here.”

  “But you were an officer.”

  “Maybe not so common,” Saganet said, his good humor returning. “So, Karian thinks you should learn what we are doing. I’m not so sure, but we’ll talk about it tomorrow in the gymnasium. He was impressed by your suggestion to use sorcery to cover our communications. We’ll talk about that, too.” Saganet yawned. “Too much wine. I’ve been too busy today. We’ll talk tomorrow. You can clean this up.”