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

  How could his grandfather betray him like that? Gobble put him up for a job and then turned him in for some paltry reward. No one would pay very much for the arrest of a boy barely a teenager. It wasn’t like Ricky was a hardened criminal. Although the rumors he had heard around Shantyboat Town indicated that if you weren’t hardened before being sent to Applia, you would be when you returned.

  How could life be so unfair? How could his only relative do something so heartless? But then, he never felt that Gobble had much of a heart. Ricky chronically had the bruises to prove it, but to whom would he prove it? He had earned some new lumps when he fought with the constables.

  He kicked the wall again, prompting the constable in the office to yell at him. Ricky didn’t bother to listen to the man’s words, but he stopped kicking. He threw his body into a sitting position and put his palms up to hold his chin. A mouse hole stared at him from the other side of the cell. He heard voices in the office. One sounded familiar.

  Karian followed a constable into the corridor. Ricky followed his eyes as he searched the cells for any miscreants. His gaze ended at Ricky, who shrugged his shoulders.

  “A constable I know told me that he had snagged a boy from Shantyboat Town. I asked for a description, hoping it wouldn’t be you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” Ricky said. Karian smiled with his mouth and his eyes. It certainly made Ricky feel better. “My grandfather turned me in for the reward.”

  “Gobble finally figured you were getting too big?”

  Ricky gave his friend another shrug.

  “What are you going to do?”

  Ricky stood up, wary of approaching the bars. “I suppose I’m traveling to Applia.”

  Karian’s face fell. “That bad?”

  “They don’t believe Gobble put me up to it.”

  His friend looked towards the office where the constable had returned. “I think a little persuasion made it into the constables’ pockets.”

  “Gobble doesn’t have the money to bribe.”

  “He does now,” Karian said.

  Ricky sat back down and leaned back with his hands cradling the back of his head against the plaster wall. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander. He had no one to depend on. Ricky thought the day would come when he departed from Gobble’s boat for good, but he was a few years from being confident enough to fend for himself.

  “Where is the urn, or whatever it is?” Ricky asked.

  Karian’s eyes lit up. “Some man showed up with it, claiming you sold it to him for five hundred Oaks.”

  “Oaks? I’ve never held one of those golden coins, much less had five hundred of them in my hands.”

  “He claimed he paid you, but then talk is cheap. What did you do after you stole the urn.”

  “I stole an urn?” Ricky said innocently.

  Karian twisted his mouth and looked skeptical.

  “Gobble had it in his hands a few minutes later. I took off and went across the river and snared a rabbit. The constables would say that I had just put a dressed rabbit in a boiling pot of fresh water.”

  “Not a chance,” Karian said. “Your grandfather told the constables that you crept into someone else’s houseboat to steal the rabbit that they had caught.”

  Ricky shook his head. “If I just came into possession of five hundred golden Oaks, would I go hunting for rabbit?”

  “Doesn’t matter what you say or what they say. The constables are paid off, and now we have to figure out how to keep you in Tossa.”

  “We?”

  “Ricky, you are not without friends.”

  “I have no friends,” he said, folding his arms.

  “Snap out of it!” Karian said. “I know someone who was there. I might be able to vouch for you. I’ll make sure I’m notified when you’ll be put in front of a judge, likely late tomorrow or the next day.”

  “The urn was recovered?”

  Karian narrowed his eyes. “Strange, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s not worth five hundred oaks. Did you look inside? Maybe it carried something valuable.”

  “I didn’t have the time. As soon as I exited the market, I gave the thing to Gobble,” Ricky said.

  Karian rubbed his chin in thought. “I’ll bet something was inside of it and that a substantial amount of money exchanged hands that then went into your grandfather’s trousers and to wherever he stashes his cash.”

  “Gobble is as poor as I am,” Ricky said.

  His friend was curiously silent. He perked up. “I’ll make sure I’m available to see you tried. Don’t lose hope.”

  Ricky snorted. “Hope? Some stranger has accused me of taking five hundred oaks from him, and I have no way to dispute what he said.” He took a deep breath. “I’m headed to Applia.”

  Karian shook his head. “Don’t be so sure.” He nodded to Ricky and left him looking at the walls, listening to the constable say goodbye to Karian. A few minutes later, Ricky heard the constable snoring away.

  ~

  “Get up,” the constable said, standing over Ricky. He plopped a bucket in front of him and threw a single, small towel in his lap. “You’re to see the magistrate in half an hour, so make yourself presentable. Wash up.”

  “What about something to eat?” Ricky said to the guard’s back.

  The man glared at him. “After you get some of that grime off your face.”

  Ricky noticed a new companion behind bars in the cell across from his.

  “Do what he says.” The man nodded his head in the retreating guard’s direction. “Sometimes you stand a better chance if you don’t look like you just emerged from a sewer.”

  “I live on a boat in Shantyboat Town.”

  The man showed a defeated face. “Same thing.”

  Ricky didn’t want to end up like his jail mate, so he scrubbed his face as much as he could stand and even took off his shirt to wipe the grime from his neck. It would take more than the water in that bucket to clean him up properly.

  He twisted the towel and watched the dark water splash in the bucket. He looked over at the man in the opposite cell. “Better?”

  The man grunted and turned his back to him.

  A constable came in with a tray and removed the bucket. “We made bets to see if there was a human underneath all that dirt. Guess there was. Here’s some food. Don’t tell the magistrate you were ill-treated.”

  Ricky stared at all the food on the tray. This was the first and likely the only meal the constables would give him. He started with the soup. He tasted some kind of green bean or something. He’d never tasted anything like it before. Each item tasted like an offering to the gods. Nothing had been burnt, which was very unusual for both Gobble’s and his own cooking. Burnt meant safe from whatever sickness the food carried.

  He even licked the bowls and sat back to burp. A satisfying last meal. How could the man think he would complain after something like that?

  Two constables came back for him. His jail mate snored in his cell. His jailers ignored him. “Time to go.”

  One of them looked at the tray. “Hungry boy, eh?”

  Ricky nodded enthusiastically and rose to march to his doom. At least he faced his last day in Tossa with a stomach full of interesting food. They marched him into a barred carriage and drove into the Old Town section of Tossa. The Duke’s castle sat on a little rise overlooking Old Town. Ricky had rarely been in this part of Tossa.

  The carriage drove right past the castle, and a few streets later exited into a large square. Old four and five-story buildings loomed over the grassy park that sat in the middle. The vehicle stopped in the back of a building with statues in front and a long, wide set of steps leading up to open doors. Well-dressed people walked up and down the stairs as they rode past.

  He couldn’t puzzle out the lettering above the much more modest door that led inside in the rear of the building. The massive edifice lost some of its magic when looked at from behind. They put manacles on his wrist before they let him out of the carriage.
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  An old, burly man who had a broken nose covered with a net of tiny red blood vessels grabbed the chain between Ricky’s wrists. “I got him now. You two can go catch some more criminals for us, eh?” he said, his face breaking into a smile.

  That grin sent shivers down Ricky’s back. For all the thieving he had done, he had never been caught before. Would they try to pin more thefts on him? He shuddered at the thought. Two more years and he could have ventured out on his own, escaping from Gobble’s clutches. Ricky shook his head with dismay.

  Now he’d be sent to Applia to be hardened into a permanent criminal. Two years in the Juvenile Home would break him, so he had been told by Gobble. A few other youth who had come and gone from his life in the past few years confirmed Gobble’s claims.

  The smells of something astringent caught at his nostrils. Cleaners? The guard nearly dragged him down a dark hallway and opened a door with a barred window and gently pushed Ricky inside. The door clanged shut. The old man poked his bulbous nose through the bars.

  “It won’t be too long a wait. As I say to all those who sit on that seat, such as yourself, lad, today may be the worst day of your life. Be prepared.” He chuckled and left. Ricky heard the chiming of keys on the ring.

  He didn’t wait very long. A different guard looked inside the cell to make sure Ricky hadn’t vanished. He wondered what the man would do if he saw an empty bench.

  “Outside. Time for your hearing.”

  The man grabbed the chains of the manacle and led Ricky up a couple flights of stairs and knocked softly on a door.

  “Let the boy in,” a voice said from the other side.

  Ricky entered the courtroom.

  “Only you this shift,” the magistrate said. He peered over a tall podium, wood-rimmed spectacles hung from a long, thin nose. The man’s hair had just about fled from his scalp, but he tamped what few fibers remained and pointed Ricky to stand behind a caged stall. He sat down on a wobbly three-legged stool, barely able to see above the sill.

  “Your name is Hendrico Valian?”

  Ricky nodded.

  “In my court you must speak, nodding is not optional,” the magistrate said.

  “I am, sir,” Ricky said.

  He put his hands on his knees to keep them from quivering. He’d never felt such fear in his life. He stared at the magistrate, but the man didn’t look at Ricky. He followed the man’s gaze and saw a courtroom half-filled with onlookers.

  Karian sat with the fancy-dressed woman who had looked at him when Ricky made time stand still at the market. They seemed to know each other. His friend nodded and smiled to him. In the back, Ricky spotted Gobble, dressed up, it seemed. He’d never seen his grandfather attired in such a fashion. Gobble nearly looked respectable. Where did he get the means for such things? Then he remembered the reward money.

  He looked again at his grandfather who kept his eyes off his grandson. The clothes didn’t look old, but they weren’t brand new either. Ricky felt like he really didn’t know his grandfather.

  The magistrate pounded a gavel, and the room quieted down.

  “Hendrico Valian has been accused of theft. His fence has identified him as the thief, and his grandfather assisted in Hendrico’s capture.” The magistrate looked down at his papers.

  “Where is the injured party?”

  A constable rose from a chair in front of a railing separating the magistrate and Ricky from the spectators.

  “The man selling the jug or whatever it was has packed up and left Farmer’s Market to return to Sealio…” he looked down at a scrap of paper. “That’s right, Sealio. He didn’t leave word as to where his home is.”

  “The item was returned to him?”

  The constable’s head bobbed. “Yes, Magistrate.”

  “I suppose we will talk to the fence, the man who received the stolen goods.”

  “Uh, he’s gone as well. We went to pick him up from his flat, but he had emptied it out and fled.”

  “No fence? No injured party? Just what is going on?”

  Gobble rose from his seat and eased towards the back door.

  “You there!” the magistrate called. “Are you the fence?”

  Gobble held a green hat in his hand and stroked the long pheasant feather. “No, sir. I am the lad’s grandfather.”

  “You identified your grandson as the thief?” The Magistrate referred to his paper. “You are Gobble Bangatelli?”

  “I am, Sir Magistrate. That I am.”

  “You made no effort to protect your grandson?”

  “The law is very important to me,” Gobble said. A few people in the room chuckled.

  “Without any witnesses, I can’t hold the boy responsible for what might have happened.”

  The fancy-dressed woman rose to her feet and tentatively raised her hand. “I am a witness, Magistrate.”

  “Name?”

  She stood a little taller, and that made her look a bit younger. “Mistress Marissa Doubli. I am the Dean of Doubli Academy.”

  “Oh, my. You are a witness?”

  “I saw the boy take the item in question and make off with it.”

  The Magistrate leaned further over the podium. His glasses nearly fell off his nose. “Do you know the fence or the injured party?”

  “No, uh, I don’t”

  “Then you can’t verify there was a loss to a man who no longer resides in Tossa and has no known address?”

  “I can’t, Magistrate.”

  The man rubbed his eyes. “So what am I to do with this lad? I can’t send him to the Juvenile Home with such uncertain evidence.”

  “Sure you can,” Gobble said. “I’m finished with the thieving little scoundrel.”

  “I can remedy your quandary,” Mistress Doubli said. “I can use him at my school. He can learn the value of hard work, and I can let him sit in enough classes to give him some sort of an education. Would that please the court?” she said.

  “Probation?” the Magistrate said. “I think that is a perfect solution. Six months probation at the academy.” He scribbled on paper. “You will provide him with a guardian of suitable character? I wouldn’t expect such an august lady as yourself to have to manage the boy.”

  “I can agree to that,” Mistress Doubli said.

  The Magistrate scribbled some more. “So Heard, So Said! Hendrico Valian will be probationed to Mistress Marissa Doubli of Doubli Academy, where she will assign Hendrico to a Guardian to teach him the error of his ways and make him a productive citizen of Tossa. He must stay within the confines of the academy for six months. He may, with his Guardian’s or Mistress Doubli’s permission, venture out accompanied, but must return by nightfall. Violation of the probation will see Hendrico transported to the Paranty Juvenile Home in the city of Applia.” He pounded his gavel on the decision bell. “You must take him with you now. I understand he has no possessions. Is that right, Master Bangatelli?”

  Gobble nodded. “Right, sir. Just the clothes on his back.”

  “This court is dismissed until one hour after noon.” With another pounding of the gavel, all in the courtroom stood up and began to file out.

  Karian and Mistress Doubli rushed to greet Ricky as the guard let him out of his cage.

  “You’re free!” Karian said.

  Ricky eyed Mistress Doubli. “I’m on probation, and I’ll have to take orders from a guardian. Is that free?”

  “But you remain in Tossa.”

  “There is that,” Ricky said. He looked past Karian to see his grandfather scowling at him. The old man should have at least been happy Ricky had been put in a decent home after betraying him like that. At least he wouldn’t have to steal for Gobble again.

  Mistress Doubli took his hand. “Let’s get you over to the academy and settled in.” She led Ricky towards the front of the courtroom and through the doors to a large central hall, all lined with stone. Large glass windows brightened up the place. He had never imagined he’d be walking out the front door. He rubbed his wri
sts and didn’t listen to Mistress Doubli babble on about how marvelous he would find the academy.

  He didn’t know how to read, and his numbers weren’t perfect. Ricky would never be a student. The idea of sitting in on a class seemed ludicrous.

  They walked down the stone steps to the street. Ricky looked back and smiled. Perhaps the jail meal was a turning point in his life.

  Gobble walked up. “I’ll be wanting a proper fee for the removal of my grandson from his domicile.”

  Ricky had never heard his grandfather speak in such a fashion before. He looked at Karian, who seemed to be suppressing a smile. Mistress Doubli saw nothing humorous about the situation.

  “You, sir, are the scoundrel. Giving your own blood to the police and then asking for lucre even though the Magistrate is smart enough to see through your villainy. You are a preposterous man, and I ask, no, I demand that you remove yourself from my ward’s presence.”

  “Ward?” Gobble asked.

  “Hendrico Valian is no longer yours. He is mine. Good day, and do not darken my visage again.”

  Mistress Doubli grabbed Ricky’s hand and dragged him into a carriage. Ricky looked back at Karian laughing in Gobble’s face. The older man turned purple with emotion and stalked off. Karian walked over to the carriage and put his head inside.

  “You can see me whenever Mistress Doubli permits. I trade with the academy on a regular basis. I sell more than candied fruit, you know. I can even procure one of those mysterious Vorrian vessels that Gobble had you steal. They are worth a golden oak at most. You were the victim of a terrible wretch of a man, and you’re better off away from Gobble Bangatelli.”

  He banged his hand on the windowsill and instructed the driver to take Mistress Doubli and her ward to Doubli Academy. Ricky waved back at Karian as he dwindled in size, and they moved across the great square. He leaned back and wondered what kind of food he could scrounge at the academy. Perhaps they had free water. Ricky shook his head, not believing his excellent fortune.

  ~~~