Magician In Battle (Power of Poses Book 4) Page 2

  Tembul rose and looked out from the front of the flyer and directed the princess to a certain spot where he spelled the flyer down to the ground.

  Sirul, Hana, and Markik, the other Vashtan, took the waterskins, and a door they had converted into a floater, through a curtain of trees to a gurgling stream.

  Trak helped Mori make a fire and got a meal going. Trak found that he still remembered how to use the spices to make the porridge that Mori had taught him to cook when they traveled together on the way south from Homiko, the port in Bennin, when he had sought out Princess Pullia.

  “You can use the last of the water, since the boys are hiking to the stream to get more for us. It is cleaner than the river water, to be honest,” she said.

  Trak looked at the still form of Lenis, his antagonist during his trip to Bennin. He didn’t want him on the trip, but Tembul had insisted. He still felt that bringing him back would be a mistake. He grimaced as the thoughts of his current trip merged with the discomfort he felt during his foray into Balbaam, the Warish capital.

  When dinner was served, Trak became the center of attention while he told them of his adventure. His voice broke up a bit when he related the cruel way Marom had treated Valanna and him.

  “This Valanna is your first love?” Princess Pullia asked. She seemed more interested than Trak would have thought.

  “Other than village girls when I was just a young teenager,” Trak admitted. “We’ve been through a lot, just not together.”

  “It sounds like a love lost, to me,” the princess said again in a way that made it seem she wasn’t too sympathetic about Valanna’s plight.

  Trak tried to ignore the comment. “Here is the payment for my pain,” he said when he rooted around in his bag for the big purse. He scattered some of the contents onto the ground in front of him.

  “A king’s ransom,” Sirul said, his eyes wide.

  Trak picked up an emerald the size of the tip of his thumb. “Are these worth anything in Torya?”

  Tembul nodded. ‘A king’s ransom, like Sirul said. You are a rich man. The gold is nothing compared to these gems, but still…”

  “I actually left it behind when I teleported out of the throne room. Asem brought it back to me just before I left. I suppose I’ll find a good use for it.”

  “I’m a good use for it,” Sirul said, grinning.

  Mori gave the Toryan a nasty look. “I know what Trak means.” She looked at Trak. “One of those gems could buy a small town in Bennin. You know that, don’t you?”

  Trak shrugged. “I guess I’ll use some of it to defeat King Marom.” That would be ironic, he thought. “I’ll just have to find a way to take care of the King of Warish and still save Valanna’s life.”

  “You can hire a lot of assassins with that,” Princess Pullia said. Her heartlessness irritated Trak.

  Assassination. Trak hated the thought of such a thing. If he wanted to assassinate King Marom, he could do it any time he wanted on his own, and Trak, as much as losing Valanna pierced his very soul, wouldn’t do that. He put the gems away and gave a gold piece to each one of the others, even tucking one into Lenis’s clothing.

  “Thanks for letting me go. At least I got the chance to see Valanna one more time.” He walked away from the campfire and sat on the shore of the Pusuun River, watching it flow in the moonlight. Trak picked up a rock and threw it into the water, watching the current swallow up the splash. His mind wandered from place to place, alternating between Balbaam and thoughts of Kizru and freeing his father and stepfather held hostage by the Toryans.

  Someone sat beside him. He looked over and saw Derit, the Vashtan that fought with him to save Valanna.

  “Will you accept me into your company? I never really asked,” she said. Derit looked back at the tiny spot of light that was the campfire by the flyer.

  “Of course. You are friends with Ferikan, right?”

  She nodded. “A bit more than friends. I’m not needed in Warish, thanks to you, so I’ve decided to join Ferikan. He lost a member of his team.

  “Boriak.” Trak looked at the Vashtan woman and thought her the prettiest Vashtan woman he had ever come across, all five or six of them.

  “I only met Boriak once.” She joined him in his silence for a few more moments, but then stood. “I want to see Ferikan before I settle down tonight.”

  Trak walked back to camp alongside her. “I can’t promise you that the Toryans will welcome you and your fellow Vashtans. I tried to warn Ferikan, but he wanted to go and, quite frankly, he’s been quite a help on this journey. I didn’t think I could deny his trying.”

  Derit nodded. “I understand. After what King Marom did to Valanna, I couldn’t continue to stay in Balbaam.” She put her hand on Trak’s arm. “I am sorry about what happened.”

  “That makes a bunch of us now,” Trak said, patting her hand. “I’ve got to retrieve my father and step-father out of Kizru and make sure that Princess Pullia is delivered properly, and then I might join your group wherever you go for awhile.”

  Derit giggled, an unexpectedly musical sound, “I doubt that will happen. You are a person in great demand. If Marom was truly honorable, he would have given you lands and a title, rather than buy you off with a bag of gold.”

  “Gold and gems. I don’t really need them.” Trak gave her half a smile as they walked in silence the rest of the way towards the flyer.

  Trak laid out his bedroll and gazed up into the starry night. He shook his head and let his thoughts drift fitfully. His shoulder still ached, and it reminded him of the scene in the Throne Room, which ran over and over in his mind until he fell asleep.

  ~

  All looked to Trak in the morning when they boarded the flyer. Asking Trak to teleport was plain in their faces.

  “Maybe I can do short distances,” Trak said. His shoulder still ached, but he could sense that his power had grown during his rest. He would give it a try since he wanted to get out of Warish as soon as he could.

  “What would it take to persuade you to wake up Lenis?” Tembul said. “We can’t keep him under for much longer.”

  Trak thought a bit. “We take the first ship we can to Cokasan. What are the chances there will be a Toryan ship in port?”

  “Not very good. Are you willing to go through Colcan?”

  Trak nodded. “I am. We went through Colcan to get to your hidden port, didn’t we?”

  “I thought—”

  “I’m not that ignorant,” Trak said. “I think I might have some leather polish in my kit to darken my skin a bit.” He grinned and clapped Tembul on the shoulder. “We will wake Lenis when we get to Amorim. Deal?”

  Tembul nodded.

  The jumps weren’t even halfway to the horizon, but they jumped a lot and shorter jumps continued to be much less wearing on Trak than the longer ones. Soon the haze of the distant sea took up the horizon, and they floated a league to the east of Amorim over farmland.

  Tembul lowered the large flyer.

  Derit walked up to Trak. “Impressive. You are even stronger than Valanna, and that’s without a pose. I am stunned by your power and your inventiveness.”

  Trak just smiled and accepted her compliment with thanks. “Everyone get your things off of the flyers. We are going to destroy them.

  Mori looked at the flyer. “We can’t go across the ocean like we did coming from Bennin?”

  “I’m not going to risk it. I was just about burned out when we crossed the Southern Sea, if you recall my collapse in the Arid Lands, and that wasn’t as far as Amorim to Cokasan.”

  “I guess not,” Mori said. “I’m not a very good sailor.”

  Trak looked at the rest of the group and hoped that a few of them were. The voyage would take two weeks, at least.

  “Maybe we can help the ship along,” Trak said. “A little extra wind never hurt, did it?”

  “If it’s not a gale,” Ferikan said with a smile on his face.

  Tembul woke up Lenis and stood him up.
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br />   “What have you done to me?” Lenis said, putting his hand to his head, wobbling as Tembul began to walk with him.

  The Vashtans and Mori obviously had no idea what Lenis had just said in Toryan.

  “Just be happy you weren’t killed in Bennin’s capital city,” Trak said. “Tembul insisted that we bring you with us.”

  “Princess Pullia. Command these people to put you in my care,” Lenis said, still bound, but standing

  The Princess lifted up her chin and slapped Lenis in the face. Trak noticed for the first time that the princess was just as tall as Lenis. “That is for the many times you improperly approached my person.” She slapped him again. “And that is for presuming I would have anything to do with you.”

  Lenis turned red with anger. “You’ll rue the day you rejected me, Pullia.”

  Another slap toppled Lenis to the ground.

  “You’ll rue the day I become Queen of Torya.”

  Tembul and Sirul had to help Lenis up.

  “I’m weak, that’s all. That’s the only reason I fell,” he said to no one in particular.

  “You wanted to return him,” Trak said to Tembul, “You help him all the way to Amorim. Let’s get going.”

  Sirul disassembled two small floaters and fashioned ropes and a board that stuck behind the platforms on a pivot. Tembul placed Lenis on one, since it was obvious he couldn’t walk very far. Sirul invoked the floater pose, and they set off for Amorim.

  Once they were fifty paces or so from the flyers, Trak turned back and destroyed them, using a destruction spell. Fragments of cloth, wood, and the food that they had left with the flyer pelted the ground in all directions, with some of it nearly reaching them.

  “If there is a war, please let me be on your side,” the princess said taking Trak’s arm.

  ~

  Trak regretted landing so far away from Amorim. There wasn’t room for Hana on a floater, and she finally gave out before they reached Amorim, with the men taking turns carrying the woman, piggyback style. The princess kept reminding everyone that she should have been the one being carried, but no one really cared to give her much attention. Everyone was very happy that they finally made it to the docks. Trak found a decent dockside inn while Tembul went looking for a ship.

  Trak looked over at a disgruntled Lenis. “Quite frankly, if you want to just leave and find your own way back to Torya from here, feel free. I won’t stop you. I don’t look forward to two weeks on board ship, looking at you mope around, but then I can always put you to sleep.”

  Lenis rose to pose, and Trak pushed with his finger and blew Lenis over with a focused gust of wind.

  “That’s not fair!” Lenis said.

  “You’re the one to talk about what is fair? I spent four months in captivity because of you,” Trak said.

  Lenis didn’t say another word, but Princess Pullia clapped silently with her hands and smiled at Trak. The Vashtans still had no idea what they said and looked on with amused faces, as if they understood what had just transpired.

  “I think you should have gotten rid of him,” Mori said. “He will be a danger to you all the while you are in Torya.”

  “I know, but Tembul made me promise.”

  “There is a ship to Tachium that leaves this evening,” Tembul said as soon as he and Sirul walked up to them an hour later. “No Toryan ships due in for weeks. The last one in port left two weeks ago.”

  “Tachium it is. Perhaps the Vashtans and I can dye our hair, at least,” Trak said.

  “I’ll make inquiries,” Tembul said in Benninese.

  “What did Tembul say?” Lenis gave Trak an angry look.

  “We leave for Tachium tonight. In about two weeks, we will be just days away from Torya.”

  ~

  Trak looked out over the whitecaps in the middle of the ocean. Princess Pullia stood just a pace or so away on the railing.

  “You’ve behaved rather well on our voyage, Princess,” Trak said. “I thought you would be fighting us every step of the way.”

  The princess laughed. “I have a persona that I like to maintain as the spoiled princess. It served me very well in Bennin and even in Zamiel, the western capital. I’m not that much of a harridan, but I have my moments where my bad behavior is not an act. I hate walking, so that wasn’t too much of an act on our way to Amorim.” She giggled again. “You can call me Lia. That’s what I’d rather be called by friends.”

  “How many friends do you have?” Trak asked.

  She turned serious. “I don’t know, maybe none by now. Western Torya has been unsettled ever since I left.” She moved closer to Trak, and looked up at him. “Could you be a friend?”

  Lia. That certainly sounded better than Pullia. “I could be,” Trak said. “Actually I consider all of us friends except for Lenis.”

  “You don’t like the lordling, do you?”

  Trak shook his head. “I’ve had enough time with him to know he won’t ever be a friend of mine.”

  “I think you are right, but since he is a noble and a Toryan, I will treat him with more respect than he deserves.”

  “Those slaps were expressions of respect?” Trak asked.

  She laughed. “That was the real me coming out. When we are in Torya, I may change my attitude towards him in public. Don’t be alarmed.”

  Trak didn’t like having to act differently to others. He guessed he wasn’t cut out to dissemble to anyone. He hoped he wouldn’t be tested in Torya, but with turmoil everywhere, he felt that at some time he would have to become an actor, just like Lia. He smiled as he thought of her name. That fit the beautiful princess.

  A flash of Valanna’s face went through his mind as it did multiple times during the day. He hoped she was doing as well as she could in Balbaam.

  “If you will excuse me, I have to stain my face for our trip through Colcan.”

  ~

  The ship arrived in Tachium in the middle of the night, after half a day of traveling along the coast. The navigator hadn’t done a particularly good job, but the late arrival suited Trak’s party. Tembul hired three coaches to carry them and their bags, since no one wanted to spend any extra time in the Colcan port city.

  The coachman took them north, and then to the west to a town close to the informal border between Colcan and Torya.

  Once Trak had paid for the inn, the party sat at three tables. The Vashtans took one. The Princess sat with Trak and Tembul, with Hana and Lenis seated at the other table. Sirul said he would work through the night to fashion two flyers to take them the rest of the way to Kizru. Lia looked bored and snapped at the waitress, who spoke a bit of Toryan.

  The woman looked at the Vashtans. “What are those?” she said to Trak with a whisper in Pestlan.

  “Vashtans. Good Vashtans.”

  She stared at them again and said, “There are good and bad Vashtans?”

  Tembul nodded. “Indeed there are, and it would be wise for you not to gawk. Vashtans of any ilk can tend to be dangerous.”

  The server bowed and hurried away. Trak could see the edge of Lia’s mouth turn up, but Trak knew that Tembul didn’t trust any Vashtan, Blue Swans or the enemy Vashtans from the Yellow Fox clan. His words were not meant to scare the server, but he had expressed his true feelings, and that made Trak sad for both Tembul and the Vashtans who had become friends.

  Derit had clung to Ferikan’s arm during the interplay and whispered in his ear.

  Trak leaned over to her. “You can speak Pestlan?”

  She nodded and gave Trak a meaningful look before glancing at Tembul, twisted in his chair, engaged in conversation with Hana.

  When their meal came, Trak kept silent and concentrated on his food. Now that they were about to enter Torya, that meant the end of his quest to Bennin. He wondered how long it would take before their little company broke up. The acceptance of the Vashtans amidst the Toryans was far from a sure thing, and Tembul’s comment made Trak wonder what would happen to them in Kizru.

  Oddl
y enough, he worried the least about Lia and Hana. Trak intended on sending Mori along with Neel and Able out of Torya. Perhaps the Vashtans would end up going with them. That would leave him alone, and he didn’t know what would happen next. He knew he wouldn’t be welcome in Pestle or Warish, and he wasn’t ready to go back to Bennin. Perhaps he could chance a visit to Misson Dalistro in Espozia. At this point a visit with Honor, Nullia, and Ben looked very appealing.

  ~~~

  Chapter Three

  ~

  Valanna would have never thought it would take so long to get from one side of the Balbaam palace to the other. She had imagined they would just walk across the vast courtyard, but it looked like they wouldn’t be going outside. After leaving Asem’s tower, she followed the servant carrying her bag, up and down numerous stairways, until she finally reached a set of rooms on the second floor of the Royal Tower on the south side of the palace. She had to guess that the Royal Tower could fit five or six of Asem’s towers into its massive girth.

  The windows of her rooms faced north across a number of courtyards and rooftops. Valanna wondered if Marom’s other wives had actual views of Balbaam, being higher in the tower. She could just see slivers of the city, but Asem’s tower was in her view. Teleporting to Asem’s library shouldn’t be too difficult, but she wouldn’t chance it in her current circumstances.

  The furniture, in the style of the Ferezan, looked well-used but of high quality, something that Valanna had expected of a Warish chieftain’s fifth wife. She shook her head at the title and wondered what life would bring in her new capacity. She wondered if Marom had falsely claimed that he was impotent and that he might be able to consummate their marriage. She shuddered at the thought of any intimacy from the Warish king.

  Rather than moping about, Valanna struggled to think of the present and ignore the future. Her first task would be finding a suitable hiding place for Trak’s portfolio. She wandered around her new home. The sitting room was as large as the library in Asem’s tower. There was a bedroom with a huge wardrobe room and a bathroom that had a flushing toilet. There wasn’t even one of those in Asem’s tower. She looked underneath furniture and settled on taking the last drawer out of a chest and placing the portfolio on the panel that sealed the bottom. She tested the drawer and smiled when it slid smoothly. Unless one purposely removed the drawer, the portfolio was safe. That would have to be its temporary home until she settled in.