image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/transvolo.png]

CHAPTER 6. TRANSVOLO

At the city gates, with a short but touching good-bye, Vladislava let the chargas go. Kangassk had to hold back tears as he watched the clever beasts run away, back to their human “father”. During the short journey, the chargas were everything one would look for in a true friend. If they had stayed true to their contract, they would have left the travellers long ago, in Shamarkash. Instead, they chose to see their human companions to the city; they cared.

With the chargas gone, the heavy backpacks were on the travellers’ shoulders again. Sereg took Vlada’s, despite her protests, and now carried it by one strap like it weighed nothing at all. No one offered Kangassk the same help, so he had to carry his backpack on his own shoulders, scolding himself for packing so much junk, most of which he had never needed during the journey.

Handel met the travellers with indifference. It was a small city: three rings of houses around the spacious market square in the centre, and a tall rampart for protection. This settlement had grown around an ancient marketplace and the market had been the centre of things there ever since.

The newest traders - Astrakh’s team - walked the streets of their first trading city with immense pride. They felt victorious and, no doubt, already imagined themselves telling the story of their epic adventure to their relatives back home. Put into a story, the group of ragged bandits become a fearsome horde, their evil mage turned into a bloodthirsty monster, and the good mages that stood against him were so heroic the storytellers themselves froze in awe! All the story lacked now were proper listeners.

Nemaan hobbled alongside Kangassk, the mage’s cheeks crimson red with shame. In daylight, there could be no more doubts about the origins of his robe: indeed, it was a pretty dress. Kan could have gloated at the defeated and humiliated enemy but he didn’t; shame was too familiar a feeling for the Kuldaganian freak...

“Vlada, can we let him go now?” he asked, his hand on the young mage’s shoulder.

“Yeah, sure…” she answered, distracted, her attention being somewhere else at the time.

Kangassk led Nemaan aside and handed him the thin purse he carried in his pocket since leaving Aren-Castell.

“Here, buy yourself some clothes and food… It’s not much but should do,” he told the mage shyly. “Go. You’re free now.”

Nemaan raised his hands and rubbed his wrists where the invisible handcuffs still were. He didn’t feel being free. But Kangassk’s gift did touch his feelings.

“Thanks, man,” he said and added after a brief pause: “You know, I didn’t lie about your potential. I can see such things without any magic. I’ve had the gift since I was little… Farewell.”

He turned into a shady alley several steps away and ran. Judging by the confidence with which he navigated the streets, that guy knew Handel very well, maybe even had a hideout there. That meant he would be fine.

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/handel5sm.png]

“There you are, Kangassk,” said Vladislava as she came by. “Sereg went with the traders, I asked him to introduce the kids to the Traders’ Guild. Let’s chat a bit while he’s at it… So, what’s your surname? Sorry, it must've slipped from my memory.”

“I’m Del-Emer, just like everyone in Aren-Castell,” Kangassk shrugged. “My mother’s decision. She wanted to help me blend in.”

“Kangassk Del-Emer,” Vlada repeated, “sounds beautiful.”

“You know where Nemaan got me back then?” Kan decided to confess. “He guessed my name and my surname. I immediately thought ‘Wow! A real mage!’ and fell into his trap like a fool… Tell me, why didn’t you just learn my surname with your magic as well? We’re not in the No Man’s Land anymore.”

“It’s a very simple spell, Nuntius, that he used,” Vlada leaned against the wall and crossed her arms on her chest. “I don’t like it. It allows you to learn something the other person might not want to tell you. It’s like reading someone’s letters without permission, not nice, don’t you think? Especially when it’s so easy just to ask. See, I asked and you answered. No need for magic tricks.”

Kangassk gave her an ironic half-smile. He felt even more like a fool now but the feeling was good.

“I’d like to talk to you about something important, Kan,” said Vlada.

“Okay. I’m all ears.”

“This matter with the stolen stone… it’s big, Kan,” she sighed. “I don’t want to drag you into it. I want you to be safe and happy. How about I give you some money and recommendations and sent you to see the world? When you’re ready to settle down, my recommendations will be enough to make you a student in the Southern Magic University. I’m its founder. If you prefer the Northern Magic University instead, I’ll ask Sereg to recommend you there. You’ll be a mage.”

“Why?” said Kan in a hushed tone. The promises were amazing but he felt betrayed for some reason.

“I feel responsible for you. I took you from your home and endangered your life…”

“I chose to go with you!” Kangassk interrupted her. He sounded like a stupid stubborn kid again but he didn’t care.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vlada waved her hand at him. “A word from me - and you would’ve stayed in Aren-Castell. Still, I took you with me. I can’t just abandon you now.”

“And what if I don’t want all those money and other gifts?” Kan scowled at her; there was a challenge in his voice.

“Then become my… our apprentice,” Vlada offered in a quiet and welcoming tone.

“Deal!” Kan answered with a wide, ardent smile on his face and extended his hand to Vlada. For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t understand the rustic gesture he learned from his mother but she did. Vlada shook his hand and smiled back to him, Kangassk Del-Emer, the newest Apprentice of the worldholders.

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/handshake.png]

“...I’d like to say good-bye to Astrakh and his gang. We went through a lot together. It wouldn’t be right to just go our separate ways without even a word,” Kan said when he and Vlada were on their way through the marketplace.

The merchants here, in the very heart of the trading town, were exceptionally loud and obnoxious. For some reason, they avoided Vlada but crowded around Kangassk, as noisy and clingy as flies in summer. One tried to hand him an exotic pet maskak, the other hung a string of doughnuts on Kan’s neck and demanded money; they had been quickly followed by the third guy who complimented Kan’s looks and offered him to buy a “pearly necklace for his bride”. The “pearls” looked like badly painted glass beads. More peddlers followed soon... All those enthusiastic entrepreneurs made having a conversation very difficult indeed.

“We’re on our way to them,” said Vlada after Kangassk had finally freed himself from the sticky embrace of the candy merchant and caught up with her again.

They could already see Sereg from here; the crowd avoided him the same way it avoided Vlada. Apparently, if mages don’t want to mingle with the crowd, they don’t.

“Teach me this trick, please!” implored Kangassk. “I have no words for how sick I am of these peddlers, this town, and…”

“Come here.” Vlada grabbed her apprentice by the sleeve and pulled him out of the crowd, right into her safe magical bubble.

Face to face to Vlada and free from the merchants’ clutches, Kangassk sighed with relief. They stood like this for a while, watching the river of people skirt them like an invisible obstacle.

“That’s easy,” said Vlada. “Build an imaginary wall between you and them. It’s an exercise of will, not even real magic. See?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. It’s time for practice then.”

With a slight push, she sent Kangassk beyond the safe spot, back into the noisy hell of the market day. As expected, the human river had instantly swallowed the wannabe mage…

“Well, one step at a time,” she shrugged. “You will learn...”

Sereg stood at the edge of the market square like a beacon among the waves. He was taller than most people here so he could enjoy the views of the old town looking above hundreds of shaggy heads. That was exactly what he was doing now to kill time. Meanwhile, a seasoned merchant from the Traders Guild was having a conversation with Astrakh nearby; the other young traders listened in silence. Their elder, the yesterday’s scared hillbilly, was now a proud leader of the newly founded trading group.

“Astrakh! Hey, mate!” Kangassk emerged from the crowd and gasped for air like a half-drowned swimmer. “Come here! Let me give you a hug before you go!”

He hugged all five of the traders, of course, his first friends ever. How could he not? Klarissa he took aside to make sure she had got rid of the soothstone but she just nodded toward the Grey Inquisitor and said that he gave her a “closed licence” for it. That meant she could carry but not use her stone in the stable North.

That was it. Happy ending for all the adventurers. Now it was time to part their ways.

“We’ll meet again, Kangassk Del-Emer!” promised Astrakh after the last good-bye.

“We sure will…” Kangassk whispered to himself.

With the young traders safe in the hands of the Guild, the worldholders headed straight to the local inn to have their dinner. The innkeeper was given a long list of orders and a handful of gold coins with it. Kangassk already noticed that his new mentors had very little interest in actually counting their money. The gold sped up the work tremendously as if by magic. The commotion the rich visitors caused could be clearly seen through the half-opened kitchen door: cooks and kitchen kids running from one oven to another, knives clanking, pans and pots clattering… If Kan hadn’t known what that was about he would’ve thought the kitchen was on fire.

Uncounted gold, empty pockets, annoying hunger, and long wait made him thoughtful. One thought led to another; Kangassk let them flow unhindered for a while, just up to the moment when he recalled his lost bow, the one Fervida had carried away. He liked that bow and missed it badly. Buying a new one seemed a good idea. Only… only he had given his last money to Nemaan and was penniless now.

“Shit...” he swore.

“Watch your mouth,” Sereg reproached him, then gave him a long, stern look and inquired, “What’s up?”

“I’ve just remembered that I gave all my money to Nemaan,” confessed Kan. “I was thinking of buying a new bow and...”

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/bow.png]

The Grey Inquisitor’s face took on an extremely bored expression. He put a handful of coins at the table before Kangassk and turned away. A moment later he was back at watching the commotion in the kitchen and contemplating something, most likely dinner and not the fate of the world…

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Kan didn’t want to take any more chances with the crowd, so he walked at the very edge of the market square where the merchants were less annoying.

Soon, he was standing in the local weapon store and examining the bows here with a professional eye. Being a smith’s apprentice, he had no problem seeing the true worth of those bows through all the fancy decorations and bright colours. No, the bows here weren’t too bad but they couldn’t be compared with the bow he had lost. That one was special, a collector’s item, the favourite bow of Kangassk’s former master (shamelessly appropriated by his runaway apprentice).

Some other day, Kan might have left the store empty-handed but now he had enough money with him to try the trick he had always wanted to try. He approached the storekeeper, lowered his voice to a whisper and asked her for the “special goods”. The smith nodded knowingly, told her apprentice to watch the store, and let the guest downstairs. There was a windowless room, small but filled with weapons up to the ceiling. Top-class stuff, with top-class prices! Without hesitation, Kan made his way to the bows. He didn’t even look at the swords; his own katana was a top-class item itself, his former master’s best work.

There were only ten bows in that basement but each one was unique. Kangassk examined them carefully, one by one, sometimes allowing himself a professional comment, to the local smith’s pleasant surprise.

At first, he was going to choose an enchanted bow; there were five of them here, all different. But then he remembered his recent journey through the No Man’s Land where every magic item was a possible bomb and changed his mind. He might visit it again, who knows…

That left him five non-magical bows to choose from. Those were all different too; different and interesting. As Kangassk reached the last one he… recognized his long lost weapon!

“I’ll take this one!” he shouted, as happy as a child.

Kan was all smiles when he left the weapons store with his trusty Kuldaganian bow in his hands. Life was looking good, luck seemed to be on his side, and the day was beautiful!

But there is no such thing as a perfect day. There is always something or someone to drag you down to earth. Two suspicious guys clad in grey followed Kangassk as soon as he left the store. Both wore spacious, thick cloaks above their uniforms and resembled Grey Inquisitor in everything but height and scragginess; they were stout, muscular guys. Each wore a long sword on his belt and a silver badge on the sleeve. They waited for their target to leave the crowded marketplace and barred his way.

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/cloak.png]

“Giblar Tar, 2nd echelon Hunter,” one of them introduced himself and proceeded, in a commanding tone, “You have to come with us. In the name of Grey Council, I arrest you on suspicion of practising forbidden magic.”

“What?” replied Kangassk, completely baffled.

“The illegal soothstone on your neck, goof,” the second Hunter explained.

“Come, soothsayer,” said Giblar Tar, more firmly this time, and put his hand on Kan’s shoulder. “I suggest you cooperate. It might help you get a lighter sentence.”

“Sereg promised me a licence!” muttered Kangassk. “Ask him yourself! He’s there, in the inn…”

“Tell your fairy tales to the Inquisitors,” Giblar interrupted him and without much ado took him in a wristlock. The second Hunter had already grabbed Kan’s bow and was now examining it with a keen interest…

“He promised me a licence!!! I’m innocent!!! Sereeeeeg!” All the marketplace heard his cries; the crowd stepped aside to let the Hunters dragging the prisoner pass and closed in behind them like water.

“He is innocent! Let him go!” a thin female voice pierced the noise. It was Klarissa. The crowd didn’t even let her come close, though.

“Felling trees in bitter cold…” thought Kangassk. “Five years, maybe ten…”

It had never been quiet in the local Inquisition Department because of how close it was to the No Man’s Land but that day was special. The Grey Inquisitor himself paid his humble servants a visit. He kicked the front door open, gave everyone a grim look and headed toward the prison floor in a fast, angry stride. The fact that another worldholder - Vladislava the Warrior - followed him, added to the insanity of the situation.

Grey Hunters were no mere citizens so they would never mistake the worldholders for mere mortals. The visitors were the creators of their world, no one else; they were together, which was a once in a thousand years occasion; and they had some urgent business in their humble department. No wonder every single soul there had a bad feeling about this.

“What did you do with Vlada’s soothsayer?” The Grey Inquisitor’s glare made the elder Hunters turn marble-white.

They wanted no more encouragement from the supreme leader so they ran toward a certain prison cell as fast as they could and in a few moments, produced what they had been asked for. They carried Kangassk out of the cell and put him on the floor before the worldholders. He managed to stand for a brief second, then his legs gave way and he fell. Vlada caught him up.

“You poor thing,” she said as she examined his face that looked like one big purple bruise.

“He resisted arrest…” Giblar Tar tried to explain.

“Get back to work,” ordered Sereg, plain and simple, then grabbed Kangassk, shouldered him like a bag and strode away.

“See ya, guys!” said Vlada, no bitterness or malice in her voice, and departed with a friendly hand-waving gesture.

Back at the inn, Kangassk got his injuries healed by the best healer in the world. By all right, he should’ve felt better now that he had before the incident with the Hunters, but he didn’t.

“C’mon, Kangassk, snap out of it!” Vlada’s patience was already running low. “You’re all safe and sound now, so stop acting! Talk to me!”

Sereg, who sat by the window, cast a melancholic look at a Hunter patrol that was busy keeping order in the streets of Handel.

“Second echelon!” he snorted, recalling the recent events. “Almost students! And just you look at them… the uppitinessy, the arrogance... Pish!”

“Listen, Sereg,” Vlada tugged him by the sleeve. “I don’t think Kan is play-acting. Look: he’s raving again…”

“Oh yeah, your Kan! Sure, we had nothing else to do in the world, so you had to rescue a stray mortal to keep yourself busy…” grumbled the Grey Inquisitor, yet he did pay attention. “He’s quoting Malconemershghan again. This is bad…”

Someone knocked at the door.

“Come in!” the worldholders answered simultaneously.

It was Giblar Tar. He brought Kangassk’s bow and a small cloth bag.

“Here, there are the things we confiscated when we arrested your guy,” he said, trying to look brave, “the sealed soothstone included.”

“Give it to me,” Vladislava the Warrior grabbed everything the young law officer brought and showed him out. “And lose the attitude,” she added before slamming the door after him.

After the door had closed with a slam, Giblar stared at it for a while, thinking about how lucky he was today. As he walked away, his step was light and springy, almost dancing. He’d just had a huge load of his mind, he’d got unscathed from the dangerous encounter, he was free. Getting in a worldholder’s way is no joke.

“Well, you may grumble all you want, but they do know their job. Just look how well they have sealed the stone,” said Vlada as she removed the sealing spell.

“What an achievement, indeed!” Sereg sniffed, unimpressed.

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/bundle2.png]

“Here’s your gift, Kangassk,” Vladislava put the soothstone back where it belonged.

“Thank you!” said her apprentice, suddenly conscious and sober again as if someone had flipped a hidden switch on.

“Well, well. What do you think of this, Sereg?” Vlada said with a shake of her head.

“I'll be damned! He caught something in the White Region!” The Grey Inquisitor exclaimed. Suddenly, the grim worldholder looked excited, curious. Kan could only guess what that could mean.

“The stone didn’t change. You can see for yourself. Maybe he got magically addicted to it? Of course! That’s it!” Vlada clicked her tongue and raised her index finger in a silent triumph. “It’s a classic case of magical addiction!”

“Possible. I’d still send him back to his Kuldagan if you want to know my opinion.”

“He’s our apprentice now, Sereg.” Vlada looked at him reproachfully.

“Ah, sorry, that was easy to forget… All right, let’s start packing. I suggest we fly to the Capital at once. It’s past time we paid the Grey Council a visit.”

“What’s with the Grey Council? And what did he mean by ‘flying’ to the Capital?” asked Kangassk later, while helping Vlada pack.

“Grey Council is the state administration of the North. On the South, there is Crimson Council. Same thing, same corruption, different name.”

“Corruption, eh? So why don’t you and Sereg disband both Councils and make better ones?” asked Kangassk with a shrug.

“It’s not as easy as it seems. First, we’d have to find proper, non-corrupted replacements, then spend several hundred years defending them from the begrudging forcefully retired councillors who are the most powerful mages of North and South, deal with civil wars, rebellions and utter chaos. Trust me, such changes can and will be a huge pain in the… head.”

“Oh… yeah, I see…” Kan bit his lower lip. “And what about ‘flying’ to the Capital?”

“We’re safely on the stable magic territory now, my dear apprentice!” Vlada laughed. “No more hiking and camping. With Transvolo, we’ll be in Capital sooner than you can blink. Let’s go.”

Kangassk knew everything about fantasy mages and very little about the real ones. Even in Torgor which he had visited a couple of times, no one dared to use magic. (Now, having seen Vlada’s map with Kuldagan marked as one of the unstable regions, Kangassk knew why!) As a bookish kid, he read a lot; as a lonely kid, he preferred the books that allowed him to escape the real world for a while. The magic in them had always been a grand spectacle performed Nemaan style. The mages were all either eccentric half-mad human geniuses or creepy non-human creatures. During his recent journey, Kan had a chance to glimpse some real magic and talk to the real mages. Needless to say, he was unimpressed, disappointed even. No wonder he did not expect much of that “Transvolo” spell.

“All packed, nothing left behind?” asked Sereg, addressing Vlada alone and ignoring her new apprentice as usual.

“Yep. All good. Kan’s with me too,” she replied, jokingly.

“Let’s go then,” said the grey worldholder spreading his hands in a wide gesture.

The joke hurt even though it wasn’t intended as a stab. Being compared to baggage that could be forgotten in an inn triggered a couple of unpleasant memories that took Kan’s attention long enough to miss the spell that had triggered Transvolo.

It all disappeared: the grey walls of the provincial inn, Handel’s noisy marketplace you could see over from the window, everything. Silent, velvety darkness swallowed the world. It was full of stars, distant and near, yellow and blue, scattered like sparkling diamonds upon the velvet or condensed in nebulae far, far away. There was no motion. There was no sound. Distant, alien worlds looked upon Kangassk with tranquil indifference; there was no way to tell which one of them was the sun of Omnis and no way to get back…

His awe turned to terror at the thought. Kangassk floated in the void, helpless and alone. There was no up and down, no left and right, no air to breathe, no ground to stand on. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed. He could only tell the time didn’t stand still for the distant stars sparkled, living their own lives countless light-years away…

Desperate for anything real and homelike, Kangassk grabbed his soothstone. The glassy pebble was warm to the touch and sparkled, reflecting the stars. It gave him the feeling of safety, became his zero reference point, his pivot in the void, his beacon in the darkness. With a sigh of relief, Kangassk closed his eyes.

He felt the changes then: a cool breeze bringing sounds and smells of a pine forest; he heard the birds sing and grass rustle; he felt the earth under his feet.

*

People of both Southern and Northern lands like pine trees. In the South, the pines are short, with branchy crowns, soft needles, and huge pine cones filled with delicious oily seeds. In the North, the pines are slender and tall, perfect for ship masts; their needles are sharp, their crowns rest among the clouds. That was what the forest Kangassk found himself in looked like. The desert dweller raised his head to see where the trees ended and saw the golden rays of the sun sifting through the dark forest roof. His perception was so keen and hungry after travelling through the starry void he couldn’t stop marvelling at the things around him.

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/pinebranch.png]

“Welcome to the North, Kan!” Vlada greeted him. She stood behind him, in one of the sunny spots of the forest floor. Sereg was there too, in the shade behind her. “How’s the journey?”

“Beautiful. But terrifying,” confessed Kan. “All those stars… they’re worlds, right? Just like ours?”

“Yes, almost all of them,” Vlada nodded and, after a brief moment of consideration, explained, “I mean, the stars are all different both from our sun and from each other but, yes, most of them do harbour habitable worlds.”

“Incredible…” Kangassk tried to imagine millions of different worlds, each with its own lands, seas, and people, and it blew his mind. His curiosity recovered first: “A question, Vlada, if you don’t mind! Why didn’t you use Transvolo from the start? Why walk through the No Man’s Land?”

What seemed a simple question to Kangassk was way bigger than he imagined and, in the end, turned into a long magic lesson. It took Vlada all the way up to the Capital to explain Transvolo to her apprentice. Sereg didn’t interfere but he did listen.

The wide road they now walked snaked uphill to meet the greatest city of the North, the city that was as beautiful as a rare jewel and yet had no proper name.

Kangassk could be quite stubborn in his questioning when he felt safe, and with Vlada, he did.

“No, I don’t get it!” he kept going, “Say, I read Transvolo somewhere in the South, within the stable magic territory, and want to jump to the North, which is also magically stable. Why wouldn’t it work?”

“It’s because your travel trajectory will cross either No Man’s Land or No Man’s Water.”

“No Man’s Water”?

“Chermasan and Karmasan seas lay mostly outside the stable areas, so in terms of anomalies and explosive magic, they are as dangerous as the No Man’s Land. Instability will short-circuit your Transvolo. The only difference here is the landing: in No Man’s Land, you have a chance to get away with a bruise or a broken bone but in No Man’s Water, you’ll most likely become a snack for sharks.”

“I still don’t get it…” Kangassk had just realized that he was standing in the middle of the road, scratching his head like a fool, and moved on. “Sereg mentioned some ‘Chasm’... He didn’t have to travel through the Regions as we did, he just jumped to the meeting place. Wasn’t that a Transvolo as well?”

“No, Kangassk,” Vlada’s voice became stern. “Chasm is not a spell, it’s an underworld. Thousands of years ago, it was the fastest and the safest way to travel in Omnis, there was no need for Transvolo back then. And now… now it’s not a place for a mortal to visit.”

Both worldholders looked grim now and Kan got a feeling that it was time to slow down with questions for a while. There was something fishy with that Chasm, something the young apprentice both did and didn’t want to know…

*

The gates of the nameless capital city were wide open. The guards, clad in shining silvered armour, stepped aside with a respectful nod when they saw the worldholders but barred Kangassk's way. It was that “unlicensed soothstone” issue again.

Sereg stepped in:

“I’m granting him a licence on that cold obsidian, the open licence, guys.”

The guards exchanged puzzled looks; when they turned their faces to Kangassk again, he could read the whole spectre of awe on them. The Grey Inquisitor wasn’t a kind of man that would grant such a licence easily. By doing so, he’d just promoted the humble mortal to a hero in these lands.

“What’s ‘cold obsidian’?” asked Kangassk after he had caught up with the Inquisitor. He had to run, as always, to match his stride.

“Your soothstone, what else,” answered Sereg. “Get used to proper scientific terminology, kid.”

image [https://mildegard.ru/otimg/png/RoyalRoad.jpg]