In Pursuit Of Wisdom (Book 1) (41 page)

“No.”

“Magi.  Listen to reason.  Just give me an hour or two to try and find him, to set expectations with him, prepare him a bit.  He doesn’t know anything about our world, prophecies and what not.  This will be a joyous occasion, but your Father will want to leave his shop, I’m sure, if he still works there.  Allow me to help him make preparations to receive you, at least?”  The tone in Marik’s voice was somewhere between edgy and pleading.

“No.”  He started walking
—briskly.

Kyle turned to Marik and shrugged, falling in behind his brooding best friend. 
Marik fumed silently behind them.  He began to take some sand out of an inner pouch, presumably to cast a sleep spell, when Magi suddenly turned around.

“I would see
him first, unannounced.  We live in a Dark World, and I will see his situation unfiltered.”  He stared hard at Marik. 
Is that sand? Would you cast a spell on your own student behind my back?
  Magi absently went to twist the ring on his finger, only to realize it was no longer there.  He slowly turned his back on Marik again and kept walking, listening. 
Try it Marik.  Just. Try. It.

Marik fell in behind them, letting his pinch of sand fall harmlessly on the ground, cursing silently.

~Herodius~

Herodius looked down at his wrists. 
Bloody, but free. 
It had taken him weeks to figure out how to wrestle his wrists in and out of their shackles, but he became adept at slipping them, numb to the pain.  He had seen so much pain over the last couple of months that he was almost oblivious to it.

First came the day of reckoning, whe
n he had been ripped away from his home on one of the small islands in the so-called Uncharted Isles.  He had no way of knowing if his family was alive or dead, but he suspected they were dead.  He knew they were tortured, and death was surely a better outcome than torture, separation, and slavery.  Then came the weeks of sea travel.  At the mocking news from Grull about his family, he had tried killing himself twice.  He failed the first time and received a beating.  He failed the second time and five other men received a beating, one of whom was a friend from his village.  Next he had tried killing his guards and failed.  Five women that were taken to help feed this “army” were beaten in front of him.  Nobody blamed Herodius.  But word spread, and the attempts dwindled.

Their course evidently changed, for instead of landing in a dry, arid desert (which is where they were told they were heading) they instead landed in a swamp.  Bugs the size of a finger were everywhere.  There were some exotic plants, but they soon learned that they were as deadly as they were beautiful when some of his fellow islanders mistakenly sniffed them too closely.  Already parched from backbreaking rowing, the humidity was a silent killer, and more men died within two days of landing.  It was one of the most i
nhospitable lands he had ever seen.  Even the mud itself would kill you if you didn’t watch your step, plunging into sinkholes and quicksand.  It was literally like living in a bog.  Hundreds fell ill and died, but they couldn’t really bury the bodies.  So they burned their dead and tried to march on.

They did not march long.  The enormous general who led them,
the cruel giant called “Tar-Tan,” made camp at the first sign of semi-solid ground.  And so they camped, and began training.  They were heavily watched, of course, and mostly armed with sticks for the moment, but train they did.  After two weeks, the strong grew stronger and the weak grew weaker, more ill.  Herodius was certainly in the former group.

‘
Hope is a powerful thing, Herodius.’ 
The words of Captain Grull echoed inside Herodius while he took their training. 
It is a powerful thing, but not how you meant it:  A lack of hope is the most powerful thing of all.
  Herodius was stronger than most, and had some skill as a fighter already, so he was merely refining his techniques, getting better with balance.  Others were mostly farmers who wouldn’t know which end of a sword to use if their life depended on it.  Still, they drilled, and improved, and mostly bought time: listening, learning, planning, waiting.  But Herodius knew his secret weapon was that his life no longer held joy for him, which was terribly liberating.  Of course, his captors knew that as well, so perhaps it was not-so-secret, which is why others were made to suffer, in graphic and demeaning ways, for his repeated insubordination.  Eventually, he played the game to spare his friends.

That did not stop him from planning his revolt.  Nor did
it discourage his fellow captives; everyone knew the stakes.  All knew what would happen to themselves, their fellow slaves, and most assuredly their families back on the Isles (at least, those that still had families) should they fail. 
And yet, they follow me anyway.

One night,
as Herodius sat near a fire, rubbing a salve made from a healthy type of bog-plant on his daily cuts from training, he overheard the general speaking to his lieutenants from inside a nearby tent about a coming war.  Judging from the laughter, they appeared to have been drinking for quite some time.  “This bunch needs to be more fit and ready for battle with that Queen on Elvidor.  I know Xaro will want to move against her, and I will not have a bunch of zombies lead the way.  Men will do battle with other men—leave the spirits to fight other spirits, I say.”

“We must soon form this group into ranks. 
How do you propose we do that, General?” Captain Grull’s voice carried outside the tent.  He and the General were the only sober-sounding ones.

“Find the leaders. 
They’re often the strongest, but not always.  Find those men and learn their fears.  They all fear something, and that is what we will use to control this flock of sheep.  Find the natural leaders and cower the shepherds.  The other sheep will be no problem after that.”

“How long do you think we can keep up the lie?” asked Captain Grull.

What lie?

“Forever.  They will have new lives in Sands End, and certainly in the coming war.  The lie has value as long as it helps control their behavior.  If they knew their families were dead, we would have a massive revolt or mass suicide or both.  As long as they have hope for their families, we have control.  This proud lot values the lives of their families far more than their own.  I can see now what Xaro sees in these Islanders.  Properly trained, they will be a fierce army.”

“But they already see some officers we left behind rejoining us, General.  Some ask questions, and I can only beat them and the women we brought for so long.”  Captain Grull paused before adding, “Not that I mind, of course.”  There were throaty chuckles from inside the tent.

Seething, Herodius forced himself to remain silent and kept listening.

“That is easily explained.  Tell them it is a rotation.  Whatever you do—
keep threatening their families.
  Believe me, you cannot control this lot by threatening them individually.  They must never know that we slaughtered their families, looted the island, and brought the guards back to aid in our training and our march to Sands End.”

Herodius
quietly stood, taking great care not to jingle his shackles or make any noise at all.  He had always planned on his revolt leading him back to the Isles.  To his family.

Head down he walked back to his barracks, past guards that he now recognized as having recently arrived.  He looked down at his wrist:  1X5Z9. 
Not the mark of my family any longer…just the mark of a slave.

Putting his head down, he began formulating a new plan. 
A man who values nothing in this world—not even his life—has no fear.

That knowledge
truly was his secret weapon.

~Trevor~

“Sixes!”  Trevor grabbed a small pile of coins from the table, and passed the dice.  “Just my lucky night, boys.”  He refilled his mug for the fifth time this hour, round-for-round with the other four sailors, who were grumbling loudly.

The first mate on the
Modest Mermaid
, Helmut Bowhistle, looked at Trevor a bit suspiciously.  “Been a
real
lucky night fer you indeed.  What did you say you did again?”

“Just a merchant.  I have business on the Great Isle, that’s all.”  Trevor took a large pull, wanting to keep up with these sailors,
who could drink.

More coins were thrown into the center, first to roll doubles win.  Trevor always increased his bet as the dice came to him.  The pot had grown to a significant amount – lots of copper, some silver, and Helmut had to throw in a piece of gold to stay in.  “Your turn.”

Trevor spun the dice, and easily rigged them to come up doubles.  It was an old thief’s trick, one that a two-bit gypsy could perform.  “Deuces!  What a run I’m havish, fellas!  Jush my lucky nightch.”  He sloshed some more ale down, some of which actually ended up in his mouth, as the boat began to rock in heavier seas.

He reached out to rake in the coins when Helmut grabbed his wrist.  “I think it’s a bit more than luck.  I think you’re a cheater and a thief!”  Another sailor grabbed his other wrist, and soon he was pinned to a wall, as a storm began picking up outside.

“Strip him down and search him, we’ll take the coins and split ’em up between us.  Throw this thief in the brig below deck.  The cap’n will have his hands off in the morning.  We know how to deal with thieves at sea.”

~Herodius~

“Are you hurt badly, Mika?”  Herodius asked.

He sat in a small tent, pouring cool water on a cut beneath the serving woman’s eye.  With the demands of training, the half-ogre and his men had begun to limit the amount of beatings on the men.  They chose instead to punish only the women, which they did publically and regularly, for all forms of insubordination, incompetence, or laziness.  They had brought around a hundred women on the journey to serve as slaves in support of the makeshift training ground the ogre had formed.  Mika Lalonde was the wife of one of his friends; her husband was in a different section of the camp and had no idea what was happening; all the women were kept separate from their men.  The distance on her face between the deep whip-gash and being blinded was less than one inch.

“Yes, Herodius.  I am lucky.  Better the whip than other things.”  She took a cloth he was holding to her face.  “Thank you, Herodius.  You should not have taken the second blow.”

Herodius smiled sadly at her, his curly hair hanging limply by his shoulders, perpetually damp in the humidity of the marsh.  “I’ll live.”  He had a new welt on his sword arm where he blocked the second stroke from Captain Grull.  “But the time is coming when this must end.”

Mika frowned.  This was not the first time they had spoken about the subject.  “Are you sure about this, Herodius?  A revolt will only lead to more suffering back on the islands.  I am scared, Herodius!  Scared for you, for Maria, for my Mikel…”

Herodius rubbed her head gently.  “Shh, Mika.  Shh.  Do not worry.  I have a secret that may make you sad, but you should know.  There is nothing to go back to on the Islands, Mika.  I have seen several of the General’s men who he left behind now in our camp.  They were supposed to watch our families as a
deterrent against us doing exactly what I am preparing to lead: a revolt.  I was curious why they would leave so many unguarded.  They may be women and children, but it still takes a number of armed men to control 40,000 islanders, and I don’t have to tell you that our women can be every bit as ferocious as our men!”

He smiled at Mika, his white teeth a contrast with his reddish-brown skin.  She smiled back, “I suppose we are a tough breed, aren’t we?”  She sat up, still holding a cloth to her cheek, and spoke in whispers.  “What do you mean there is nothing to go back to?”

Herodius quickly erased the smile from his face.  “This may be hard for you to accept, Mika, but I believe our families have been slaughtered.  All of them.  They don’t tell us, but I know.  I overheard them talking two nights ago.  I suspected as much—they need more men here to watch us.”

Mika was shaking her head.  “Oh Herodius, no.  No, no, no, no, NO!”  She kept whispering, but was raising the pitch of her voice.  “No, Herodius.  You must be mistaken.  Why would they do that?”

“I am not mistaken, Mika.  Think about it.  If they left the women and children alone to come back here, surely some of them would sail to the mainland of Ipidine —here or other landings—and once they came to a city, word would spread of what was happening.  It would spread before the half-ogre and his Master are ready to announce their plans…but I have heard those, too.  They talk of an enemy in Elvidor.  A Queen, and her General.  Sailors in the cities have loose lips, and word would spread across the seas.  Of that I have no doubt.

“And remember:  our women know how to sail, Mika.  They sail better than half the men who brought us here.  You have been on boats how long, Mika?  Fifteen years?  Our families back on the Isle knew too much.  Even if they could not rescue us, even if they landed
right here
in this cursed swamp—which is not far from our Isles, I might add—it would cause chaos and dissention with all of us.  You know what would happen if our families came crawling up out of the bog, looking for us.  It would be a fight.  Only instead of facing farmers, they would be facing ‘
soldiers’
.”  Herodius almost spat the word out, he was so tired of hearing his captors refer to them as such.