Vibrations: Harmonic Magic Book 1 (37 page)

Behind the counter, softly conversing with a customer across the counter from him, was a man who could only have been Master Syrus. He was a large man, with a huge, egg-shaped head and a bristling black beard that hung half way down his chest. As he spoke, his bald head swung from side to side, making him look like a great bear. A great, bald bear. Each swing of that massive head caused his shiny pate to reflect sunlight coming from windows high on the walls.

Seeing Thad Altiri, he finished up with the customer quickly and then waved the group over. His booming voice, a stark contrast from the whispers he was previously engaged in, rang out. “Thad. Good to see you, my friend. How can I help you?”

The men shook hands and then Thad gestured toward Dr. Walt. “My new friends here just arrived in town, passing through on their way north. They require some supplies and, of course, you were the first one I thought of. ‘If Master Syrus doesn’t have it, it may not exist’ I told them.”

“Yes, yes, that is very true. But enough about me. What can I get for you, sir?” He reached his hand out to shake and, when Dr. Walt offered his, swallowed the older man’s hand in his meaty paw.

When all was said and done, the provisioner said he could have everything together within a half an hour. “Would you allow me to buy you a nice cold drink? There is a tavern just down the street that has a cold room so deeply dug that you would swear he stored his drinks in a glacier.”

The party, still allowing Dr. Walt to speak for them, merely nodded in his direction. “I would not think it amiss to sit for a half an hour and enjoy a cold drink. Yes, Master Altiri, we would be grateful for a chance to do so. Thank you.”

The group spent the half hour sitting in a tidy, medium-sized tavern common room partaking of the coldest and most delicious drinks they had enjoyed for quite some time. The time went quickly and before Sam knew it, they were back at the provisioner paying for their supplies.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night?” Thad asked as they were preparing to leave. “We have some fine inns with very comfortable beds, not to mention good food. A few of them even have entertainment in the evenings: singing, dancing, and at times short plays.”

“That sounds enticing,” Dr. Walt answered, “but we really are pressed for time. If we stayed we would lose a half a day of traveling time. You do understand?”

“Of course. Perhaps on a later visit, when you have more time, you will allow us to show you the hospitality that Medit can provide. If you insist on leaving now, at least allow me to lead you through this warren of streets to a northern exit so you don’t have to backtrack to the main street. It is, after all, my job to be of service to visitors in any way I can. My directives come straight from the mayor and I take them seriously.”

“That would be splendid. You have been more than helpful. It is very much appreciated.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all. It’s my duty and my privilege.”

The pace the party kept was a casual one. Thad Altiri led them from the warehouse district through several trade districts where weavers, dyers, tanners, and smiths had their workshops. Sam looked at them all with interest, never having seen any shops where these trades were performed. The mix of sounds, smells, and sights were exciting, though the pungent aroma of the tanning shop was something he would prefer not to experience again. Soon, they were traveling down a narrow alley through which they could only proceed two abreast.

Abruptly, the alley ended in a sort of cul-de-sac, wide enough for the party to spread out, but blocked off so that the only exit was the way they had come in. The blank, high walls were apparently the back sides of the buildings and there was only one door on each of the buildings, with no windows. The shadows from the structures blocked out the afternoon sun and made it seem much later than it really was.

As Sam turned, he saw that not only had Thad doubled back to stand at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, but he was being joined by probably three dozen other men, all carrying weapons of some sort. They had walked into a trap.

Thad Altiri smiled at them with his perfect teeth. “I am sorry, my friends, but my master requires something of you. You,” he pointed toward Dr. Walt, “he wants to ‘interview.’ As for the rest of you, I’m afraid he requires your lives. Give up and we will make it quick and painless. Resist and we will go to great lengths to make your pain last as long as possible.” With that, several men pushed to the front of the group. They all carried bows and, as one, they all nocked arrows and drew them to their cheeks.

For Sam, time slowed. He watched events unfold as if in a slow motion replay on television. Thad said something and the men aimed their bows at the party. Before they could release their arrows, however, Rindu went into action.

Sam saw the Zouy out of the corner of his eye. A glow quickly sprang up around him and then he thrust his palms forward toward the men. All but two of them scattered as if struck with hurricane force winds. The remaining two, on the outer edges, steadied their bows and released.

Simultaneously, Sam saw Nalia move and he himself moved. It was just a small gesture, just a swinging of the end of his staff that was not resting on the ground. By reflex, or guided by his
rohw
, he moved the staff from right to left directly across his face. He saw a blur and heard a slight tch and then a thunk when the arrow that was to have gone through his eye embedded itself in the wooden wall behind him.

Before any of the archers could recover, Rindu pushed Dr. Walt back against the wall and charged the group of men, striking left and right as soon as he was within range. Sam watched the monk dodging blows as if by magic in the confined space until all but one of the archers were down, some with broken bones, some obviously dead from a single blow. Turning from having torn the throat out of one of the last, Rindu delivered a vicious spinning heel kick to the back of the neck of the remaining archer. Sam could hear a sickening crack as the man’s head snapped backward at an impossible angle and his lifeless body flopped to the ground.

The archers dispatched, Rindu lunged backward until he was just ahead of Nalia and Sam. The rakkeben surrounded Dr. Walt, growling with their muzzles retracted and teeth bared. “Are you ready to test your training, Sam?” Rindu asked without looking at him.

Sam lifted his staff, separated it into fighting sticks with a thought and a small burst of his
rohw
, and nodded gravely. “Let’s do this,” he said, immediately feeling his face heat. Who did he think he was, some movie hero, spouting clever soundbites in the face of certain danger? He cleared his throat. “I mean, yes.” And then the men charged.

Contrary to practical tactics in fighting against a force whose numbers were vastly greater, the three split up and moved as far as possible from each other to allow room to dispatch the maximum number of assailants possible without interfering with each other. It said something, Sam thought, about the level of training and proficiency of the warriors—well, the other two anyway—that this would be their tactic.

Before he was engulfed by attackers, he saw Rindu spinning and dodging weapon attacks while striking with impossible combinations, doing so with a calm face and intense eyes. Nalia, too, having drawn her shrapezi, was raining death upon her attackers, dispatching them so quickly he was not sure he would even have to fight.

When the men surrounding him attacked, all thought of the others fled his mind. He automatically sought the calmness of his
rohw
that he had been training these last few months and he found his balance easily. He saw flashes of energy patterns out of the corner of his eye, seeming to be able to see all the way around him, far past his normal peripheral vision.

He didn’t even need to see, though, he found. He sensed the attacks before they came and his body, in perfect balance with his energy flow, simply moved in the most expedient manner in which to counteract the attacks. In the first second, in which no less than five assailants attacked him simultaneously, he somehow shifted and wiggled and twisted his body to allow the strikes to miss him by fractions of an inch while striking out at the same time. Two knives, one sword, a wicked looking spiked club, and a stick all missed their targets, but his kick to the side of the head of one man, hard stick strike to the brachial nerve to deaden the arm of another, and slashing strike to the eyes of a third with the tip of his stick left three of the attackers incapacitated, at least temporarily. One was dazed and nearly unconscious from the kick to his head, one had nervelessly dropped his club, and the other was now blind, both eye sockets crushed by the stick’s edge and his nose shattered in between to boot.

Turning and using the spinning motion to deliver a vicious backfist to the temple of one man, causing him to drop bonelessly to the ground, Sam used his momentum to strike the last attacker with a spin kick that caused the man to be thrown off his feet, accompanied by the sound of breaking ribs. Stopping his spin, he brought the sticks up into a guard position, the right stick held out front and the left stick tucked under the opposite armpit, to quickly assess the next threat.

There was one person in front of him, a woman. She held two long knives, looking like she knew how to use them. In his peripheral vision, he saw Rindu and Nalia finishing up with the last of their attackers. “You can’t take me alone,” he told the woman. “Put the knives down and leave and you will live.”

She sneered at him and slashed with lightning quick combinations. Not wanting to fight a woman like this—what was that about, anyway?—he backstepped several steps, parrying her knives with his sticks. When his back bumped against one of the walls, he knew he had no choice. She would not stop, so he must defend himself.

The woman was good. Her guard was solid and she left no openings despite attacking with both knives. Still, she was no match for him. As she came in for a deep thrust, he smacked either side of her forearm with his sticks, causing the nerves to release the knife. It clattered to the ground. When she spun in for a slash toward his throat, he stepped forward, jammed her arm with one stick, wrapped his other arm around her arm, heaving up and twisting to lock it in place, and then rotated his hips slightly. He heard a pop as her shoulder dislocated and the second knife bounced off the paving stones.

Releasing her and pushing her away, he thought it was finished, but apparently she did not agree. Her dislocated arm hanging limp, she started throwing kicks at him. She initiated a lightning-fast combination, but then suddenly dropped to the ground, unconscious. As she dropped, Sam saw Rindu behind her, his hand just coming down from the nerve strike he had delivered to her neck at the base of the skull.

Nalia dragged Thad Altiri to the others by his collar. He had a massive bruise on his head, looking suspiciously like the outline of the flat of Nalia’s shrapezi. “I left this one alive. Maybe he feels like talking.” As she spoke, she touched the tip of the curved and razor sharp end of her hooked sword to his throat. He raised his head to try to keep from being cut.

“Anything,” he whined, “anything you want to know, just ask. Just please don’t kill me.”

Rindu stepped up to the man, face-to-face. “Why did you lead us into this trap?”

“The Gray Man, he gave us orders. We are to take the old man and kill the protectors. I don’t know why. I just follow orders.”

“What does he know of us?”

“I don’t know anything except what I told you and that he knows you are heading toward the Gray Fortress. Honest, that’s all I know.”

Rindu looked to each of the others in turn to see if they had anything else they wanted to ask the man. Dr. Walt stepped up from his position at the rear of the cul-de-sac. He had not been injured, probably not even been in any danger during the fight. “What does he want with me?”

“I don’t know. He just said to take you alive if possible. That’s all I know.”

Dr. Walt looked thoughtfully. Then he nodded to Rindu. The Zouy leaned over and touched the man at the base of his neck and Thad Altiri dropped to the ground, unconscious.

“You really have to show me how to do that,” Sam said to the Zouy. “That seems a very useful thing to know.”

Rindu’s smirk was his only answer.

41

The party found their way out of the maze of alleys to the main street and then out of the city. They would be pursued, to be sure, so they traveled the rest of the day and into the night, only stopping around midnight to sleep for a few hours before continuing on.

A day and a half later, they came to The Grinder.

Dr. Walt explained. “This area is called The Grinder because it takes all who try to travel through it, grinds them up, and spits them out of the other side. If they survive. It is a difficult land, with mazes of canyons and heavy vegetation. There are several types of nasty creatures here. Bandits have taken up residence in some areas, not so much to attack the few who pass through, but so they can retreat into the maze when being pursued. We must be careful.”

Rindu nodded morosely. Nalia, too, was nodding. She had been through the Grinder, she explained. She passed through twice, once on the way up to the Gray Fortress and once, alone, on the way back. That second trip through was after all the other Sapsyra with her, including her mother, were killed. She almost didn’t survive the return trip through the area.