Back to Yonder for Publication, page 26
Sleep came for me then. My wife was safe. Nothing was more important than that.
Chapter 32 – Bertrand’s Daughter
The trip to Centrum went even faster than expected. It only took Rock three days to make it there, traveling from sunup to sundown. The elemental was easily able to carry me, Josie, and the tiny Sema—all while averaging better than a hundred miles per day.
The journey gave Josie and I time to patch up any issues which had resulted from Her’s actions. I made sure to restore the fiery foxkin’s confidence in our relationship. I demonstrated as best I could, again and again, that I didn’t hold the fact she had been controlled against her.
We could have used the potions of flight to speed up our travel. Heck that would have made it possible to get to Centrum in less than two hours, but I felt like the time spent together was more important. Besides rebuilding our connection, it gave Josie and I a chance to spar each night. She was still more skilled than I, although the gap between us was narrowing. My stats could let me overwhelm her, but I refrained from leaning exclusively on them to provide her with more meaningful practice.
Besides those benefits—and the obvious enjoyment we got from more intimate time spent together at night—it also allowed us to get to know Sema a bit better. The young fairy deeply mourned the loss of her sister, Natalie. I never could get out of her if Natalie was actually her sibling, or if she considered all fairies—other than Delicia—her sisters. The sense of loss was understandable. Her people were close to extinction, with less than one hundred fairies remaining in all of Olimero—each loss was significant.
We both tried to give her the space she needed, while also repeatedly expressing our gratitude. We’d discussed the way in which Her had been able to control Josie. It couldn’t have been mind or emotion control, because Sativa had protected the redhead from that. Sema explained that soul powers could transcend either body or mind related skills, and since Josie had willingly agreed to the pact—even if she hadn’t fully understood what she was agreeing to—that it would have been able to bypass her protections.
Sema had the decency to be embarrassed when she explained how her people used powers like that to ensnare males for breeding. I even tried to talk her into teaching me how to use my own soul abilities, but then we reached the city.
Sema was quite accomplished with a few soul related skills, as well as Illusion Mana, Nature Mana, Light Mana, Prismatic Mana, and Size Mana. Her skill with Nature Mana had led to a couple of interesting conversations about Sativa with Josie. The small fairy was shocked to learn that my wife was a handmaiden to the goddess.
I personally went out of my way to make her feel welcome. The little that I was able to speak with her helped convince me that fairies weren’t all bad. What that meant for the fairy queen’s proposition, though, was a problem for future Rob. For now, I was just grateful for the illusion she had crafted, which enabled me to walk around without worrying about gloves or a hood.
On the morning of the fourth day, we reached the gates of Centrum. If I had thought that Westerton was large, this city dwarfed it. I was half tempted to burn a Potion of Flight simply to get a feel for its scope. This place seemed more like it was the home to more than a million souls, but Sema had never been here before, and Josie had left as a child—so neither could confirm for me just how many people lived here.
The guards let us in after a small fee, and I was once again thankful that I didn’t need to wear a hood or a mask. The first thing we did was find a place to stay—renting an apartment not far from the merchant district. Sema opted to stay at the apartment when I insisted on going with Josie when she went to meet with Master Dalcon, as fairies were not well received in society. She could hide herself very well, but it was tiring—and truly, there was no need for her to come with us.
Maybe Josie was right, and this Master Dalcon could be trusted. Maybe Taez and Simeon had acted on their own initiative, albeit in an inappropriate fashion. But I wasn’t going to trust my wife’s safety to a hope—certainly not after what had just happened with Her.
When we reached the academy, I found it presented an interesting contrast with the rest of the city I had seen. Most of the architecture in Centrum was done in what I would have considered ‘Gold Rush California’ style. This looked to be far more Asian in design.
I didn’t have any indication that there were cultures like that on Olimero, but there was a lot I still had to learn. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if there had been some influence from Earth. The huge plaque hanging over the arched entryway read, ‘Twin Blade Academy’.
I let Josie take the lead, but I was close beside her.
A wolfkin guard in leather armor stood up and ordered us to halt. “Do you have an invitation to the academy?”
Josie stopped and looked at him defiantly. “I’m Josephine Case. Master Dalcon sent me an invitation.”
The guard straightened up immediately. “Not that I’m doubting you, Miss, but do you happen to have that invitation on you?”
She fished the letter that had been sent to Yonderton out of a pouch on her belt, placing it in the guard’s outstretched hand.
He looked at it and then at Josie. “You said you were Josephine Case? This letter is addressed to Josephine Ruger.”
“Yes, but Case is my married name. My father was a disciple of Master Dalcon. His name was Bertrand Ruger.”
Suddenly the guard’s eyes got wide. “Three-time champion, Bertrand Ruger?”
Josie shrugged. “I was only a small child when we left Centrum, but that is what my mother told me.”
The guard couldn’t have acted more differently with this revelation. He started bowing and calling her M’lady. He even begged her forgiveness before ringing a bell. Little more than a minute later, a boy who I would have called a pre-teen back on Earth came running out.
The lad was an elf, so it was impossible for me to say exactly how old he was. The guard gave him instructions that Josie was a special guest who Master Dalcon had sent for a couple of months ago, and that we were to be escorted into something called the lotus court, after which he was to go notify the master of our presence.
We followed the boy and found that inside, the compound was set up with multiple buildings surrounding three different courtyard type areas. The first one was completely open air and paved in stone. It was full of a couple dozen students sparring or running through drills—though it was large enough to accommodate three times that number. A few men and women who I took for instructors walked around the students with long slender sticks, alternately disciplining the students for some fault or providing them with guidance.
Past that courtyard, we walked up some stairs made of a dark wood, and past what looked like koi ponds, surrounded by a number of benches. Under a pavilion roof and in the center of a second area, was a much smaller training floor. It was square and probably thirty feet by thirty feet. In it, there were two students sparring, with judges sitting at each corner and a referee in the ring.
We paused for a moment to watch them. They were both quite good—not as good as Josie, of course. To be honest, I thought I was as good as they were, but maybe that was just because to my eyes they moved awful sluggishly. Around the perimeter of this courtyard, there were a number of small offices or receiving areas, I wasn’t quite sure which.
Still, we were led beyond this area, up another set of stairs, and into a stone building. Once inside, we were taken to the very center of the building, which was a circular chamber with an open-air roof. There were lotus plants blossoming in raised beds throughout the room, with ornate carved tiles for flooring. We were pointed to a smooth wooden bench beside a smaller recessed sparring platform—perhaps twenty feet square or twenty-five feet square—where we could wait.
We sat down and I could sense Josie’s tension through the soul bond. She fidgeted as we sat in silence for half-an-hour. Finally, I asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” she snapped. Then she looked at me with a softer look. “Why would I want to talk about it?”
“Want to?” I shrugged. “I guess that was the wrong question. But maybe you need to talk about this. This place represents a part of your past that you were too young to remember. I know how confused you are about the various stories you’ve heard regarding your father… it can’t be easy.”
“It’s just… I mean…” She wrung her hands as her words trailed off. “You know what? I don’t need to talk right now—I need to spar. Come, join me.”
Back on Earth, I might have asked if it was appropriate for us to do so here, but the new me felt like I owned the world, and if my wife wanted to spar here in the lotus court of some rather stuffy sword academy, I would happily oblige her.
She took her boots off and set them next to the bench before springing down the steps to the central area and ran her feet over the smooth tiles. Then she looked up at me. “You know my father might very well have trained on this very platform.”
I was about to join her, when my expanded sense of touch told me that there was someone who had just slipped into the room. They stood silently behind some of the lotus plants and were watching us. I waited, but he didn’t move out from behind the plants, nor did I get a sense that he was a threat.
Telepathically, I told Josie that we were being watched.
“Then get down here and let’s give them something to watch,” she replied. “Just take your boots off before setting foot on the fighting platform. It’s something my father taught me when I was a little girl.”
I did as she asked and then jumped down onto the platform. I had worried whether or not Sema’s illusion would cover my bare feet, but while I could see my actual feet, I also saw the image of wide green feet superimposed over them. Josie drew her father’s blades and I called forth Bargon’s Slice. My sword was always eager for a fight, as it was hoping to feast on some blood. When I reminded it that this was just sparring, it grumbled and seemed to go back to sleep. That was just as well.
Then, we started to dance. I didn’t use any ki enhancement, but my Agility was still sixty percent higher than my wife’s. Despite that, she seemed to be able to make better use of her Agility. I had to remind myself that I had been at this for but a few months, with advances coming so rapidly that it was nearly impossible for me to stop and adapt to these changes.
Josie, on the other hand, had been doing this her entire life. But I was fast enough that, without pushing herself, she couldn’t land a blow on me.
“Don’t hold back,” I instructed. “My aura will protect me from anything but a real effort to harm me.”
“You shouldn’t hold back either,” Josie replied. “I know you’re faster than that.”
“True…” I sidestepped to avoid a lunge quicker than a serpent’s strike, “but aren’t you the one always telling me not simply to rely on my stats? Besides, I’m trying to figure out how to use Parallel Mind to learn faster while sparring.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I’m feeling the need to cut loose.”
I pushed a small amount of ki into my legs and arms and increased my speed by about ten percent. It might not sound like a huge amount, but with an Agility of 190, I was already five or six times faster than the average guy—and almost twice as fast as Josie. The higher a stat got, the more value each additional point held.
At the same time, my mind core enabled me to track her movements better. Part of me was focused on the fight, looking for openings, reacting, and trying to win this bout. The partition created from my Parallel Mind skill, though, didn’t care about the outcome of this match. All it was trying to do was to memorize Josie’s movements so that I could better apply her technique to myself.
Melee Combat +1
I grinned with the notification, because it told me that I’d discovered another way to cheat my skill growth, leveling even faster than before. My wives were going to be so jealous. Oh, they’d try to hide it and be genuinely happy for me, but they were still going to be jealous.
“You are ridiculous.” Josie snorted as she parried one of my high-speed thrusts and performed a perfect counter, a retort which would have resulted in a cut deep into anyone else’s ribs—but because of my speed, I had already moved beyond the reach of her blade.
After we had been sparring for over an hour at a frenzied pace, I felt the man behind the lotus plants step forward. He walked down the path at a slow, measured pace, but there was a supreme confidence in his every step.
He was likely the oldest looking man I’d seen in Olimero. Hell, he would likely have given Rozelle a run for her money as the oldest looking person I’d seen.
He was an old elf, but exceptionally lean. His feet were bare, and he wore loose flowing pants, similar to those I associated with aikido. His vest was not armored, but rather a thick canvas looking fabric and sleeveless. When we stopped sparring he said, “Don’t let me stop you. It has been most informative.”
Josie glanced first at me and then to him. “Master Dalcon, I presume?”
He nodded his head. “And you are Bertrand’s daughter?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He didn’t even look at me—which was not something I was accustomed to, but I checked my pride. This was Josie’s moment not mine.
His brows lifted, “And you’re only just now accepting my invitation, with a mere three weeks before the tournament?”
Josie started to explain how various duties had detained her, but I cut her off. “My wife made it here as soon as she was able. No disrespect was intended and, had her duties permitted, she would have been here months ago. But she is my right-hand and chief deputy, and we are responsible for an entire district of people.”
He snorted. “A flea-ridden, far-flung no-man’s-land of a district. But I wasn’t speaking to you, Sheriff. Nice disguise, by the way. I admit that it took me a few seconds to see through the illusion. Whoever crafted it for you did an excellent job—and yes, I know it wasn’t you because I’m well acquainted with the fact that humans can’t learn magic.”
He tilted his head to the side, studying me. “Although, I admit the stories about you have spread far and wide—even to here. And watching the way you move seems to defy my understanding of certain things.”
“It is true that I can’t use magic,” I replied. “As for whether you were speaking to me or not, that is irrelevant. My wife would very much like to learn from you—but no man speaks out of turn to her in my presence.”
“You think a great deal of yourself, don’t you boy?”
“Actually, I am more than willing to give you respect, but it must be earned.”
He stared at me intently. “Answer me this, then. Do you believe that you could defeat me, the most decorated sword master this side of the Lutelleger River?”
“If I had to… yes, without a question in my mind. But that would be because of my raw power, and I’m not naïve enough to believe that raw power is the end all and be all. I am certain that there is a great deal you could teach me about how to better use that power.”
The old elf stared at me and then at Josie for a long minute. Then he burst out into a deep belly laugh.
“I think I like you, boy. You’ve got some fire in you—and if this wife of yours is anything like her father was, then you’re going to need every bit of it to keep her in line.”
Chapter 33 - Reconnecting
Master Dalcon then invited us to his private lounge, where we sat and servants brought us drinks. He apparently had a passion for plum brandy, which I had yet to experience on Olimero. Their version was a little sweeter than what I was used to, but it was still delicious.
The conversation went well, for the most part—though it did get a bit tense when I had to tell him about Taez and Simeon. Dalcon became quiet for a while, but eventually he shook his head and said that he chose to believe us. He said he had known there was a bad streak inside of Taez and admitted he wasn’t surprised to learn this had cost him his head. He only lamented that Simeon had been carried away in the rash wolfkin’s scheme.
After that, I faded into the background, though from time to time the master asked me questions about my abilities. Most of the conversation, however, was focused on Dalcon and Josie getting acquainted. She had many questions for him, and he didn’t hold anything back, gladly telling her stories about her father.
“If he was really that good,” Josie finally asked the question that she burned to know the answer to, “then why did he flee Centrum for the frontier?”
