057 – Caspian Uncorks

Caspian seemed relieved for two reasons once they got off the ferry boat the next afternoon. For one, he had been between pale and green the entire time that he had been on the ferry, and had not gone far from the open air from cast off to tie down. That Cyrril was not in evidence the whole boat trip said that Caspian was not in a good mood. When asked, he said that he preferred sea going ships to lake going ones. The second reason was that once off the docks and onto solid ground, he got over his queasiness, put a good foot under him and set as quick a pace as Steven and Rox could coax their laden mules to go. Somehow traveling, not on the water, put Caspian in a better mood than he had been in the days it took to square away everything in the city.

This next leg of the journey is to be comparatively short. Over the next week and a half, the plan is they head for the coast to get a sea ship. In process, Rox has to get accustomed to marching all day, eating from a fire, and sleeping in a tent that was not as big as the bed she had in the palace.

Once away from the port town and onto the highway, The Caplan’s asked Caspian for more detail about his motion-sickness, and he responded that an ocean ship moved differently from a lake ship. Once over his initial discomfort on the ocean one, he would be fine. He figured it would be several week-or-so jaunts down the coast from port to port. They should get to Skarg in about the same time or a little after the caravan that carried Diana and Alex.

This was the first time that Caspian had identified where they were going by name, in Rox’s hearing. Steven rounded on him.

“You have known the name of this place all along?”

“Yes.” Caspian continued walking.

“You did not share this before now, why?” Steven felt hints of the frustration he had felt the week before picking up Abey.

Again Caspian was being a clogged drain of information. “Actually I did let it slip once or twice in our first days. Since then I have kept this to myself in order to not have to explain it twice, and I was more concerned with getting you acclimated. Now that you are together, I can tell you both at the same time. And now you stand a better chance of remembering it.”

Rox was slightly out of breath. She was in good shape for other forms of exertion, but not yet for walking all day. It was her turn to pull the lead for one of the mules, with the other tied to the pack of this and following behind. She picked up on Steven’s agitation.

“So tell us. Steven has told me some, tell us the rest.”

Caspian started as he continued walking. “Your daughter and son have been kidnapped by order of the monarchs of The Kingdom of Krogg, in the southern hemisphere of this world.

“As a small bit of geography: this world has one large continent that covers a bit more than one third of the surface, with three smaller ones scattered over the ocean of the rest. Krogg is approximately south of us, at about this same latitude below as we are above the equator. By the way, my home is a bit south of the equator.

“So, these monarchs sent the people who kidnapped your kids, and are waiting for their arrival. Had we been able to get to you sooner, Roxanne, we might have had a chance to catch them before they got too far. But that is now hopeless, so the next move is to try to catch them in Skarg, the capitol city of Krogg.

“Once that is done the elves, who sent me on this intercept mission, want to see Roxanne and your children. They live in a city that is about a half way to the equator from here and several mountain ranges inland. That done, I might finally be able to go home. They owe me a good deal for this.”

Rox asked the question that Steven had asked weeks earlier. “So if you know where we are going, can’t you just teleport us there, or teleport the kids here?”

“Not easily.” Caspian kept walking. “I could conceivably spy the distance between here and there and find a landing spot, but that is more trouble than it’s worth, especially with a wizard among them to interfere. Only the most skilled even attempt it. As it is, are you ready to fight off a caravan of about thirty men, including a wizard who is possibly more skilled than I am? The last fight of yours I saw, you had several points where you might have killed, but you did not. Has your mindset changed now?

“In the time it will take us to travel, I can teach you more magic theory and the things you have asked about. But I doubt you will be ready for a skirmish when outnumbered. At this point, a re-kidnap and run is probably your best option. We can use the time between here and there to get you ready for that.” Caspian continued to walk, his staff counting the time.

“Thanks for finally explaining that. I have wondered why we seemed to be taking the long way.” Steven answered this time. “Once we had Abey, there did not seem to be any reason to go faster than we did. I readily admit that I have learned a bit traveling with her. But I was beginning to wonder why we did not pick up the pace and start bouncing faster. I recall you mentioned in the capitol that you said you have been through this area before, though it was years ago. I suppose it was too long for safe transit via magic?”

Caspian nodded, his staff counting a quick time march. “Yes. I might find some potential landing spots for travel spells, but we need the time for other things. Right now, I first want to see Rox’s endurance. In process of this, how much she actually knows as opposed to what it is believed she has been taught.”

The afternoon passed to evening as the road began a slight downward track. They were passing across the western flood plains beyond the lake shore and into the foothills of the next mountains. The highway they traveled was not far from a river that drained the lake ultimately into the sea. Every little while the road and river intersected and a bridge crossed over.

From her instruction with the Sorceress, Roxanne had learned that on this road this Kingdom had two Duchies broken into five Baronies each to cross before they left its boarders for the coastal Kingdom. This road itself crossed three of the Baronies, and around two mountain ranges, going downhill the whole way.

As they traveled, Steven and Rox were soon talking between themselves as they always did. But with their circumstances being different than usual the subject matter was likewise different. Steven told of his prior weeks traveling, the natural demarcation being before and after picking up Abey. Rox told of her anxiety about what was happening to her children and at home. Steven admitted his own worry about this but his training to focus on what was at hand kept it at bay.

The discussion turned to Caspian, as Steven told of the pit fight episode. Rox listened and then wondered out loud how powerful and skilled Caspian really was.

“I am powerful enough to do whatever I chose to do.” Caspian interrupted their private conversation. Hearing that they did not continue, he explained his rudeness. “You talk loud, for a private conversation.”

Rox picked up on his unspoken invitation. “How were you taught?”

“I was trained as a boy in personal tutoring by my parents, then by a school designed to handle the instruction of those such as myself, or The Sorceress. She was several years ahead of me in classes. On evaluation of my talents and interests I was taught in the theory of all eight disciplines of magic. I displayed an ability to instinctively make spells from any of them. However, being a generalist, the more complex the spell, the less likely I am to succeed by just ‘making it up as I go.’ For spells that are new or unpracticed, I do need notes to follow.”

They were crossing a bridge and Caspian stopped. He began gesturing as he spoke. Cyrril simply sat on Caspian’s shoulders, dozing.

“I could, if I wanted to, raise the water level here to flood this bridge. By one school, I would do so by altering what is perceived. By another I would reach out and gather all the water from either direction of the river to pile up. Or I could reach out to farther away and bring it here. By a third, I would transmute as much of the available materials in the area into a sufficient quantity of water. My preferred method on my farm at home is to put a gate at the head of my fields and another out to sea then put a series of filters between them and let the water flow from one to the other and irrigate my fields.”

Steven’s own sensibilities popped up. “Or you could just demolish the bridge by other means. I recall you did not want to do much damage in the city, and figure that would be less of a problem here. You did level a square full of people in one spell.”

Caspian gave a final gesture. “Just so.” He turned on his heal and started on the road again.

Rox had heard something here that she had not been able to go much into with the Sorceress. “What are the Eight Schools? The Sorceress mentioned this, but did not go much into detail about it.”

Steven noticed that Caspian had slipped into Instructor Mode. Like this he could go on for some time. But rather than interfere, Steven let it go. He took the mules from Rox and let her step ahead to go listen from closer range.

Caspian started counting on his fingers. “Well, lets see. Barriers, and protection; the various form of information gathering; various forms of making people do things; organizing and manipulating energy to do things; Illusions perceived and real; dealing with life and death; manipulating organized material; moving things and abilities around. That is the School of Order’s separation of them. I rarely think about the titles of these disciplines. On the other hand, and this one is what bugs me, there are the Titles of the various practitioners, the more common ones being: Wizards and Wizardesses, Sorcerers and Sorceresses, Clerics and Shamans, Warlocks and Witches, Necromancers, Druids and Druidesses, Illusionists, Conjurers, Enchanters, and last but not least, Mage.  The Titles have little to do with the actual schools, but rather with how the individual uses and applies them. So many people just use a blanket title for all practitioners. If they are going to do that, fine, but at least use the right one. Some people just go for the derogatory 'frog-maker'.”

Rox nudged the rant back to an instructional line. “And the title you claim is?”

“Mage, or maybe magician. All the rest are specialists.”

Steven was right. Caspian continued on alternating between ranting and instruction until they came to an established waypoint. The mules were unloaded and turned into a pasture. The Caplan’s set up their tent. Dinner was made and shared with a nearby group who traded some fresh game meat for a loaf of bread.