For the next few months, my father and I worked intensively on my mastering the rest of my heritage. I was stunned. I absorbed the secrets like a thirsty sponge. In only a few months, I was surpassing my father, and both of us were surprised and delighted. The secret to my success was adding natural science and worldly experience to my father’s magical secrets. I found it easy to talk with, and understand, the fairy people who lived in the forests of the valley, and I was able to penetrate more deeply into the mystery that was Az’sroc.
The clearest thing it had said to me at our introduction was, “I am power incarnate. I am not a teacher. You must learn to use magical power by your own means.”
With my wider knowledge, I was soon in command of more of the dark power it offered. So much so that many of the devices my father used as aids—wands and amulets and such—I found unnecessary. My hands and gestures became sufficient.
But good and bad come mixed. That summer a seriously dark cloud fell over our valley. We couldn’t get good information at first, because the trouble started at the north end of the valley. What we heard was that Kalnichov farms were being burned and farmers killed. We finally found that the cause of the trouble was a retreating Turkish army. The news of the summer had been of wars between the Turks and the Hapsburgs in Hungary. It seems the Turks had not fared well and some hundreds had chosen to retreat into our valley. When that word came south, my father did not think a moment before saying to me, “You must return to Florence as quickly as possible and seek aid.”
I agreed with him wholeheartedly, and two days later I set out on horseback with my four most trusted followers—from youngest to oldest, Grigor Jankov, Niko Jelacic, Todor Crnkov, and Josif Stipanov. We rode like the wind, and it was three days later that we topped a valley and looked down to see the blue of the Adriatic Sea sparkling below us.
It was then that a new thought rushed into my mind.
“Wait! Florence! Why in the world would anyone from Florence in Italy send soldiers to a small, undistinguished valley in the Balkans?”
I realized my father had mind-controlled me into thinking this was a good plan. Why had he done that?
I had four men with me. They were my most trusted companions from the valley. But I was now so confused!
“We stop for lunch here,” I said, even though it was only ten o’clock in the morning.
My men looked surprised at this odd timing, but I needed time to think.
“The view is good,” I said firmly, which it was. And we had been riding since soon after dawn.
As we ate, I concluded, “My father wanted me out of the Kalzov Valley, and quickly. Why?”
I decided to use one of my newly learned spells to find out what was happening back in the valley.
My men, my friends, knew I had some special abilities, but not much about them. So when I told them, “I need some time undisturbed … a few hours,” they were not totally surprised.
We looked for a place to camp. The first place we found was just off the road down from the top of the pass. It was a good spot. Too good, in fact, because as we looked it over, we found piles of trash. It was visited frequently, and probably by bandits. Further down, we found a better site, and set up camp there. In my tent I attempted my second astral travel.
“The Astral Plane is the plane of pure joy,” my father had told me not a month before. “Which makes astral travel one of the more dangerous things you will do. When you enter, you will see the souls of many, many magic users who have lost their way among its wonders. The key to astral travel is making sure—making doubly and triply sure!—you have a way back to your body.”
My father showed me how to make an astral cord and I went on my first brief journey. Now, on just my second try, I intended to travel a long distance, back to my valley to see why my father had wanted me out so quickly! It wasn’t easy to do in a hastily set up tent, but I managed to make doubly sure I would come back … as long as I wasn’t disturbed … and I set out.
As I traveled to the Kalzov Valley, I saw many wonderful patterns in astral space. It truly was a delight to the eyes, ears, and other senses. It was like a good meal with good entertainment, only more so, but very abstract. I did not see any other travelers moving along with a purpose and a cord, but I did indeed see many spirits without a cord. Each was looking at some particular formation of the plane with deep concentration. According to my father, such Astral Watchers would be content with watching a spot for hundreds of years. Their bodies, however, would wither away much sooner, dying of thirst, starvation, or whatever aspect of neglect took them first. I spoke to some, but they never noticed me.
I saw a couple of very interesting spots on my journey, too. I was tempted to pause, but my astral cord tugged on me, and I kept moving on.
When I moved off the plane into my valley, I saw disaster.
In astral form I could travel around the valley without being seen. I could watch and listen, but not touch or be heard when I spoke. What I saw was that the Turkish troops had allied with the Kalnichovs and moved south to devastate our end of the valley. What I heard was that with the Turks’ raw military might and the Kalnichovs’ intimate local knowledge, the end of the Rostov reign had come in only a couple of days of fighting.
Yesterday, just two days after I left, the Kalnichovs and Turks had surrounded our manor, Falcon’s Aerie. Hastily fortified and defended only by a few score huntsmen, herdsmen, villagers, and farmers, bearing the weapons they ordinarily turned against wolves, it had fallen after just a few hours of fighting. At least they had been merciful to our men who surrendered. I found a Turkish commander settling into the great hall, and he had a young Kalnichov count as his advisor.
My heart was so sad! My father had foreseen this disaster and sent me off! It was noble on his part, but I was not happy to have been treated like a helpless refugee. I was a powerful magician! I should have stayed with him and fought! I searched the manor for my father and mother, shamed and angered at seeing it turned into a Turkish command post.
When I could not find them anywhere inside I searched the grounds, where the Turks had set up camp. As I found no trace or word of them, a spark of hope kindled in my invisible breast that they had escaped! I followed an orderly into Falcon’s Aerie and listened as he reported to the Turkish commander.
“We still have not found them, sir,” he said quietly.
“Not found them!” the commander shouted. “How could you not find them? We surrounded this place quietly in the dark. Our spies were here watching days earlier and they even saw the boy ride off with four companions. We know they were in here. How could you not find them?”
He threw a glass into the fireplace in frustration. When he regained control of himself, he asked, “What of the boy?”
“The boy is on the road to the Adriatic coast and moving fast. We have a detachment after him, but their group has good horses and all in their party are good horsemen.”
“And Turks are not good horsemen? I want news … good news … by morning. Dismissed!”
The orderly saluted and left. The Turkish commander continued his brooding. I sneered at him, “Hah! My father is not some helpless peasant! You crescent-worshipping foreigner!”
He didn’t hear me, of course.
Then it hit me! There’s a Turkish detachment chasing me! Me! As in, chasing my body, that didn’t have me in it! Whoa! If they found me, that would be quite disturbing.
I started back at top speed. If I didn’t beat the Turks to my body, I would soon be just another Astral Watcher.