Duality by Rowan Erlking (classic books for 13 year olds txt) 📕

“Uh…” She blinked at him, reaching into her pockets. “What about the money?”

With another nod, Bernum dug into his pocket. “I can pay you half. Have the rest be paid on delivery. I know the shipping company can do that. Give them the address, and my father will be able to confirm the funds.”

He then handed her a portion of what he had taken from the till. Turning, he went back to the table and took up a pen. Bernum had to search around for the inkwell, but he eventually found it under an overturned packet of herbs that must have fallen in the women’s rush out of the house. Grabbing paper, he wrote out the address then handed it to Trikket.

She just stared at him and then the paper. “Do you think she is in danger?”

Bernum nodded. “Yes. Malkia would never just leave without a word.”

Trikket exhaled then lifted her eyes to the room, already making a mental list of what she had to do. She looked back at Bernum only once and that was when he searched the shelves for a map. The girl quickly stepped up into the inner hallway and rushed upstairs.

There were a lot of herbs and packets on the shelves, but no map of Maldos as Bernum had hoped. He had to double check to make sure Malkia was truly at Jonori and not in some other place. Jonori was way too far away to just visit on a whim. After all, the women met whoever took them at Donleri, and that was a several hundred miles from Jonori and a major port of trade for the nation. In the end he snatched up a paper again and took the pen, drawing up a basic approximation of Maldos, marking the places he did know.

Around his neck, Bernum wore a school pendant, one every magician-in-training had been given to help with spells. His was a gift from Jimmit, crystal and flat on two sides, faceted along the corners. Tear drop shaped, it had a point on the end rather than rounded. It, Bernum held over his map naming major locations as the point touched each one, going clockwise, starting at the north.

“Northborder Township. Jonori City. Donleri City. Supar Township. Lineidin Township. Bandaran Township. Yolund Township. Westaven Township.” Then he marked the towns in the center in the same order. “Yapan Township. Kibilla Township. Todanna Township. Map.”

He lifted the pendant off the rough drawing, closing his eyes yet having the chain still dangling over the sketch. He recited the words to a finding spell he had learned his second year at school.

“Lost from the north, missing from the east, gone from the south, departed the west, find my sister Malkia wherever she may be. Show!”

The pendant jerked his hand down to the map, fixing on one city. He opened his eyes and looked at it.

“What was that?” Trikket popped back in the doorway, her arms carrying one empty bag.

Bernum hardly glanced at her. “Just a spell.” He peered at where the pendant had fixed. “She really is in Jonori.”

He quickly dislodged his pendant from the paper and pulled it around his neck again, tucking it in his shirt. Grabbing his travel pack, Bernum then dug into his pocket for the last of the money he had, counting it. He had just enough for such a trip, if not a little more if a disaster hit. Feeling the girl staring at him, Bernum looked up at her. “What?”

She immediately cleared off her puzzle expression and started back into the hall. “Nothing.”

“Wait!” He jumped up, going after her.

Trikket halted, blinking at him.

“Do you know the fastest way I can get to Jonori?” he asked.

Screwing up her mouth to the side, Trikket thought for a moment then shrugged. “I don’t really know. I’ve never left Kibilla. But that Midwife and Malkia traveled a lot. Maybe they have a card or a brochure on her desk somewhere.”

He nodded, patting her arm, then hopped back into the room. Bernum found a worn travel journal on the shelf next to Ludy’s expenditures ledger with ticket stubs in it, several of which had the emblem of a coach company. Grabbing one, Bernum immediately went in search for the place, leaving Malkia’s friend to do her job at the house.

The coach company had regular carriages leaving Kibilla to Jonori three times a day. Bernum had to stay the night in the inn, waiting for the early carriage as the afternoon carriage had already departed. The trip itself would take days. The ride was painful, cramped in a space fitting only six, though it would have been comfortable for four. They had stops only at the convenience of the coachmen. Every rider had to keep on his toes in case the coachmen decided to leave unannounced, and the horses were often whipped if they slowed down at all.

Bernum arrived in Jonori city the fourth day since he left Yapan. Travel sore and tired, he hobbled off the carriage with the other travel weary men and women, squinting up at the light blue sky, smelling the salt air for the first time in his life. He could hear sea birds crying on the wind. The breeze was warm, wafting up smells of fish and seaweed and smoke. The city itself was something else. Almost all the walls were stone or stucco. The inn where the carriage dropped the riders off brought smells of roast pig, baked bread, and basil to the hungry senses. And with all of the housekeeper’s food gone, Bernum followed the aroma. In any case, it was a good place to start his search without looking suspicious.

The inside of the inn was warm and dry with rustic looking decor hanging from large beams holding up the roof in the eating hall though the ceiling was low in the other areas where the rooms were stacked up four stories with one stairwell for access. Though it wasn’t the first inn Bernum had been in, it had its own unique air that made him feel suddenly like a little ten-year-old traveling alone again. The eating hall was full of large seagoing men, several of them laughing over tankards of beer, ale, and harder liquor. There were fancy and straight laced travelers there also, sitting closer together, though the more travel worn sat near the blazing fire, warming their hands as the barmaids carried over meals of roasted meat and vegetables.

Squaring his shoulders, refusing to be intimidated, Bernum took a breath and went to the innkeeper’s desk to seek out a room.

“We only have one left,” the innkeeper said, holding out the key. “With the holidays, people are traveling in from all over. Are you here on business or pleasure?”

Bernum took the key from his hand. “Personal business.”

Looking the seventeen-year-old up and down, the innkeeper snorted. “You better not be seeking thrills here. The Jonori police don’t like riffraff making trouble.”

Turning quickly to him, Bernum leaned over the desk. “Has there been trouble lately?”

Chuckling, the innkeeper shook his head. “You’re a sober fellow. So grim. Why do you ask?”

Leaning in closer, Bernum said, “I actually looking for someone. A girl.”

“Aren’t we all?” The innkeeper laughed.

Rolling his eyes, Bernum shook his head. “No. A family member. Someone I care about deeply went missing. She worked for a midwife named Ludy. Do you know of her?”

The innkeeper shook his head. “Nope. I can’t say I have. But why did you ask about trouble?”

With a frown that expressed his dislike for how things were turning, Bernum replied, “Because neither woman would vanish without a fight.”

The innkeeper pulled back with a mocking snort. “Oh, please. This is the city. Small ruckuses would not catch anyone’s attention.”

Bernum’s frown tightened. “They would be making a big ruckus.”

“Who are you looking for?” A man from inside the main floor leaned in, scooting close to Bernum.

Turning, Bernum examined the expression on this stranger’s face. His mind went over what had happened to his father then revisited the things Malkia might have said when she was first taken by whomever. Whoever had her was willing to kill his father for her. Bernum lifted his chin and said, “I’m looking for a map shop. I’d like to get a map of Jonori City so I can tour around on my own.”

Snorting again, the innkeeper went back to his work. Bernum tucked his room key into his pocket, keeping one hand securely on it.

The stranger’s dark eyes fixed on Bernum with a nod. “A map shop, huh? Well, if you go to the pier there are many map shops for tourists. However, if you are looking for something in particular, I can help you find it.”

There was something discomfiting about this man, so much that Bernum took a step away from him. “No, thank you. I can do this on my own.”

He then turned, heaving his pack onto his back and marched out of the room, departing the inn.

Bernum found a map vendor not far from the carriage booking post. Walking the streets of Jonori, Bernum already felt like he was being followed. He ducked down a few roads to lose them, pickpockets, punks, thieves that preyed on foreigners to the town; but they always seemed to find him again. It took a while for him to realize why they found him so easily, but then he figured it out. Carrying his pack with him with an open map gave him away. So Bernum returned to the inn.

Bernum spread the map out on the bed, taking out his pendant to mark all the main places of the city, reading them off from north to east to south to west in a spiral. When he enacted the seeking spell again, the pendant snapped onto a street in the hillier district. Peering over the name, reading the location, he noted it down and stuffed the paper into his pocket along with directions on how to get there from the inn.

This time he left his pack in his room, plucked up the map and tucked it into an inside pocket with his wallet, sealing the door with a spell on the inside so no one on the outside but him could enter the room. It was a more effective lock anyway. He gave a nod to the innkeeper as he passed by, plucked up a piece of wrapped bread from the serving tray with a drink, grinning at the waitress, taking a long draught before leaving the glass on the nearest table to the door. Then with a skip in his step, he hurried out onto the street.

The hilly area was far from the inn. Bernum calculated with just a look how long it would take to walk the distance. Then he calculated the number of pickpockets he would meet along the way and decided to splurge on a pedicab. There were plenty outside the inn seeking business.

The pedicab arrived in the hilly area well before sunset. Bernum paid the driver then walked along the road with his hands in his pockets, gazing at neighborhood. The homes were close to the seashore. They were also extravagant mansions of two to three stories, stucco with clay-tiled roof. He saw balconies, draping vines, and gardens full of roses, lilies, crocuses, ivy, and lavender. Most of the homes were gated with forbidding guards standing by to take on hooligans. Children in the yards were dressed well, with nice white teeth and perfectly groomed hair.

“What would the kind of man who already has everything want with my sister?” Bernum murmured under his breath. The guards were staring him down, urging him to go on.

So he did.

In the end, Bernum trudged to the shore where he