A Clash of Magics by Guy Antibes (read this if txt) 📕

before,” Reena said, “but it is a beautiful country—other than the copper mines we visited. I wish we could have stayed longer.” She took Brother Yvan’s hand. “But then again, I’m glad to travel to Ginster.”

Brother Yvan laughed. “Ginster doesn’t compare to Brachia, at least to Listenwell. It doesn’t have mile after mile of fertile land, but it carries a different kind of beauty, and the people are different because of it.”

“Are they harder?” Lissa asked. “Viksar is more like Brachia in a lot of places, so I suppose we aren’t as hardscrabble as the Ginsterians are.”

Brother Yvan nodded. “Don’t generalize too much. The economy is different, but it is an active economy. The Ginsterians are more like Viksarans or Presidonians than the Jarkanese,” he said. “We trade more.”

“Derwizul does trade more with other countries than Argara,” Reena said. She sighed. “I suppose every country has better places to live. Keith said that north of their village, the living is harder because of the range of mountains on the northern edge of Brachia.”

Trevor wouldn’t have to worry about big mountains, just the little eruptions of the conical shaped mountains that popped up from place to place in Listenwell. “I can make myself happy anywhere,” he declared. “I was content enough working with Brother Yvan and Boxster at the mountain monastery in Presidon.”

“And you lived through the worst part of the year,” Brother Yvan said. “When you are among friends, most places are tolerable, I imagine.”

“Am I tolerable?” Reena asked, grasping Brother Yvan’s hand.

“And a friend too. Dryden blesses who he will, and I am glad he blessed me.”

Lissa smiled and looked at Trevor, who was suddenly tongue-tied. He managed to say that he agreed and returned Lissa’s smile. He felt on edge for some reason, unsettled. Trevor always had someplace he was heading to or running from. That was the positive part of being a soldier of fortune who had the luck to find projects. Now he had to travel for a few weeks to find out what happened next. The unsettled part of his emotions made him quiet. He recognized the state and tried to cheer himself up, but didn’t make much headway when Lissa yawned.

“Time for bed. Want to join me?” she said.

Trevor was jolted out of his reverie, but then he realized that Reena was the object of her question.

“I think we should all turn in,” Brother Yvan said. “An early morning will get us across the border and on the Northern Road in Okora that will take us to Grilla and then on to Jiksara in Viksar.”

Not much to think about there, Trevor thought, as he gathered his things and headed to his room behind the others. The two women shared a room and Brother Yvan and he slept separately. He washed his face and his lower arms and hands before jumping under the covers. The room was serviceable, but he wasn’t traveling as a prince or a duke, but as an experienced traveler with means.

He laid down and looked at the ceiling. Torches that lit up the stable yard made the shadows of the window frames dance on the walls. He let the movement make his eyes drowsy, and he set aside the unsettled feelings for the embrace of a night’s slumber.

~

Okora going east looked much the same as Okora heading south toward Jarkan. There were plenty of villages, some with inns and some without, dotting the vast farmlands. There were cattle and sheep feedlots that could be smelled a mile away. The first inn they had thought to use was too close to one, and they opted to travel in the twilight toward the next small town.

“Are the feedlots for meat export?” Trevor asked the innkeeper who registered them.

“Brachia, Jarkan, and Grilla. Any further east and the meat will spoil unless it is cured. We do some of that, but the fresh stuff is always grown locally.”

Trevor thought about the situation. “Why don’t you transport it on the hoof?”

“Grilla won’t permit it. They are happy to take Okoran goods, but they keep the countries to the east of them as their customers. It’s been tried before, going north through Fuleria and south through the southern edge of Viksar, but,” the innkeeper shook his head, “the price to keep animals fed and fattened on the road is too difficult, not to mention the proliferation of bandits who like their meat free. Fulerians are the bandits to the north. They charge duties that are ruinous.”

“It was just a thought,” Trevor said.

“And a good one, if it wasn’t for the reality of nations looking out for their own interests over what we might consider fair,” the innkeeper said.

Trevor nodded his head. Everyone had their own conception of what fairness was, and it was as often different as it was the same. Solutions required some motivation on the part of both parties. That was what he had read in a book on trading that Brother Yvan had given him to read when he had been banished to his personal tower in Tarviston castle. He decided he would have to read more such books when he returned to Listenwell.

“What is happening in Tiralina?” Brother Yvan asked the innkeeper.

“I’m sure the smart ones at the capital are keeping a sharp eye on Brachia and Fuleria,” the innkeeper said. “Everyone is worried about Worto’s ambitions, even our king.”

Trevor pursed his lips. “Have there been any odd declarations from the capital?”

The innkeeper shrugged his shoulders. “Taxes haven’t changed and my custom hasn’t either. You’d have to go the capital to find out.”

Brother Yvan nodded to Trevor. “I suppose it shouldn’t matter to us. We are passing through. The lady’s father lives in Jiksara,” the cleric said looking at Lissa.

“Other than the odd bandits on the road, you should have a clear trip this