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With their canteens and food supplies refreshed, the crew immediately made off for the fumaroles. The path ahead grew increasingly steep as it went on. By the time the headwaters disappeared behind a foul-smelling sulfuric cloud at their back, not even a gnarled, thorny runt bush would grow. In their place were stumpy, smoldering chimneys.

An acrid stench of sulfur filled the air.

“Stay out of the gas clouds whenever possible,” Sam said. “They can be poisonous.”

Sara led the children through a routine where they practiced holding their breath. The rather treacherous terrain prevented any major stops even for a break; they would have to make it through the maze of toxic clouds and boiling pools in one day. It was not a particularly large area, but just making any headway at all in this terrain was difficult.

The Quarterchief’s marking on the map indicated that there would be a passage to the central valley at a point where three hot springs met under a wide, triangular cliff. Navigating by hand drawn symbols proved difficult. While there were times where Maat saw three pools that could be his landmark, there was no associated cliff. Other times they passed a picture-perfect cliff matching the description on the map, but there were no associated pools.

“If there’s any positive to this place.” Maat paused to cough out a particularly troublesome bit of toxic cloud. “It’s that we’ll have hopefully lost the Warden in this maze.”

Maat’s voice echoed off the old stones, returning to the group until it was distorted beyond intelligibility and swiftly petered out. What nobody expected was for the echoing call to receive a response.

“You assume too much. A foe is gaining on your position quickly.”

The children cowered together. Maat and company formed a defensive circle around their charges.

“What was that?” Sara asked.

Stifling yellow haze covered the fumaroles. A shadow emerged above a cliff to the north, distorted by the sun and fog into a spindly specter.

“It’s the witch,” Maat said.

“Follow the red smoke,” the figure said.

Three deep-throated clunks shook the ground. Puffs of crimson smoke emerged up a winding path towards the twisted shadowy figure. Red stood out as a dark black against the haze. Wind blew the closest plume directly over them.

“Okay, head towards the smoke in two lines,” Maat said. “And watch that footing!”

Two by two, Maat and Sara led the youth up to higher ground. A cannister of some sort was imbedded into a pit of gravel. Lloyd supervised the middle of the column, having enlisted a particularly responsible-looking child to help. Sam and Kur stayed in the back, on the lookout for any potential attackers.

“Keep going,” the witch’s voice echoed.

The second puff of smoke was coming from up a hill. Maat tested the slope, then gave an all-clear for the group to climb up. It wasn’t so steep they’d need a rope or anything; their mysterious benefactor not only knew they were coming but prepped the path to be of a steep but middling grade even for children.

Up the hill, the smog started to clear up. The final marker was visible halfway along a sloping path up the cliff. The group moved at a jog up to a figure in hunched-over robes.

Three pools sat in a triangular formation around the pit they’d been crawling through. It matched the map perfectly but proved impossible to see down into the thick of it.

“You’ve all come early. Ahead of schedule. Good hustle.”

A unpracticed, scratchy, but upbeat voice came from underneath a bird-skull helmet. Sand-colored robes helped disguise the creature amidst the hills and smog of the fumaroles.

Maat’s first instinct was some sort of camouflage; the witch had been cloaked in green during their brief encounter amidst the Stormheaths glens. But this illusion was dispelled when the witch rose to her feet. The robes stretched out to reveal plain woven fabric, this time a dusty sandy color. No magic, no glamor. Just camouflage.

“Your pursuer is over there.” The witch pointed, casting a long shadow accentuated by the sun at their back.

The spy glass was of little use amidst the dust and smoke. But the gang had an advantage here on the high ground.

The Warden and a small cadre were stumbling through the loose gravel of the valley with their four-legged terrestrial lizards. The pursuit posse was down to four; the rest must have either given up and turned back, or else been washed away.

“These lizards are not native to the island.” The witch said offhand. “Good nose, though; rather, good tongue. They’ve been tracking you since the headwaters. Was hoping the acrid scent would draw them off. No matter, they’re heading right into the blast zone.”

The Warden’s constant barking of orders carried far over the natural bowl-shaped terrain. The mass of shadows looming over the hill now flowed together. From below, it would seem like heavy cloud cover.

“C’mon into the middle,” the witch whispered.

“Go.”

The Warden kicked his lizard, urging it to find a scent.

“Go...”

The remaining posse lingered behind, perhaps sensing something was wrong. The Warden’s mount let out an excited bark; it had found a scent.

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“Showtime!”

The witch stepped on an odd protrusion at her feet. The land between the three ponds rumbled, then came alive with two dozen microbursts. The response from the pursuers was immediate and loud.

“Hehe. Stinkbomb.” The Witch said, her eyeless bird-helm staring at Maat.

“Get out,” groaned one mercenary.

“By the forge, the smell!” said another.

“Don’t you go anywhere!” yelled the Warden, holding his nose. “Keep pressing.”

Next, the witch pulled an oblong wooden contraption out of her cloak. She tossed it off the cliff, where it made a low, mechanical droning sound of wood clicking on wood as it wafted through the air like a thistlewood seed. The noise drove the lizards into a frenzy, and they hastily retreated, dragging the posse away.

Only the Warden remained, having dived from his mount. The noise and smell were too much even for him, and he stumbled back the way he came. The Warden let out a foreign swear as he fell into a smoldering pool, scalding his leg up to the knee.

“That takes care of that.”

The Witch turned to the children, the youngest of which fluctuated between cowering and a cautious curiosity. With one unceremonious motion she removed her bird helm, revealing a rounded face with puffy cheeks and instantly identifiable round earlobes. Two bulbous black lenses were strapped over the bridge of her nose, kept in place by a strap that disappeared below an unnaturally blonde hairline.

“She has no eyes!” said one of the children.

“They’re called welding goggles.” The witch pulled the contraption up, revealing the standard brown eyes of an outlander. “Sun’s blinding up in the mountains.”

“Who are you?” Lloyd asked.

“Friend of your father. All your fathers.” The witch brought out a hand. “Call me Rita. Rita Morello.”

The youngsters gazed at the hands as if it were an alien object fallen from the stars. Maat at least recognized it as a handquake -- some old Outlander greeting from his father’s generation. He quaked the hand back in return with an exaggerated, oscillating shake.

“Close enough,” Rita the Witch said. “You likely have a dozen questions. What say we get you out of all this toxic dust before we get too deep into the conversation here. I’ll treat you to supp.”

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The Witch of the Northern Fumaroles, or rather, Rita Morello, Kin to Outlanders, led the children into a disguised yurt not far from the bottom of the spire. Desert-colored fabric scheme camouflaged the tent amidst the surroundings as just another rock.

“Come in, come in,” Rita said.

Within the tent there were tables hand assembled out of jagged highlands wood. Half-assembled cannisters sat on tables dead center in the yurt.

“Just place those spent flares over there.” Rita waved vaguely at the table. “Spent days working on those things and they’re one-time use only. Would like to recycle them.”

The near adults of the group put the signal flare drums on the ground near these tables. Other tables along the perimeter were cluttered with all manner of trinkets and vials.

Rita rooted through a woven reed chest on the floor, not unlike those made in the Stormheaths. She pulled out packs of supplies in waterproof bags.

“There you go.” She handed out supplies to random children. “Going to have to split them but should make a nice snack. Should have some full canteens somewhere around here.”

The food snacks turned out to be dried jerky. Enough to tide all but the pickiest children over.

“Rest of this stuff is chemistry,” Rita said.

“What’s chemistry?” Lloyd asked.

Rita spun her hand around in the air, trying to think of an example. “A virulent outlander magic that makes things explode. Spent the last decade trying to find a suitable substitutes to mix into gunpowder. Local bird droppings don’t quite contain suitable levels of potassium nitrate.”

Sara and Sam nodded. Maat nodded too, pretending to understand what was going on.

“It’s more than just explosions; it describes the world in base components. This island was placed here in an unorthodox manner. Set up shop here to investigate the mystery of these non-volcanic fumaroles. Thought it would be helpful to determine how local physics works.” Rita pointed off in Maat’s direction, though she was concentrating on some gadgets. “Your father agreed.”

Sara put a balled left-hand fist in one hand then smacked it against her open right. “Oh! This is about how you – no, the Outlanders, I mean, we – whatever. This is all about how the Quarterchief’s clan came to this island.”

“Uh, something like that.” Rita said, deadpan. “I’ve been heading back to base camp every few months to pick up new food supplies, share some knowledge about what I’ve learned. Mike’s generation was all a bit older than me, see? And The kids – you fellas – were still toddlers by the time I first got situated up here. Let the elf girls raise you all, I’ll come in and be your cool aunt later.”

Maat studied the strange woman. She looked about thirty-something, younger than Hector or Michael by about a decade. Indeed, as Outlanders go it was either pushing forty or a half-clan Outland-stormland mix who was freshly an adult or younger. Nothing in between.

“Cool aunt.” Rita said again, then snorted. “Witch thing was mostly improv. Had to keep the kiddos from wandering too far north. It was your dad’s idea.”

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Secondhome’s self-proclaimed cool aunt restocked various gadgets, refilled her own canteen from a purified supply bag, then led the group along a series of high ridges up and out of the fumaroles.

“As I was saying, these fumaroles are not caused by volcanic activity. No moving plates, no continental shelfs.” Rita motioned up at the cosmos, the green sky and many moons of late afternoon still hidden behind an orange haze. “Course looking up, why would it work like that?”

“Ah, clearly. I understand everything,” Maat lied.

Rita ignored all requests for elaboration. “Most I can figure; these fumaroles were formed by the subterranean thrashings of some mighty flame djinn. Still piping hot down there. Might as well be a magma chamber, really.”

The group walked along helpfully arranged planks denoting safe, high ground. With a guide the trip across the remaining two-thirds of the fumaroles took mere hours. Navigating the isle was always faster with a guide. Maybe that would stymie the invading interlopers.

At first the occasional, jagged bush popped out of the acrid soil. Then before long the boiling pools were replaced with placid streams through an arid environment. The miles-high mountains separating the southern, rainy coast of the Stormheaths from the rest of the island were at their back.

“Ah, the plains,” Rita announced.

Sam picked up a clump of soil and ran it through his hands. Even though he’d been born in Secondhome, for a plainswalker, this central valley had a certain ancestral appeal to it.

Duly, Maat noted that this was another milestone; another furthest point he’d ever been from home.

A wide, flat expanse opened before them, pocketed with occasional thickets of trees. From this distance they blended into a green-white morass. The path morphed into a worn but functional road – dozens of arm-lengths wide, far too large for Rita, or even the entirety of Secondhome working together, to build themselves.

“Ah, just like home,” Rita said. “Maybe not as humid. If we’d landed here, never would’ve known that were even lost. Well, until someone looked up and noticed the moon was three times the size and moving at a horizontal.”

Indeed, with the mountains no longer obstructing the heavens, the movements of the sun and moon parallel to the worldplain could be more easily seen. The moon would be obstructing the sun’s path soon, cutting days short by a couple hours.

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