“Many pardons, Highness....”

The lady mother glanced up at the intrusion. The same soldier as last time– his sergeant must truly hate him. She ignored the terrified boy frozen in the doorway until she’d finished the report from the fighting front in Iskaria.

The general on the scene assured that they’d be in the capitol by solstice. Easy to say now. She’d see what he had to say when the time came. Perhaps he was confident, perhaps he thought her the sort to forget a promise. She’d think later on whether it was good to have generals who took such risks.

Once she’d finished, she carefully rolled the report and slipped it into its case and the case into the file cubby at the back of her work table. By the time she’d deigned to return her attention to the miserable soldier, he looked ready to wet himself. “What is it, soldier?” she made a token effort to modulate her tone.

“B-b-b-beggin’ your par-pardon, Highness,” he stammered. “B-b-but th-the l-lord Chamberlain wish-wishes you t-to know that the other m-magic ha—”

She was up and beyond him without waiting for him to finish, racing at the raw edge of propriety for the chamberlain’s office. No, she corrected herself, abruptly changing her path. Not there, the pool.

“Here, Majesty,” the journeyman who oversaw the pool called as she swept into the vast, dimly lit room high up in the tallest spire of the palace Niediel.

A spark flew from his fingertip, floating gently out over the vast pool of midnight black that was the room’s primary feature. The spark settled to the still surface a moment later, its light spreading through the water like swirling cream, illuminating a section of the pool depicting a place upon the world far to the west of the city of Elion. The pool master concentrated and three eighth year apprentices began to chant softly behind him, setting an ornate brass brazier to light virtually between his feet and quickly adding various pre-prepared powders.

The smoke which began to rise from the brazier was foul and thick, containing all the colors of the rainbow, it enveloped the journeyman before traveling out along his arm and thence along the path taken by the spark. Once it had reached the illuminated section of the pool, the smoke seemed to anchor itself upon the surface, leeching the colors and light up and out of the suddenly roiling liquid.

Five hundred times larger and fifty times brighter than its model within the pool, a scene formed from the smoke, wavering slightly, blooming into sharpness, and giving those within the room a view of an otherwise unremarkable section of the plain south and east of Bayel’s wood and due east of the Pelgan’s Cut thieve’s station.

The bodies of five Turaleean soldiers were scattered about within the vision in positions of violent death. They were covered in flies, and a prairie wolf was gnawing at a dead man’s guts, and by this, the queen mother surmised she was viewing the now.

The pool master opened his eyes and began a subtly different chant. The apprentices scrambled to throw different powders into the brazier while still feeding the original powders slowly into the tiny flame. The fog of smoke flowing along the arm of the journeyman thickened and shone pale salmon.

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The wolf backed away from the corpse and crouched, slowly slinking backward out of sight in the tall grass. The sun heeled over and backed along the sky while crows sailed tail first to land upon the corpses, cawing raucously at the invisible wolf. The crows fed for a time before hopping into the air, wings arched. At the far edge of sight, at the southeast boundary of the seeing, the rump of a tall palomino horse appeared. Then the scene froze.

“Where is the rest?” the queen mother demanded, voice strident.

The pool master fell clear of the time reversal spell, hastily waving an arm and spitting out the holding cantrip to keep the scene from dissipating. “Highness?” he looked up.

“The rest.” she repeated, glaring at him. “The remainder. That which has not yet been depicted. The fullness of the event.” She spaced her words evenly, hurling them at the hapless mage like crossbow quarrels.

“I Did not rush halfway across the palace to stand here and watch a horse’s arse wink at me! I could have seen that twenty times over without ever leaving the courtiers who surround my chambers!”

The pool master fell back a pace. “But Highness,” he stammered, awed by her anger. “This is all there is. It was only at this point the watching daemon arrived and began sending.”

She put hands to her hips and glowered wordlessly.

The pool master blanched. “M-majesty, the magic was only active for two or three hundredbeats. Time was required to gather sufficient spherecist reports to determine its precise location and to summon the daemon. More was required for the daemon to reach the place. We are fortunate to have gotten the short glimpse we did.”

The queen mother’s hand raised and the pool master fell to his knees, eyes squeezing shut, though he was hardly a squeamish man. But she held the bolt that would obliterate him. The rage was difficult to see through, but still she could force herself to see that revealing her power now, over nothing, would be pointless and dangerous. In any case, he would not easily be replaced.

The truth was that the creatures were maddeningly inconsistent, and thus difficult to pin down. The poolmasters were fortunate to have gotten the glimpse they had. So she waited. A hundred heartbeats it took for the pool master to open an eye.

“Save your miserable life,” she told him with quiet force. “Convince me that you are not an utter incompetent. Become one with that telling. I will know everything you can glean from its incompleteness, and I will know it by moonrise.” With her words still ringing in terrified ears, she turned and started back for her chambers.

The lord chamberlain waited until the echo of her footsteps had quieted and the apprentices had crept out from their corners before moving out of his own set of shadows. “Her Highness is in high temper,” he pointed out unnecessarily. “It must be worry over the absence of the king. Do your best, good Pentius, and I will see that it suffices.”

With a pause to examine the frozen seeing, he turned to the door out which the queen mother had stormed. Hand on the latch, he paused, turning back to the still shaking pool master.

“As a thought, you might contact the nearest military base and see if they’ve any soldiers gone missing lately.” Without awaiting an answer, he let himself out, hurrying for his offices and the flask of strong port hidden in his desk.

“M-Master Pentius?” one of the nervous apprentices ventured some hundredbeats after the Lord Chamberlain had gone.

“Mmm?” the journeyman grunted, eyes still glued to the sending.

“Where do you suppose they were going?”

Pentius turned his head slowly to regard the eighth year, his eyebrows going up.

“I mean,” the eighth year kept his head low. “There’s not much out there, is there? On the plain? Where could those who murdered the soldiers be off to?”

That, thought the journeyman, is a very good, possibly life saving question. “Alright, lads,” he squared his shoulders. Back to your duties, now. Let us see how far our little daemon can travel before its æther is expended."