Things were progressing slowly.

Despite their best efforts, they weren’t going to make it out of the City before noon. Not a complete surprise, none of them had traveled together before, meaning they had to iron out the details of who would ride where, on which mounts, and carry what.

The Lady’s kids had shown up outside the College, waiting in the stable where the kitchen tunnel ended. When Leo arrived with a retinue, there was a bit of a problem. The soldiers had the typical disdain for non-humans and were trying to intimidate the kids by shoving them around. When they didn’t budge, the soldiers tried harder.

Before it could escalate, Tenthé froze both sides in place, giving Elishua the chance to yell at them. She was quite good. Upon release, the groups separated and returned to doing their tasks.

The next issue that came up was Elishua’s size. It was a problem, according to the burros. After a few unsuccessful attempts to find a mount that would, or could, carry her, they decided a mule would be a better choice. Mules that could handle the Wilds weren’t as common as burros, so there was another delay to hunt down one, and a spare.

Much the opposite was true for the Envoy. She hated the burros. Fortunately, it was determined that she should have no problem running well enough to keep up. Doing so meant all her excess stuff had to be packed on a burro. More time was eaten up as the group decided out who would be responsible for what, since the Envoy didn’t want to have anything to do with the “filthy, stinky, loud, stupid poop machines”.

On the other hand, the Lady’s kids loved the burros and the burros loved them. The moment they were introduced to each other, the kids dropped what they were doing, jumped on, and took off, racing around the parklands, only to fall off and crash into things. Probably on purpose. Unexpectedly, the feisty animals would wait for them to get back on, then start off again at full speed. Fortunately, full speed for the burro wasn’t terribly fast, but they did manage to cover a lot of ground. When the burros grew tired, the kids confidently rode them back to the stable, showing they knew what they were doing all along.

That just left Tenthé, who’d never ridden in his life. Or, at least, not burros. There was something about him that his burro didn’t like. Currently, he and his burro were having a stare-down. This burro was the epitome of stubborn. Not entirely unexpected. Tenthé had no problem catching it and jumping on its back, the issue was staying there. The stupid burro had more tricks than Tenthé could believe: biting, spinning, rolling, suddenly backing up, brushing against things, including the other burros, who would then snap and rear, forcing him to jump off. Certainly, he could pound every and all of them into the ground, but that wasn’t a good solution. He had to be able to ride one.

Everyone was standing around giving him advice, but so far, none of it worked. Feeding the burro carrots had gotten his hand bitten. Slapping it had almost no effect and Tenthé concluded it had no brain to rattle. Holding on until the creature gave in had yet to reach the point where it gave in. Tenthé was becoming annoyed.

“Oh, this is so pathetic. Let me out. I’ll handle it,” Bear called from inside Tenthé’s cloak. “Burros and I have an understanding.”

Tenthé reached in, hauled Bear out, and put him down. Bear avoided the churned-up dirt and the pellets scattered about, marched up to the burro, stared it in the eye, and stated sternly, “Listen here Bucko, stop screwing around, we know how you… Urp!”

The burro had stretched out and scooped up Bear in its mouth, where it proceeded to chew industriously to find out if the funny little thing was edible. Edible, for a burro, covered a lot of ground.

“L-l-l-let g-g-go of me! You useless puddle of glue! H-h-h-help! Let go!” Bear squeezed out as the burro moved him around its mouth, chewing and covering him in spit. Finally deciding it wasn’t worth the effort, the burro dropped Bear into a fresh mound of poo, where it stepped on him, driving the toy deep.

“Ahhhh! This is disgusting! Get me out! I’ll skin you and make you into a coat! Get. Me. Out!” and so on in much the same vein. The onlookers weren’t able to help since they were incapacitated by laughter.

The burro walked away to munch on some grass, not at all worried by Bear’s threats.

Tenthé sighed. He had one more trick. He’d done everything he could to avoid it, but things had gone far enough that the delay was becoming an issue.

The creatures from his last Pool were bodiless, being completely mental constructs. With no bodies, they were cold, cold beings. They’d run him in circles for years before he figured out that none of what he experienced was real, and then slowly learned what he needed to know to take control. Because he was so different, he could never do exactly what they did, but he’d found other ways to accomplish the same things.

There was no other word for it: the inhabitants of that Pool were evil. They had no emotions except hate and a lust for power. To compete, he had to become evil, too. Many times, he stripped a screaming, shrieking mind down to its non-sentient core to employ in his studies. There simply wasn’t anything else to work with in that place.

Tenthé’d learned how to rip the mind apart and rebuild them as his minions, setting them against the armies of his opponents who were trying to do the same to him. He’d died and copied himself over and over, losing more of his emotions with each death, until he’d become as unfeeling as every other being on that plane.

When he eventually managed to escape, it took a long time for the Lady to bring him back far enough that he could feel again. He did everything he could to bury the whole experience, but the best he could manage was to make a pact with himself that he’d never go back to being that cold, dark being. It was something that haunted his dreams and darkened his soul.

Unfortunately, it looked as if his solid, pure resolve was about to be violated by the most stupid, stubborn burro ever to exist. They were late, there weren’t any more burros available, and Tenthé had run out of options that would leave the animal functional. And, he admitted to himself, he wasn’t about to be outsmarted by this cursed beast!

He took a deep breath, oriented himself, and allowed the mental structures to fall into place. It turned out to be easy. In fact, too easy. Shockingly so. The moment everything was done, he formed a map of minds that included the City and beyond. He resisted the temptation to dominate it all and focused on the burro. It had less ability for higher thought than a human, but did have an unexpectedly complex mind in other ways. There were aspects he wasn’t used to, such as emotions and other functions that didn’t exist in the creatures of the Pool, but it was trivial to discern how they operated.

He reached out and tweaked the feelings of the burro to make it think fondly of him. This should allow him to ride the beast and achieve a certain level of trust. He opened his eyes and found the burro’s head a handspan away from his own. When Tenthé put out his hand to stroke the bridge of its nose, it didn’t even try to bite him. A second burro came over and tried to shove the first one out of the way, and they started nipping each other. The stable boys hauled them apart.

He may have overdone it a little; affecting more than one of the animals. Fortunately, the rest of them ignored him. That was good. He really didn’t want to become their king.

He pushed the Dominator back into its cage, worried that as easily as it had come out, it was not as well contained as he had thought. That might become an issue. He’d made bad decisions in the past, and he was fairly sure he’d just done it again. All for a stupid burro.

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With the entertainment over, everybody finished what they were doing, and, surprise of surprises, they were ready to go.

Tenthé walked to the side of his burro and leaped on. This time, there was no sign of rebellion. He found he still had a weak mental link to his two burros, so he didn’t need reins, but he used them anyway. Mind control was a verytaboo thing in the City and no-one needed to know they had a Dominator in their midst.

Urging his mount over to the edge of the open area, Tenthé made a very athletic move and reached down to pluck Bear out of the trough where he’d been washing himself, cast a spell to dry him, and tucked him away in a permanent sleep. He would remain dormant for the trip since he was largely a liability. He was loud, had no diplomacy to speak of, no magic to contribute, and if there was a way to screw up a mission, Bear would find it.

Leo was handling his burro with no problem. It appeared he’d told the truth and really had been trained. As the group rode out, Leo’s men actually cheered for him. That was something Tenthé hadn’t expected.

They passed by the City Center and turned onto Gate street. As they went along, children waved and everyone waved back. In spite of his worries, Tenthé smiled.

At the gate, something went right, and the guards let them through without a hassle. In no time they were heading down the road leading to the mines and farms, then on into the Wilds.

Tenthé looked over his party. Everybody appeared comfortable and were moving well, but something was amiss. It took a moment, since his ability to count was marginal, but he was sure there was one more person than there should be. He slowly went down the list until he decided a cowled individual he couldn’t account for was trailing the rest of them. He slowed down until he was beside… her, he concluded.

She loosened her face covering, and Tenthé found himself staring at Magister Grenville.

“Hello Tenthé. Nice day for a ride, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Uh, yeah… but what are you doing here?”

“It seems I am supposed to accompany you. Don’t ask me why. It’s as much a surprise to me as you.”

“Um, are you sure you’re up to a trip like this?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been training for months. I wondered why, but here we are!” She smiled at him. Tenthé did note she seemed completely comfortable on her burro and had brought a remount.

“Did you bring supplies?” he asked. “We probably won’t have enough for another person.”

“Not a problem. I have everything, plus some things I’m not exactly sure why I need.”

“Um, okay. Good, I guess.”

Tenthé yelled for a stop and the group clustered around as he informed them that Magister Grenville would be coming with them. He introduced her to the Lady’s kids, as best he could, because they hadn’t told him their names. Everyone else knew her and were familiar with her reputation. He could see Elishua and the Envoy wondering if the older lady could keep up, but there was still time to send her back before they got too far.

With nothing more to say, they continued on. Not smoothly, though. Instead of enjoying the countryside, Elishua, Leo, and the Envoy were arguing about who should do what, where the riders should be, and a myriad of details. While they carried on, the Lady’s kids ranged around, jumping off their burros to look at anything that caught their attention, covering twice the distance of everyone else. Magister Grenville was the most relaxed, riding with little effort as she chewed on a stalk of grass. For the moment, the spares were untethered and trailing the other burros. Even though he wasn’t trying, Tenthé could dimly pick up their thoughts. They were fresh and had no problems following the others. He’d have to see how they fared as the day wore on.

Although it could have been worse, this was still not the best of starts. They’d have to get their act together before entering the Wildlands. He sighed and directed his burro to edge up beside Magister Grenville.

There was a brief silence as they both thought about things.

“Did you have any clue why you’re here?” Tenthé asked.

“Not exactly. I knew there was a trip in my future, as clichéd as that sounds, but not when or why.”

Just then, the ongoing argument between Leo and Elishua elevated to name-calling. Tenthé listened in, because it was impossible not to, and rated them as fairly even in style and originality.

The Lady’s kids, sensing a fight in the same way that one senses water by falling in it, rushed over to the two and tackled them off their mounts, throwing Elishua around like she was nothing and dodging Leo’s spells. Not that anything he could do would hurt them, other than singe their clothing. The Envoy yowled and leaped onto the pile. Not exactly helping matters.

Tenthé, Magister Grenville, the burros, and the two mules stood back and watched the melee. A wide range of spells were being tossed around, although everyone avoided using any serious magic. There were no obvious winners: if someone executed a move that was particularly effective, or cast a telling spell, then the others would gang up on them and any semblance of order was lost.

“This might be regarded as a small setback,” Magister Grenville ventured.

“Yeah. If I wasn’t in such a hurry, we could have gone through some training,” Tenthé responded.

“Are you going to do anything?”

“I didn’t have any plans.”

“I’m not sure this will resolve itself any time soon. You may be forced to.”

“I have a very bad history. When I’m in command, more often than not, the only one who survives is me. I was hoping we would all get along.”

An unexpected pairing of the Envoy and one of the Lady’s kids were doing a good job of keeping any organized competition from forming: the kid would bowl the others over as the Envoy pounced and distracted them. The wrassling surged back and forth. Tenthé was glad that no-one had resorted to any truly dangerous magic. He would have to step in if that happened, and he tended to be heavy-handed.

Unexpectedly, Magister Grenville was the one to intervene. She cast a spell that Tenthé didn’t recognize, and everyone floated up into the air, surrounded by bubbles of anti-magic. It was effective, he’d have to ask Magister Grenville how the spell worked. The anti-magic wouldn’t stop any serious spells, but was sufficient in this case. One by one, everybody calmed down, except for the Lady’s kids, who thought the whole thing was great fun.

Magister Grenville addressed the floaters.

“Blah, blah, act your age, blah, blah, get it together, blah, blah, idiots,” she said in a world-weary tone. And, yes, she actually said blah, blah.

Then she canceled her spell and everyone plummeted. The kids impacted hard and laughed, the Envoy landed on her feet, Elishua manifested a shield to ease her landing, while Leo’s armor stiffened and stopped him from being seriously hurt, although he’d probably have a few bruises.

When Tenthé addressed them, everybody found it oddly difficult to ignore.

“Tonight, we’ll work out a proper order to follow. I’m not sure what to expect once we reach the Wilds, but this sort of thing won’t help. Be prepared to share your ideas so we can figure out what we need to do. We’ll also have to set a watch, so save your energy. You’ll probably not get enough sleep while we’re on the move.”

With these terse instructions, he directed his burro to lead the way, and everyone scrambled to follow.

Magister Grenville rode up beside him. “What did you just do?” she asked, concern apparent in her voice.

Tenthé didn’t feel like lying, not entirely. “This trip woke something I wanted to keep buried.” He paused, then resumed, “That’s not really right. I’ve been thinking about it. The way I can stay cool most of the time… It was probably part of that.” He faded off.

After it became obvious that he was done, Magister Grenville commented, “Brief, and yet, not very informative.”

“Yeah.”

Tenthé felt torn. He wanted to release his big, bad secret, but once he said it, there was no going back. If he decided to tell someone, Magister Grenville would be it. She was somehow connected to bigger things, but… there was no way. If she had a vision or figured it out, he’d deal with it then. But for now, he’d keep quiet. Like he always did.

He glanced at her. As usual, she was and wasn’t paying attention, seemingly completely clueless. Maybe she knew or had guessed? Maybe not?

After that, it was a subdued group that plodded down the road, each of them keeping their own counsel. When they stopped for the night, the majority groaned when Leo told them they had to tend to their mounts first. The Envoy smirked until Tenthé informed her that unless she wanted to return to the City, she was responsible for the burro carrying her stuff. The smirk returned as she pointed out that even so, she still had one less animal to care for than everyone else.

Later, as Tenthé lay in his blankets, he thought about Isabell. When he’d spotted the extra person, for a second he’d thought it was her. Which brought up the question of where she had disappeared to. There wasn’t much he could do now, but he pondered the possibilities before he dozed off.