Tenthé was running up and down various corridors, with no real destination in mind. It would be nice if he had some sort of plan, but so far, nope. Except to build a map of the area.
Leo was a few paces behind, doing quite well. He hadn’t even screamed when he’d been grabbed and dragged from the room. Tenthé had brought him since he knew things about the city that might come in handy.
The building was uninspiring. The whole thing was very orderly and boring, with rooms and corridors exactly where you would expect. He and Leo kept on the move.
Because of the regularity, it took very little time for Tenthé to figure out where everything was. One room he’d noted was the main command center, probably chock full of high testosterone individuals who were best to leave alone. For the moment.
A more interesting place was a suite of rooms strangely shifted out of the base plane. Tenthé decided that was where he would go first.
Getting there wouldn’t be easy. They would have to follow a very weird and twisty path up and down the planes to avoid the many traps and wards. This was the sort of thing Tenthé loved: doing something no sane person would ever think of. Which was also why it would work. Whoever had designed this building and its defenses was a very straight-line thinker, but what he was going to do was anything but.
With Leo behind him, he ran up to the place he had flagged as the starting point. Still moving forward, they phased out and started to sink into the floor. Tenthé focused and began the first spiral. It went downward, cutting through walls, floors, and people who were going about their day-to-day business. Tenthé hoped the people were all right, but the plan didn’t allow for him to stop and check. After some moves involving traveling in directions not possible in the normal world, they found themselves underground, moving beside pipes, occasionally having to dive deeper to avoid wards. On one of these times, they passed through burial pits containing quite a number of recently dead. Obviously, this city had its secrets.
Just after the last grave, the path went up, and they popped into the room he had been aiming for. Both he and Leo rose a few paces into the air on different trajectories. Tenthé landed on his feet, but immediately had to jump out of the way of Leo, who was skidding across the floor, scrabbling to stop himself. Which he did manage by crashing into the wall.
The two of them had fallen out of stealth, so Tenthé recast it. Trying to remain silent, he opened a door and beckoned Leo to follow. After a few steps into the next room, Leo skidded to a halt and stared at one of the many paintings.
“Is that a Boccelli? Yes! Yes I do believe it is,” Leo gasped
Not surprisingly, Tenthé had no idea what he was talking about. He was busy checking for wards, guardians, traps, and spells. The only other person present was an elderly gentleman sitting on a chair, sipping a hot beverage while looking in the general direction of where he and Leo were standing.
Leo broke away his gaze from the painting to look around.
“If I’m not mistaken, this is the chamber of the Dreamer,” Leo stated after a pause.
“I thought it might be,” Tenthé responded. “And I suspect the old guy is him.”
“Old guy?”
“Yeah. In that chair, there.”
“Chair?”
Tenthé couldn’t see the problem, so he came out of stealth and walked over to the Dreamer. He looked him in the eye.
The old guy’s expression changed when he realized Tenthé could see him.
“Uh, that shouldn’t be possible,” he said. “I control all this and I say you can’t see me.”
“Okay.”
“Or hear me.”
“Okay, again. To give you credit, my friend can’t see you.”
“Not the point.”
“Okay.”
The Dreamer peered back at Tenthé.
“Did you have something to do with that anomaly in the guest quarters?” he asked.
“What? The Eater? Nope.”
The Dreamer’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Obviously, he didn’t know what to make of that statement. After some sort of internal debate, he said, “I let your friend see me. So. What are your demands?”
“Demands?” Tenthé asked.
“We were told to expect a dangerous group of insurrectionists from the City Proper that we should detain them for our own good.”
“What?” Leo reacted. “Who told you? And how? No-one’s been able to get through for months.”
“Wait!” he exclaimed as realization dawned on his face. “We’ve been lied to! Someone is in contact with you! Who is it? The Turtle? The Lord Mayor? Maybe Tomas?”
The Dreamer wasn’t giving anything away, confident of his power. A magical pulse raced from him, strong enough that everyone felt it.
“I bet that’s to warn the Guards,” Leo guessed.
“Yes. They’ll be here soon,” the Dreamer confirmed.
“Um, you may not want to let them in unless you want a bunch of dead guards. Tenthé, here, is pretty hard on people who threaten him.”
“Tenthé? What! The Tenthé? I haven’t called for you!” The Dreamer peered closely. “Wait. There’s something odd, you don’t look right. Who are you?”
“Uh, I might be the Tenthé. For the City Proper. Maybe. I’m not really sure.”
Leo butted in again, “I’m not sure either, but, at least for our city, the hands of the Dreamer are turning out to be different from we were told. The two we have are a lot more independent than the stories say. I think Tenthé here might even be stronger than our Dreamer, in some ways. He just doesn’t want to use that power for anything. I mean, not for himself.”
At this, the Dreamer peered closely at Leo. “You? Aren’t you one of the LePoiterice brats? Leo, I would guess? The reports tell me you’re a spoiled loudmouth and a rebel.”
“Ha! Me? I’m not a rebel. Your spies suck.”
To give him credit, the Dreamer appeared to be thinking over what Leo said.
At that moment, a faint pounding came from the wall nearest to Leo.
The Dreamer spoke at the wall. “Oh, go away! I’m fine. Your missing captives are here, but I’m in no danger. I’ll let you know when you can come in. Get the head scholar, he can listen in… and stop hitting my wall. It won’t do any good, anyway.”
He turned back to Tenthé. “Since my information appears to be incorrect, why don’t you tell me why you’re here.”
“Um… okay. We thought the Horde would show up on our doorstep at any minute, but they didn’t, so we came here to find out why.”
“Yeah,” Leo added. “We expected to run across the Horde on the move and were ready to slow them down so the City Proper could have… even a little chance. But, instead, they’re camped here and have been for quite a while. We’re kind of confused, to tell the truth.”
“Hmm, really?” the Dreamer replied. “I assume you don’t know your city paid a lot to the Horde so they would remain here.”
Leo and Tenthé looked at each other. Although it was much as the Mentor had said, having it confirmed by the Dreamer was a bit of a revelation.
After a moment, Leo mused, “Huh. Do you mind if we talk it over with Elishua and the Envoy? Those two are pretty smart about this sort of thing.”
“I assume those are some of your group. I suppose it will be all right. In the meantime…”
A shiver crawled across Tenthé’s skin. The old guy was up to something. Tenthé wasn’t subtle, he allowed the diamond expand and the Dreamer jerked in his seat and yelled, “Wait! Stop!”
Leo spoke up, “Um, if I may? Don’t underestimate our little man here. Down deep, he’s pretty cold. He’s had to let thousands die and regrets it. But, not enough that he wouldn’t do it again. Just let us go, and everything can go back to how it was.”
Unfortunately, the Dreamer was an old man. It wasn’t likely he even knew what a quick decision was.
Leo must have had experience with the elderly, because, as the Dreamer prevaricated, he broke in. “I tell you what, sir. Why don’t you let the two of us return to the room where everybody else is. You send in some negotiators, and we’ll work out some sort of agreement.”
“And you’ll disable that… thing?” the Dreamer asked.
“No, probably not. But we can certainly discuss it,” Leo countered.
“Well, humph! You realize the instant I open the door, the Guards are going to rush in here and arrest you.”
“Just…” Leo began.
At that moment, the door appeared on the wall, burst open, and soldiers flooded through. They circled past Leo and Tenthé, surrounded the Dreamer, and hustled him from the room. As soon as he was gone, the guards opened fire, creating a blinding and deafening wall of offensive magic. It went on and on, but eventually died down, revealing… nothing. The soldiers looked around. There should be some remains, at least!
Tenthé let Leo know what happened as they moved away from the chamber, deep in stealth.
“What you can do is really amazing,” Leo gushed. “I didn’t realize it was possible to leave duplicates like that. Do you suppose they’ll negotiate once they figure out we’ve escaped?”
“No, but they will respect the Eater and wait, for now. They probably think you and me are dead. We have to go before anything else happens.”
Outside the apartment where the others were more than likely still detained, a large number of Guards had formed up so that there was little room to get through, even in stealth.
“Crap,” Leo cursed, forgetting they were trying to be quiet. The soldiers reacted, coming to life. “What do we do now?” Leo continued. “How do we handle this?”
“They started it,” Tenthé stated in a forbidding tone. An instant later, Leo found what he meant.
Tenthé plowed through the guards. In his wake, blood flowed and pieces of the men slid to the floor. He was so fast that none of them could react before they were sliced apart. He went through the open door, doing the same to the guards on the other side. To Leo, Tenthé’s speed was shocking.
Inside the room, four heads looked up with various responses. The kids and the Envoy found the state of the guards hilarious, while Elishua was obviously shocked. When Tenthé grabbed the diamond, the distortion dissipated. Then, he pushed and shooed everyone out the door and covered them in stealth. Racing as fast as possible through the building, down hallways and the guard stations, they burst out the main entrance. A few steps later, alarms began ringing. With Tenthé leading, the group raced across the parkland and entered an alleyway threading through the buildings around the city center.
After careening around a few corners, Tenthé slowed to a walk, giving the slower members a chance to catch their breath.
“What now?” Elishua panted. “Soon, there’ll be trackers out and they’ll find us pretty quickly.”
With the immediate threat contained, Tenthé put his assassin aspect back in its box, then began to root around in his pockets. He pulled out a bundle of twigs that crackled with some eldritch magic.
“Here,” he said. “Pet these when they come out, then spit on it, and let it go. Then do the same with the rest.”
No-one had any idea what he was talking about, but as they watched, and a midnight blue, six-legged, rat-thing dropped out of the bundle and scurried away. It happened a few more times until Yu grabbed one by the tail, cuddled it as it bit him, spit on it, and let it fall. Eventually, each of them had managed to personalize at least a few of the creatures.
“These things are magic resistant and nearly impossible to poison,” Tenthé explained. “They breed like crazy and soon the City is going to have a bit of a problem. Each of the ones you marked will seem to be you. It’s a defense they have.”
Tenthé fired off a small fireball. When it hit the rat-thing, the fire fizzled out and ran off like water. There was a slight stink of burning fur, but the critter kept running. A little irate, but not much inconvenienced.
“Oh, the city is going to love you,” she told Tenthé. “Everything we’ve seen here so far is tidy, organized, and ever so clean. Neat freaks and magic rats. Always a good combination.”
Now that they had recovered somewhat, the group veered off at an angle to their initial path. Tenthé hid the bundle under a sewer grate as it continued to spew rats.
Stolen story; please report.
He ran on, but shortly later, slid to a halt next to a detached house with a For Sale sign. He jumped the gate, disabled the feeble ward and forced open the front door. Everyone followed.
“I think we can wait here for a while,” Tenthé said. “We have to talk, because… to tell the truth, I’m not sure how to get out of the city.”
Elishua was staring at him. “What?” she asked. “I’ve been studying espionage and sneaky tricks for quite a while and you keep pulling things out of your butt I’ve never heard of. Where the hells did you get your training?”
“Uh, the second pool. I told you. The assassins.”
Elishua just stood there.
“What?” she squeezed out.
“Yeah, I traded magic I knew, so they’d teach me stuff. I got to be good enough that they tried to kill me. They only managed it a few times.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why are you two wasting time!” the Envoy yelled. “Stop screwing around and help us figure out what we’re going to do! With this city geared up like it is, how the Hells can we get out without having a running battle with everybody and their dog!”
She had a good point. The old notion of wearing a hat and faking an accent to sneak past the guards at the gate never worked in real life. Given time, Tenthé was sure he could find a way through the wall, or even bring some of it down, but instead…
“Uh, I have an idea, but you guys might not like it.”
Just then, the noise outside grew. A quick peek showed the streets were busy, with soldiers everywhere. Very soon, they’d start searching door to door.
“So, what’s this bright idea?” the Envoy asked, challenging Tenthé. “There’s no more time, and we didn’t make any friends, leaving as we did. They won’t even try to take us alive.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll deal with it, if it comes to that,” Tenthé stated. “But I made a promise to myself that if there is any way to solve things without wrecking everything, I’d do it.”
No-one, not even the kids knew what to say to that. It didn’t seem possible, but so far, Tenthé hadn’t ever lied about his capabilities.
Elishua decided to intervene. “Ah yeah. Great. Let’s leave annihilation as a last resort. So, you have something in your bag of tricks so we can sneak past the guards? Some sort of super stealth, or disguise, or whatever?”
“I know how to hide us with a very good stealth,” Tenthé stated. “But, for it to work best, you can’t be touched by anyone outside our group. Most of the time, when I cast it, I make myself lighter and travel over what I have to. Crowds and such.”
“But, there’s a problem. My floaty spell came from the Pools and I can’t cast it on someone else. If the Magister was here, we could use her spell, but I don’t know it.”
Elishua wasn’t ready to give up yet. “Tell me more about your spell,” she asked Tenthé. “Does it work on inanimate objects? And, if so, would it be strong enough to hold up me, if I hung on?”
Tenthé thought for a moment. “Huh. That’s a good idea. Let me see.”
A bit later.
“Okay, this almost works,” Tenthé stated. The rock he’d enspelled could hold a person, even Elishua. And fortunately, everyone’s armor had reinforced places where spell crystals could be attached. So, currently, Elishua, the Envoy, and Leo were bobbing around the ceiling, with their arms and legs dangling down. It was kind of funny looking, but that position kept them from turning upside down, most of the time.
That left the kids, who had no easy way to attach themselves to the rocks. They’d tried everything they could think of, but nothing was sufficiently reliable. Plus, as it turned out, the kids were resistant to the spells used to glue things together. Short of having the others carry them, Tenthé had run out of ideas. How to stick rocks to creatures from faery wasn’t something he had ever needed to know, until now.
Behind him, the kids had their heads together, whispering back and forth. After a moment, An spoke out. “Uh, it’s not a spell, but we have an idea.”
With that, he reached up and grabbed a rock bobbing in the air near the ceiling, looked at it, then popped it in his mouth and swallowed.
“Okay,” he said. “Now make it full strength, again.”
Not sure if this was a good idea, Tenthé gradually strengthened the stone.
An took a few hops and began to rise.
“Does it hurt?” Elishua asked.
“Yep,” An replied. “Well… not hurt, more like it is kind of uncomfortable. But not too bad. Perhaps the force spreads out a bit when it’s inside me. What do you think, Tenthé?”
“I don’t know. You’re the person being held in the air by a rock in his belly.”
“Try giving one to Yu,” An directed.
Tenthé enspelled another rock and watched as Yu swallowed it and began floating. When he hit the ceiling near the Envoy, he grabbed her leg and flung her across the room. With a hiss and yowl, she flipped around, landed with her feet on the wall, and leaped back onto Yu, raking him with her claws. His clothes were shredded, but Yu was untouched. He laughed and tossed her away again but, this time, when she intersected a wall, she used her claws to hold on.
After some experimentation, everyone could move. Some better than others. One of the big fears was put to rest when Tenthé explained he could adjust the stones to make them lighter or heavier so they wouldn’t float up into the sky.
Outside, the guards had started searching the houses so they were out of time.
Still learning, the group organized themselves enough to float up the stairs, aiming for the back of the house where there was a second-story balcony. The Envoy, who had adapted quickly, quietly opened the door and looked out.
“All clear,” she whispered. “Follow me.”
Tenthé cast his stealth, and the Envoy leaped to the roof of the next house. She made it look easy. Unfortunately, while she was a natural, the others weren’t. The kids ended up passing over their target and arcing down onto the house after that. And their landing wasn’t exactly perfect. One of them rebounded, out of control, but the Envoy managed to leap up and jump off him to force him back down onto the roof. She landed on another house not far away, then returned.
Elishua’s first attempt was not as bad as the kids’, but she didn’t push hard enough and fell short. That meant she hit the side of the house and had to pull herself up to the roof. Leo was nearly as adept as the Envoy, turning out to be unexpectedly well coordinated.
Tenthé gave the group a few seconds to recover, and on they went. There were a few mishaps where people missed their handholds, plus one rescue when An left himself spinning in the air, but slowly everybody got the hang of it, and were soon advancing at a good clip over streets teeming with troops.
Tenthé sent the Envoy ahead. She directed them around a few roofs where sentries were posted, and in a short time they were huddled together on a rooftop beside the square containing the main gate. Which was open, allowing people through, with one small problem. Troops were everywhere, searching everyone and everything.
“Our idea of jumping to the wall over the gate and sneaking through, then climbing up the outside wall is still good,” Tenthé whispered. “The square and the tops of the walls are covered in traps, and I’m pretty sure these soldiers won’t fall for any sort of distraction. All it’ll do is tell them we’re here. If an alarm goes off, I think the gate doors will swing shut. Maybe faster than you’d expect. That would be bad.”
He looked at the Envoy. “Gyri, how good are you at detecting wards?” he asked.
“Uh… why?”
“That’s great! So you do know how. I figured you could, so you could spy on the College.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t say anything!”
“Well.. you didn’t say no. That almost always means yes.”
The Envoy stared at him.
“Just jump over to the top of the gate,” Tenthé continued. “See if there are any wards. It’s hard to tell from here. Maybe… be careful.”
The Envoy turned to look at the gate. She hopped up and down a few times, then leaped.
Everyone watched as she arced across the square. For once, her leap didn’t look all that good. She was going to fall short. No-one breathed as she passed over the troops searching the outgoing traffic and landed in the middle of a large wagon just as it went through the gate. As it exited, she jumped up and disappeared behind the wall. A moment later she dropped to the roadway, pointing at the inside of the wall with one hand and choking herself with the other. Likely indicating an issue.
Then, she then leaped to the side, out of sight. Taking a chance, Tenthé canceled her lightness spell.
Tenthé turned to the others. “Yeah, I was worried about that. The wall is warded, so we can’t touch it. And, I don’t think all of us could do what the Envoy just did.”
Leo broke in. “Um, I’m pretty sure I can help. I can make the jump and I guess you can make it, but Elishua and the kids are a problem. The Envoy showed us that the road is safe. If you go first and wait in the gate, then I can throw everybody else and you catch them. Do you think that’ll work?”
Tenthé thought it over. It seemed do-able. “Sure. Do Elishua first. I’ll go with her and make sure everything is okay. Then toss the kids. If anything goes wrong… well, good luck.”
At this, Yu and An got excited. Leo looked at them. “Now boys, just do what we say. If the troops start firing, a lot of people are going to get hurt and it might be one of us. Me, in fact. If I die, I guarantee you, I’ll come back to haunt you.”
At this, the kids became more serious. Tenthé was impressed. Leo seemed to be getting better. At least, some of the time.
It looked odd as Leo picked up Elishua, who had her eyes screwed shut and was mumbling a prayer. Tenthé watched the gate and at an opportune moment, he signaled Leo and leaped. Once he was in the air, Leo launched Elishua. As they drifted across the square, Tenthé adjusted their lift to get the timing right. He landed on the road behind a cart that had just exited and canceled his lightness. Then Elishua arrived and he redirected her off to the side, outside the walls. No alarms went off. Tenthé moved to avoid being run over by the next cart.
He saw Leo raise Yu over his head, and after a moment, he threw him. Tenthé watched and adjusted the kid’s lift a few times to make sure he would arrive at the gate when there was a break in the traffic.
That made the Envoy’s leap even more impressive. Somehow, she’d done it with no tweaking.
The toss with An went much the same and immediately after he had tossed An, Leo jumped.
Unfortunately, just as Tenthé was tossing An to the side, a gust of wind swirled through the square and pushed Leo off course. He clipped the top edge of the gate, which caused a loud alarm to sound and the main gate slammed shut, smashing the approaching wagon and hitting Leo, who was spanked into the distance.
Tenthé found himself staring at the gate, barely a finger width from his nose. Even with all his protections, getting hit by that would have left a mark.
The troops outside the walls were approaching to investigate, forcing Tenthé into a hasty retreat, noting Elishua and the kids doing the same. Although, with their weight reduced, they were having trouble drumming up any forward momentum. Tenthé canceled their lightness, then ran in the direction Leo had gone.
Along the way he saw signs that Leo had careened off several things, but since he had so little weight, there wasn’t much damage. Well, not to what he hit. Eventually, Tenthé ran out of obvious clues and had to slow down to search more carefully.
When he was about to give up and use some more active magic, Tenthé heard a moan and looked up. Leo was stuck at the top of a tree, in plain sight. Obviously, something had happened to his stealth. Tenthé re-cast to hide him, and reduced his lift until Leo fell through the branches to the ground. It took a moment before he began to stir and make some sort of sense.
“Uhhh. What… are I, uh, where? Am.” Leo moaned, speaking semi-coherently.
“The gate hit you when it closed. You got some decent air and then crashed into a bunch of things. Pretty impressive. You okay?”
Leo went quiet and, after a moment, his own stealth snapped on. Tenthé cancelled his spell as Leo pushed himself up to his feet.
“Ready to go?” Tenthé asked.
“Good enough.”
The others were converging on them and once everyone was present, they moved toward the nearest stand of trees.
“What now, oh glorious leader?” Elishua asked.
“I’m not the leader!” Tenthé replied.
“Okay, what now, glorious not-the-leader?”
“Uh, we better get somewhere else. Once the gate opens again, we’ll be up to our armpits in soldiers, city guard, or whatever they call themselves. Let’s go!”
Tenthé took off down the road, with the rest following. Once they hit a crossroad, he turned onto it, and so it went for a while. Tenthé was doing everything he could to erase their trail. He noticed the Envoy doing the same.
Elishua and the twins were the weak points. They left the most evidence of their passage. Footprints, scent, and a bit of a magical trace. Even after reducing those signs, there was still a good chance the Dreamer could detect them, so it was best to be gone, as fast as possible. Fortunately, the city guard hadn’t tried to confiscate their stuff when they’d been taken, although it wouldn’t have mattered much, since that would have forced Tenthé to react sooner.
They kept running until it became apparent that Elishua couldn’t go any further. At that point, Tenthé lightened her again, formed a rope, and had her run behind him while he pulled. They had to get out of the area the Dreamer controlled.
They kept going for the rest of the day and into the night. Tenthé expected some sort of huge magical attack, but they made it to the edge of the fields and out onto the Wilds without incident.
Once they were hidden by a slight rise, everyone halted. The kids and Elishua crashed to the ground, panting and guzzling water. The others stood and watched, feeling some pity and a little smugness, to tell the truth.
Once the three had recovered enough, they huddled to discuss their next move. Being in the Wildlands encouraged huddling.
“Well… we don’t have our burros, so our return trip is going to be interesting,” Elishua stated.
“Yeah, and it’s pretty likely the soldiers or Horde will be on our trail,” Leo added.
An spoke up, “I hate to admit it, but Yu and I are low on food. We eat a lot.”
“Yeah, me too.” Elishua added. “And I don’t think I can to walk all the way back. At least, not at any speed.”
“Uh-huh,” Leo said. “Same for me. Maybe we can find one of the caches. I still have my map, but the nearest isn’t that close.”
“I have a bunch of food,” Tenthé said, “But I can’t math, so I don’t know if it’s enough. I’m low on water, though.
“So, should we sneak back and stock up?” Elishua asked.
“Probably not a great idea,” Tenthé replied. “The Dreamer’ll come up with some way to trap us, if we try. I think we got lucky to get away, so far.”
“Are we going to have to become desperados and raid convoys for their food and stuff?” Leo asked.
“Maybe,” Tenthé responded. “It’s an idea.”
“So… we have to sneak through the Wildlands and hold up people while the city guard and the Horde chases us. Not the life I had imagined,” Elishua complained.
“By the way,” the Envoy added, “What about the Magister? Any idea what happened to her? Wait… I hear something!”
In spite of being in stealth, mostly everyone felt exposed and looked around for somewhere to hide. Unfortunately, the area was pretty flat, with only a few tiny bushes. By now, the clop-clop of burros could be heard.
A few moments later, a voice called out. “Oh, there you are! I was worried I was going to have to search all night.”
It was Magister Grenville. Even though she wasn’t included in the stealth field, she rode directly up to them, followed by a number burros and mules.
The group rushed her, asking where she had been, how she found them, where she had obtained the animals and supplies, and a myriad of other things, all at once. She raised her hands, and the tumult died down.
“Now, now, I can answer later. We need to put some distance behind us. You’ll find food and water on the burros, so get on and we’ll do some riding before we talk.”
Tenthé was as flabbergasted as everybody else. Half the mounts were carrying supplies, the rest had saddles appropriate for the various riders. So, like the everyone else, he mounted and followed the Magister, who appeared to have a destination. They weren’t following a trail, but took random turns that didn’t appear to have any purpose. This went on until dawn, when fatigue forced them to stop.
Instead of talking, everybody except Tenthé and the Magister collapsed to catch up on their sleep, or at least, a few hours of it. The sun was overhead when the Magister made the rounds, kicking everybody awake.
After eating and downing some water, it was a slightly more energetic group that gathered around the Magister.
She started by scolding them, “Well… that was fairly poorly done. You didn’t have much of a plan. Fortunately, I laid some false trails to make the Guards think they were just about to capture you, so the Dreamer only got involved at the very end, but, by then, you were far enough away.”
As one, the group stared at the Magister in surprise. Normally, she seemed fairly… well, clueless.
“Don’t act so shocked. There are some advantages to living a long time and being a prophet. Sometimes the auguries line up and I can figure out what to do. I certainly suggest not going back or becoming bandits. The results aren’t good.”
“Um, why couldn’t you have told us some of this before?” Leo asked.
“It doesn’t work that way. Other things would have happened. This was one of the better outcomes. Don’t worry, though! There’s lots more I’m not telling you,” she added brightly before going on. “Now, that’s enough questions, we have to get moving. It’s best we stay off any of the usual trails, unless you want a battle with the city forces? I would suggest not, but I’ll leave it up to you.”
“Why would you say that? Let’s go. If we have to fight, so be it. But, if we can avoid it, we should. We have to get back and tell people what we’ve learned,” Elishua stated.
“Yeah, something screwy is going on,” Leo chimed in. “I want to find out about that, more than I want to fight.”
Tenthé sat back and listened to the desultory discussion that followed. He had his own issue to deal with. What the Magister had said was odd. Like it didn’t matter anymore what they did. A bit mystifying, but one thing this trip had taught him was she wouldn’t make it any clearer, no matter how much anyone bugged her. It didn’t matter, though. He’d smash face first into the answer in due time.
After a little more discussion that proved no-one had any other ideas, they were on their way. Leo was looking at his map, but it was of limited use now that they were off-trail. Was it safe? Probably not.
This was the Wildlands.