As Tenthé walked along, the Horde reluctantly parted to let him pass. He was now so far from the front that only the rare bolt would flash by, and none came close to hitting him. The warriors surrounding him weren’t happy about his presence, but had found that if they didn’t move out of the way, the ghostly figures shielding Tenthé snatched them up and tossing them a goodly distance. A number of Words kept pace, yelling for everyone to keep trying, no matter how futile.

Once he got close, the Mentor was easy to pick out of the crowd, being half again as tall as the typical warrior. He stood, watching as Tenthé approached, quite calm, unlike everybody else.

Tenthé halted a couple of paces away and looked up, and up, and then, even more up. The Mentor was huge! Idly, Tenthé noted he was similar to the Lady, in that he paid his own homage to the god of nose hairs. She might have him on size, but just barely. Not as tall, but a good deal wider.

Going with his standard, Tenthé greeted the Mentor. “Hey.”

“Hello, small man,” the Mentor replied. “You have made quite an entrance. May I inquire as to what you desire?”

“Oh. I thought we could talk over a few things. Like, why you’re here, and what you expect to do. You know, nothing much.”

“And why would I want to discuss anything with you?”

“Well, to me, it kind of looks as if you’ve got a standoff here, and that can’t be good for either side. Both of you whittle each other down for no gain.”

“We’ve only been here for a couple of sixdays, everything’s just started. We’re still feeling each other out.”

“Huh. Is that so? In the City, they think you’ve been here for a year or more. The Dreamer’s been playing around with time.”

“Is that so? Why would he do that?”

“No idea. I’m just a kid. They don’t tell me that sort of stuff.”

“Oh, I must protest. You certainly aren’t ‘just a kid’. I don’t know of anyone else who could have walked through what you did without gaining even a scratch. A Sage would be hard-pressed to withstand what we and the City threw at you.”

“Well, it wasn’t that easy. I had to change my shields a few times.”

The Mentor chuckled, “Oh no! You were inconvenienced enough that you had to change your shields! About that. I’ve never seen anyone with two shields, let alone however many you have. It is quite intriguing.”

“Uh, okay.”

“So, what are your demands?”

“What?”

“I assume you are asking for our surrender. Even though I am at a loss to explain why the City was shooting at you. Some sort of ploy, at least that is what my Words advise me. Personally, I am not sure I understand what is going on.”

“Yeah. I know what that’s like.”

“Um… so. The terms?”

“Ha! You don’t seem to understand. I’m not here to demand your surrender.”

With this, the Words surrounding him prepared spells and weapons. Obviously, they were expecting something bad.

The Mentor put up his hand. “Let’s hear him out,” he stated calmly before returning to study Tenthé.

“If you aren’t here to ask for my surrender, then what are you here for?”

“Nothing much. I’m here to help you take the City.”

At that, there was silence from the crowd surrounding him.

After a moment, the Mentor asked, “Don’t mind my skepticism, but why would you want to help us? Obviously, you’re one of the powers in this City, although we had no information that someone like you existed. Both things don’t make sense.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Thats ‘cause I really am a kid. I lived here, sure, but that’s all. I wasn’t anything big. The Turtle God and I don’t get along too good, and I’ve only met the Dreamer once. What they did, though, was hurt my friends. I wanted it all to go back to how it was, but they can’t do that, so I decided I’d make them pay.”

“Well… that is pretty immature. What about the innocent people? Not that I care, really. Just idle curiosity.”

“For the most part, I don’t care about them either, but then, neither does Turtle or the Dreamer. I figured having them lose to the Horde would be a normal way to reset the City and start over. I could burn it to the ground, but last time I did that, things didn’t turn out how I wanted, so I thought I’d try something different.”

“Last time? If you don’t mind my asking, where was this? You aren’t that old, and I don’t know of a City around here being sacked where we weren’t the ones doing the sacking.”

“Oh, yeah. The Drea… uh, I mean, for some reason, I don’t get old. I don’t change at all, but I can learn stuff. Other people say I’m ancient. Like, forty, or something, but I’ve been thinking that if you add in how many times I have died, then those other lives make me even older. By a lot.”

“You’ve died before, have you?”

“Yeah. It’s a pain.”

There was a little commotion going on behind him. He’d been watching, and if he had to guess, he would say that the Words were about to try something. Took them long enough.

With no warning, except for not really, a number of the Words leaped on his shields, forcing the spectres to respond. One of the Words twisted himself in a way Tenthé wouldn’t have believed was possible, and slipped past the apparition reaching for him.

The Word in question had his own version of quick time, so, faster than normal, he shoved his hand at Tenthé, yelling, “I’ve got…”

Tenthé had already sped up, which made the Word look like he was barely moving. The Mentor had also gone into quick time, nearly matching Tenthé, but appeared somewhat dismayed when Tenthé flashed a smile his way.

Tenthé sped up even more and, as the Word’s hand clamped onto his shoulder, he heard a long drawn out: “… you now!”

As his hand touched him the Word fired off a spell to convert him to Horde. It streamed into his buffer, where Tenthé took the time to examine it. The spell was shockingly like the Dominator spells, forcing involuntary acceptance of changes, but in addition to the mental directives, this one also contained a physical component.

Tenthé modified it a bit. Well, actually, completely, and sent it back.

What the surrounding Horde saw was the Word leaping on Tenthé, yelling, “I’ve got you now!”, and then clamping his hand on Tenthé’s shoulder.

At this point, it deviated from expectation as the Word was quickly changed into another Tenthé, who landed on the ground and turned to look at the Mentor with an expression of annoyance matching that on the face of the other Tenthé.

“Well. That didn’t work,” the Mentor stated calmly.

“For my next trick,” the probably original Tenthé replied, “I’m going to eradicate everyone here.”

At this, he conjured a spark before him, where it hovered, hissing and spitting. At this point, most of the nearby Horde found a reason to be elsewhere.

“They move fast,” Tenthé observed.

The Mentor had lost a little of his poise. “How is that possible?” he asked. “No-one has that much power!”

If a question never needed an answer, that was it. Mutely, Tenthé stared at the Mentor.

“Why are you even talking to me?” the Mentor breathed. “With something that, you could end us all.”

“Really? No, this takes a lot of effort to generate and there are a whole bunch of you. I could destroy some of you. True, it would be a big some, but nowhere near all.”

The Mentor wasn’t anywhere close to stupid. “You say ‘with that’. Does that mean you have other techniques?”

“What do you think?”

“I… uh, I would prefer to remain ignorant.”

“That’s probably best.”

“Tell me again, though. Why didn’t you unleash what you can do in the City? You could have caused enormous damage.”

“I don’t want to destroy the City. After you move on, the people who have fled need something to return to. Also, it has the Turtle God. I’ve never fought a god that strong, and I’m not sure how it would go. Plus, uh, other reasons. But those ones are good. For now.”

“You do realize that if we come to a deal, you’ll still have to deal with the Turtle, and maybe others.”

“Well, that’s why I need you. If you convert the worshipers…”

“Oh! I see! Then the god will be weakened. Hmm… not a bad plan.”

“Hush, don’t say it too loud… no one’ll believe you.”

The Mentor obviously had no idea what Tenthé was talking about.

Tenthé continued, “Do we have a deal?”

“You know? I think we do.”

They retired to the Mentor’s tent and talked through the night. Tenthé had pulled back his shields, but they were on a hair-trigger if needed. The Mentor also seemed a little jumpy being next to Tenthé, but, for individuals who didn’t entirely trust each other, they did their best to fake it.

Most of the time, the Mentor suggested ideas and had Tenthé comment on how he could help. It was planning, of a sort, and after a number of hours, an approach began to gel. The Mentor worked to refine it into something viable. Tenthé tried to help, but even he would admit that what he thought was a plan and what a real army needed was quite a bit different. Over the ages, he’d kind of forgotten how much he had to lean on others to prepare for a campaign.