A hand clapped over Sarien’s mouth, cutting off his scream. He flailed, trying to get away, before realizing it was Tomford who was trying to silence him.

Sarien relaxed and let him tend to the wound on his arm. The loss of blood made him dizzy, and the heat from the hot sun didn’t help. Sweat pooled on his chest and dripped down Sarien’s back. His face was wet, and he hoped it was with sweat and not tears.

A small cold shiver ran through the oppressive warmth when Tomford healed him. When Tomford took his hand off his mouth, his lips tasted of salt. “What happened?”

“We’re not alone,” Tomford whispered. He pointed down the hill. A camp sprawled in the wide valley. A forest spread out behind them and off to their right a road ran from within the forest down to an encampment and beyond.

The heat was sweltering, and Sarien removed his coat. The sun dominated the sky, bigger than what he was used to.

“Where are we, Sarien?” Tomford asked. His eyes didn’t leave the valley, and Sarien followed his gaze to see several clusters of men moving around the camp. Soldiers.

“I don’t know. We went through the opening, I think.” The huge severed arm beside them in the grass started to sizzle, and before Sarien could register the thought, it melted into a black puddle of goo. “There’s a gate down there with the army. I can feel it. This one is gone.”

“Can you open it back up?” Tomford wasn’t whispering now, but he still kept his voice low.

“I’ll try.”

Sarien closed his eyes, focusing on the power in the left side of his body. It reacted immediately to his mental touch, as if eager to be used despite him having strained it mere moments before. The question was how he was supposed to use it to actually open a gate of his own.

He’d sent that luison away without one. That was the closest he’d come before, and Sarien figured it was as good a place as any to start. He wondered if it would be easier if he thought about a place he knew, his home, but the estate where he grew up didn’t feel like his home anymore, especially not with his father gone. The tower definitely wasn’t home, and painting a picture in his mind of their last campsite wasn’t enough to even convince himself.

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So, Sarien thought of his father, of his search for the man, and of Goslin and the others.

When the image was firm in his mind, he released the power from within him out into the external world. Sarien didn’t have to look to know that light swirled in the air before him.

“What in the emperor’s name are you doing?”

Tomford was on the man before Sarien opened his eyes. “Sarien!” he yelled, holding down a struggling figure. “What is this?”

“Hey, get off me! Wait. What the—?”

Sarien let the power go with reluctance and hurried over to the edge of the forest, where Tomford struggled with someone nearly half his size. “What’s going on?”

“Look at him!” Tomford said, his voice filled with apprehension. Sarien got close enough to see the man’s face and could feel his own eyes widen in surprise. It was a young man, that much was obvious, and his hair was short and dark brown, almost black, matching his eyes.

That’s where the wrongness started. The eyes. They were much too large. Sarien always heard people commenting on his own eyes, how large they were, but this was something else. It didn’t help that they were open wide in shock. His mouth was open too, like he wanted to scream but kept himself in check. It was wide, much larger than a human’s.

“What the hell are you?” the man asked, the larger mouth giving his speech a deep tone. “Are you sick?”

Sarien shook his head, trying to think. “What are you?”

“Is it some kind of monster?” Tomford asked, not letting go. After their encounter with the trickster monster, it seemed that Tomford wasn’t taking any chances.

“Who are you calling monster, monster?” the young man asked. Then he glanced behind them, to where the camp was. “Never mind that now, you’re in deep trouble. You have to hide, we all do!”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” the man cried. “You just tried to travel! Right outside a war camp of all places! They’ll be coming for you! Any minute now!”

Tomford glanced over his shoulder. “The monster is right, Sarien. People are coming. Are they your friends, monster?”

“You’re the monsters! And no, they are not my friends! Come with me if you want to live through the day!”

“Hey! You there!” A voice called out.

Tomford and Sarien got to their feet and turned to face a small troop of men. There were four soldiers with three carrying spears standing behind one that held a sword. The armor they wore looked to be crafted from leather, except it was black. They wore no helmets and the three at the back were shaved bald. The swordsman’s hair was cut short.

They all had the enlarged eyes and wide mouths, like the man who’d surprised them. Sarien looked back to the ground, but their captive was gone.

“I am the commander of this sector. State your business or I will brand thee human spies and conspirators against our emperor. May he rule all worlds!”

The speech pattern made it a little difficult to follow, but Sarien got the impression that they were in trouble. He glanced at Tomford, who looked back at him. What kind of mess had they fallen into?