Thomas Thompson saw the village in the distance. He paused to take stock. He thought he could make it there before the night fell. He wondered how they would act towards him. Maybe they would be friendly once he made it clear he was passing through.

He had a clear marker for where he had to go. All he had to do was get through the village without trouble. He could start cross country to reach the cave where the Princess was waiting. Once he had caught up with her, maybe he could find out enough to deal with getting home, or finding a permanent place to stay in this new world.

He didn't know enough about this world to make clear decisions. Just moving had to be enough for right now. Once he knew more, maybe he could figure out how to get home. Then he would have to come up with an explanation for how he had survived his craft blowing apart.

Tom walked along, spotting people going about their lives. He thought they turned away from him. Maybe they didn't like strangers after all.

What did he have to do to get food? Would they even sell to him? The way everyone turned away from him, he was looking at people who didn't want to deal with him.

Did the village have an inn, or a tavern? If he found that, he could try to bargain for food with what he had taken from the boat. The pirates wouldn't mind paying for his trip.

He walked on, entering the village proper. He saw a general store and a restaurant next to each other. One of those might be what he needed to get information, and to move on.

He decided to try the store first. There might be some equipment he could secure to help him. All he had on his person was his staff and what he had taken from the boat after he had escaped the tower.

“How can I help you?,” said the man behind the counter. He was thin, and had a pumpkin complexion. Olives for eyes glared at Tom as he approached the counter.

“I'm passing through and I was wondering if you could tell me about places north of here,” said Tom. “I'm new here, and have walked up from the ocean.”

“Came in on a boat?,” said the store man. He frowned at Tom's nod. “If you keep going north, in about a seven day, you'll see the Tower of the Fount. At night, you can see it reaching out, but in the daytime you will see the base of the Fount and the army that has taken it over.”

“An army?,” asked Tom.

“The word from travelers is that some kind of horde has surrounded the base of the Fount and is keeping people from approaching and asking for their wishes,” said the store man. He gestured in a what can you do fashion. “They are keeping people from making their pilgrimages to see what they can do.”

“No one has been able to drive this horde off?,” asked Tom.

“I don't know if anyone has tried,” said the shopkeep. “You only get one wish if you can make it to the Fount. Not a lot of people are going to want to waste their wish on driving off people who will just come right back.”

“You would have to have nothing to lose to make a wish like that,” said Tom.

“Or exceptionally suicidal,” said the shopkeep. “I doubt they are going to stay in one place and let the wish play out. More likely they cut a wisher down before the wish happens.”

“I have to agree with that,” said Tom. “I'm still heading up that way. Thanks for the information.”

“Good luck,” said the shopkeep. “If you go next door, you will be able to buy some food to take with you.”

“Thank you,” said Tom. “Is there some kind of wish you want if I'm able to swing through without any trouble?”

“I would like a return to peace,” said the shopkeep. “Fair travels.”

“I'll come by on the way south after I'm done,” said Tom. “Thanks again.”

He stepped out of the shop. At least he had an idea of what he was facing. He had no idea if he could do anything about it.

What was the princess's part in all this?

Once he caught up with her, he could figure out what he could do to straighten this out before he asked to be sent home.

What was the Fount? Why was it so important? It tugged at him. Had someone figured out how to use it to drag him on the scene? What could he do that no one else could do?

He hoped he wasn't the sacrifice needed to save a world that wasn't his.

Maybe the princess had some kind of plan that didn't involve getting killed by an army protecting his only way home. That would be great in his opinion.

He left the village behind. He couldn't see the Fount at the moment, but he had a bead on the direction he needed to travel. The road didn't curve that much in his opinion. He had a small idea which way he should go when he needed to break off and leave it.

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He wondered how long it would take to reach the Princess's cave. Would anybody else be waiting there to try and stop him?

He doubted any army that had seized the Fount would allow the Princess to run around on her own for long. It wasn't good strategy in his opinion. If they needed her to open the Fount, they definitely couldn't allow her to stay loose. Was that why he had been pulled in? It made sense that he was the only who could be trusted since he wasn't part of the factions in play.

It also meant that he would be killed as soon as he crossed any other faction opposing the Princess.

How did he avoid that? He couldn't go back to the boat and avoid land for the rest of his life.

He considered looking at this army himself and seeing if he could think of some way around them. He decided to not take the risk before meeting the Princess. He had an idea that he would be seeing the army soon enough.

He looked back over his shoulder. The village had receded far behind him. He hadn't thought he was walking that fast. He put it down to all the thinking he was doing about the situation he was trying to extract himself from before it killed him. He thought he would be out of sight from the cluster of buildings before too long.

Eventually the sun started dropping toward the horizon. He saw the first familiar explosions of light beyond the horizon. He orientated himself on a set of trees in front of a small mountain wall. He picked out a slash he could keep an eye on in the daytime before the sun fully disappeared from the sky.

He wasn't sure it was the right direction, but he could keep an eye on the slash in the daytime and walk toward it. Finding the Princess when he was close enough to the mountains would be his next challenge.

Tom thought that maybe some kind of earthquake had created the enormous fissure he was using as a landmark. He wondered how common they were in the area and when the next one would show up. How much would one of those affect the Fount? Would it stop the flow if it hit just right?

Something like that commonly happening wouldn't rate a warning from any of the locals. They would just expect people to know that quakes happened, and to heed the warnings of the animals leaving around you.

What happened next was on the person caught in the open.

He had to find the Princess before there was more complications to his search.

He headed toward the trees, hoping to find a place to bed down for the night. He decided to not sleep on the ground. He didn't want to be attacked in his sleep by a bear.

He had seen some fish while sailing toward the place. He had seen birds. He didn't remember seeing any land animals. Had he been that lucky not to see anything like a squirrel, or a deer?

He should have seen anything like a rabbit while walking in the early night. He couldn't remember seeing anything like that during his walk along the road from the coast.

Should he expect not to see any more animals as he moved north?

Or was the animals staying away from the massive light in the sky at night and avoiding humans on top of that?

He supposed that was reasonable. Even on Earth, animals were sensitive to energy moving around. It was not out of order to think they would rather live away from the lightshow.

He supposed most of the humans would do the same thing if only pilgrims used the road to the Fount. He thought there should be one more town between where he stood on the road and the army takeover. They might have razed the town to the ground to maintain security.

Did he have a chance penetrating the security around the Fount, getting inside, and figuring out what he could do to move the army away from its siege? Did the Princess know of a way he could get through the defenses? Did he actually need to do that to get home?

And if she didn't know of a way through the army he expected, what was his next step?

He broke it down into helping the Princess get what she needed, and running away. Both lines of thinking drew him, but he thought running away made more sense unless he could get his spacecraft back and find his way home.

Could the Princess get him that?

He continued to walk under the branches of the trees. He decided to find a place to sleep before too long. He was quickly losing sight of the slash in the mountain he was using for a landmark.

When he was sure he was on the right path, he could put the Fount directly behind him and use to guide his path until he found the cave the Princess was hiding in. He expected it to take a few more days despite the speed he was moving. He seemed to have walked miles without effort.

He didn't know what was going on, but wondered if it had something to do with the Fount throwing energy into the night sky.

Could it be acting as fuel for anyone who wanted to visit it? What was it doing to the army supposedly blocking it off from the people who wanted to see it? Was it making them stronger and faster than normal?

Could it be making that army unstoppable just being under the light? Did he want to find out? Would he have to find out?

He hoped not because he didn't have a missile in his pocket to clear a hole for him to get through.

Tom found a place shaded from the light in the sky. He settled in, building a small screen to block even more of the starbursts in the air. He wrapped himself up and closed his eyes.

Once he had caught up with the Princess, maybe he could get enough information to do what he needed to do instead of what she wanted.

He had a feeling that would be the hard part of all this. Obviously she had fled from the Fount, she wanted it freed, and she expected him to do that. If that was the real reason she had helped him, he would have to explain he had no way to help her.

Maybe if he had access to some chemical supplies, he might be able to poison the army. He had no way of fighting anyone without a weapon. And he would lose a war of numbers fairly fast no matter how much the Fount was boosting him.

If it was boosting him.

He tried to put his supposition out of his mind. He would have plenty of time to hash this out with the Princess when he caught up with her. Maybe he could take her back to the boat and they could sail to somewhere she could get help with this.

Anything was better than waiting for a platoon of soldiers to dig you out of your cave and drag you back to your dungeon.

He wondered how the Princess had reached the land. He had sailed there in a stolen boat. Did she have a boat of her own? Maybe they could use that to take them back to where she lived to ask for help.

He stopped thinking. He had too many unanswered questions. He couldn't do anything until he caught up with the Princess. Then he could decide if he had to turn around and flee back to his tower on his island.

If he could help her, she might be able to tell him how he had arrived in this strange world.