Shara watched from the bottom of the overgrown mule trail as a single Clocksmith – he couldn’t be anything but one with that toolbelt – stumbled down the path. He had a small pack over one shoulder, and his face was as white as a ghost.

Beyond him, the trail seemed to end flat against the side of the mountain, but she’d watched in wonder as the whole stone wall had slid silently open as if on well-greased hinges. She’d also watched as the Clocksmith had effortlessly pushed the wall closed to make the door completely invisible again.

“Think you can find it by yourself, Shara?” she asked herself. “Maybe, but there’s an easier way,” she added, then after double-checking to make sure there weren’t any Tailcoats close, silently exited the bushes.

The distracted Clocksmith didn’t even notice her until she was barely ten feet away, and then he nearly jumped out of his skin when she coughed into her hand.

“You made it,” she said gravely. “I didn’t think I was in time.”

The Clocksmith blinked at her words, like he was trying to figure out what language she was speaking. “In time for what?” he finally asked.

“To save you all,” she said. “Look, I’ve got to get inside to see if anybody else made it, can you open the door for me?”

“They’re all…dead,” he said, eyes wide and lost in the memory of what he’d seen. “The Tailcoats killed them.”

“No, that can’t be true,” Shara said, forcing empathy into her voice, though the little bit of shock wasn’t something she had to fake. Could the Tailcoats really have killed everybody else that quickly? Who was she kidding? Of course they could have. “Even if that’s true, we can’t let them take what’s in the vault. We have to save what we can.”

The Clocksmith shrugged, lifting the bag on his shoulder slightly. “I saved what I could…”

“Damnit,” Shara said, the sharpness of her words making the Clocksmith jump. All her work and planning, and the Tailcoats had ruined it all. She could take the pack from the Clocksmith, he looked about as much of a fighter as a newborn kitten. Maybe that would be enough to offset the costs…

“Who…are you, anyway?” the Clocksmith asked, taking a step back and looking around like he expected Tailcoats to come rushing out of the bushes at any second. Face pale, eyes haunted, and his hair plastered on his head, he must’ve gone through quite the ordeal to get out of the mountain alive, but his mind was starting to ask the right questions.

Still, maybe she didn’t need to fight to take the pack over his shoulder. Given a few hours, he’d be fast asleep, then she could just slip away without making his day any worse. Well, not much worse.

“We don’t have time to get into the details now,” she said, but held up her hands for patience when the Clocksmith took another step back. “But, my name is Shara. I have a source inside the Tailcoats and found out about their raid on the enclave. I came as soon as I could, thinking I might be able to warn you all. I’m…sorry…I wasn’t in time.”

The Clocksmith stared hard at her, his left-hand tightening around the shoulder strap of his pack. Did he see through her lie that quickly? She was being honest when she said she was sorry, though for different reasons, and the rest of it had the kernel of truth in it to make it believable enough. Well, then a fight it…

“Tel,” the Clocksmith finally said. “My name is Tel.”

“Nice to meet you, Tel,” Shara said, forcing a half-smile on her face. “You’re sure nobody else made it out?”

Tel turned back to look up the mule path to the secret door. “It’s not…likely, but if anybody did, they would head for either Gravelburg or…the enclave in Bastion. I need to check both of those places.”

Another enclave?

“There’s an enclave in Bastion?” Shara asked, fighting to keep the excitement out of her voice. She may’ve lost the chance at looting the mountain enclave, but if Tel could get her into another one…

“Yes,” Tel said. “Any…survivors would head that way, probably through Gravelburg. I have to get going,” he added, then looked around again. “Which way would that be…?”

“Come with me,” Shara said, waving him to follow her, then turned and ducked back into the trees. The Clocksmith following her was obvious without her even having to look, his progress through the brush loud enough for a dozen people, and she snapped her head around. “Are you trying to make as much noise as possible?”

Tel’s shoulders curled inward and his eyes instantly went to the ground. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I don’t…spend much time…in the woods.”

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Shara breathed out slowly through her nose to stop herself from saying anything else, but Tel didn’t look up at her again, his head bowed. “It’s fine…I mean, it’s not. We need to be quiet so the Tailcoats don’t find us, but I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

“It’s my fault,” Tel said. “It always is. I’ll try harder.”

Shara looked past Tel and at the side of the mountain. There was no sign of the Tailcoats or their groupies, yet, but they didn’t have time for this. Still…

“Do you even know what to do to try harder?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“I…” he started, then shook his head without looking up. “I have no idea.”

“You said you don’t spend much time in the woods. When was the last time you did?” she asked.

“When I was…young,” he said, then added more quietly. “I don’t like trees.”

He doesn’t like trees? Who doesn’t like trees?

Instead of asking what a tree had ever done to him, Shara took another breath. “Okay, look at me. Tel, c’mon, look at me,” she added when he lifted his head, but his eyes still didn’t settle on her. When they finally did, she went on. “First, just watch where you’re walking. The dry twigs and sticks on the ground make a lot of noise, and if you push your way past the living branches, they’ll snap back and make a lot of noise.”

“Action and reaction,” he said, nodding.

“Sure…that,” Shara said – whatever that was – and pointed at Tel. “Follow where I walk. Watch where my feet go, and put yours in the same place. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Tel said quietly, his head bowing again, but at least he seemed to be looking at her feet.

“Good. I’ve got a horse near the road. We’ll get to him, shouldn’t take us more than an hour,” she paused and looked at Tel. Maybe two hours. “He can carry us both after that. No more trees.”

“That sounds like…a good plan,” Tel said, and Shara froze again.

“It’s…not a plan,” she said. “Not…just don’t call things plans. It’s bad luck.”

“That…would explain why my plans never worked,” he said quietly, barely loud enough for the words to reach her ears.

“You escaped, didn’t you?” Shara said softly, something about the deeper pain in his voice striking a chord within her. “You survived. Sounds to me like your plan was pretty good.”

“Wasn’t mine,” Tel said, his eyes still on her feet. “It was Grund’s.”

“Grund? A friend of yours?” Shara asked, but finally turned and started walking towards her horse again. They could talk while they walked, and it was already going to take long enough.

“He was a colleague,” Tel said after a silence long enough Shara had to try to remember what she asked. “I don’t know if he…considered me a friend, so I shouldn’t presume to…”

“Why didn’t he use his plan to survive himself?” Shara interrupted.

“Told me I had to live,” Tel said.

“See? Then he’s a friend.”

“Perhaps,” was all he said, and then went silent again as they crossed through a break in the trees and up to the edge of a small river.

“Is this the Okenlock River?” Tel asked as he stepped up beside her, his eyes on the water flowing past.

Shara couldn’t stop the laugh she barked out, and the man beside her curled in on himself again. “Sorry,” Shara said. “The Okenlock is much bigger than this. You see…uh…you see that pointy rock over there? The one that looks like a nose with a pimple on it? Yeah? Okay, from here to there, that’s how big the smallest part of the Okenlock is.”

Tel looked at the rock in the distance, nodding gently as if he were talking to himself. “That’s the narrowest part? It’s almost two hundred feet,” he said, a small burst of chaos energy erupting out of him in a small swarm of glowing butterflies at the measurement.

The shimmering insects fluttered about the Clocksmith, and Shara instinctively pulled a few of them to her hand where she absorbed their energy. In seconds, they – along with all the others – had faded from sight, and Shara turned her attention back to Tel.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?” he asked.

“You measured the distance from here to the rock just by looking at it,” she said.

“Ah, you must be a sorcerer,” Tel said matter-of-factly, and Shara’s jaw snapped shut. “What form does the chaos energy take for you? Butterflies? That’s what most people see.”

Well, that secret was out of the bag.

“Most people?” she asked.

“There are reports of different sorcerers seeing the same thing, while others see another thing entirely, even at the same time. Butterflies are the most common, which is why the actual insect is often thought of as a creature of chaos. It isn’t, not really,” Tel explained, his voice suddenly more confident and his speech fluid. “I’ve read reports of manifestations like fireworks, faces of people the sorcerer knew – I always found that one creepy – and gears seen through tears in the air, like a glimpse of how the world really works.”

“Butterflies,” she admitted. “So, how did you do it?” she asked.

“Well, from here to that green rock there,” Tel said, pointing to a moss-covered rock just ahead of them in the low water, “is ten feet from us.” Another small bust of butterflies. “From that rock to the log wedged between the rocks over there is ten times that, so one hundred feet.” More chaos energy. “And the distance from here to the pimple-nose-rock, accurate description by the way, is almost exactly twice that again. Two-hundred feet.”

No butterflies that time. Ah, because it’d already happened when he measured it the first time.

“Do you have a license to count? Or measure?” she asked.

“Shara,” Tel said, finally looking up at her. “I’m a Clocksmith. There’s a reason we hide in enclaves far from the prying eyes of people who are worried about the small amount of chaos generated by our activities.”

“Did everybody in the enclave know how to count? Or…read?” she asked.

Tel curled back in on himself at the mention of the others from the enclave. “Yes,” he said quietly, the previous confidence in his voice gone like it’d been her imagination.

Shara cursed herself for asking him about the others. There’d actually been a spark of life in eyes for a moment, but she’d buried that back beneath the grief.

“Come on then,” she said when it didn’t look like he’d say anything else. “We need to find a way across unless you can fly. No? Okay, this way,” she said and headed down river towards a fallen tree spanning the water.

That’d be their best bet.

Damnit, that sounded like a plan, and there was a good chance Tel couldn’t swim if he fell in.