Fellow role-players, I hope you had a Happy Halloween! Dexter and Paul, we missed you again at last night's Pathfinder: "Holy Steel" teleconferencing session! Here is my update for our heroic fantasy game, which I ran using Skype on Sunday, 1 November 2009:

"1 to 4 January 1229 B.C.E.:" The adventurers known as "Holy Steel" had journeyed from the "Vanished Lands" to the empire of Khemet (New Kingdom Egypt), where Drow Ranger "Faelonia" [Dexter V.H./absent] disappeared during a diplomatic mission to to the court of Pharaoh Ramses II. In the meantime, her companions thwarted evil cultists of Set at the pyramid of Unas and prepared for "Ibrahim's" [Byron V.O.] kenbet (trial) for treason.

The capital of Pi-Ramesses (Per-Ramesse) was in mourning for the recent deaths of Prince Ramessu and Queen Isetnofret, and pesedjer Ghazi/Khery-heb (human Paladin/Wizard) Ibrahim returned to house arrest after reporting to his superiors at the temple of Amun.

"Milos" [Beruk A.] left his hotel and resumed his cover operation as a metals merchant. In the markets, the pesedjer khebenti (human Rogue) learned that the rains and annual Nile flood had come late and that farmers were worrying. A famine could further undermine the long-lived pharaoh's rule.

Outside the city, Caracal-woman Shikari (feline Ranger) Raziya and awakened cat Rafi tracked down the dragons Quenamun and Thilgatha, and Khery-heb (Wizard) "Derek" [Paul J./absent] prepared to return to his world (Paul's Pathfinder: "Crossroads of Eternity").

Ibrahim had told Hunumethet that Prince Sethemwie had been involved in the desecration of Unas' tomb. He asked for guard Ibu to be reassigned away from danger. The king's charioteer also examined his villa with fellow Ghazi Nebkar and Eseteri Kahin (Elf Druid) Arianna for signs of scrying.

Milos discreetly contacted Hartal, a Hittite trader, while qedeshot (Bard) Nialla and Guti shaman (Cleric/Battledancer) Vian observed that commerce had increased with the rising Assyrian empire to the northeast. Hartal mentioned that he had heard of smugglers selling items stolen from Egyptian tombs to a woman named Shal-belit in the Arabian Desert.

The next day, Ibrahim met with Osaze, his legal counsel, to prepare for the kenbet. The holy warrior told Osaze all about how he had uncovered sacrilege and a potential coup conspiracy reaching from the dusty tomb of Unas all the way to Prince Sethemwie! They began drawing up lists of evidence and witnesses to present to Ramses.

Although the three awakened cats and custos (intelligent khopesh) Akhu had been sent away, Ibrahim and Milos stayed in touch via enchanted Earrings of the Wolf. Milos discreetly contacted Tahmeser, a member of the Medjai (secret police) serving Prince Khaemwaset.

"Holy Steel" asked the prince and high priest of Thoth, god of knowledge, if he could use the Scroll of Neheb-Kau to reveal nonhuman followers of Set during Ibrahim's trial in the Jubilee Hall. Khaemwaset replied that such a ritual would be highly irregular but said he would look into it.

Quenamun and Thilgatha said they had heard that Faelonia was last seen heading into the western deserts with one of "her kind" -- another Drow (western Dark Elf), possibly the nefarious Lady Dalesta of Zuromm! Ibrahim said he would try to find his friend once his name was cleared and before returning to the "Vanished Lands."

Ibrahim asked Osaze to send a summons to several people, including Gamal Teknut, an inquisitor he had met many months before. He also learned that Habtu, a high priest of Set slain at Unas' mortuary temple, was a member of pharaoh's advisory council!

Neb went to talk with Admiral Refuet regarding affairs on the "big green" (the Mediterranean Sea), as Arianna tried to determine if the drought was magically caused. The priestesses of Isis informed Ibrahim that the cursed items he and his companions had received from the mysterious Gamal Iblis could be fixed, but they would all need to be present.

Milos asked the dragons and Raziya to track down the smugglers of stolen relics and recruited Djekari, a Nubian archer formerly stationed at Fort Tharvu. Followers of serpent-headed Set had accused Djekari of treason, and he had been exiled after his own kenbet.

Ibrahim and Neb continued their meetings with Osaze and various friendly Clerics, while Milos and Nialla eventually learned of Kamil Zuhar, a supplier to the temples of Set. They lost contact with Faelonia and Derek, but Raziya, Arianna, Vian, and Djekari rode east to hunt smugglers, with Quenamun and Thilgatha providing air support....

Sometime later and far to the northeast, the [Boston-area face-to-face group] "Faith-Based Initiative" fought Wolven of the Deathstalker Clan on the Plains of Sathendo before arriving at the stronghold of "Saerek" [Greg D.C./N.P.C.]. The Skaevingol warlord offered help in finding the Helm of Gunnar, but Zarendo Islander Wizard "Kimo" [Beruk] and others were wary of his intentions. "Rache" [Paul] joined the party, which planned to go into the Underdark....

I'll reply to your follow-up questions and post statistics for Raziya and Faelonia later this week. In the meantime, take it easy, -Gene

>>Pathfinder: "Holy Steel" team roster (as of autumn 2009/"winter 1230 B.C.E."):

-"Faelonia Telcontar" [Dexter V.H.]-female Drow (western Dark Elf) Ranger/Aristocrat, ambassador, and champion of Vulkan; NGl, Level 12/2

-"Rellim Dorathan" [Mark M./Non-Player Character]-male Quelanthi Fighter/Cleric of Aerdary (High Elf: Labelas), friend of Faelonia; CGn, Lvl. 5/5

-"Noony..."-male Svirfneblin "scout" (Deep Gnome Rogue) and follower of Faelonia; NGc, Lvl. 8

-"Argentis"-female young adult silver Dragon Sorcerer, companion of Faelonia, along with wolf Facon and hawk Azrael; NGl, Lvl. 5

-"Dalis"-Heart Bow, Protector of the Wild, intelligent artifact currently borne by Faelonia, along with the Bracers of Air Control, NGl

-"Ibrahim al-Sufaia" [Byron V.O.]-male Suthern human Ghazi/Khery-heb (Egyptian Paladin/Wizard) of Isis and former "Dragonslayer"; age 27, LGn, Level 13/3

-"Nebkar 'Neb' Khaneferu"-male Suthern human sailor/Ghazi (Paladin) of Ishmas, former follower of Jaguar Woman Ranger "Grace" [Carolyn M.P.] currently attached to Ibrahim's team; LGn, Lvl. 1/7

-"Arianna Leafsplitter"-female Sylvan (Wood) Elf Druid and follower of Ibrahim; TNg, Lvl. 8

-"Quenamun"-female young adult gold Dragon Cleric of Bahamut and steed of Ibrahim, along with Blink Dog "Bink" [Stuart C.G./N.P.C.]; LGn, Lvl. 6

-"Akhu"-male Custos (enchanted khopesh), former Paladin of Ishmas/Isis and mentor to Ibrahim; LGn

-"Milos Valoren" [Beruk A.]-male Barbari human scout [Rogue/Fighter/Gatecrasher from Ted A.H.'s D&D3 "Solar Gods: the Ether Wars"] and former "Liberator"; age 27, CGn, Lvl. 10/3/3

-"Thilgatha/Rhiannen?"-female young adult copper Dragon Fighter and companion of Milos; CGn

-"Nialla Burkin"-female Suthern human Qedeshot/Battle Dancer (Bard/Monk), former crewmember of the "Dragon's Bane" and follower of Milos; NGc, Lvl. 7/1

-"Vian"-female human Guti shaman (barbarian healer/Battledancer) and follower of Milos; CNg, Lvl. 9

-"Djekari"-male Nubian human archer formerly stationed at Fort Tharvu, exile from Egypt and newest follower of Milos; CGn, Lvl. 7

>>Associates:

-"Lord Mage Derek Ranell" [Paul J.]-male human Wizard from a Prime Material plane parallel to the "Vanished Lands" (Paul J.'s "Crossroads of Eternity"); contact of Ibrahim and Faelonia; age 30, NGc, Lvl. 16

>>See other files for the latest party rosters and updates for the following games:

>>Fantasy campaigns
-Gene D.'s D&D4e "Vanished Lands: the Faith-Based Initiative"
-Gene D.'s Pathfinder: "Holy Steel" teleconferencing team
-Gene D.'s D20 "Gaslight Grimoire" (steampunk/fantasy)
-Paul J.'s Pathfinder ("D&D3.75"): "Crossroads of Eternity"
-Brian W.'s Savage Worlds: "Fierce Frontier" and other games
-Dave S.C.'s Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition "Attos"
-Lord of the Rings Online multiplayer online game

>>Comic book superheroes
-Gene D.'s D20 Mutants & Masterminds 2e: "Drake's Port" scenarios
-Paul J. and Josh C.'s D20"M&M"2e games
-City of Heroes: "Dimensional Corps Online" supergroup

>>Space opera RPG
-Dexter V.H.'s D20 Star Wars: Saga Edition "Revenge of the Sith"

edemaitre

The discussion in the thread on neutered wizards has wandered round to the issue of the "I win" button, why it was (effectively) removed in 4E, and whether or not it is a good thing.

On my part, I can see why the "I win" button is such an attractive concept. Having just the right spell to overcome any problem is one of the key tropes of the wizard, a class that many role-players identify with closely, and it also underscores the limitless possibilities of mind and knowledge.

However, in the context of a group game, the "I win" button has a couple of drawbacks:

1. Overshadowing Other Characters: While the effects of this can be minimized through player co-ordination (the wizard simply does not select spells which duplicate the capabilities of the other characters), the temptation to have a "backup" or a "safety net" (just in case the other character fails) is always present. And when that happens, it's about the closest that a fellow PC can get to being that DMPC who steps in to save the day when the PCs fail.

2. Circumventing the Game's Challenges: Whether it's a fight that ends suddenly because the BBEG rolled a 1 on his saving throw against a death spell, or a utility spell that cuts short what should have been a multi-stage challenge, the "I win" button can sometimes deliver what seems to be a quick and easy victory to the party. It's great for the players (in fact, some types of players live for moments like these) but some DMs find it annoying, especially if they have put a lot of work into preparing the encounter.

Previous editions worked round the above problems mainly by limiting the frequency of the "I win" button through a variety of means: random allocation of spells so that the wizard might not have all the spells he wants; spell preparation, which requires the wizard the guess what spells he will need; additional costs in terms of gold, XP, ability scores, age, etc.; or simple unreliability (e.g. random effects, saving throws, spell resistance, immunity, etc.) so that the spell does not always work, and so on. The problems still occured from time to time, but hopefully not often enough that anyone got too annoyed.

I wonder whether it would be possible to re-introduce the "I win" button, but in a way that would avoid the two problems mentioned earlier. For example:

1. "We Win": The idea here is that a spell might make the wizard good, but it makes another character better. It is not a new idea - even in 3E, there were some suggestions that knock should give a bonus to Open Lock checks, while invisibility should give a bonus to Hide checks. So, even though a wizard could cast these spells to open locks and sneak around if there was no rogue in the party, he would be better off if there was a rogue, and he used them to improve the rogue's ability instead.

2. The Narrative Win: Here, the "I win" button becomes a plot point, not a challenge. The wizard can, with a single spell, kill the BBEG in one round. However, before he can do that, he need to find the BBEG's true name. And he needs to find a rare component to power the spell. And he needs to fight through the BBEG's minions and henchmen before he can get close enough to kill him. And the party doesn't get any XP for killing the BBEG, except maybe XP for completing a quest. The lower the risk, the lower the reward, and in any case, they should have earned enough XP in the process of fulfilling all the conditions for casting the "I win" spell.

What do you think? Would you want the "I win" button in your game? If so, which approach would you favor?

Discuss this issue on the forums here.

FireLance

For more information on the War of the Burning Sky campaign saga for both
D&D 3.5 and 4th Edition, please check out the official web page.

Chapter Five

Tired, cold, sore, and directionless, Rantle spent nearly an hour drifting in the crowds of Gate Pass, a press of bodies wilder and more packed than even the greatest turn-outs during the new year’s festival. He saw city soldiers trampling people under wagons as they tried to go the wall to fight back the Ragesians. More than once he passed a family carrying a burnt loved one, dying or dead, the healing houses already too full to admit any more. Some frightened soldiers were trying to press through the crowds to retrieve what healers they could and get them to the walls, while distraught fathers and husbands brawled with them when they tried to leave without healing their children and wives.

He stepped over several corpses in the street, and even if the crowd behind him had let him take the time to move them, he wasn’t sure he would have cared enough. He had just left the closest thing he had known to a family, and it seemed like fortune was mocking him by having brought him so close to the ones he needed to go with – Torrent, the jispin man, and the frightened woman – who by now could be anywhere. Rantle had no idea how to find a group of three people out of the thousands in Gate Pass, and if he did not find them before tomorrow he suspected they would already be outside the city.

There was no route Rantle knew of southward that would not take him through enemy territory, either west through the lines of the Ragesian armies, or east into Shahalesti, which would likely get him captured as a spy, since he looked Ragesian. He could only guess Torrent knew a route through the mountains, but if Rantle had to follow on his own he imagined he would end up freezing to death at the side of some snow-filled mountain road.

As it was, after an hour of aimless wandering, the flights of dractyls stopped, the crowds began to disperse, and Rantle found a dark, looted tailor shop to rest in. A dozen other people, either displaced or too cold and tired to go back to their own homes, huddled inside with him, sharing the warmth of a small hearth which barely managed to win against the chill draft coming through the door looters had smashed open.

For the first half hour people sat together silently, until one man began plucking away a five-beat couster song on a broken guitar. Rantle and a few others recognized the song and began humming or tapping beats along with it. It felt good to help, even for something as sad as this old war song.

Oh hear me brave boy, girding at the gate.
The irons have tolled, and dawn shall be late.

Against you now stands a torch-tongue of fire
And Conquest, oh child, is the Dragon’s sole desire.

Our home soon in ruins,
Our spirits may be thralled.
Look brave on one last dream,
Before your shield falls.

In the night’s final hours, you drift into sleep,
And soar with the Eagle to where pains all cease.

Beneath that shining gate, where the titan Worm dwells
Gleaming shadows cry up, child, from the darkness of hell.

The doors of light break at the howl of hounds.
And from Kraken’s waves, mad tempests confound.

Our home now in ruins,
Our spirits all are thralled.
Be brave for one last dream, boy,
Now, as your shield falls.

You dream of fearful storms, of ghosts and of flood,
Of flames and of scourge, and bones, damnation, and blood.

A nightmare of ruins,
Our dreams forever thralled.
Wake quick from this dream, child,
Here, before we fall.

Like a child’s first breath, the army’s horn cries.
You awaken to war, and nightmares brought to life.

So lift up your arms, and hold fast, be brave.
You’ll fight and might die, but never will you be a slave.

Our home soon in ruins,
Our spirits might yet be thralled.
But fight against that dream,
Oh, stand fast at the walls.

When the song ended, the silence was too heavy to last. Slowly, the people huddled in the wreck of a building began sharing the events of what had brought them there.

At first Rantle took dark pleasure in privately comparing what he had gone through with the plight of those whose stories he heard, feeling a strange pride that he had been through more than them. Then the stories grew bleaker.

“I was returning from my brother Thuro’s,” a woman said, cradling a cookpot in her arms like a child. “His wife, she’d cooked a sweet potato porridge, and I was to use it in my children’s breakfast. I was carrying it home, hurrying so I could be in before the new year bells. My boys, they always. . . .”

She stopped to get control of herself.

“We live in a third-story home. I heard the first crashes . . . you called them ‘bombs’?”

Rantle and a handful of other men nodded silently.

“I heard them when I was coming in the building’s door. And I was just about to go up the stairs when the walls shook. It felt like the sound just pushed me down. I bled out of my ears and couldn’t hear. I finally . . . I looked up and saw fire, all the way up the stairwell. There just . . . there wasn’t a third floor anymore. I could look up and see the clouds.”

A long moment later, a young man spattered with blood added his story.

“My brothers and I were trying to get inside the walls of the Castle, but the mages wouldn’t let us in.”

Several in the room snorted derisively. The wizard Gabal trained a few dozen students in the ways of magic at his school of war. Supported by tuition of fabulously wealthy families who wanted their children to be as famous and powerful as Gabal himself, the school compound stood near the heart of Gate Pass, but a moat separated it from the rest of the city, and high walls hid the interior buildings, except for a six-story red tower.

When word spread that the city was preparing to capitulate to the Ragesians and let in the inquisitors, Gabal had publicly decried the move and warned that if Ragesia attacked, he and his students would not come to Gate Pass’s aid.

“The cowards didn’t even come to the gate,” the man continued. “There were dozens of us, and I know we could have fit inside, but we were stuck out in the open.

“One of the Ragesian dragons fell out of the night, and it crushed ten or more people under its claws when it landed. There was a man on its back. He rode it in a saddle like it was a giant horse with wings. I saw him fire a crossbow at someone in the crowd. We started to run, all of us.

“My youngest brother, Perant, he was at the back of the crowd, and the dragon chased after us. I looked back when I heard him screaming, and . . . the dragon had him in his teeth. It shook him like a damn cat eating a mouse. The bastard rag would have gotten more of us, but the gods chose then to show mercy. A pair of avilons swept in and scared the dragon and its rider, and they flew off. They took Perant with them.”

“Aye,” said a bearded elder whose burned hands were bandaged over. “The gods always seem to ‘show mercy’ a little too late.”

Others spoke, telling similar stories. Few cried. Eventually the stories stopped, and Rantle still had not spoken. The silence of the room, disturbed only by the crackle of the hearth, weighed upon him.

“We’re still alive,” he said finally. His mouth was dry. “We’re still alive, and we’re going to stay that way, for those who are gone, and for those who are missing who we might be reunited with. Our city survived worse than this forty years ago, and . . . and we’re the children of their bravery.”

The rest of the room was listening, but Rantle felt too embarrassed to continue. The bearded man from before leaned close.

“Did you lose someone, son?”

“No.” Rantle shook his head and stood. “And I don’t intend to, either.”

He started to leave, but the bearded man held up a hand for him to stop.

“Son,” the man said, “what can you do at this time of night? Leave the fighting to the soldiers.”

Rantle shook his head. “There’s someone I have to find. Trust me, if I could stay here, I would, but I don’t have long to find her, and she could be anywhere.”

People around the room muttered. Rantle wanted to say something else encouraging, or explain himself, but after a moment he just shook his head and left.

The stories had given him an idea, and now there was one place that might hold a chance of finding Torrent. He climbed to the nearest stable roof, used the shadow of the Coaltongue colossus to get his bearings, and then set out for the Castle.

* * *

A man stood just inside the iron portcullis gate of the entrance to the Castle, the red ember tip of a cigarette making him visible from far away as Rantle approached. The city was much quieter now, and colder, the streets deserted and the skies empty of warriors battling in flight like demi-gods, beyond the power of normal men. The streets bordering the Castle always were less occupied, normal folk being nervous of getting too close to a den of mages, but on the icy cobblestones scattered dead bodies lay, most of them half-naked now that the looters had had their way with them.

Rantle walked softly, and the man at the gate did not notice him until he was nearly at the moat. Unlike most of Gabal’s students, who when they were seen in public wore thick red robes with golden sleeves, this man’s robes were dark blue, and were cut differently, perhaps to accommodate his shoulders, which were broader than Rantle would expect for a man his size. Though he wasn’t much older than Rantle, his short brown hair was receding at his temples, and a day of stubble was smeared across his jaw, not messy, but rather like he carefully maintained an appearance of mild laziness.

Aside from his left hand which he was smoking with, he was tightly bundled against the cold, but didn’t look like he minded it, but rather as if he felt he deserved to be stuck out in the frigid night.

The drawbridge lay down – the moat was frozen anyway – so Rantle simply walked up to the portcullis and nodded to the mage.

“I need to come inside,” Rantle said.

The mage chuckled. “You’re not the first one to say that this evening.”

“I heard,” Rantle said. “You and your fellows hid in your castle while people died out here.”

The mage shrugged. He drew a long breath of smoke.

“So,” the mage said, “what makes you think we’re going to let a thief like you in?”

Rantle considered the mage as some distant rumble rolled across the city like thunder, no doubt the sound of magic being used at the west wall. The smoking mage turned an ear in the direction of the sound and shook his head.

“I’m no thief,” Rantle said. “I’m not here to steal. I need to find someone.”

“Your boots,” said the man.

He and Rantle both looked down and squinted at Rantle’s boots.

The mage chuckled, “You’re a Mauser. Or else you took a Mauser’s boots. Either way, you’re a thief.”

“My uncle made these boots,” Rantle said. “What do my boots have to do with being a thief?”

“Normal people don’t need boots that soft. I bet you could sneak up on a man and he’d never hear it. I barely heard you crossing the street, and it’s the middle of the night. What’s his name?”

Rantle was confused.

“Whose?” he said.

“Your uncle, the cobbler.”

“Ulwyn,” Rantle lied.

The mage smiled. “Where’s his shop?”

“What?” Rantle sighed. “He used to have a shop on Turliss Street in the ninth district, but I don’t talk to my uncle much anymore, so he might have moved.”

“And uncle Ulwelf-”

“Ulwyn,” Rantle corrected.

“Whatever.” The mage took a drag on his cigarette, then spoke a cloud of smoke. “You’re a wretched liar. You’re too eager. That’s bad form. If you are a thief, I feel sorry for your guild. Anyway, thanks for keeping me company.”

The mage started to turn away and walk off, dropping a spent cigarette on the ground.

“Hey,” Rantle said. “Even liars and thieves can have legitimate business. I have need of a mage.”

The man hesitated, then shrugged and turned to look at Rantle. He rummaged around inside his robe with his left hand, eventually pulling out another cigarette, then planted it in his lips, reached in again and produced a small wooden wand, and put the wand to the cigarette’s tip, lighting it with a sudden spark of flame. Then he tucked the wand away, the whole process remarkably smooth considering he was only using one hand.

“Alright,” the mage said, “as foolish as you sound, you came here thinking you have a good chance of getting me or one of the other students to care. So let me hear it.”

Rantle grinned. “You’re the first smart person I’ve met all night.”

The mage nodded in bemused agreement.

“So here’s the situation,” Rantle said. “The city is locked down, the rags are beating down the walls, and once they get in, any mages who are here will be carted away by the inquisitors. You had to have heard the same rumors I have.”

The mage’s expression briefly turned very grim, but then he quickly again looked indifferent and nodded.

“I know someone who knows a way out of the city and through the mountains,” Rantle said. “She’s taking a group of mages south to Dassen. I was supposed to go with them, but I got to the meet-up location too late, after the attack had started.”

“You’re trying to flee to the Lyceum?” the mage said.

“No,” Rantle said. “I’m trying to get to some town called Seaquen.”

“The Lyceum is the wizard’s school in Seaquen,” the man laughed. “And you don’t look like much of a wizard.”

“I’m not,” Rantle said. “But my sister is. Well, she’s self-trained. Anyway, she’s already gone.”

“Good for her. What’s the problem?”

“The problem,” Rantle said, coming up with a lie, “is that she left me a note. She said she didn’t want me to follow her and risk getting hurt. But I mean, she had to know I’d go after her.”

The mage scoffed. “That was sweet of her. Does she run off and need rescuing a lot?”

Rantle grinned. “Oh yeah. You have no idea.”

“Yeah,” the wizard said with a shrug. “I don’t think the inquisitors will waste their time with an amateur. But fine, you want to track down your sister so she’s not alone, and because you want out of the city before someone tries to get you to fight the Ragesians, if I’m guessing correctly.”

“Hey, I don’t see you on the wall,” Rantle said. “Honestly, I don’t even know if you can find her, but I assume magic can do anything.”

The mage chuckled as if he had seen a toddler trying to dress in adult clothes. The man clearly had pride about his powers, which Rantle could exploit.

“You can’t want to stay here,” Rantle said. “You could come along, and come to safety. I know they would never refuse the assistance of a Gabalese war mage. Unless you’re planning to side with the rags.”

“No,” the mage said, his tone disturbingly amused. “The inquisitors are indeed capturing or killing every mage they find. I couldn’t betray you if I wanted to. No, I’m staying here so we can wait for the inquisitors to come and deal with them, instead of getting shot or stabbed fighting an army. That’s what normal people are for. Like you.”

“Fine,” Rantle said. “You want to stay here and be safe while the rest of the city burns?”

“Yes,” the mage laughed mockingly. “That was basically the idea. Not that it’s going to work.”

Rantle blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I’m not a war mage,” the man said. “We don’t all hurl balls of fire and searing bolts and all manner of magical missiles. My parents sent me here so I could learn magic that’s useful in business. Now they’re probably being carried off to some gulag themselves, and, as much as I respect my parents, I don’t miss them enough to want to join them. I somehow doubt the great old spirits of eldritch accounting will protect me when the inquisitors are torturing me.”

“Right,” Rantle said slowly, confused. “So you do want to run?”

“There was a meeting earlier this evening,” the mage said. “At some pub called the Poison Apple, and you were supposed to meet at midnight? Their plan was to go to Seaquen and, under the enlightened guidance of the Lyceum, join forces with other panicked, feeble refugee magic-users in order to defeat the Ragesians. Which, as history has shown, is exactly what happens when you have hundreds of people who desire each other’s secrets living in the same place: they band together out of communal good will, and certainly don’t try to kill each other for access to their power.

“Yes,” the mage concluded, “all of us knew about it. Mages have been smuggling themselves out of here for weeks. It had been talked about too much, and in addition to being a stupid idea, it was probably just a trap.”

“Well,” Rantle said, “it was a legitimate meeting, but there were dead bounty hunters there when I showed up.”

The mage chuckled and took another draw on his cigarette.

“And you want me to travel with you, as if it would be safer than staying here?”

Rantle shrugged. “Honestly, my night has been full of so much trouble, I can’t imagine it could get any worse, so you might as well come with me.”

The mage considered for a moment, then reached out through the bars with his left hand, turning it upside down to shake Rantle’s hand. Rantle obliged, wondering if something was wrong with the man’s right arm.

“My name’s Diogenes,” the mage said.

“I’m Rantle. Can you actually find the woman I’m looking for?”

“Not yet,” Diogenes said. “You’re going to have to earn my help.”

Diogenes moved to open a small door built into the wall beside the portcullis so Rantle could come inside.

“What do I have to do?” Rantle asked.

Diogenes swung open the door and gestured him in.

“Just be a good thief, and a decent liar.”



Chapter Six

“So, how does your sister use magic?” Diogenes asked.

“She points at things and they catch on fire.”

Diogenes took a deep breath. “Alright, obviously this is going to take more explaining than I thought.”

Inside the walls of the Castle, Gabal’s school of war wizardry consisted of an array of eight stone buildings surrounding the central tower, a very classical design that suggested Gabal, or at least his architect, was a pantheist. There were so many religions competing in Gate Pass, it was almost comforting to Rantle to see something so old-fashioned.

Right now they were headed for what Diogenes had called the dormitory, three-stories tall, its entrance decorated with symbols of the goddess Meliska. Columns resembled clusters of juniper trees, gutter spouts were shaped like coronal eclipses, and the dormitory’s many circular windows were framed with sleeping angelic ophanim, slender women behind whom circled wings like overlapping wheels. There were no lights in the windows.

“Is everyone asleep?” Rantle asked.

Diogenes shrugged. They reached the building, and Diogenes whispered something as he turned the handle to the front door.

“Most of the other students are actually hiding somewhere in the city,” Diogenes said, “or they’ve already run. So don’t touch anything, or go knocking on doors uninvited. They probably have left wards to deter burgulars.”

“Where are the guards? There are normally men on the walls.”

Diogenes chuckled. “I’m not about to reveal our tricks to an outsider, but we don’t need flesh and blood men to protect our walls.”

Once they were inside, Diogenes pulled aside his cloak to reveal a diversity of wands and short coils of multi-colored rope tucked into his belt by his left hip.

“Now,” he said, “what I just showed you is my array, the items I use to focus my magic. Without the items in my array, I may as well lie down and let you slit my throat, because I’m just a balding man with a knack for bookkeeping. I was trained in traditional auramancy, so if I’m near some place with a lot of fire energy, I can control the fire, and if it were the first day of spring and we were some place lush and healthy, I might be able to heal wounds, but I need the array to do anything on my own. Follow?”

“I suppose,” Rantle said. “I never really paid much attention. Katrina never used things like that.”

“Yeah,” Diogenes chuckled. “She sounds like a classicalist. Elemental magic. Not hard to learn, but very easy to predict.”

Though annoyed at the implication that his sister was some kind of rank amateur, Rantle followed Diogenes down the hallways, whose gold-painted walls glowed faintly though there were no torches or lamps visible. The hallway was too narrow, the doors of the rooms too tall, setting Rantle ill at ease. Diogenes stopped in front of one door, opened it with a key, and waved for Rantle to head in. Inside, the room was larger than any place Rantle had ever lived. A main suite with book shelves, a desk, and cushioned chairs had two doors leading off from it. The floor was gray-pink marble, and every handle, from drawers to doorknobs, was cast in gold. When Rantle had conned his way into the bed of Councilwoman Bhari, her home had not been as lavishly decorated as this one.

Rantle felt Diogenes watching him, and realized he must have looked jealous. Diogenes just chuckled.

“I try to keep to a frugal lifestyle.”

“Who’s the terrible liar?” Rantle said. “My apologies, ‘lord wizard.’ You were trying to explain something.”

“My point,” Diogenes said, “is that there are a number of different ways people study magic, and with the way I know, unless I have the right focus I can’t scry. That’s what we call ‘magic that lets you find people.’ I understand the theory behind magic like that, and if I had the proper item from another mage’s array, I could do it myself. Unfortunately, most wizards rudely keep such things closely guarded.”

Rantle threw himself into a chair and stretched, smiling at the brief respite from the soreness of a night of being crushed by panicked people.

“So,” he said, “who do we have to steal from?”

* * *

Rantle had relocated to the red tower in the center of Gabal’s school, on the third floor, which consisted of a single massive room, eighty feet in diameter with a twenty foot high ceiling, all cooly lit by unseen torches. Rantle was fairly certain this room could not possibly have been built without magic, since there were still another thirty feet of tower above it, and no columns to support the weight.

Broad windows, some of them cracked for reasons Rantle could only guess, encircled the room, except for a small stretch of wall where a silver staircase climbed up to the third floor. Between the windows hung tapestries depicting mythic scenes of sorcerers and saints – Tochipel the Pyre-Builder, Mazokan Dreamcrafter, Esha of Two Wills, The Trial of Toteth Topec, Merkal beside the Shining Wall, and a dozen Rantle only vaguely recognized – apparently to motivate Gabal’s students to become so legendary themselves. The meager glow of false dawn in the mountains cast the sky outside in bleak grays, reminding Rantle of the color of a funeral shroud.

He tried not to look out the window.

A ten-foot wide path around the edge of the room surrounded a vast floor mosaic, circumscribed by a ring of solid gold a half inch thick, sixty feet in diameter. Within the mosaic spun more iconic images, these of the elemental spirits, and Rantle was idly walking the wingspan of the Stormchaser Eagle, trying to keep himself awake, when he heard voices approaching up the staircase from the ground floor.

“That’s the spirit,” Diogenes was saying. “Just because we’re in a war doesn’t mean we have to abandon proper etiquette.”

A woman’s voice with a nearly-hidden Shahalesti accent, replied, “Gabal will be glad to be rid of you, either way.”

Rantle’s partner in this deception appeared first, followed a few steps behind by the woman whom Diogenes had called Shealis, a jen student from Shahalesti. Rantle’s charming smile faltered, but he forced it back on quickly. Jen women were supposed to be perfect images of beauty and grace, and compared to the ideal in Rantle’s mind – slender, voluptuous, faces smooth but strong like ivory sculptures brought to life, with eyes like a spring sky and golden hair that shone like the sun – Shealis was disappointingly normal looking.

Her face was not beautiful and flawless, and her eyes looked somewhat gummy, though Rantle could forgive some of that since Diogenes had just woken her up. Her face had all the soft and dynamic features of jen, but somehow managed to look mundane. Aside from two bangs on either side of her face, her blonde hair was tied back in a tight bun, and she walked with the posture of someone constantly bent over books, rather than the elegant, foreign dancer’s grace Rantle had hoped for.

She wore the traditional red and gold robes of a Gabelese student, with a thick gold sash encircling her waist as a belt. A large, many-pocketed pouch hung at her right hip. That was Rantle’s target.

“Diogenes,” Rantle said, “don’t you think we’ve waited long enough? What have you brought this girl here for?”

Shealis sneered, while Diogenes laughed and cocked his head at his fellow student.

“I told you I had some business to attend to before we left. This is a matter of honor. It should just take a minute.”

Diogenes gestured with his left arm for the woman to enter the ring first, his right hand still tucked into the pocket of his robes. Shealis strode into the golden ring, rolling up her sleeves. Rantle realized he had yet to see Diogenes actually move his right arm.

“Diogenes,” Shealis said, “who is this peasant you’ve let into our school?”

Rantle put on his most charming smile as he walked toward her.

“And who,” he said, “is this pleasant beauty? I have to take back my earlier comment. We could use a lady with her kind of spirit on our trip.”

Shealis had turned to complain at Diogenes again, and while she was distracted Rantle stepped in and wrapped an arm around her back in a half-embrace. She grimaced and tried to push him away, but he held on, leaning over so their faces were close.

“Jen women are so stunning,” he breathed in his best impression of a lovesick poet. “Don’t you think so, Diogenes? And her accent-”

Shealis shoved him, and he let go, spinning to put his back to her and hide the fact that he had managed to cut loose the pouch on her hip. He sighed and shook his head, tucking the pouch into his armpit under his coat.

“Out of the ring, Rantle,” Diogenes said. “She’s not coming with us, and I don’t want her wasting any of her magic to keep a lech like you away. This will be easy enough already without you wearing her out in advance.”

Rantle backed out of the ring, shrugging. Shealis watched him leave, then laughed once at Diogenes.

“What are you hoping to prove?” she asked. “Even if you do beat me for once, you’re running away. You’ll be lucky if I even mention this to Gabal.”

Diogenes stepped inside the golden ring, and spoke as he moved to the far side.

“I don’t have to prove anything to Gabal,” he said. “If he manages to burn and explode his way out of this war, then well, I suppose I’m just a coward. I know he’s got some trick planned, though, so I can hope the old man isn’t just planning to die in a blaze of glory.”

Diogenes stopped fifty feet from Shealis, standing atop mosaic stones depicting the Tidereaver Kraken, and she over the Flamebringer Dragon. He rolled his shoulders to get comfortable. Shealis only rolled her eyes. Rantle, standing outside the ring, took a step back, not certain where he would be safe when the two wizards started dueling.

“What I do want to prove,” Diogenes continued, “is that even if I think the old man wouldn’t know subtlety if it snuck up behind him and picked his pocket, he at least understands the value of out-thinking an enemy, not just trying to consume him with arcane fire and brute force. That’s a lesson you’ve never learned.”

“You’ve never defeated me before,” she said.

“Well,” Diogenes chuckled, “brute force isn’t exactly a useless tactic. I never said you’re a weak mage, just dim.”

Earlier, when they had designed this plan, Diogenes had explained the simple rules of a spell duel. The enchanted gold ring made all attacks within nonlethal, completely preventing anyone inside from dying of injuries, but not preventing pain or unconsciousness. You lost when you were unable to perform any magic spells or incantations for half a minute, whether by being incapacitated, or by having your opponent disrupt your spell with a counterspell. And the duel began as soon as either mage began casting a spell.

According to Diogenes, insults and banter were encouraged. After all, there was usually an audience of other students watching.

“You’ve always been a bufoon,” Shealis said. “And now you’re a coward. I hope the inquisitors find you two on the road and take their time torturing you.”

Diogenes yawned theatrically, nodding and making a rolling gesture for her to continue, which she did.

“Do you honestly think you’ll be safer running to Seaquen than here, with the greatest collection of warmages for a thousand miles? What, is your new friend some mountain man who claims he can get you safely past the Ragesians?”

“Nope,” Diogenes said. “He’s a thief.”

Diogenes spoke a word that slid out of Rantle’s consciousness the moment he heard it, and then something shifted underneath Diogenes’s coat. The golden ring surrounding the mosaic flashed with light to mark the duel’s start, but before the light could fade on its own, it rolled like water toward Diogenes, as if he were pulling it in, and then he cast his left arm out in a broad sweep. A crescent wave of light swept outward across the ring, leaving in its wake a half dozen images of Diogenes, all of which began to gesture with spells of their own.

While Diogenes was sending out the blast of light, Shealis reacted, reaching down to pull some item of power from the pouch at her hip. When she found nothing she flailed her hand wildly, then looked down in confusion to see her pouch missing.

The half-dozen Diogeneses were all waving their hands around and chanting spells, and Shealis looked up with dismay, realizing she had lost track of which was the real one. The nearest one was only ten feet away, with others scattered around the ring in no pattern. Black bolts like from a crossbow flew from the nearest illusion’s hands, and Shealis dodged, then spat some slithering arcane word as another illusion began shouting, “Submit!”

“Clever trick,” she said, “but I’m hardly helpless.”

Shealis stepped counterclockwise around the ring and knelt between the tiles that represented the Stormchaser Eagle and the Flamebringer Dragon. Sweeping her sleeves in half-circles, she touched a hand to each of the two creatures, and fire and wind rose from the tiles, tracing a path up her arms like serpents. She stood, swaying in an odd motion like she was trying to dodge a punch, and then thrust out her right arm at the nearest Diogenes. White lines of energy skittered through the air and obliterated the illusion with a buzzing crackle, then split and leapt to the next nearest two Diogeneses, destroying them as well. By then Shealis had turned her attention to the floor again, and flames were rising up toward her hands.

Rantle was already edging to the exit, and he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“No time to enjoy the show,” Diogenes whispered. “Get going.”

Though he couldn’t see Diogenes anywhere near him, Rantle forced himself not to look around and give away the trick. Quietly, and out of Shealis’s field of vision, he slipped down the stairs and ran. Behind him he heard Diogenes’s mocking voice.

“Talking when you should be defending yourself? Very bad form.”

There were no other students around this early in the morning, and it took Rantle less than a minute to sprint down the stairs, out the front of the tower, and get inside the dormitory. Outside the walls of the Castle he could hear the quiet sounds of Gate Pass waking up, and he was sure behind him he could hear thunder and explosions from the third floor of Gabal’s tower.

Once inside the dormitory he ran to the second floor and counted the third room on the left, then pulled out Shealis’s pouch and tipped it upside down, shaking its contents onto the carpeted floor – coins, folded letters, vials of perfume, strangely carved blocks of glass, and the occasional wand – all while looking for a key, which according to Diogenes would bypass any deadly magic the jen mage had placed on her door.

When he finally spotted it, he picked it up, slid it into the door’s lock, and prayed that Diogenes knew what he was doing.

With a twist of the key, the door unlocked, and Rantle pushed it open. He scanned the room quickly and spotted the bookshelf, then began tearing through it, flipping open book after book, looking for the ones he couldn’t read because they were written either in Shahalesti, or in yet older tongues. According to Diogenes, in Seaquen these would be worth more than any gold they could carry, but just in case, Rantle snatched a few precious looking objects around the room.

Ultimately he came away with an armful of five books and full pockets that jingled satisfyingly. When he left her room he grabbed the pouch, scooped everything on the floor back into it, and held all of the loot to his chest as he ran, awkwardly carrying Kathor’s two-handed sword tucked under his arm.

He kicked open the door leading out of the dormitory, and saw Diogenes already trundling his legs on his way toward the main gate. Rantle hurried over to him, glancing up at the tower, from which he could still hear strange thunderclaps and see flashes of light.

“Are you another illusion?” Rantle yelled.

Diogenes looked up, then grimaced like he wanted to curse.

“You ruined my concentration, you ass.”

“Take some of this stuff,” Rantle said. “She’s going to kill us now!”

Diogenes sighed. “Pay attention! You took her array. The only reason she could use magic up there was because the dueling ring is set up that way. If she came out after us, the worst she could do to us is yell trite curses.”

Rantle could no longer hear the sounds of magic from the tower, but then behind them Shealis began shouting.

“Dog! Cur! Thief!”

Diogenes laughed and began sauntering to the gate. Rantle followed, looking back as Shealis went running to the dormitory, shouting for help.

“Diogenes,” Rantle said, “how will the other students feel when they find out we did this?”

Diogenes stopped laughing suddenly. He pulled the lever to open up the side door, and Rantle led the way out, now laughing himself. Diogenes came after, pulling the door shut behind them. The two of them jogged past confused townsfolk picking up bodies in the streets, and soon were out of sight of the Castle.



Chapter Seven

“I can’t believe you were fool enough to come back here,” said the guard.

Rantle hid his amusement at the similarity to the previous night. This time, however, he was trying to weasel his way into the home of Councilwoman Bhari, and the guard trying to stop him likely did not want to maim him. Unfortunately, Rantle was exhausted from a night without sleep filled with a great deal of running and hiding, and so he knew he was being less persuasive than usual.

“Just,” he started, “just get Pravati out here. If she sees me in the state I’m in, and doesn’t want to let me in, I’ll go. Are you going to turn me out at a time like this?”

Of the three guards at the gate, only one spoke, and if Rantle were better-rested he would have been able to remember his name. However, they looked like they had not gotten much sleep either, and Rantle guessed their ceremonial breastplates and greaves had been put to use the night before keeping people from looting the manor. Conspicuously, one of the guards was missing his pike.

Like most of the council members, Pravati Bhari had a manor house near Summer’s Bluff, the plateau above which the colossus of Coaltongue towered. The rich manors of the central district consisted of fenced-off compounds of beautiful multi-story buildings connected by glass-windowed skybridges so their owners never had to go outside. The merchants who actually owned Pravati’s manor only used two of the six buildings in the compound, and Pravati’s only family were her parents who had their own home, so when Rantle had stayed here he had practically had three entire four-story homes to himself.

The guard frowned at Diogenes. “Who’s he?”

“This man saved my life,” Rantle said. “And he can help the councilwoman. Please, let us in.”

“She’s at a meeting now,” the guard said. “Go inside and wait in the den. We’ll let you know when she gets back. Don’t roam.”

The smell of ash hung thick in the early morning air. The Ragesian dractyl riders had focused their attacks here in the central district, and a few nearby buildings had burned down to husks of scorched stone and wood. The roads were wide enough here that few fires had spread, however, and Councilwoman Bhari’s manor was untouched.

As they headed toward the first building, Diogenes whispered to Rantle, “You lead an interesting life.”

Rantle casually led the wizard inside and to the foyer. The spacious home felt hollow, its few meagerly decorations being those adornments left by the previous councilman’s family whom Pravati had forced out two years earlier.

They deposited all they had stolen from Shealis on the foyer’s plain table. Rantle lay the two-handed sword against the wall, frowning briefly, wondering whether it was worth the effort he was putting into carrying it along.

With a shrug, Rantle threw himself into a leather chair, then groaned. Diogenes sat on a couch across from him and pulled out a cigarette.

“Explain,” he said with a yawn, “and make it the quick version. I hope this woman of yours takes her good time getting back.”

“We can’t take too long,” Rantle said. “Who knows if Torrent has already left the city?”

Diogenes slumped back wearily. “We’ll get up in a few hours, and I can try to figure out the spell with a clear head. Just tell me my bedtime story. What’s your history with this councilwoman?”

“Fine,” Rantle said.

After a moment to gather his thoughts, he explained.

“Three months back, this guy Dirus and I were trying to sneak in here and make off with some jingle in the buildings Pravati never uses. I didn’t know her back then. She stumbled upon me during the job, and I made up a lie that she fell for.”

“Must be gullible,” Diogenes chuckled. “‘Pravati.’ She’s Chathan?”

Rantle shrugged. “Her family came from Chathus after it was conquered. Her grandfather was apparently in the Resistance forty years ago.”

“What did you tell her?” Diogenes said. “The lie.”

“I said I was a poet who had been performing for the Weyne family, who actually own these buildings. I said I was walking through the emptiness, looking for my muse.”

Diogenes lit his cigarette with his wand.

“After that,” Rantle said, “Dirus and I figured we could take our time. I kept slinging bad poems at Prati, and she kept inviting me over, which kept her busy whenever Dirus was in the other buildings carrying stuff away. But Dirus got gold stuck under his nails, and took enough that Prati’s guards started to notice. The guy at the gate, . . . is his name Linard? Anyway, he suspected me and laid a trap. The next time I was over, I went to check on Dirus while Prati was sleeping, and the guard found us both.”

“Let’s see,” Diogenes said. “Guard’s still alive. You’ve still got all your parts. Did you tell him Dirus was the muse you’d been looking for?”

Rantle sighed. “Nah. I saved my skin. Ended up that Prati believed I had fought the ‘scoundrel’ in order to protect her.”

Diogenes shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable. He put out the cigarette on the floor, finding it difficult to smoke while lying on his back.

“Why’d you leave?” he asked.

Rantle leaned back and took a moment to answer.

“I kept coming for two months, and eventually I was staying here full-time. There was all this news about the Ragesians coming, and I was worried about my sister. So I took all I thought I’d be able to fence, and decided I’d get Katrina to leave with me when I saw her next.”

“Katrina is the sister you have this unhealthy obsession with?”

Rantle snorted in frustration, but nodded.

Diogenes shifted again, then sat up and took off his coat for the first time since Rantle had met him. To take off his coat he had to slip his right arm out of a harness, revealing that what Rantle had thought was his right arm tucked into a pocket was just a carved piece of wood. The shoulders of the coat were broader than his actual shoulders, supported by a frame, so that there was plenty of room for both his real arm and fake arm. Without the coat, Diogenes was fairly slender, with a bit of pudge at his waist. Whatever hair he was losing from the top of his head had apparently migrated to his chest and arms.

Rantle gestured at the coat.

“Is that some sort of magic?”

Diogenes lay the strange coat on the ground, folding it so the fake arm would be less apparent.

“We’re both liars. But I plan mine, which is why I’m better. Another wizard sees this, he thinks my hand’s in my pocket, so I can’t grab a wand or cord to cast a spell. How clever I am.”

With a contented sigh, Diogenes lay back on the couch and closed his eyes. Rantle shrugged and did the same in his chair.

“Oh, Diogenes,” Rantle said. “When we see Prati, call me Roscoe. You know?”

“Sure,” Diogenes said, “but only if you call me ‘The Great Diogenes.’”

* * *

A tender, desperate pout crossed Pravati’s lips, and she embraced Rantle.

“Must you go, Roscoe? I can find a dozen other soldiers who could-”

“No,” Rantle said. “You need soldiers here. I am but a poet, yet this is a chance I can be of help to our city. I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if it means going away again.”

Pravati pressed her face against his chest, her perfumed hair brushing across his mouth and nose.

“My new year’s dream was to see you again. I was so frightened when you vanished.”

“The city needed me,” Rantle said. “Don’t worry. I handled myself fine against Ragesian spies, and this is just the road.”

Pravati nodded bravely. She looked over her shoulder to the study, from which chanting and strange incenses were emanating.

“The Great Diogenes will protect you?” she asked.

“Yes my love, just as he’s protecting this house.” Rantle grinned daringly. “The Ragesians would be fools to try to stop us. Now, Prati, we’re going to need to leave soon.”

Pravati squeezed him tightly, hints of tears in her eyes. She looked up longingly and whispered, “Fate is so cruel. I see you again, and there is not even time for us to go to bed one final time.”

Rantle bit his lip and looked away.

From the other room, the chanting stopped and Diogenes called out.

“Oh, woe! This spell does vex my powers mightily. It will be long before I can bend the arcane forces to my sorcerous whim. An hour, probably, in case anyone cares.”

Rantle looked down at Pravati’s dark, hopeful eyes.

“Fate is never cruel to true love,” he said.

* * *

Rantle, cleanly dressed, looked down over Diogenes’s shoulder at the mirror he had laid upon the dining room table. Beside it lay a frayed rope and a small cup filled with smoldering incense, and one of the books they had stolen from Shealis sat open nearby. Other random ornaments for the new year’s wishing festival cluttered the edges of the table.

“So that’s where the mirror went off to,” Rantle said. “I was going to shave. You need this for the magic?”

Diogenes looked at him like he was a child stating the obvious, and he nodded slowly.

“Did she complain about you being so scruffy?” he asked. “I can wait if you need to look handsome before we go fleeing for our lives. Or shall we get on with this?”

“Nah,” Rantle smiled. “I’m satisfied for now.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Diogenes said. “Alright, so here’s how this works. While our benefactor is busy getting us what we need for the journey, I concentrate on the person we want, and if I can keep a clear enough image in my mind, eventually her current location will appear in the mirror. Then if I want I can deliver a message of up to twenty-five words to her, and she can reply in kind.”

“Twenty-five words?” Rantle asked.

Diogenes shrugged. “The scrying spell Shealis had a focus from was of alchemical origin. Alchemy is old formulaic magic, with countless arbitrary rules, and why am I bothering explaining this to you? Do you care?”

“Not really,” Rantle chuckled.

“Twenty-five words then.”

Diogenes turned his attention back to the mirror. Rantle watched for a moment, then threw himself into another chair at the table. He idly picked up a wishing urn from the table and shook it to make sure it was empty.

“Did you make a wish yet?” he asked.

“No.” Diogenes didn’t look up. “As much as it shocked me to learn that our little festival actually does possess some magical heft, I know better than to wish for something. You never quite get what you want.”

“I need something new to wish for. I usually wished, ‘If I get arrested, let it be for something worthwhile.’ It always worked so far.”

“So what worthwhile things did you get arrested for?”

“Never got arrested.” Rantle grinned.

Diogenes huffed a short laugh, then went back to focusing on Shealis’s book. Rantle sat silently across from him, pondering what to wish for, but then after a few moments, Diogenes grumbled and frowned.

“I knew there would be a problem,” Rantle said.

“No, just a possible one. It’s technical, but this is something you should care about. Many types of magic, like this scrying spell, can be thwarted if the target’s mind resists.”

Rantle waited, hoping Diogenes would get the cue that he had no idea what that meant.

Diogenes sighed. “Alright. If I were to try to make you confess to that woman about how much you’ve stolen from her, I would have to connect to your mind and force you to do what I want. You wouldn’t want me to do that, and the psyche shield of every conscious mind resists hostile compulsions.”

“‘My mind won’t do what you want it to’?” Rantle said, guessing the meaning of the wizard’s explanation. “That’s comforting.”

“Effectively. There are ways around it. I can direct more energy into the spell, though that’s harder with an alchemical ritual like this. I’m using someone else’s array, so everything is predetermined, and I can’t easily alter it. A personal item of the target makes a link easier. Or if I suggest something you secretly want, even if you don’t want to admit it, you’re more willing to accept it. All those let the spell do it’s job.

“But,” Diogenes continued, “if we’re keeping the same sort of good luck that let us get this far, this ‘Torrent’ will recognize you as not an enemy, and will want to be found by you. So stick around, and try not to fall asleep.”

Rantle settled into a chair beside Diogenes and busied himself writing a letter while the wizard chanted under his breath. It was nearly noon, though the sky was still dark from smoke. Rantle was anxious to leave, but all he could do was sit quietly, ponder the news Pravati had shared about the fighting, and scratch out a farewell to hopefully apologize to her for his deception.

Pravati had gained her position because of popular support for her pledges to work against corruption, but Rantle knew that the guilds each had a hand in convincing the merchants to endorse her. Pravati meant well, but she could not see her own puppet strings. Rantle wanted to think his parting note to her might prompt her to actually become the decent leader she wanted to be.

Finally, after ten minutes of writing and listening to Diogenes drone, the room began to brighten like the clouds were parting, but Rantle realized the glow was coming from the surface of the mirror.

“That’s her!” Rantle said.

Rantle’s initial enthusiasm faded quickly. In the shining image, he could see Torrent, as well as the woman with her whose name Rantle had forgotten, and what might have been the top of the ugly jispin man’s head. Their surroundings looked like roughly-carved stone, fairly dark, but with an angled square of light, slashed into sections by strips of shadow, like sunshine coming through a window. Or, as Rantle soon realized, the bars of a prison cell.

The three of them were sitting on the ground, hunched low and huddled in traveling cloaks, and each was manacled, hands to feet.



Chapter Eight

Rantle cursed. He looked to Diogenes, expecting some sort of snide comment, but the wizard was just looking at him expectantly.

“What?” Rantle said. “We’re ruined. Sorry for putting you through the trouble.”

Diogenes just frowned dubiously, then raised his right hand, in a fist.

“Torrent,” he said.

He extended his thumb, and in the mirror, Torrent looked up in confusion, revealing bruises on her face. Her eyes cast about like she was trying to see who was talking to her.

“Rantle sends a message,” Diogenes continued, extending the remaining fingers of his hand, one by one.

“Oh,” Rantle said. “Alright, um, ask her to let us know where she is. Wait, how many words have I said? Hell. Did I-?”

Diogenes shook his head mutely, gesturing that everything was alright. Then he said, “Briefly detail your location, status.”

Rantle said, “Tell her we’ll rescue her.”

Diogenes gave him a look like he was crazy, but shrugged.

“Rantle will rescue you.”

They were up to fourteen words now, and Rantle thought for a moment, then said, “Tell her, ‘We’re headed to Seaquen on behalf of Gate Pass.’”

“We’re headed to Seaquen on behalf of Gate Pass.”

Diogenes waggled two fingers to prompt him. Rantle shrugged.

“Is good-bye one word or two? Nevermind, tell her ‘Lay easy.’”

“Good luck,” Diogenes said. Then he relaxed his posture and glared at Rantle. “‘Lay easy’? You are such a dirty thug. Learn to speak properly.”

Rantle shrugged, then pointed at the mirror, where Torrent looked like she was concentrating intently. Finally she began to whisper, counting out her words on her fingers as Diogenes had, as if she was familiar with such magic.

“Head south from eleventh district, to Innenotdar. Twelve ‘Black Horse’ bounty hunters. Camp’s half mile off road. Inquisitor arriving tonight. Seaquen will help Gate Pass.”

The image dimmed, Torrent and her fellow prisoners dissolving to reveal the reflection of Rantle and Diogenes looking into the mirror. They looked at each other and were quiet for a moment.

“So you’re going to ‘rescue her,’” Diogenes said. “At least she’ll be hopeful for her last few hours before the Ragesians take her.”

“I was serious,” Rantle said. “We know where they are, vaguely. I’m sure we can come up with a way to get them away from these bounty hunters.”

Diogenes laughed.

“Fine,” Rantle said. “Do you want to stay here now? All we need is to come up with a good trick to make them hand the prisoners over to us. We could pretend to be Ragesians.”

The wizard’s laughter spiked for a moment, but he brought himself under control.

“I know it’s difficult,” Diogenes said, “but try thinking here. They were headed to Innenotdar, which aside from being on fire is thirty miles away. We don’t know where in those thirty miles they were attacked. They could have had horses and been riding, and thus be nearly all the way to the fire forest, or they could have been on foot and just be a half mile south of the city walls. So we have to scour thirty miles, looking for a camp half a mile off the road – and our brilliant ally didn’t mention west or east – and do this all before nightfall.”

“Alright,” Rantle said. “She was headed to the fire forest, she said? I don’t want to leave them, but we could just go the same way ourselves, couldn’t we? And we would know to look out for an ambush.”

Diogenes leaned back and shrugged. “This woman, Torrent, apparently had some sort of way to protect herself and the others from the fire. Honestly, that much is a good plan. If we could get to the fire forest, I don’t think anyone would follow us in there. But I can’t protect myself from fire, not for that long, at least.”

“My sister could,” Rantle said. “She said she was going ahead to Seaquen, and that she had arranged for Torrent to be at a place she knew I would be. Why didn’t she just wait for me, though? We could have met up with this Torrent and her group, and all gone together.”

Diogenes chuckled. “If she had, you’d all be captured now. For all you know, your sister was captured by these same bounty hunters. How long ago did she leave?”

Rantle shook his head. “No idea. The way she wrote her letter, it was like she wanted to keep this secret, and was worried the message would be found by someone else. I don’t think she was even in the city, or she would have found me, instead of having someone leave me a letter.”

“Excellent,” Diogenes said. “Your sister is safe, and we’re still stuck without a plan. Nevertheless, and I hate to come to this realization but, even with this setback I still want to get out of this city. So let us not declare defeat. Think of something useful. First, what are the problems we have to deal with?”

“Um, we have to deal with a dozen bounty hunters?” Rantle said.

“Hm. Can you get your dear lover to loan you her guards?”

Rantle shrugged. “Maybe, but that raises a lot of questions. As is, she can’t even get us permission to leave the city when the gates are locked. We’re going to have to sneak out over the walls. That’s hard enough with two people.”

Neither of them spoke for a while, both thinking. Finally Diogenes sighed and rubbed his right temple.

“This is pointless,” he said. “Even if we had Gabal himself coming along to kill the bounty hunters, we still don’t know where they are.”

“Can’t you use the same spell again to ask her to be more specific?”

Diogenes shrugged. “I know you’re not interested in the laws of magic, but bear in mind it is slightly difficult to warp the aether to see dozens of miles away. One should never just idly use magic, especially since, what, she’s going to say, ‘When you come to the big rock covered in snow, turn left?’ The more I do now, the less useful I’ll be when there are people with swords around.”

“God,” Rantle said, “magic is so useless. Alright, can you just find one of the bounty hunters directly?”

“For one, no,” Diogenes said, “because I would just see him, not know where he is relative to us, unless he was very close. For two, he would just resist the spell because I have no connection to him.”

“Wait, connection?” Rantle asked. He smiled. “You said you could use an item that belonged to a person to make a spell affect them?”

Diogenes nodded slowly. Rantle’s smile widened as he realized he had a solution.

* * *

A handful of silver bridges dropped in the young ferrier’s hand set the plan in motion, and Rantle quietly glided to the back of the crowded inn common room. He took a seat next to Diogenes and listened to the rumors.

No one really knew what was going on. The assault had ended some time in the middle of the night, with the first wall’s defenses cracked but not breached. Word from soldiers taken away to healing houses was that the Ragesians had only used a pittance from their huge army, as if they had not really wanted to take the wall. Everyone believed that they could have if they had tried, and whispers hinted that the city council, in an early morning meeting, had decided to surrender to the Ragesians.

Rantle knew it wasn’t that simple. Gate Pass’s leaders did not think Ragesia’s new empress, Leska, would be as merciful and calm as Coaltongue had been decades earlier. Coaltongue had wanted wealth and security, but Leska it seemed was leading her people for revenge, scouring the lands of those who might have killed the late emperor. The city would not surrender, but they were willing to try to appease Ragesia.

According to the official Ragesian claims, Coaltongue’s assassins had been mages, so, as Pravati told it, the city intended to open its gates to the inquisitors. They would come in, take away any mages they desired, and leave Gate Pass its independence.

Rantle had just finished deciding on his wish and placing strip of paper with it written down into his urn, when he spotted the ferrier coming down the stairs. He tapped Diogenes to get his attention, but the wizard didn’t move.

“He’s coming,” Rantle said.

“I know,” Diogenes said. “I thought staring at him might be just a little suspicious, no?”

The ferrier was hunched nervously, followed closely behind by the horseman from the night before, Kathor, who managed to still look fairly daunting in everyday clothes. The knight had a tight expression of impatient displeasure, and he followed the ferrier out the front door and to the stables, where supposedly Kathor’s horse was starting to look sick. Like any good cavalryman, Kathor would want to make sure his horse was alright, which gave Rantle and Diogenes the opening they needed.

“Let’s go.”

Together they hurried upstairs, and a few moments work with lockpicks got them into Kathor’s room. A pair of windows looked out on the street, their curtains open, and a single bed sat flush with the same wall. A small table stood in the near right corner, a chair beside it. Kathor had brought his horse’s saddle into the room, along with all the weapons that had adorned it, and they lay on the floor next to the bed. A small pack lay beside them, and when Rantle tapped it with his foot, it clinked like coins.

Diogenes sifted through the saddlebag and quickly pulled out a handkerchief, which he tucked into one of his coat’s pockets with an innocent whistle. Meanwhile, Rantle set down his own weapons and gear in the far left corner of the room, leaning Kathor’s sword against the wall but keeping a crossbow he had acquired at Pravati’s. Then both he and Diogenes moved to the closed door. The wizard set to work scraping runes into the frame of the door with a small knife – held in his right hand, even while his fake right arm still had its hand tucked into a pocket. Rantle listened at the door itself in case Kathor was coming back too quickly. He had told the ferrier to keep the bounty hunter busy, but the man would be returning soon.

Hearing nothing, he stepped back and loaded the crossbow, checking it to make sure it was in good order. A moment later, Diogenes finished his carving.

“Alright,” Diogenes said, “that’s done. Get close. Where are we standing?”

Rantle waved him over to the far left corner of the room, beside one of the windows. Diogenes squeezed close to him, then tapped the window repeatedly with his fingertips as he chanted a spell. The light from the window grew slowly brighter, and Rantle watched as his and Diogenes’s bodies grew darker, the light fading from them until they were the same color as the room, all but invisible. Diogenes stopped chanting, and the room was suddenly very quiet.

A few minutes passed, Rantle afraid to speak in case it might ruin the spell. Through the window came the sounds of people complaining as they cleared debris out of the streets, and the faint chiming of distant noon bells.

Finally he heard footsteps approaching. He raised the crossbow and took aim.

A key clicked in the door’s lock, and then the door opened. The symbols Diogenes had traced on the door briefly flickered with gold light, and then Kathor stepped into the room, looking irritated. He started to close the door and head to his bed, but stopped and cocked his head slightly, as if he had noticed something amiss. Slowly backing away, he put one hand to the dagger at his hip and drew the small weapon. He took a step back, trying to head out the doorway to the hall, but came up short as if he had hit a solid wall.

Confusion crossed the man’s face, and Rantle cleared his throat.

“I’ve got a crossbow pointed at your chest, Kathor,” he said. “You might remember me from last night, at midnight? You’re stuck in this room until my wizard friend decides to let you out, so you’d better cooperate.”

Kathor squinted into the darkness where Rantle and Diogenes stood, holding the dagger low by his side.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“First,” Rantle said, “we don’t want to kill you, or even get you arrested or punished. So let’s all stay calm and talk.”

Kathor glanced around the room, like he was trying to guess if other invisible people might be about. Finally he looked back in Rantle’s direction and waited. He had an expression as if he were in control of the situation.

“I suppose that’s a yes,” Rantle said. “You weren’t working alone, were you? There were others in your group, waiting outside the city?”

Kathor nodded. He said nothing.

“Who are they?” Rantle asked.

“The Black Horse,” Kathor said. “They’re mercenaries. The leader’s name is Renard.”

“Could you take us to them?”

Kathor squeezed his eyes shut and gave a quick shake of his head, like he didn’t believe what he had just heard. “Why?”

“Well, the mages you were trying to capture last night got away, but they managed to get themselves caught anyway. That doesn’t really give me confidence in them, but my associate and I think they know a way to get out of here without crossing paths with the rags.”

“I could take you to them,” Kathor said. “We were granted permission by the Gate Pass council to take mages from the city, so the guards at the gate won’t stop us. But then what? Where will you go to avoid the Ragesians?”

Rantle said, “Why does that matter?”

“Because if I’m going with you, I want to know what your plan is.”

“Pardon?” Rantle said. “You tried to spit me on your sword last night. Why in hell would we bring you with us?”

Kathor’s expression turned cold, and Rantle actually shifted in discomfort.

“I didn’t try to kill you,” he said. “I told you to move, because I spotted a dractyl circling over our location. If you and I had stayed in the alley, we would have been crushed by burning rocks when it dropped the bomb. If I had wanted to kill you, I could have.”

Diogenes yawned. Both Rantle and Kathor looked at him – Kathor only in his vague direction – and Diogenes shrugged.

“Eventually the machismo becomes boring,” the wizard said. “You, knight. You have the good sense not to try to kill us, but unless you have a reason why you would want to come with a group of,” he chuckled, “somewhat incompetent refugee mages, we’re going to have to assume your motives are suspect.”

Kathor stood still for a moment, looking down quietly. Then he nodded once.

“I was in the army,” he said, “and my parents were opposed to Leska. I was punished for their choice. If the Ragesians find me, they’ll kill me.”

Rantle said, “Last night you’re trying to capture people to sell to the Ragesians, and now you want to go swimming against your fellows. And what precisely changed your mind?”

Kathor sheathed his dagger.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “I listened to you.”

Diogenes laughed. “You listened to him, and decided to give up your cruel path in life?”

“I’m a soldier,” Kathor said, “not a manhunter. Until now, working with the Black Horse seemed like a good idea. But if you know a way to safety, I prefer distance to hiding under the inquisitors’ noses.”

Rantle said, “You’re not going to turn us over to the rest of the bounty hunters?”

“If you’d rather shoot me,” Kathor said, “fine. But I won’t betray you.”

Rantle lowered the crossbow. “Drop the spell, Diogenes.”

The invisibility faded, and Kathor looked at the two of them calmly. Rantle stepped forward, feigning more confidence than he really had, and slapped one hand on Kathor’s shoulder.

“I’ll trust you for now. Keep up your end of the bargain, and I’ll let you come along. We’ll just keep it a secret that you’re a rag.”

“I’m not going to hide my allegiance,” Kathor said. “Ragesia has abandoned me, but I took an oath to my emperor.”

Diogenes said, “Emperor’s dead. And the new one is a megalomaniacal witch.”

“The Old Dragon is immortal,” Kathor said, “and Leska is not my emperor. How do you intend to get away from here?”

Rantle looked to Diogenes, who shrugged.

“The road they took leads south to the fire forest,” Rantle said. “The wizards will use their magic to protect us, and Diogenes thinks we’ll be through in a day or two.”

Kathor frowned. “I’ve only heard the name before, this fire forest. It’s dangerous?”

Diogenes laughed. “No. I’m sure they just called it the ‘fire forest’ because they liked the name.”

“It used to be the Innenotdar forest,” Rantle offered. “Jen lands. Forty years ago, around the same time Coaltongue captured Gate Pass, the forest caught on fire, and the flames never died. A lot of jen from Innenotdar fled and moved here to Gate Pass. No one know what caused it.”

“And no one can follow us through it,” Diogenes said. “Or at least that’s the risk we’re taking.”

“Would we pass through this fire forest to Dassen?” Kathor said.

“Yeah,” Rantle nodded. “Satisfied? We know the route, but Torrent, one of the prisoners, has the magic to protect us. We need to get to your friends’ camp before sunset. Is that possible?”

Kathor was silent for a moment. “Yes. The men who didn’t come back last night left behind their horses. You have my sword.”

Rantle glanced back at Kathor’s sword, propped up in the corner of the room.

“Of course,” Rantle said. “You can have that one back, but remind me to get one of my own.”

Diogenes groaned. “You’re fond of his sword, are you? Are you going to try to sleep with everyone we meet?”

“What’s he talking about?” Kathor said. “Is he implying-?”

Rantle shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. We need to get moving.”

* * *

The three men rode to the eleventh district, Kathor guiding an extra pair of horses, all of them bearing swords and bows on their saddles. At one point they passed a caravan of Ragesian prisoners, all han or herethim, clad in black scale armor with red fire standards, freckled with blood and bruises, escorted by Gate Pass soldiers who managed to look afraid even though they were the ones holding the chains. One herethim, missing his right eye and bleeding from the base of the large tooth that jutted tusk-like from the right side of lower jaw, watched Rantle tightly as he was marched past.

The city was torn to pieces, burned divots scattered every few hundred feet, the husks of burnt buildings marked by a now iconic scent of scorched Ragesian sorcery. Rantle kept his eyes from straying, not wanting to be reminded of all that he would be leaving behind. He only made it to the south gate by reminding himself regularly of how he had no home here, and that his only family was waiting for him, far away.

At the gate that would lead them south along an old Otdar Mountain road to the fire forest of Innenotdar, Kathor brusquely presented his papers that gave them permission to leave, claiming Rantle as a fellow bounty hunter and Diogenes as a prisoner. The guards at the gate complied mutely, and it was barely an hour after noon when they rode out of Gate Pass and onto the barely-trodden, snow-clogged trail.

A few hundred feet out, Rantle looked back, not really able to see the city beyond its walls, stretching far away along the ridges of the mountains. His horse slowed, and he closed his eyes, straining to hear the chimes of bells, anywhere, even faintly.

Hoofbeats, crunching along the snow, came up and stopped.

“Don’t look back,” Kathor said. “It’s easier.”

Rantle nodded and turned back to the road. He sighed, then straightened up in his saddle and kept his eyes ahead.

RangerWickett

*8)


Greetings.

I maintain a personal gaming-related blog offsite, which went live 24 October 2009.

It can be viewed at LOBRAX IS HUNGRY.

My blog here at ENWorld serves as something of an index of the main blog. Most of the posts here will point to broad categories of posts over there, things like "spells", "magic items" and so on.

Thanks!


*8)

the_orc_within