Typraille was the second most companionable of the group, after j’ark, and in Typraille there was none of the thorny tension that was often present when she spoke with j’ark long into the evening.

Typraille was gifted with a certain kindness, in a fatherly way. It was refreshing among so many warriors.

Disper and Yuthran were out of sight, as was Unthor Ren Un Gor. It did not matter that she could not see them. She knew they were there, like shining sentinels, protecting her from harm.

Would that she knew her companions better.

A soft cry came from behind her, and she turned her attention to the last of her companions, the sad figure laid out in the back of the wagon.

She was just a girl. It was for her that Tirielle travelled to Beheth.

The girl’s eyes were covered in cloth. Tirielle knew from experience not to remove the binding. The girl’s eyes saw more than Tirielle wished to know. Infected by some strange disease that the Sard had called the blight, her eyes, usually of myriad colours, were blooded and stained red to the pupil.

Sometimes, words were placed in Tirielle’s head, and she knew the girl’s suffering. She was locked in a cage by the strange malady inflicted on her during her time as a captive of the Protectorate.

Fate was well and good, but Tirielle had vowed to cure the Seer first.

There was more reason to head for Beheth. It was their best chance of finding answers. Even if it were not for the seer she would gladly go anywhere but where the Sard were intent on taking her. Beheth held everything. If the wizard’s location had ever been written down they would find it there. The library was immense, housed in not one but thirty buildings.

Sometimes she thought the Sard placed duty above people. Tirielle would not fall into the same trap. People came first. The Seer was her duty, not the wizard. Everything had its place, everything had its time. Dran A’m Dralorn, Tirielle’s long dead father, had known that well. It was a lesson she would never forget.

Something was coming. Her sight was good. She focused on it, squinting slightly against the glare. Any distraction was welcome.

Slowly, a dark brown shape broke the horizon. Roth approached, from ahead. She watched her friend, marvelling at the speed with which it ran. Within minutes, it had passed Cenphalph with a few words, and approached her, keeping pace with the wagon’s horses. Tirielle noted how the beast’s breath still came easily, despite the distance it had run.

“Greetings, lady, I believe I may be able to make the heat more tolerable,” said Roth, huge grin on its face.

“I cannot moult, if that is what you have in mind.”

“Ha! A fine sight that would be. No, look, if you have a mind to…”

And so she strained her eyes once more, peering into the distant horizon. A hint of green, did she discern? What could be green out her, in the vast dry plains of Ur?

“Trees?”

Roth smiled, or what she had come to recognise as a smile on its tooth-filled maw.

“And thus water.”

“Are you a sorcerer?”

“No, it seems the fates have a bath in store for all of us.”

Roth walked beside her the rest of the day, and they talked of inconsequential matters. She felt calmed by the rahken’s presence. She missed it when it was away.

Thoughts of bathing in cool waters were already soothing her mind. When they arrived, she would dive in and wash all her cares away, if only for a night.

For tonight she would put troubles behind her.

Eventually they came to the shores of a vast lake. It seemed incongruous, out here on the plains, but Tirielle could not deny her eyes. She leapt from the wagon in delight and ran to its muddy shores, throwing herself to her knees and taking handfuls of clear water to splash her face. The coolness after so long in the heat was wonderful.

Quintal smiled at the sight. It was a pleasure to see Tirielle’s face free of worry after so long. He wished he had not had to burden her so.

“We shall rest. We’ll stock our provisions with fresh water and fish,” said Quintal to the assembled party. “And we are all long overdue a bath.”

The mood was lightened instantly. The Sard removed their glimmering armour and strode into the water. Dow was setting in the distance, its glow lighting the surface of the lake with red fire. Trees were murmuring gently as a soft breeze rose. It was, thought Quintal with pleasure, about time they had some respite from their travels.

They splashed in the water, and laughed with rare joy.

Only Tirielle could not leave her cares behind. For a fleeting moment, the lake made Tirielle sad. Encased bodies of water always made her sad. In her history books she remembered reading the fable of the Moranders, who thought the lakes were prisons, and that the seas were salty with all the tears shed for their imprisoned parts. The Moranders, a peninsular tribe, had dug huge canals and tried to coax the lakes back to the seas, but like a caged bird forgets how to fly free from an opened cage, the lakes refused to leave…

Her joy at finding the lake was tainted by the thought. She tried to smile as they made camp and dried out, but, she thought wryly, troubles live in the mind. They are not so easily left behind. She smiled wider, and after a while, took another bath. Perhaps she could wash her cares away. They would drift into the water. The lake seemed large enough to bear it.

Footfalls echoed in the bowels of Arram. The moss, infested by vestiges of magic overflowing from one of many portals lent the moss the strange power to glow, coruscating veins of blue crackling through its green tendrils. The velvet carpet deadened the footfalls to a murmur, and the bare feet slapping against the covered flagstones trod lightly.

Ascending a wide stairway, the blue tinged growth gave way to drier hallways, lit at regular intervals by burning torches. There were no guards, no one to greet the returning mage.

His robes caught the muted light and shimmered as he strode toward the centre of the Protectorate’s headquarters, heading with single minded ambition toward his rightful place, among the twenty one leaders of the Protectorate, the Speculate. He was late, but even for an ascendant, time could not be manipulated. Travelling to the portal from any location was possible for one with the power to bend reality, but within Arram such displays of power were generally forbidden. But for the leader of the twenty one divisions, Jek, who alone was more powerful than the visitor.

His eyes caught the torchlight, seeming to reflect their red glow, but his eyes were of a different hue. They shone with their own inner light, a dark blood red, the blood of organs, of menstruation, dark enough to seem black on a moonless night. Sometime they bled light, marking the mage’s light as otherworldly, a preternatural light. It was the mark of an ascendant. As yet there were few, but their numbers, and so the power of the Protectorate, would grow.

An unassuming door stood before him. From beyond he could hear the sound of voices, arguing, as usual. There was no discipline beyond the door. It was something he would change when the power was fully under his control.

Reaching out with one emaciated hand, he pushed the door aside and entered boldly.

As one, the assembled Protocrats turned their heads to look at him.

Jek, at the head of the circle, was the only one to smile.

“Ah, Klan, we are graced with your presence, as always. I trust you have not caught a chill?” Jek, the Speculate and leader of the twenty-one, was not to be taken lightly.

Klan Mard bowed low to his master. “My apologies, Speculate, I was unavoidably detained. But I thank you for your concern. The ice plains have yet to seep into my bones.” Respect was one thing. But obsequiousness, that was for dogs. Klan raised his head and took his place among the circle. He saw that few had ascended. Haran Irulius, Paenth Dorn D’tha, Absalain Ur An…the list was still short. Their eyes glowed with ascendancy, the blight not yet pronounced in all of the twenty-one, but their number was growing.