Chapter 4 Part 1

...Into the Fire

"Welcome back." Everyone turned to find Avery eating a spit of roasted meat.

"Just where have you been?" Armegon asked as he settled on a nearby outcropping of rock. He and the others sat around the fire where Avery had cooked enough meat to feed a small army. They sampled his cooking while he spoke of the Oracle's test.

"Well, let's see this enchanted weapon," Ultrecht said leaning closer for a better view.

Avery unfastened his green cloak and drew the long sword from its scabbard on his back. Instantly, he felt the weapon's own consciousness merge with his own, but it made no attempts to lure him into battle.

"I thought enchanted swords glowed," Norwind said quizzically.

"Most do," Samson informed him. "At least the common ones do. Some, like Libra, don't. Usually those that don't are very unusual." To illustrate, he drew forth his own sword. The two enchanted weapons showed no sign of magic.

"That’s an indifferent reaction," Samson informed them. "These swords do not oppose each other's purpose. If they did, we’d see sparks and they would become very hot." He sheathed Libra.

"On the other hand," Samson went on to say, "if they were co-aligned, that is to say they served the same cause, we would hear a harmonic ringing when they were both drawn."

"Impressive," was all Ultrecht would or could say.

Marlena gave Avery a friendly hug. "I think you did the right thing."

"Has anything else happened since you got out?" Armegon wanted to know.

"Yes," Avery answered. "Don't look for him now, but we have a visitor near enough to be heard and smelled but not seen." Avery resheathed his weapon. This time it did not put up a fight. "He has been watching me since I got out. He seems to be quite content to keep his distance so I left him alone."

"Well, we can't stay to play games," Samson advised, "our time is running short."

"Samson's right," Ultrecht agreed. "We can talk more on the trail. Right now we have to get moving."

“I don’t think that we’re in so much of a hurry that this hearty feast should have to go to waste,” Norwind interjected. He took a cutting of meat and tasted it critically. “It’s definitely one of his better dishes.”

“Yeah?” Armegon asked suspiciously. “I thought he cooked poor meals as a matter of principle; you know, rangers being tough and hearty and all?”

“Well if we have to stop to eat,” Samson yielded, “let’s do so quickly, and then we can move on.”

After a short, but tasty meal, supplies were quickly inventoried and distributed. The horses had returned several hours earlier and Avery had detained them By the time they were packed and moving again, Avery had been filled in on the Oracle's message.

He couldn’t help but think about what Scarlet had said to him through the healing link. The words came back to him in a rush: I can see those who are to return, and you are not among them. That and the words given to him by the Maiden of the Morning disturbed him greatly, but he kept them to himself.

As they left the door of the Oracle and began their march out of the canyon, Keeneye was dispatched at Samson's suggestion to deal with their hidden guest.

"Does anyone understand the Oracle's message?" Avery asked.

"Not at the moment," Armegon said as he rode. "As far as we can guess, there has been one guaranteed death."

"Scarlet," Samson said pulling his horse along side Avery. It was clear to everyone that the animosity between the two had declined. It may have been that their sharing of a sacred trust in the possession of enchanted swords had created a bond between them, or perhaps it was simply that Samson had experienced some revelation in his encounter with the Oracle.

"Exactly," Armegon agreed. "One who will perish if we do not hurry."

"That’d be Seymore," Samson surmised.

"One who’ll be lost to treachery."

Samson pursed his lips. "That could be Tyson betrayed by Axlea," he said. "But the Oracle spoke in the future tense, so perhaps Tyson is yet still alive."

"If so he may catch up with us, and someone else could be the victim of the treachery," Ultrecht put in.

"And three more will not return home," Marlena reminded them.

"But that doesn’t mean death," Samson pointed out.

"It doesn't deny it either." Armegon was not trying to sound morbid, but that is how it came out.

"It could mean that some of us get captured or lost," Marlena suggested.

"I guess we’ll just find out when we find out," Ultrecht said.

"Suits me fine," Norwind said from the rear. "I don't really care to know the future.

"Please," Marlena begged, "not another ignorance-is-bliss lecture."

Keeneye returned about an hour later as they exited the canyon and reported that the spy was gone. "It was as if he disappeared into thin air." Keeneye reported on how he had followed the spy's trail to a point where the tracks suddenly vanished. "I think our audience was a mage of some kind."

"Well, we can't wait for him to return and I’m not sure that I want to anyway," Samson remarked.

"Right," Armegon added, "since there are no visible landmarks to teleport to and we weren't in the port town long enough to get a proper fix mentally, we’ll have to travel as quickly as we can by foot or scrythe another teleportation fix."

"That is probably how Avery's friend in the rocks located us in the first place," Ultrecht objected. "Let's not do that again unless we absolutely have to."

"Perhaps we can purchase a teleportation in the Twin Cities," Marlena offered as she munched on a piece of dried vegetation.

"I hope so," Norwind groaned. "I sure don't relish the thought of trekking through that jungle again." He smiled as Marlena gave him an amused but menacing look.

"Then lettuce be on our way," Armegon suggested innocently.

"Oooohhh," Keeneye grimaced in mock pain. "That was bad."

"All right Armegon," Marlena warned as she continued to consume her carrot. "That will be enough, thank you."

"Yeah, you uncouth sorcerer," Ultrecht chastised his friend. "If you keep cracking jokes upon her like that she's liable to beet you with that root she is stuffing into her mouth. Corny vegetable puns won't a-pease her if you keep..." He was interrupted when a carrot hit him in the back of his head.