Not having reached the next town by the time the sun begins to near the horizon, they decide to pull over and make camp off the road a ways. The wagons are pulled in close to one another and the horses are picketed in a group nearby. They set about making camp when Tinok comes over to James with his water bottle and asks, “Have you got any extra water? Mine’s all gone.”
“A little,” he replies. “I was trying to make it last.”
“Can I have some?”
“Sure,” he says, handing him his bottle.
As Tinok drinks the last of his water, he begins to realize they may be in trouble. Out in this heat, they’re not going to last long without water. Then he glances over to the horses and realizes they’ve not had any water since the blacksmith’s earlier in the day. They must be really thirsty by now.
He looks around the horizon for a source of water, but only scrub brush can be seen. This could be bad, he realizes. Calling them all together, he asks, “Who has water left?”
Cassie and Jiron raise their hands, while Tinok and Delia shake their heads.
“Seems we’ve gotten ourselves in a situation,” he says. “We’re going to die out here if we don’t find some water soon, not to mention the horses.”
“What are we to do?” Jiron asks. “We’re miles away from anywhere and,” he glances around the horizon, “it doesn’t look like there’s any water to be found.”
“There’s always water,” he tells them, “it’s just a matter of getting to it.”
“I don’t see any water around here,” Tinok says as he looks around the horizon.
“It’s beneath us,” he explains, pointing to the ground. “Under the surface.”
“How are we going to get it?” Tinok asks.
“Magic?” Delia guesses, looking questioningly toward James.
He nods his head, “Magic. Now what I plan to do is to search with magic beneath the ground and when I’ve found it, get it to come up to the surface.”
“Neat,” Cassie exclaims.
“Just stay here and watch for anyone coming,” he says to them. He then turns and walks away from their camp, looking for a depression or hole where the water would be able to pool once he managed to bring it up. It wouldn’t do to spend all that time and energy to bring it up only to have the water run off and be absorbed back into the ground.
He eventually comes across a place not thirty feet from camp that will suffice, and then sits down next to it. He begins concentrating and the magic flows out of him, down below the surface as he searches for water.
Surprisingly, he finds water not very far below the surface, only about twenty feet or so. He sends his senses further down and discovers that there’s a sizeable reservoir there. Coming back to himself, he gets up and walks back over to the group, informing them of what he’s found. His head is dizzy from the heat and the effort it took to find the water.
Incredibly hot and thirsty after the ordeal, he asks “Cassie, could I have the rest of your water?”
She nods and then hands him her water bottle which he drains completely. “Thanks,” he says as he hands it back to her.
“Now what?” Jiron asks.
“Give me just a few minutes to rest and I’ll attempt to bring it up.” He goes over and sits down on a wagon, taking advantage of the shade the newly acquired covering gives. Even though the sun is about to go down, it’s still fairly hot.
Once he’s rested and no longer feels dizzy, he gets down from the wagon and walks back to the area where he will attempt to bring up the water. Standing next to the depression he begins to summon the magic, sending it below the surface to where the water lies.
He takes his time, finding fissures and cracks, weak spots that can be loosened and widened, making a way for the water to reach the surface. Little by little, as he widens a crack here and breaks through stone there, he begins to sense the water being forced to the surface by the pressure below.
Once he’s created a fissure halfway to the surface the ground begins to shake, breaking his concentration and ending the spell. He stumbles as the shaking increases, cries of confusion come from the others who are watching him from over near the wagons.
Suddenly, the ground cracks open and water geysers out of the ground, shooting twenty feet in the air before falling back down into the depression. The area rapidly fills with water as it continues surging out of the ground.
Jiron reaches James’ side and claps him on the shoulder as he says, “You did it!”
The others come to his side, congratulating him. They watch as the water fills the depression to capacity and begins creating a small pond, thirty feet in diameter. Then the water starts spilling over the side and is quickly absorbed by the ground.
Tinok kneels down by the water and cups his hands, tasting it. He looks over to the others and shouts, “It’s good, and cool!”
They all come over and drink their fill from the pool of cool water. The horses smell the water and begin straining against their tethers in an attempt to reach it.
Jiron runs over and releases them, allowing them to come and drink their fill. Everyone fills their water bottles before returning to the wagons.
“We were lucky there was no one around,” James says as he lies there near the campfire, relaxing.
“Why?” Cassie asks.
“Don’t want anyone to know I can do magic,” he explains. “They may still be on the lookout for the rogue mage that caused the destruction back at the City. I really don’t want them to begin putting two and two together.”
“What does two and two have to do with anything?” asks Tinok.
“Sorry, that’s just an expression from where I come from,” he replies. “It just means they might connect me with the things I did at the City. If they knew I was a mage, that is.”
“Oh,” he says.
“Maybe the next town we come to, we should buy several water barrels to carry with us,” Jiron suggests.
“That may be a good idea,” agrees James. “We should have plenty of money left in the chest.”
“What is the next town?” Cassie asks.
“Haven’t a clue.” James admits. “I’ve never been here before.”
“How do you know that we’re even going in the right direction, then?” Jiron asks.
“I figure Korazan should be further south,” he replies. “A major slave market would hardly be on the edge of the Empire. They would want it accessible to a large number of their people, so it stands to reason that it would be further into the Empire. Thus, south.”
As they relax around the campfire, James absentmindedly reaches for his backpack, but then remembers that they left it back in Mountainside when they broke out of jail. Thinking of the things that are now lost to him, he gets sad and then mad. This place is just going from bad to worse, he thinks to himself. Now I’ve gone and lost my backpack.
“Oh my god!” he suddenly exclaims, sitting up abruptly.
“What?” Jiron asks.
“My backpack!”
“What about it?” Tinok inquires as he joins the conversation.
“It’s back at the jail.”
“So?” says Tinok. “We all lost some things when we left there. We were in a little bit of a hurry.”
“You don’t understand,” exclaims James “I had some papers in there, notes I had been keeping about magic and other important stuff.”
When he sees that he’s not getting through to them, he says, “My notes will make them realize that a mage was there. If they assume I’m the same mage as was at the City of Light, then they will know we’re heading south.”
“And the only reason we would be heading south,” continues Delia, “would be to rescue someone from the slavers that had been taken when the City fell.”
