‘Look I still don’tthink that they’re up to anything,’ said Chantalot.
‘As I told you thismorning, I checked their story out quite thoroughly. There’s awarrant out for Aquitain for the murder of some Logicon, but hiscousin Zephira is clean.’
‘Murder of a Logicon!’thought Aquitain, ‘By the Powers, I hope it wasn’t Facit.’
‘I still have a strongfeeling that they’re here for some reason other than just to hideout,’ said Featherdown.
‘We’ve still got a spyhere that I haven’t managed to catch yet, sending information backto the Unity of Wisdom. If the spy sends information about Aquitainback to Panmagica, we could get a visit from an Archon and I don’twant one of those poking around here.
‘I’ve got Quabsearching for this Amber fellow. Perhaps he will be able to clearup why they’re here. In the meantime Quab’s asked Miranda to comehere and teach Aquitain some more shape changing. He’s hoping thathe’ll tell her something useful, or at least stop him from findingAmber before we do.’
‘By the Powers, thesebastards are nosey,’ thought Aquitain.
‘All right I’ll keepworking on Zephira, but I don’t think I’ll get anywhere with her.She’s as tight lipped about Aquitain as anyone I’ve ever met. Eventotally drunk she won’t say anything,’ said Chantalot.
‘She sounds like a goodfriend of his to me. I wish all our friends were that tightlipped,’ said the High Wizard.
‘Oh. I meant to tellyou that I dropped in on Aunt Alice in Panmagica. She said to askyou to send Jade for a trip there as she hasn’t seen her for acouple of years.’
‘Oh damn,’ thoughtAquitain. ‘The bloody bard’s a brother or cousin of the High Wizardand Zephira likes him. She’s not going to react well to this whenshe finds out.’
The High Wizard leftshortly afterwards, and Aquitain called Alpha back. He was now in areal predicament. Quab was searching for Alin Amber and there was aspy in Twin Towers who was likely to report to the Unity of Wisdomthat a Logicon had turned up here about the same time that Robdisappeared from Panmagica; and if that wasn’t bad enough, he wasnow a murderer. There could be an Archon here after him anytime. Heconcluded that it couldn’t be Facit, as Granddad would have senthim a message, so he didn’t worry about that any further.
He went back to hisworkshop and sat planning until dawn. He remembered that Quab hadsuggested that he do some shape changing practice north of theDruid Sanctuary. That’s where he’ll tell Miranda to find me hethought. But first he needed a contingency plan, some place that heand Zephira could escape to quickly if the Archon showed up.
Granddad had givenZephira four rings and two of them were rings of teleport. Thesewere very expensive and restricted in Panmagica to those with apermit. In general, this meant the wealthy, the hierarchy of theUnity of Wisdom, and the Merchant Wizards. They were normally usedfor transport between teleport markers for non-magic users, butthose with experience and a good memory could travel to awell-known location without the use of a marker.
Aquitain knew all aboutthem, having made several in the past year for wealthy customers,and that would be his priority tonight, for without markers it wasunlikely Zephira could get around Mudrun, and they could easilybecome separated.
Since goods flowedregularly into Twin Towers by teleport from other places on Mudrunbefore being sent out the gateway, it was obvious that there was anestablished network of commercial type teleport markers similar tothose in Panmagica. That meant that somewhere there was a list ortable of marker identification codes. If he could get a copy ofthat list then there would be a good number of places to escape to,even without his own markers. However, for security reasons theHigh Wizard would keep the list closely controlled and locked away,but there were two other possible sources for this information:Jaztrix and Quab.
Aquitain went to thelibrary where Jaztrix seemed to spend most of her time when shewasn’t annoying people. She was there, and discretely concealedwhat she was working on to greet Aquitain.
‘Is there a map of thisworld?’ he asked the gnome.
‘Yes, scroll bins topright.’
This immediatelysuggested to Aquitain that the gnome referred to it frequently. Hetook it out of the bin and unrolled it on the table in the middleof the room, using random books to hold down the corners.
There were twocontinents, and vast seas between and around them. Three towns weremarked on one continent, Twin Towers, Templegate andTurtlehaven.
There were no otherfeatures on the map at all, which was extremely odd.
‘Why are there nofeatures like mountains and rivers on this map?’ askedAquitain.
‘Perhaps you’ve got tolook a bit harder?’ suggested Jaztrix.
‘Featherdown told methat there were at least twenty settlements. Where are they?’
‘I’ve only ever been toTemplegate and Turtlehaven.’
‘What are they like?’asked Aquitain.
‘Templegate is at leastfive times bigger than here, but inland away from the sea.Turtlehaven is about the same size as Twin Towers, and on thenorthern side of this continent.’
‘How do you get tothese places?’
‘You can pay to go byteleport. You can teleport there yourself if you know the markers,or you can travel across the jungle but that would take weeks,’replied Jaztrix.
‘You wouldn’t happen toknow where the marker codes are kept would you?’ askedAquitain.
‘Yes. Featherdown keepsthem safely locked away and he also keeps a separate map of themarker locations somewhere,’ said Jaz.
Aquitain was sure thatJaz was trying to give him a clue, but what was it? She had saidthat if he wanted to see things on the map then he should lookharder. He suddenly realized what she might mean. He used his powerto detect magic and a whole extra lot of detail showed up on thescroll. There were rivers, mountains, lakes, and nearly forty smalltriangles, about half with dashes over them.
All the triangles werenumbered, possibly suggesting some order of importance.Unfortunately there was no indication as to what the trianglesrepresented. Perhaps they were teleport markers, but they couldalso be magic nodes, or even villages. He memorized the map andleft for Quab’s sanctuary.
On arrival at thesanctuary he found the thorn bush gates closed and a sign sayingthat Quab was absent. He thought about this for a minute or two,and concluded that the
