As soon as Mirandaleft, Curbut’s bird familiar flew straight back to tell him whatshe had heard. Curbut was waiting expectantly. While his familiarwasn’t much of a storyteller she told him exactly what he wanted toknow. Miranda and the Logicon were working together from anunderground hideout on the headland in the ruins. They had takensome treasure from the shrine, had ambushed and killed Kelnor’s menand they were about to move to another location.
That’s was all heneeded. He donned his battle cloak, placed a teleport ring on hisfinger and two more in a pocket in his cloak. He placed a ring ofinvisibility on another finger and slipped his most deadly wandinto a wand pocket in the cloak. If he timed this correctly heshould be able to catch them in their hideout before they left. Heteleported to the teleport marker near Kelnor’s underground cave,cast wizard flight on himself, turned himself invisible with hisring and flew off towards the ruins on the headland, only half aleague away.
Miranda tapped out theagreed code on the hatch and went down.
‘I’m back. Wasn’t Iquick!’ she yelled.
‘You’ll never guesswhat I’ve found?’ he yelled back, so she went down the corridor tofind him crouched over a book, writing notes.
‘Let me guess. Theorigin of the Great Storm!’
‘No, nothing like that,I found a mind magic manual written in Yith but addressed toAquitain.’
‘How do you know it wasto you? It might have been to someone else with your name.’
‘Ha, ha. How manypeople on Mudrun are called Aquitain? It’s not even a Yith soundingname. Besides that, I recognise a lot of the drawings. Mygrandfather taught me using the same drawings. I suspect he musthave a copy as well.’
‘Why didn’t he tell youabout it then?’
‘I don’t know. I’llcertainly ask him when I see him. Half of the book is missing,though he might have a copy of the other half.’
‘Have you learntanything new?’
‘No, not yet. I’m onlyhalfway done. There appears to be some new stuff towards the endbut I’m using the stuff I know at the front to help me translatethe words I don’t know.’
Aquitain then realizedthat he hadn’t welcomed her back and dropped what he was doing andstood up.
‘I’m sorry Mandy.Welcome back.’ And he hugged Miranda and she hugged him back.
‘I’m glad to see youdidn’t go out and get into trouble,’ she said with a smile.
‘Oh no. I need yourprotection. I wouldn’t be game to go out by myself,’ hereplied.
‘Liar!’ she said. ‘Ifyou hadn’t found the book you’d probably be back at the shrinetrying to coax Jacintra back to ask her some questions about theworld of the dead.’
‘Now that is a goodidea,’ said Aquitain. ‘Why didn’t you say something when you had achance yesterday?’
‘Perhaps because I wasworried that she might take us for a visit to show us around. I’veheard it’s damn hard to get back again,’ chuckled Miranda.
‘That’s a good reason.I forgive you. Now what happened at Twin Towers?’ he asked.
They sat down and shetold him about telling the story three times, how the High Wizardwas worried about them staying at the hideout, and that they shouldmove today. She also told him that Zephira was worried about himand passed on the message she had sent.
Aquitain laughed.
‘She’s right you know.She always told me I’d be a hero one day, but I never reallybelieved her, as I thought that I’d be stuck at the forge makingmagic equipment for all the other heroes. Strange how things workout, isn’t it? Do you think I have time to translate the rest ofthe book before we go?’
‘How long will ittake?’ she asked.
‘Six to eight hours I’dsay.’
‘I’d prefer it if wepacked and went. I’m sure Featherdown was worried for some goodreason.’
Aquitain agreed, andthey began to sort out what to take and what to leave.
‘I thought that weshould go to visit the cat people for a few days. They live to theeast of where we are now. They need to be told what happened,’ saidMiranda.
‘All right I’ll leavethe travel plans to you. I’m at your disposal, lovely maiden.’
Miranda said nothingbut smiled inwardly. She was really glad that Quab had made up thatlie to tell Zephira. It would be unbearable to have her around. Shewanted him to herself.
Curbut saw the ruinsand landed nearby. He was still invisible. He cast a protection onhimself and began searching for some type of entry into thehideout. He activated his ability to detect magic and continuedsearching. He smelt the cat urine before he saw the puddle andthought it curious, so he had a closer look and made out the edgeof a hatch leading into the ground. He smiled and thought of theirony. The cats helped them yesterday and today they had given awaytheir location. Then he hesitated. Perhaps it was a trap?
He stood for a fullminute thinking of the possibilities then dismissed them. Today wasgoing to be his lucky day. He used some magic to dampen the soundand some to make it dark. He lifted the hatch, getting cat urineall over his hands and arms in the process; then he entered andclosed the hatch. He carefully dismissed the zone of silence andlistened. He could hear someone talking. No, there were two ofthem, and one was the druid girl. His heart beat faster and hishands became sweaty. He silently crossed the room towards thecorridor leading to the voices.
Miranda was ready togo. They had packed everything that Aquitain wanted to take,including all the books. She walked across the room to the entranceto the hatch corridor, waiting for Aquitain to make one last check.She smelt cat urine. She knew that both her and Aquitain hadcarefully avoided getting it on themselves, so there was only oneconclusion to draw.
‘Tain, we haveintruders,’ she said urgently and dived towards Aquitain, who wasin his body shell but shuffling around in a box.’
They heard some arcanewords and there was a surge of magic. Aquitain knew the words as hehad heard them many times before. They were the words of power thatcaused mental confusion, one of the most dreaded effects of magic.Someone enchanted by this magic would do one of
