‘Why don’t you come back to Astaria with me, Granddad. I’llbet that you’ve never been there.’
‘Thank you, that’s a good idea.’ he replied but I’ll go backand fill in the king about what has happened first and meet you atyour gateway.
Aquitain huggedand kissed Miranda, Gizel and Tigerlilly and left for Astaria.
Before he leftGranddad turned to Miranda and Darkmantle and said.
‘I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to retrieveZephira.’
‘You told Queen Beatrix that she had helped the Yith takecontrol of your mother’s gate world. That was only a coupleMoonmist days ago. That suggests she might still be there. Since wehave access through the gateway on this world we should try to gether back.’
‘But … there’s probably hundreds of Yith all over the place!’said Miranda.
‘True.’ replied Granddad ‘and that’s why I think we might beable to pull it off.’
‘I don’t understand.’ replied Miranda a littleconfused.
‘Well the place will be crowded with people who don’t reallyknow their way around inside your gate world. They’ll be all overthe pace. There’ll be strangers everywhere. All we have to do is toblend in and since you know every nook and cranny. Once we areinside we should be reasonably safe. It’s the getting in that’slikely to be the main problem.’
‘But a few Newmans will stand out amongst the Yith.’ saidMiranda thinking that Granddad must have lost his mind.
‘Not if we look like Yith.’ He replied. ‘I have used a shapechange effect to look like a Yith on many occasions. I even sat inon a Yith Council meeting once. I have observed them and canusually guess what they are going to do. The Yith have many worldsin their empire and speak hundreds of dialects. They have created acommon language which all the educated class learn and use. All themilitary officers are forced to learn it so that they cancommunicate with the magic users but they usually speak it poorly.I have put in a lot of effort to learn it and speak it reasonablyfluently.’
‘I thought they were all nomadic barbarians.’ repliedMiranda.
‘No that is the propaganda spread by the Unity of Wisdom inPanmagica. They have a militaristic empire but within it they alsohave an educated magic using elite, which don’t get on too wellwith the more brutish majority. They have wizards, mind wizards,druids and priests just like the Newmans and many pray to theirgoddess Lithgala, who they believe is another name for the Ladyherself.’
‘Really?’ uttered Miranda thinking of the consequences ofthat.
‘The Yith High Council also employs a special group of elitemagic users called the Watchers to visit their field units andcommanders from time to time to check up on them. If we couldimpersonate a pair of Watchers then no one would botherus.’
‘It sounds dangerous. What if we get caught or trapped there?’asked Miranda. Aquitain has given me a job to do then he expects meto return as soon as I can.’
‘That’s good.’ replied Granddad. ‘Since he doesn’t know howlong it will take for you to do the job. He will wait if he needsyou. You go and do your job then meet me in Templegate as soon aspossible and I’ll do some planning.’
‘Okay, but I’m not sure that this is a good idea.’ she repliednot knowing how much trust she was prepared to put inGranddad.
Darkmantlethought that a rescue attempt would be quite dangerous but he didagree that there was a good chance that Lash would be there. Hedecided that he would like to go back to his men camped at theportal who would be getting rather worried about him.
Mirandaexplained to Tigerlilly that mommy had to go and help daddy fightsome bad people and that they were going to leave her and Gizelhere for a little while. She then hugged and kissed Gizel andTigerlilly and teleported Darkmantle to his men at the camp outsidethe gateway to Moonmist.
Gizel,Tigerlilly and Quab were escorted back to their accommodation byXentos and Rori set off to visit the nearest little people villageto spread the word about the miraculous things he hadwitnessed.
Chapter 31 Astaria’sSecrets
Asterix returned tothe control centre not long after Aquitain had arrived back from ashort visit outside of Astaria and found him fully occupied in somedeep conversation with the book. Yllandril sat watching views ofdifferent places within Astaria so he joined her, pointing outplaces of interest.
The streetswere now full of mercenaries and their rubbish. Many were drunk andarguing among themselves. The Mentarin mages had each commandeereda building for themselves and were sitting waiting. Some satlooking at the wall sipping wine while others studied scrolls.
Aquitain wasinterested in the problem of re-joining two separate minds in casehe had to separate them again. He had asked Franciscus in the bookwhat he might do in the theoretical situation where the two partsof his mind couldn’t be re-joined. He thought about it from severalangles then suggested that it would have to be like an arrangedmarriage.
You didn’t haveto love the person you were with but both had to survive so youwould have to work out agreed duties and responsibilities and eachtry hard to not annoy the other. You would have to be tolerant. Youwould have to keep up good communication each telling the other inadvance what they wished to do.
Aquitainfinally seemed happy with whatever he had been doing with the bookand turned his attention back to Asterix. He apologized for hisanger. He told Asterix that he was here to do a job, but no onecould tell him what the job was and it was getting veryfrustrating.
‘I’m at the portal Rob. Can you let me through?’ announcedGranddad.
Aquitainteleported to the portal, opened it met with granddad, brought himinside, closed the portal and teleported him to the control roomthen introduced him to Asterix and Franciscus.
Granddadvaguely remembered having heard something about Franciscus butcouldn’t recall the detail. He looked on the mushroom monitor atviews of all the mages and troops all over Astaria and suggestedthat it was going to be difficult to remove them all without abloody fight then asked Aquitain to link them up for a privatediscussion.
‘What in the Creator’s name have you got me into,Granddad?’
‘Well it all started
