She continuedon towards her old home but couldn’t help thinking of what otherabilities the Lady might have gifted her with. She recalled many ofthe things she knew her mother could do and wondered which of themshe might be able to do now. It was quite frustrating. It wouldhave been much simpler if the Lady had just handed her a list andsaid here Miranda try these I think you’ll find them useful.
The sight ofher home gully not far in the distance brought her back from herthoughts. She would have to concentrate now on how to get throughthe gateway into Argenta. There would be all sorts of guards bothvisible and invisible, mages, priests and druids. The Yith werevery militaristic and well organized. She needed a safe spot towait and watch for several hours to acquaint herself with theirroutine.
She immediatelythought of the ledge overlooking the gully but that would obviouslyhave lookouts on it. She couldn’t just fly to it and land that wastoo obvious. However, at the ledge there was a crack that led intoa cave which she used as her own private hideaway when she wasyounger. It had a water supply coming from river creek higher upthe mountain. If she could follow the flow of water, then she couldget to her hideaway then creep out to the ledge to see how manyYith would be there.
But that stillwouldn’t tell her how many guards were at the gateway. She had toget into the cave where the gateway was located. Her mother couldturn into a small lizard she had seen it several times and wonderedwhere all the extra body mass had disappeared to. After all it wasone thing to change into another creature the same size as you butto change into something with only one fiftieth the body sizeseemed impossible.
She landed agood five hundred paces upstream of the creek that formed thewaterfall over the cave that the portal was in. She immediatelyused the camouflage prayer and blended into the scenery.
She imaginedherself as a small gecko lizard about two hand spans long andunbelievably she shrunk down to that size. The Lady had beengenerous and foreseen her needs. In high spirits she set off tofollow the river to the waterfall. It took longer than she wouldhave imagined, as even though she had the camouflage spell activeshe was being extra cautious. Once or twice she heard whisperedvoices suggesting that there were camouflaged or invisible lookoutsnear the river but she never saw anyone.
When shereached to edge of the cliff leading down to the cave she became alittle apprehensive. She had never tried to negotiate a verticalwall of rock even though she had seen geckoes do it many times.Carefully she set off down the rock face and found her moist toesembedded with small suction caps worked amazingly well. She foundthe cave entrance and with great delight found that she could walkacross the ceiling of the cave towards the location of thegateway.
It was herethat she discovered her first problem. She could hear people belowher but not see them. Her eyes were not designed for distanceslonger than a couple of paces. She couldn’t see whether the gatewaywas open or closed or what sort of guards and protections were inthe area. She would have to change to another form with bettereyesight. She continued across the ceiling and carefully crept downthe rock wall adjacent to the gateway and into a narrow crack inthe wall.
Then theunthinkable happened. A rock spider pounced on her back and plungedits fangs into her neck. Her first reflex was to roll into ball totry and dislodge it but it clung on wrapping its legs around herand they both fell off the wall onto the cave floor making enoughnoise for all the Yith present to look around. A mage cast a lightspell so that they could see better and they formed a group aroundher. They spoke words she couldn’t understand and seemed to belaughing.
If she changedto any other form they would see it and react as if she was anintruder. At the moment they were bored and this was something tobreak the boredom. She guessed they might even be betting on whomight win. She had two advantages on her side in the fight. Druidswere immune to most poisons and she had at least twice the bodyweight of the spider. The spider would simply hang on expecting itsvenom to weaken and eventually immobilize her.
She rolled andwriggled and tried to get a hold of some part of the spider andeventually managed to partly dislodge it. The spider desperatelyhung on. She rolled on her back and pushed with her back legs andfinally broke its grip and it let go. Immediately she flipped overand dived at it grabbing its abdomen in her mouth and bit into it.The spider struggled and twisted and turned but it was trapped.
She vigorouslyshook the spider and its abdomen broke off from the front half ofthe spider, which sped off away from her only to be crushed underone of the Yith’s feet. The Yith around her broke out into a cheerand one picked her up and placed her on its shoulder. She sat thereblinking, on the shoulder of an enormous Yith lizard wondering whatwas going to happen next.
The Yith gave aseries of harsh sounding orders and the other Yith moved quickly toobey. Then to her utter surprise the Yith walked through the opengateway into Argenta. A mindlink opened into her mind and Granddadsaid ‘I might have guessed you’d want to do this your way. Goodfight by the way. It gave me the perfect entry into their minds. Alittle suggestion goes a long way to avoiding problems. They thinkI’m one of the Watchers.’
‘How
