Qan changedform to their Zenostruct form and floated down to the hatchway atthe other end of pathway five, opened it. Ignatius bolted to thegateway at the end of the corridor and vanished.
‘Gatekeeper. Thank you for returning so quickly. Many lizardcreatures came through pathway one and teleported into the villagearea. They are fighting the people there. The control room issealed off with some type of magic, which I cannot penetrate. Whatshall we do?’
‘By the Powers, the Yith couldn’t wait. What do they know thatwe don’t or are these a part of the hostile faction.’ said Qin toQan.
’You handle the urgent stuff and I’ll try and figure outwhat’s going on.’
‘Astaria, first seal all gateways then teleport all the lizardinvaders, and then all the uninjured Mentarin to the maze inPathway Two. That area is sealed against magical escape. They canfight and wipe each other out there if they wish without affectingus.’
‘Gatekeeper, people have entered Pathway Three from theMentarin end.’ said Astaria.
‘I asked you to close all gates.’ replied Qin.
‘I did.’ said Astaria, ‘but whoever’s in the control room hasre-opened some of them manually.’
‘Damn.’ replied Qin. ‘We better fix that next.’
‘It’s a trap!’ said Qan suddenly. ‘We’ve fallen into atrap.’
‘Of course it’s a trap.’ replied Qin.
‘Everyone knows that we’re here, so they’re coming to getus.’
‘You keep trying to work out what the trap is supposed toachieve and I’ll try to recapture our control room.’
Chapter 38 It’s All in theMind
Miranlla teleported tothe southern gateway hoping that she could get in to be withAquitain.
She appearedabout a hundred paces from the keep housing and protecting theSouthern Gateway and she saw Rory sitting by a fire just outsidethe keep. She ran to him.
‘Rory, what are you doing here?’
He jumped up onseeing her.
‘Lady Miranda, I’m being very happy to be seeing you. I amtrying to be talking to the Lord Spirit Bear but he is not hearingme at the moment.’ he replied.
‘I have changed my name to Miranlla, Rori.’
‘That is being sounding like a spider name.’ he saidthoughtfully.
‘It does, doesn’t it. Now what is your problem?’ sheasked.
‘Kami, is being very worried that the spirits being called tothe Great Council will be fighting and not be giving the littlepeople any help. He was asking me to be asking the Spirit LordAquitain to be helping us.’
‘I am afraid of that too.’ replied Miranlla.
‘You are knowing of the problem?’ asked Rori a bitsurprised.
‘Err … yes Rori. I have just found out what happened at thelast Great Council. It may well happen again. I will try to helpbut if Aquitain is not watching the gateway then he will not knowthat we are here.’
‘The Spirit Lord was telling me that if ever I was needing hishelp that I should be sending a message to him using the spirits ofthe dead.’
‘Have you sent a message to him?’
‘I have been sending two messages to him but he has not beenanswering me yet Lady Miranlla.’ replied Rori.
‘Then we shall send another to him from me.’
‘Call on your spirits of the dead and I will send a messagewith yours.’
Rori waspleased. He ran off and came back with an armful of deadwood andplaced it on his small fire. As it began to catch alight hewithdrew some ingredients from a pouch at his side and he began tochant and sprinkle the ingredients on the fire.
The fire flaredup a bright green colour then became black in its centre. He keptchanting and then suddenly said to Miranlla. ‘Tell the dead whatyou are wishing to be saying.’
‘Aquitain my love, this is Miranda. I have important news. Iam outside the Mudrun gateway. Open it and let me in.’
Rori keptchanting for another half minute thanking the dead thenstopped.
‘The spirits have been telling me that they will be deliveringthe message. We must now be waiting.’
‘Good. I shall meditate.’ replied Miranlla and adopted theposition and closed her eyes for prayer.
Qan suddenlysaid to Qin. ‘We have received two sendings from Rori which we haveignored as we’re busy but we just received one from Miranda thatmay be important.’ and he passed the message on to Qin.
‘Sounds like we better talk to her.’ replied Qin.
‘However, we had better capture the control roomfirst.’
‘Astaria can you create a small room as close to the controlroom wall as possible and move me into it?’ asked Qin.
A few secondslater Astaria reported that it had moved all the lizards and theother Newman into the maze except for one big lizard that blockedany attempt to move it.
‘That will be the leader, quite possible Adonis. You can bethe wants to get even for us kicking him out of the Crin meeting’said Qin.
‘Put up solidrock walls around him and move him by moving the chamber that he’strapped in, to the edge of Astaria and dump him outside.’
‘I don’t understand what you want me to do.’ replied Astariain a panicky voice.
‘I’m not used to doing so many things so quickly and I neverwant to hurt anyone. If I dump him outside he mightdie.’
‘Okay, okay, don’t worry. We’ll do things one at a time. Let’smake the room next to the control room our top priority and move methere.’
Twenty secondslater Qan in control of their Zenostruct body was in a small roombeside the darkened control room. He formed a hand and pressed itforward finding the wall of force he expected. He knew how to passa wall of force now. If he changed to a Rock elemental he couldadjust their phasing field to pass through it but was hesitant.Ignatius had shown him how to do this. Was it part of the trap? Heasked Qin but he didn’t know so he pressed on.
He changed formto a small Rock elemental and realized they could see into the roomusing their elemental vision. They saw a small form like a gnomeand a rectangular object, probably the book, hovering in the room.They could also see the faint shimmer of a force dome occupyingmost of the floor space within the room. He aligned his phasingfield with the force wall and passed through it then reformed theirZenostruct body with
