‘I don’t do it by design, you know.’ said Aquitaindefensively.
‘I just do what seems to be the right thing at the time.Forget the Powers. If I’m an Agent of Chaos then it didn’t happenby chance, K’wala did it. Adonis might make threats but he knowswho else is in the game and he probably hasn’t acted because he’snot quite sure what they will do if he does. We don’t really knowwho all our friends and enemies are yet, so let’s not worry untilwe do.’
‘Okay! Let’s do this and see what happens.’ said Miranda andshe asked one of the Trixies to lead them to the gateway thatBellen went through to get his magic wand charged.
After severalminutes walking and passing through a couple of secret doors theywere escorted to the gateway, which according to their Trixie guidewas always open.
‘That’s unusual.’ said Aquitain. ‘Permanent gates are usuallyguarded by somebody or something.’
‘I wish I still had that little cube that my mother gave me. Icould cast a spell which gave details about a gate like where itwent and who travelled through it and so on.’ saidMiranda.
‘Hold on. I may be able to do that. Llanlorian made me agatekeeper and implanted some powers in my memory although I’venever used any of them yet.’ said Aquitain.
After a coupleof minutes delay he spoke a word of command and the gate statedthat it went directly to Astaria and had been permanently open forabout a hundred Moonmist years. The main traffic through had beenthe Trixies and a few Elendari. The last one into Astaria had beena Trixie.
‘You won’t believe what we’ve found.’ saidAquitain.
‘It’s a back door into Astaria. It’s been open since beforeLlanlorian took over and she’s never been through it, so I’d guessshe didn’t know about it. I remember now that I wasn’t to use anygates other than those linking pathways one and two. In fact I onlyever passed through the two gates on pathway one and there aresupposed to be eight pathways and presumably fourteen other gatesgoing somewhere!’
‘By the Lady.’ said Miranda.
‘Argenta also had only two operating pathways. Maybe we hadanother six hidden ones as well. In fact we probably did. Iremember once mother said she thought that there were otherpathways but didn’t seem to know how to get to them. We only usedone pathway between Mudrun and Moonmist until the Moonmist end wasblocked by the Queen’s people.’
‘Mother closed the gates and turned pathway two into anadventure garden for me to play in until I was old enough to go outinto the real world. I had such a wonderful time there and lots ofanimal friends. Maybe they survived Darkmantle’s attack. Maybethere’s a secret backdoor into Argenta as well.’
‘If that were the case then why wouldn’t the Queen have senttroops through to capture it back again off your mother?’ saidAquitain.
‘I don’t know?’ said Miranda. ‘If it went into one of pathwaysthree to eight and those pathways are blocked from traveling topathways one and two and the town, then neither mother or the queencould get access to each other.’
‘I suppose that’s possible.’ said Aquitain. ‘Let’s see whatthey’ve done on Astaria first as it’s possible they’ve done asimilar thing on both gate worlds.’ replied Aquitain.
‘I agree. ... Oh, this is exciting, Tain. Maybe this will showus how to recapture both Astaria and Argenta.’
‘Or it could be a trap set by the Mentarin.’ said Yllandril.‘Remember a pathway has two gates. If one is here at the Queen’spalace where does the other one go to?’
‘Mentar!’ said both Aquitain and Miranda together.
‘I suppose you’re right but we’ll soon see.’ saidYllandril.
‘This could be the main road between this palace and theMentarin Lord’s palace. I’ll bet the Elendari travelling throughhere were possessed by Mentarin sprits. It would also give theQueen and Gemelica quick access to the Mentarin Lord. I’ll bet thatwhen they teleported away at the ball it was mainly to keep thisplace a secret.’
‘Perhaps it’s the Mentarin that have taken Bellen and thestory about the sentient book was a fake. If that’s true then I’dhave to agree with Yllandril.’ said Miranda. ‘This is likely to bea trap.’
‘That’s all conjecture.’ said Aquitain.
‘There’s only one-way to determine what’s true and what’s not,and that’s by going there. Remember this is my world now and I’llnot be put off going there.’
‘You’re right, my love.’ said Miranda.
‘Trap or no trap we need to go there to get some answers, solet’s just go.’ and she walked into the gate with Yllandril on herright shoulder and Aquitain dangling off his golden necklace aroundher neck.
Chapter 22 The Trouble withHelix
Helix the Travellerbug arrived in Mudrun as a stowaway in a traveller’s baggage. Ithad taken him considerably more effort to get here than he everwould have imagined. Officially, the place didn’t exist. He had tomind read several high level sources in Panmagica before someonehad even heard of the place and it took a large bribe to get theinformation as to where the gate was located. In fact, it wasn’t inPanmagica, but on another seldom visited, harsh volcanically activeworld.
When he finallyfound it, he discovered that there was extremely tight securityaround it, which took him a few days and another large bribe to getpast. The curious thing was that nobody knew why the security wasso tight, or why the place was generally off limits to everyone.The only clue was that the Unity of Wisdom had placed an absoluteembargo on any information about the place and it was generallyforbidden to speak of it. This made it even more interesting toHelix as he loved delving into religious groups’ secrets.
He wascurrently an Investigator and trouble-shooter for the MultipodeanSociety. This was an association of mind wizard intellectuals frommany worlds. Membership was by invitation only and he owed SolTheolaur a great debt of gratitude, as it was Sol who had proposedhim for membership and fought to get him elected. He was the firstand only Traveller bug to be honoured in this way.
The Society hadoriginally been set up as a forum to discuss the nature of magicand
