A few days earlier, back at the Convent in ItherBeau, 11 Knights stood round a wide table displaying a map of the region. Two chairs sat empty.

  “The clam might have taken them anywhere upstream,” mused the shortest among the Knights, a Vicaress dwarf called Zagth. As the Knights’ chief librarian, she was one of the most knowledgeable on magic outside of Beautuk's command.

  “Why not down river?” Sir Peter asked. “Is there a restriction?” Peter was newest among the Knights, having been chosen by Beautuk to replace the traitorress, Thesa, as the [Deity]’s champion.

  Another Knight, Vicaress Skilda, answered. “Obviously there's some restriction. We don't have time to go over the reasoning for every little thing. We need to strike while the season is on our side.”

  Sir Peter shrugged. “Just doesn't make much sense to me,” he continued. “Magic systems should be more consistent than this.”

  Several of the Knights sighed audibly. Peter was, supposedly, from a world without magic or a system. If such a thing could even be said to exist outside of MunFi(Mundane Fiction) novels. The young man, a rare male Knight, always jabbered on and on…and on…about everything as if it were all part of a story.

  “I suspect further is better in this case,” another Knight with a sing-song voice replied. The Knights continued chatting about where best to investigate until the self-assured voice of [Archknight Superior] interrupted, implicitly calling all to attention.

  “Very well,” she said. “Devotee bands along the nearby river banks.” She looked to the sing-song Knight and another Knight with a bow slung on her back, “Sir Frinx and Sir Ailgeth, you will lead teams into southern Dristle. The rest will await further instructions. We don’t need to capture or kill them. Only to slow them while Beautuk rests.”

  “What about me?” asked Peter, the only one stupid enough to demand [Archknight Superior]’s attention. She did not, however, respond.

  After each of the Knights saluted in unison, the meeting broke.

  Vicaress Skilda turned to Peter. “Modess Peter, you should already know that you need to select and train your Eminent Class.” Peter winced at the word ‘Modess.’ For some reason, he considered titles which, despite their feminine markings were used regardless of a Knight’s gender, as somehow diminutive.

  Skilda knew her reluctance was not unique among the Knights. Peter’s values often clashed with the Convent but for whatever reason Beautuk had made a decision and that was that.

  ***

  Thesa held the back of her hand to Merijest’s forehead. Ice cold. The [Witch] wasn’t sure what this meant. Merijest had a magical affinity with the cold and that complicated the meaning of her body temperatures.

  Thesa’s attention drifted momentarily to the Peppermint Wyrm incubating beneath the skin of her non-dominant forearm. A strange red pattern had tattooed itself on her skin and felt cool to the touch. Does that make us closer? She thought as she looked back at the demoness.

  Beside the pair, Yabba tried unsuccessfully to rouse the Foxtapus to play. The Nest Walker danced about and creaked as if cooing. Finally, the hole in its face produced a dead bird which it left at the Foxtapus’s feet. The Foxtapus accepted the gift of a meal which seemed to bring some sense of release to Yabba’s antsiness.

  They were in a small cave. Really, it was more of an overhanging rock than a cavern. Out among the green leaves of gold- and silver-barked trees, CicadaRats chittered and squealed.

  Merijest shifted, uncomfortable on her cot and Thesa looked for any way to help. She needed something to do. Whenever she found her hands idle, a sense of guilt spurred up in her stomach. She should be more helpful. She should be doing something. She certainly should not be admiring the demoness’s body… Was this kind of desire truly as caustic to the soul as she had been taught? Even then, should she be taking any kind of pleasure whatsoever in the pain of someone she cared for? Should she be holding herself back? She feared her dysfunction might go deeper than her strange upbringing with the Knights.

  Thesa’s stomach paused its anxious gurgling when Witmie and Durn finally returned to the cave. The Bronze Motif trailed behind, nearly clinging to Durn.

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  “We got the ingredients you asked for,” Durn said, unfurling a roll of brown paper to reveal several herbs and a single tincture. “But no maps.”

  “The shopkeeper said if we just follow the road a certain way we can find a larger settlement with maps and more supplies, but I’m not sure how close we should stay to a well-trafficked path,” Witmie added.

  ***

  “I’ve never brewed a potion,” Thesa admitted to Durn.

  “A potion this simple is hardly different from cooking,” Durn shrugged. One boiling pot later and Thesa was holding the empty vials for Durn to carefully fill with potion. The slips and spills of burning liquid were tolerable for an ex-[Paladin] with Thesa’s constitution.

  When the concoction had cooled, Thesa tipped a vial into Merijest’s swollen mouth. But before they could sit around waiting for it to take effect, the Foxtapus stood on alert and yipped at something unseen. Wafting pillows of smoke began to encroach from beyond the nearest trees.

  “Fire,” Witmie muttered a curse under her breath.

  Thesa scooped up Merijest on her back as Witmie and Durn scrambled to grab whatever supplies were not too far flung. Yabba shook on its fowl legs.

  Thesa asked the Foxtapus to lift Yabba onto her own shoulders and the creature obliged. Now hefting the burden of the demoness and her own [Minor Familiar], Thesa joined Witmie and Durn in a mad charge away from the approaching blaze.

  The fire did not chase them directly. Like slime mold, it fingered its way out from whatever terrible spark had been its origin. Gold-barked trees sizzled bright green while the silver-barked trees blazed blue. Amidst it all were flames of a distinct, bright yellow which Thesa recognized.

  When the party came to a felled gold-barked tree (thankfully not yet ablaze) Witmie offered a boost with her hand and Thesa heaved herself (and her cargo) up and over the obstacle.

  Arms full, Durn gestured as best as she was able. Relying on her affinity for wind magic, she maintained a bubble of fresh oxygen around the party. How long she could maintain the spell was yet to be seen.

  They trampled and dashed and lugged themselves on until they reached a stream. Small as it was, Thesa hoped it could at least slow the burgeoning fire.

  “Which way do we go,” Thesa [Messaged] to Witmie, but Witmie shook her head.

  “No time to check a map,” she replied. “Go up the other side of the stream. It’s the best I can venture.”

  And so they continued.

  The stream proved itself not to the task of halting the fire’s progress when yellow flames snuck up on either side of the party.

  Intermittently, Durn gave a signal for everyone to hold their breath and, pausing the magical flow of breathable air, performed the opposite task of removing all oxygen from a small radius to keep the burning crawl from reaching any ankles.

  Everyone wondered: Should we have stayed in that cave? But Thesa recognized the yellow flame as hand-made, not an accident of weather and seasonal cycles. This was the work of Frinx.

  On Thesa’s back, Merijest stirred. Her consciousness, having been adrift in a swollen pocket, was released into the spectacle of a forest lit up in technicolor.

  “Kitten,” she asked rawly, “are we in danger?”

  Thesa could only [Message] a reply (her breathing was laden with effort). “A lot of danger.”

  Merijest bade Thesa to pause long enough for the demoness to climb down from her [Witch]’s back.

  “I’ll fly up and see where is safe,” she said before taking Yabba in her arms and sweeping upward with a few flaps of black-feathered wings.

  When she returned without Yabba, she explained, “There’s a clifftop. Safe.”

  Before Thesa could tell Merijest to take it easy, the demoness laced her arms around Thesa’s torso and lifted into the air with ease.

  The sun was awake and gleaming in the sky over the Driskle mountains.

  “It would be easier if you held on,” Merijest said. So close together, Thesa could see canine teeth peeking out from behind the demoness’s lips.

  After days of caring for her weakened [Stake], Thesa experienced a kind of whiplash as she retreated from the role of caretaker. In spite of herself and the immediate danger, she floundered. More than a hundred feet in the air and Thesa’s nerves chose now to remember their mousiness... She mumbled something as her face assumed a trademark blush-red hue. “I– well– um…”

  Merijest rolled her eyes and smirked as the pair rendezvoused with the clifftop.

  After several minutes, the party was looking down at the worming inferno while Merijest sat on a rock, catching her labored breaths.

  The original plan had been to seek out Thesa’s home town. It was somewhere in ItherBeau and the Knights had some reason to avoid it. However, Thesa’s memory was sparse and with each encounter the path to safety became less organized. She couldn’t even recall its name. Thesa hoped they would learn more as they got further from the convent.

  ***

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