Maelen chuckled, “Let me prepare you a stack of books that I think you’ll find useful. Feel free to come in and borrow them at your leisure.”
“Thanks!” Edwyrd replied.
Maelen completed the stack for Edwyrd and headed to the storeroom he’d located last night. The Sorcerer Elrose had contacted him via Johen and they’d synced a mirror of Elrose’s with a scrying bowl of Maelen’s and had had a good conversation. Elrose was outside the walls of the city with his refugee train. They were being blocked by the Rod’s army.
Elrose wanted to group teleport his people into the city and palace. Such a large group teleportation would be quite tricky on multiple levels. He’d need a large, unoccupied region and a very good ‘feeling’ for it, both visually and other senses. A teleport anchor was the term that was most commonly used. Elrose felt that a Seer, such as Maelen would be able to provide a better anchor than Lenamare, Jehenna or Hortwell.
Maelen had smiled at that. Elrose and he had never met in person, and yet Elrose still trusted him more than the three wizards with this delicate operation. Maelen found that a bit amusing. Jehenna, according to Jenn, was a Master Sorceress, and so should be able to provide a high quality anchor for the teleport; but clearly Elrose wasn’t that fond of her. Maelen couldn’t disagree with the assessment.
Jenn finished the last chalk markings on the floor, the rose-colored light pouring through the tower window from the setting sun outside glinting off the bits of chalk dust still floating in the air. Jenn had slept most of the day through, and when she’d finally gotten up and went to get some food, she’d been promptly summoned to the workroom. Apparently, Lenamare and Jehenna were finally ready to make another attempt at opening the book.
She was still exhausted; she’d gotten at most a half hour for dinner before being summoned. She’d joined Gastropé who was eating with Maelen. She wished she could have said it had been good to catch up with them; unfortunately, that had not been the case.
As if the thought of multiple armies hiding in the basement wasn’t bad enough; apparently Tisdale had reported and Edwyrd, Gastropé and Maelen had all verified that the entire palace was infested with lower level invisible demons. They advised her to be circumspect when in public regions.
Seriously? Jenn just shook her head. She was getting sick and tired of demons. The entire world was literally going to hell. She wished she’d had more time to ask them the what and why of this, but admittedly they didn’t seem to have too many answers; so it would probably have just been gossiping. Still, some venting would have been nice.
At least she was going to be busy for the next few hours with the stupid book. That would take her mind off the demons. In particular, she was the lead student on this since the other students present and assisting had no real idea what it was they were trying to do.
Lenamare didn’t think the other students needed to know what they were doing and he’d even gone so far as to order Jenn not to talk about it. She glanced over to where Lenamare was consulting with Zilquar, wondering once again what was in the book that Lenamare found so incredibly important. Some long lost spell?
Even as she was musing, horns began to sound from the walls of the city. Warning horns from the sound of it. Was the Rod trying to attack the city? So far they’d just sat outside patiently, not letting people in or out without very close scrutiny.
“What is it now?” Lenamare muttered impatiently as he and Zilquar moved to the west window, squinting into the sunset. “Shit.”
“What is it?” Jehenna asked, getting up from the other side of the room where she’d been correcting some of Bromagni’s work.
“What could possess those morons to show up now?” Lenamare asked himself, ignoring Jehenna for the moment. “I didn’t expect them to come after me so soon after resolving the Exador affair. I figured their infernal bureaucracy would slow them down enough that I wouldn’t have to deal with them yet.”
“Oorstemoth?” Jehenna asked as she walked over to peer out the window. All the students were staring at the wizards expectantly. Lenamare simply nodded. Jenn got a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Well, so they proved a little more resourceful in ignoring those false leads you planted.”
