Hortwell and Lenamare were going over a few additional calculations near the runic gateway when the light from the gate suddenly went out, leaving them with only the torch light in the dungeon room rather than the morning sunlight through the gateway. Simultaneously they looked to the now closed portal.
“It went out.” Hortwell stated. “It isn’t supposed to do that.”
Lenamare was frowning. “Someone must have put up wards around either the palace or the city.”
“Exador?” Hortwell asked.
“Possibly, but I doubt he’d be that brazen. It must be the council. Perhaps they are getting an inkling of the number of recent arrivals.”
“Or fear more? Or are preparing for attack?” Hortwell added. “Is it bidirectional? Can it be unidirectional even? We couldn’t do that.”
“I’m not sure. At the very least, it is incoming, that would make sense, and possibly outgoing or maybe just warning for outgoing. Assuming they’re what I built for them, they are considerably more versatile and tunable than what we had. When I downscaled for the keep, I had to give up a lot of functionality; and while I did make a lot of improvements, we simply didn’t have the staff to do something so customizable.” Lenamare replied.
“Unfortunately, there is no way I can tell without risking alerting whoever controls the wards. Either incoming or outgoing would shut off a Runic Gateway though. The question is how tight is it? I had really hoped to use this gateway as an escape route if things went bad. Any thoughts on reactivating it by punching through the wards in an emergency?”
“Good question. Also given the distance that will make it harder. It might be possible to do some retuning to a closer gateway, like the Rod’s. Given their proximity, the power required would be much less, and hence we’d have more energy to break the wards. Of course the Rod is not exactly the best place to escape to.” Hortwell told Lenamare.
“True, but at least they have nothing against me, and they are honest. The same can’t exactly be said about the Oorstemothians.”
“Well to be fair, the Oorstemothians are technically honest, too honest, in their own strange way.” Hortwell said.
“Inconveniently honest. They want the book back, even if they don’t know what it is. I don’t relish facing them directly and having to refuse to return it. That’s the sort of bloodshed that will cause them to be an annoyance for a good number of years afterward.” Lenamare said sourly.
“Whatever,” Lenamare said getting up from his stool. “I know you can’t physically retune the gateway with the wards up, and without trying to break them. But if you could at least make the necessary calculations and preparations so we can do it if and when we may need to?” Hortwell nodded, and Lenamare smiled with an answering nod and left the room.
“Well, this is going to be inconvenient.” Jehenna harrumphed looking out the window.
“What?” Jenn asked, since she was the only other person in the room, she assumed Jehenna was talking to her. She was assisting Jehenna with grinding materials for yet another attempt at the book in the next day or so.
Jehenna glared at her, apparently for interrupting her not so internal monologue. “The council has set up wards around the entire city. Most likely to keep the Oorstemothians and Rod at bay. Since I’m not a part of the link, I can’t easily tell the settings; but the most common thing would be to lock out all magical and physical ingress to the city. Meaning, it will have cut off our Runic gateway.”
“Where are we going to dump the horse manure? And get more food for the horses?” Was Jenn’s first thought, thinking about the army and all the horses cooped up in the dungeon. Her second was that it was a good thing Trisfelt and the kids had gotten inside without a moment to spare yesterday. Although he hadn’t been at breakfast this morning, which was odd.
Jehenna shook her head in frustration at her. “Who cares?” Jehenna turned away from the window. “That’s the least of our worries.”
Jenn nodded, her eyes suddenly got wide as she realized the other implication. “So no one or thing can get in or out, right?”
“That’s what I just said.” Jehenna glared at her in exasperation.
“So we’re all trapped in here with the hundreds of invisible demons?” Jenn turned a Gatropian shade of pale.
Jehenna looked at her as if she were drunk. “What are you talking about?”
Her tone really annoyed Jenn. “I mean the hundreds of minor demons that line every single corridor of the palace, and which are all hidden by invisibility spells, of course. I assumed you and Master Lenamare were aware of them. The rest of us know about them, and the council is trying to figure out who they belong to.”
Jehenna was rock still staring at Jenn. “How do you know this?” She asked coldly.
