Ash 18, 117
In the course of her short life, Imogen Ward had been taught by three masters.
First was her father, Valmont. That wasn’t what he’d been named, of course; her grandparents were Ecithian, and pregnant by the time they first came north. His name had been squished and repackaged by the soldiers at Zaichaer’s borders, for the sake of convenience. He had given her basic lessons, when he was around. That hadn’t been often.
Second was her uncle, Master Lewis. Lewis had chosen to take a different name when he arrived in the High City of the north, and though he never liked it much he refused to teach his niece or nephews what he’d once been called.
“To avoid accidents.” he’d said, and nothing more. She hadn’t known what that meant, then.
Where Valmont had been called away for long lengths of time, Lewis had been stuck with several years of guard duty at relatively safe outposts; the inevitable price to be paid when the Order recognized you on a job. He’d taught Imogen the zweihander, a favorite of many Zaichaeri fighters and a fairly romantic style in the reckoning of the Kathalan. She had been a good student.
Her third master was Ansel Gerhard, who had insulted her, told her that she would never join his Order, beaten her within an inch of her life, and then given her the secret fire of magic. At the moment, he was sitting in the driver’s seat of a horse-drawn wagon, whittling away at the remains of a bough he’d picked up sometime earlier in the day.
"Master Gerhard" said Imogen softly, "It’s gone four o’ clock."
The ork appeared quietly next to her master, towering over him by a head. She doubted he felt particularly unnerved. It had been about a year since she’d fought–really fought–against Ansel, but he’d almost put her in the ground without moving. With twelve additional months of diligent practice and the Cardinal Rune warm upon her breast, she still doubted she could keep up with him for even a minute longer.
“No sign of them yet, I take it?”
The older man didn’t look up at her, though she didn’t take it as an insult. She was wearing a borrowed cloak of concealment, one of Timeon’s prized possessions. The magic forged within was powerful; from a distance, she must have seemed invisible. Up close, it was rather nauseating to observe the displacement and distortion of light in the air.
"No, sir. Should I go looking?"
Ansel turned the carving over in his hands, squinting at it. “Oh, not yet. They’re not all as punctual as you, Corporal.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and it wouldn’t be professional to do so anyway. Though her superior seemed quite at ease, Imogen turned to scan the treeline nervously, trying to shift as little as possible to avoid compromising her camouflage. She was armed today… or more armed than usual, at any rate, one hand fixed firmly around the woven grip of a shortbow. The arrows weren’t entirely convenient, since she couldn’t wear them outside of the cloak, but they were there.
The two Sunsingers were waiting for two other witches- one more of their order, and one client. Master Gerhard liked the number three for such operations. Three was few enough that you drew no attention, few enough that you could travel quickly in a group, but just enough that if the Order sniffed you out you could put up enough resistance to get away. That was, after all, what the Sunsingers were being paid for. The worst-case scenario.
That was the two-pronged approach favored by the coven in all of its dealings. Go in quietly, make it as unlikely as possible that anyone would catch you… but bring just enough firepower to throw them off if it came to that. That’s why Master Gerhard was here playing the role of the traveling peddler and why Corporal Dinnim was taking the client from the High City to this waystation alone. And why Imogen, whose presence could not help but arouse surprise and suspicion if she was seen, was using this borrowed cloak to do her best impression of the air in front of a tree.
“Do try to relax.” her master advised her, “I personally won’t begin to worry for another hour. You have my permission to fret then, and not until then, understand?”
It was technically an order, she supposed. "Yes, sir."
In fact, it was only about three-quarters of the hour when two figures crested the hill down the road towards Zaichaer. Neither one was wearing a cloak; the client had wanted to do it, but Dinnim had managed to talk him out of it. When someone who wasn’t trained in skullduggery tried to engage in it, they never failed to make themselves more suspicious. No, the two were in plain laborer’s clothes, the client leading a pack-laden horse which would surely be relieved to share its burdens with an entire team.
“Cutting things a bit late.” Master Gerhard observed as the two neared. “But all’s well that ends well.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not yet en-” the client began. (He was one of those sorts who had chosen not to disclose his identity, though she expected Master Gerhard knew anyway. The Sunsingers never took a job if they didn’t know who was asking.)
“We were delayed.” said Corporal Dinnim, cutting the client off, “Some kind of event in the city has security on high alert. They were mobilizing in the countryside too. A few minutes longer and there would have been double checkpoints at the gate.”
The humor fled the master’s face, his eyes hardening. “And the Order?”
“I think we beat them out of the High City, but there might be patrols.”
“Scheiße!” Ansel swore. “No time to waste. Get your packages in the wagon. Corporal, hitch the wagon. Imogen, you’re scouting down the road.”
The Orkhan witch didn’t need to respond, and Ansel didn’t wait for her before sliding off the wagon and busying himself with the hitches. They were a good three miles out from the High City proper, but the Order had outposts and systems which would let them mobilize. It sounded like the city’s attention had been focused elsewhere when her colleagues had left, but it wouldn’t be long before they started searching travelers along Zaichaer’s roads. That was usually the next thing they thought of.
Imogen wasn’t mounted, but she didn’t need to be. Even moving quickly, Ansel’s wagon carried a full load and three passengers. She could stay ahead of it, off the road, for the few hours it would take until they made camp.
The motley group made it only about three hours before Imogen spotted Reconciliators on horseback moving towards the city. There were only five of them–few enough that the three Sunsingers stood a fair chance of taking them in a fight–but Imogen recognized the insignia of rank upon their leader, who very distinctly bore an aethersight scope at his side. There would be no talking that over once he looked through the wagon and saw the naked auras in back.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what Corporal Dinnim was there for. He bore a rune of Negation which, with a bit of forewarning, ought to baffle the simple scope. Imogen rushed back to warn her companions, thankful for her Master’s foresight. Whatever had caused the High City to scramble, it seemed that it was no match for Ansel Gerhard’s planning.
When the Reconciliators arrived, Dinnim had finished his warding. At the shouted command of the riders, Master Gerhard pulled obligingly over, wearing his most vacant, vapid smile.
“Evenin, sirs.” he greeted them, “Is there some trouble?”
“You come from Zaichaer, don’t you?” the Reconciliator captain inquired, “You haven’t heard the news?”
“Nay, sir, not all the way. I’ve been set up at the waystation northern all afternoon, sellin to folks.”
Imogen expected to see the captain fall for it, but there was more worry than disdain on the man’s face. “An attack in the city itself. Witches, with some devilish fire. A hundred lives lost.”
The shock on Ansel’s face was probably real. The Covens kept a very tight lid on organized witchcraft in the city, and there hadn’t been any individual mages strong and reckless enough to actually stage an attack for at least ten years. “Oh Scheiße.” he said, for the second time that day. “Did they find the culprits?”
“Not yet.” the captain responded, “But we will. Now, I must search your wagon- not that I think you’re a witch, but they could have disguised themselves to break out of the city.”
Ansel nodded and bobbed, getting down and opening the wagon, introducing Dinnim and the client under some false name or another. The captain scanned the back with his scope, and seemed quite satisfied- doubtless he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary, with the Sunsinger wards killing the cargo’s aura.
As he finished, however, Imogen noticed that one of the other Reconciliators was listening intently to a wired speaker attached to a large box on his mount. Some manner of short-range communications device, she figured, though she herself had no familiarity with military artifice. The man clearly didn’t like whatever he was hearing, and the witch felt her stomach sink as he looked towards the wagon with new intent.
“Sir!” he called out, “New orders, sir!”
The Order men gathered to confer, and Imogen could see from Ansel’s face that he’d suspected nothing good was coming of this. The captain turned, looking annoyed.
“Bad luck, I’m afraid. High Command is locking down the roads. You’ll have to go back.”
“But sir!” protested Master Gerhard, more because protest would be expected than effective, “I’ve nowhere to stay in the City, and I’m nearly home! Could you not…”
“No exceptions. They want to interview everyone.” The sour look on the Reconciliator’s face surprised Imogen for a moment- until she realized that this surely meant the Zaichaeri authorities had not captured whoever made those attacks.
Ansel sighed, but began barking instructions to his two passengers, preparing to get the wagon turned around. Then he turned, gazing down the road towards Imogen, and tapped his right thigh.
The witch blinked. This was not code, or at least not code she understood. Had she somehow missed that training? No, she’d been a very diligent student, and her memory was fine. What did he mean, then? Did he want her to shoot someone in the thigh? She could make the shot, for sure, but what would that accomplish?
Imogen glanced down at her own thigh. Underneath the cloak she was wearing long denim pants, but there was no gun strapped there, just her signaling mirror. Was that it?
The young Sunsinger hiked up the borrowed cloak of concealment and quickly pulled the mirror off, careful not to let it flash in the direction of the Reconciliators. She examined the mirror, hoping to divine Ansel’s intent thereby. It was a quality bit of kit, useful by turns, but not particularly specia-
As Imogen regarded the mirror, her reflection winked at her. The witch shifted backwards, stifling an involuntary gasp as the figure of her own face raised a finger to her own lips, grinning.
Imogen glanced up, checking to make sure that none of the riders had noticed, then returned her attention to the glass, irrationally worried that her reflection would have returned to normal. Instead, it seemed it had somehow stepped away, and was now… holding the box-like communication device which the junior Reconciliator had consulted earlier?
The witch watched, amazed, as the Imogen in the mirror held up the box to display the buttons and switches along the side, then carefully indicated one switch and flicked it. Her reflection looked up, and pointed towards… well, her.
"You want me to hit that switch?" Imogen whispered, uncertain if the strange reflection-thing could hear her. The reflection gave her an approving thumbs-up, then tapped her own wrist, meaningfully, as if to say ‘hurry up.’
"Fuck me." Imogen said. But it was clear enough that Ansel had wanted her to check the mirror; it was simply too great a coincidence, otherwise. The Orkhan Sunsinger checked her surroundings once more, then began to creep closer to the two groups on the road. She wouldn’t have much time until they began riding, and there was simply no way she was going to get close enough unnoticed once they were all cantering along.
If Timeon’s cloak had been a cloak of invisibility, the job would have been easy. The box-carrying rider was near the back of the group of Reconciliators, after all. But it was a cloak of concealment, which worked in a pinch if you were at a distance and standing very still. This would require her to get very close, and she couldn’t afford to dawdle.
So Imogen approached as low to the ground as any 6’6’’ ork could possibly manage, stance wide, trying to sashay through the road with a consistent gait, such that anyone catching sight of her might mistake it for a simple shimmer in the air. Closer. Now closer. Closer still…
“Sal, have you got the time the order came in?”
Imogen froze as the captain turned around to address his man, bent over, staring directly at the road to ensure that no part of her face was exposed to his gaze.
“Yes sir, ten past, just.”
“Ten past. Almost four hours, then.”
“Sir.”
The Sunsinger stayed completely still, trying to freeze every muscle and avoid any shaking which might give her away. She focused on breathing, slow but deep, quiet breaths. Her nose itched.
“Very well.” Imogen could hear the captain’s horse shift its hooves as he turned away. “Alright, let’s ride. I don’t want to be out here all night.”
The men in front of Imogen began to shift, still almost ten feet away. As soon as the horses began to move, her job was going to be much, much, much harder. So she let instinct take over.
Silently, the ork lunged forward, borrowed cloak flapping, and materialized her Pact Sword. The mystic instrument, seven feet long and deadly as any weapon ever conceived upon Karnor swung silently upward…
…and the very tip connected with the switch on the rider’s box, flicking it on. A little green light bloomed on the box.
“New news!” came a gruff male voice- it seemed she was close enough now to hear the box. Heart pounding, she dismissed her sword faster than she’d ever done it, dropping to the ground in a tight ball, praying that nobody had seen anything.
The man on the horse above her started, and turned to the box, which she imagined he thought he’d turned off.
“The witches have been captured.” the voice from the box continued, “You may stand down. The last order is remanded, the roads are reopened. We have them in custody.”
“So quickly…” the young Reconcilator muttered, “Captain! They have rescinded the closure order.”
The lead Reconciliator looked baffled, but came closer and listened as the voice of the box repeated itself. He drew out his little spyglass and looked it over, plainly wondering if some manner of illusion had been cast.
“So they have.” he said, at last, “How strange. To announce the order and then remand it so quickly…”
Whatever suspicion that had engendered, however, was plainly not enough to force the cart he’d already searched on a four-hour journey back south. “Hey!” he called, “You’re free to go!”
“Oh!” called Master Gerhard, looking very relieved, “Did they catch them? That’s good! That’s very good!”
They did not make camp that night–Ansel explained that it wouldn’t be long before they realized that the order had not been remanded, and came looking–but continued for nearly two days straight until they reached the safehouse where the client would disembark. Imogen and Dinnim, as the lowest on the totem pole, helped him unpack his baubles and dragonshards, and watched as he handed a bank draft to the hard-eyed woman manning the safehouse.
The three Sunsingers decided to go to ground in the safehouse for a few days, although the accommodations were sparse, being little better than straw pallets on stone. Before they settled in, however, Imogen approached her master.
"Master Gerhard?"
“Mmm?”
"What was that, in my signaling mirror?"
The older Sunsinger paused, looking thoughtful. “A more difficult question than you know. Call it… the fifth member of our little group. I’ve told you before, I hate to leave anything to chance.”
"When did you... summon it? Is it still here?"
Ansel gave the young witch a reassuring smile. “It's always been here. And it always will be.”
In the course of her short life, Imogen Ward had been taught by three masters.
First was her father, Valmont. That wasn’t what he’d been named, of course; her grandparents were Ecithian, and pregnant by the time they first came north. His name had been squished and repackaged by the soldiers at Zaichaer’s borders, for the sake of convenience. He had given her basic lessons, when he was around. That hadn’t been often.
Second was her uncle, Master Lewis. Lewis had chosen to take a different name when he arrived in the High City of the north, and though he never liked it much he refused to teach his niece or nephews what he’d once been called.
“To avoid accidents.” he’d said, and nothing more. She hadn’t known what that meant, then.
Where Valmont had been called away for long lengths of time, Lewis had been stuck with several years of guard duty at relatively safe outposts; the inevitable price to be paid when the Order recognized you on a job. He’d taught Imogen the zweihander, a favorite of many Zaichaeri fighters and a fairly romantic style in the reckoning of the Kathalan. She had been a good student.
Her third master was Ansel Gerhard, who had insulted her, told her that she would never join his Order, beaten her within an inch of her life, and then given her the secret fire of magic. At the moment, he was sitting in the driver’s seat of a horse-drawn wagon, whittling away at the remains of a bough he’d picked up sometime earlier in the day.
"Master Gerhard" said Imogen softly, "It’s gone four o’ clock."
The ork appeared quietly next to her master, towering over him by a head. She doubted he felt particularly unnerved. It had been about a year since she’d fought–really fought–against Ansel, but he’d almost put her in the ground without moving. With twelve additional months of diligent practice and the Cardinal Rune warm upon her breast, she still doubted she could keep up with him for even a minute longer.
“No sign of them yet, I take it?”
The older man didn’t look up at her, though she didn’t take it as an insult. She was wearing a borrowed cloak of concealment, one of Timeon’s prized possessions. The magic forged within was powerful; from a distance, she must have seemed invisible. Up close, it was rather nauseating to observe the displacement and distortion of light in the air.
"No, sir. Should I go looking?"
Ansel turned the carving over in his hands, squinting at it. “Oh, not yet. They’re not all as punctual as you, Corporal.”
She couldn’t argue with that, and it wouldn’t be professional to do so anyway. Though her superior seemed quite at ease, Imogen turned to scan the treeline nervously, trying to shift as little as possible to avoid compromising her camouflage. She was armed today… or more armed than usual, at any rate, one hand fixed firmly around the woven grip of a shortbow. The arrows weren’t entirely convenient, since she couldn’t wear them outside of the cloak, but they were there.
The two Sunsingers were waiting for two other witches- one more of their order, and one client. Master Gerhard liked the number three for such operations. Three was few enough that you drew no attention, few enough that you could travel quickly in a group, but just enough that if the Order sniffed you out you could put up enough resistance to get away. That was, after all, what the Sunsingers were being paid for. The worst-case scenario.
That was the two-pronged approach favored by the coven in all of its dealings. Go in quietly, make it as unlikely as possible that anyone would catch you… but bring just enough firepower to throw them off if it came to that. That’s why Master Gerhard was here playing the role of the traveling peddler and why Corporal Dinnim was taking the client from the High City to this waystation alone. And why Imogen, whose presence could not help but arouse surprise and suspicion if she was seen, was using this borrowed cloak to do her best impression of the air in front of a tree.
“Do try to relax.” her master advised her, “I personally won’t begin to worry for another hour. You have my permission to fret then, and not until then, understand?”
It was technically an order, she supposed. "Yes, sir."
~~~
In fact, it was only about three-quarters of the hour when two figures crested the hill down the road towards Zaichaer. Neither one was wearing a cloak; the client had wanted to do it, but Dinnim had managed to talk him out of it. When someone who wasn’t trained in skullduggery tried to engage in it, they never failed to make themselves more suspicious. No, the two were in plain laborer’s clothes, the client leading a pack-laden horse which would surely be relieved to share its burdens with an entire team.
“Cutting things a bit late.” Master Gerhard observed as the two neared. “But all’s well that ends well.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not yet en-” the client began. (He was one of those sorts who had chosen not to disclose his identity, though she expected Master Gerhard knew anyway. The Sunsingers never took a job if they didn’t know who was asking.)
“We were delayed.” said Corporal Dinnim, cutting the client off, “Some kind of event in the city has security on high alert. They were mobilizing in the countryside too. A few minutes longer and there would have been double checkpoints at the gate.”
The humor fled the master’s face, his eyes hardening. “And the Order?”
“I think we beat them out of the High City, but there might be patrols.”
“Scheiße!” Ansel swore. “No time to waste. Get your packages in the wagon. Corporal, hitch the wagon. Imogen, you’re scouting down the road.”
The Orkhan witch didn’t need to respond, and Ansel didn’t wait for her before sliding off the wagon and busying himself with the hitches. They were a good three miles out from the High City proper, but the Order had outposts and systems which would let them mobilize. It sounded like the city’s attention had been focused elsewhere when her colleagues had left, but it wouldn’t be long before they started searching travelers along Zaichaer’s roads. That was usually the next thing they thought of.
Imogen wasn’t mounted, but she didn’t need to be. Even moving quickly, Ansel’s wagon carried a full load and three passengers. She could stay ahead of it, off the road, for the few hours it would take until they made camp.
~~~
The motley group made it only about three hours before Imogen spotted Reconciliators on horseback moving towards the city. There were only five of them–few enough that the three Sunsingers stood a fair chance of taking them in a fight–but Imogen recognized the insignia of rank upon their leader, who very distinctly bore an aethersight scope at his side. There would be no talking that over once he looked through the wagon and saw the naked auras in back.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what Corporal Dinnim was there for. He bore a rune of Negation which, with a bit of forewarning, ought to baffle the simple scope. Imogen rushed back to warn her companions, thankful for her Master’s foresight. Whatever had caused the High City to scramble, it seemed that it was no match for Ansel Gerhard’s planning.
When the Reconciliators arrived, Dinnim had finished his warding. At the shouted command of the riders, Master Gerhard pulled obligingly over, wearing his most vacant, vapid smile.
“Evenin, sirs.” he greeted them, “Is there some trouble?”
“You come from Zaichaer, don’t you?” the Reconciliator captain inquired, “You haven’t heard the news?”
“Nay, sir, not all the way. I’ve been set up at the waystation northern all afternoon, sellin to folks.”
Imogen expected to see the captain fall for it, but there was more worry than disdain on the man’s face. “An attack in the city itself. Witches, with some devilish fire. A hundred lives lost.”
The shock on Ansel’s face was probably real. The Covens kept a very tight lid on organized witchcraft in the city, and there hadn’t been any individual mages strong and reckless enough to actually stage an attack for at least ten years. “Oh Scheiße.” he said, for the second time that day. “Did they find the culprits?”
“Not yet.” the captain responded, “But we will. Now, I must search your wagon- not that I think you’re a witch, but they could have disguised themselves to break out of the city.”
Ansel nodded and bobbed, getting down and opening the wagon, introducing Dinnim and the client under some false name or another. The captain scanned the back with his scope, and seemed quite satisfied- doubtless he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary, with the Sunsinger wards killing the cargo’s aura.
As he finished, however, Imogen noticed that one of the other Reconciliators was listening intently to a wired speaker attached to a large box on his mount. Some manner of short-range communications device, she figured, though she herself had no familiarity with military artifice. The man clearly didn’t like whatever he was hearing, and the witch felt her stomach sink as he looked towards the wagon with new intent.
“Sir!” he called out, “New orders, sir!”
The Order men gathered to confer, and Imogen could see from Ansel’s face that he’d suspected nothing good was coming of this. The captain turned, looking annoyed.
“Bad luck, I’m afraid. High Command is locking down the roads. You’ll have to go back.”
“But sir!” protested Master Gerhard, more because protest would be expected than effective, “I’ve nowhere to stay in the City, and I’m nearly home! Could you not…”
“No exceptions. They want to interview everyone.” The sour look on the Reconciliator’s face surprised Imogen for a moment- until she realized that this surely meant the Zaichaeri authorities had not captured whoever made those attacks.
Ansel sighed, but began barking instructions to his two passengers, preparing to get the wagon turned around. Then he turned, gazing down the road towards Imogen, and tapped his right thigh.
The witch blinked. This was not code, or at least not code she understood. Had she somehow missed that training? No, she’d been a very diligent student, and her memory was fine. What did he mean, then? Did he want her to shoot someone in the thigh? She could make the shot, for sure, but what would that accomplish?
Imogen glanced down at her own thigh. Underneath the cloak she was wearing long denim pants, but there was no gun strapped there, just her signaling mirror. Was that it?
The young Sunsinger hiked up the borrowed cloak of concealment and quickly pulled the mirror off, careful not to let it flash in the direction of the Reconciliators. She examined the mirror, hoping to divine Ansel’s intent thereby. It was a quality bit of kit, useful by turns, but not particularly specia-
As Imogen regarded the mirror, her reflection winked at her. The witch shifted backwards, stifling an involuntary gasp as the figure of her own face raised a finger to her own lips, grinning.
Imogen glanced up, checking to make sure that none of the riders had noticed, then returned her attention to the glass, irrationally worried that her reflection would have returned to normal. Instead, it seemed it had somehow stepped away, and was now… holding the box-like communication device which the junior Reconciliator had consulted earlier?
The witch watched, amazed, as the Imogen in the mirror held up the box to display the buttons and switches along the side, then carefully indicated one switch and flicked it. Her reflection looked up, and pointed towards… well, her.
"You want me to hit that switch?" Imogen whispered, uncertain if the strange reflection-thing could hear her. The reflection gave her an approving thumbs-up, then tapped her own wrist, meaningfully, as if to say ‘hurry up.’
"Fuck me." Imogen said. But it was clear enough that Ansel had wanted her to check the mirror; it was simply too great a coincidence, otherwise. The Orkhan Sunsinger checked her surroundings once more, then began to creep closer to the two groups on the road. She wouldn’t have much time until they began riding, and there was simply no way she was going to get close enough unnoticed once they were all cantering along.
If Timeon’s cloak had been a cloak of invisibility, the job would have been easy. The box-carrying rider was near the back of the group of Reconciliators, after all. But it was a cloak of concealment, which worked in a pinch if you were at a distance and standing very still. This would require her to get very close, and she couldn’t afford to dawdle.
So Imogen approached as low to the ground as any 6’6’’ ork could possibly manage, stance wide, trying to sashay through the road with a consistent gait, such that anyone catching sight of her might mistake it for a simple shimmer in the air. Closer. Now closer. Closer still…
“Sal, have you got the time the order came in?”
Imogen froze as the captain turned around to address his man, bent over, staring directly at the road to ensure that no part of her face was exposed to his gaze.
“Yes sir, ten past, just.”
“Ten past. Almost four hours, then.”
“Sir.”
The Sunsinger stayed completely still, trying to freeze every muscle and avoid any shaking which might give her away. She focused on breathing, slow but deep, quiet breaths. Her nose itched.
“Very well.” Imogen could hear the captain’s horse shift its hooves as he turned away. “Alright, let’s ride. I don’t want to be out here all night.”
The men in front of Imogen began to shift, still almost ten feet away. As soon as the horses began to move, her job was going to be much, much, much harder. So she let instinct take over.
Silently, the ork lunged forward, borrowed cloak flapping, and materialized her Pact Sword. The mystic instrument, seven feet long and deadly as any weapon ever conceived upon Karnor swung silently upward…
…and the very tip connected with the switch on the rider’s box, flicking it on. A little green light bloomed on the box.
“New news!” came a gruff male voice- it seemed she was close enough now to hear the box. Heart pounding, she dismissed her sword faster than she’d ever done it, dropping to the ground in a tight ball, praying that nobody had seen anything.
The man on the horse above her started, and turned to the box, which she imagined he thought he’d turned off.
“The witches have been captured.” the voice from the box continued, “You may stand down. The last order is remanded, the roads are reopened. We have them in custody.”
“So quickly…” the young Reconcilator muttered, “Captain! They have rescinded the closure order.”
The lead Reconciliator looked baffled, but came closer and listened as the voice of the box repeated itself. He drew out his little spyglass and looked it over, plainly wondering if some manner of illusion had been cast.
“So they have.” he said, at last, “How strange. To announce the order and then remand it so quickly…”
Whatever suspicion that had engendered, however, was plainly not enough to force the cart he’d already searched on a four-hour journey back south. “Hey!” he called, “You’re free to go!”
“Oh!” called Master Gerhard, looking very relieved, “Did they catch them? That’s good! That’s very good!”
~~~
They did not make camp that night–Ansel explained that it wouldn’t be long before they realized that the order had not been remanded, and came looking–but continued for nearly two days straight until they reached the safehouse where the client would disembark. Imogen and Dinnim, as the lowest on the totem pole, helped him unpack his baubles and dragonshards, and watched as he handed a bank draft to the hard-eyed woman manning the safehouse.
The three Sunsingers decided to go to ground in the safehouse for a few days, although the accommodations were sparse, being little better than straw pallets on stone. Before they settled in, however, Imogen approached her master.
"Master Gerhard?"
“Mmm?”
"What was that, in my signaling mirror?"
The older Sunsinger paused, looking thoughtful. “A more difficult question than you know. Call it… the fifth member of our little group. I’ve told you before, I hate to leave anything to chance.”
"When did you... summon it? Is it still here?"
Ansel gave the young witch a reassuring smile. “It's always been here. And it always will be.”