to find him. They'd have to stop it. What ever it was that happened.
He turned back to the object and curled a leaf half way around it to pick it up.
Moslin gasped as she caught sight of it for the first time. "That's..." She stammered. "Why... Why is that here?" Tears swelled in her eyes.
"What is it?" He asked.
"The Token!" She cried. "The Token," she said softer. This is impossible." She wiped a tear from her cheek.
"What's wrong?" Emret asked, not sure why she was upset.
"It’s just... I've been struggling with a lot of things since we came here. You know, what we found in the city, or didn’t find… That wasn’t exactly what I expected.
"I grew up believing the world was a certain way. And when we came here the facts indicated that the world was not that way. My father... all the things he taught me growing up. I really needed those things. When Anesh died... finding the empty earth in the courtyard… He lied to me. All those years.
"But..." She put her hand near the Token as though she wanted to hold it. "This... What you've found. It gives me hope that some of what my father taught me was true.”
He needed it to be true even more than she did. If it wasn't, he would die. He held up the Token for her. "This part's true, Moslin!"
She smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I made it so hard for you to get here."
Then she noticed that something was happening around them. The plants of the undergrowth, as well as the trees above them, had shifted. Every leaf, every branch, and every vine had rearrange and untangled itself. Every part of every living plant surrounding them was now pointing in one clear direction. Due East.
Emret looked up at Moslin and smiled. "I think we have to go a little further."
-
Two large Botann soldiers, wearing the crest of the Holy Master Cleric, crouched in the underbrush. A short distance away, Moslin and Emret held the Tolken up high as they studied it, high enough for the soldiers to see.
One of the Botan scouts turned to the other, his mouth open in awe. "They have the Token!"
Three more soliders lay on the forest floor, hiden further back in the trees. One in the front signaled to the smallest in the group. "Report to his Holiness. Ask for reinforcements. Be quick!”
-
Two of Lord Valance's over-sized Zo guards stood on either side of the open doors at the rear of a black carriage, the same that Bedic had escaped from earlier.
"It looks like forced entry. Someone broke the lock from the outside." One of the guards said.
"Who would've done that?" Lord Valance demanded.
The Soldiers looked at each other without response.
"Follow the tracks. I want him found immediately. The last thing we need is someone else on the mountain looking for things.
"And where is Rinacht? He never showed up to collect the other half of his money." He turned to Lord Barnus who was leaning up against another black carriage. "Find him!"
Chapter
NINE
Rinacht stopped outside the incredible stone gate that protected the Petra lands. A hundred foot high wall extended past the gate as far as he could see in both directions.
Seeing his home again after so many years brought up an unexpected degree of emotion. He'd kept it bottled up so well for so long that he'd forgotten how much leaving his home had effected him.
"Rinacht Turl, nephew to General Turl, requests entry." He yelled up to the gate guard who was standing on an outcropping a good 30 feet above him.
The guard eyed him for a moment then signaled to someone inside the gate. Rinacht waited patiently. He fully expected the guard to return with a cross bow and ask him to withdraw from the gate. Such had been the state of affairs when he was asked to leave years ago.
The massive stone walls shuttered as the internal mechanics started to move. Perhaps he had less to fear than he thought. With a loud rumble, the two doors separated to reveal a polished roadway beyond. Gas lamp poles of black iron paralleled the tightly paved stone road, as it vanished into the distance. It was still a ways into the city. At least he'd made it this far.
He'd find an inn on the other side of the gate and save his visit with his uncle for the morning.
-
Rinacht waited outside his uncle's office. He'd been kindly directed