Taramo had expected there to be some difficulties with communication but for a moment when the mace wielding maniac had spoken he'd hoped language hadn't changed as much as it obviously had. Global communication had made a langua franca available to most, tradetongue or magetongue, depending on who was refering to it.

  But even as Taramo interrogated the mage he only got more terrified when Taramo spoke. But his ally had also spoken in magetongue, could it be used only for spells? As Taramo pondered this Ariwyn anesthetized the two bound mages and the probable begging for mercy was silenced.

  Taramo was considering what to do with his three poisoners, when Spot woke up. The blast of mana had knocked him into a catatonic state. Spot pulled himself off the figure curled up in the fetal position. The person those brigands had ben beating up.

  The person had skin that reflected like the shell of a beetle and had small growths that protruded from their skin like some crocodilians that Taramo had seen before. Black eyes, much like a beetle, peered out as the person raised their head. Looking at the three figures bound up and the one decapitated, they turned to Taramo and spoke.

  Ariwyn took a large chunk of mana from Taramo, what he'd get with a half hour's meditation, so half what he had left, and spun an illusion that was sitting on his shoulder. Taramo turned his head and saw that Ariwyn's illusion was a little human form with vines for hair that was conveniently long and placed to cover her fingers that gripped his shoulder. Her skin was pale like his own and her face had a blank and bored expression.

  The illusion spoke in the language that Taramo was unfamiliar with though Ariwyn had the decency to share the meaning in his mind.

  (We did not set out to save you. It was fortune that brought us here in your need. But we will not abandon you now. You are safe.)

  They seemed a bit hesitant which made sense to Taramo given Spot's brutality but was willing to be helped to his feet by Taramo. They spoke to Taramo in the same language.

  (He doesn't know your tongue. He will learn it soon but we need to get you back with your kin. Do you know the way?)

  From what Ariwyn relayed from the response, Gerolf the son of the Pitarav clan leader was wandering the city when he'd come across some of the wisps. They had approached him but he'd ran from the 'wraiths' and ended up getting lost. His clan had only been here for a year and most of their time was spent in the small inn-compound that they'd occupied and fortified.

  Gerolf knew how to get to the compound from a plaza that had a number of fruit trees growing around the meeting place since it was close to their compound but neither Ariwyn or obviously Taramo knew where that was. But before they left they would have to deal with the brigands.

  --

  Taramo was unwilling to kill them. Even if they had hurt Gerolf badly, which Ariwyn had determined was not the case, Taramo didn't want to mete out justice unilaterally. He was thinking of letting Spot keep watch over them in the maintenance access room above the sewer but when he opened the door a small blob of Spot rushed out with a little squeak.

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  (Danger) It projected into his mind and eyelessly peered at him and puffed out, ready to help beat the bandits up.

  There went his trail back to the sanctum, but between himself, Spot, and Ariwyn he should be able to find his way back if he had to. Helping out Gerolf would take priority and having some people better predisposed to him would be better than the alternative. It was probably his great lack of allies that led to his murderers feeling they could act with impunity.

  He'd left the three prisoners in the room with the vines tying them up and sedated enough they couldn't think of escaping for at least two hours. They were part of a mercenary band that occupied part of the city that had expanded into a mountain pass which gave them a good income from taxing whatever traders didn't want to travel for months around the mountains. It was also a bit strange that the mountains had been a good place for someone to build a city, the seclusion being why he'd made his sanctum here, but it was unlikely he'd get a good answer for that since the people who chose to settle had been dead for some fifteen thousand years.

  Garolf and Ariwyn spoke at length while Taramo kept pace with them and Spot was on his right trying to monopolize his hand for pets. They wandered somewhat aimlessly but Taramo ordered Spot to make marks each time they made a turn, scratching into the stone to provide a trail that wouldn't be subject to the whims of wanting to help.

  It had been late morning when Taramo had exited the sewers and now it was early evening and finally they'd found the plaza with the ring of apple trees around it. Given it was early spring there weren't any apples to be had. They walked around the square until Gerolf ran off ahead. Taramo sped up to make sure he wouldn't lose track of them.

  Down the street that Gerolf had gone was a block of buildings with all the lower windows and doors boarded up with the exception of a larger opening to the inner courtyard where a palisade had been constructed with a gate. Gerolf called out to the two guards on the palisade and one went running into the yard shouting.

  The little skin that the guards showed was similarly iridescent so Taramo figured it would have been some clan bloodline. At his time mages were fond of meddling with their own lineages and functions with the majority of the results being catastropic failures. Keeping the successes going was trivially easy once the stable form was discovered though he'd heard of a lineage that grew scales like a dragon but needed to eat gold and other precious metals in order to have them be strong enough to do anything helpful.

  A group of about a dozen soldiers opened the gates and the patriarch, dressed in a deep blue robe rushed out to meet his son. A few of the soldiers pointed their spears at Taramo until Gerolf's father chastized them, but they remained cautious of him and Spot who was less than enthusiastic with returning into the wand when other people, who could be dangerous, were about.

  By the time Gerolf convinced the soldiers that Spot was not a present risk and the Patriarch had decided to host a banquet Taramo felt the weight of the hours he'd been awake. Mana use was able to wake one up and keep them awake to a degree but it would only put off the time that rest was necessary and even though as an archmage Taramo was supposed to have an iron will his current body was untrained, in need of a great deal of medical attention for long term survival. And while sleep might not directly fix the latter lack of sleep would accelerate it.

  Ariwyn didn't express all the reasons but she was able to get the banquet pushed off to a later date and got him a room on the ground level with a straw mattress. Once Taramo sat on the mattress sleep took him quickly enough that he didn't notice Ariwyn asking for a few of the vines she'd seen to be potted and placed in his new room.