Diana and Lirenna returned a few hours later and Thomas immediately ran over to apologise, almost throwing himself at her feet in his desperation to make things right between them. “Please forgive me!” he begged as the others went into the next room to give them some privacy. “I'm so sorry! I should never have said those things! You're the expert on enchantment. I'll never again try to lecture you on the subject, I promise!”

     She stared at him, a look on her face that Thomas couldn’t decide was anger or fear. Anger, he decided. She’s still angry with me. “What happened, what nearly happened…” he said. “It just freaked me out. I was so scared! It made me say things I shouldn’t have. It's because I care for you so much. Being here, in this awful place, among these awful people… I'm just scared all the time. Do you understand?”

     He waited to see what effect his words would have. He reached out a hand towards her, then drew it back, but then, amazingly, she moved forward into his arms and lay her head on his chest. She was trembling! Thomas put his arms around her and held her gently.

     “What you said,” she said into his chest. “That's almost exactly what I was going to say. You were ‘freaked out’, you say. Imagine how freaked out I was, if I may borrow your charming human expression. He had me. I was naked and totally in his power. It scared me! A lot! If he hadn't had to let go of my hands to undo his belt…” Thomas held her tighter and her trembling slowed considerably. “It made me overreact. The things I said, and not just to you…” She glanced over at the door behind which the others were waiting.

     “They understand,” said Thomas. “They love you too. And you didn’t overreact. You had every right to say what you said to me. If you want to try enchanting some more soldiers I won't try to stop you. I'll just be there, ready to come running to help if you need it.”

     “Promise you'll be there,” she said.

     “I promise. Just try to stop me.”

     She giggled a little and Thomas’s heart swelled with love and relief. They were still friends! She’d forgiven him! He tilted his head down to smell her hair and she snuggled closer against his chest. After a while they began talking about something trivial and unimportant, every word burying their argument further in the past and cementing their love and friendship stronger than ever before.

☆☆☆

     After some more discussion, it was decided that Lirenna would enchant two more soldiers, both high ranking Konnens, while the others were hiding on the other side of an unlockable door, ready to come to the rescue if anything went wrong. Thomas still wasn’t happy with it, but after her earlier outburst he wasn’t going to say anything, and besides, he knew that most of what she’d said was true. She was a wizardess, able to recruit armies of willing slaves and hurl death from her fingertips. One of the most powerful beings in a world in which magic was just a legend from the past. He strongly doubted that any single person anywhere in Kronos could stand against her except Jerry and himself. Unless they crept up on her from behind, of course, or came across her when she’d run out of magic, or one of her spells failed, or...

     He drove these thoughts out of his head with an effort. Among the shae folk, men and women were equal, taking equal responsibility and risks in everything they did, and if he carried on treating her like a lesser being he might drive her into such a rage that she’d put herself in danger, taking risks to prove herself his equal or superior in the magical arts. He’d go on looking out for her, of course, but discreetly, without being too obvious about it. She’d know, of course, but she’d also know that he was doing it because of how much he loved her and so perhaps she wouldn’t mind.

     They did nothing more for the rest of that day, wanting to spend a bit of time calming down and talking about ordinary, trivial things and the next morning it was as if the argument had never happened. They left Jerry in their apartment to practice his illusion art, and Diana spent some time with Clarissa’s family leading a group of citizens in worship while the rest of them set off with the enchanted soldiers to get a couple of Konnens.

     A fit of nervousness came over them as they approached Konnen sector. There were so many people here who might recognise them from their brief time in Konnen service. Not only soldiers, but any of the ordinary citizens who must have seen Thomas, Jerry and Lirenna going to and from the front line and exploring, looking for a way out of the city. They wouldn’t be actually entering Konnen sector, of course, and Shaun and Matthew had spent the whole time locked in the dungeons out of sight, but even so Thomas felt his pulse racing and his guts tighten as they came in sight of the airlocks and saw Konnen soldiers standing guard, scrutinising everyone who passed through.

     Shaun beckoned Silverby over. “Are you sure there’ll be no problems?” he asked.

     “Pretty sure,” replied the Hewlak Captain. “Don’t worry. And don’t forget to act fearful and respectful towards me. I’m a soldier and you’re a civilian. I could order you executed at any time on the merest whim. They'll get suspicious if we don’t act the parts.”

     “Right,” agreed Shaun. “I’ll bear it in mind. So, are we ready?”

     “I am,” replied Matthew. “Let’s do it.”

     “No, wait!” exclaimed Lirenna however. “Look!”

     She pointed towards the airlocks, and they stared in astonishment as they saw General Sejanus walking towards them, talking with a Captain, apparently on an inspection of the airlock guard. “Sejanus!" she cried in delight. "If we could get him, we wouldn’t need to steal the necklaces! He could just bring them to us!”

     “Now wait a minute,” said Shaun, however. “Let’s not get carried away. He’s guarded, he’s surrounded by his men. It’d be a terrible risk! I say we stick to the plan we’ve got.”

     “You won't be able to seduce him," pointed out Thomas. "He'll recognise you immediately. You'd be casting the spell cold, which reduces its chances of working by..."

     "I'm the expert on enchantments," Lirenna reminded him. "I know it's a risk, but..."

     "You only cast the spell cold in an emergency. A life or death emergency. Casting a reliable cold enchantment is high level magic. We stick to the plan we’ve got.”

     Lirenna nodded reluctantly, but Captain Silverby looked puzzled. "Cold?" he asked. The demi shae explained the need for the victim to be sexually aroused, and the Captain nodded as he remembered how he'd been taken, a memory that didn't affect how he felt about her.

     "There may be a way," he said thoughtfully. "There's a drug they give to women in the pleasure chambers to make them more willing. It apparently has the same effect on men, so I'm told. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll get some. I'll offer him a drink, slip some yes juice into it."

     The Tharians all looked unhappy, except Lirenna who was openly outraged. "You Hewlaks have these pleasure chambers as well?" she demanded. "I thought it was just the Konnens!"

     "Got to keep the men happy somehow," replied Silverby, but the demi-shae's obvious anger puzzled him. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It's the way things are done, the way things have always been done. The women go home with extra food and privileges..."

     Lirenna opened her mouth to voice her outrage but Shaun grabbed her arm. "Would it work?" he asked. "If Sejanus was drugged?"

     "All that matters is that he's sexually aroused," replied the demi-shae. "It doesn't matter how it's achieved."

     "And once the drug wears off?"

     "He'll stay enchanted. But to use a drug normally used to rape women..."

     "Technically, what you're doing to these soldiers is no different, and once we open the way back to Tharia this whole rotten regime will collapse. You'll be helping to save these women from further abuse."

     That made Lirenna think and she slowly nodded, but Thomas wasn't at all happy with it. "There are other dangers," he pointed out. "He's a Commander. A man used to authority..."

     “I can do it!" insisted the demi-shae, "and the fewer spells I have to cast the safer. That should please you.” She stared defiantly at Thomas, who hovered in indecision.

     “What do you think?” Shaun asked Silverby. “Do you think you can get him away from the others?”

      The Captain pondered for a moment. “Possibly,” he said at last. “We have met socially a couple of times, at Lady Emilia’s famous dinners, so he knows me. I could tell him I’d like to speak to him privately about a personal matter or something, get him to meet me somewhere. Maybe I could get him to follow me into the guardroom for a private word.”

     The Tharians glanced at each other, reading each other’s expressions. They knew each other so well now that words weren’t really necessary. The look in Lirenna’s eyes told the others of her eagerness to try it, while Thomas’s unhappy frown told of his reluctance. The demi shae gave him a pleading look, however, a look that summed up several paragraphs worth of emotional appeal, and eventually Thomas shrugged in reserved acquiescence. “All right,” he said doubtfully. “But let’s be careful, shall we?”

     “Of course,” replied Shaun, also a little doubtful but willing to give it a try. He turned to Silverby. “Can you get us into the guardhouse?”

     “Of course,” replied the Captain. “Come with me.”

     He led them towards one of the apartments closest to the airlocks, converted for use by the soldiers, and the men on duty at the door saluted smartly as they approached. “Informers, with information for me,” Silverby told them. “Put them in the interrogation room until I return.”

     The soldiers obeyed with an almost desperate eagerness, motioning for the Tharians to enter as the Captain turned and left.

     It suddenly occurred to them what an incredibly dangerous thing they were doing when they saw their faces on wanted posters pinned to the wall. They were accurately drawn by a skilled artist, and it took all their willpower not to look afraid or guilty as they walked right past them into the next room. Don’t worry, Thomas tried to tell himself. We’re dangerous fugitives. The last thing they’re going to expect is for us to walk right in under their noses, right into one of their guardhouses. Even so, though, it would only take one soldier to notice the similarity between their faces and the ones on the posters...

     Luck or the Gods were with them, though, and nobody spotted them for who they were. They tried to relax, to appear nonchalant and confident, just in case they were under observation through a peephole in the wall (although Lirenna’s superb shayen eyesight failed to find one), and a few minutes later they heard voices as Silverby and Sejanus returned. The door opened and the Konnen General entered, sipping at the drink the Hewlak Captain had given him, a slightly dreamy expression already appearing in his eyes. He stopped and stared in astonishment as he recognised the Tharians, but Silverby pushed him fully into the room, closing the door behind him, and Lirenna quickly cast the spell before he had a chance to react.

     Casting an enchantment on such an intelligent and authoritative man, a man who’d spent the best part of his life giving orders and who wasn’t accustomed to taking them, presented risks and dangers over and above the normal risks associated with the spell, and the two wizards held their breaths as they waited to see if it worked. The huge General's eyes widened for a moment in astonished pleasure, but it began to fade almost immediately as he began to throw it off. Shaun and Matthew reached for the knives hidden in their clothes, weapons that had been supplied by the enchanted Hewlaks. Damn! thought Thomas in terror as he brought the words of his spells to the forefront of his mind, but Lirenna was beginning to cast the spell again, hoping that the fading effects of the first would be a boost to the effectiveness of the second.

     This time it worked, and a moment later the huge General was bubbling with delight and happiness at seeing her. “Please forgive my previous treatment of you!" he begged, taking her hand and bringing it to his cheek. "I must have been blind! How could I not have seen what a wonder you are..."

     The Tharians sagged with relief, and then they were glancing at each other, rolling their eyes in amusement. The effect the spell had on people was a source of never ending astonishment to them.

     Only Lirenna remained wary. She knew the spell better than any of the others and knew that Sejanus had a much better chance of throwing off its effects than any of the others. She’d have to renew the spell on him every couple of days, and even then it wasn’t certain that the effects would hold. We've got a tiger by the tail, she thought, and if we can't hold on the consequences will be disastrous. She glanced across at Thomas, wondering if he might have been right after all.

     For now, though, the enchantment was working, and their first priority was to get out of the guardhouse before their luck ran out. They waited a couple of moments, therefore, to make sure the other soldiers wouldn’t get suspicious at their too sudden re-emergence, and then they made their way back out into the street. They then parted, the Tharians leaving Silverby to talk to the Konnen General while they returned to their apartment. They couldn’t talk to Sejanus right there in the open, but the Hewlak Captain knew what they wanted, and Sejanus had been told to do whatever he told him to do. The necklaces were as good as in their hands!

     Another day went by, during which Lirenna renewed the enchantments on the first two Hewlak soldiers. Silverby came to tell them that Sejanus had agreed to steal the necklaces for them, that he knew where some of them were kept and that he’d arrange for them to be left somewhere, bundled in rags, for one of their enchanted soldiers to pick up. “However,” the Captain warned, “he told me that Lord Basil doesn’t trust even him completely, and so doesn’t keep all the necklaces in one place. They’re scattered in three or four different places, each one known to only one person besides himself, and he’s bound to have a couple stashed away in a place only he knows. He says there’s no way he can get more than two or three necklaces for you.”

     “That’s okay,” replied Shaun, delighted by how close to freedom they were. “Two or three’s plenty.”

     More time passed, and the time arranged for the pickup got steadily closer. They paced back and forth in the cramped apartment, urging time to pass faster with all their willpower, but the nearer the time came the slower time seemed to pass until they could almost imagine that it had stopped completely and that they’d be waiting there for the rest of eternity. The knock on the door made them all jump, therefore, and Matthew almost tripped over his own feet running over to it.

     When he pulled it open, though, his heart sank in crushing disappointment when he found himself staring down into the upturned face of a pudgy six year old boy. “Beat it, kid,” he said and started to close the door again.

     “No, wait,” said Diana, however, coming to his side. “What do you want?”

     “Dad told me to bring this to you,” said the boy, holding out a bundle of rags. “He’s a soldier.”

     Matthew snatched it from him in renewed excitement, and the cleric scowled at him. “Thank you,” she said to the boy. “You’re very kind.”

     “Are you informers?” asked the boy innocently. “My dad says informers are filthy slime and would all be put to the sword if we didn’t need them so much.”

     Diana smiled worriedly. “No, we’re not informers,” she said and closed the door. “Easy to tell why he might think we were, though,” she told the others. “Soldiers visit us regularly and we start receiving mysterious gifts. The whole street must think we’re a bunch of informers!”

     “Never mind that,” said Matthew excitedly. “Look at this!” There were three necklaces, and the diamonds sparkled brilliantly in the light of the glowing globes of marble as he held one up. “We’re free! We’re as good as out of here!”

     “Not yet we’re not,” replied Jerry. “We still don’t know if that magical thing really is the key. For all we know, it might be a magical pencil sharpener or something.”

     “There’s only one way to find out, said Thomas. “We’ll have to try it. Go to the teleportation chamber and see if the key opens the door.”

     “But all the airlocks are guarded,” pointed out Diana. “They’re not letting anyone through without direct orders from Lord Basil.”

     “They’ll let Sejanus through,” said Shaun, “and he can get a couple of Konnen uniforms for me and Matt.” The others looked doubtful. “We’ve got to do it!” Shaun insisted. “We’ve got to know!”

     “He’s right,” agreed Thomas. “If It’s not the key, our whole situation here is hopeless. We can't escape discovery and capture forever, no matter how many men Lenny enchants. If It’s not the key, we've got no choice but to escape back into the caverns and hope the renegades take us in, and the sooner the better.”

     “We'll do it the moment we can,” Diana agreed, and the others nodded reluctantly, one after the other.