They arrived back in Andor just after midday the next day and went straight to Derek's house for a well deserved rest. Margaret and Edith were overjoyed and relieved to see them safe and sound, and gave Derek and Thomas hard hugs and kisses, passing the two men back and forth between them until they'd managed to reassure themselves that they had indeed come safely back to them. Then they sat them down and made them tell everything that had happened to them. Thomas, in whispered conversations with the others on the way back, had convinced them to conceal from his father the full horror of what had happened while he'd been unconscious, and had managed to convince him that he and Lirenna were the only ones who'd been overcome by the Mad Woman, this deception being necessary if the cobbler wasn't going to insist on his son staying home and finding a job in Andor while the others went on without him.

     "Yes, Diana and I didn't know what had happened to dad until Shaun and Matthew found us in the back room," he told his mother, who was gasping with horror at what had happened to her husband. "It was probably because they frightened her, bursting in like that and demanding to know what had happened to us..."

     "She would have eaten you?" gasped Edith, taking the demi shae's hand and giving it a sympathetic squeeze.

     "Well, I don't know if she really would have," replied Thomas casually. "I think she was just trying to scare us."

     "She certainly scared me," admitted the demi shae.

     "But I think it was all just a misunderstanding," added Thomas, unconsciously tugging the sleeves of his shirt so that it covered his bruised and torn wrists. "We were making good progress up until that point. Yes, she's what most people would describe as evil and yes, we should certainly try to stop anyone else from going up there, but I don't think she's quite as black as she's painted." No, he thought. She's worse! A thousand times worse! I should have listened to dad and never gone up there!

     As if Derek could read his thoughts, he was giving his son a suspicious look, clearly suspecting that more had gone on in that cottage than he'd been told, but since they'd all emerged unscathed and with the knowledge they'd gone for he decided not to push it.

     They spent the rest of the day relaxing and recovering but, unfortunately, their rest did not last long. The travelers soon discovered that, in their absence, they'd become local celebrities, and as soon as word got round that they’d returned from the Mad Woman’s house a crowd of curious townspeople gathered in the street outside, eager for the full tale to be told, and couldn't be made to go away until they'd heard it. "First after Dermakarak, and now again," muttered Shaun. "I hope this isn't going to happen every time we run into a bit of danger."

     "It's almost impossible to do anything secretly in a town as small as this," said Thomas. "Don't worry. Soon we'll be passing through much less crowded, much more open areas where we'll be able to pass more or less anonymously. No-one will have heard of us there."

     "It'll be none too soon for me," said Shaun.

     As soon as they could find a spare moment, Thomas got out the atlas he'd brought from Vantarestin and traced their most likely route to the Lonely Isles, with the others looking over his shoulder. "The best way, I reckon, is to go to Seaton, here," he said, pointing to the large seaport on the coast of the Western Sea, about two hundred miles south and a little west of Andor. "We can book passage on a merchant ship going to Mala or, even better, straight to the islands themselves, though few ships go all the way in one leg. They'll sometimes take passengers if you're lucky, and it'll be a lot cheaper than taking a clipper. No sense in throwing our money away when we might need it later on. From Mala we can get another ship to Greenwing Island, which appears to have a few fishing villages on it, and from there, we can hire a small boat to take us to the Oracle itself. How does that sound?"

     They all agreed that the plan seemed sound enough, although Lirenna looked disappointed at the thought of sailing on a smelly old merchant ship. She'd been looking forward to a trip on one of the clippers that ran between Ilandia and the nations that fringed the Southern Sea, of which the very best were the ships of the Baddow Line, famed for their luxurious comfort and unparalleled quality of personal service. Of course such luxury had its price, and ships of the Baddow line had the additional reputation of being hideously expensive. She shrugged stoically. Oh well, she thought. Everyone's got to have at least one unfulfilled ambition. This is mine.

     They remained in Andor all the next day and the day after that while Jerry recovered from the Mad Woman's life stealing spell. It still left him feeling weak and dizzy at times, especially in the early mornings, and the feeling would continue to recur at times for the next several months, but as the third day dawned he announced that he felt well enough to travel once more, and so they made preparations to leave.

     They sold their horses, as they wouldn't be able to take them aboard ship, and they sold the valuables they'd found in Vantarestin in the town market, getting what they thought was a fairly good price from the owner of the jewelery stall who, after they'd gone, sold them again for double what he'd paid them. Nevertheless they were now fairly well off, and Shaun warned them to watch out for muggers and thieves. His experience in Fort Battleaxe was still very vivid in his mind.

     They still had a few items they wanted to hang onto, but which would only burden them during their travels, and they decided to leave them in Derek's apartment, trusting them to be fairly safe there until their return. Andor had its share of burglars, just like any other human habitation, but Derek had friends among the town guard who promised to keep a special watch on his house in return for a free pair of boots every six months. Their belongings would be safer there than anywhere else in Ilandia. Thomas left most of the potions from Zebulon's laboratory and his copy of the Pardatano, locked in a drawer in his old room, now occupied by Edith. The ancient book was too old and fragile to travel well, and it was useless to him anyway until he found a way to translate it. It had already suffered badly, the leather binding being badly torn in one place and most of the gold leaf decoration on the cover, already badly worn, having been lost altogether. Several pages had also been creased and torn where it had been caught between his spellbook, which was much tougher and more robust, and the atlas, which he would be taking with him.

     Also before they went, Lirenna cast an Intellectus spell on the scroll she'd found in Zebulon's laboratory, and was delighted to find that all seven spells on it were of intermediate level, all much more powerful and useful than the low level stuff that were all she'd managed to learn so far and all much too useful to just use and lose. She had almost decided to leave the scroll behind, safe in Andor, but decided in the end that she had better take it with her, just in case a life or death situation arose from which only one of the scroll spells could save them. It would have to be a very desperate situation indeed to make her use them, however, because she fully intended to hang onto them until she'd advanced to the point where she could learn them and add them to her spellbook.

     They decided to leave early in the morning, before sunrise, and Thomas’s parents and his aunt were there to see them off. Derek shook Thomas’s hand solemnly. "Goodbye, son." he said. "I know the six of you can look after yourselves now, so we won't worry too much about you, but I want you to promise me that, if you run into anything too dangerous, you'll give up and come home. Remember that it's a tough violent world out there, and that you'll have to be on your guard every minute of every day if you're going to survive. There's no shame in admitting defeat, and no sense in getting yourselves killed because you're too proud to run away from a dangerous situation. You'll be doing nobody any good by throwing your lives away needlessly. Remember that. All right?"

     Thomas and the others promised that they would be careful, and that they would try to stay out of trouble. They had said nothing to him about the true dangers of the quest, knowing that he would try to stop them going if he knew. Thomas had played it down, making it sound like nothing more than a countryside walk and a picnic, and the others had backed him up, so that his parents let them go with only a little worry in their hearts, based mainly on the known dangers of the long sea voyage they would have to make and the possibility of encountering outlaws and highwaymen. After escaping from the Mad Woman, though, they were fairly confident that they could survive such relatively minor problems.

     "There's just one thing more I'd like to say before we leave," said Thomas solemnly. "If the Shadowarmies do invade, this'll be one of the first towns they come to. It might be a good idea to leave Andor and move to another town further from the border, where you'll be safer. Will you do that?"

     "Well, I don't know," said his father doubtfully. "We've lived here all our lives. We can't just pull up roots and move just like that. It's something we'll have to think about, long and hard."

     "You will think about it, though, won't you?" pleaded Thomas. "Please?"

     "We'll think about it, I promise," said Derek.

     Thomas's mother gave him a long hug, and made him promise to eat well, stay out of damp, draughty places and choose his company carefully. She also gave a long farewell speech to each of the others, telling them to look after her son and, of course, themselves as well, and after a similar farewell from Edith, they were at last ready to go. The nine of them went together to the town gates, as they had before, and there followed another long round of goodbyes, as if Thomas’s parents were trying to delay his departure as long as possible.

     Thomas also couldn't believe he was leaving so soon. All during the five years of his apprenticeship he'd dreamed of returning home as a wizard, to the praise and admiration of his parents, and now that it had happened he was leaving again after just a few days. Or trying to. His parents kept thinking of new things to say to him, new ways to delay their departure by another precious few seconds, and in the end Thomas had to almost tear himself away, forcing himself to start walking down the road. Once he'd begun, though, it was easier, although he couldn't keep himself from looking back every few moments, to see them still standing there, staring after him and waving, and it was almost with relief that they finally passed out of sight and he could turn his attention firmly ahead.

     The journey through Ilandia was pleasant and uneventful, and they pointed several interesting features of the autumn countryside out to each other as they passed through it. The farmers were out gathering their harvests and, had the travelers needed the money, they could have earned a few extra silvers as temporary hired help, joining in with other young men and women picking apples, digging up potatoes or thrashing grain. Some fields were already ploughed up, some to be left over winter for the frosts to work on, others to be sown with late germinating crops that hibernated over winter, grew in the early spring, and were harvested in early summer, freeing the field for another crop before the end of the year.

     In a couple of weeks, when the last of the harvest was safely gathered in and the long winter was beginning to bite, the harvest holiday would begin and Thomas was sorry he'd be missing it. The three day thanksgiving for another harvest safely gathered in was one of the big events of the year and an occasion that children and adults alike looked eagerly forward to. It was their way of temporarily forgetting the hard winter months that lay ahead, lasting half the year and broken only by the week long midwinter holiday, without which the long wait for spring might have proved unbearable. Every ten years the harvest holiday was four days long, the extra day being a leap day to keep the calendars accurate. The next one would be in two years time.

     It took them three days to reach the main caravan road running from Fort Battleaxe into the heart of Ilandia, which they followed until they reached the town of Twin Beeches. There it forked. One road led to Tatria, Ilandia's capital city, while the other, the road they wanted, led south, to the coast. The south road followed the river Luma for most of its way, and the six travelers joined up with a merchant caravan, most of which belonged to a rich landowner called Crowley. He exported wool and cotton to Mala and the drivers allowed them to ride on one of the wagons, where they bedded down on a comfy but smelly mattress of fresh wool.

     They were charged nothing for the ride, but were able to pay their way when, after a couple of days, one of the not quite so rich merchants riding with the caravan came to Diana begging her to help his wife, who'd been bitten by one of the horses. The wound was minor but had become infected, making it swell up alarmingly and weep yellow pus. The poor woman was in great pain and feverish, and none of their medicinal poultices seemed to be doing any good.

     Diana gently took her hand in her own and prayed over it, and the power of the Goddess healed her so completely that not even the smallest mark remained. The merchant was jubilant with gratitude and relief and begged her to tell him what he could do to repay her, pulling a purse full of gold from a fold in his robes.

     The cleric pushed it away. "The rewards for a virtuous life lie not in this life but in the next," she told him. "If you wish to make an offering, make it in the next temple you come to, where it will be used to help the poor and needy."