Alfra took Corak to the temple he knew best. A humble little mud brick building that served the needs of the small town of Mengbridge in the Kingdom of Lecia, the town in which he’d been born and had lived until entering the University to begin his apprenticeship.

     Lecia was a poor kingdom, inhabited by poor people, and the temple in which he found himself, unchanged since the days of his boyhood, was drab and bare, being little more than a large shed with rows of wooden pews on either side of a central aisle and with an altar dedicated to Caroli at the front. And yet, the moment the last effects of the teleportation spell faded away, the wizard was conscious of a sense of peace and tranquillity. A sense of holiness, that a magnificent cathedral might have envied. It may have been only his imagination, but it seemed to him that a trace of colour came back to the young man’s face and hands as he laid him gently across a rows of seats, and that his breathing became deeper and more regular.

     “Help! Help!” he cried at the top of his voice. “I’ve got an injured man here! I need help! Quick!”

     He yelled again and again until a middle aged man dressed in bedclothes and carrying a candle came in, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. “This had better be serious,” he grumbled sleepily. “If you’ve gotten me out of my bed in the middle of the night to heal the result of a drunken brawl...”

     Then he saw the young man covered with blood and came running forward, a look of concern on his face. “What happened?” he asked gently, removing the bandages to look at the wound.

     “He was hit by a flying lump of rock,” replied the wizard. “Is he going to be all right?”

     “A flying lump of rock?” asked the cleric suspiciously, but then he dismissed the question and turned back to his patient, gently fingering the wound. “He’ll be fine.”

     He said a prayer over the young wizard, begging Caroli to intervene in the life of the young man, and Alfra felt a tingle all over his body as the Goddess of Healing responded. Despite the number of times he’d seen it happen, Alfra was still filled with wonder as he saw the wound close over and the colour return to the young wizard’s face. He took his hand, and was immensely relieved to find that his pulse was strong and regular again. “Thank you,” he said with feeling.

     “Don’t thank me,” replied the cleric, though. “Thank Her.” He indicated the altar at the far end of the temple, and the little offering bowl under it, containing a handful of copper coins in several nationalities and denominations. He then cast a professional eye over Corak’s face, noting the colour of his skin and the depth of his breathing. “He’ll sleep for a while and be a bit wobbly for a few hours when he wakes up. He’ll have the grandfather of all headaches for a while, but don’t worry, he’s going to be fine. If you’re genuinely grateful, the roof’s leaking a bit. A spell or two in that direction wouldn’t go amiss.”

     Alfra laughed in relief, and looked up to get his first good look at the cleric. He stared in amazement. “By the Gods!” he exclaimed. “It’s Bodus, isn’t it?”

     “I’m sorry,” replied the cleric in surprise. “Have we met?”

     “It’s me! Alfra! Remember? Alfra Campernel, the wizard!”

     Bodus’s eyes widened in recognition. “Alfra! By the Gods! I haven’t seen you for, oh, what is it? Ten years?”

     “Twelve,” replied the wizard, grinning happily. “You were the caretaker last time I was here. What happened?”

     “Julia died,” said the cleric sadly. “Natural causes. She just slipped away. Caroli gathered her up into Her loving arms and left us without a cleric. Looking back on it now, I’m not quite sure how I came to be accepted by Caroli as her replacement. It just sort of happened...”

     He was interrupted as half a dozen other wizards suddenly popped into existence around them. Alfra leapt to his feet in alarm, reaching for his spell components, but before he could say a word an amnesia spell wiped them all from his mind.

     “Strip him!” ordered the commanding proctor. “Any item of clothing that might carry a ward or a charm. Him as well.” he pointed at Corak.

     “How dare you invade the sanctity of the house of Caroli!” exploded Bodus in fury. “You outrage the holy Lady of Healing and...”

     “These men are criminals, wanted for crimes against Lexandria University,” said the proctor impatiently. “They are to be taken back for trial and sentencing.” He made a gesture, and two of the other proctors grabbed him and carried him outside, still protesting furiously.

     “You fool!” said the commanding proctor to Alfra with a cruel sneer. “Did you think you could teleport all over the place without being detected? All the resources of the University are against you, my friend. It’s only a matter of time before we get you all.”

     “You idiot!” replied Alfra in mingled fury and terror. “We’re trying to save the world! You’re playing straight into the hands of the enemy!”

     “Tell it to the Director,” sneered the proctor. “You’ll answer to him personally.”

     The other proctors then pulled Corak to his feet and they formed a circle around the two renegades. The commanding proctor then spoke a word, and a moment later the temple was empty again.

     A moment or two later, Bodus crept nervously back in and looked around with a frown of worry on his face, murmuring a prayer and fingering his silver caroli flower fearfully. “Watch over them, my Lady,” he whispered, as if afraid someone other than his Goddess might hear. “Watch over them, please.”

☆☆☆

     “Here it is,” said Jorn grimly, holding the blue crystal out in front of him, its inner light flickering like a candle in the wind. “The soul of a rak. I just hope it was worth it.”

     “Good!” replied Tragius in delight, snatching it from him and staring excitedly at it like a child with a new toy.

     “What do you mean, you hope it was worth it?” asked Aerethil however, frowning at the expression on Jorn’s face.

     Jorn’s face was shadowed with grief. “Corak was hurt and Alfra took him to a cleric to be healed. The others, they’re all dead.”

     “Dead!” cried Barchil in alarm, and Tragius looked up guiltily. “What happened?”

     Jorn described their ambush of the rak and the disastrous battle in which three of their colleagues had been killed, his voice faltering now and then as his grief threatened to overcome him. “We’d all have been killed if it hadn’t been for Corak,” he said when he’d finished. “That young lad saved us all.”

     Silence fell as they all paid their respects, and then Tragius looked at the crystal again. “He’ll pay for their deaths,” he swore. “The information he’ll give us will make their sacrifice worthwhile.” He then left the room, heading for the makeshift containment cell Elmias had set up in one of his storage rooms.

     The other wizards also went back to their various tasks, but as time went by and Corak and Alfra failed to return Jorn began to grow worried. “They should have been back by now,” he said, pacing up and down the long room. “Where are they?”

     “Which cleric did he take him to?” asked Aerethil, the only one of the senior wizards who didn’t have anything to do at the time. Being an enchantress, there was no call for her special talents at that moment.

     “He didn’t say,” replied Jorn, wringing his hands with worry. “I suppose he’d have taken him to the town or city he knew best, since familiarity is important to a teleportation spell. His home town, I suppose.”

     “That would be Mengbridge, in Lecia,” said the enchantress, who knew Alfra a little. “I’ve got nothing to do at the moment. Shall we go look for him?”

     The suggestion cheered Jorn up considerably, and they went to tell the others what they were doing.

     “Be careful,” advised Tragius. “Here, you’re relatively safe, but back on Tharia there’s half a dozen ways they can track your movements. Be prepared to teleport out at the first sign of trouble.”

     “We will,” promised the enchantress, and the two wizards hurried off to where the dormant transdimensional tunnels were waiting.

     Neither Jorn nor Aerethil had ever been to Mengbridge, and so were unable to conjure up the mental image necessary to lead the tunnel straight there, but Aerethil had been to Hespidia, the capital city of Lecia, and as that was only a couple of hundred miles away they went there instead and travelled the rest of the way with the aid of two Robes of Flying. They arrived at Mengbridge a few hours later and, after covering their distinctive wizardly robes with long brown cloaks, they entered the temple, trying to look like ordinary pilgrims on their way to commune with the Lady of Healing.

     The temple was empty except for two men. The cleric, who was placing songbooks out on the pews in preparation for the morning service, and a young man kneeling before the altar. The supplicant looked up as they entered, but then lost interest and returned to his prayers.

     “Excuse me,” said Aerethil to the cleric, who didn’t stop but continued walking along the pews, laying out the books. “We’re looking for someone. We think he might have been here a few hours ago.”

     The cleric looked up, and they were surprised to see a look of fear on his pale, wrinkled face. His gaze darted momentarily to the supplicant, and as the two wizards followed his gaze they saw that the young man was again looking at them. To his astonishment it was a face Jorn recognised, and he cried out before his common sense had time to stop him. “Proctor!”

     He ran forward, summoning the words of a spell that would capture and bind the proctor, but before he could cast it the young man had teleported away. “Drass!” swore Jorn, amazed at his stupidity. If he’d kept quiet and pretended not to recognise him, they might have been able to take him off guard. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.”

     “Not yet,” replied the enchantress, turning back to the cleric. “What happened?” she demanded.

     “Alfra came with a young man needing healing,” said the cleric fearfully. “A moment later a lot more wizards came and captured them. They took them away, but one stayed in case any more of you came.”

     Suddenly the proctors were back, shouting the words of amnesia spells, but the teleportation spell required only a single word and Jorn and Aerethil were gone before the spells reached their conclusion.

☆☆☆

     “The proctors have got them!” gasped Jorn the moment they arrived back in Elmias’s mansion. “They must have traced their teleport spells.”

     “Drass!” swore Tragius in alarm. “That’s all we need!”

     “Could they trace us here?” asked Nave Norba, another of the young wizards who’d joined up with the renegades.

     “No,” replied Aerethil. “Tracing a transdimensional tunnel is almost impossible if it’s prepared properly, as ours have been.”

     If they can make them reveal the location of our retreat, they can create their own tunnels,” said Tragius though. ”They could come straight here and get us.”

     “Alfra would never betray us,” swore Jorn confidently. “He’d rather die. So would Corak.”

     “Fool!” spat Tragius. “What are we doing with the rak? There are spells that can extract the truth from the most unwilling subject. Even more simply, they could enchant them, turn them into best friends who'll reveal our location willingly.”

     Aerethil gasped with shock. More than any of the others, she knew the truth of Tragius’s words. She’d made a lifetime’s career out of doing just what he described. “We’ve got to rescue them,” she declared. “We’ve got to break into the University...”

     Tragius snorted, indicating what he thought of the idea. “The University is as impregnable as the best wizards in the past two thousand years have known how to make it. Forget it.”

     “Elmias still has a few contacts on the inside who haven’t openly declared their support for us...”

     “The proctors know it and will be on the lookout for them. They don’t want to make the same mistake they made when they lost us. No, forget it. There’s no way we can get them back.”

     “Then the proctors will soon know everything they know!” cried Jorn in dismay. “They’ll be coming here! What are we going to do?”

     “Only one thing we can do,” said the old wizard, moving to the door. “Get out of here before they arrive. I’ll tell Elmias. You tell the others. Gather everything you can and pile it up in the hallway.”

     “But where are we going?” asked Nave, his voice full of fear and confusion.

     “I’ll think of somewhere,” replied Tragius as he disappeared around a corner.

     Elmias was aghast at the news, and was almost running around in circles as the implications hit him. “But, but, this place was supposed to be safe!” he cried accusingly. “I made it as a final refuge, a place to flee to if I had to run in a hurry! This wasn’t supposed to happen!”

     “Well it has happened, and now we’ve got to run before we’re caught. Have you got any other secret refuges?”

     “No! I put everything into this place! It was supposed to be totally, absolutely undetectable! How was I to know they’d find it out so soon?”

     Seeing the other wizard’s abject terror, Tragius knew he was telling the truth. He sighed in disappointment. “Then we’ll have to find somewhere else. Somewhere they won’t think of looking, where we can set up our laboratories and work in peace. Somewhere safe and secure.”

     “Where?” cried Elmias, now close to panic. “If a secret refuge in an alien dimension isn’t safe, then where...” He stopped as he saw the look spreading slowly across the other wizard’s face. “You’ve thought of somewhere?”

     “Just an idea,” replied Tragius. “I need to speak to someone. Make preparations to move out.” He dashed out of the room before Elmias could say another word.

☆☆☆

     A few minutes later he returned to find a pile of equipment, supplies and spellbooks piled in the middle of the large entrance hall, while wizards young and old bustled to and fro like ants in an anthill, “Who’s got the rak?” he called out.

     “Here!” replied Barchil, holding up the glowing blue crystal. “Have you found somewhere?”

     “Yes,” said Tragius, helping a young wizard pack potions and powders into a crate. “We’re going back to Tharia. An old friend of mine has agreed to put us up.”

     “Who?”

     “Resalintas.”

     Barchil gasped in surprise, but then nodded as the merit of the idea occurred to him. “Of course. The priesthood are the only ones on our side.”

     “The priesthood doesn’t know yet,” replied Tragius, “but they’ll do what Resalintas tells them to do. As holder of the Sceptre of Samnos and the Sword of Retribution, his word is law. We’ll be moving into one of their fortress monasteries, with priests all around to see to our every need. We’ll be safe there. Not even the University will risk angering the priesthood by launching an attack on priesthood property.”

     “Even so, it’ll be best if they don’t know we’re there,” mused Barchil. “There must be no teleporting, or any other spells that can be detected from a distance. We stay indoors at all times. If we need anything, we ask a priest to fetch it for us. We take absolutely no chance at all that might lead to our discovery.”

     “Agreed,” said Tragius. “I’ll spread the word.” He dashed off to track down the other wizards and tell them what they’d decided.

     It took a couple of hours before they were ready to leave, and they sweated nervously every minute that passed, expecting the proctors to turn up at any moment. Finally, though, every essential item and piece of equipment was packed and ready and they prepared to create a transdimensional portal to take it all, lock stock and barrel, back to Tharia.

     “If they detect it, we’ve had it,” mused Tragius unhappily, “but there’s no way to avoid it. We’re just going to have to trust to luck one more time.”

     “The spells I’ll be casting in the wilds of Amadecia will distract their attention for a while,” pointed out Adantus. “I’ll keep them running after a false lead long enough for you to get away.”

     “Just make sure you’re not caught,” warned Tragius. “We’ll be needing you in the days ahead.”

     “I’ll be careful,” promised the other wizard. “I’ll teleport out the moment they get too close. Are we ready?”

     “Whenever you are,” agreed Aerethil. She saw Elmias looking wistfully around at the bare shelves and tables and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll be back,” she said. “One day, when this is all over, you’ll be able to come back here.”

     He smiled back at her gratefully, but continued to stroke his bare chin anxiously as he prepared to leave the place into which he’d invested so much time and effort.

     “I’ll be off then,” said Adantus. “Give me long enough to get their attention, say five minutes, and then you can go.” He spoke the word that activated the dormant transdimensional tunnel and stepped into it. “May the Gods go with you,” he said, and then the opening closed behind him and he was gone.

     They waited silently, each of them counting the seconds of the five minutes Adantus had given them. “Okay,” said Elmias at last. “Here we go.” He cast the spell, and a much larger transdimensional tunnel opened in front of them, as big as the full width of the hall. “Hold on now!” he warned. “This may be a rough journey. Now, Jake! Now!”

     Tragius cast another spell, and the entire section of floor on which they and their equipment was standing lifted up like a solid stone magic carpet and entered the tunnel. Elmias was right, it was a rough journey, but by the grace of the Gods nobody fell off and hardly any of their precious stores and equipment was lost over the side. The wizards sped at dizzying speed through strange, alien dimensions, swooping and turning to follow the crazily convoluted tunnel, and now and then they had a momentary glimpse of an alien landscape, places where the tunnel came close to breaking through the fabric of reality and dumping them in a place weirder and more bizarre than anything they could possibly imagine. Of them all, only Elmias had ever visited any of those places, and even he, who presumably knew something of what they contained and had some idea of how to deal with them, whimpered with fear whenever they came particularly close to one and seemed about to break through into it.

     It was with great relief, therefore, that they finally emerged into the courtyard of the fortress monastery, the stone section of floor on which they were standing settling slowly to the ground as gently as a feather and the tunnel closing behind them with a sound like a distant rumble of thunder. Resalintas himself was there to meet them, and after a few brief words of greeting he escorted them down into the extensive system of caves beneath the building that the other priests were preparing for them.

     “Thank you for your help,” said Tragius to the old priest. “I don’t know what we’d have done otherwise. You’ve almost certainly saved us all from capture.”

     “Glad I could help,” replied Resalintas, not smiling. “I only wish I had a clear line of research to follow, as you do. As it is, I must depend on the efforts of others to bring me the information I need. I can do nothing until it arrives.”

     “What if it doesn’t arrive?” asked Elmias softly.

     “Then I've made alternative arrangements, but this isn't the time to speak of such things. I must go now. There are other matters that demand my attention. The priests here have been told to give you every assistance, although they don't know what you're doing. I think it best that it stays that way.”

     “I’ll say!” agreed Phileas, and the wizards all laughed humourlessly.

     “Just one more thing before you go,” said Tragius as the old priest made ready to depart. “Have your priests been told that there may be other wizards looking for us?”

     “Of course,” replied Resalintas. “They’ve been told to turn them away without resorting to violence, should any turn up here. I especially stressed the fact that they were not to harm them. I don’t want them killing people who are supposedly on our side, mistaking them for Shadowwizard spies.”

     Tragius nodded approvingly and the old priest left, wanting to return to Bula Pass before the raging hordes of the Shadowarmies descended upon it once more.

     “Well,” said Phileas, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a long, drawn out sigh. “We’d better get ourselves sorted out.”

     Tragius nodded, and the wizards went back up to the courtyard to sort out and carry down their great pile of equipment.