They changed clothes with the outlaws, keeping their moon trog glass ceramic armour but discarding their heavy steel breastplates and pulling the dirty, smelly rags on instead. Thomas also changed clothes, in case the soldiers had a description of a man dressed all in blue. He shuddered with loathing as he felt the greasy cloth against his skin.

     Only Drenn objected to the disguise. "I am a priest of Samnos," he declared. "It is my duty to proclaim the glory of Samnos wherever I go. I will not creep through the night like a thief."

     "Look," said Matthew as reasonably as he could. "There's no point in the rest of us dressing up unless we all do. If you enter their city dressed like that..."

     "I accept what you say," replied Drenn, "but a priest of Samnos must always proclaim his faith. It is our duty to bring others into the glory of Samnos at every opportunity. I have no wish to endanger your lives, however. I suggest we split up. Travel separately..."

     "But we don't know where we're going!" cried Thomas. "Once we split up, we've got no way of getting together again. We're already separated from Saturn and the others. The rest of us have got to stay together. We've got to!"

     "I see no alternative. You have to disguise yourselves, but I cannot. Therefore we must split up. Don't worry about finding me again. If it is His will that I rejoin you, He will guide my feet. He will lead me to where I have to go."

     Matthew was looking thoughtful, though. "You have to proclaim your faith, I understand that," he said, "but that doesn't mean you have to wear the whole uniform, does it?" He waved a hand at the priest's blood red robes and spiked helmet.

     "What do you mean?" asked Drenn doubtfully.

     "Well, I was in Fort Battleaxe when the Sceptre of Samnos passed through..."

     "Truly?" cried the priest in awe and envy. "Did you see it?"

     Matthew waved the question aside, not wanting to be sidetracked. "The thing is," he said, "the priests carrying the Sceptre had to pass through hostile territory. There was a real danger of the Sceptre being captured by the enemy, so they travelled in disguise, in a coach made up to look like a nobleman's carriage..."

     "But it still bore the badge of Samnos..." began Drenn, but then he fell silent as he realised what the Flight Leader was getting at.

     "That's right," agreed Matthew. "They refused to travel without some emblem of their faith, proudly displayed to the world, but they limited it to a small badge, almost lost to sight amongst all the decorative gold paint. You could do the same thing. Just carry some small emblem of your faith amongst the clothes of a local."

     Drenn nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose I could wear the golden griffin outside my clothes, visible to the world..." He nodded slowly, and the others breathed a sigh of relief as he began removing his uniform.

     A few minutes later they were all dressed alike, in the dirty rags of the outlaws, except for Drenn who also wore his holy symbol, the golden griffin pendant, on a chain outside his clothes. The neck and sleeves of his glass ceramic armour peeped out where his clothes were a little too small for the big man, but there was nothing they could do about that. The priest looked regretfully at his uniform as he laid it carefully and reverently in the hole Matthew had dug, alongside all the other uniforms and Thomas's blue clothes, and then the soldiers began filling it in.

     Suddenly Drenn stiffened, fully alert, his ears pricked for the slightest sound. "They're here," he said. "The soldiers following us. They're searching the area."

     "Time to go," said Thomas. "We'll have to find another city to infiltrate."

     The soldiers hurriedly finished filling in the hole, finishing by dragging brushwood across the spot to hide the disturbed earth, and then the five men stood in a circle and held hands. Thomas spoke the words of the teleportation spell and they vanished.

☆☆☆

     The building in which they'd spent the previous night seemed to be deserted, as they'd hoped. All the soldiers had left to chase after them. Drenn was worried some of them might return, though, looking for clues the Tharians might have left behind, so they left quickly, taking great care to leave no trace of their passage. They headed in a different direction, hoping that they were leaving their enemies behind for good, and covered two or three miles before deciding they were probably safe and entered another building to spend what was left of the night.

     The next morning they got an early start, wanting to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their pursuers. Thomas protested at first, wanting to spend a couple of hours with his spellbook to see if his spells had changed overnight, but although the others agreed that his spells were important, they thought speed was more important, and after some spirited argument Thomas finally agreed.

     He did get a chance to look at his spellbook a couple of hours later, when they stopped for a rest, but the density of ambient magic was lower here than on their own world and he could feel that the amount stored in his body was still low and he wasn't sure how many spells he'd be able to cast before he ran out.

     He suggested to the others that they stop for a day to allow his body to fully refill with magic before going on, but Drenn shook his head adamantly. "It was your idea that we blend in with the natives," he pointed out. "Our safety now depends on acting like locals and getting far away from those who might recognise our faces. You can recharge yourself with magic as you walk."

     Thomas grumbled, but he could see that the priest's mind was made up. He concentrated on looking out for natives in the buildings and the surrounding greenery, therefore, acutely conscious that he had no glass ceramic armour and not wanting to waste magic on his defensive spells while there was no danger immediately apparent. The spot between his shoulder blades tickled as he imagined archers taking sight of him, drawing back their bowstrings...

     Saturn's continued silence worried him even more, though. If the elder wizard was still alive, there was no reason he could think of why he hadn't tried to contact him by Farspeaking. Even if he was on the other side of the planet, the spell could have curved around to reach him, just as it did on Tharia. The spell would only be blocked if he were completely surrounded by miles of rock, like someone in the Tharian Underworld, or the caverns of Kronos. Thomas miserably contemplated the fact that, like Tharia, two thirds of this world were covered by water. Thomas and his group had beaten the odds by landing on land. To expect Saturn's group to have been equally lucky was little short of wishful thinking.

     He's more experienced at teleporting than I am, he thought, trying to console himself, and he might have used a more powerful version of the spell. One with some intelligence at selecting landing sites. Even if that were true, though, it still left the question of why hadn't he gotten in touch. He found himself thinking more and more that Saturn was dead, along with Timothy and the felisians. He found himself ashamed of the fact that he could feel no real grief for Saturn, but the thought of Timothy's death caused him real pain. The cleric of Caroli had been a real friend and he couldn't accept the idea that he might never see him again.

     At around midday they noticed a change in the greenery choking the ancient streets. The trees were smaller, younger, and here and there they came across the rotting stump of an old tree, chopped down and hauled away. The oldest trees here were fruit trees, apples and pears, and Matthew voiced the opinion that they were passing through an abandoned orchard.

     They took special note of the fruit trees and saw that they were indeed planted in straight lines, although with large gaps where most had died and with younger trees grown from seed confusing the pattern by growing in random places. Some of the trees had been tended, with stumps half way up their trunks where broken branches had been sawn off, the growth of new bark around the wound indicating that this had last happened no more than a year or two ago.

     "No doubt about it," said Drenn, loosening his sword in its scabbard. "We're approaching another inhabited area. A civilised area."

     This was confirmed when they left the last trees behind and saw cultivated crops ahead of them. Long, narrow fields confined by the crumbling skyscrapers on either side. Golden ears of corn waved in the breeze, and the Tharians made their way to a narrow footpath that threaded its way along one side, running alongside a narrow stream that had eroded its way through the hard packed soil that had built up on the road's original surface.

     "We're likely to come across people any time now," said Matthew, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the towering ruins that rose on either side of them, searching the dark, empty windows for any sign of life. "Everyone know what to do?"

     They'd discussed this earlier. Trying to travel across the continent while avoiding the notice of the natives would be pointless without any idea of where they were going. They needed to gain a knowledge of the surrounding country so that they could select possible destinations. Places that it might be worth their while heading for. To do that, though, they had to make contact with the locals, and now that they'd lost the soldiers who'd attacked them they hoped that they'd be able to make peaceful contact. Make a new start free from violence.

     The translation spell that Thomas had used to speak to the soldiers earlier only lasted for a few minutes, so they'd decided to keep that in reserve, for emergencies. In the meantime, they would all have to get along with sign language, including the wizard, until they'd had a chance to learn the language the hard way. Not knowing how long they would be stranded here, that was something Thomas was prepared to contemplate, no matter how many weeks it took. They would tell the truth, as far as possible. They would say that they were visitors from a far off land, washed up from a shipwreck and looking for a way home. Hopefully there would be a sea or ocean not too far away. If they were a thousand miles from the nearest shoreline their story would look rather far fetched. Oh well, thought the wizard, it’s just a gamble we’ll have to take.

     Assuming their story was accepted, their priorities would then be to learn the local geography, get as far away from their encounter with the soldiers as possible, and keep an ear open for tales of other strangers. Saturn's group. Aside from that, they intended to just keep moving, keep out of trouble, and wait for someone to make contact with them. Either Saturn or someone aboard the Jules Verne, coming to rescue them.

     "There!" cried Jop Sonno, pointing up ahead. "Someone driving a cart!"

     They looked, and saw two people in a horse drawn cart, carrying what looked like a great pile of hay tied down with twine. One of the men was riding shotgun, carrying a bow with an arrow fitted, the string half pulled back. Ready to aim and shoot at the first sign of trouble.

     "Bandits must be a common problem here," muttered Matthew. "That would explain how we came across a band so quickly." He fingered the clothes he wore, his skin still crawling at the filthy feel of it. "Or maybe the natives attack now and then."

     "Do we try to attract their attention?" asked Roj Villa, staring warily at the cart. "I don't think they've seen us yet."

     "No," replied Drenn. "They'll just think we're outlaws, and without being able to speak their language there's no way we can convince them otherwise. There'll be another town somewhere up ahead. We'll try our luck there."

     The others nodded their agreement, and so they hung back in the shadows while the cart passed by, only emerging and proceeding onwards when they were gone.

     A couple of miles further on, though, they saw more people coming and going along side streets, and soon they were seen by merchants driving wagons full of their wares and farmers toiling in their fields, many of whom paused in their work to give them suspicious stares as they passed them by. We do look like outlaws, Thomas realised uncomfortably. Not surprising, considering the fact that they were dressed in the clothes of outlaws and carrying weapons. The wizard just hoped that the fact that they were travelling openly, in the light of day, would speak of their peaceful intentions. The Captain of the soldiers they'd fought had said as much.

     Presently, they saw the town ahead of them. Another walled town about the same size of the first and also surrounded by a high, stone wall. They gulped nervously as they saw the soldiers patrolling the walkway along the top, as well as standing guard by the open gates.

     "What if they're already on the lookout for us?" asked Jop Sonno nervously. "They might have had word from the soldiers chasing us."

     "So long as we stick together, we can teleport out any time we want," replied Thomas. "The one thing we have to avoid is getting split up."

     "I'm not so sure," said Drenn, though. "If they are looking for us, they'll be looking for five men travelling together. If we went in as two separate groups, though... A group of two and a group of three..."

     "No, we won't split up," said Matthew emphatically. "We're split up enough as it is, from Saturn and from the ship. We stay together. Whatever happens, we stay together."

     The others agreed whole heartedly, and the priest nodded reluctantly. "Perhaps you're right," he conceded. "We'll see how it goes. If things go badly and we're forced to teleport out in a hurry, maybe we should think again next time, though."

     "We'll see how it goes," said Matthew, refusing to be drawn.

     "I have another suggestion you might not like," said Thomas. "Maybe we should go straight to the guards. Give ourselves up to them. No, listen..." he said in a louder voice as the others spoke up in protest. "Listen! We're supposed to be shipwreck survivors, right? Stranded in a strange country where we don't speak the language. What would real shipwreck victims do? They'd go straight to the authorities and ask for help, wouldn't they?"

     Drenn nodded thoughtfully, but Matthew spoke up indignantly. "That first bunch of soldiers attacked us for no reason. What if these ones react the same?"

     "They attacked because we appeared out of nowhere, in strange military uniforms, in the middle of their territory. They offered to take us in, to meet their Lawmasters..."

     "In manacles," growled Drenn.

     Thomas ignored the comment. "I'm thinking more and more that we should have gone with them. The whole thing might have been sorted out by now and we might be busily learning each other's languages, free to come and go as we wish. Now we've got another chance to get it right. I think we should be completely open and honest with them, holding back only those things they might find hard to take, like coming from the ring. If we treat them the right way, hopefully they'll treat us the same way."

     "Better make up our minds quick," warned Roj Villa. "We're almost there."

     They looked up and saw the huge, iron gates ahead of them, manned by two burly guards, plus another two who'd turned up to get a better look at the suspicious looking strangers. A merchant driving a wagon load of timber hurried inside, anxious to avoid any trouble that might break out.

     "We'll play it your way," Drenn told Thomas. "Up to a point, but at the first sign of trouble, or if they try to separate us, we teleport out. Understood?"

     "Understood," agreed Thomas, feeling relieved. "Thanks." All up to me then, he thought nervously. Hope I'm up to it.

     As they arrived at the gates, therefore, he went straight to the oldest of the guards. The one most likely to be in charge. He began speaking in the Tharian common tongue. "Excuse me, can you understand our language? We're looking for someone who speaks our language."

     He knew full well that they wouldn't understand what he was saying, that no-one on this world would, but the guards would see that he was trying to communicate with them. That was the important thing. The thing he had to get across.

     "We come from Tharia." They would take it to be the name of another country on this world, not another planet. "Our ship sank in a storm. We just want to get back home. Can you help us? Please?"

     The guard spoke to him, giving them orders whose nature Thomas could easily guess but which he pretended not to understand. Instead he continued speaking, jabbering excitedly until the guards grew visibly frustrated at the lack of progress, at which point the one in charge gestured for them to enter the city.

     Feeling nervous and hopeful at the same time, the Tharians obeyed, and the Captain of the guard detailed two of his men to escort them somewhere. "Fingers crossed," said Thomas as they set off across the bustling city. "Most people in most places are basically okay. I think they'll help us."

     "Let's hope you're right," replied Matthew doubtfully, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.