The Fallen World

Lord Basil - Part 1

While Drake was explaining the new situation to Fletcher, his head still buzzing as he tried to believe it himself, his former tutor, a thousand miles north and a little east, was rubbing his eyes wearily as he finally completed the long round of introductions to all the officers, wizards and priests of the ten divisions guarding Bula Pass.

Resalintas had introduced himself in turn to his new commanding officer, Field Marshal Poll and was now almost ready to return to his tent for some well earned rest before the trials and exertions of the next day. First, though, there was one more thing he wanted to do. Something he'd been looking forward to with a well hidden but almost childlike eagerness ever since being told that he was coming here.

Leaving the Field Marshal's tent, he turned left rather than right and headed for a very special tent in the central, busiest part of the encampment, a tent guarded by a full division of Senn guards as well as by a dozen priests and five wizards. As he approached, he was pleased to see that the wariness and suspicion in the eyes of the latter was just as great as that of the senn guards themselves, to the extent that they might almost have received the same conditioning. Their hands went to their weapons as Resalintas approached, and the elderly priest saw the wizards preparing to cast spells. He nodded to himself in satisfaction. So long as none of them slipped up, it didn't look as though he would have to punish anyone today.

"Resalintas," he said to the priest in charge of the guard detail. A middle aged, powerfully built man who looked as though he could wrestle a bull to the ground. "I'd like to see it."

"A moment please, Sir," he replied.

Resalintas nodded. No matter that everyone in the camp had to have had his identity checked several times already, to make sure he wasn't a clay man. No-one, but no-one, got into that tent without having his identity checked again and the old priest gladly submitted himself to it, pleased that such stringent precautions were being taken.

The procedure had changed somewhat as more was learned of the clay man threat and as the shape changing monsters changed their tactics. Now that they no longer had to wear amulets of mind protection, a strip search was no longer necessary and the guard priest simply prayed for the Eyes of Samnos, a power that the God of War was able to grant to a select few of His priests and that was more or less equivalent to a wizard's magic sense. The priest granted this divine favour found himself able to see the flows of magic force generated by magic spells, and could consequently see if someone was wearing any magical artifacts or had had spells cast directly onto his body.

All the various protection and warding spells that wizards and priests wore as a matter of routine generated complicated nimbuses of light, and it took practice to identify the specific spell or artifact responsible for a particular nimbus. The younger priest had been trained to identify the characteristic halo pattern of a mind protection spell, though, and, had it been present, he would have been able to pick it out from the auras generated by the magical charge on his older colleague's sword and the scroll of wizard spells he was carrying in his pouch.

Satisfied, he then prayed for the additional boon of telepathy. He read the surface layers of the older priest's mind, searching for any trace of duplicity. Any hint that he wasn't who he claimed to be. He found none and stood aside. "Very good, Sir," he said, saluting. "You may enter."

"Thank you," replied the older priest. He returning the salute and ducked through the tent flap.

Inside, the tent was as large as a circus big top with a conical top held up by a central pole, and more priests and guards were standing patiently around the circular sides, on guard against any attempt by the Shadowwizards to teleport directly in. Resalintas gave them only a brief glance, though, as he marched with barely concealed eagerness towards the object they were guarding, standing on a wooden plinth just a few feet away from the central pillar.