Thomas Gown and his companions have escaped from captivity, but only by fleeing deeper into the unknown, to face new dangers. They are carrying a secret that could save the world, though, and they have a duty to take it to those who can make use of...
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Tired though they were, sleep was harder to come by than they’d thought because every slightest movement sent them bobbing up into the air like balloons, coming back down on one or another of their companions more often than not. In the absence of any reliable time reference, though, they simply remained in the airlock until they were all rested and refreshed, even though ten or twelve hours might have passed down on Tharia.
Thomas was on watch with Diana when the lights in the ceiling faded to darkness, and it worried him for a while until he decided that it was simply due to Kronos’s orbit around Tharia. The optical fibre cables could only transmit sunlight down to the tunnels if there was sunlight on the surface, and since Kronos took eight hours to complete one orbit, this meant that there would be four hours of light followed by four hours of darkness and, sure enough, when he was woken up for his second watch, it was light again.
They eventually decided by mutual consent that morning had come and prepared to face the new day. They had a small breakfast of trail rations, washed down with a swallow or two of water, after which the wizards read their spells, re-memorising those that had changed overnight. While they were doing that, Diana spent time in meditation and Shaun got Matthew to help him string the bow. He would leave it strung all the time, he decided. It would stretch the string, which would eventually leave it useless, but it was better than not being able to use it when they needed it. He wasn’t going to be caught out that way again.
Thomas found that his web spell had changed, but he found it a real struggle to memorize the new words because he had a pounding headache that interfered with his concentration. It was a really bad one, as though there were someone trapped inside his skull trying to smash his way out with a sledgehammer, and as he rubbed his temples with his left hand he noticed Jerry doing the same thing. “Headache?” he asked with a wry grin.
“Yeah,” replied the tiny nome. “You too?”
“It’s all this concentrating on magic spells,” said Thomas. “Puts a strain on the eyes. How are you, Lenny?”
“Fine, at the moment,” replied the demi shae. “A little tired, that’s all. Funny, just a moment ago I was fine, bursting with energy and eager to be off, but then I open my spellbook and all of a sudden...”
“All of a sudden you find yourself wishing you could lie down again for a few minutes,” interrupted Shaun, and Lirenna’s eyes widened in surprise. “You feel that if you just close your eyes for a while you’ll be fine. Is that right?” She nodded.
“Now that you mention it,” added Thomas, “I’m a little tired too. It’ll probably pass once we get moving.”
They allowed themselves one more swallow of water each before they moved off. They still hadn’t found anywhere they could refill their water bottles, so they were trying to ration their water, make it last as long as possible. Fortunately none of them seemed to be getting at all thirsty, despite the dryness of their hard, biscuit-like trail rations, but as Thomas was relieving himself into an empty bottle on the other side of one of the doors it occurred to him that there was a lot more water leaving his body then there was entering it, especially if you took breath and perspiration into account.
