“What, now?” the Mick asked dangerously, focused on me, and his eyes slid back towards the two unexplored tunnels behind us.

  “Oswald has no knowledge of Nuhmudira’s location on Dereth, the Hlaetians, Marae Lassel, or the Vesayans. We know she’s not on the Olthoi Island, Vissidal, Aerlinthe, or the Dark Isle, and pretty sure Bobo would rip her apart on the Tusker Island. That doesn’t leave much. He’s not explored the Singularity Caul overmuch… and if his, eh, peers among the Freebooters asked him not to, there is no better place for her than among some severely-disappointed ex-Shadow worshipers with fanatic mindsets, and some opportunistic people who couldn’t leave the place and needed a leader.” I nodded back away from the sea. “I think she’s on this island somewhere… and if not, she’s close by.”

  I pointed off to the east. “There’s supposedly an abandoned lugian fortress out there in the water on its own little island, with basically nothing on it, for example. Nothing there to stop her from moving in and making it her own.”

  “An’ if she’s using the Blood Magic, with access to the Empyrean System, she willnae ha’ lost her power a’tall,” the Mick murmured excitedly, his dark eyes gleaming. “But she dinnae know we be here, either, an’ be closin’ in on her!”

  “So this is pure stealth and exploration,” Princess Kristie cut in coldly, her voice like ice, stilling everyone’s rising emotions. “We’ll try to keep this quiet with no kills if we can, see if the lay of the land has changed, and who is working together now, if possible.”

  “We can go up and over the mountain if we have to.” I turned my gaze to the edge of the tunnel, and a walkway suddenly flowed almost invisibly out of the stone. If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t even see it, it blended into the rest of the stone so naturally. “Highness, take Lord Mick and scout what you can of the complex. We’ll wait around the edge there, and I can take them up and over if required. If you think it’s safe for Markchat, initiate and we’ll accompany you that way.”

  Nobody disagreed with me. Kris was a freaking ghost in stealth mode, and the Mick was by far the quietest and deadliest of the Royal Scouts, having earned his Royal Warden status with blood. She probably didn’t need him along, but if it came to fighting, there was no way anybody was going to be able to deal with the two of them.

  “Full stealth, Lord Mick. The mice will be envious of us,” Kristie smiled, but there was nothing mousy about those eight canines.

  The Mick actually shrugged off his greaves and his mail, then handed them to Rogar, who deposited them on his Disk. We all watched the pair of them flit up the slope like shadows in total silence, and they were gone.

  “Around the walkway, I’ll make a cave for us to sit and wait in. No Casting, I don’t want some Empyrean to feel the draw, but,” a pale green ingot floated out of my Masspack, “that doesn’t mean you can’t work on your Amulets while we wait.”

  All of them smiled. There was no doubt whatsoever they had enough pyreal ingots waiting to empower the Protection Amulets that were so vital right now against magic. Now it was just a question of time to get them all powered up to the proper level.

  ------

  As expected, the rail lines the other way led into a smeltery for ore, with a dozen slaved Magma Golums standing around the furnaces and carts, waiting to push them around, bend crucibles, work the chains, and pour out heaps of rocks containing valuable metal, then pour out the slag into other carts, wheel them out to the side of the mountain, and dump them into the sea.

  Golums weren’t particularly aware, and these ones had obviously been standing around a while with nothing to do. Even a basic timeless Elemental intellect, like those animating a golum, could get stunted and bored, and the creature had basically lapsed into a standby mode that wouldn’t react until some external stimuli went off right in front of it.

  The place was incredibly dark, lit only by the glowing skins of the magma golums standing about, making it easy for the pair to slip past them, inspecting the ventilation of the facility, the forgeworks where the raw metals were formed into bars and ingots, and the stations where overseers had obviously guided the process.

  All now cold, but with a tunnel leading off to what would have to be some kind of inhabitable areas.

  The Mick was impressed, as the Princess was never more then ten steps from him, he could see in the Dark as if it was the day, and he still lost sight of her half the time. Shadows just seemed to flow and stretch around her, and she melted into the scenery right before his eyes. Wasn’t even invisibility, she just meshed into everything and he really had to concentrate to see her.

  Higher aspects of Stealth, he knew, still impressed at her predatory grace and skill. He’d been hugely focused on bringing up his Fire Dragon techniques, and she’d been happy to teach him, enabling his offensive power to reach another level in speed and ferocity, the like of which he’d never imagined he’d be able to rise to.

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  His Ocean and Shadow stuff had suffered for the focus, although he didn’t regret the choices, giving how much incredible violence had been part of his recent life. But he was also lagging behind because he lacked any of the Moon Dragon serenity and harmony shite, which was required for Crossing Way Masteries, where you could use more than one Way of the sword at a time.

  That was why Princess Kristie’s swordplay was still above him. He could switch between Ocean and Fire in the blink of an eye, sure enough, but the Princess, she didn’t have to switch. She somehow balanced the mindsets of all Seven Dragons at the same time, all seven Ways active at one time on her Blade.

  It were no surprise at all the Old Master fell for her, he thought to himself. The Princess was born to the sword, a natural martial artist of terrifying potential and lethality, and that was before the prodigious natural gifts of her Hag’s Bloodline.

  She could hold the Ways of seven different, even opposed styles of swordplay together in a seamless whole. Forget how thrilling it was to see, it was deadly in the extreme.

  Without Moon, he couldn’t even do two. It made him feel frustrated like few things had been able to do in all of his life.

  Ah, well. Time to see who was doing what here.

  The section of the caves they were moving into had doors set into the stone, the lines of the halls sharp and clear, evidence of strong magic used to work the stone, and there were now magical torches lighting up everything with steady false flames. The Princess went and sniffed at each and every door, memorizing the scent of whoever used the room as the Whiskers of the Wild materialized across her nose and cheeks and faded each time.

  There was nobody in these rooms at this time of day, happily. Following the admirable view from behind (he was absolutely sure she was adding more hipswing than was at all necessary to sneak around just for him), he kept an eye and ear out, knowing that she didn’t need him here for the scouting, but for surprises… so surprises were what he watched for.

  There were sounds of motion and faint conversations ahead as they moved through the halls and tunnels, passing by the tunnel they were sure led to the former Portal chamber that had brought them here, by the layout of the map in their Visual Files.

  They were midway down a long hall when Kris waved him to the side, and he flattened himself against the wall like a patch of mold in the shadow of a supporting timber. A shadow flitted across the end of the hall, but his eyes were on her hand as she raised it and pointed at her temple and made a fluttering motion.

  Something in the mind-?

  The mystic training with ki included some exposure to pretty esoteric senses… and some of them were just plain goddamn common sense done large. Humans were thinking creatures, and shite messing around at the psychic levels were things he had plenty of exposure to. Learning how to sense that shite before running into the center of it was an important skill, and something he had to cobble together from all three disciplines he was exposed to, because the Moon Dragon it was central to didn’t come so naturally to him.

  He concentrated and felt for the things making his inner flames twitch, the waters tremble, and the shadows grow and change. Fire and light and dark shadows flowing, dancing, changing under outside pressure...

  Aye, and there it was. A distinct pressure coming from ahead and to the right, said direction he conveyed with a pointing of his forefinger and thumb.

  He stayed right in Shadow mindset thereafter, immersing himself in sneak-sneak and quiet-quiet instead of slit-slit and stab-stab. The Shadow mindset was elusive and slippery, sliding about this kind of pressure and not mounting any resistance which might be felt.

  He especially knew that not even the slightest magic was going to be used now without alerting something… and that something didn’t feel like some alien shite come to the mortal world, as it almost always had before.

  Well, except when he’d been in the presence of old Asheron. The old Empyrean had always felt like he was paying attention to everything around him, and carried his power like a quiet cloak concealing great and hidden depths right in front of you…

  Come to think of it, Martine’s Aura wasn’t all that much different, although it had that uncomfortable virindi buzz to it that always indicated when the things were around.

  This… felt more like dying, or death, or pain, like it wanted to make his blood tingle.

  He’d never met Nuhmudira. The woman had only liked to show herself to her students and her most fanatic followers. Still, this didn’t feel like how he remembered Gaerlan or Harlune or other Empyreans. Not strong enough…

  Wait, did she have a daughter?

  Aye, and she might’ve come through at the same time as the Princess and Lady Magos, just at a different place. The undead had controlled the Beginner Dungeon in Samsur, and there were signs that the place had been receiving some Isparians when they went into it to clear it out and close it down, as they had Holtburg.

  He didn’t know if the Princess had made the leap or could sense the flavor of such things like he could, but he also knew that regardless of how much she wanted to kill them, she wouldn’t let it endanger the mission.

  Flitting from door to door of what she Signed to him were storage rooms, or the shadow of carved supports in a style that looked Isparian, but of a style he wasn’t familiar with, they closed in on the main room… before the Princess silently opened a door and flitted through it.

  Not questioning her selection of routes, he slid through it after her and closed it silently, noting the doors were well-oiled.

  Someone didn’t like squeaky doors.

  There were stairs leading up behind the door. Grinning at this display of her Tremblesense looking behind the doors, he followed the long legs up the stairs three at a time, and they were rapidly at the top of a doorway leading into a walkway around a large open room.

  Workrooms led off from the hallway encircling the hall below, some of them with lights on, and even people visible to them in the rooms across the cavern.

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