The Gem Lords

The Realms - Part 3

     "Thomas Gown?" said a voice.

     Thomas spun around to see a young man standing behind him. A shockingly red headed man dressed in the simple white robes of an apprentice wizard but whose eyes were as red as the most perfect ruby. Thomas gave a gasp of surprise and backed away, but the young man raised his hands in a gesture of peace and reassurance.

     "Are you from the Gem Lords?" Thomas asked nervously.

     "Don't you recognise me?" smiled the young man, apparently no more than a boy. "This is how I looked when you, sorry I mean Tak, first saw me, when Tak was brought to Domandropolis to be enslaved by Khalkedon. At the welcome banquet, remember?"

     Thomas stared. "Barl? Lord Ruby? Is that you?"

     The apparently young man grinned. "It's time for you to come to us. Saturn's being kept busy, we've arranged a little spectacle to engage his interest for the rest of the day. You can take this opportunity to slip away with me."

     Thomas looked around at the encampment. Those few people out and about passed them by without so much as a glance. A wizard speaking to an apprentice was too common a sight to arouse interest. "But he's at your castle," protested Thomas, "and you haven't got the power to oppose him out here, in the real world. How do we get past him?"

     "We don't, we go to one of the other crossing points. You've been to the Emerald Oracle twice, you can teleport us straight there. Come with me and you'll have the answers you've been waiting for."

     "Saturn told me to wait here." Barl gave him a pitying look which make Thomas turn red with shame. "Yes, I know, I don't have to do what he says, especially not outside Lexandria Valley, but I have my son's future to think of. He'll be going back to the University for his education soon, and he'll need the goodwill of the senior wizards. If I anger Saturn with outright disobedience, he could make things very difficult for Derry. I'd rather wait for him to give his permission. It can only be a matter of time."

     "It'll be a long time, and we don't have so much that we can throw it away." He thought for a few moments. "I can arrange to have you abducted. He can hardly blame you for being taken against your will, can he?"

     "But how? You haven't any power in the real world any more."

     "We have some. Enough for this if you put up no more than a token resistance. What do you say? Want to find out what it's all about?"

     Thomas thought carefully for a moment. "Lenny has to come as well, but I don't want her hurt. Can you carry her off without hurting her?"

     "Tell her to pretend to faint when I point a wand at her," said the Gem Lord. "You as well." He looked around at the camp, then pointed to a rocky knoll a couple of hundred yards away. "Can the two of you be over there, away from the other wizards? Out of spellcasting range?"

     "When?"

     "How about midday?"

     "That soon? Can you arrange it that quickly?"

     The Gem Lord winked at him. "Just be there," he said, and trotted off out of the camp, nodding amiably to the proctor on duty at the gate as he passed him by.

     Thomas stared after him in astonishment as the ginger headed boy strolled off towards a small copse of trees within which a latrine had been dug with disintegration spells. Then he dashed off to find his wife. He quickly outlined what the Gem Lord had said to him, and the demi shae grinned her delight at the scheme he'd suggested. "No theatrics, though," her husband warned. "He points the wand, you fall. That's all you have to do. Understand?"