Patrol 4: Storm & Calm

Chapter 14

Vania sighed and rapped quickly on the door. "T'kanna?"

The door swung open. "Vania!" T'kanna greeted. She stepped back and gestured into the room. "Come in." As she closed the door behind the enforcer, she asked, "How are you feeling? I know you kept to your room yesterday."

"You mean you know that the ward you placed on my door kept her contained yesterday," Vania corrected. She sat in a chair near T'kanna's, eyes looking out the rain-spattered window. The garden below was dark, the plants drooping from too much water and lack of sunlight. Even the middle of the day was dark now, with storms constantly overhead.

"So, what can I do for you, Vania?"

"Can you get me to Karn quickly?"

T'kanna looked at her carefully. "Why do you want to go to Karn? We've already been told by the temples there that they can't help you. Won't even try."

"Eddin leaves the day after tomorrow. If your mother isn't going to be back before then, I need to go to her. There's something I need to talk to her about."

"Truly?" T'kanna asked. She reached out and took one of Vania's hands in both of her own.

Vania looked at their hands together on her knee. "Yes. Truly."

"There's the route Mother takes to get from here to there quickly... It's a... condensed road. Like using a dimensional hallway to connect one end of the house to the other, but on a much larger scale."

"I don't know what that means," Vania admitted, "but if it can get me to Karn and back before the day after tomorrow, please help me use it."

"If you leave right now, you'd be back just before dawn, the day after tomorrow. Assuming you don't take more than an hour to talk to her."

Vania stood, taking deep breath. "I don't intend for this to be a social visit. Can I go now? Or do you need time to prepare?"

T'kanna smiled as she also stood. "It's been a few days since Mother used it, so the spell should be restabilized. I can show you the doorway."

"Thank you."

Vania follow T'kanna out of the room and down the hallway.

Vania hurried to the make-shift port, spurring her horse dangerously fast around the tight corners down the cliff trail. Please, let me be on time, she thought desperately. The trail ended at the temporary port, a few hastily-constructed docks jutting out from the rocky shoreline. The curses of many dockhands followed her as she kneed her horse faster, barely missing crates and bundled loads, the hooves of her horse nearly stomping on toes.

The hoofbeats ringing out on the wood of the pier drew the eyes of many sailors as she passed them, eyes riveted on a ship at the end of the dock, ropes flying as the ship was unmoored.

"Stop!" she shouted at the sailors as they bent to lift the ramp. Yanking on the reins hard to force the horse to stop before it ran off the edge of the pier, she jumped to the boards, cringing at the tingling in her feet and planted her booted feet heavily on the edge of the ramp.

The sailors looked at her, eyeing her uniform, then hurried onto the ship.

"What is the meaning of this?" A woman in military dress demanded as she stalked down the ramp. "We are on a tight schedule; we're needed back at the front!" The tydring woman's scowl softened as she recognized Vania. "Ah. One of D'merdon's enforcer friends. Where's the fire?"

"I need to speak with D'merdon Buccareth," Vania replied.

"What about?"

"His career."