A little more and soon, they're the ones in front of the booth made from the same material used for the walls. There were two uniformed men inside. Xanthy, using the trick June taught her, peered at their trails. Huh. Pixies. How in Umazure did they end up working at the border booths? Then again, like everything else, it wasn't her business.

Xanthy stepped aside, letting Marthiaq take the lead. "Good day, gentlemen," the brownie greeted with his brightest smile. Xanthy had to admit that Marthiaq could be smooth if he wanted to be. "Passage for four, please."

"Drop the polite act," one of the uniformed men rolled his eyes. His pixie features scrunched up against the sun as he tried peering up at Marthiaq. "Five small kalta dryde, each."

Marthiaq raised an eyebrow in mocked disbelief. "Five?" he leaned further into the booth and into the pixies' faces. "Why, yesterday, you told me it was only two."

Sweat shone on the pixie's forehead. His companion had gone quiet beside him, counting versallis by tossing those he counted into a reused can. "N-no, sir," the talking pixie shook his head and wagged a finger in Marthiaq's face. "Five each. Pay up. You're holding the line."

Marthiaq chuckled, slapping the booth's rim as he ducked out. "Of course, hate for that to happen," he shoved his hand into his satchel and rummaged around. "Just a second."

The other pixie started dropping each coin he counted into the can louder than necessary. The talking pixie was focused on Marthiaq, unblinking even against the glaring sunlight. "Any time now, sir," he said with his reedy voice. It reminded Xanthy of a wind instrument she once saw in Alkara.

Marthiaq made a show of patting the sides of his trousers where pockets usually were. He drew a pouch of coins from his belt. "Ah, there we go," he hefted the pouch. "Five kalta dryde each, coming up."

Like the numerous times before, Marthiaq slid a hand over to the collecting pixie's and deposited nothing. As if on cue, Rhys stepped to his right, blocking any view of the transaction from behind. Xanthy kept her head down.

The pixie counting the coins continued making coins clank against each other, getting louder and louder each time. Marthiaq smiled as the other pixie handed the non-existent payment to his companion. ""Welcome to Gligan," he said to Marthiaq.

Marthiaq ducked his head and gave a quick bow. "Glad to be here."

The brownie turned to Xanthy and the others with a look. They didn't need to be told twice. The spell would wear off soon and they needed to be away from the wall by the time the pixies realized they had been bamboozled by the most basic brownie trick ever.

When Xanthy first saw it upon entry to Rabante, she doubted it would work a second time but after seeing it today, she changed her mind. Marthiaq knew his skills and he had, indeed, been using it well.

Xanthy cast her eyes around the space she found herself in. She heard enough from Rhys that Gligan was a territory known for its downward slope. The rest of the city was in the center of the cauldron-like rock formation to which June couldn't help but crack a joke at. It's a city center, he had said. Get it?

Xanthy and company tramped through the streets of the highest patch of flat land. Buildings as tall as the Imperial Palace blocked Xanthy's view of the sky and at the emptiness beyond. A light sprinkle of sand seasoned the streets which their boots stirred with every step they took. It's so damn hot.

When they were already a great distance from the border, the sounds of clothes shuffling, weapons clanging, and boots thundering came from behind. They've been caught.

Similar to the case in Rabante, the four of them glanced at each other and split away from the group. They peeled down two different and opposing roads. The dusty roads and passing fire sprites whizzed by Xanthy's periphery.

It wasn't as crowded as Xanthy hoped. The recent establishment of borders and walls became harder for merchants so there were less of them in the city square. Less merchants also meant less product displays. Less product displays meant less people buying. Less people buying meant it would be harder to lose the men chasing them.

Xanthy scanned her immediate surroundings. Rocks, check. Orange tinge in the air, check. Buildings, check. Cliffs, check.

Cliffs.

Xanthy's eyes twinkled. One glance at Marthiaq and it seemed like he was thinking of the same thing. They broke for the sloping road, aiming for the mess of cliffs and caves that could be found at Gligan's lower levels.

The sounds of pursuit were louder now. The men shouted at each other in gibberish. Mostly it's because she was busy running for her life to understand what they were saying. Her world swirled for a moment as Marthiaq yanked her behind a chance boulder. It took Xanthy a moment to realize he had gone invisible, meaning, upon contact, she must have been too.

"Rhys and June?" she said through her heaving chest.

"They'll come around," Marthiaq's voice was clipped. "We're off to Calca, right?"

"Yeah, the oasis city. What about it?"

"East?" Marthiaq asked again. Xanthy frowned. What's going on? Why was he asking things he already knew?

Still, she bobbed her head. "East, yes."

"Good," the brownie exhaled. "We go west."

Before Xanthy could even say what?, Marthiaq dragged her out of their boulder, called off his invisibility, and ran the opposite direction of where they should be heading. Questions speared through Xanthy's head but none of them made it out her mouth. This man had been running for his life since Xanthy was in her loins. He knew what he's doing.

Marthiaq turned a corner. Xanthy followed suit. Thank the gods the border cut into Gligan's uppermost plateau, else she wouldn't have imagined surviving Lanbridhr if their enemies would attack from above.

That thought hadn't even left her brain when a section of the clay wall she had been running across exploded into a shower of debris. Queen's stockings, what now? Her eyes caught a glint of metal from the flat roofs of the buildings. Were these even residential? No time to figure that out. She forced her stiffening legs to run and her labored lungs to labor further.

Every breath she took seemed to require two more breaths to take its place. She wiped her sleeve across her brow so many times she lost count. Her clothes were probably soaked front and back with her own fluids. Her throat was on fire.

Still, she ran. She tore through the normal Gligan midday like a stampeding graspel. Marthiaq was a few paces ahead of her, looking left and right for the best course to lose both groups chasing them.

Of course, whoever shot at her from the roofs wasn't with the local territorial security. Far from that. She had spent the past few days often looking behind her back for any sign of the black-clad men carrying weaponry eerily similar to the weapons in the Sovereign's arsenal.

Xanthy had seen what it could do a few days ago. It was a specialized arrow fitted with a bomb which explodes upon contact with anything. A feat of innovation but if Xanthy was at the opposite tip of that arrow, she would be dead before her brain could even think of feeling the pain from the metal head sinking through her flesh. It was brutal, cruel, a bloodbath, but most of all, efficient. Very Sovereign-like.

A chuckle without humor tore off Xanthy's chest. So many people want her dead already. How fun.

Marthiaq rounded a corner and came to the edge of the plateau. Dead end, literally. Xanthy came to a stop a few steps behind Marthiaq. She looked behind her, half-expecting the black-clad men or the uniformed border guards to come shooting magic or arrows at them. "What now?" she said.

Marthiaq extended his arm at her. "Now we jump."

Xanthy blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"You heard me," the brownie's tone was final. "Hang tight."

Xanthy peered at the edge and saw something flickering and smoking. Was that...fire? "No way," she stepped back, shaking her head. "No freaking way."

Marthiaq didn't need to answer. An arrow embedded itself on the ground between Xanthy's feet. Oh, gods.

"Now!" Marthiaq yelled.

With a yelp, Xanthy jumped into Marthiaq's arms. The arrow exploded into rocky debris just as Marthiaq launched them into the open drop. Xanthy squeezed her eyes shut and clung to him like a depressed critter. Xanthy expected a long fall where she could have thought of her poetic last words, but Marthiaq yanked an arrow from the quiver by Xanthy's waist and attacked the wall of rock.

Xanthy's stomach lurched up as the impact changed her momentum forward. For a moment, her world spun. It settled just as she realized that Marthiaq was holding her hand while hanging by the arrow with his other. Both were tight. For how long? Xanthy didn't know nor would she bother thinking about it.

"Ledge," Marthiaq hissed through gritted teeth. "Stretch your foot."

Xanthy obeyed, swaying slightly out of fear that it would dislodge Marthiaq's grip on either her hand or the arrow keeping them aloft. She toed the wall for a ledge as he instructed. Her boots rested on a wide enough rock jutting from the wall. She made sure her footing was even before she inclined her head at Marthiaq. "Done."

The brownie's forehead beaded with sweat as his eyebrows creased with effort. "Good," he exhaled. "Now, let go of me."

"Sorry?"

Marthiaq didn't give her enough time to clarify before he yanked the arrow off the wall. Oh no. Xanthy screamed as she felt herself go weightless. She shut her eyes and expected her neck to break. Or her leg. Anything. She slammed into something lumpy. The world stilled. Someone groaned. Then, silence.

Xanthy opened her eyes and found out she was unhurt. She was...alive. What happened?

Marthiaq deposited her to the ground after having caught her with his arms. She dusted herself and looked around. They were in front of a cave entrance with a dark passageway turning darker as it led somewhere inside. It seemed like Marthiaq caught her right after he plopped down to this semblance of flat ground first. Thank the gods he knew how to do that.

Xanthy inhaled one breath and then sneezed. Ugh. Sooner or later, her lungs would be filled with sand. How had the fire sprites survived here for so long? She wiped her nose with contempt and inclined her head.

The sky shone blue and bright overhead. A wall of rock circled around the empty space composing the caldera. From where she was, she noted more spaces like the one she was in dotting the entirety of the rock wall in random spots.

There's a big chance the ones pursuing them wouldn't think they're dead after jumping. Nope. They could have jumped on their own too. Xanthy wrinkled her nose as she did her best to dislodge the particles of sand clinging to her trousers. She probably looked like a disgruntled paulsare with her hair probably all over the place.

No time to think about that, either.

She crossed the space between her and Marthiaq and followed his gaze down. Oh, that's why he had been still all this time. Further down was the base of the caldera but it looked wrong.

The green of the trees dotted the landscape in varying and often dizzying patterns. They spread from the hidden crevices between the rocks and refused to go away despite the weather conditions in this place. Xanthy noticed the smoke curling from everywhere in the rocky pit. It's not like a volcano or a hot vent. Those were more common in Gaimouth and they're miles away from the fire sprite army base. This was entirely something else.

"Fire," Xanthy murmured to no one.

Indeed, fire curled from the trees growing on the base. It looked like it had been going on for a whole day or two considering most of the greens were now charred black. The air even carried a hint of ashes no doubt from the remains of the plants after the fire ate them.

Before Xanthy's eyes, one ember leaped from a tree at the bottom of the crevice and into the tree growing on the next level. The wind howled in Xanthy's ears in a taunt. She watched the flames burn brighter in their new-found home. Xanthy's stomach soured. How much longer before the fire reached where they were?

Someone whistled from behind her. Xanthy turned to find Rhys and June striding towards them, both covered in a fine layer of soot and sand. Where had they been?

Rhys got to Xanthy and Marthiaq's place by the ledge, took one look at the smoldering fire below, and turned to Xanthy with a goofy grin. "So, how about that swim, now?"