There was a victory party in the palace, just as if they'd left the entire Yinnfarsian army dead on the field, but for Tak, Barl and the others who'd conspired against Khalkedon last time, it was a fearful, subdued affair as they tried to avoid the attention of the rak. They even avoided each other, in case they were seen speaking and their masters grew suspicious, but they still dreamed of freedom and were determined to carry on communicating whenever they could.

     Tak did manage to meet two other freedom seekers. Green eyed Talpha-Ja, a man about his age, and Alustra Jarel, renowned for her ivory white skin. He shared with them what he'd learned about raks from Molos Gomm's library over the past couple of years. The information was sketchy and incomplete, as Khalkedon had taken great care to purge every library in his realm of all references to his kind, but the other wizards received it gratefully nevertheless and shared with him what little they'd learned themselves. It was enough that they parted with a sense of satisfaction. Knowledge was power, after all, and they would continue to gather all the knowledge they could until they found a way to destroy their terrible undead master.

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     There was nothing more they could do for the moment, though, so they all returned to their own homes to continue with their individual researches. Tak arrived back at Castle Nagra to find that his latest clutch of lizard eggs had hatched out into a particularly hideous batch of monsters, which he disposed off before searching back through his notes, trying to find where he'd gone wrong.

     It turned out he'd set himself a particularly difficult task, and years went by in which he had more success with other forms of life, including some that turned out to be quite useful to him. He bred a larger variety of chicken with three times as much white meat as an ordinary bird, for instance, and which he bred in one of the courtyards to sell in nearby towns and villages, those far enough away that their inhabitants didn't know him to be a hateful wizard. To them, he was nothing more than a particularly successful bird breeder, and they didn't need to know that the birds they were eating contained more than a little horse and caterpillar.

     Another of his creations was a golden flowered bush which had the multi-faceted eyes of a housefly dotted along its branches and which screamed like a banshee when it spotted anything moving in its vicinity. He was delighted to find that it was hardy enough to survive out in the open all year round, and he planted them all along the road leading to the castle, to warn him if anyone tried to pass by unannounced. Jack Nowl, on one of his occasional creeping visits to spy on his hated enemy, was indeed surprised by them, and fled back home in terror to spread more tales of demonic goings on up the mountain road.

     To Tak's delight Gal-Gowan was also surprised by them, the next time he came to summon him to battle. He had to answer some hard questions regarding the half animal plants, but he was able to convince the red wizard that they'd been created accidentally by the randomised waste magics that emanated continually from every wizard's laboratory. Gal-Gowan accepted this, as the deliberate creation of new forms of life was very high magic, which only the very greatest wizards were capable of, and he refused to believe, despite all the evidence of Tak's brilliance, that the young man was capable of such a feat.

     Despite these successes, though, he continued to have no success with the horned lizards, but this only spurred him on to greater determination and made him try formulae and procedures he made up for himself, surpassing Molos Gomm's own experiments. Even after five years, though, the only result of all his efforts was a stunted breed which did indeed have wings, although too weak and feeble to allow them to fly, but which had paid for even this minor triumph by losing their legs. Still, it was nevertheless the only viable result of his experiments, and so he cherished them and looked after them, hoping to eventually be able to correct their shortcomings and produce a breed of flying reptiles that he could really be proud of.

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     "Reptiles with wings but no legs!" interrupted Lirenna excitedly. "The emblem of the Gem Lords! Remember the island of the Emerald Oracle? And the Ruby Keep?"

     "Yeah," agreed Thomas, nodding. "Those tiny, pitiful creatures must have been their ancestors. He succeeded in creating his flying horned lizards and they became the emblem of all the Gem Lords. Why the flying lizards, though? Why not the flying mice, or the screaming bushes? Perhaps because it took him so much time and effort to create? As a reminder never to give up if a task at first seems too difficult?" He shook his head in bewilderment. "No, I think there was something special about the creatures he eventually created. Something that made them special to all the Gem Lords, not just him. What it might have been, though..."

     "Well, go on with the story," urged Lirenna eagerly. "Maybe it'll come to you."

     Thomas nodded, and his forehead creased as he tried to remember where he was.

☆☆☆

     His experiments were interrupted by various other events in his life, of course. He was summoned to take part in three more battles over the ten years following the attempt on Khalkedon's life, and once he was required to participate in the summoning of an outer planar creature to furnish the rak King with information on his enemies. That made Tak wonder whether he could summon something that would tell him how to destroy a rak, but neither he nor any other of the conspirators was confident enough in the necessary procedures to make the attempt. No, the information had to be available somewhere in their world, and the summoning brought it home to all of them that, despite all the years that had passed, they were no nearer freedom than they'd ever been.

     They were all powerful, competent wizards now. Tak himself was more powerful now in the magical arts than Molos Gomm had ever been, and had surpassed Gal-Gowan years before, the red wizard having long since reached the plateau of power that preceded the long decline of later life, at least in those who failed to discover any of the various ways of extending their lives. Tak was easily capable of handling himself against all but the most dangerous inhabitants of his world, and it was high time he went out to see some of it. The answers they sought were out there somewhere, and they had to go out looking for them.

     Finding new sources of money to replace what he was fast using up was his excuse for beginning his travels, and indeed he would have needed to find new sources of income even if he had resigned himself to a lifetime of servitude. Khalkedon had no objection to this, as he could easily track him down wherever he was in the world by means of the link between Tak's soul and the sapphire the rak King kept in his possession, and he could be summoned back from the Underworld, the Ice Continent, the islands of the outer seas or the Pits of Hell themselves if the rak King had need of him. Twelve years after the death of Ehr Laing, therefore, at the age of thirty, he set out on the first of his long journeys into the world, into the very heart of human civilisation. The wealthy and prosperous cities of the south.

     The beasts and monsters of the north were almost unknown there. Shologs were just fairy tale creatures used to frighten children into obedience, and trolls and dragons were widely held to be completely mythical. To tell the truth, Tak wasn't sure he believed in them either, never having seen a single specimen of either type of animal, but he knew shologs were real and there was a dusty bottle in Molos Gomm's alchemy cupboard that claimed to contain dragon blood, so maybe...

     One thing the Heartlands were very familiar with were raks, though. Almost every city was ruled by one, and there were more living in isolation in the scraps of wilderness remaining between the vast stretches of cultivated farmland. If there was anywhere where the secret lore of raks could be learned, that was it.

     He spent two years in the Heartlands, during which he learned little but in which he succeeded in making a small fortune by casting spells for pay. There was alway a demand for magic, even though those bright and colourful cities had plenty of wizards of their own. A great deal of interest was shown in him by the authorities of every city he entered, and so he invented a new name for himself, not wanting them to know that he was a servant of Khalkedon. Khalkedon's reputation was well known across the human world and they would have concluded, very sensibly, that Tak was a spy. Sent to search out their strengths and weaknesses in preparation for an attack.

     He called himself Sapphire, therefore, because of his fondness for blue clothes, and because his soul was linked to a large gemstone of that type, and he told them that he came from a completely imaginary city he called Kla-Ho. He'd left that city after a difference of opinion with its King (He didn't say it was a rak, but his listeners made the natural assumption) and now he was wandering the world. Seeing what there was to be seen and trying to make a bit of money in the process. The story was accepted by and large, and so he was left to go about his own business.

     At first he was prepared to stay as long as it took to learn what he needed to know, but when two years had passed he began to grow increasingly frustrated and began to look for faster ways of gaining knowledge. An idea that had been knocking around in the back of his head began to look increasingly attractive. It was likely that the information he wanted was very carefully controlled, that only the raks themselves knew it, and if so, they were going to go to great lengths to prevent anyone else from finding out. If he really wanted to learn how to destroy a rak, therefore, he was going to have to take the information from a rak by force.

     At first he quailed at the idea. His experiences at the hands of Khalkedon had left him with a terror of all the undead breed. As he turned the idea over in his head, though, it occurred to him that he need fear other raks much less than Khalkedon, because they lacked the powerful hold over him that his master possessed. He'd be making a powerful enemy, of course, but so long as he took very great care to make sure the rak never learned who it was who'd dared to accost him... Yes, he decided at last. He would do it. He had to! It was either make the attempt or resign himself to servitude forever. He returned to Castle Nagra, therefore, and began his preparations.

     He said nothing of this to Trobo, not knowing how far he could trust the strange houseman. He had the very strong sense that Trobo's true loyalties were to Khalkedon, that he served Tak only because he belonged to the rak King, and he couldn't take the risk that he might betray him if he confided the truth to him. Even so, though, the houseman must have guessed that something was up, even though he never gave any indication of it and continued to perform his duties with inhuman efficiency.

     After the first battle that Tak had participated in, Barl had managed to give him a Stone of Whispering, smuggled out of Gal-Gowan's trove and not yet missed by the red wizard, and with it the two conspirators could communicate in secret. Tak used it to keep Barl informed as to what he was planning, and when the frantically fearful Barl realised he wouldn't be able to talk him out of it he began offering helpful suggestions. Choose a young rak, he advised him. One no more than a few decades undead. A creature that hadn't had time to progress much beyond the normal human level of wizardry.

     Fortunately, Tak had assembled a comprehensive dossier on all the raks of the cities he'd visited and he was able to whittle down the list of possible targets to three right away, but he still knew pitifully little about any of them. He was going to have to return to the Heartlands, he realised, and do a lot more research. He was going to have to develop contacts in the vicinity of all three raks, using his money making enterprises as cover. He was going to have to become a fully accepted member of all three communities, a task that was easily going to occupy a number of years.

     If he was going to be free, though, then he had no choice. It had to be done. With advice from all the conspirators by means of the Stone of Whispering, therefore, he spent five months, all the long winter, making preparations for the venture. He placed his experimental animals in Eversleep for the duration, since they would breed at random without his guiding presence and he might lose the traits he was so carefully engineering.

      He had no business mucking about with such foolishness anyway, he scolded himself as he carefully placed the seemingly lifeless creatures in a sealed casket. He should have been giving all his attention to the main business of destroying Khalkedon. Who knows what he might have accomplished by now if he'd kept a better set of priorities? His fascination with the very stuff of life was such, though, that he knew he couldn't have done anything else. This was where his heart lay. This was what he was.

     When spring came to the mountains, Tak gave Trobo his last instructions, telling him to look after the castle for however long he was away. Then he mounted his mottled grey horse, purchased during his last visit to the heartlands and now his firm favourite, and looked back at Castle Nagra, amazed at how his fondness for it had grown since the terrible circumstances of his first arrival.

     When Khalkedon's been destroyed I'll never have to leave here again, he promised himself. But it won't be the empty, lonely place it is now. I'll have a proper staff to run the place. Servants and cleaners. Grooms and gardeners to restore it to its former glory. Turn the place into a real home. I'll have Barl and Sheena and the others to visit now and then, and I'll have an apprentice or two of my own, perhaps. Fill the place with noise and life. I might even make friends with the people of Aldervale. Maybe even Jack Nowl'll come to accept me when he sees I'm no monster. When he sees that I'm just an ordinary man like him.

     With these happy thoughts in his head, he gently urged the horse out along the road and began his long journey.