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??? POV

My boots clicked off the paving stones of the Courtyard of Nature as I briskly crossed the shaded space. I looked up at the yew tree that had been planted here at the city's founding. The evergreen had reached a grand stature and spread its branches to shade almost half of the courtyard from its central position. Red berries were dotted among the dark green needles. I smiled briefly at the memory the tree represented for me—an end to war, lush life continuing around the bloodshed the berries reminded me of. The berries came and went with the seasons, but the tree was never without its abundance of needles.

Continuing past the centuries old softwood, I quickly made my way across the intricately patterned brickwork of the courtyard to the gate of the college district, mentally reviewing the summons I had received. The message had said that there was someone the Board wanted me specifically to question. I hoped this was not like the last time I'd received such a summons. That had been after a young wizard and a group of mortals had gotten into it over a girl, and the mortals had not come out of the confrontation alive. Being in my position, it fell to me to deal out the justice necessary to maintain the delicate truce we had with the gods. I would gladly wipe out the remaining population of mortals in this realm before having to harm one of our own, and I despised Mianite and his "order" for having backed me into that position.

I did my best to shake these thoughts from my mind as I quickly took the steps leading to the administration building of the college. The stone falcons lining the roof stood as sentinels in the fading light. Crystals lining the walkways and stairs were beginning to glow faintly as the sun sank behind one of the many mountains shielding our fair city from the outside world.

The door opened of its own accord as I approached and closed silently behind me. The admin building was much larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, but this was a wizard city, after all. Walking through the abandoned atrium, I took a turn down one of the halls, passing the studies of wizards who taught on this campus. Turning onto a second hallway brought me to one of the meeting rooms that we rarely used. A master wizard in brown pants and a striped yellow and white shirt with goggles resting on his brown hair stood guard while reading an old book from the library. He was a recent graduate, if I remembered correctly. "Good evening, UserCreated. Who do we have today?" I asked nonchalantly. Where do these young wizards come up with their nicknames?

He looked up from the book he had been reading and snapped to attention, closing it quickly. "Ms. Hart! One of our missing wizards and his apprentice were found crossing the bridge into Laenadur this morning, too exhausted to teleport. They seem to be rested enough to talk now." He seemed worried, but not about me catching him reading when he was supposed to be standing guard.

Missing wizard? I wasn't aware any of our... Oh! "Wait, you mean one of the Fyre wizards turned back up?" Now I understand why he's worried. He was apprenticed to Phil before he graduated. They had left for a new dimension almost 10 years ago, and the connection between the two realms had deteriorated hours after they left. The connection had not solidified enough for us to get a message through since then, and we had not received a single report from them either. Waglington was always good about sending reports if there was any possible way.

User nodded. "Well, actually it isn't one of the four. Rythian made it back with Avrae."

Rythian? Too tired to teleport? "You are relieved of your watch. Please inform the Board that I will bring them a report as soon as I finish here." I dismissed User with a wave of my hand and opened the door to the meeting room.

I closed the door behind me before looking up to see the ender mage himself, sitting in one of the chairs at the conference table. His apprentice sat in a chair next to him with her black and purple highlighted hair over one shoulder. Their clothes looked a little worse for wear. Avrae's black and purple robes were nearly grey with dust. Their blue and purple eyes met my brown and red gaze as I greeted them, "Welcome back."

"It is good to be back," Rythian said with a slight bow of his head in greeting. Avrae stayed politely silent during the exchange.

I walked over to a chair at the opposite end of the small conference table and seated myself. "The Board wants me to give a report on whatever you have to say. Apparently the general consensus is that something went badly, but they have been known to jump to conclusions." I informed the wizard and apprentice while I removed my pink rimmed black hat and set it on the table before me. I summoned a leather bound book from my office and a quill and ink—I couldn't create something from nothing. They appeared on the table next to my hat. "I'll be recording the rest of this meeting for my report." Waving my hand at the newly arrived items, they levitated off to one side, and the quill primed itself and hovered over the first blank page of the book.

"Why don't we start by you filling me in on what happened after you left the realm of Mianite? The connection between worlds broke down within hours of your departure, and we never received any reports." I glanced over at my "scribe" to make sure it was functioning properly. It stopped writing a few moments after I ceased speaking. All seemed in order; so I motioned for Rythian to start his tale.

When I turned my attention to him, I noticed that he seemed to have paled. I furrowed by brow and asked, "Rythian, are you alright? I can send for one of the medics, or we can do this later if you still need to recover from your journey."

He shook his head. After clearing his throat, he started by asking a question, "Is Waglington here?"

I gave Rythian a confused look. "Did he come back with you? I haven't seen him since you all left."

"Waglington did a small build for Ianite while we went on ahead; he said it would only take him a few hours. He was supposed to teleport separately after he finished, but we never saw him in Ruxomar." Rythian said with sadness in his voice. If he was not here, and he had not arrived where the others were, he must have gotten stuck between when the connection broke.

I was stunned speechless. One of the most powerful wizards from our world was dead. "I am so sorry..." I said as much for myself as for the two grief-stricken wizards before me. Avrae wiped a tear from her eye and clenched her jaw, refusing to meet either of our gazes. Rythian had the tired look of a warrior who has seen too many friends die in battle. We can't even hold a proper funeral without his body. "I will inform the Board that we need to begin preparations for a memorial service." I said numbly.

"I suppose this won't get any easier, will it?" Rythian asked while shaking his head. "Avrae, if I forget anything, feel free to interrupt."

Avrae nodded at him before she half-heartedly grinned and added, "Sure, but I don't think you're so old as to have memory problems yet." She earned a good-natured shove for her comment.

Taking a breath, Rythian started in on his account, "Our bridging spell went off without a hitch, and we found ourselves in a world very different from this one. There were too many new species of plants, animals, and monsters to count. The magic in that land was different too. We met a few wizards like us, born with magic, but much of the magic in that world could be learned by mortals—though they tend to take much longer to learn it and have more side-effects and problems from it."

"We found a port town near where we teleported in. Winter and Phil changed into clothes that were less conspicuous and posed as merchants to scout out the town. They came back with a deed to some land that we could build on and some intel. The three gods exist in that dimension as well, though they're different. Dianite was apparently more interested in mastering trade routes than conquering the world, before he was assassinated that is, and Ianite had gotten married and had a family before some sort of falling out caused her to disappear to the End."

Rythian paused here and caught my eye, "I know what you fear Mianite becoming if unopposed." Rythian always was the astute observer. "Your fears are more than justified. In that world they became a reality years before we got there. There was a reason there were so few natural-born wizards when we arrived."

"You're getting ahead of yourself," Avrae interrupted quietly. "You haven't even told her about the Tower Heart or the scroll yet." I was caught somewhere between horror that a world where Mianite had become a monster existed and curiosity about what Avrae had mentioned.

"Of course, of course. This is why you're here." Rythian nodded a thank you to Avrae before picking up his tale again. "We quickly built a wizard tower at what we hoped was a safe distance from the town. The king there served Mianite, though his son did not. Most of our dealings were with him. Of course we set up the standard protection and bewilderment enchantments around the tower so no mortals would accidentally stumble upon us. We'd been in Ruxomar a month when it became apparent that Matt, Phil, and Tom were losing their powers." I cocked an eyebrow at that, but did not interrupt. "I wonder now if it wasn't linked to what happened to Wag."

"That theory may have some merit. The lion's share of the athar was bound to James. Their powers might have been weakened just by being in a different dimension from him. That was the first time they'd ever been separated like that and for that long." I remarked.

"Anyways, that was a big problem, especially for Matt." True, Matt uses a portion of his power to keep himself alive. Rythian continued, "They resorted to pooling their powers and stabilized them somehow with a giant crystal we'd found. Not my field of expertise; I was just glad they'd found a way to keep their powers. They called it the Tower Heart."

"After that hiccup, we set to work studying Ruxomar's magic, meeting other wizards, and swapping practices and knowledge. The usual. Everything was going fine until Matt met a group of wizards called the Crimson Cult. They gave him a scroll with some high level magic they said might help stabilize their powers so the Tower Heart would not be necessary. Unfortunately, he was so excited to test it out, he didn't examine it before bringing it into the tower. Turns out it was some type of ancient forbidden magic." My skin crawled at the mention of the collection of spells and rituals that had been banned for one reason or another, all of them good. Forbidden magic rarely ended well; I knew that from experience.

"When the scroll started reacting strangely to the magic of the tower and the Tower Heart, Winter and I were told to evacuate the apprentices to a safe distance. Matt, Phil, and Tom tried to deal with the problem. They failed. There was an explosion, and when I went back to check on them, netherack and blackened earth with a few corrupted and charred pieces of the tower still standing were all that remained. The athar wizards and their Tower Heart were gone. I did not get to conduct a thorough search of the wreckage, because a random patrol of Mianite guards had stumbled upon where Winter and the apprentices were waiting for me. I heard a crack of lightning and rushed back to help ward off the attack."

Seeing he had lost me, Rythian clarified, "Mianite had a price set on any natural born wizard his guards could find. Once captured, they would be forced to join him and swear a binding oath of allegiance, or they would be tortured and executed. That's why there were so few wizards in Ruxomar. Any power that might stand against him was not tolerated."

"A large group of Mianite guards had been spotted in the area multiple times. The enchantments around the tower had kept us safe, but those spells came undone with the fall of the tower. We won the battle and allowed no one to escape for fear they would report our position, but at a great price. We lost so many apprentices and even some of the wizards that had joined us since our arrival." The grief still sounded fresh and raw in his throat as he spoke, rubbing a hand across his face. I poured a glass of water from the pitcher and set of glasses on the table and levitated it over to him.

"Thank you." He choked out.

"Take your time. It's never easy losing a comrade," I said with rare sympathy in my voice. I knew this grief well from all the battles I had fought in my time. The loss never got easier, and vengeance never quite satisfied.

Seeing that her mentor was still distraught, Avrae volunteered, "I'd like to add something Rythian doesn't know about. I know why the Mianite guards were in our area to start with."

Our questioning looks gave her the permission she needed to continue. "One of the wizards we met in Ruxomar was named Spirit. She was already a very skilled necromancer, but tended to hang out with the apprentices more than the master wizards because of her young age. She disappeared a few days after the battle, and Charlie—who had become good friends with her—told me later that Spirit had felt guilty about putting us all in harm's way. She had been fleeing Mianite's hunting party for weeks before she stumbled upon the safety of our tower. Mianite's troops had found some way to track her and knew she was in the area. When the protection spells failed, they were able to pinpoint her location. If more came, they'd find her again; so she bolted. She wanted to keep us safe." Avrae trailed off, no doubt battling the sadness we were all feeling.

Rythian straightened himself in his chair and seemed to have his emotions in check once more. He looked between Avrae and I. I nodded, and he continued describing the events that followed the battle. "We knew that Mianite would eventually notice that his soldiers were missing and send more to hunt us; so we fled the region. There was nothing for us back at our ruined tower, anyways. Those of us who had experience evading pursuers and surviving in the wilderness took the lead. Kay in particular handled herself quite well. We might have to have her evaluated for foresight when we get everyone back safely; she always seemed to know when we needed to run."

"We kept moving and never stayed in one place more than a week or two. Along the way we gathered materials for a bridging spell to escape that dimension. We didn't know how long it would be before there was a connection between worlds to take advantage of, but we wanted to be ready. After several months and many close calls with the guards and a blight on the land called Taint, we were finally able to establish a shaky bridge spell."

"Since it was not a very stable connection, I was going to risk it alone—being the most experienced with teleporting—and try to bring back help, but Avrae would have none of it."

"And it's a good thing I didn't let you go alone, or you would have died too." Avrae interrupted, sounding more than a little mad. This must have been an argument they'd had multiple times already, because Rythian groaned and rolled his eyes. I grinned slightly in amusement.

"Do tell," I said, gesturing for Avrae to continue.

"After a rough crossing, the bridge spell spat us out in the middle of a canyon. Rythian hit his head on a rock when we landed." Avrae pointed at Rythian's head. I could just make out a slight bulge in his brown hair. And here I'd thought he'd been having a bad hair day. This does explain why they didn't just teleport back; teleporting can make head injuries worse. "He was out cold for an hour. I had to keep ravenous spiders off of him until he woke up."

"I'm fine! The medic already looked at it and said so," Rythian grumbled, more to himself than us. "Anyways, I'd tell you where to look for their camp, but they've likely moved by now."

"Is there anything else you want me to tell the Board?" I asked, looking between the two tired wizards.

Rythian's eyes lit up as he remembered something. "Oh, let them know that Avrae is ready to take her test. She is more than worthy of the title of master wizard. She has learned everything I have to teach her."

"Except your fashion sense," Avrae joked as she stood up and stretched. Rythian chuckled a little and shook his head at his soon to graduate apprentice.

Rythian and I stood as well, and I placed my hat back on my head. I grinned and snapped my fingers, causing the quill and ink to disappear and the floating record to close and lower into my hand. "Very well. I must go deliver my report. I wish you both a good night's rest and you a speedy recovery," I said while pointing at Rythian.

"Goodnight, Donella," Rythian said as I allowed him and Avrae to exit the room before me. It might be once I get this Board meeting over with, I thought wryly.

Donella! :D Thank you, ScruDonka for the OC! And thank you, Ianites_Dragon for the soon to be ender mage, Avrae! Spirit is courtesy of littleleopard11gamez and is a very cool OC, always protecting her friends.

Fun times ahead! *editing next chapter with excitement* ^.^