“Am I supposed to believe all of this? That you have been travelling across the realms, through unlawful ruptures, with the aid of criminals whilst hunting other criminals?” Qodorn had taken Beth’s seat halfway through Ephin’s retelling of the events, conveniently leaving out the death of Guy. He slumped further and further into it the more he heard and the final bit of news, the explanation why travelling around outside wouldn’t be entirely, or at all, safe left him sitting almost horizontally in the chair, his head hidden by his slightly shaking hands.

“Every word. I wouldn’t lie to you,” Ephin said, trying to pat Qodorn’s shoulder for reassurance but the older man shrank away from it slightly.

“And you need help from me, how?”

“Simply a safe place to stay whilst it all blows over. The Order underground is currently on fire and in disarray and the guards above the ground all want to lock us up for a crime we didn’t commit.”

“The Severed Redemption?” Qodorn’s eyes peeked over his hands to watch Ephin’s reaction. “I had heard about that. Actually, I think by now everyone in the city has heard about it. I was certain you had nothing to do with it, although now you have just admitted to breaking a separate law barely a day before.”

“I had good reason,” Ephin said.

“I know, your conscience. That is not a good enough reason in my opinion to attempt to break into a prison. However, I do not know the inner workings of your mind.” Qodorn sighed and mumbled to himself, “no matter how much I thought I did before this.”

“So can we stay?” Ephin asked.

“Not for long,” Qodorn replied, and then hastily continued as both Beth and Ephin looked ready to plead their case further. “Not that we wouldn’t want you, it simply would be impractical considering a good fifty people in the other room saw two of the most wanted people in the city burst through these doors. You can stay until the morning, but you must be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice, in case the guards come knocking like last time.”

“Of course,” Beth said, “thank you.”

As Qodorn turned to leave to rejoin the likely impatient congregation, Beth stepped forward and asked, “you don’t happen to know any clever magic to track somebody, do you?”

“Yes, of course I do, hasn’t Ephin tried it already?”

Ephin shook his head, wracking his brain to think of the ritual that Qodorn could be thinking of.

“Let me settle these people down and let them know of the external dangers and I’ll be back in a short while to show you,” Qodorn said, “Ephin, take a look through one of those books behind you, I’m certain the preparations are in one of them.”

With those words, Qodorn closed the door and left them to their almost silence. The muffled sound of voices picked up in the chamber and soon it was reaching a level consistent with a lot of people shouting over each other.

Beth listened at the door, in case anyone was going to try and enter their room, whilst Ephin thumbed through some of the large tomes lined up on a shelf opposite the door. Most of them were filled with prayers and sermons, speeches for specific ceremonies. There was a small leaflet advertising the temple’s contribution to The Vyztak Day of Light, one of the city’s holidays. He could not find anything resembling an instruction guide for performing tracking rituals.

There was a loud thud, followed by a second. Beth could make out the tone of Qodorn calling over the rest of the raised voices, however the noise reduced rapidly following the thuds and soon after, two more thuds and there was near silence.

Beth stepped back as Qodorn opened the door to the room once again.

“They decided to let themselves out. They didn’t believe me as soon as the words ‘rat spiders’ came out of my mouth. I still hardly believe it myself.” Qodorn looked over to Ephin by the books, “you found it yet?”

Ephin shook his head, flapping the leaflet up to signify how little he had found that was useful.

“Not to worry,” Qodorn said, taking his seat once more, “I can show you the basics. It’s relatively easy for us to do, although frowned upon if used in the wrong circumstances. Finding missing people such as your friends is surely a good reason.”

Qodorn indicated for Ephin to stand next to him as he pulled the chair up to the table in the middle of the room. The table that Jadon had once been laid upon, grievously wounded. Qodorn laid his amulet on the table, completely unattached from the normal spot around his neck.

“Beth, is it?” Qodorn said, holding out a hand, “please could you hand over your glove, just for a moment?”

Beth did as he asked, taking her glove off and giving it to him. Qodorn held the glove with one hand, his palm up and out flat, his other hand held open over the amulet. Beth watched as Qodorn started to chant in a more forceful way than she was used to from Ephin. Her eyes flicked over to her friend, who was mouthing along to what Qodorn was saying, trying to memorize his lines. She could not understand the language they were speaking, or she would have tried to memorize it for him, just in case he forgot.

Slowly, both the glove and the amulet started to glow a faint green color, the amulet lifting off the table and the glove lifting off Qodorn’s palm. They drifted closer together before orbiting around Qodorn, settling after a couple rotations by hovering in the air, pointing towards Beth. The amulet and glove then fell out of the air, into Qodorn’s waiting hand. He passed the glove back to Beth and placed the amulet back around his neck.

“You see? It shows the user the direction of their target whilst letting them know internally the distance to the target. The only things I can think of for it not to work is if the target is not on this realm. If that was the case, there would be no direction or distance for the ritual to pick up on.”

“So,” Ephin said slowly, “I use my amulet, an item belonging to the target and those words. That’s all?”

“Like I said, relatively easy. Do one now, try to find me.”

Qodorn handed over a bracelet to Ephin. It had blue, green and white painted wooden beads in an alternating pattern. Ephin pulled off his amulet and put it down, holding his hands and the bracelet out in a similar fashion to how Qodorn had. As he chanted the words, in the same forceful tone, Beth watched the items glow and begin to levitate also. The glowing was not a green hue like Qodorn’s had been. Instead, they both glowed a dark, almost navy blue. Ephin was busy focusing on the ritual, but Beth caught the concerned look in Qodorn’s.

“I think that’s enough for the day,” Qodorn said, cutting the ritual short, the amulet and bracelet falling onto the table. “You both must need some rest, right?”

“I guess,” Ephin said, a little confused, “did I get it right? It didn’t show me where you were.”

“It was going to, don’t worry. You had it, I just realized the time, as well as the other responsibilities I have to complete today.”

“Where can we go?” Beth asked, catching onto Qodorn nervousness.

“There’s a room upstairs. You can both stay in that one for the night, although you will have to leave before daybreak. The sooner, the better really.”

“If I didn’t know better,” Ephin laughed, “I’d say you were trying to kick us out.”

“Not at all, not at all,” Qodorn mumbled, halfheartedly laughing along with Ephin as he opened the door back into the chamber. Ephin walked through first, knowing the way to the rooms he pushed on to show the way to Beth, however Qodorn held her back for a moment.

“Keep a wary eye on my boy,” he said, “whatever energy he draws upon, whatever he is praying to, it is not one of the Triplets.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Beth asked.

“Any creature circumventing the gift of the gods for its own gain is a bad thing. Keep watch for changes in behavior, in health, in morals. Anything. With these ruptures, anything is-”

“Are you two coming, or not?” Ephin called from across the chamber, by the door to the stairs up to the higher floors.

“Yes, yes,” Qodorn replied, “Beth was simply inquiring about our faith.”

“Thanks for that,” she said, “now he won’t shut up about it.”

“That’s the idea,” Qodorn whispered as they approached Ephin, “get whatever is inside him all riled up at the lack of recognition. No way we can fight what we don’t know.”

“Tell me about it,” Beth said, sure that they were in earshot of Ephin again, “this chyringa is a damn nuisance.”

“Too right,” Ephin agreed, before allowing Qodorn to take the lead up the stairs.

The room that they were taken to was smaller than Ephin’s old room, although decorated exactly the same. There were a couple extra beds crammed in. Ephin knew that this room was purposefully for guests like themselves who needed to lay low for a night or two.

“You know what this means,” Beth said and she and Ephin were laying down in their beds to sleep.

“What?” Ephin asked.

“We need something one of those two had, in order to do the ritual.”

“And?”

“And that means we need to go back to the Order’s den,” Beth said. The silence from Ephin pushed her to explain further. “Through the sewers.”

“Oh.”

“’Oh’ is right. ‘Oh’ is stupidly right. We either go above ground and get arrested, or below ground and get eaten.”

“What a lovely decision.”

Having slept on that prospect and left the temple whilst the sky was still dark, the day still a good while away, Beth and Ephin walked down the empty streets. Qodorn had shot Beth one final warning glance as they left the old man behind. Whilst the streets were empty of civilians walking around, due to the early time, they were not empty of bodies. The further Ephin and Beth got from the temple and the closer to where the outbreak had begun, the more dead they found. Countless furred spiders littered the streets, as well as both dead guards and dead civilians alike, in various stages of being eaten.

As the sun finally started to peek over the city walls, spraying the cloudy sky pink, Ephin and Beth noticed that the guards must have succeeded in pushing the rat spiders back into the sewers, or in eradicating them entirely.

With day beginning, but still too early for other people to be out, besides the occasional patrol, Beth was surprised to hear the ringing of a bell just down the street. She looked over to see a man in a deep blue suit, overly frilly, holding a bell and a piece of paper. She pointed him out to Ephin.

“Oh dang,” Ephin said, “It’s got to be extremely important to be called out this early. They usually wait till later in the day, even for the most important things.”

“Attention, attention,” the man called out above the ringing of his bell, deliberately loud enough to potentially wake people. “High Morr’s very own, valiant Aegaturike Princhlin has been found murdered where he slept. I repeat, High Morr’s very own, valiant Aegaturike Princhlin has been found murdered in his own bed chambers.”

“Beth-” Ephin said, tugging at her sleeve.

“Shush,” she replied, “I’m trying to listen to the crier.”

“Our grace, his royal highness has decided to make this knowledge public, with the deaths of the great Severed Redemption, and the amassed-”

Beth, engrossed in what the man was saying, did not expect to be taken off her feet so violently. The softly lit sky just beginning to brighten was quickly replaced by dark, wet, familiar sewer. She yelped as she fell but the fall was broken just as quickly by numerous glowing hands, not the usual fists that Ephin used in fights.

“What the heck was that for?” Beth hissed, “and why are we down here again?”

“Guards. Look.” Ephin pointed to the grate that they had jumped through, or in Beth’s case, fallen. A guard holding an everflame sconce ducked his head into the grate, looking around. Beth and Ephin hugged the shadows, the flame unable to penetrate too deeply into the darkness.

“If that’s how much they attacked into the sewers,” Beth whispered as the guard left, “we’re in huge trouble.”

She lit up her own smaller everflame, Ephin making his amulet glow that same deep blue that concerned Qodorn so much, and they both looked around, trying to get their bearings.

“I think it’s that way,” Ephin said, pointing down the sewer tunnel to their right. As if on cue, they both heard a scuttling to their left. Their lights spun in that direction scanning the darkness.

Numerous beady eyes reflected the light back at them.