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“Could it have beaten them?” asks Scar.

“Would you shut up!” roars Stig. “It did not beat them.” He moves over to where Aleya is off by herself. “I’m sure they’re all right,” he tells them.

Looking up at him with a tear in her eye, she says, “I hope so. After losing everyone when the Empire took my home, I was afraid to latch onto someone else. I feared going through that again.”

He puts his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. She gives him a short laugh and says, “And look who I decided to latch onto. A man who always seems to be in the middle of whatever is going on, most of it life threatening. I must be out of my mind.”

“Jiron’s a good man,” assures Stig. “I know he cares for you. Besides, your heart will love who your heart will love. There’s not much you can do about it.”

“I suppose not,” she agrees.

“He and James have been in worse situations before and always managed to get out of them,” he says. “So relax. They’re probably just taking a moment to consider their options.”

“I hope so,” she says. She sits there with Stig for a minute before her eye catches sight of a dust devil swirling atop the ground not ten feet from where they sit. “Isn’t that odd,” she suddenly says.

“What?” Stig asks.

Pointing to the swirling dust devil she says, “It sits in one spot. I’ve never known one to do that before.”

“Either have I,” he replies. As they continue watching it, the feeling that something is odd about it grows stronger by the second. It’s not moving, not growing smaller or larger, it just continues to twirl.

Just then Miko comes to stand beside them, his attention too is fixed upon the dust devil. “Strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says.

All of a sudden, it moves in an erratic pattern then dissipates. Miko’s eyes widen when he sees upon the ground where the dust devil had just been, a design roughly similar to the Star of Morcyth.

Grabbing a stick off the ground, he moves over to it and writes ‘James?’ in the dirt. Then as if an invisible finger is writing in the dirt, letters form. B…u…i…l…d.”

“They’re alive!” Aleya exclaims.

“Hey!” Miko calls to the others. “You better get over here.”

Scar, Potbelly and the others come over quickly and watch as the letters continue to form.

Zyrn and those he’s with see the commotion and come over as well to find out what’s going on.

Letter by letter, the message appears in the dirt:

Build fire, then get far, far away!

“What do you suppose that means?” Reilin asks.

“Just what it says,” Miko replies. To the others he says, “Gather what material you can. We’re going to make a fire.” Then he bends over and uses his stick to write once more in the sand.

When James sees Miko write, ‘Ok’ in the sand, he relaxes. Getting what rest he can, he continues to watch Miko and the others in the mirror. They scramble about gathering what combustible items as can be found. Dead bushes, roots and a few sticks are all that’s readily available.

He watches as they pile those items together and then Scar kneels down beside it. Taking out his flint stone, he begins striking sparks then bends close to where a spark has fallen on a dried leaf and starts blowing softly across the red spark. After a moment a little bit of smoke appears, then a flame.

Once the fire has caught and doesn’t look as if it’s about to go out anytime soon, those who have horses mount while the others who are on foot begin moving away as fast as they can. James waits for them to put some distance between themselves and the fire before he begins.

Putting away his mirror, he looks to Jiron.

“Over the top magic again?” he says with a grin.

Returning the grin, he says “Something like that.” Brother Willim looks from one to the other wondering what they are talking about.

This time, he lies down on the ground before beginning. “Hope this works,” he says then closes his eyes. Sending out his senses, he first checks where the void had been and is happy to discover no evidence of it. Next he sends his senses over to the