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James looks to him and says, “Back when Miko and I first came through the Merchant’s Pass, there was a refugee camp at the way stop for the people of Madoc who fled the coming of the Empire. We met a couple men with their families there who shared our fire and food that night.”

“One of the things they told us was how they managed to escape from Saragon when it finally fell. One said, ‘My grandfather used to be a smuggler way back when he was a younger man and had showed me an old smuggler route into the city that he said no one, not even the Governor knew about. Silas and I found it and used it to get our families out past the walls. The tunnel came out in a pile of old stones a dozen yards from the river, almost two miles north of the city.’”

“Think it’s still hidden?” he asks.

“Hope so, can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be,” he tells Jiron. “The problem is going to be in finding it. A pile of old stones two miles north of the city could be hard to find. At least he said it was a dozen yards from the river, which should help in narrowing it down some.” He takes another bite and then adds, “We’ll probably have to hunt for it in the daylight, I doubt if we’ll find it in the dark.”

“Which means we’ll run the risk of being spotted,” Jiron states.

“True, but we’ll try to minimize that as best we can,” he assures him.

Jiron offers to take the first watch today for which James is grateful. The magic earlier in the day had tired him out some but not nearly as bad as it used to. He must be growing stronger in magic or his body is just getting used to it and its effects.

Lying down on the bed, he’s soon fast asleep. Sometime past noon, Jiron wakes him for his turn. And then later, when the sun dips below the horizon, James awakens him and they continue on their way as twilight deepens into the dark of night.

They ride quickly once the moon rises, giving them ample light to see their immediate surroundings. Early in the evening, lights from another town appear out of the darkness ahead of them. “Do you think that’s Saragon?” Jiron asks.

“Hard to tell,” James answers. “From what I’ve heard of Saragon, it is or rather was, an important town to southern Madoc. This one doesn’t look big enough.”

“You may be right,” Jiron says. They swing wide of the town and go around it.

Halfway around, James feels the tingling which always accompanies another doing magic. In the dark it’s difficult to determine who or where it’s coming from. The tingling only lasts a minute or two before stopping. Once they’ve passed the town and its lights have long since disappeared behind them, he tells Jiron about it.

“At least it wasn’t directed at us this time,” he says.

“True,” agrees James as they continue riding on into the night.

The terrain begins to turn gradually hilly, and they find they have to move between some of the hills in order to parallel the course of the road to their right without actually riding upon it.

The moon arcs overhead as they ride hard to the south in search of Saragon. Just what he expects to find there, he doesn’t know. But to the core of his being, he knows he has to go there.

During the final conclave of the Priests of Morcyth, the High Priest had fasted and prayed for a long time. At the end of which, the priests up and left, leaving no word about where they went and taking nothing with them. It all seems rather strange to James that they wouldn’t have taken something with them. With the followers of Dmon-Li eradicating them, he can understand about not telling the world their destination. That makes perfect sense.

But Ollinearn in the City of Light had found a passage which told the birth place of the last High Priest had been in Saragon. From that time, he knew he would be going there. Somewhere in that town there has to be a clue or something to reveal where they went.

When the sky begins to lighten with the coming of the morn, a large city appears out of the distance before them. A formidable