A/N: I finally managed to update! Yes! –Punches the air-. Once again sorry about the late update (well late for me anyway). This story (or rather my mind) is being contrary and has refused to be written/write any quicker…yeah, that was just a complicated way of saying I had (shock/horror, LNP) writer's block. Thanks to all the great people who reviewed!

Disclaimer: The world and characters you recognise all belong to TP.

Chapter 4: Home

Aly sighed and looked up from studying the grain of the table. Two people waited patiently for her to speak, she swallowed and in a voice drained of emotion she recounted the events since the Grey Palace burned. By the time she ended her narrative her face was pinched with the effort of keeping her voice even, her emotions under control. George looked at her worriedly, and she forced a small smile onto her face for his sake. Aly sighed, as the worried look in his eyes only deepened, she should've known better than to pretend anything was as it was not around her father.

She was startled out of her reverie by Numair Salmalin's voice. A black robe, and the most powerful practitioner of the gift she knew. It shocked her to see the deepened lines of age on his face.

"You say when you tried to confront Kyprioth there was nothing? What exactly do you mean by 'nothing'?"

"There was nothing there. No presence. Even if he was ignoring me there would be something. No. It was like an echo, a blank space were something once rested."

The room was silent.

"He was gone?" asked George.

Aly nodded. "I figure wherever he's gone, perhaps the other gods could follow…"

"Do you realise what that means?" asked Numair. "The gift is as its name suggests a gift. A gift from the gods, if as you say all the gods disappear it will mean the literal extinction of magic."

"The implications of…" George looked at Aly, "that event could be more serious than I realised," muttered the Baron.

"More serious?"

"Whoever started that fire- yes it was started, that's logical Numair- whoever started it is way to active in the shadow world. It's been virtually buzzing for months now, and it all came to a climax when the palace burned. There's someone tugging strings, somewhere, I just can't seem to find him." He looked at Aly again, "Or her."

The silence returned in full force, bearing down on the three occupants of the room. Something had happened when the palace burned. Far more than was at first apparent.

…………………

Lilith blinked. That vision had been relatively painless… it seemed ominous when you looked at the state of the world magic wise in current times. She sighed. Maybe if she waited long enough a vision would reveal what had happened to the magic users. After all, one of the gods survived.

She sighed and looked down remembering, what she had been doing before the vision took her. Returning to looking over a world map she wondered, if she was the Westerner, then where would the Southerner, Northerner and Easterner come from? North and East could be any number of countries, Tortall, the Yamani Islands, Tyra, Galla and Sarain to name only a few of them. But the south, to the south there was only Carthak. "Well, that's one thing cleared up," she thought. "At least now I know what I'm looking for…I wonder if they know. Kyprioth wasn't exactly specific on who would find who, now I think about it."

Her musings were interrupted by another vision.

A dark skinned Carthaki, probably about her age gave a yell as figures swathed from head to toe in black cloth closed in around him. There was a flash of light reflected off metal and 'Lilith' froze. This was happening now. She had no idea how she knew but she did.

Breaking from the vision she swallowed. "OH HELL! What am I supposed to do now!?"

…………………

A/N: Yeah, sorry the chapter's so damn short. I just had to put something up. The next one will be longer…hopefully.