AN: Whoa! It has been awhile. I lost my way and my characters decided to go on a very long vacation and leave me with many bad versions of the following events... I have also been lazy. Sorry about that... Thanks for all who have reviewed, especially those who have asked me why I haven't updated- you were instrumental to getting my butt off the writer's block...

Chapter 20: Frogs on Toadstools

"That is not Tezock," Rikash said flatly as Deryne paced around a Seal burned into the grass; thick black lines in the ground marked the nondistinct place in the middle of the yellowing, bent stalks. Her kestrel flew around in circles, but never above the runes. Deryne stared at the markings, shaking her head.

"It is also not like any Seal in Numair's books," Han responded, studying the mark with his brow furrowed as he perched on a boulder a few feet away. Cyne looked from one of her comrades to the next.

"Could it be a concealment?" Deryne shook her head grimly.

"These ruins... it is a Seal. And Seals-" She stopped moving, arms crossed. Rikash felt compelled to finish her thoughts.

"Seals, Gates, Vents- they have to do with transport. Moving, blocking, carrying something... or someone."

"So Tezock used this to go somewhere?" Cyne frowned as Deryne's hand outstretched towards the empty air above the Seal. "Don't do that- who knows where it goes? What if it's a trap and he wants you to think he went through there?" The windmage sighed.

"Tezock leaves a faint trail- very faint- gudruna are... disturbed. And this is where that ends. Besides-" She gestured, fingers spinning. "-the Seal feels the same way he does. Empty."

"And you'd risk your life on that?" Rikash demanded. She snorted.

"I've risked my life on far less before-" Before any of them could move, she reached over the Seal; her hand disappeared, and her eyes glinted. Rikash started forwards.

"You crazy-"

"See, you-" Then she yelped and her body jerked forwards, sucked into the empty air, disappearing before their eyes; Rikash caught hold of her arm as her head vanished and yanked- the young woman came tumbling back into sight and the two crashed into the ground, next to the dark markings. Not convinced of their security, he youth wrapped his arm around her waist and scrambled back several paces, eyes narrowed as the markings disappeared behind waves of dying grass. Then he seized Deryne's shoulder and whipped her around to meet his blazing gaze.

"See what?" he snapped. "Sorry, you vanished for a moment there- mind telling me what happened?" Deryne scowled, turning her face away. Then she sighed and stood, brushing herself off, her face going blank.

"Thanks, Ri," she said absently and, before, he could stand, she lunged forwards, into the sinisterly normal air above the Seal, disappearing before all their eyes. With a soft cry, the kestrel swept down over Rikash's head and after its mistress.

For a long moment, silence hung in the air. Cyne stared into where Deryne had vanished. Han watched Rikash, eyebrow raised. The firemage swallowed, slowly getting to his feet. He took several unsteady steps until he stood on the edge of the Seal, glaring down at it. He had dealt with these magics for far too long.

"I'm going to kill her," he said calmly. Then he took a step and vanished after her. Cyne turned to Han, spreading her hands out, to see that he was securing the mounts.

"Someone has to remember th' lil bits," he remarked as the corners of his lips curled. "What would they do, without a body to pick up after them?" As Cyne laughed, he shouldered their packs and bowed. "Ladies first." He waited for her to steel herself and enter the strange Void before he followed on after.

Merle was sharpening her knives; every time she glared up at Kol, the boy felt a jolt of alarm, even though he knew it was nonsense; if the young woman had wanted to dispatch him, she would have done it some time ago. To hide his discomfort, he chattered about whatever he could, stumbling over his words when he came to something that could betray his conversation with the Chancellor. But, inevitably-

"You haven't said much about your sister," the redhead commented idly. She jammed another blade back into its sheath, perfectly honed. "And yet, you came all this way to find her." Kol swallowed.

"I was hoping to," he said lowly, letting his eyes drop, pretending to be worried. "Bea was everything t' me after me parents were gone- she ran shop and kept me outta trouble. She got to be a maid in a merchant's house in the city."

"So why'd you'd go all the way to Tortall?" Kol struggled to think of the story closest to the truth he could tell her. "Why'd your uncle take you if she did so well?"

"She got a new position. With a noble who bought from her master." He looked off into a dark corner. "He didn't take kindly to little lads 'bout the house. And me uncle needed another pair of hands."

"How fortunate for you." She was prodding him; she wanted to know more. He shrugged off-handedly.

"I learned more with me uncle. Learned to look after meself- couldn't have done that with Bea," he said shortly. It was true; even when he was accused of treachery, somehow Bea had gotten him safely to Tortall. She shielded him every step of his life, but it hadn't seemed to have done her much good.

"And now you were back... looking in Frasluk-?"

"Plenty of nobles about- I hoped I'd see her helping the kitchens or see her master or sommat," he answered before nodding at her sleeve sheaths. "How do the knives stay while you're waving your arms about?" He figured there was a catch, which Merle showed him, but he could keep her busy with questions about weaponry until Brand returned; he was almost certain she knew what he was about, but as long as she would let him avoid the questions, he would.

Brand arrived not too much longer after that with bread and a plan. Although the whole delegation could not quit, he had caught word that several Tortallans and Kyprians were headed south on a ship in two days' time.

"If you crop your hair, Merle you can pass as a lad, and you're pale enough to pass for a northerner. Kol, you too- the hirers would think them two mates who want an adventure and will work for little. You get jobs on the ship and help me and Damek get aboard." Merle groaned.

"I don't look anything like a lad," she complained.

"Bind your chest and start walking like me," Brand retorted unsympathetically. She snorted.

"Like a daft duckling away from its mama?"

"I'm gonna ignore that-"

"-cause you know I'm right-" She yelped as he poked her in the side; Kol watched, wide-eyed, as the two bodyguards' serious personas disappeared during the short tussle that followed; it ended when they realized the boy was staring. Merle sighed, yanking out one of her knives.

"Leastwises, they're sharp-" She glared as Brand grabbed her hand and eased the blade out of it. "What do you think you're doing, Sibigat?"

"Saving your dignity and possibly your ear while I'm at it. Turn around," he ordered. SHe raised an eyebrow.

"I'm supposed to let you cut my hair?"

"Unless you want to look like a hedgewitch's broom on its head?" he retorted. "You can't see what you're doing, you looby- you want to bring attention to yourself? You won't be able to do any of the talking as it is, your Scanran's terrible and your Common accent will be spotted a league away-" As Merle opened her mouth to protest, Brand shook his head. "No, ma'am. Sit down, turn around, and shut those pretty pert lips of yours." Kol stared again as Merle turned bright red and then, crossing her arms, did as he said, glaring down the wall as Brand raised the knife and began working.

Gasping, Deryne fell to the ground, images of gudruna flooding into her mind- over the ocean, to an island- just as in her dream with Frejonak. One island, he had said. She was on that very island now.

When the firemage comes through, tell him it was necessary, the Chamber's voice resonated as the kestrel flew over her head and landed in a tree to preen. How were you supposed to get anything done dithering about and complaining?

"You tell him," she grumbled, turning to see another Seal behind her, markings almost identical to the one in Scanra. They were nowhere near Scanra now- they were on an island, an island no one knew anything about, even hardened sailors who had traversed these waters a hundred times over. An invisible island. A shiver ran up Deryne's spine.

The Seal glowed, light flickering across them like dying fire in charcoal, and Rikash appeared, sputtering; Deryne wondered if he had seen all he had of their journey across land and sea, or if those images had been courtesy of the gudruna.

"I swear, what is the first thing you learn about Gates and Seals?" he snapped, lurching towards her. "Don't touch them. Even if you know what they're for, which we didn't, don't touch, not ever!" He snorted, pushing his blond hair out of his face. "And what do you do? You leap on that damned thing like a frog on a toadstool-" Deryne's lips twitched as he shook his head.

"Han's sayings are rubbing off on you," she noted, trying to hide her amusement. Rikash gave her a filthy look. "Thanks for coming after me," she added mischeviously, feeling a perverse sense of pleasure as Rikash's eyes narrowed even more. "Ri, it was clearly a transport-"

"We didn't know any of the identifying markings!"

"We knew that Tezock stepped on it and he was gone," she pointed out.

"What if it had been a special gate, immortals only?" he demanded. She shrugged.

"Well, it wasn't." He snorted again.

"Not this time," he muttered. "Next time, I'm going to-" But Deryne did not find out what he was threatening, because the Seal glowed again and Cyne stumbled from the Seal.

"Han secured the horses," she managed as the earthmage appeared. He said nothing, his eyes widening as he stared around. Deryne took a moment to take in their surroundings.

Short trees and scraggly bushes with thick branches covered the sandy soil, which the ocean met with barely a splash at the shoreline. They stood on a stone path, onto which the Seal was engraved.

About a hundred or so paces from them was a wall, covered in ivy except for the steel doors that the path led up to. Gudruna raced around Deryne, without any command from her; she let the whispers carry her to the doors, her eyes widening with surprise as they hit a wall of more gudruna and swept away.

"It's protected," she said softly, wondering at the wall of gudruna around the visible wall. "Magically." Han closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, looking over at her to nod.

"I can't get past the ivy," he confessed. Deryne started walking up the path; the others followed silently behind her, stopping when she paused in front of the gudruna. Her eyes climbed the wall, her gaze fixed on the divide between stone and sky.

"Tezock is here," she said softly. "This- this is the island he was speaking of. This is the island from which he came."

"You can sense him now?" She shook her head. Rikash's eyes narrowed.

"Well, if you can't see through this-" He opened his hands, stretching them towards the doors.

"Wait," Cyne interjected. "We don't want to let them know we're here."

"I think...," Han said hesitantly, looking around. His jaw set. "I think it's a little late for that." The other three stared at him.

"What?" He frowned.

"Well, think of it- if Tezock knows us so well, why wouldn't he try to conceal himself better? There must be ways... And why leave that Seal so unprotected?"

"Maybe he was bluffing," Rikash retorted. Han's eyebrows raised.

"Then why are there no guards, protecting his return against us?" As the realization struck, they exchanged a look of alarm, and Rikash and Cyne both made a sharp, jerking motion to race back down the path, back to the Seal.

"Don't bother," Han advised. And as Deryne's gudruna obiligingly made the trip back for her, she knew what he did; for in the time it had taken to walk to the wall, the Seal had vanished, trapping them.

Resignation fought the rising panic in her chest, only to be beaten back as a deafening creaking broke the quiet. She whipped back around, slamming into the protective gudruna accidentally; she reeled, as though she had walked into a doorway, then stumbled as the gudruna dispersed, leaving her free to explore the Void standing between the opened steel doors.

Tezock walked forth, beaming at them; his teeth flashed and his eyes gleamed. His happiness frightened her. Another pang of fear struck her at the sight of several others, others of his kind, standing behind him.

"Welcome," he hissed, sweeping a hand back at the temples behind him, beyond the wall. "Welcome... to Gotzan, the home of the Seraph."

AN: Reviews are always welcomed.