six

Deeter Zor looked at the man - no, he wasn't a man, was he, but one of Them - across from him. Prosstig had claimed he wanted to help, but he'd helped enough. He showed him how They could track him. It had not taken a genius to find the only tavern near his arrival spot, but it did take something special to find the room he'd lodged in. "Infrared."

Prosstig was past that explanation, however. "Those leather straps? That's how you do it? I mean, obviously we've figured it was a spell of some kind, but you insist you have no knowledge of magic. You're no fool, or you wouldn't have evaded us this long, but you really have no idea how what you do works."

"Does anyone really know how magic works?" He hesitated. It was hard to trust Prosstig, but he was the first person he'd spoken to at length since he left. Would it really make a difference if They knew? Slowly he unravelled one of the straps, then held out his palm. "I can tell you what I do know."

Prosstig stared. A few small gems sparkled in the light. "Rubies? No, the refractive index is too great. Red diamonds?"

He nodded, rewrapping the leather around them. "They were turned red in a blood ceremony to infuse them with power."

"You know, the study of magic is the one thing Watchers aren't very good at. I wonder if that's why we're so involved with humans." He was still staring at the gems, or would have been had they been visible.

"Oh, is that why you're so involved with humans," Deeter said drily.

He snapped out of it. "I wouldn't say we're so involved. When you travel by magic to other worlds, that's the only time we get involved. Or if -"

"Exceptions abound, I'm sure. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to use magic to try to get away from you Watchers."

Suddenly Prosstig laughed. It was a shocking sound, only partly because of the high-pitch. It could have passed as a normal human laugh, but Deeter wondered what was so funny. Not seriously enough to stop his preparations. He put on his shoes and grabbed his pack.

"A blood ceremony! Red blood! Ha ha!"

Deeter gave him an incredulous stare before squeezing his fists. Prosstig's infrared glasses seemed to ignore the great gaping holes in reality - the tesseract, as he'd referred to it - but as Deeter stepped through he just barely heard him say, "Ariel! Of course!"

With those words Deeter gasped and ran forward to the opening into a new world. He would never have given that away, but They obviously knew of Ariel already. More than he did. All he knew was that she was the commoner his great-grandfather had married, who tired of her husband and escaped. Stories varied, but since he began his life as a fugitive, he had assumed she must have done what he had done.

Going with the established facts, that she had first had children and waited till they were more grown before creating the diamonds then fleeing, made sense. Witches were made, not born, and only someone with a powerful reason could become one after maturity. It took years of study, either from an elder witch, or from the forest itself. Not that he knew very much about witches, but at least he had known one.

Laerne herself had learned her craft from the forest. She had run away even younger than he had, twelve or so, and lived in the forest near his home since. She was the one who told him about the rubies that were not rubies at all. He thought it a pretty story, like most of the stories told of Ariel, but as it turned out, quite glad it had not been fiction after all.

Deeter looked up. As usual, he was in an alley. It was early morning in this place, and the buildings were steel and glass and plastic. He sat next to a large garbage container and spoke quietly. "Day ninety-seven. I was woken by one of Them, but he just wanted to talk. I revealed too much and so did he. What did he mean, Ariel wasn't a witch? What else would explain it?"

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