Pali sat, waiting for General Hani to decide. He had been asking for the same thing ever since the attack on the school seven months ago. He wanted to rescue Salis from the men who had captured her, if she had been captured, and the girl called Helnion that had disappeared that day. Since they could not say for certain who had done it, the military could do nothing.

Pali had even done some investigations of his own, with the help of Helnion's family, but could find no evidence of who had attacked. This did not mean he had no ideas of who had done it. With how close Kein was to the border of Toa Mirr it went without saying that they were the most likely suspects, especially if they had found out Salis had been supplying Flaern with Terran knowledge.

Still, Pali did not even know if Salis had been at the school when it was attacked. The girl had been traveling in disguise the whole time she had been away from the school so he could find no concrete proof of where she had been. So he thought she could have just used the opportunity as an excuse to disappear. He knew with how much money she had saved that she could live comfortably in hiding for years, especially when Pali saw how much interest she had put into learning survival skills.

"Pali, the General has made his decision. Please enter," said the General's assistant.

"Thank you," Pali said to the man as he headed into the room.

"Have a seat," General Hani motioned to a chair and Pali sat down. "I have good news and bad news."

"Sir?"

"Your request to receive help in search of the Terran girl has been denied, but because of Toa Mirr's recent invasion of Koa Flaer an opportunity has arisen that you can take advantage of."

"What would that be, Sir?"

"While we cannot assist Koa Flaer directly because it would mean war with Toa Mir, the King and his advisers have devised a way to help."

"And what is this help?"

"We will send groups of men and women into Toa Mirr to disrupt their supply line. If we were to send you, I do not think anyone would object to you keeping an eye out for a missing friend…"

"I see," Pali smiled in understanding.

Pali had no love for Toa Mirr and its ruthless rulers. If he could do damage and search for Salis at the same time, then even if he could not find her the trip would not have been a complete waste. Unfortunately, this meant the search would be much more dangerous because he would attack caravans and storehouses and he had never been a good fighter.

"I take that smile as a confirmation of your willingness to participate in this plan," The General said.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. Now I will go over the details of your assignment." The General picked up a piece of paper, "Because of the nature of your career we have decided it that the safest way for you to travel through Toa Mirr will be as a traveling merchant." He stopped and looked at Pali.

"Is there a problem Sir?"

"You have never been married have you Pali?"

"No Sir. Why would you ask…" Then it hit Pali. "Does this mean…"

"Yes, Pali. You will be a merchant traveling with his family. Because of your position and familiarity with children trained in combat, we felt that this was the best way to use you."

"I cannot risk putting children in danger."

"I do not expect you to force any children to come with you, and if you dislike this plan, you can always decline."

Pali had to think about this. Was Salis worth risking some of his pupils? He knew that many of the older children were extremely capable of fighting in both magic and with bow and sword, most much better than he.

"Your decision?" General Hani said.

"I still dislike the idea of taking children into such a dangerous situation, but this might be my only chance so I will take it."

"Good. You have one week. If you have trouble finding members for your team, I can prepare a list of some that have volunteered."

"I will let you know Sir."

"One last thing before you leave."

"Yes Sir?"

"Keep this plan quiet. It will make your job, and every other team's job, much more difficult if the wrong people find out."

"I completely understand."

Pali stood up and left the room.

Now that Pali had permission to go to Toa Mirr and search for Salis, alongside his "real" reason for going, he just had to prepare, and for the last few months, he had been doing just that. He had known the biggest hurdle for going through Toa Mirr undetected was that of speech. While the language spoken in Flaern and Toa Mirr were much the same because of their past, he would be easily spotted as from Flaern because of his accent.

While he had considered just not talking to anyone, he knew this would probably lead to suspicion, especially since he would be a merchant, so he had been spending much of his free time conversing to merchants and refugees from the other country. In these months he thought he had picked the accent well.

As for all the other preparations he had made, getting help from the military had made them a waste of time since they would supply him with what he needed to complete the mission. He had gathered supplies and even a carriage just in case he would have to take matters into his own hands if he had not gotten support by summer. Thankfully, the military had gone with his plans and would even reimbursed him the costs of the supplies he had bought.

The only bad thing about getting support from the military was their idea of how he should go about his business. This was for him to bring a "family" with him. He had been planning on going alone as a traveling merchant, but that idea had been ruined.

Pali would not have minded being in a group of men and women, but traveling with children did not rest well with him. The only reason he had gone with the decision was that he saw the reasoning behind it. While Toa Mirr fully knew that children were trained from a young age in Flaern they knew that only children from the more wealthy families could afford it and, from the point of view of the nobility in that country, no well-respected family would allow their child to go on a mission with so little glory to earn than the one he was going on.

This led to his next problem. Could he find any children that would be willing to go and also their parents let them? He was certain the girl called Ferra would go because she too had offered to help look for Salis. He just needed to convince her family to let her go.

Pali was not so certain who he could ask next. Everyone else either ignored her, disliked her, were scared of her thanks to the many stunts she liked to pull, or had a simple but distant fascination with her.

There were only three other people, aside from teachers, that Pali knew Salis ever talked to. These were her roommate Artua, Artua's brother Calren that Salis tutored in math, and Dario, whom Salis also tutored. Of these three only Dario would work. This was a simple matter of the two siblings not looking a little like Pali with their black hair and darker skin.

Pali supposed that he could find a "wife," his biggest problem, that was from the same country that the two were from, but he did not know of any women like that other than their mother. He also could not go to their country as it was far to the north and the west.

For now, Pali would just have to see how things would work out and then go from there. He also wondered how big he wanted his "family" to be.