“Well I must say, I did not entirely expect you to return successfully,” said the Governor of Farr.

They were back in his audience chamber on the summit of Shun-Pei, standing side-by-side a few paces away from his grand desk, presenting themselves to him. This time, Ryn noticed, two guards with shaven heads in green robes stood by flanking each side of the desk, and there were two more behind them on the door as well.

“It was rather difficult,” said Nuthea. “We had to fight golems, navigate a darkened labyrinth, herd some glow-worms, bypass a series of traps and defeat an enormous plant monster... But we managed it in the end! Not least because of the help of your soldier Huld here.”

Ryn sighed under his breath. It had been a ‘rather difficult’ experience. They had all been very glad of a good meal and a rest on Wanderlust on their way back here. What am I doing on this crazy adventure, again? Oh yeah, I have nothing better to do, and everyone I knew from my life before is dead. Plus we’re saving the world. Also I get to stick around with Nuthea.

“I am sure it was very eventful for you,” said the Governor, scowling at them from underneath his large hat and from behind the polished oak surface that separated him from them. “Show me then, Huld. I assume you have it?”

“Yes Lord Governor,” said Huld. The hulking monk stepped forward, drawing something out from somewhere in the folds of his brilliant green robes, and made to hand it to the Governor.

“Don’t give it to me, you fool!” the Governor snapped, his jowls wobbling. “Put it down on the desk! I’m not getting mixed up in any of this magic business, if indeed it is magic…”

Huld bowed his head. “Yes Lord Governor. I’m sorry Lord Governor.” He placed the object on the desk and took a step back to return to his place in the line. Only, he didn’t quite step back all the way, Ryn saw--he stayed slightly further forward than the party.

On the desk in front of him now shone a small, brilliant leaf-green, oval emerald.

“So,” said the Governor, “does it work?!” Not even a ‘well done’, Ryn thought. “Does it bestow earth-manipulation?”

“Yes, Lord Governor.”

“Show me.”

Huld hesitated a moment, then raised a hand, palm up, as if he was a schoolmaster gesturing for the Governor to stand up out of his chair.

Instead of that happening, with a small rumble some of the mountain-earth of which the floor was composed in front of the desk rose up to form a pointed cone, much like a miniature version of the towers which made up Shun-Pei, before falling back to flatness when Huld lowered his hand again.

He already seemed to be getting more proficient at earth-manipulation in the short time since he had touched the emerald. Ryn noticed the eyebrow of one of the guards flanking the desk rise too.

“Good,” said the Governor. “You may leave now, foreigners.”

What? Ryn thought.

“What?” said Sagar.

“Pardon me?” Nuthea said.

“You heard me, Manoloian,” said the Governor. “I suppose I am somewhat grateful to you for helping to retrieve the Emerald, even though I am sure that Huld did most of the work for you, but you may be on your way now.”

“But Lord Governor,” Nuthea protested, “do you not remember what we agreed? You said that once we had retrieved the Emerald we could take it to keep it safe from the Emperor of Morekemia!”

The Governor snorted. “As far I remember, I said nothing of the sort. Now leave.”

“Hey!” shouted Sagar, hand going to one of his swords. “You’re out of order, lard-arse!”

Huld spun round immediately and raised both his hands.

A rumble, the floor shook, and Ryn felt something constrict around his waist.

He looked down. Some of the earth from the floor had risen up in a circle around him and tightened around his body to trap him in a small mound. He wriggled against it, but it held him fast.

On either side of him his companions had been trapped in five similar mounds, arms pinned to their sides.

Not only that, but the four guards in the room had leapt in front of the governor’s desk and now stood there crouched in battle poses, two with hands held out in strange clawed postures, ready to strike, two brandishing long curved swords with green tassels hanging from their hilts.

Ryn thought this was a little over the top.

“You scumbag!” Sagar yelled from where he was affixed in place by Huld’s Earth attack. “You said that we could have the Jewel when we got it!”

“To repeat,” said the Governor from behind his defensive wall of monks, “I said nothing of the sort. You asked to retrieve the Jewel, and you have, and now that you have delivered it safely to me, you may go.”

“But Lord Governor,” Nuthea persisted, still trying the term of address that the Farrians used, “didn’t you hear anything we said to you about the Emperor? He has learned of the Jewels! He is seeking them. If you keep this Jewel, it will only be a matter of time before the Empire attack you to take it for themselves, and who knows what damage they will do to your great nation in the process? They will invade you, occupy you, maybe even enslave you! The Jewel will be much safer with us, hidden on a mobile airship, and you will be safer for it too, if you tell the Empire that it has been sent away. We only intend to protect it and keep it safe from the Emperor--our intentions are noble.”

For just a moment, Ryn fancied that he saw the Governor’s scowl twitch into something else, a looser look of doubt.

But then the scowl came back with force. “Why do you think it will be any better off with you than with us?” the Governor said disparagingly. “The Emerald belongs to Farr. Until you came along with your…..abilities, we had hidden it so well that even we were unable to retrieve it.” He’s contradicting himself, Ryn thought. A moment ago he said that Huld must have done all the work to get it. So he does know that he’s indebted to us for getting the Jewel. “We will keep hold of it now, and use it to defend ourselves. We will use it on our warrior-monks, who are loyal to Farr, and imbue them with the power of earth-manipulation, like Huld here.”

Now Cid took a turn. “But my Lord Governor, why do you think that doing that will protect you? This Emerald is just one of twelve Jewels, and the Empire are seeking all of them. We only came to you first because yours was the next Jewel the location of which we were most certain. Who knows which of the others they have knowledge of, or perhaps have already found? Indeed, the first Jewel they got hold of, before we took it back from them, was the Fire Ruby, and many of the Imperials were given fire abilities with it. And earth is weak to fire.”

This time the Governor went quiet for a moment and his tongue moved round behind his thick lips like it was searching for fragments of food lodged between his teeth.

This time when he broke his silence he spoke to his ‘best monk’. “Is what this foreigner says true, Huld?”

Huld turned his head to reply, but kept his hands out to keep the party held firmly in their mounds of Earth. “I do not know, Lord Governor. I have no knowledge of whether Morekemia have given any of their soldiers fire projec--”

“Not that!” the Governor barked at him. “Whether or not ‘earth is weak to fire’, like the geriatric said!”

“Oh,” said. “My apologies, Lord Governor.” He turned his head back round to look at Ryn, uncertainty breaking out on his normally smiling face. “Um… Yes, I believe it is…” He spoke slowly, as if he was reluctant to admit what he was saying, still looking at Ryn. “In the Shrine to Eto, this boy with the fire abilities used them to great effect on its magical guardians, who were composed of either earthen or vegetative material… I… I do think it is accurate to say that were it not for his fire-projection we would not have been able to retrieve the Emerald...”

“Hmmm…” the Governor made a ponderous noise, and now his scowl had gone completely, replaced by a troubled frown. “I have had reports of aggressive Morekemian movements in the West assisted by supernatural fire-projection…”

“Yes, that’s right, Nuthea chimed in. “We defeated and...killed a number of the soldiers who had obtained fire abilities when we retrieved the Ruby, but we don’t know how many who still have fire projection are still out there. Or what other Jewels the Emperor may have found and got his hands on by now, like Grandfather said.”

The Governor made his ponderous noise again, and stared off into the distance at nothing in particular. He did not say anything for a few moments.

When he eventually spoke he said:

“I have the solution. You make an odd but interesting case, foreigners, and it is troubling that this ‘Fire Ruby’ is so effective against the element of earth, as Huld has confirmed… But I will not just give you the Emerald. That would be a great dishonour to us, and I cannot do it. You may have earned the right to bring it back to me, with Huld’s help, but if you wish to take it for yourselves, you must earn that right too. And if what you say is true, then it would seem that the Emerald will be most safe with whoever is strongest, and so most able to protect and defend it--which may well still prove to be us, as Huld as demonstrated.” He glanced down at the earthen mound which encased Ryn. “Thus, we shall settle this in the traditional Farrian way.”

“What is that?” said Nuthea.

“We shall have a tournament.”