Errant and Woody watched as the Guard took over for them. He stood across the

street, hands in his pockets. The dog sat at his feet.

“Those circles could be something useful,” said Errant. “They allow for people to

mentally meet and share a collective image of what could be done. Spells could be

crafted and used through an interface in the real world. Someone would try to use it

for harvesting unless that was blocked off.”

Woody barked, pointing out the obvious.

“I noticed that the spell did the same as the Alvas room magic,” said Errant. “No

physical bounds, but a mental transference instead. I wonder where Bass got his

inspiration. Do you think he talked to an Alvas about how some of their magic

worked?”

Woody made a snuffling for his comment on the likelihood of that. The Alvas were

not known for their sharing of their abilities despite the one who regularly raced

across the continent.

“I am curious if he was helped,” said Errant. “And we are suddenly at loose ends

since we solved the magic leakage problem faster than I thought we would.”

Woody barked about not being a cat, and they should let things lie if it wasn’t their

business.

“But it is our business,” said Errant. “It’s what the Queen would want, and we have

pledged ourselves to looking into possible threats to the realm. Anything threatening

the future has to be faced. That’s our field of expertise.”

Woody snuffled but he knew he couldn’t stop his creator from looking into things.

He was the Knight. He had taken up that task, and he couldn’t put it down now. They

had walked all over the sphere, growing bulwarks to keep back chaos where they

could, and pruning out threats that tried to ruin everything.

An Alvas teaching magic wasn’t much of a threat unless the magic threatened to take

the entire city apart.

Causing an open war between Bern and the Alvas to the South was trouble. The

Rhiem would join in just to make their neighbors miserable. The underworlds on both

sides would be flooded with the dead.

Woody barked a change of mind after the reconsideration he gave the problem. An

Alvas trying to spark a war had to be stopped before he tipped things over to the other

side of the scales.

“I’m glad you agree with me,” said Errant. “Let’s start where Bass lived. Maybe we

can find a clue to how he devised his circle. At the very least we should keep his work

out of the hands of the irresponsible so they didn’t make more circles to harvest

personal power from others.”

The Queen’s Knight pulled a metal folder from under his light blue jacket. He opened

the cover. Numbers floated in the air over the folder. He nodded at the list of things

Time told him had happened and what had been changed by what he had done. It

wasn’t much of a help, but every little bit was something. He closed the holder and

placed it back under his jacket.

“We should go this way,” said Errant. He pointed the path he wanted to walk out as

he headed down an alley down the street from the wrecked magic site. They stepped

out on a quiet street of tenements crammed together. He stood under a lamp, looking

at the numbers and names on the front of the buildings around them.

“I think it’s that one,” said Errant. He pointed to one building that seemed better

looking than the others around it. “Let’s go up and see if we can get in without too

much of a problem.”

They walked over to the building, pausing at a locked outside door. A twist of fingers

jerked the lock and the magic shield out of the way. They stepped into a foyer.

“It looks like he was doing his experiments with others on the premises,” said Errant.

He looked at the marked doors. “On the other hand, if he had access to the mental

circle, he didn’t need that much space to work. He had as much as his mind would

allow.”

Woody sniffed at the doors. He chuffed a little at what he smelled coming from under

the doors. He shook himself and trotted back to where the man in blue waited.

“What do you mean everyone’s dead?,” asked Errant.

Woody barked his confirmation of his findings. The residents in the apartments on

the ground floor were dead as far as his nose was concerned. If that had to be seen to

be believed, he was fine with being doubted by his more insensitive colleague.

Errant looked up the stairs that went to the other apartments in the building. Were all

the residents dead? Had Bass used them for their lives before he recruited the others

he had turned into murderers? Maybe he should have put a harsher punishment on the

mental wizard.

That was something that could be addressed when they got around to talking to him

again. That might be a long time in the future.

Errant started up the stairs. He kept his eye on the designations on the doors. He

trusted Woody’s assessment of the scene. Once they had conducted their search, he

would call the Guard to take care of the dead. It was all he could do for them now.

He paused at the door. He turned off the security, and the physical locks. He pushed

the door open. The room was dark. He snapped his fingers and a spark of light floated

to a lamp. The lamp lit up to cast a dim glow over the thousands of physical drawings

on the walls.

“I would say that we have come to the right place,” said Errant. He scanned the room

without entering. “This was where he started trying to build his circle.”

Woody sniffed the air. He made a grunt noise to indicate they were alone and all the

scents he could smell were old. No one had been in the place for a while.

“So this is where he got started,” said Errant. He looked up and down the hall. None

of the other doors moved. “He works his way through his neighbors. No one noticed

that they were all going away. Maybe they did and he smoothed things over so there’s

a reasonable explanation somehow. Maybe he created a zone in the building and

everyone thought all their neighbors were alive when they weren’t. Sound

reasonable?”

Woody snorted he didn’t have a better explanation for what they had found so far.

“I think we should take all of these drawings and make sure none of it will hurt

anyone else,” said Errant. “Then we should find his real work space.”

Woody barked his concern over the implication.

“I think he did a lot of testing to find the right combination he wanted here,” said

Errant. He pointed at a wall. “The notes indicate that someone gave him the initial

circle and showed him how to make more. I am going to say an Alvas did that.”

Errant gestured and the lamp directed light on another section. He frowned as he

followed the writing and drawings.

“Here is where he thinks he can use the drawings for harvesting more magic,” said

Errant. “He has records of killing his neighbors, and how he did it. He reported gains

to his personal reserve here.”

Woody barked at the numbers.

“None of his neighbors were magicians,” said Errant. He rubbed his face as he

thought about the pitiable amount of energy stolen to feed the rising menace. “Their

numbers wouldn’t give him much. He needed to take the life energy of real magicians

if he wanted to expand his power.”

The wanderer paused in his examination. He nodded at the different hand on one of

the drawings. He reassessed the work with that as the central starting point.

“All right,” Errant said. “There is definite proof that one of the Alvas gave Bass his

start. That means we have a renegade working against the city. I think we need to

finish cleaning up behind Bass, and find this problem causer. There’s no telling what

other things he is doing if he feels he’s untouchable.”

Errant looked around the room. He found a leather folder sitting on a chair. He

grabbed and opened it wide with both hands. Blue light pulled the drawings from the

wall and stacked them in the folder. Research notes followed as the spell went

through the room and picked up everything related to the circle. Drawings done in the

fabric of the building were erased by the light.

Errant turned in a circle. The spell scrubbed the rest of the building. It wouldn’t leave

the Guard much to work with when he was done, but the murderer was already in

solitary. There was nothing they could do to him until they found his body and woke

him up. The crime he had been turned in for would be enough for capital punishment

without adding on the murders that had been discovered afterwards.

The Knight wondered how much more he could personally add on to what he wanted

Bass to suffer. He decided that he should not let his clouded judgement let him do

something he would regret later. He had done enough things that he would take back

if he could.

Adding on to the tally wouldn’t help him all that much as far as he was concerned,

and being immortal just gave him more time to think about the bad decisions he had

made when he should be thinking about doing better things to offset the harm he had

caused.

The blue light snapped off when the spell was sure it was done with the building. The

folder closed in his hands. He hefted it before sticking it in pocket under his jacket.

Maybe down the road, he would have a use for it other than taking other people’s

magic and adding it to his own.

“Let’s let the Guard know what we found, Woody,” said Errant. “While they are

cleaning the building, we can look for the main lab he moved to from here. Hopefully

he hasn’t killed a bunch of people around it.”

Woody wagged his tail. He doubted Bass had allowed people to live while he was

trying to figure out what he was doing. Most humans weren’t that smart when they

were chasing a dream.

They walked out of the building.