Errant strolled through the sprawling home of his enemy. He whistled as he walked around. He shook his head at some of the things on display.

“I can’t believe he had one of these stuffed and mounted,” he said. He pointed at a lizard on a tree limb in a display case. “That will earn him punishment from the Rheim.”

“He could be triggering the end of the city,” said Pavel.

“Not unless he gets out,” said Errant. He slowly turned in a circle to look around a giant parlor that had sustained battle damage to the walls and furnishings. “The door I created is the only door he can use unless he can beat the spell.”

“So he’s in here with us,” said Pavel. “We just have to find him.”

“I imagine he is going to want to set us on fire after the embarrassment we put him through,” said Errant.

“I seem to remember that I was outside while you were doing whatever it was you were doing,” said Pavel.

“I was saving the day,” said Errant. He flexed his fingers as if warming up to play a piano. “It’s what I do after all.”

“That’s not what I would say,” said Pavel. He smiled. “Which way should we go from here?”

“I think we shouldn’t chase after him,” said Errant. “He can make rooms to cover him faster than we can search for him.”

“How do we find him?,” asked Pavel.

Errant turned in a circle. He tapped the scarred table with the knuckles of a loose fist. He nodded his head. He knew how to handle this.

“Get ready,” said Errant. “There’s going to be some after effects.”

He hunkered down, and slammed both hands against the floor. The room shook under the impact.

“What are you doing?,” asked Pavel. He looked around the room, watching for any enemy to appear under the shaking.

“I’m taking control of this space,” said Errant. He smiled as he brought his hands up away from the floor. “Once I do that, we can flush Mim out of hiding.”

He slammed his hands against the floor again. The walls shook. Part of the ceiling fell behind where Pavel stood. The room cracked apart to reveal the white plain and emptiness from where the room was drawn.

Errant smiled as the trappings were cleared away so that only he, Pavel, and Mim remained. The Alvas growled at them in his armor. He pulled his sword with the sound of cutting air.

“Do you really want to battle this out, Mim?,” said Errant. “You lost so badly the last time we met. Why not learn from your mistake and walk away.”

“I knew you would show up and start interfering,” said Mim. “That’s why I decided to start my working in Bern. Just because you found some of my experiments, doesn’t mean you found them all.”

“There’s a dead man looking for you, Mim,” said Pavel. “Whatever happens here, you’re hunted in the outside world. They never give up.”

“I’m not afraid of any emissary of the underworld,” said Mim. He raised his free hand. “One snap of my fingers will give them more work in the next few minutes than they have had in the last ten years.”

“Your countrymen will be blamed for your deeds,” said Pavel. “They will be

destroyed by the rest of the city states and the Rhiem.”

“What do I care about those cowards?,” said Mim. “They abandoned me when my tower was destroyed.”

“You can’t do what you say,” said Errant. “I think it is time that we talk about this in good faith.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Mim.

“I have cut off your room and access,” said Errant. “The only magic you can do is right here. Woody is dealing with your girls. I expect the Guard has found some of the things you have put in motion and put them down. Your only bargaining chip is how fast you can kill Pavel before I act. That’s not something I would like to bet on. Let’s cut out all the bluster and just put everything on the table. You’re going to have to go back to the Alvas, and stop trying to cause problems for everyone else. It’s that, or we duel to see who the better magician is. I’m willing to forgo the punishment you deserve for a peaceful resolution.”

“And you think you’re a better magician than me after winning one duel with a dirty trick?,” asked Mim.

“A win is a win,” said Errant. He flexed his fingers. “Why don’t you think about this and decide to let peace be the way to go.”

“I would rather reduce myself to giblets first,” said Mim. “Have at you!”

He swung his sword to produce a crescent of flame flying toward his enemy. He raised the other hand and tendrils of purple smoke reached out.

Errant raised one hand and caught the energy wave. He flung it back, aiming for the tendrils. He didn’t want to be poisoned on top of having to defend himself.

Mim flung up a shield against his reflected attack. It protected him from most of the harm, but he was still driven back. He growled, preparing to bolster his tendrils into a killing smog.

Errant pointed at the armored Alvas. Different points of gravity activated at the same time. The target ragdolled through the air with a cry.

The Queen’s Knight punched the air. The purple threat dispersed under a screaming wind.

Mim swept his sword around him. He needed time to put a strategy in place. He had forgotten how dangerous his enemy was. He needed to do better than applying force in this situation.

He needed a strong defense to hide behind so he could mount his own offense.

An iron wall appeared to cut him off from the rest of the white plain. That should give him time to start attacking without worrying about something ripping him up while he was trying to gain the upper hand.

Mim gestured and minotaurs carved themselves out of the air. They roared their battle cries as they charged across the white plain. All he had to do was keep adding on to his army until his enemy was overwhelmed.

He sent some of his new creations after the old adventurer. There was no point allowing him to stand on the sidelines when he needed to be killed so the plan could advance.

Let Errant deal with that while he worked on his next move.

The human magician punched the air to scatter the minotaurs. Then he punched again. A hole appeared in Mim’s iron wall. He stepped away from it in case another punch struck him too. A third punch knocked the circular barrier over with Mim still inside its embrace.

The Alvas decided that he needed to turn his barrier into an attack. Millions of

needles striking at the same time should do something to his enemy.

He pushed on his barrier, exerting his will. Once the needles had flown, he could do something else. His minotaurs were on the field. They could distract Errant enough to give him an opening.

The needles blasted across the empty battlefield. Some of the minotaurs got in the way. The burst of metal sliced through them to get to the real target.

Errant held up a hand. The needles stopped in the air in front of him. He pushed and the spray reversed direction. They struck Mim’s armor, ripping up the right side of his body as he tried to get out of the way.

Errant looked at the minotaurs. Pavel had killed some with his axe. Spells being flung around had killed some of the others. He shook his head. He put the survivors to sleep. That was another problem to fix on top of the ones he already had.

“How are you doing, Pavel?,” asked Errant. He didn’t want to take the time for a healing spell when he had to deal with his still mobile enemy in front of him.

“I should be all right,” said Pavel. He let the minotaur blood drip from his axe. “We should take care of this and leave. We have no idea what’s going on in the city.”

Errant agreed. They were in a bubble next to the real world. They needed to make sure Mim had not been able to get the signal out and hurt anyone else.

First they needed to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone else with his schemes.

Errant crossed the space between him and Mim. He frowned at the tattered armor and flesh beneath. The Alvas tried to point his sword to unleash lightning or fire. The knight just kicked it out of reach.

“I won’t beg for my life,” said Mim. “I will at least have that satisfaction.”

“If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it when we first met,” said Errant. “As long as you remained across the border, and weren’t a threat, I would have let things remain neutral. The problem is you couldn’t be satisfied with that. You took the ten years I was away and devised some harebrained scheme to destroy the only human city facing your nation. You turned your pawns into murderers of their friends and bystanders. I just can’t let this go like I would a straight magical attack against the city.”

Mim reached for his sword with his unharmed hand. He couldn’t quite reach it.

“Make better choices your next life,” said Errant.

Blue flame erupted from inside the Alvas. He screamed as he burned away in

seconds.

Errant stood in place. He considered his options. Had he made the right decision? Was it his responsibility to execute every threat he found? How much longer could he keep doing this?

Maybe he needed to ease back and let others do the job for him. There was nothing wrong with delegating to others.

How much longer could he keep doing things before he corroded away to something he was scared of being? Was it already too late?

“Errant,” said Pavel. The sound drew him out of his personal space. He looked at his comrade. “We have to check on the girls. We have to make sure they made it to the house before something happened to them.”

“You’re right, Pavel,” said Errant. He tried to smile, but it looked crooked and wrong. “Let’s take care of the rest of this before something worse happens.”

“Then we will get drunk,” said Pavel. “I think that is what we both need at the

moment.”

Errant made a shrug. He picked up the fallen sword and tucked it under his jacket. He turned away and walked toward the circle hanging in the air. He paused as Pavel wiped off his axe and sheathed it under his coat. Then they stepped back into Bern, standing on the campus grounds.

“I think you are right and we should make sure Sonya and Woody handled things,” said Errant. He folded the circle until it was a small curve the size of a dagger. He put that in his jacket pocket.

You never knew when a portable hole might be useful.

Pavel led the way out of the school grounds. He looked around for a cab to take them across the city.

Errant followed more slowly. He looked across town as he walked down the street. It looked like a building was on fire over that way. Should he lend a hand?

A blast of water dropped out of the sky. Someone else was handling that problem. He nodded. That was good.

He kept walking, lost in his thoughts.

“Climb aboard,” called Pavel from a carriage rolling up beside him. “I have transport for us.”