Serenity’s mind raced. What did asking him to do something have to do with being Secretary of Defense? His father had to know that wasn’t why he was here. No, it had to be the other piece: the action he would take if Serenity said no must require his position.

There was no point in guessing when his father was about to tell him. Serenity tried to smile, only to realize that he already was, a little. Probably because of his father’s compliment. “You’re going to have to tell me what it is.”

“Yeah.” Lex took a deep breath, then let it out. “You’ve probably heard about it. There’s a section of the High Cascades in northern Oregon marked off limits. Anyone who enters the region is influenced somehow to head for the center. People who went in only a short distance and came out can be affected; some seem to be fine while others find themselves drawn back only to disappear. It wasn’t until we sent some people in to look for the last portal that someone noticed that its possible area overlapped with the rumors of a death zone.”

Serenity could see where this was going, but he waited for his father to finish.

“We don’t know exactly where the portal is, but we’ve mapped the coordinates based on the geography before everything started and what we’re getting from satellite imagery. It’s slightly above the snow line on one of the minor peaks. As far as we can tell, there’s nothing there.” Lex paused and glanced at Serenity, probably checking to make certain he was following so far. When Serenity nodded, he continued. “Whatever the effect is, we know it doesn’t extend high enough to affect flights in the area, at least not commercial flights. On the ground, there’s a four-mile-radius exclusion zone. That’s probably larger than required, but it’s not like there’s a bright line that says where the problem begins.”

“There aren’t many things that can do that. Not for miles, not at this Tier. It would have to be very specialized. To be an invader, it would have to be intelligent or accompany something intelligent.” Serenity’s thoughts flicked back to the Traa. “Maybe a tamed beast of some sort? It would be expensive to get through the portal and I don’t know why it would be that far from civilization, but that might be it.”

Lex shrugged. “You’d know better than I would. I can get you supplies or whatever you need to head in there, but first I need to know if you believe you can do so with reasonable risk. We need the portal closed, but I’ll find another way if you aren’t sure.”

Serenity nodded. “I can. It’ll probably have to be only Rissa and me, but the two of us should be safe enough. We should be enough firepower, as well; whatever’s causing that effect has to be most of what came through, so there shouldn’t be a supporting army. Mentalists are often annoying, but the two of us are strong enough it should be fine. If nothing else, we can probably sneak in and deal with the portal and whatever’s doing the calling.”

Serenity had serious Mind resistance, while Rissa was trained in mental defense. It was too bad that Russ probably couldn’t come; he’d be very useful as well, but Serenity doubted Russ would want to leave Phoebe alone for however long they’d be in the mountains.

Lex looked relieved as he leaned back in his seat again. “That’s good. Just be sure to stay healthy. I don’t want to explain anything to your mother.” He was smiling as he said the last line.

Serenity grinned back. “You won’t have to.”

As it turned out, Serenity was wrong: Russ was quite willing to come to the Cascades. He needed to make a detour to drop off Phoebe, but Phoebe was apparently thrilled to visit Red. Jacob had long since headed home, and the two of them felt bored and alone in New York City with Rissa gone.

Russ’s search for the Decay-creature had finally yielded some results; he’d gone back to the different places they were found and at each of them there was a broken jar. The strangest part was that from what Russ said, he’d killed all of the things he ran across at malls; they’d been relatively ordinary, not the sort of thing that would need to be trapped in a jar rather than being killed.

He had no idea what might be going on, but when Serenity asked if they might be residue of something else instead of the actual creature in the jar, Russ grunted like he’d been punched in the gut, then agreed that it was “all too likely”.

Unfortunately, that didn’t get them any closer to finding out where the creatures that had been in the jars were or who was smashing them or leaving them places. Following up on the robbery at the museum seemed to be the next step, and it hadn’t led anywhere yet.

The discussion with Russ reminded Serenity of what he’d found out from the Librarian in the magic library under London University; he’d meant to tell Russ, but he couldn’t remember doing it.

From Russ’s reaction, he’d forgotten. Russ was pleased to have the information and said he’d deal with it after they returned from the mountains.

Russ was still en route to Portland when Serenity heard that his father had been released from his position as Secretary of Defense and would be investigated for possible misuse of power.

It was difficult to get any real information from the news stories; what he was able to tell was that they mostly followed the outline his father had given, but what they said about it depended on the ideological stance of the writer. Some seemed to think it was high time someone was punished for overreaching, while others railed against the President for “punishing the military for doing their job’. It was a mess.

He didn’t get any news from his parents about it; they probably didn’t want to bother him, and his father had already warned him it was coming.

Serenity was grateful he didn’t have to deal with it and sorry that his father did have to.

The trip to the mountains was surprisingly simple. They’d had several options on how to reach the area, but had settled on the simplest and most reliable that would also let them carry the most gear: an SUV with a trailer. The trailer was for the ATVs they planned to take once they had to leave the paved roads; they would carry far less, but with luck they wouldn’t be on them for more than a few hours. There was a route they could take that was paved about a mile past the beginning of the exclusion zone, but from there they’d be off the roads.

They were in snow the moment they exited the SUV; they’d expected it. It was late November, after all. The cold bothered Rissa and Russ far more than it bothered Serenity, but none of them were surprised at that. They’d prepared for it.

About a half-mile after they left the SUV, Russ brought his ATV to a stop. “Do you feel that?”

Serenity tried to figure out what Russ was talking about, but he didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary. He shook his head at about the same time Rissa said “No.”

“We’re close enough I can feel it, but it hasn’t found me yet; it’s not a calling. It’s more of a …” Russ trailed off, clearly searching for words. “Ranging signal maybe? It’s checking for compatible minds. I’d guess that we’re a little outside the area where it can reliably detect people, even though we’re inside the area where people are supposed to have had trouble. I bet they somehow attracted its attention; it’s pretty easy to reach farther than you can passively detect.”

“How would that happen?” Serenity knew only a little about mind magic, and every time he talked to Russ about it he learned something. It usually didn’t apply directly to magic, but anything that broadened his understanding was useful.

Russ shrugged. “It’s like anything else - focus. Once you’ve seen something, it’s easier to keep an eye on it than seeing it in the first place, especially if it blends in with the background. Same idea.”

Serenity nodded. It wasn’t a particularly useful piece of knowledge, except that it confirmed that mental senses were similar to others and could be overwhelmed by noise or distractions. “Can you tell anything about it? Is it intelligent?”

Russ lifted his shoulders and shook his head. “Not from here.”

They headed forward, stopping periodically to give Russ a chance to see if he could figure anything else out and the others to see if they could feel anything at all. Rissa was the next to notice it. Serenity didn’t feel anything until they reached the mountain they thought held the portal. By then, both Russ and Rissa were actively shielding to avoid being noticed.

There was a noticeable change in the ground; instead of more or less flat, slowly trending upwards, it was simply uphill. So far, they’d been able to find paths - at first, ones made by people, but more recently they seemed to be animal paths. Serenity wasn’t certain that would continue once they got higher on the mountain; it seemed to be fairly densely covered with trees, then thinning as it approached the tree line.

It was a beautiful wilderness, but Serenity knew he wasn’t going to be paying much attention to it until after they were done. He was walking into danger and he knew it, even if it was as slight as he’d told his father.

What Serenity felt wasn’t the same sort of directional ping as what Rissa and Russ felt. Instead, it was an attack telling him to follow. That was all there was to it: a direction and the feeling that he should travel in that direction.

It wasn’t a particularly strong feeling, just a slight inclination. Serenity knew that he wouldn’t have even noticed it if it weren’t for his Mind resistance, because the direction it was pulling him in was the direction he was already traveling. Not knowing you’d been taken in was dangerous, so he was grateful for it, even though it meant he had to fight his impulse to deliberately do something other than follow. “I’m feeling it now.”

“You don’t sound happy.” Rissa pulled up next to him, frowning.

Serenity almost smiled at her concern. “Doing what someone who’s trying to control me wants me to do always bothers me. It’s often useful but never fun. Has it noticed you yet?”

Rissa frowned and concentrated for a moment before answering. “No. I think it has all of its attention on you now; I’m not even feeling the periodic ping.”

“It does. I can feel it. It’s strange; it feels like it should be smarter than it is. I’m not sure what that means.” Russ glanced from Serenity towards their destination. “I think it means that as long as we don’t attract attention, it won’t pay attention to anything other than Serenity. May be useful to remember when we get closer.”

With that in mind, they headed up the mountain. It was an interesting experience; Serenity was relieved every time he had to turn away from the most direct path to actually continue heading up, because he could feel the demand that he get closer become stronger without any corresponding increase in his desire to follow the demand. It was good to know that his Mind Resistance was working.

They eventually abandoned the ATVs. The terrain wasn’t great, making them repeatedly travel around obstacles that made them only slightly faster than walking but more importantly they were simply too loud and too unnatural-sounding once they were no longer in among the trees, even though they had electric engines instead of gas-powered. It was only about a quarter of a mile to the portal at that point, and they were all easily in good enough shape to travel that far.

Even in the snow.