Alyson had returned after most of another week had passed. The purported reason was so that they could try on the new clothes Alyson had created and make any adjustments that were needed. It seemed to Rori that the actual reason had more to do with spending a lot of time huddled together and whispered conversations that stopped when Rori walked into the room.

  Charity had not returned with Alyson. It wasn’t because Charity didn’t want to return, but that she had other things she had to attend to.

  A few days later, Nolan and Brand arrived to update Rori and so that they could make plans for what was going to happen next.

  “Nice place,” said Brand as Rori walked into the sitting room where Brand and Nolan were waiting. “It’s a little small for my tastes, of course.”

  “Honestly, it’s ridiculous,” replied Rori with a smile. “But I guess I’ll suffer through it somehow.”

  “I wish I had such problems.”

  “So how are things back in the real world?”

  “No different,” answered Nolan. “We should all be heading to the conclave in a week or so. Be ready for that.”

  “Okay,” answered Rori.

  “I was worried that you’d spend all of your time here lounging around getting lazy,” said Nolan. “I guess that was not a problem.”

  Rori shrugged. “I run a lot. Swim a lot. But a lot of it is Charity.”

  “Like a gift from Meredith?” asked Brand.

  “No. Sorry. Charity is Karyn’s friend.”

  “The cute thin girl with the blonde hair? We passed in the hall.”

  “Don’t get too excited, I don’t think you’re her type,” Rori said. “But no, that is Alyson. Charity came with her the last time she was here and for the record, she has blue hair.”

  “Blue?”

  “Yeah, the blue hair is the least unusual thing about her, she’s a little intense. Also, she is amazingly good with pretty much any weapon you’d like.”

  “Including the spiked chain?” asked Nolan. “That’s what Alyson had said.”

  “That too, but it isn’t something she typically uses. We’d pretty much exhausted that after the second day. Dade should recruit her.”

  “If she is that good, she probably already belongs to a group of some sort. Either that or she used to belong to one. Is she an adventurer or does she work for someone?”

  “I’m not sure. Though that reminds me, she has this tattoo on her back. I can’t explain it, but I tried to sketch it. I’m not much of an artist, but it looked sort of like this,” Rori pulled out a folded-up piece of paper and handing it over to Nolan. Brand leaned over and took a look as well.

  “Is it supposed to be a character or letter?” asked Brand tilting his head to one side as Nolan turned the paper in the other direction.

  “No. I don’t think so. It was just a symbol sort of design. Also, I said I wasn’t that good at drawing. Each stroke was a little more sharp and not quite as squidgy as I drew it. And the ink looked black and wet, even when it was dry.”

  “Drawing. One of the few things that Rori isn’t automatically good at,” said Brand.

  “Where was it on her back?” asked Nolan.

  “Mostly on her right shoulder. It was about this big,” said Rori holding up his hands.

  Nolan looked at it again before folding up the paper and putting it into a pocket. “I got nothing. I’ll ask Dade and the others later. Whoever she is with, at the least you got some good training out of being here.”

  “By the way, where is ‘here’?” asked Rori. “I know we are east of Willowsbrook and Lycea. Karyn said we were near to a city.”

  “Still too early to let you know. It’s unlikely anyone could pick it out of your brain while you’re wearing that ring, but you never know. How do you know we are east?”

  “I don’t know for certain. But I can usually tell which direction is north. Right now, it’s that way,” said Rori pointing. “And when we came here it just felt like we’d moved east.

  “Knowing which way is north isn’t too hard to figure out. A little harder indoors, but not impossible. Brand here’s another thing Rori isn’t good at. North is that way,” said Nolan pointing slightly more to the right of where Rori had pointed. Why did you think it was that way?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “I don’t know. Just some sort of internal compass that I thought was accurate. It usually is more or less on point. Like you said, maybe it’s because we’re inside.”

  “Either that or fancy living is making you soft,” said Brand.

  “Anyway, why are you guys here? Don’t get me wrong, feel free to stay as long as you’d like, as you can see Karyn has the room to spare.”

  “We need to discuss the conclave,” answered Nolan. “More to the point, we need to discuss you at the conclave.”

  “How so?”

  “As your clan is one of the hosts, and really the main host, and as you are one of the heads of that clan, things probably will go much smoother if you are a visible and active participant in the activities.

  “However, as there is a sizable bounty on your head, things will probably be less chaotic if you stay hidden. We obviously can’t do both. Thus, we are here to try and figure out which way we should handle it.”

  “Won’t any assassin be kind of obvious in a crowd full of Cunāe?” asked Brand.

  “Not necessarily. Cunāe people and Cunāe clans vary wildly and who knows for sure how many are going to show up. If there are enough clans, there will be so many people that an assassin could walk around without even having to try and stay hidden. Everyone will just assume they are from one of the other clans,” explained Rori.

  “If there are only a few clans, then any strangers will be more noticeable. But then our chances of gathering any of the information we want also goes way down.”

  “Do you have any way of guessing which it will be?” asked Brand.

  “Not really. It’s been a while since there has been a conclave, and we have made it quite clear that this is a celebration and not meant to be about a fight or anything. I think we’ll do okay.”

  The three men stopped talking as Karyn walked in through the open door of the sitting room. She was followed by Alyson, who stopped in the doorway. Karyn was wearing a long, thin, sleeveless, blood red dress that had a slit along one side of the front so that her left leg was visible as she walked. It was rather tight fitting on the top and did a beautiful job of showing off her figure.

  Karyn walked several steps into the room and then turned and went back without saying a word. She stopped when she got back to Alyson and let out a rich laugh.

  “What?” asked Rori.

  “Nothing,” I had come to get your opinions on this, but your agape mouths were all that I needed to see. Come along Alyson. I love it too.”

  The two girls left the three men sitting and staring at the open doorway.

  “Can we switch lives?” asked Brand after a moment.

  “I have a giant bounty on my head, a bunch of assassins trying to collect on it and I keep being visited by gods who seem to be scoping me out as either a prospect for stealing or as a potential threat that might need to be squashed for reasons I cannot fathom and I am possibly going to be denounced as some kind of heretic when people realize just what this medallion I’m wearing means,” said Rori.

  “You are practically unkillable when you are wearing that amulet, you’re living in a mansion and you’re sleeping with what is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. Oh yeah, and she’s brilliant and a Senator. I’ll risk a few assassins and gods.”

  “Speaking of assassins, what about the conclave?” said Nolan. “How important is it that you are seen there?”

  “I have to be there and be seen,” said Rori. “It would look weird for me not to. Also, there are people that I can talk to that the others would not be able to get as candid answers from. However, I don’t have to be there every moment of every day. I should probably just spend most of my time as Karl. I can switch back to being me as needed and as long as I don’t switch where anyone can see, I think that will probably work just fine.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Nolan. “If we get someone else to wear the Karl ring and interact with you in a couple of visible and noticeable places that should also keep people from thinking that you are he.”

  “Is Karl going to be Cunāe or a Lorenthian soldier?” asked Brand.

  “He should probably be Cunāe,” said Nolan. “If he is Cunāe people will be less likely to ask about him or watch him. If he’s a soldier it might seem weird that he isn’t seen more often sleeping and whatnot where the soldiers will be camped.”

  “Karl will be Cunāe and so will all of the soldiers,” said Rori.

  “What do you mean?” asked Brand.

  “A Cunāe conclave is just that, a Cunāe conclave. We can’t have squads of Lorenthian soldiers roaming around. It will cause problems, and it will cause people to leave. Any soldiers there cannot be in uniform or wearing badges. Everyone needs to look like Cunāe. If you don’t, the fact that the military is there will be the only thing people are talking about, and we need them to talk about other topics.”

  “Okay,” said Nolan. “Do we just claim to be all members of the same clan nobody has ever heard of before?”

  “There are plenty of clans people have never heard of before,” said Rori. “Clans change names and membership all of the time. So, if you want to have your own clan you can do that. Though it will get hard when you get asked questions about Cunāe life that you have no answers for. A better plan is for you all just to be members of my clan.”

  “Won’t it seem odd to have a sudden influx of people into your clan who seem to act more than a little like soldiers?” asked Brand.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time. You’d be surprised how many new Cunāe are ex-military. Also, like I said, clan membership changes all of the time. This way also has the added benefit that when people accuse you of being soldiers, you can readily admit that you were soldiers before becoming Cunāe. Though I wouldn’t tell them that you were still soldiers after as well.”

  “And what about answering those questions we don’t know the answer to?” asked Nolan. “How will we successfully pretend to be in your clan if we don’t know them?”

  “Who says you will be pretending? Congratulations on joining the clan. Tell the others that they are welcome to be members as well whenever they need to be. Now if anyone asks questions you don’t know the answer to, tell them you are navorai and if they want the answers to talk to me.”

  “Navorai?” asked Brand.

  “It literally translates to ‘new men’. It just means you are new to the Cunāe life.”

  “And once the conclave is over?” asked Brand.

  “Then quit the clan. One more time, membership in Cunāe clans is usually very fluid. Nobody will question anything.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Nolan. “That’s all we had, Rori you got anything else?”

  “Actually, I do. Is there any way I, Brand and possibly you, could go early and take a side trip to that ancient temple of Meredith? I need to see if the library there has a book about Meri’s monks.”

  “I don’t know. We seem to spend a lot of time just twiddling our thumbs waiting for the conclave to start, but then there are days of frantic activity. I’ll check with Dade and see what he thinks when I see him.”