Chapter 7 – Escape

High Queen Viona was furious. The Thread she sent out to follow Harks opened a small slit in the dimensional rift which allowed her to see the Beacon Harks created. Damn that little excuse for a Weaver. If he will not cooperate, he’ll suffer the consequence. In the end, I’ll still get what I want, not matter what. She suddenly felt the weight upon her. It made her feel tired, feel old. Oh, how I wish there were someone to share this burden with. Why do I still care about Centa? Why should I? What the devils was he doing making the Beacon so complicated? I won’t let this boy destroy Centa.

Viona was frustrated. Everything went so well before. She had carefully monitored and manipulated Harks for many years with no major problems. She did not expect things to foul now. It was this frustration compounded with the complexity in Harks’ design of his Beacon that made her to spend so much time to duplicate it. Before a Weaver spins the Portal Weave, one has to weave a Beacon, a unique collection of patterns that usually is only identifiable by the Weaver. A Portal appears when the Beacon is duplicated, creating a dimensional Weave between the identical Beacons. The trick in Weaving the duplicate Beacon is to make sure that it unravels itself in a short time, for not only would it be harder for others to follow, a Portal would become very unstable after some time. Weavers have been known to have never come out of a Portal before.

The High Queen was skilled enough in Weaving to not concentrate on it totally. She saw her son leave the throne room in sorrow. She also gathered ten of her guards to stand ready. Indeed, duplicating another Weaver’s Beacon, especially one with such complexity, would make the Portal more short lived. She needed to make sure the guards were there to cross the Portal when the time came.

On the other hand, it was really embarrassing to let her guards wait forever for her to create the Portal. She tried to banish all other thoughts from her mind. I must concentrate. Concentrate…I got to hand it to the boy though. He was pretty sneaky creating a Weave under another. She was mildly amused.

There, there’s no match for the High Queen, boy. Here my men come! “Go, I want the Weaver boy alive!” she barked at the guards.

—

“Who are we running from?” Losinia stopped Harks after they left the Library and asked. “Where are we going?”

“Wait, Lady.” Harks returned to the Library and peeked through a window. The insignia on the soldiers’ sleeves marked them as the Queen’s Guards. Why are they here? I thought Bola had let me go. Perhaps they’re here to make sure I’m safe? No, you dolt! Bola would have sent His Own. I don’t like the High Queen. Come to think of it, she’s the only one in the throne room capable of blocking my attempt to unravel any Weave. Oh no! Bola may be in danger!

A tap on the shoulder brought Harks back to reality. He jerked and turned around instinctively. “The Queen’s Guards,” he whispered. “I really don’t think I want to be found by them.”

“How many?”

“Sorry, I didn’t count. A dozen perhaps. We should go now. The Library’s not that big. It won’t be long before they decide to search the area. My hut is not far from here. Let’s go there and pick up some gear then we’ll go to Jurostic.”

Harks started to leave but Losinia held him back. “What are you crazy? How do you know there’s no one waiting for you there? Forget it. Let’s go.”

Harks did not feel comfortable making a trip without any preparation. “Whatever you say, Lady.”

“And quit calling me Lady. Name’s Losinia.”

“I know. I just thought to be polite, La… Losinia.”

“Well I’m not polite. I don’t want you to make me feel bad by being polite, all right?”

“Got you, Lady.”

Losinia stared at Harks.

“Sorry. We’ll follow this path to the entrance of the Academy.”

“You don’t know the first thing about secrecy, do you? All right, from now on, you show me where to go I’ll show you how to get there. We’ll go through the bushes on the sides.”

Harks nodded. “There aren’t hardly anyone around these days,” he muttered to himself.

As they walked through the bushes, Harks kept groaning and wincing when hit by the little branches. He was not too careful about avoiding fallen branches neither.

Losinia stopped and let out a sigh. “I give up. Let’s take the damn road. It’s less conspicuous to walk on the road than being found walking in bushes. How long will it take to go to wherever the old dirt said?

Harks felt foolish by her comment. “It’d take a couple of days to reach the Land Bridge, I think. And please, Thoron is a good man and he’s not here. You don’t have to call him something else now.”

“That doesn’t sound like the place he’s said. And thanks for telling me his name. I didn’t quite get that before.” Losinia made a sly smile.

“I’ll explain. We need to get to the Land Bridge to cross to Jurostic. The University lies somewhere in there.”

“My question was how long do you think it’d take for us the get there?”

“I…I don’t know.” Now I’m really useless! “I’m sorry I’ve never been to another Kingdom.”

“That’s just great. A Kingdom? How big is a Kingdom here? How are we to find this – I don’t remember the name – place?”

“Rest assure, Lady. The University is very well known. There are bound to be people who can show us the way.”

“We don’t have much choice, do we?”

Harks shook his head no. Oh, I’ll never be able to impress her now!

“Well then, just in case it’d take a long time, do you have any animals to ride? Horses?”

“Yes, yes we use horses.”

“Let’s go to the stable and get a couple then.”

Harks shook his head no. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Well,” – Harks thought for a while – “I don’t have one.”

“So what? Even if you had one we’ll still need one more for me. Why don’t we just ‘acquire’ a couple. No wait, don’t tell me. You don’t ride.”

Harks lowered his head in shame.

“Looks like we’ll have to share one horse now,” Losinia said in dismay.