Irene sat with her back against the opaque glass wall of the hidden room. Her gaze was locked on the inscription across from her. It contained a full set of symbols. Irene wasn’t certain she would ever have figured out the value of each one on her own. Luckily some of the built-in functions for viewing inscriptions were simple math functions that would add, subtract, multiply or divide two symbols. She was able to use those functions to figure out the numerical values for all seven symbols.

  The next problem was the lack of rows and columns. Nearly all of Irene’s methods for decrypting revolved around them. She focused on the few methods she knew that didn’t involve rows and columns and tried to use them to produce a similar order to the symbols. Her latest breakthrough involved the colors. Each symbol was composed of no less than three colors, a few had as many as five. By using the number of the magic tree with that color, Irene was able to translate those colors into additional values.

  This was her third day working on the inscription. Her neck was so stiff after the first day Irene almost gave up on it. Instead she figured out if she rested her back and head against the wall, she could stand it a little longer. The third day she was forced to take more frequent breaks. She stopped casting her cloaking spells the first day, luckily the secret room didn’t draw any animals.

  It was time for her to take a break now, but Irene could almost feel the solution. She knew she was getting close. The inscription was starting to fall out into a series of lines and rectangles that looked like a section of the map.

  “They’ve broken their force apart coming through the corridors,” a man’s voice said. Irene was startled. It sounded like he was standing right behind her. The voice was slightly distorted by its transmission through the water and glass at Irene’s back, but the words were clear enough.

  “I expect they will reform in the green,” a second male voice responded, “and come at us in force. How far ahead of them are you?”

  “No more than a day,” the first voice responded. “I would expect the attack at dawn.”

  “The sniper nests are all set up. Have you convinced Irene yet?” a woman asked. Irene startled slightly at her name. Her interface closed. Her staff clattered to the ground, falling from where it was braced against the wall beside her.

  “What was that?” the first voice asked.

  “An animal someplace,” the second voice responded. “There’s no weapon other than ours closer than the sniper nests.” The second voice was Ian, Irene realized. Irene felt herself relax. Ian was just doing his job protecting the square. “I’ll tell her this evening,” Ian responded. “I’ll leave before dawn and be back by evening. I’ll help you finish off any stragglers when I get back. After our victory I will send an official messenger to Chicago to discover the tragedy there.”

  “This crystal is never going to survive a frontal attack,” the first male voice commented. “Should we send the noncombatants down to the new square Irene found?”

  “No,” Ian responded. “Let’s keep that new square our secret for now. We’ll march whatever civilians we can gather up through the western suburbs to gain support for invading Londontown. We can present them as survivors from Chicago.”

  “I don’t think Londontown’s crystal will survive a frontal assault either,” the woman’s voice commented.

  “We won’t need to attack,” Ian replied. “In this case ‘support’ will be even more helpless civilians. We’ll march them all through Londontown’s gates and demand sanctuary. I’ll have Irene deliver one of her ‘we are all children of Earth’ speeches. We will hold the queen and Phillip accountable for the tragedy, before declaring Irene heir to the throne.”

  “Heir to the throne?” the unknown man asked.

  “Irene really is the queen’s daughter,” the woman explained. “I came with her. When we reached Londontown even Phillip acknowledged her.” The woman must be Sophia, Irene thought, but the man couldn’t be Jake. Jake was there as well and already knew.

  “No one’s heard anything from Mary since she vanished years ago. With Christopher dead there are no other adults to contest the claim,” Ian commented. Ian’s causal mention of Christopher’s death twisted something in Irene’s gut. When word reached them that he’d been killed, Irene was devastated. She thought she made real progress convincing him that this war must end. She was also slightly revolted at her unease over whether he was really killed in the war, or if it was something more internal.

  “What about actual survivors of Chicago?” the man’s voice asked, Irene could hear a trace of uncertainty in his voice, but it was only a trace.

  “If there are any, we will take them in as well,” Ian responded. “I’ll cast the ring from below. There is no way anyone will see me do it. It doesn’t even have any visual effect above, so the survivors won’t be able to report anything. I plan to fire it off under each of the gates and Darien's quarters.”

  “If we are lucky you will catch a lot of the suburb leaders,” Sophia commented. “They should be gathering for the annual meeting. Many of them like to come in early to enjoy the pleasures of town and Darien’s hospitality.”

  “When we have control of Londontown, we will ‘find’ the new square and settle it,” Ian said. “With two squares under our control it will be easy enough to expand.”

  “So we are ready to go?” the man’s voice asked. Irene still couldn’t figure out who that could be.

  “Yes,” Ian responded. “Which position have you saved for Irene?”

  “This one here,” Sophia responded. “It is hard to see from the other positions. As long as she casts stun, everyone will assume it is you.” Irene thought Sophia must be pointing out the location on some kind of map.

  “Remember, try to leave at least one of those wizards alive. We will need…” Their voices trailed off after that, as the group walked away from the waterfall.

  Irene was frozen in shock. There was only one spell she knew of that Ian would call the ring. She thought he never learned it, although he tried for months. If he was planning on using it tomorrow he must have. She wondered what the actual area of effect was. Casting it from below would limit the effective radius. The closer it was cast to the ceiling the more destructive it would be. If she was doing it, she would put together a tall platform to cast from.

  Irene shook her head, sickened by the thoughts that were running through her mind. Downtown wasn’t occupied by just warriors and leaders. It was filled with most of Greater Chicago’s skilled crafters and their families. Many of the more dangerous suburbs sent their children there. Redfalls was a suburb of Chicago. Ian swore loyalty. Destroying it could only be a power move. Irene remembered what she told Margot, that the conflict was human greed and power games. Could it be that it wasn’t a struggle between Londontown and Chicago, but one between Chicago and Redfalls? Londontown was just a weapon in that war.

  Irene was frozen for so long her interface light was flashing. She opened it back up. The almost decrypted version of the inscription overlaid on her vision. Without thought she clicked through three more decryption steps. The map solidified, all the underlying symbols vanished from her view. It was several floors of rooms all overlaid on each other in different colors. The rooms below were very large, with two or three story ceilings. A floor of more normal sized rooms was overlaid on top. Or at least Irene thought it was on top. It was drawn in the colors of the higher value magic trees. For all she knew she could have it completely reversed and that floor was actually farther down.

  Irene covered her face with her hands and leaned over as she forced herself to think. No, she thought to herself, it couldn’t be Redfalls. Her interface automatically dismissed itself. She breathed heavily. Irene had to make Ian see reason. She heard the derision in his voice when he mentioned her ‘children of Earth’ speech. She never suspected he felt that way.

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  It was almost like this man she overheard was a different person from the one she loved. She wanted very much to believe that. Maybe she was mistaken about who the speakers were. She couldn’t identify the third voice, what made her think the other two were Ian and Sophia?

  The ring of death was a tier five spell. Ian was the only tier five wizard in Redfalls. If the voice was not Ian’s, then the spell they referred to wasn’t the ring of death, but some other far less dangerous one. She wanted to believe that, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t think of another spell that matched the conversation.

  A scuffing noise filled the room. Irene jumped to her feet, reaching for her staff. It rolled out of her reach when it fell over. She pulled the knife from her belt and braced herself. A single rat came sniffing its way through the narrow passage and into the hidden room. Irene cast lightning. Silence returned to the room.

  She bent to pick up her staff, taking a moment to return the knife to her belt. Just as she was about to slide the knife into its sheath, she paused. She looked down at that exposed blade. Ian said there was no weapon near, but what was this knife if not a weapon? It was in very poor condition. She long since gave up trying to keep the rust off the blade. Her constant sharpening wore it down to about half its original width. The tip broke off at least three times over the years, shortening its length. Irene held on to it because it was from the Speedwell and it reminded her of happy times working with Agatha to build the colony.

  Ian didn’t sense it. His spell must only detect integrated weapons.

  She put it back into her belt, stopping the direction of her thoughts. She leaned over and picked up the staff. She glanced over at the inscription. It still appeared as a section of map. This was verification that she correctly decrypted it using the interface. Suddenly it didn’t seem that important to figure out what it meant. She picked up the rat by its hind foot and swung it over her shoulder. She slipped through the narrow section to the closet. She took a moment to gut the animal, before swinging it back over her shoulder and heading back to the square.

  Irene settled the rat carcass onto the service bar in the inn. Ellen agreed to purchase it with some relief. “A scout came in about an hour ago and reported a large group of blue warriors heading in this direction,” Ellen told Irene. “Everyone has given up hunting for the day. This is the only fresh meat I’ve gotten.”

  “Have you seen Ian?” Irene asked the innkeeper.

  “No,” Ellen responded. “I am sure he is getting the defenses set up. He will soon send those blues on their way.”

  Irene frowned. She wanted to remind Ellen that blues were people too, but she couldn’t shake the memory of Ian’s contempt. Instead she said, “If things go badly we may have to move quickly. A long enough conflict could break the crystal. You should pack a bag with the minimum you need for your children and yourself.” Irene deliberately mentioned Ellen’s children first, since she knew the woman was devoted to them.

  “Yes,” Ellen said thoughtfully. “It is probably best to be prepared.”

  Irene went up to her own room. She fetched her pack from where she left it on the chair and dumped out the contents on the bed. She added the contents of her day pack to the pile. She picked up the gathering bags she left behind that morning since she knew she was just decrypting the inscription and dumped them too.

  The gathering bags contained an impressive amount of crafting tools and fiber. The increasing tensions and crowding in the square reduced her attempts to encourage new people to pick up crafting. Mixed in with the crafting tools were a fair number of small skinning knives. Irene wondered if they qualified as a weapon. She activated the prize altar in her room and dumped all the tools and fiber scrap into her inventory. Putting tools into inventory caused damage to them, while putting fiber in reduced the amount. Irene usually tried to avoid both side effects. Right now she didn’t want to carry the weight.

  She went through all the contents of her packs. She sorted everything into three piles, what she needed for daily survival, things that were useful in the long term and items to discard. When she was done she put anything integrated in the long term pile into inventory. Everything else there joined the discard pile. She tossed them into a corner of the room. She repacked everything left. She pulled the outer straps tight. It would be easier to maneuver and fight with the pack in its small configuration.

  She lay down on the bed. Everything in her said to just flee, but she couldn’t. She had to talk to Ian. She needed him to see that they could have a good life here in this square, or maybe the new square, since she thought this crystal was done. They didn’t need Chicago or Londontown.

  She got off the bed and swung her pack onto her back. With a firm grip on her staff, she went back out into the courtyard to look for Ian.

  The preparations in the green were impressive. Irene toured most of them looking for Ian. There were sniper nests in the trees, pit traps and blinds. There was even a trench that was flooded with water from the falls. It was next to impossible to pass flowing water undetected, even with a tier three camouflage spell. They must have been building this all the time Irene was working on decrypting the Egyptian inscription. It worried Irene that she didn’t see enough warriors to man all the defenses. Irene wondered just how many of the warriors were killed in the war, it seemed like there were many more women here than men. She hoped the missing men were still on patrols along the border.

  She was far less impressed with the defenses on the back door. The two men on duty were pulled back to the courtyard side of the passage. They were both armed with bows. Irene decided the idea was that they could hold the hall long enough for help to come. If she was in charge of the attack, she would send a team of camouflaged scouts to take out these two men in silence, after nightfall. Hopefully whoever was leading the attack wasn’t thinking like her.

  She stepped into a nearby stairwell and cast camouflage, muffle, cloak heat and scent masking on herself. She went out past the two guards. She jumped the closed gate so that its opening wouldn’t give away her presence. She ran ten minutes to the nearest stairwell. It only went up one floor. She ran another ten minutes to reach a second stair that allowed her to climb to the floor level of the green. From there she ran west to the nearest green access.

  She moved at a fast trot across the green. None of her cloaking spells would mask her footprints in the dirt or the movements of plants if she brushed them. It took her about an hour to reach the main green entrance on the west wall. She slowed down even more as she drew near it. She froze at the first sound she heard. Two warriors crossed in front of Irene. They were obviously on patrol. One was wearing a mix of leather and plate armor. He was armed with a sword and shield. The second wore blue touched leathers and carried a bronze spear. This second warrior couldn’t be more than thirteen. Seeing him, Irene wondered what they were turning themselves into.

  An arrow arched out of the underbrush to Irene’s right. The older warrior reacted quickly, throwing his shield out to try and block the arrow. He failed as the arrow wasn’t aimed at him. The young man was struck in the shoulder. He yelled out. Irene heard more people rushing through the underbrush.

  The warriors in front of her took up fighting stances and studied the trees trying to spot the archer. After the shout, the younger man gave no indication that the arrow bothered him. A eager, hungry look was on his face. A wizard in blue silks arrived. She was escorted by two fighters dressed in full plate armor. One of the new arrivals pulled the arrow from the boy's shoulder, before the wizard cast heal.

  The wizard was also second generation. She was even younger than the boy. Irene braced herself as she realized this little play was the perfect ruse to draw this healer out. No further arrows arrived. The wizard retreated back in the direction she came from while the two man patrol continued on. There was a distracted dazed look on the healed warrior’s face, but he moved forward boldly, oblivious to any danger.

  With great care, Irene crept closer. A small camp was set up at the western entrance to the green. Irene estimated that their numbers were about half the count of Redfalls’ defenders. As Irene watched, another group of ten arrived from the halls. She spotted at least three healers, all second generation. The youngest looked no older than eight.

  The occasional arrow struck at the perimeter patrols as Irene watched. One warrior was unlucky enough to be struck in the eye. He was dead before he hit the ground and could not be saved by the healer. Irene didn’t bother trying to track down the archer. Ian never used a bow and he was who she was looking for.

  After observing for some time, Irene decided the archer wasn’t trying to actually stop the invaders. Instead they were trying to rile them up. Since no magic was used in the attacks, Irene also wondered if they wanted to make the blues overconfident. The lack of magic made Irene decide that Ian was not out here.

  She retreated back across the green to the halls. She paced a random corridor, still under her full set of cloaking spells. Irene was worried. The force from Londontown was sizable. She was certain a lot of people were about to die. She could see no way to stop it. She still needed to talk to Ian. It was getting late. She was pretty certain she missed lunch. She decided to head back to the square and eat. She would need the fuel for whatever happened next.

  She found Ian drinking in the inn’s common room.