His brother sat down a short distance away, content to wait and rest. While they had endured little in physical exertion except a long walk since escaping the battle with the demons, the stress and lack of sleep had taken its toll. Laromendis wished there was someplace more comfortable to sit than a rough patch of basalt. He ran his fingers over the fine-grain dark grey rock and then inspected the tips. There was a powdery dust and it glimmered with tiny fragments of crystal. He let his eyes wander the landscape, noticing a glint of light here and there as the afternoon sun reflected off exposed outcroppings of crystal or rhyolitic glass. Not too far from where he sat he could see a vein of obsidian running through the exposed face of the rock. Ages ago water began seeping though an interstice in the rocks, and at some point in time a portion of a hillside had slid away, leaving a veritable record of the geological history of this region. The mineral riches of this violent place had drawn the Taredhel here. He wondered if the demons had come for the same reasons, or if they had merely come because their enemies were here.

There were so many things Laromendis didn’t understand, or even pretend to understand. From any perspective the war with the demons was lost the moment it was undertaken, for the band members of the Circle of Light were the only magicians with demon lore. Only those few who had avoided the wholesale destruction of the Circle centuries before or, like his brother, who had gleaned their knowledge in isolation from distant central authority had survived to come to the aid of their people. Not for the first time Laromendis was visited with a deeply bitter resentment over the Regent’s Meet and their policies.

Perhaps Tandarae, the new Loremaster, was sincere and some progress could be realized in the policies of the surviving Taredhel, or perhaps it would take violence to change things. Laromendis closed his eyes a moment, fatigue washing over his soul, as he realized this was an academic consideration unless his brother could come up with a way home.

He turned his mind to wondering what they would do if Gulamendis couldn’t activate this portal. Would there be any possible way home in the old abandoned Taredhel fortress, many miles to the south? Even if there was a working portal, would it take them back to Hub, or if they got to E’bar, would death be awaiting them as they stepped through the portal? For the first time in years he felt defeated.

“I have it,” his brother said softly.

Laromendis sat up straight and said, “What?”

“I know why the portal isn’t working.”

“Why?”