Needless to say, the lodestone did not actually point to any evil, but just hung there, spinning and glowing. “We must be away from this place, and travel with caution,” Lothern announced pregnantly. “Follow me.”

Amazingly, nobody else seemed to realize what was going on, and Penthos trailed at the back, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as they crept and sneaked through the uneven, damp countryside. Then Lothern bid them halt, and produced his talisman once more, and gasped.

“The Darkness is still close!” he whispered hoarsely, eyes boggling about him. “We are beset!” Harathes, Cyrene, and even Dion had their weapons out, ready to fight off the hordes of Darvezian whenever they should appear. Now, though, Lief had twigged, and nudged Penthos with an elbow, eyes flicking to Enth.

The mage nodded, dreading the inevitable announcement. Would this count as some sort of black mark with Dion? Should he have found a way to hide the Darkness in the transformed spider? Was that even possible?

They moved on, at a painfully cautious pace. Every half-mile, Lothern would pull out his lodestone, more and more agitated each time as it glowed and danced at the end of its string. “The evil must be all around us!” he declared, horrified.

By now they had all worked it out, but it seemed not to have become one of those all-too-common “it’s the wizard’s fault” situations. Instead Dion and Cyrene were exchanging embarrassed looks, ever more so as Lothern grew almost feverish with alarm at each new indication of the presence of the Dark powers.

Lief appeared to be choking, Penthos noted. Or at least, every time that talisman came out, the little man put his hands over his mouth and turned away, shoulders shaking helplessly. Was he ill, or…?

He met the mage’s eyes, and abruptly his feelings communicated themselves. It was a revelation for Penthos, to find himself sharing a joke, wordless and silent, with another human being.

His lips quirked, as he watched Lothern panicking, dashing off into the reeds with bow in hand to look for tracks, dashing back, babbling about invisible monsters, flying enemies…

“Can we not tell him,” Lief got out during one of his brief absences, “that we’ll just go on without him?”

“He’ll want to track the evil down,” Dion said out of the side of her mouth. “And if we leave him, he’ll track it to us. He’ll know we’re escorting a thing of Darkness.”

“No he won’t,” Lief told her. “Because he’s a moron.”

“How dare you!” Cyrene hissed. “He’s a brave man, a hero.”

“A moron,” echoed Harathes with some satisfaction.

“You…!” Cyrene glared at him. “Dion, tell him—!”