Safara leaned back, stretching her arms above her head. "I think that might work," she said, hiding a yawn behind one hand. "Now we just need to test it."

  The rune circle had grown dramatically over the course of its development, being now two interlinked circles thickly lined with runes. Graceful lines linked various runes in both circles, and unusually for a rune circle, two straight lines protruded out from the centers of the circles to connect to two identical runes which were inscribed in the empty space above the enchantment. These two lines extended in slightly different directions, encompassing an angle of perhaps thirty degrees.

  "Okay, we'll need two of these," Fenrir said, picking up a quill and carefully opening a small bottle of runic ink. "I'll let you draw the pass emblem since you're more accustomed to this sort of thing, but the rest of it I should be able to sketch out myself easily enough."

  Safara nodded, and they both painstakingly began to transcribe the new rune circle, Safara in one of her spellbooks and Fenrir in a simple notebook. Safara finished first, her experience lending her an edge in this endeavor, and she watched quietly as Fenrir finished.

  "What should the pass emblem be?" she asked, once Fenrir put down his quill.

  "I don't know. I don't think it matters much; we needn't worry about another mana telegraph providing interference just yet." Fenrir smirked as a thought occurred to him. "Tell you what, why don't we make it this." Quickly he sketched out the symbol which commonly denoted a telephone on Earth.

  Safara looked at it with some confusion. "What is it?"

  "It's a simplified silhouette of a device with much the same purpose as this circle. From your reaction I'm guessing it's not a symbol in common use here?"

  "No, I've never seen a symbol like that before." She looked up at Fenrir's face. "I don't really understand, but you seem to gain some amusement from it, so I'm alright with using that as the pass emblem." Bending over her circle, she began slowly and deliberately to copy the symbol into the space left open for it. She repeated the process for Fenrir's circle with even greater care, then handed it back to him.

  "Nicely done," Fenrir commented. "They look perfectly identical. Now, this room is rge enough to test proof of concept, at least, so if I take mine to this end of the room and then point it at yours..." Fitting actions to words, he swiftly paced to the opposite side of the room and pcing two fingers on the focus rune, poured a small amount of mana into the circle. Instantly the light rune in Safara's lit up. Fenrir tried sending a short message by Morse, and discovered that if he tried pushing his message through too quickly, the light rune in the receiving circle would not have time to cease shining before the next pulse of magic hit it, but otherwise it worked exactly as they had intended.

  Safara looked up from her circle, her eyes shining with etion. "It worked!" she excimed quietly as he moved back to her side.

  "Maybe," Fenrir cautioned. "We still don't know if it has an effective range rge enough to be useful to us."

  "No, you don't understand!" Safara's words nearly tumbled over themselves in her excitement. "Runeworking is such a complicated discipline it usually takes dozens or even hundreds of iterations before a new rune circle is even slightly viable, and you've just made one, and an entirely new one at that, that works exactly as intended on your first try! I don't know if even Canrias ever accomplished such a feat!"

  "Hold on there. You did at least half the work," Fenrir protested, but Safara waved him off.

  "It was your ideas that formed this circle, I barely did anything. A dual-ring circle exploring an entirely new concept, and you have it perfected in just a few hours! You're amazing, E'nas!"

  Before she could continue her exultations at his accomplishment, Fenrir pced a finger on her lips, and she immediately exploded into a blush at the unexpected contact. "I say again," he told her firmly, "you did at least half the work on this. Without your expertise, I would have made numerous mistakes in the formation of the circle. Yes, my concepts formed the basis of the project, but without your experience in runeworking it would have taken much, much longer and many more tries to create a viable circle. And for that matter, I don't really consider this as perfected. I haven't yet given up on the idea of adding that telepathic link."

  Safara subsided, but her glowing countenance and the unfettered admiration in her eyes made it pin that she still considered Fenrir the true creator of the circle. Not for the first time Fenrir had to restrain the urge to sample those perfect lips against which his finger still rested. 'Not the time or pce,' he told himself firmly, dropping his finger from her mouth and looking away in an attempt to distract himself.

  A distraction made itself quickly apparent in the sky outside Safara's window, which was perceptibly lighter than it had been the st time he had looked. With a start, Fenrir realized that the dawn was almost upon them. "Ah, hell. I've got to get going, it'll be daylight soon. Remember, point your circle to the northeast, in that direction specifically, if you want to send a message. Once I get back to camp, I'll send a message to test whether the circle has the necessary range, so expect that in about half an hour to an hour and a half. If I don't get a response, I'll assume it doesn't."

  "Wait!" Safara cried. "You still haven't taught me this Morse code."

  "Ah, yes, I nearly forgot." Picking up the notebook which they had used to develop the rune circle, Fenrir began to copy down the dots, dashes, and their respective letters before stopping abruptly as he realized the written nguage of Mavenia did not use the English alphabet. Thinking quickly, Fenrir substituted what letters he could, but he had to add several new sequences to the Morse code library to round it out. 'Number system is still base ten, though, so that's a relief.'

  Handing the notebook to Safara, he said, "Memorize this, but if you can, avoid showing it to anyone. As I said, it's fairly simple, but no sense making things any easier for anyone who might discover a way to listen in." Motioning her over to the secret door, he showed her how to open the catch, and expined how to get out of the Cathedral via the hidden passages. "If we're lucky you won't need to use this, but not showing you would be the height of stupidity. Be careful, and remember to send at least one message a day just so we know you're alright. I'll try to come back tomorrow night so we can discuss what you should do moving forward, but, well, you've handled yourself well so far, so when in doubt, trust your instincts."

  He turned to leave, but Safara caught one of his hands between her own. "You be careful too, okay? And..." She blushed again. "Thank you for coming here for me. I... it means a lot to me."

  Fenrir swept the elf into a tight hug. "Of course," he murmured softly to her. "I wouldn't abandon you. I take care of my own."

  And then, warned by the ever-increasing light coming in through the window, he released her and slipped into the secret passage, beginning the circuitous trek back towards his camp north of the city.

  Safara remained staring at the bnk panel behind which Fenrir had disappeared for several seconds, his st words running through her mind. "His own..." she murmured, while upon her slim frame settled a sense of security she had not known for many years.

  Some hours earlier, in another quadrant of the city, a tall, lithe woman rode a dusty little mare up to the main gate of the citadel. Recognizing her, the guards waved her on through, one dispatching a page to alert Ser Brandis of the woman's arrival. The veteran knight met her at the stables, where she was carefully brushing down her mount.

  "Miss Cree, thank you for coming on such short notice. We have a situation which could use your considerable talents."

  The woman paused to turn her eagle-sharp eyes upon Brandis. Her face was angur with sharp cheekbones and a slightly hooked nose, but there was an air of robust health and life about her which made her nonetheless distinctly pleasing to look at. Brushing back a graying hair which had escaped its bun, a resigned smile touched her lips as she said, "Cassia, Flint. We may not fight and travel together anymore, but that doesn't give you permission to go all formal on me."

  An answering, slightly sheepish smile broke the careful neutrality of Flint's face as he replied, "Right. Sorry about that. I'm afraid the formality of constant court life can be hard to shake."

  "That's quite alright," Cassia said, briskly returning to the brushing of her horse with sure, tender strokes. "There you go, girl, all clean. Now go on and get some food and rest up, you've earned it." Gently she pushed the mare's head towards the trough which had just been filled by the stablemaster, who gave a respectful nod as their eyes met.

  Turning back to Brandis, she id a quick kiss on his cheek before asking, "Now, what's this emergency situation that's got you fluttering about like a songbird over her first clutch of eggs?"

  "An intruder which endangered the princess, twice."

  "I see. And?"

  "This intruder was a monster, and one of a kind which we have not encountered before. It left some tracks which we would like you to examine. This way, I can tell you all about the incident while we walk."

  "Then lead the way, and don't dally or we'll lose the light," Cassia said, jerking her chin towards the setting sun.

  By the time they reached the point at which Fenrir had nded upon the grass, Cassia was caught up with all the relevant details of the night before. Without wasting a moment she began examining the prints left in the soft ground. Brandis stood quietly back, watching as she put together the pieces of the puzzle before her. After about a minute of silence, the brown-haired woman straightened. "I'm gd you called me as soon as you did. Some of the smaller details are already beginning to fade."

  "What is your conclusion?" Brandis asked.

  "Well you're right about the monster being new. I've never seen prints quite like these. They look simir to tracks made by some of the rgest timber wolves of the Everwood, but it's apparent that whatever made these is bipedal." She pointed up to several scratches on the wall of the castle about two stories up. "It pushed off the wall there, nded on two legs here and rolled forwards to help absorb the impact. I'd estimate its total weight to be around five hundred pounds, but the tracks leading away, here, are quite a bit lighter than one would expect for such a heavy creature. I'm inclined to believe-" but before she could continue, she was interrupted by the appearance of Princess America, who approached the two swiftly, lifting the skirts of her exquisitely beautiful dress slightly to avoid tripping on them.

  "Cassia!" she cried as soon as she was close enough.

  "Hello, dear," the older woman replied, giving her an affectionate hug. "I was just looking over the tracks left by your nighttime admirer."

  America ughed. "Oh, dear, do you think I offended him by calling the guards?" she asked, her eyes dancing with mischief.

  Cassia's eyes glinted in answering fun. "Oh, I think you needn't worry about that, since it seems he couldn't resist saying hello again ter on."

  America's face became serious. "Do you know what he was?"

  "Let's find out, shall we?" Cassia turned back to the prints. "So as I was saying, I'm inclined to believe the creature was of near human intelligence, at least. The way it paused right here for a moment to look back up at the balcony, not to mention the way it rolled, nearly identical to the way a Monk would tumble when undertaking a significantly long drop, makes me believe that whatever it is, a thinking mind drives it, and it did not come here by accident."

  "When it stared me down in the alleyway, it seemed intelligent. And anyway, why would a monster leave me unharmed when I was so wholly in its power unless it could reason?"

  "The more savage Dark-races' minds work in strange and unpredictable ways, my girl. Today, a minotaur may allow you to walk within several feet of it without deigning to notice you, and tomorrow it may hunt you across a mountain range just because it caught a whiff of your week-old trail. But I will admit, it is odd. If it was as intelligent as its actions would lead us to believe, then why would it come to the city at all? If it wanted you for any purpose, why did it not take you in the alleyway? I find it difficult to believe that your weight would have been a factor. And it could not have come here to kill you, or it would have done so st night."

  "Do you think it could be reted to the smuggling ring?" America asked, frowning at the prints on the ground before them.

  "I suppose it's possible, but I rather doubt it. If something like that had been prowling the city for long, someone would have seen it. No, it may be loosely reted, but... what do you think, Flint?"

  "Something that rge must need to eat a considerable amount in order to sustain itself. If it has been hiding out in the city for any length of time, it could only do so unnoticed with the assistance of an individual with a substantial income. Theoretically it could be connected to the smuggling ring, but it would be foolish to assume so with the paltry amount of evidence we have."

  Cassia followed the trail through the gardens to where Fenrir had scaled the wall, and then returned, closely examining every footprint. "Not much more to be gained from these tracks," she finally said. "It is odd how deep the marks here are compared to how shallow the ones along here are, as if the creature had suddenly shed two or three hundred pounds between nding in the grass and beginning to run, but I can't tell anything more at present. I'll reach out to my contacts, see if any of them have heard anything about giant wolf-like monsters, but I wouldn't count on getting any positive answers back."

  After a silence of several moments during which everyone stared at the initial point of impact as though it would suddenly yield up more clues to their questing eyes, Brandis spoke. "Well, come in and get freshened up before dinner. It won't be a vish affair, at least not by the standards of the pace due to the short notice of your arrival, so you should be able to enjoy it."

  "Thank the gods for that," Cassia smiled. "The st thing I need is a twelve course banquet. Give me some meat and potatoes, and I'll be perfectly satisfied."

  "You may not be able to recognize them, but there will probably be some meat and potatoes in the meal somewhere," America ughed. "If you want really pin fare, I'm afraid you'll have to perform a hostile takeover of the kitchens. Charles would never countenance such a thing under his watch."

  TheBestofSome