Night passed uneventfully. After everything that had happened that day, Liraeth had almost expected something more to occur, that the trials and tribulations they had faced would continue. But it was not the case.

They ate the small meal that Liraeth had prepared, the mushrooms not quite charred beyond recognition were still somehow palatable, he was relieved to discover. After that he had applied the burn ointment to Tenth's hand before the other man had laid down on his back and fallen asleep. Liraeth almost wished he could lie down beside him and do the same, but it was wise to stand a watch in this forest still. There might have been other denizens of the ruined castle that fled into these woods less agreeable in nature than his current companion. 

So he kept the watch, his back propped up against the nearest tree to the fire. Whenever the flames got too low he tossed another log onto the it, eking out a little pool of warm light against the cold night that pressed in around them. The moon was high overhead and bright, save for when the odd wandering cloud crossed its path. The stream beside them kept up its babble through the night, its rhythm punctuated by the odd call of the owl or fox in the woods beyond.

Sometimes Liraeth would find his eyes lingering over the sleeping form of Tenth, his rest seemed fitful, he tossed and turned near continuously that night. Liraeth had hoped that sleep might be a welcome reprieve for the Knight who's waking world held such horrors that had been inflicted on him. He had hoped that unconsciousness would be healing balm to his damaged mind, just as the salve had been for his burned hand. It did not seem to be the case. 

He wondered if Tenth could dream of things he could not remember, of his life before he had been cursed and his will taken from him, or of what had truly happened back there at the castle. Although would that be a dream or a nightmare? Liraeth knew that sometimes memories or versions of memories, iterations, recursions, could surface unbidden in the unconscious mind. It was perhaps especially true for traumatic ones, Liraeth had experience enough with that himself.

But the Knight did not call or cry out in his sleep. Merely continue his fitful slumber, gradually drawing closer to the fire as the night wore on. So perhaps he was getting some reprieve from the horrors after all, and for that Liraeth was glad, and so let the Knight sleep for as long as he could. It was the least he could do considering his own hand in causing Tenth suffering his evening.

Besides the watch, there was one other piece of business that Liraeth still had to attend to, he had neglected to contact his superiors for too long. The council would be desiring of a report now that he had arrived at his destination.

He rose for his seat amongst the tree roots, stretching his tired and aching limbs as he did so, and made his way to the bank of the river. Amongst the sand and shingle of the bank, small still eddying pools of water formed away from the main flow of the stream. Above him the moonlight was bright silver, shining down onto the still water it was almost reflective, like a mirror. 

This would serve his purpose well enough.

Liraeth let his power flow through him. He mumurred the words of a spell as his fingers traced softly over the surface of water, faintly glowing streaks left in their wake as he traced runes of seeing, runes of speaking, runes that would seek, and runes that would find. 

Suddenly the reflection in the water was not of his own face staring back at him, and night sky above, but somewhere else, very far away, a room that he knew well. The light of the moon touched this riverbank, and that same light touched many other far aways places too. Where that light was reflected back at itself, a conduit of light itself could be formed.

His fingers traced words in the common tongue now, not runes of power. But their rippling wake still left a faint glowing mark on the surface of the water, and on a mirror, in a study, in a city far far away. 

[i]'Master, I arrived too late, another dead end, only destruction and ruins, although there was a survivor. I return to the Conclave to receive your guidance.'[/i]

When he was finished he let the spell drop away. The luminous writing on the surface of the water faded, and the reflection it held was once more just the moonlit sky above. Liraeth felt fatigue sweep over him, he had cast a number of spells this day and required rest himself. Slowly, he dragged himself back over to his perch by the fireside and Tenth's sleeping form. 

He probably should have woken the Knight then to take his watch and gotten some sleep himself, but Liraeth fought the call of sleep for hour or so longer, until his eyelids were drooping and he was half awake himself. Only then did he allow himself to gently wake Tenth for the second watch and fall into merciful arms of oblivion himself, content in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion. 

[center]_____________________________________[/center]

It was a little past dawn when he blearily awoke to the sound of birdsong. At first he rolled over in an attempt to shut out the sound, closed his eyes against the bright sunlight that streamed down through the tree branches above. But then he knocked against a tree root and suddenly remembered exactly where he was, and what he was doing, and who he was with. 

Suddenly, Liraeth sat bolt upright, his head turning from side to side to look around quickly, sending the dangling pendants of earrings swinging as he pushed his hair back from his face.

He had been worried then, that something had happened, that Tenth might have disappeared while he was sleeping, wandered off into the forest or worse. But the Knight was still there in their little camp sitting with his legs crossed, his hands clasped over his knees, his face turned away from where Liraeth slept to where the cacophony of the dawn chorus rose from the forest beyond.

At once his posture relaxed, he allowed himself to lie back against the trunk of the tree once more. But sleep would not return to him now, so instead he stood and stretched, stirred the smouldering embers of the fire. From his pack he pulled a pair of apples. Biting into one of them he walked over to where Tenth was sat watching the forest and offered him the other.

"Good morning Tenth, how are you feeling?"