Calliope controlled herself so well that only two ships in the harbor burst into flame and no one in the immediate line of sight was killed. Her clothing rippled slowly into her spiked winged armor and then back to her dress without her conscious notice. A woman carrying a water vase dropped her burden and fled at the sight but her panicked shouts were subsumed into a larger cry as eyes turned towards the rising columns of smoke rising from the harbor. 

“Did you do that?” Beren asked suspiciously.

“Do what?” Calliope replied blandly. Beren held her gaze for a second more and then turned and headed up the terraced steps towards the palace.

The palace was a strange site to Calliope’s eyes. In her own time the only buildings on this scale had been temples, or the great ritual sites of her fellow sorcerers. Her own fastness had been larger than this, carved out of a plate of volcanic basalt by thousands of slaves, polished smooth by the hair of her enemies. She wondered what had happened to it and the other great ritual palaces of her own time. Were they infested by lesser wizards? Had they been destroyed. She hoped that she would soon be able to find out. The compulsion in her head to free her imprisoned master throbbed powerfully, warning her not to get too far side tracked from her arcane imperative. She focused on following Beren, allowing the new compulsion to soothe the old.

A trio of guards squatted in the courtyard, playing dice on a large mosaic floor that depicted a trio of ships sailing into the sunset. They straightened as Beren strode in between the two carved obelisks that marked the entryway. They snatched up halberds and took positions in front of a large door of polished brass. They relaxed as they judged that the travel-stained Beren was no threat.

“Begone peasant, the Lugnal’s kitchen distributes scraps only on high feast days,” the leader sneered before his eyes slid to Calliope.

“Or are you a pimp conveying merchandise to his Highness? That might be a different matter,” he leered. Beren seemed to flash into position between the guard and Calliope, perhaps naively believing that a merely physical barrier might prevent her from flaying the insolent brute where he stood.

“I am here to inform the Lugnal of his expedition to the South,” Beren called out, “an expedition that is near to his heart and that he lavishly supported.”

“Wait…. Weren’t there a group of you?” one of the other guards asked.

“There were, I am all that is left,” Beren called. He arched his eyebrow meaningfully at Calliope who gave no response, then stepped out of the way. The guards exchanged worried glances before coming to an unspoken decision.

“Go ahead then, and know that you will regret it if this is some ruse,” the leader of the guards declared. Calliope fixed him with a look that left no doubt about how much more he would regret it if they ever crossed paths again, and then swept past in Beren’s wake.