“It was a ‘chee’ sound,” Rori explained again.

  “So, you’ve said,” answered Trill. “But I don’t know any birds that match that description. Are you sure it wasn’t smaller?”

  Rori shifted on the couch and took solace in the fact that doing so didn’t hurt at all. It was days later. He was miles from the mountain, and he felt no different than any other day. But it was still a fresh miracle in his mind that he was even alive. His hand subconsciously rubbed across the medallion under his shirt.

  “Pretty sure. Do you know of a smaller bird that looked like it? Maybe this one just grew a bit bigger?”

  “There’s a smaller bird that matches the colors. Black beak. Yellow with dark gray feathers.”

  “Does it make a ‘chee’ sound?”

  “Well, no. Not actually. More of a pip sound.”

  “Then that isn’t it.”

  “That isn’t what?” asked Nolan, coming into the room with Ian, Sean and Honoria behind him.

  “The Chee Bird,” said Rori. “Trill says it doesn’t exist.”

  “I said no such thing. I said I didn’t know what bird it was.”

  “Don’t you know every bird there is?” asked Ian.

  “Evidently not,” said Trill sounding a bit put out.

  “Surely you saw it,” said Rori. “It was sitting on a rock nearby when you flew down and changed into the bear.”

  “Sorry, I was a bit focused on the coyotes. I hadn’t seen mountain coyotes before.”

  “Apparently, you’ve never seen a Chee Bird either.”

  “You can discuss it later,” said Dade entering the room with Kedra. “Right now, we are leaving.”

  “Going where?” asked Rori.

  “Away,” said Dade. “But first you have to put on a ring.”

  “What ring? What does it do?”

  “I will make you look like somebody else,” said Nolan tossing a ring over to Rori.

  “Like who?” asked Rori.

  “Nobody in specific. Just not like you.”

  “Okay,” said Rori as he slid the ring on. Based on everyone else’s reaction the ring must have done something, but to himself Rori looked exactly the same. “What do I look like?”

  “A human,” said Honoria, “but a little older. Also, you have a beard.”

  “Really? Why can’t I see it?”

  “Go look in the mirror,” said Nolan pointing.

  Rori walked over and stared at his reflection. It was odd seeing someone other than himself mimicking his actions while wearing his clothes.

  “It’s just another layer of protection. We were always going to be using this eventually. Now we are just using it sooner.”

  “There wouldn’t be any way for you to have walked around the conclave without every assassin in the world being able to take a shot at killing you. Now you should be able to at least see what’s going on. Adding the illusion of a different face to the nondetection ring makes it just that much harder for someone to identify you.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Sean. “We can’t call him Rori.”

  “I suggest Rupert,” said Ian with a grin. “Looks like a Rupert to me.”

  “I know of no Rupert that looks like this,” said Honoria with seriousness.

  “I was teasing,” said Ian.

  “Ah. Then yes. Rupert. It is funny.”

  “Not anymore,” said Ian.

  “You pick something Rori,” said Kedra.

  Rori looked again at the face in the mirror. “How about Karl?”

  “Karl? You don’t look anything like a Karl,” said Ian. “You look more like a Rupert if you ask me.”

  “I heard nobody ask you,” said Honoria in total seriousness.

  “Are you teasing me, now?”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “I don’t know what it is you are talking of.”

  “I swear, I still can’t tell when you are serious or being funny.”

  “Karl it is,” said Dade redirecting the conversation again. “When Rori has the ring on everyone should just call him Karl. If anyone asks, we’ve hidden Rori in another secret location. Kedra will be taking pairs of us away to various places every so often to keep up that ruse.”

  “I’m not staying here then? Not that I know where ‘here’ even is,” said Rori.

  “No, we’re moving you again.”

  “Won’t people be with me?” asked Rori. “Where are you hiding me this time?”

  “We’re going to hide you in the most obvious of places,” said Nolan with a grin. “In plain sight.”

  “You there, new boy!” shouted Brand across the crowded room. “Take these mugs away and bring us another round.”

  “Don’t mind that lot,” said Delores. “They may look like a rough bunch, but they are really quite tame. Especially the big one. A giant puff ball that one is.”

  Rori looked across at his friends gathered around their usual table at The Laughing Green and sighed. He understood that for his disguise to work everybody had to act as if they didn’t recognize him or even talk to him, but this seemed like an extra level of cruel.

  Dade had assured him it would only be for two weeks at the most and that was already half over, but it still felt like forever.

  “A puff ball?” said Rori looking back over to where Delores was putting full mugs onto a serving tray.

  “Oh, I know that Baxter looks tough and unkind. I thought so myself at first. But I swear there is something about him. He keeps trying to get in my drawers and who knows one day I might let him.”

  “Really?” said Rori hoping to continue the conversation. “What’s stopping you?”

  Delores looked over at Rori with an appraising eye and then hoisting the tray full of mugs onto her shoulder she said, “If you want the truth, it’s my mother. She’s told me a hundred times that I’m not to marry a man who wasn’t afraid to bring a girl flowers without her having to ask or to sing her a song. I suppose it’s foolish, but I guess I’ve been waiting for that fellow to appear.”

  “Who knows,” said Rori wiping off the table in front of him. “Maybe he will.”

  Hiding Rori at The Laughing Green worked out in most ways to be a perfect set up. It was in Lycea and nearby to a lot of friendly faces if trouble should arise. Nolan and the rest were often in the bar anyway, so they could keep an eye on him without it looking like they were varying their routines. And while the work was repetitious and at times dull, it was easy enough to master, so Rori quickly looked like he was just another bar worker.

  He wasn’t sure how Dade or Nolan had gotten him the job, but however they’d done it when he arrived at The Laughing Green that first day, Malcolm, the bartender, was already waiting for the new employee to show up. Rori wasn’t sure which, if any, of the other employees knew he was not actually Karl. If any of them did, they never let on.

  He slept in one of the small rooms on the second level. Most employees did not live at the bar. To make it not seem unusual, the tradeoff was that Rori also had an extra duty of working the night shift every other day. It meant that he was supposed to take care of any needs that people renting rooms at the inn might have in the middle of the night and that he wasn’t done working until the tavern was closed. Since the tavern was often open until sunrise anyway, it worked out fine.

  The only problem with the arrangement was that there was no real way for him to ever do any training. He had some free time, so he could have done some training if he’d wanted. But doing anything like his usual training regimen would quickly give away that something wasn’t quite what it seemed with Karl. So Rori had to content himself with exercises he could quietly do in his bedroom. For the most part this meant endless repetitions of pushups, sit-ups and the like.

  This was also when Nolan or Brand would sneak into his room to update him on what was going on with the rest of the group.

  “Looks like Dade was right and next week you’ll be leaving behind this glorious job opportunity,” said Brand. Rori had given up counting his pushups and had decided to just do them until he couldn’t anymore. Then after a short rest he would do it again. Brand was currently half sitting, half laying in a chair nursing a mug of ale.

  “What’s going to happen then?” asked Rori. “It will still be over a month until the conclave or at least until we should be there to help get things ready.”

  “Dade’s moving you to another spot. I don’t know where. Actually, I do know that Dade is still working out the details and I believe it is east of here, but then most of Lorenthia is east of here so that isn’t saying much.”

  “How do you even know that?”

  “I overheard Kedra and Dade talking about it. I wasn’t snooping or anything. They just happened to be talking about it when I walked in.”

  “Hopefully it won’t be any worse than this,” said Rori starting his next set up pushups.

  “Could be worse,” said Brand. “You could be laying at the bottom of a mountain, broken to bits.”

  “Don’t remind me,” said Rori with a cringe.

  “Sorry I wasn’t there to fight the phren. I was on duty. I don’t know that I would have caused them to find you any faster, but I wish I had been there all the same.”

  “Thanks. The truth is I’m not sure that finding me any faster would have mattered anyway. If they had found me sooner, they just would have tried to move me and that would have meant a lot more pain.”

  “How long did you end up lying there anyway?” asked Brand.

  “To me it seemed like an eternity. Nolan swears that it couldn’t have been terribly long. Seriously though I would have guessed half the day at a minimum.”

  “Do you remember it?”

  “Too much. Laying there aching everywhere. It wasn’t something I’d like to repeat.”

  “No, I mean do you remember falling?”

  After thinking for a moment Rori said, “I remember being on the cliff. I remember losing my grip. But I don’t remember hitting the ground. It’s probably a good thing that I don’t.”

  “Thank goodness for that amulet of Meredith and thank goodness we found it at that old monastery.”

  “Actually, that reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Rori. “There was a library at that place wasn’t there?”

  “I believe so. We didn’t actually do much real looking around other than that main room. Why do you ask?”

  “Meredith told me I needed to learn her rules. When I asked her where I would find them, she said that they were exactly where I’d expect them to be. At first, I figured they would be in one of her temples, but I did some discrete inquiring, mostly with Jeremy, and he said that while there were primers for acolytes and such, he didn’t think that was what I was looking for. Later he sent me one and he was right. Then it occurred to me that if I wanted to learn about Meredith’s Monks, maybe the place to look was at one of their temples and the only one of those that I know of is the one we were at.”

  “Makes sense to me. I remember there being books in some of the rooms when we were looking for rope and all that, but most of the stuff in that place was rotten with age. I suspect the books fared no better.”

  “It’s all I’ve got to go on right now. You got a better suggestion?”

  “Besides asking Meredith again, I’ve got nothing, but I’ll keep thinking about it.”