Postial

The Bedouin had returned to the cathedral of Saint Ashlican. He had been there three times in the last two weeks, looking for sign of his friend Postial. Now his mind raced as he sat and waited, once more in the shadows of the small garden, on the dark side of the cathedral:

Where is that damn Postial? He knows when the pigeon arrives he is supposed to hurry here. I expected him two weeks ago. I was not supposed to be here now. The part of me that imagined this escape is not always strong, and I must go before it becomes easy to stay again; before I fall under her grasp again.

For a long while, it had been easy for the Bedouin to stay here, in the service of Tshandra, a shadow tyrant. Tshandra was wise, and understood well the mechanisms that turned within the minds of her subjects. She knew the power of opposing forces and how they could be manipulated to control the people of her realm. Early on, she had created a combination of two illusions that were extremely successful in providing her with an abundant and proud workforce.

Openly, Tshandra nurtured the Illusion of Will. An illusion of freedom, success, and prosperity for the people of her realm, even while many within it suffered.

Secretly, Tshandra employed a dark wizard who maintained the Illusion of Ill. An illusion that clouded the minds of her subjects so they saw the other realms as dangerous, unclean, inept, and hungry to devour all that was good in the realm of Tshandra.

The Bedouin had know all of this before he had arrived in her realm. He was young at the time, and believed his own power to be greater than it truly was, of this he should be forgiven, for he had yet to encounter someone as powerful and seductive as Tshandra and her illusions.

A tree branch above the Bedouin quivered from the movement of a small bird, and this caused his mind to return to thoughts of Postial and the pigeon:

Postial will come, as he has come each time before. He will arrive with the pigeon in its cage, the parcel attached to his belt, and a look of indifference on his face. I hope he will agree to take the cage again -- he is the best courier I have ever dealt with.

The Bedouin was a troubler of wizards, and in the troubling, he had acquired a good many items that had turned out extremely useful in the troubling of other wizards. His enchanted, mechanical pigeon was one such item. It was smooth and silver and smaller that an actual pigeon. It was powerful in its way, able to complete one simple task -- fly quickly and unerringly back to its cage. Being enchanted, it was both strong and fast and could easily carry the weight of a fist-sized rock, at twice the speed of an unhindered normal pigeon.

Most of the time the pigeon was stored in the Bedouin's cloak, in its inactive form -- a small, silver, metallic egg. It had been difficult for the Bedouin to acquire the pigeon. It had been even more difficult for him to discover the magic words that caused the egg to transform into the pigeon.

The cathedral bells rang out three times, loudly announcing the time had come for Postial to arrive. The Bedouin became slightly more alert as the bells brought his mind back to the present:

It is time. If Postial is here, he will show himself now. If not, I must wait yet another interminable day.

Even now, as the Bedouin quietly stewed in the shadows of the cathedral, Postial was approaching, dressed in the thick black robes of a traveling Ashlican monk. The Bedouin did not recognize Postial until he was only a stone's throw away. They quickly made their exchanges. The Bedouin took the pigoen, and the parcel containing the lost scroll. Postial took back the pigeon's cage (to the relief of the Bedouin) and quickly pocketed his standard payment of 101 gold pieces . Postial was extremely superstitious and only accepted payment in certain amounts.

The Bedouin's thoughts quickly turned to his next goal: deliver the scroll and then escape.