The Time Mage

Chapter 20: The Tale of the 'Breaker of Promises'

Kason found an opportunity to escape after around another half hour. Philera stood up, announced that she was going to get a drink and left for the shop entrance, leaving Kason with a perfect opportunity to make his getaway. He got up, thanked Perceval for getting him lunch and said goodbye to the others before leaving back in the direction of the monument.

After transferring back to the college's plane of reality, he made his way back along the paths that led towards the junior dorm building. As he walked, he thought about the invitation that had been forced upon him by Philera and shivered subconsciously.

The words 'should be able to get away with it' kept dancing around his mind and he was loath to think of what that phrase meant. 'Of course,' he thought as he walked through the main building to get to the courtyard, 'They could just have been struggling with money or something like that, it isn't necessarily something that will get people into trouble...'

As he entered the junior dorms though, he remembered the look that had been on Philera's face when she said that and such naive thoughts evaporated into thin air. "That was the face of someone planning trouble..." He muttered to himself as he entered his room.

Kason spent the rest of the day in his room trying to think of how to somehow worm his way out of having to attend whatever it was the Botanists were planning in two weeks time without appearing rude or ungrateful. In fact, he was afraid that if he failed to show up, then they might find some way to get back at him and he didn't want that, having already seen some of what they were capable of.

It wasn't until he had had dinner and was changing to get into bed that he remembered the things he had bought during the day. He fumbled around in the top he had been wearing and pulled out two crystals, both light blue in colour. One contained the lumber he had bought and the other, the little black box in which was the necklace.

He put them on one of the shelves that ran around the room in a position where he wouldn't miss them and made a mental note to ask someone if they could get the stuff out of them for him. Then he flopped onto his bed, pulled the covers over himself and drifted off into a troubled sleep full of obscure yet terrifying images of various plants committing acts of wanton destruction.

**********

Kason woke up early the next morning, feeling quite cheerful; having forgotten about the invitation he had received the day before. He climbed out of bed, got dressed and then exited his bedroom with the two blue gems safely stuffed into one of his pockets. He walked down the corridor and through the door to the nexus where he stopped for a few minutes and looked around, standing in the centre of the blue-carpeted room. He looked at the labels above the doors, trying to find one that might lead to wherever Supervisor Rayleth stayed or some other staff member who he could ask to take out the items he had bought the day before from the blue gems.

He looked around for a couple of minutes, a slight frown slowly creeping over his face as he gazed at the long line of doors. Suddenly, he felt a thump on his back and he turned quickly to see Harper standing behind him.

"Mornin'," He yawned at him, "What you frowning at?"

"Good morning. I just realised that it looks like there are more doors here than there were when we arrived."

Harper looked quickly around at the doors on the walls, "Really? Well, Brent said that this place adds more floors when it needs them, so they'll need more doors to get to them, won't they? We arrived quite early, after all, so it's no surprise that more people arrived after us, anyway, let's go get breakfast. I'm starving."

The two of them walked into the dining hall, sat down and ordered food from the menus. It popped out of the table a few moments later as usual and they began to eat. As they ate, Kason asked Harper if he knew where he could find Supervisor Rayleth, hoping that he would know so that he could get his purchases out of their little blue gems and store them back in his room before the first lesson of the day started.