The reaction of the enemy soldiers was everything he could have hoped for. They stared in astonishment and uncertainty, their hands reaching for their weapons but afraid to draw them. Their commander again gestured for the archers and Thomas stood there with a smug smile on his face while they fitted arrows and took aim. The other Beltharans pulled the hoods of their glass ceramic armour over their heads, but none of the arrows were aimed at them and they bounced harmlessly from Thomas's Globe of Force. The soldiers drew back in fear, but the commander only snarled in rage and ran forward, bringing his sword down in a vicious arc.
Thomas felt the force of the blow transmitted through the defensive spell, but the sword was kept a full eighteen inches from his flesh by the globe of magical energy. For the enemy commander, it was like trying to chop a lump of hard rubber which gave only enough to absorb the energy of the impact. In the end he could only back away in defeat, his eyes widening with fear.
Thomas stepped forward, his hands outstretched. "Please, I only want to talk," he said, hoping that it would be as Drenn said, that they would understand the meaning if not the actual words. "I just want to talk."
He smiled to try to communicate his peaceful intent, but the soldiers stared back distrustfully and the commander reached out a hand to an underling who was carrying a burning torch. Thomas stared uncertainly. Fire was one of the things that could penetrate a Globe of Force. If the commander attacked him with it...
There was only one thing to do. He cast another Sleep spell, sending almost the entire group into spell induced unconsciousness, and those unaffected by the spell fled in terror. Moving quickly, Thomas then lowered himself gently to his knees, wincing at the pain in his injured leg, and touched the commander's head as he cast the Language spell. He didn't like doing it this way, as the spell had only a limited duration and some of it was wasted as he waited for the man to regain consciousness, but he saw no other way. Physical contact was necessary between the two of them for this version of the spell to work, and this was the only way he could get close enough to do it.
He felt the spell having its effect on his brain, subtly altering his neural pathways to allow him to speak and understand the other man's language, while at the same time having an effect on his perception of the world so that he saw it in the same way as the natives.
The first thing he noticed was that the room suddenly looked different. Or rather, it looked exactly the same but it... it felt different. That wasn't quite the word, but it was the closest he could come to what he was experiencing. Before, it had clearly been an old room. A volume of space surrounded by crumbling walls and a ceiling, but now it felt more like the inside of a cave. A confined space that just happened to be a regular shape.
The natives, apparently, gave no thought to what these buildings had once been. They were nothing more to them than features of the landscape. They had no sense that they had been built by people, that they had once been shiny and new, full of light and life. They were still used as dwellings, those that were still structurally safe anyway, but only in the way that caves were lived in by some people. If they gave any thought to the buildings at all, it was only to give thanks to whatever Gods they had for the fortuitous presence of so many strangely regular natural caves. It shocked Thomas to contemplate this. The civilisation that had built this city and the ring above must have passed away such an incredibly long time ago that no memory at all survived of them. Not even in the form of legend and folklore.
He tried to communicate as much as he could of this to his friends, pausing frequently to search for the right words, but the native soldiers were already stirring and Thomas spoke quickly, not knowing how much time he had before the spell expired.
"Do you understand me now?" he asked. The look in the commander's eyes told him that he did. "We are not your enemies. We regret the trouble that has taken place between us, but we did not begin it. We are explorers. We came here looking for new friends, not enemies. We would very much like to be your friends."
"You are spies and invaders," stated the commander, however. "To have come so far into our country without being seen you must have crept like thieves in the night. Honest men walk openly in the light of day. You will come with us, to be judged and sentenced by the Lawmasters."
"We will gladly come with you," agreed Thomas with relief. "We will explain our peaceful intentions to your Lawmasters and apologise for any upset we've caused."
The commander spoke to one of his men, who produced several pairs of manacles, making Drenn start and raise his sword. The commander watched the priest of Samnos warily. "You will surrender your weapons," he said, "and you will cease your witchery. You will turn and place your hands behind your back."
Drenn didn't need a translation spell to understand what was going on. "Tell him no," he said, his steel grey eyes burning with menace. "If we go with them, we go as free men."
Thomas nodded, growing worried. "Look," he told the commander, "if we were invaders, we would have just killed you, wouldn't we? You've seen our power. You're still alive and you've still got your sword..."
"Because you know the futility of defying the law. You thought you could pass among us unseen, but you now see that that is not possible and you pretend to be friends We are not fooled. We know what you really are. You will surrender your weapons. Now."
Drenn came striding forward, pushing Thomas aside, ignoring the wizard's pleas and protests. He brandished his sword at the soldiers. "We are on the holy business of Samnos Himself. You interfere with us at the peril of your very souls. Stand aside, or go to judgement."
Some of the soldiers started angrily forward, but the commander waved them back, one eye still on the wizard who'd struck them all down once already and who was still surrounded by his awful aura of power. Clearly, this thing that appeared in human form could not be overcome by conventional force of arms. To attack them with swords and spears would be a useless waste of his men's lives. He gestured to his men to retreat, therefore, and the officer backed away after them. "We will find a way to destroy you!" he called back as he left. "You don't fool us with your fair words."
Then he was gone, leaving Thomas glaring furiously at the priest. "I was making progress!" he cried. "I could have brought him round, convinced him of our good intentions..."
"No you couldn't," said Drenn, however. "It was obvious he'd made his mind up about us. Further attempts at talk are futile. From now on we fight anyone approaching us until they see the wisdom of letting us pass unmolested."
"I don't believe you're saying that! I thought priests of Samnos were supposed to be good guys, not bullies who beat up anyone they meet!"
"We do not initiate conflict," replied Drenn stiffly, "but we are permitted to defend ourselves. To be seen as weaklings would be to belittle the majesty and authority of Samnos."
"These people have never heard of Samnos! To them, we're strangers. Strangers armed to the teeth when peaceful travellers would have no need of weapons. If our positions were reversed, wouldn't you react exactly the same way?"
"I am a priest of Samnos," said Drenn firmly, glaring at the wizard. "I will not be manacled like a common criminal."
Matthew came between them, trying to calm things down, but it was Jop Sonno who brought an end to the argument. "Can you smell smoke?" he asked hesitantly.
They all paused, sniffing. "Yes," agreed Matthew. "Someone's having a fire somewhere..." He leapt to his feet in alarm. "They're trying to smoke us out!" he cried.
Wisps of smoke began drifting in through the door and windows, and Drenn looked out to see a huge pile of deadwood heaped against the entrance, crackling with leaping red flames. Men with blankets were wafting the smoke into the building, while others with bows and arrows were watching the windows. The priest jumped back just in time to avoid a flying arrow. "Upstairs!" he cried. "Quick!"
The five men filed towards the stairs to the next floor up, but they paused on the landing while Matthew tested the floor. "I'm not sure it'll support our weight," he said doubtfully. "If there were only one or two of us perhaps..."
"We've got to go somewhere!" cried Jop Sonno desperately. "We can't stay here!"
Drenn paused to think as the smoke grew denser around them and they began to cough. "We've got two choices," he said. "We can teleport out..."
"There's nowhere in this world I know," protested Thomas. "We'd be teleporting blind again."
"...or we can fight," continued the priest, the look of satisfaction on his face telling the others that this was his preferred option as well.
"We've got no choice," agreed Matthew, turning an apologetic look on Thomas. "We've got to fight our way out of here. We'll be relying on you for some pretty hefty war magic."
The wizard nodded sombrely. He could see when he was beaten. "I've got plenty of magic in me," he said. "Getting out won't be a problem."
"Let's go then," said Drenn. "Before the smoke gets too thick."
They turned and ran down the stairs, but Thomas made them pause at the bottom, where the bonfire blocked the doorway. "This is going to hurt a lot of them," he told the others. "Maybe kill some of them. Any chance of making peace with them'll be gone for good after this."
"It was gone long before you regained consciousness," replied Drenn. "Do it."
Thomas nodded and reluctantly cast Fist of the Father.
The spell worked as well as it had three thousand years before for Tak Eweela. Not only did it blast the bonfire to flaming, flying fragments, but it also took out the entire wall containing the door, turning a ton of stone and concrete into meteoric flying missiles. Thomas froze in astonishment at the power of the spell, but then Drenn was pulling him onwards, out through the gaping hole in the wall, just in time as the ceiling crashed down behind them. The air was thick with dust and smoke, but the wizard could see soldiers lying dazed or dead, one with blood pumping freely from a gash in his head. Remorse and grief swept over him, but he had no time to say anything as the priest dragged him onwards.
"Come on!" cried Drenn. "Quick! Before they gather their wits!"
An arrow flew, bouncing off Thomas's Globe of Force, and Drenn drew a knife, throwing it in a single fluid motion. Thomas spun around to see the archer falling with the knife in his throat. Somewhere, someone was shouting orders and they heard the sound of clattering armour as men ran towards them. Thomas pointed a finger and bolts of fire sped towards the figures appearing in the smoke, taking down three of them.
Others came running on, to be met by Drenn, swinging his sword with practised perfection. A headless man fell at his feet, another fell almost in two halves, chopped through the middle by the priest's whirling blade. Nearby, Matthew, Jop Sonno and Roj Villa stood in a line, swords held out ahead of them, but no-one approached them. The natives were learning that this was an enemy beyond them, that it was nothing but sheerest suicide to face them, and they ignored the frantic screams of their superiors. Some of them dropped their swords and ran. Others just stood, staring hopelessly like rabbits trapped in the headlights of an oncoming car.
The Tharians stood a few moments longer, to make sure no-one was going to pursue them. Then they turned and trotted away.