“When you said you ‘secured transportation’, this was not what I pictured,” Lianus said, clutching at the straw bale he was seated upon in the back of the rickety hay cart that was waiting for them when the plane touched down.

“Sorry, sir—er, Lianus,” Morrian—make that Gem—said, swaying back and forth with the rocking of the wagon like he’d been born at sea. “Kestleton is a long way from the nearest city. I doubt there’s a car for a hundred miles.”

“Wanna bet?” The ancient woman driving the wagon looked back over her hunched shoulder, her dark eyes twinkling within the folds of her wizened face. “That fool, Ben Mikkari, bought himself one nigh on twenty years ago. Everyone said he was wasting his money, but he said he’d have the last laugh when they put a petrol station in town. He’s still waiting.”

“Really, no fuel stations out here?” Lianus asked. He glanced at Gem. “Remind me to look into that when we get back to the office.” He wasn’t in charge of the oil and gas companies, but he knew who was, and they owed him several favors.

“Yes, sir,” his assistant said, pulling out his tablet. He tapped at the screen a couple of times, then grimaced and put the device away. “No service, either.”

“No shit? I thought we flew across the kingdom, not back to the stone age.”

“If it was the stone age, we’d be walking,” Gem said, his lips quirking in a small smile. “The wheel wasn’t invented until the bronze age.”

“I think I’d rather be walking,” Lianus muttered under his breath, glancing over the weathered wooden rail at the rutted dirt road beneath them. “How much farther?”

With a chuckle, Gem pointed behind them, where Lianus’ private jet could still be seen, gleaming in the sunlight at the edge of the runway.

###

Thalon blinked, squinting in the afternoon sun after the shadowy gloom of the Dungeon. He breathed deep, taking in the fresh air, the smell of the trees, the tang of wood smoke. It was good to be out of that maze again, even if he’d had to leave almost empty-handed. The coins in his pocket clinked forlornly as he scrambled down from the transport platform, the huge block of black marble laced with thin veins of magic-conducting blue quartz crystal pulsing with energy.

Walking cautiously, he made …