The Temple of November stands at the top of Claremont Crag where cold winds slice the air and polish the stars to make them sparkle in the night. On most days and nights in the Autumn Country you would find the place deserted; a classical ruin of grey and white stone with ionic pillars and porticoes all cracked by ivy, ice and age. Tonight, however, a small party of Agents were squatting in the ancient building, preparing to carry out the next in a series of orders from the Proton King.
Sunanon spread his hands to the small fitful fire but there was precious little warmth and he shivered. Despite the fallen stone block near the entrance which shielded it from the worst of the wind, the fire seemed constantly on the verge of losing its battle with those irregular freezing knife thrusts from the night.
"Cold enough for you?" Kark said with a bitter little grin. "It's a lot colder where we're going!"
Sunanon shrugged.
"I know. I have been there remember."
Eryndra emerged from the darkness at the back of the temple, the click of her boot heels surprisingly loud on the bare stone.
"Stop needling him, Kark. He's got enough to worry about without jousting with you."
"Just making conversation," Kark said, his grin widening to show sharp teeth enamelled with a red lacquer.
"How's the link?" Jepson asked. He was greasy, balding and fat but a lot fitter than he looked as more than one of his enemies could have told you - those that were still alive anyway.
"I've left Browning to keep an eye on it for half an hour or so, just to be sure, but the good news is that the thing seems to have stabilised. Looks like we're in business at last."
"When can we open it up?"
"It needs at least a couple of days for the turbulence to settle. No sooner than forty eight hours at the earliest and it may be a day after that before it's safe. We have to watch it carefully and then it's Sunanon's decision. A natural born Realm Runner is a real asset in a delicate operation like this. It's why he's here, isn’t it darling?"
She bent to kiss him on the cheek.
"It should have been much easier," Sunanon grumbled. "I didn't think the Gateway would have been allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair. Whoever is supposed to be looking after this place hasn't done a very good job of it."
"Well we knew that didn’t we?" she chided him. "If this had been a well guarded Gateway with a proper Gatekeeper we wouldn’t be here at all. Relax."
"So what's the bad news?" Jepson asked.
"Bad news"
"You said that the good news was that the link had stabilised. That implies there's some bad news as well. You've been keeping something to yourself all evening. Spit it out Eryndra."
"OK. Unfortunately, the bad news is that we're being followed."
There was a moment of quiet while they all digested this.
"Who?" Kark asked, flat and dangerous.
"Well…" she said, her hands tightening round Sunanon's shoulder. "It’s probably your ex-girlfriend, darling. And she's hooked up with some other man who's most likely a Stability Council Agent operating in disguise."
"The trouble with your ex-girlfriend is that she's not ex enough for my liking," said Kark. He spat into the fire. "If I had my way she'd be very ex and we'd have no problems with her."
"We made a deal," said Sunanon, "No one touches her. I helped you get what you needed at the Moot and I'm helping you use it, so don’t even think about it."
"O yeah that's fine talk from Mr. La De Dah Realm Runner. This wench of yours isn't exactly coming round on a social call is she? It's not going to be 'Thank you for looking after our Token, Mr. Kark and you're welcome to drop in and visit the Stability Council any time you happen to be passing', is it? The Stability Council are out for our blood, 'cos we've shed enough of theirs. You know that. Take a tip from me. Never let sentimentality interfere with business."
"What I want to know," Jepson asked, "is how she's managed to track us? I thought you said that the Stability Council didn’t really understand the true purpose of the Wedge Token. And even if they did, they shouldn’t have been able to guess we were coming here. You haven’t said anything stupid have you, Sunanon?"
"Of course not! I'm not going to throw away my whole life with the Security Council, cast my lot in with the Proton King and then jeopardise it all because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, am I?"
"Well she's found out somehow and I'm starting to agree with Kark. We've all got a lot riding on this operation. We can't afford for it to fail."
"It's the Recorder," Sunanon said flatly. "Of course. I should have thought of it before. One of you has used it, haven't you?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I think Kark and Eryndra know. The Recorder Token. The one that you brought to the Moot as a hostage for the Wedge Token."
"What about it?" Kark asked uneasily.
"We've all been so busy congratulating ourselves on this scheme to exploit the hidden properties of the Wedge Token that we've overlooked a lesser known but by no means obscure property of the Recorder Token.
Who used it?"
"I did," Eryndra admitted after a short silence. "It was a long, long time ago. It was just after I acquired it in a nasty little tussle on Haxapon IV, and well before I seeded it to the Proton King."
"I was just curious, that's all," she continued defensively in the face of accusing stares from Kark and Jepson. "And it was so long ago I'd forgotten all about it."
Sunanon reached his incomplete hand up to his shoulder and squeezed her own where she had left it resting.
"It doesn't matter, I'm afraid. The thing is, once you've used the Recorder it has a link to you as long as you live. Any other user can trace you with the Token. Cerylia must have used the Recorder herself and now she's got a fix on us."
Kark spat into the fire again and Sunanon found himself wishing that he wouldn't. The flames needed no encouragement to pack up completely.
"That's all we need!" Kark said in disgust. "I knew we should have taken the Recorder back as well when we broke the Moot up!"
"Well we couldn’t, could we!" Sunanon said. "They had the thing in a locking field which would have taken half an hour to break and in that time the place would have been swarming with soldiers."
For a nasty few seconds everyone considered the implications. Eryndra broke the angry silence.
"Let's not get into a panic shall we? It's time to remember a few things we have on our side. To begin with, the political deals made by our employer seem to have held fast and the distraction manoeuvres have done their job. The Stability Council haven't launched a massive hunt for us. They've got enough on their plate at the moment and they still don't recognise the true significance of the theft. Of course they're angry but they are being rational as ever (bless their predictable little stony hearts) and they are dealing with a greater perceived threat first. They still think that our exploits at the Moot were no more than opportunist terrorism and they expect to bring us to book all in due course.
"This is only one woman we are talking about here, after all."
"And some other man she's picked up as well", Kark said. "Don’t forget that!"
"Only one woman and one man then," Eryndra continued with a little irritation. "The point I'm making is that it's not a fucking army of Stability Council crack troops!"
She took a deep breath to calm herself and smiled. She still had the final trump card.
"And anyway, she'll be taken care of. Our contact will be accompanying Cerylia and her new friend in the morning and he'll keep a close eye on them. If it looks like she's going to be a threat he has my authority to arrange some delaying tactics."
She kissed Sunanon again.
"Don’t worry darling, she won’t be hurt. We don't need to stay here much longer, after all. Just make sure that you let us know as soon as possible when the link can be opened, won't you?"
Much later, when Browning had returned to the fire with the news that the link was still in place and most of the party had retired to their sleeping bags, Jepson's solitary watch was interrupted by Kark.
"So what went wrong with your arrangements I wonder?" he hissed. "I thought you'd set a trap for the bitch on the Last Lantern bridge? Couldn’t fail, you said."
"Perhaps she didn't go that way?"
"Perhaps. Or perhaps you screwed up. I don't know. If you want a job done properly, do it yourself, that's what I say."
