God Mage by D.W. Jackson

calmed
down. Once her sobs subsided and her shoulders quit trembling, Bren
gave her a tight squeeze and started walking toward the entrance.
Without letting go, Faye followed him, her hands gripping his shirt
tightly and still slightly trembling.
    The pressure he had felt the past three
visits to the building was gone. It would seem that they didn’t see
the need for it, or they feared he would turn it against them once
again. Either way, it made him slightly more at ease knowing that
it was gone.
    As they entered the room, Bren noticed that
the elders had drawn looks on their face. Bren hadn’t expected a
happy reunion, but he didn’t expect such a tense atmosphere either.
The auras of the elders were different than normal, though they
still kept them close to the chest, so it made it hard for Bren to
know what they were thinking. All he could tell was that they
didn’t all agree on what was about to be discussed.
    An overbearing silence filled the room as
neither party seemed to want to be the first to talk. When it
became clear Bren wasn’t going to be the first to clear the air,
the lead elder cleared his throat and shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Things have become difficult…” The elder said, leaving the thought
unfinished.
    “How so?” Bren asked, fishing more for
information. It wasn’t hard to understand what the elder was
getting at, but he wanted to know more about how the elders viewed
the situation, and the only way to do that was to get them to say
more than they wanted to.
    “The Brotherhood,” the elder said after a
tense moment of silence. “They have stopped trying to enter the
valley, but it does not look as if they’re going away anytime in
the near future.”
    “It does look as if they are planning to
stay,” Bren agreed. “But at least your village is safe for the time
being.”
    “Yes, but for how long,” the female elder to
the right said hotly.
    “Enough Mina,” the head elder said, turning
toward the older woman. “It is just as she said. Right now, the
Brotherhood has stopped trying to get into the valley, but they
have camped right at our door, making it near impossible for any of
our people to leave, and while we can feed ourselves…”
    “You don’t want to stay cut off from the rest
of the world,” Bren said, finishing the man’s thought. “How do you
think we can help?”
    “That is where we are having trouble,” the
elder said, shaking his head. “I believe the best choice right now
would be for you to leave and take them with you.”
    “We would be more than happy to leave but…”
Bren said, leaving the thought hanging.
    “Yes. Lord Hayao has told us what you are
looking for, as well as brought the map that you have brought with
you. I have to agree that we cannot let you leave the village with
such a map. If the Brotherhood got ahold of it again, it would be
disastrous for more than just our village.”
    “Then we have a problem,” Bren replied,
raising his voice slightly.
    “Maybe not,” the elder replied in a calming
voice. “Hayao said that you were looking for a specific place that
is on the map. Just as you have asked, we have ruled out all the
places that we know of.”
    “How many does that leave?” Bren asked
slightly excited.
    “Three,” the elder said as he unrolled a
large map of Northern Kurt. The three places the elder spoke of
were each marked with small pins.
    “It would be surrounded by mountains. Hard to
reach,” Bren said looking at the map.
    “This place is near the Forelia Mountains. It
is hard to reach, and there is a town nearby where you can work
from, though it is not a very hard mountain to scale and should
only take you a few days to search the area.
    “That might be it, but from what I
understood, it should be in a more remote location,” Bren said
looking at the map.
    “What are you looking for?” The elder asked,
his voice deepening into a near whisper.
    Bren thought about keeping it vague but he
knew this was