Chapter 240: Namir’s Leg

Chapter 240: Namir’s Leg

“Life isn’t a race. It’s a relay.”

Dick Gregory

“Where are we?” Were the first words out of Namir’s mouth. While I could keep the spatial vault open enough to look out of using my expanded senses, it was far more straightforward to close it when I was not within, and Namir did not have access to the same skills I had. He had been confined for the entire flight south so far and was happy to be no longer contained as he had missed everything that had passed as we crossed the endless ice.

“An hour south,” I quickly answered. Tracking the time was easy, but tracking the distance was a little more challenging without comparing it against the mental map I was making. “I think we covered around 50 miles,” I estimated as I made the comparison.

“A day’s travel for a common man in an hour.” He sounded impressed. “I’ll have to push hard to match it.” He seemed excited at the challenge. “Any problems?” He asked as he cracked his neck and took in our surroundings.

“No, we kept low enough not to draw too much attention, and Stamfar accompanied us south, making us a harder target,” I explained. “Are you happy to take over?”

“Yes, it will give me a chance to stretch my legs,” Namir answered, bouncing on his feet. He generally seemed happy to laze around when I trained, but I guessed there was a difference between lazing around with the freedom to leave and being trapped within my spatial vault. “How exactly will this work, then?” he quizzed.

“I’ve anchored the spatial vault’s entrance to this,” I said as I removed the runed mithril necklace that Varvara had forged for me before we had left the Thorpe from around my neck and proffered it to him. The tiny runes etched into the surface acted much like how the giants used their stone glyphs to hold open the entrance when they used their versions of the Lodestone Wyrm’s cores, allowing me to anchor the entrance to a moving object. This would allow the spatial vault to be carried by Namir with me within it while I meditated and regained my mana for another flight. In this manner, we would leapfrog our way south in a relay until we found the next village where we could rest and review our progress with hopefully updated maps and a new direction to head in.

Namir held the necklace before him while I expanded the entrance again, allowing Nyx and me to enter my spatial vault for the next leg of our journey. Namir waited for me to close the entrance to the size of the necklace’s central pendant before he placed it around his neck. Our view shrunk to a peephole from which we could view the world. But that did not stop my senses from looking out from within.

“Ready when you are,” I shouted, my voice emerging from the pendant around his neck. Namir shifted in surprise before setting off as if he had not been surprised—our view bounced as he started to lope ever southward.

Once he had started moving, he replied, “And here I thought I’d have a quiet run south without your smart mouth.”

“I’ll leave you to your run, then,” I answered before turning away from the tiny exit to the outside world. To be honest, the way the view was bouncing all over the place as he dashed south was a little disconcerting. I looked away from the exit at my internal space before I contemplated the experiments I hoped to test out within the spatial vault.

. . .

“Yes?” The child responded before stepping out into the blinding white light of the arctic wasteland. His black shadow, Nyx, slipped out after him, wings flaring to feel the arctic wind no longer bothered by the cold. Then the portal closed, and Kai retrieved the pendant from the crag.

“It’s time for a bite to eat and a swap if you have recovered enough mana. Even if you haven’t enough mana for a full hour’s flight, a switch would still be good to lose our shadows.” I explained.

“Shadows?” Kai questioned.

“The wolves.” I pointed out their presence on the last ridge in the distance, where they had halted their pursuit with him reaching the tor, climbing, and stopping. They seemed happy to bide their time, wait him out and wear him down.

Nyx hissed as he noticed the silent sentinels on the horizon watching us from afar.

“Yes, I have enough for a flight,” Kai answered.

“Food then?” I moved on to the next matter of importance: my stomach.

“What are you in the mood for?” Kai questioned.

“A bit of bear curry would go down well.” I knew some gifts the giants had given Kai were a wide variety of dishes sealed in stone pots stacked on the shelves in the spatial vault. Already cooked, sealed in airtight stone pots, and kept cool by the ice giant’s core, they would last for a long time and only needed reheating to make the meals edible once more.

“Bear curry it is.” Kai grinned, producing a pot from thin air. “You picked a nice spot.” He added, commenting on the view.

The pot soon self-heated from the stone glyph carved into it. Such straightforward glyph carvings were simple steps for stone wizards to add to the stone pots they had fashioned for us. We soon ate well and regained some of the energy I had expended on the run.

“Your turn next,” I told Kai once he had made our meal's evidence disappear into thin air. “They seem to have found their courage and are moving closer,” I commented on the arctic wolves slinking ever closer to the tor we had temporarily rested upon.

“It's my turn,” he agreed, opening the portal to his spatial vault before me. I’ll see how far I can get. Maybe I will see Drangavik before running out of mana.” He added.

“Just remember to stay low and land before they see us. We want to enter the town on foot rather than fly in. We will be strange enough travellers as it is.” I reminded him of the plan to pass through the towns on our way south without creating too much trouble.

“I remember.” Kai nodded as I stepped into his spatial vault. We would have to see if remembering made any difference to his actions. I remained ever hopeful, but if our last couple of weeks were anything to go by, we might need to flee more than ice giants before our journey home was over.