Wordcount: 606 words
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary:
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One if by Land and Two if by Sea
The trip back out of the cave system was uneventful, and once it became apparent that there were no additional traps awaiting them, the trio started to relax.
“So you were with the Band of Nine?” Gray asked as he tossed the glowball further up the tunnel.
“Sort of.”
“That’s what the mask said, but I don’t see how it could be both.”
“It’s complicated.” When Gray gave her a disbelieving look she sighed. “Okay, so it’s less complicated and more something I’m not going to tell you. Just assume I was good friends with Westin Glory.”
“You knew Glory.”
Wendy nodded.
“Glory’s been dead over a thousand years.”
“And that would be the part I’m not explaining. Just let it go.”
“You’re traveling with one of the Moon Goddess’s blessed horses, you claim friendship with the Shadow God’s chosen avatar, and one of the Masks of Heliovan just handed you the Flute of Five Winds in exchange for your life. One of the seven instruments the Gods used to create the world and that’s apparently a fair trade.”
“Apparently.”
“Do you even know what the flute does?”
“It defeats the Clockwork Sorcerer,” Wendy shrugged, “beyond that I really don’t care.”
Gray looked as if he were about to say something, but then closed his mouth again, frowning.
Getting out of the caves was easy, but getting back out of the canyon proved a more complicated problem. There were stronger rapids downstream from the sandspit that lead into the caves, and neither Wendy nor Gray was willing to risk the swim. There was also no way for them to get back upriver. The current was too strong for either of them to swim against and they had gone too far in to be able to pull themselves out along a tow line. And that was assuming they could get a message to Moonstar that they needed a tow line.
Which left straight up as the only option. Having brought the standard adventurer’s 10 feet of rope, Wendy figured they could have Moony and the Black pull them up and out of the canyon. Only the canyon was closer to 40 feet tall and the opening at the top wasn’t big enough to fit a person through. They also had no way of getting the rope up too the horses, since Rock-rock couldn’t carry anything with him when he phased.
Gray let her struggle with the problem for a bit, then pointed out that the flute controlled the elements and she could simply reshape the rock. Wendy wasn’t sure if he was just being polite or if he’d been curious how long it would take her before she realized she had blunt force magic at her disposal.
So she played them some stairs up to the top of the cliff to the tune of When The Saints Go Marching In, and then put everything back into place with This Land is Your Land since Row Row Row Your Boat seemed a tad too silly. She wondered what impact using children’s songs to reshape the world would have, if the very nature of the songs would somehow leach into the underlying firmament. But the rocks still looked like rocks when she was done, so left it at that. Wendy was pretty sure that if it was that simple to sing evil out of the world, someone would have done it by now.
Riley and the Black were ecstatic to see them step up out of the canyon, but Moonstar seemed disappointed. Wendy waited until they’d setup camp for the night before she cornered him to find out why.
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