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frame on the wall.
    â€œWhat’s that for?” asked Felistia.
    â€œI don’t know…wait, there’s a little, brass plate on it. It says, ‘Map of the Eastern Lands and the Black Fortress of the Ultimate Wizards’. There’s that ‘Ultimate’ word again. Knowing how lazy Zatarra is, he wouldn’t have bothered with this without some kind of good reason.”
    â€œLike, maybe, it showed where they planned to take your brother?”
    â€œMakes sense to me. If they took Darvid east, as the title of this map indicates, I can see Zatarra convincing the queen to send me west to the Sorcerer’s Retreat. As far in the opposite direction as possible. I really wish I had that map. Let me think…” She stood silently for a minute or two, then said, “Aha! I remember the spells I need—the Adobe spell and a couple of others. Fee, search around and see if you can find some paper, parchment, anything like that. We need a piece as big as that map. You take the right side of the room, and I’ll take the left.”
    After several minutes, Felistia yelled, “I got it. He had lots of stuff on and around the desk.” She brought the sheet back over to the frame.
    Berlina took it, placed it over the frame, pulled out a small knife from her kit of witch’s tools, and trimmed it to the exact size. She pulled out her wand and spoke several spells. Slowly, a faint image of the map that had been there appeared and darkened, until it was identical to the original. Another spell bonded the image to the sheet of parchment, and when Berlina took it down, she had a map as good as the original. She looked at it briefly before rolling it up for ease of carrying. “We’ll study this in detail later. Right now, I think we better get back to our room.”
    She led the way out the door, turned, and reset the locking spell Zatarra put on it. She checked that the glamours were still holding. Then the two wound their way back through the maze of corridors to their room. The two guards were still lying unconscious in front of the door as the girls entered. Once inside, Berlina removed the glamours. Then, she stuck her wand out and woke the guards.
    â€œWon’t they report this incident?” asked Felistia.
    â€œNot on your life. Reporting this would mean they failed in their duty of keeping us here, and they would be in worlds of trouble. Since it looks like nothing happened while they were knocked out, I guarantee they’ll keep their mouths shut and pretend they were never asleep. Come on. Let’s look at this map.” Berlina went over to a table one could not easily see from the door. She spread out the map, and the two girls started to study it.
    After a few minutes, Berlina said, “It looks like everything of interest is up into something called ‘The Forlorn Mountains’. The Black Fortress of the Ultimate Wizards is to the north and some place labeled ‘Castle of Prince Quince’. Prince Quince?”
    â€œThat’s one heck of a name,” said Felistia. “Look, there’s some faint writing…your spell didn’t copy it too well. It looks like someone crossed out Quince and wrote…damn, it says Drailsen!”
    â€œYour eyes are better than mine, Fee. I can hardly see anything there. If someone obliterated the original name, that suggests Drailsen conquered this Prince Quince and took over his castle. That’s very likely where he has taken Darvid.”
    â€œYou don’t think that Zatarra might have had Darvid taken to that ‘Ultimate Magic’ place? It sounds like somewhere a sorcerer would go.”
    â€œI suppose that could be, but a few months back, before this mess started, I heard some rumors. There is supposed to be bad blood, severe animosity, between the sorcerers and the wizards. I’m not sure about the distinction between the two groups. Both are magic users, but they are