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as the thumb of his left hand gestured toward Braun.
    “There’s no qualified authority to issue such a permit,” Braun shrugged.
    “Well, if there
were
such an authority, I would see to it that your license was revoked forthwith!” the dwarf spat back. “You’re reckless—playing with all our lives!”
    “We’ll never learn anything if we don’t experiment,” Braun replied. “We need to grow. See a bit farther over the horizon than we have…”
    “Are you casting aspersions upon my height?” Jugar grumbled, his fingers playing on the handle of his ubiquitous ax.
    “Jugar! Please!” Urulani said, trying to remain patient. She was tired and the bickering was not helping her disposition. “What did he do?”
    “What did he
do
?” Jugar exclaimed. “What
didn’t
he do, more like! Did you know that this human charlatan leaped down from the dragon ahead of me? A feat in itself considering how anxious I was to get off that fell beasty!”
    The titles that the Council of the Prophet had bestowed upon several of its members were supposed to help define the boundaries of authority between each but sometimes they were more of a nuisance than a help. Jugar was appointed “Master of Aer” while Braun was titled “Master of Aether” although he protested that Aether was what the elves called their magic and that “Anti-Aether” might be a better term. No one else understood the distinction and thus Braun became the “Master of Aether” anyway. All of this was of great distinction between the two of them but of little help to the rest of the army as the difference was completely lost upon the common warrior.It was all just “magic” to the army and whatever they called it was firmly in the province of the two “wizards” who were its masters. This left the two to bicker over the details between themselves with an animosity that had been building steadily ever since they were first introduced to one another. The War Council had decided it would be a good idea to have Jugar and Braun dropped into the subatria of the Governor’s home in Port Glorious ahead of the ground-bound army to remove the Aether Well before the garrison of elven warriors could counter their attack. This, apparently, had ignited yet another argument.
    “You were both assigned to assault the Aether Well,” Urulani shrugged. Her head was beginning to hurt again. “He was just doing his job…”
    “He was doing
my
job,” Jugar interrupted indignantly. “More than that, he did it
wrong
!”
    “Wrong?” Urulani chuckled. “It worked rather well for a mistake.”
    “No mistake that,” Jugar sputtered. “He deliberately reversed the Well!”
    Urulani shook her head, not understanding. “What?”
    “I reversed the Aether Well,” Braun said again with his cockeyed smile. “I listened carefully to the stories Jugar told upon your return. He is quite in love with the sound of his own voice and so wasted no time in regaling everyone with ears as to the details of your marvelous quest among the ruins of Drakosia. I was particularly interested in that part of the story where Drakis was in the Citadel of Light and how he opened the Aether Well.”
    I was there. I tried to help Mala—only Mala found her own way to die and I could not stop her. Mala said she was going home and then the dragon Pharis ended her life. I fled through the resurrecting ruins of the ancient city, walls suspended in midair as they tried to reassemble themselves into the city that had died so long ago. How could I explain to Drakis what had happened to her? How could he ever forgive me for allowing it to happen at all…?
    “Did you understand?” Braun concluded.
    “Sorry,” Urulani replied, returning to the present as she spoke. “Tell me again.”
    “As I was saying, that led me to believe that with the opening ofthe lost Wells of Drakosia, the drain on the Rhonas Wells has put a strain on them. I believed I could duplicate the opening of the Citadel