Free The Ways of Mages: Two Worlds by Catherine Beery, Andrew Beery Page A

minutes his feet hit a barrier. As he was still underwater this was a cause for concern. He was rapidly running out of air and he needed to break the surface soon or the resistance would be out one newly minted king.
    He twisted around under the water and felt the obstruction with his hands... It seemed to be some type of grate. He doubted an aging spell would work on these bars as they were intended to function underwater and thus would not likely be susceptible to rust. The cement and stone they were fashioned into was another matter. He quickly focused he thoughts on that area and began to work at the stone with both the spell and the blade of a knife he had taken off of the smaller guard.
    God was with the big Grimedian knight.  The material surrounding the bars began to quickly crumble. With the last of his strength and air he kicked at the grate and felt it give way. He quickly swam through the opening and let the current carry him out. Within moments his head broke the surface and he gasped massive mouthfuls of air.
    He was in the mouth of a cave the led out into the bay of what he assumed would be the Caspian Ocean on the western shores of Pershara.
    He had no doubt soldiers would soon be searching this area... If they were not already doing so. Like all Grimedian knights, Thomas was an accomplished and well-trained swimmer. As the ocean was currently calm and the moon had not yet risen he reasoned his best hope for a clean escape would be to float out into the bay a distance and then angle back towards the shore some distance from his current location.
    When he was several hundred yards from the shore he began to feel the telltale pressure on the base of his neck that indicated the nearby use of magic. He suspected one of the Maltacken priests was attempting a locator spell. He hoped his current location, treading water, so far into the bay itself would confuse the priest. If Altana was casting the spell he knew she would be on him quickly.
    He quickly surrounded himself with a hunting shield used by the knights to confuse the senses of prey while living off the land on field exercises. He hoped it worked because he was quickly running out of energy. It had been a month or more since he had had a proper meal and the day would have been exhausting in the best of times.
    After a while he found himself dozing off and gulping in prodigious volumes of salty water. Coughing wildly, he remembered where he was and what he was doing. Barely ten feet away, he saw a sign from God that his trials and tribulations were potentially nearing an end. With two quick strokes of his massive arms he found himself holding onto a lobster buoy. 
    For the first time in hours he could finally rest his legs.  Using the knife he had appropriated earlier, he cut the rope attaching the float to the lobster trap. He was now floating free. A short length of the rope was quickly wrapped around his chest thus ensuring he would stay connected to the float even if he were to fall asleep again. He closed his eyes and let the gentle swell of the ocean lull him to sleep.
     
    ***
     
    Jacquelyn DeCotes stood on the deck of her fast cruiser, the Lucky Blue Wing. The water craft was the best the Island of Grinley could produce. The war in Pershara had now involved her homeland. Word had come that forces within Pershara were attempting to illegally forge Grinlian royal messages by using cleverly dyed pigeons that looked remarkably similar to the Island's coveted and exclusive Blue Birds of Paradise. JayDee, as she was known in her circles, worked for the department of external security. Others might say she was a spy master but such terms were never officially acknowledged.
    Her mission was a simple one. Find who was forging the royal missives and put a definitive stop to it. She fingered the collection of poison augmented darts that formed her seemingly innocent hair piece. She hoped she wouldn't be using any on this trip, but one could never be too