Free Wizard's Blood [Part Two] by Bob Blink

of who was to travel through the portal with him had been settled by Vaen herself, who demanded the right and as the Chancellor there wasn’t anyone who could out vote her. She decided the others could wait for another time, partially so that everyone wasn’t away from Cobalo at the same time and partially because she wanted a chance to talk with Jolan alone.
    “ Come on over,” said Jolan, encouraging his two friends who still seemed a bit uncertain how to react. He reached into the Mage’s Box and pulled out a couple of glasses and then a bottle of cool white wine. “We’re celebrating.”
    “ Chancellor,” said Nerila as they approached. “It’s good to see you. I just didn’t expect. . .”
    Chancellor Vaen smiled and patted the stone next to her. Jolan handed her a glass of wine, and then one to Rifod who took a seat as well.
    “ What are we celebrating?” asked Rifod.
    “ The official opening of the trans-Angon travelways,” said Jolan with a smile. “As you might have concluded, we are from Cobalo. The portal there works just like these two, which answers our questions about the system.”
    “ We only saw the one additional option displayed when we left the library, so I assume the others haven’t reached their destinations yet.”
    “ That appears to be the case. We will just have to be patient. I’m hoping they are within a day or two of opening the portal in Seret and up by the lake. I’ll admit to being a bit anxious about Asari and Luzoke since they had a dangerous path to take to get where they were headed.”
    “ Jolan has been telling me about the impressive work you two have done for him. I must say, I’m also impressed by the nice surroundings you have while away from home. It’s been a very long time, but I seem to recall roughing it a bit more when I was engaged in similar pursuits. Have you two uncovered any more secrets while Jolan has been traveling?”
    “ We have learned a bit more about the portals,” Rifod explained. “As Jolan expected, there is a means of turning on the entire system, something we probably want to keep under wraps for now. There is also a means to force open a portal, so a group can pass without everyone having to make a destination selection individually as we do now. There also have been hints that there is a way to remotely turn on or off a portal, but we haven’t located any specifics. That would be incredibly useful, but it doesn’t seem to be in the materials we’ve sorted through yet.”
    “ Unfortunately we’ve found nothing about. . .” Nerila let the sentence drop and looked at Chancellor Vaen. It was obvious that she wasn’t certain how open Jolan had been with her.
    “ About Tilano,” Jolan finished for her. “Chancellor Vaen knows all about our search for the city. So we are still in the dark about just where and how the city is hidden. Somehow I didn’t think it would be as easy as we’d like.”
    “ We found another library,” said Rifod who’d wanted to tell Jolan immediately, but wasn’t sure if he should say anything in from of the Chancellor.
    Both Vaen and Jolan looked at him sharply on hearing this.
    “ Another library,” said Jolan. “Where?”
    “ We found another walkway. This one went under the whole city and survived. There are other buildings that are like the ones we’ve seen, some heavily damaged, others only partially so. About a half mile out in the desert there’s a huge library that has mostly survived. We just found it the other day so we’ve barely had a chance to start investigating what is there.”
    Chancellor Vaen nodded to herself as if something had been confirmed. “The records claimed that Ygooro had the largest gathering of books and scrolls in the known world. It was one of the reasons it was so often sought. I was a bit surprised when Jolan indicated you had uncovered a rather small library.”
    “ There are more books there than I’ve ever seen,” said Nerila. “Far more books than