Spell of Fate
As Maximillian the Vaguely Disreputable comes close to solving the laws of conserving magic and tapping the gods' power base, the Creeping Sword is drawn more deeply into the fight between warring deities.
Approx. 137,437 words.
gency, as dinner or lunch. The horses and Max had for the moment fish-eyed each other to a standstill.
Nothing snapped at Jurtan out of the water, and a quick splash took some of the edge out of his own snappish mood. He was almost back to their small camp when he saw the strange device standing near to the shoulder of the road at the edge of the treeline thirty paces or so west, in the direction of Peridol.
"What's that?" said Jurtan. It certainly wasn't another signpost, unless it was pointing the way to a place you couldn't get to on a horse, and not a place merely across the ocean either. One of the trees, a small sapling really, had been stripped of its side branches, leaving little more than a wooden rod protruding upward from the ground to the height of Jurtan's head, a rod with a prominent root system still anchoring it to the ground. A carved icon had been strapped to the top of the tree facing the road and was doubly secured there with a peg. Jurtan couldn't make out any detai
