Following the Mage

Fortunately the mage's attention was focused on the fleeing woman and those who were chasing her, and Astra did not think that he had noticed her. Then something rather strange happened. The pursuers suddenly stopped, and looked around them in bewilderment, as if wondering what they had been running for. Eventually they turned around and went back the way they had come.

Astra thought that the mage must have cast some sort of befuddlement spell on them to allow the woman to escape. If she was really Mercury and he was after her, then it would no doubt have complicated his plans if they had got to her first.

Whilst Astra had been distracted by observing the mage and what had happened to the woman's pursuers, the woman herself had run on and had disappeared from view. Astra had no way of finding her again, but it occurred to her that the mage very probably did. So if she could manage to follow him without his becoming aware of her, admittedly a risky thing to attempt, then he might well lead her to Mercury. (For her initial suspicion that the woman was Mercury seemed to have been confirmed by the mage's evident interest in her.)

She saw the mage looking at a large ring on his finger, but he was too far away for her to tell whether or not it was her grandmother's. Perhaps it was a different ring: one that had some link to his quarry, and that would allow him to track her? In the same way that - Astra theorised - her own grandmother's ring had allowed either the same or a different mage to track Astra herself.

After looking intently at the ring for a few seconds the mage set off along the street. A little further on he turned into a narrow alley. Astra followed at what she hoped was a discreet distance behind him. Having walked all the way to this city in the hope of finding Mercury, she wasn't prepared to give up now, even though that might have been more prudent given how events had unfolded.

When Astra turned into the alley:

1. She was just in time to see the mage enter an inn some thirty yards down the alley.
2. She almost collided with the mage, who was waiting for her. He knew who she was.
3. She almost collided with the mage, who was waiting for her. He was aware that she had been tailing him, but he did not know her identity.

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