Bert's Theory

"I'm beginning to form some ideas, which could be wrong, of what the explanation for all this may have been. I think that whoever is responsible must somehow have become aware of your presence, probably during the period of some hours when you were waiting for Wilkes to fetch your horses. My guess is that your encounter with the bear was no coincidence. I think that whoever is behind all this was somehow controlling the creature, and used it to delay you until he (or she) could get me here and use me against you. I don't think that he wanted the bear to kill you. I don't know how he managed to seize control of me, but he got me to teleport myself here, then kill poor Wilkes to get him out of the way, and take Astra."

"Why would this person want me?" Astra asked.

"I have no idea. It may be that either one of you would have done, and that had you rather than Fred gone back to catch the horses he would have had me try to take Fred instead. But perhaps not, though, since the one of you on their own going after the horses might have been the easier target. He evidently didn't have total control over me, which must be why he confused me into thinking that Astra was a sorceress to give me a pretext for my actions. Perhaps that's why he sent me to get Astra rather than Fred. Since I know Fred well, it would have been harder to deceive me concerning him. Unfortunately I have no idea where I was supposed to bring you. Nor why someone who must be an extremely powerful mage should want to use me as a proxy rather than to act himself."

"The last part is obvious," Fred said. "To avoid risk to himself if things should happen to go wrong."

1. "And now that things have gone wrong, I imagine that he's going to try again," Astra pointed out. "Either by using another proxy or in person this time."

Add New Option

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree