Besides the rebels keeping watch on him, the agents of Duke Cronos were on the lookout as well for any rebels in their midst. After the fall of Girondin, security was tightened and a climate of fear gripped the capital. It did not take much for a person to be spirited away to the dungeon. Some would successfully plead their innocence and be restored to their homes and families after a day or two. Others were not so fortunate.

In spite of all this, Scipio did not waste the opportunity to seek potential recruits among the conscripts. He never identified himself as a member of the Alliance, nor did he ever directly solicit anyone to join. For the time being, he simply gauged sympathies. Few of the Notian conscripts were eager to throw their lives away for the Zephyrians in the cursed lands of the East but fewer still dared to speak their opposition. The imagined perils of the Darklands were far more distant than the immediate threat of imprisonment, torture and death beneath the palace grounds. The dungeon came to be known as the 'Near Hades' as opposed to the 'Far Hades' of the Darklands.

Besides the rebels spies keeping watch on him from day-to-day, at times Simona would visit him to provide updates on the Alliance's progress and to seek his counsel when Rowland deigned to hear it. Generally, he was not trusted far enough to be given many specific details, lest he surrender that information to the Zephyrians, willingly or under duress. When he was given detailed information, it was obviously a decoy to test him and possibly to entrap the Zephyrians. Regardless, he never divulged the information.

For two years this continued. He trained the conscripts in the magical arts and refined his own craft to be better suited for combat. In his forty years of hermitage in the tower, he had studied magic for its own sake, but now his study and practice was being channeled toward a specific purpose. Little did the Zephyrians realize that they were honing a blade that would be turned against them.

The Alliance had been mostly quiet since the previous summer, when an attempt to seize Iakobin in the south was thwarted. Rumors abounded of a spring offensive. All Scipio had been told since Simona's last visit was to be ready. That was over a month ago. He made his preparations and waiting for the day to come, if it would come.

The day started much as any other, rising at dawn and going to the designated chamber for their training. The walls of the chamber were reinforced with magical barriers to absorb all but the most powerful spells. It strained the chamber's capacity to hold any more than fifty men, which was nearly as many conscripts as they had.

The Royal Mages' Circle had its own system of ranking mages in addition to the army's rank system. For his skill level, Scipio was awarded the title of master of the first rank and named centurion of the volunteers. His authority did not extend beyond the conscripts and even then, he was subordinate to the regular officers of the Legion. The Third Legion had two centuries of battlemages divided among the four cohorts distributed throughout Notos. It was deemed that the centurions needed to be deployed to the front where their skill and experience would be needed, leaving the half-century in Maximilion in the hands of an optio, Master Crescens. In truth, though he was addressed as 'master' out of respect for his position, he had not yet attained the rank of master mage. This was a source of some tensions between him and Scipio.

They began their morning exercises with meditation, attuning themselves to the flow of the æther currents. At times it was like a river and at other times like the rolling waves. The more you harmonized your mind with the flow of the currents, the easier it was to harness their power.

Their meditation was disrupted by the sounding of the buccinae. It was nothing so ordinary as a call to assembly. It was an alarm. They were under attack. The time had come.

He and one of the adepts who assisted him promptly left the chamber. That left one other, Demas. Though it would have been easier if he found some excuse to entice Demas to leave, Scipio could think of no way to accomplish it without raising suspicions, so he went forward with his plan anyway.

With a wave of his staff, the doors closed and were held fast. It was Demas who first went to one of the doors. When it refused to budge for him, he turned to Scipio and demanded, "Master Scipio, what is the meaning of this!?"

More to his fellow conscripts than to Demas, Scipio replied, "I am sorry, my friends, but I cannot allow you to interfere. I do not wish to see any of you come to grief, so I will have you remain here until it is over."

Turning from the door, Demas growled, "Tell us, damn you."

He uttered a word of power and Demas was stricken dumb. It would prevent him from doing much harm.

Scipio then told the conscripts, "When this is over, should the Alliance triumph, you will have a decision to make. You can join us and lend your strength to winning back this nation's freedom. You may leave the service and return to your families. Or you may seek out the Zephyrians, if any remain, and join them on their mad quest to the East."

Demas looked furious, but making fearsome faces and shaking his fists was about all he could do while he remained under the spell's power.

Truly, he would rather have stayed in the chamber and waited until it all was over, but there were some six and twenty battlemages that remained on the palace grounds and few among the rebels could stand against even the weakest among them.

The palace grounds were in chaos. Bodies of legionaries, servants and rebels all lay strewn about amid din and fire and smoke. Scipio stood the risk of being attacked by all sides. He had no assurance of protection from the Alliance and the Zephyrians could well lash out at anyone in their struggle to regain control of the situation.

Casting a few shielding spells to offer himself a measure of defense, he then sought out the nearest trace of magic. It led him to the Lion Gate, where it seemed that Zephyrian was fighting Zephyrian. What madness was this?

He noted some of the Zephyrians had orange bands on their arms. They were wearing Alliance colors. Had he not heard that Prince Carpos of Zephyr threw in his lot with Rowland? This indeed made for a bitter fight.

If the Prince's men were their allies, it stood to reason that he should lend them his aid. With the two sides locked in battle, it was difficult to distinguish one side from the other, but it was easier to target the flanks of the garrison. A simple spell to throw their minds into confusion would cause the flank to crumble and speed their rout.

As soon as the spell had been cast, though, arrows flew at him from both sides. His barrier protected him, but if a battlemage or two focused their attention on him, he would not easily fend off all of them at once.

He was looking for cover when someone came running toward him from gate tower, braving arrows along the way. He was no Zephyrian, obviously, but he had to be half-mad to go out into the open like this.

Scipio followed him into the tower. He did not fail to notice a legionary and a couple servants lying dead on the floor.

Ah, yes. Simona had her own network of spies, a troupe of travelling entertainers. They could move easily from place to place without arousing much suspicion. Infiltrating the palace must have been their latest mission.

Scipio should have figured as much. He had not seen Rowland in person for so long that he wondered how much the young rebel captain would be willing to incline his ear to an old man's voice. He would have to find out later.

Iacquo nodded.

Iacquo wagged his finger at the old mage teasingly, warning him, "Ah, be careful about words like that, Master Scipio. You might find yourself held to them."

For a man to be light-hearted enough to make jokes in the middle of a battle made Scipio's own heart feel lighter despite the all the grim goings-on. He could not help but smile.