"I could explain," the Sage said casually, "but I don't particularly want to spend hours doing so. And admittedly, I don't always understand it all myself." He shrugs. "We have work to do."

"'We'?" Emily raised an eyebrow, but stayed on her knees. "Interesting choice of pronoun."

"Yes, I suppose it is." He sighs. "You're involved, though."

"I am?"

The Sage waved casually towards the corner where Grant sits, almost idly playing the lute. "Through him. And her, but less so," he said, indicating Lessia, "mainly because she's connected to this mess through him, too."

Emily nods. "So it's an off-world problem."

"Valusians kidnapping women for 'breeding stock' is a pretty big off-world problem." He sighs again. "The sort of thing that gets Sages up out of our libraries. We all know the rules, we're not supposed to take locals across worlds, especially without permission, so a group of Valusians abusing a Bard to do that means that we have to make a reply."

"But that's what Sages do, not Wanderers or Bards."

The Sage shook his head, a crooked grin emerging. "We plan, we prepare, we look into possibilities. Wanderers and Bards do the dirty work."

Emily rolled her eyes, but smiled up at him all the same. "Ugh. Sages. Lessia, we shouldn't have come here."

Lessia snickered. "I'm not sure that we really had a lot of choice."

"Curiosity is strong motivation."

"Especially," the Sage said, "for a Wanderer. Some have said that it's the only motivation for a Wanderer."

Lessia grinned. "Oh, not the only one, I hope."

Emily glanced over at her naked companion. "Definitely not the only one."

Lessia flushed prettily and said nothing, her question answered.

"So," Emily said, "what do we do about Valusian kidnappers?"

"Well, uh," the Sage looked at Lessia. "First of all, I need to speak privately with Emily, so would you mind taking your seat?"

"Huh?" Lessia said. Then she looked down at the end of the table. "There?"

"Right where you saw yourself sitting before. Or will... Nevermind the temporal mess I've made of this. You know where you're supposed to sit."

Lessia smirked. "What if I sit in a different chair?"

The Sage crooked an eyebrow. "You're going to mess around with causality just so you can be a bit of a brat?"

"Maybe I'm gonna be a bit of a brat just so I can mess around with causality. Whatever that means."

The Sage laughed. "We're wasting time. Fortunately, I can fix that."

"What do you—" Lessia began, but stopped when the Sage waved his hand in her direction.

"Please take your seat, Lessia," he said.

"Yes," she replied, her voice and expression blank. She moved to the far end of the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Emily swallowed. "Is it odd that I just found that extremely hot?"

"Not at all," the Sage said. "You can stand up, if you like."

Emily hesitated. "I'm actually quite comfortable, is... is that... wrong?"

The Sage shook his head. "This is something predictable." Almost as an afterthought, he reached down and touched the silver collar around her neck. "You like this."

"I do."

"And you like what Lessia can do with it."

Emily swallowed. "Yes, very much."

"This has come up before in your life."

"A few times." Emily felt the heat in her cheeks.

The two of them shared a smile.

"Has it come up in yours?" Emily asked.

The Sage nodded. "From the other side of things, yes."

"So what you did to Lessia just now, and last night..."

He chuckled. "Very hot, yes."

"Well isn't that interesting." Emily grinned. "So me kneeling here in just a Wanderer's skirt, telling you this..."

"Would threaten to make me do the same to you as to her, except that the collar keeps me from controlling you."

"Unless I trust you."

"Which you shouldn't."

She reached up and touched the collar. It was cool under her fingers. "Why?"

The Sage raised his hand, as he had when he'd commanded Lessia to her seat, and he contemplated it and his words. "I manipulate space, and time, and people. I'm right now manipulating your two companions, and I'm about to send you on a dangerous journey to break up a kidnapping organization. There's nothing about that that should make me trustworthy."

Emily chuckled. "As far as I know, this is normal for Sages. You are a mysterious bunch."

"Also not something that should inspire confidence in Sages generally, or me specifically," he said with a laugh, relaxing. "Especially given what I've just put the three of you through."

"What, a nice long walk on a very pleasant afternoon?" Emily laughed back kindly. "If that's a hardship for a Wanderer then the Wanderer's in the wrong profession."

"The lost clearing?"

"Mmm," Emily muttered. "That was lovely. Even if Lessia had to throw water on us to cool us off."

The Sage considered this. "What about the terror field?"

"I got to rescue Lessia, you probably did me a favour."

He tilted his head. "The unbound time and space in your path?"

Emily giggled. "Well it was a fun puzzle to solve. And like I said, a nice day." She paused a moment. "Doesn't mean that I trust you, Sage, only that I'm open to the idea of trusting you."

"But, you prefer to be on your knees."

Emily leaned closer. "Just because I don't trust you yet doesn't mean I don't like this."

The Sage's hand reached towards her head, but he pulled back, seemingly cautious, but not frightened.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nothing's wrong," he replied. "There is just an order to these things."

"An order? To what?"

"The way things happen." He smiled a bit ruefully. "Or will happen, I suppose. You understand how Sages operate?"

Emily frowned. "Not... not really. There was some discussion of these things when I was learning, but..."

The Sage nodded. "We are told that Wanderers concern themselves with the present. Where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, what they are able to do in that moment. And Bards, of course, deal in the past: what has happened, where they were, and so on; collectors of ancient lore and myths and legends from times before the Great War, or even earlier eras, or tellers of tales of things that they have done.

"Sages, though? We are most enamoured with the future. What will be done, how we will do it, what the consequences of our actions will be. It gives us a strange view of things. And what I see right now is that if I take advantage of what my powers have brought me, there is too much could go wrong."

"Go wrong? Like what?" Emily asked.

The Sage waved slightly with his arm. "The feast could be left incomplete."

Emily giggled. "You want me to stop an interplanetary kidnapping ring, and you're worried about your dinner guests?"

"Never underestimate the power of a party," he replied, smirking.

"So what's the point of all this, then? Getting twelve people together? And why is Grant in the corner and not at the table?"

"It will be necessary, yes, and because he has not been invited to the feast."

"But he will be?"

The Sage thought for a moment. "It is possible. I only see some of those who occupy the chairs, but I can tell that they are all occupied."

"Any clues?" Emily asked, curious.

"About their identities? Some, yes. But some of them change over time. One day I'll see someone completely new at the table, another it will be someone who's moved to a new seat, and the next time I check it will be the same person, but older, or younger..." The Sage smiled. "If I'd known that muddling in matters of time, space, and probability would be so confusing, maybe I'd have gone into a different field. But Lessia has been solidly in that spot consistently since..." He pulled out a silver pocketwatch and flipped it open, thinking. "Um. Uh, it's been since yesterday morning for you, but she's been there about three weeks on my timeline."

"A difference of twenty days?" Emily blinked. "Uh, maybe it's better you do the Sage things. I don't know that I could keep that straight."

"Now try it for a dozen seats, and constantly shifting times, places, and chances." The Sage shrugged. "Everything gets messed up so very quickly. Part of the training is trying to help us figure out what's important information as efficiently as we can, so we don't waste hours staring at the same puzzle to no avail, only to have it change in front of us the moment we make progress."

Emily shook her head. "I just go places and do things."

He nodded. "Live in the moment."

"Do what comes naturally."

"Explore and discover."

She smirked. "Kneel, when appropriate."

He smiled at her and that time did reach down and stroke her curls. "Is it appropriate?"

"You were the one who said it might not be."

"I never commented on the kneeling," he pointed out, removing his hand, "just on my reaction to it."

"To the kneeling?" Emily asked.

"To having you kneeling there in just a skirt," he clarified. "We're getting off topic here."

"I like the topic we're getting on to."

"That's probably just left over from the spell I used last night to calm you."

Emily put her hands on her stomach and opened her eyes wide. "Wanna do it again?"

"Yes. But not right now."

Emily sighed, feigning disappointment, and let her arms fall. "Alright. So we're going to deal with these Valusians."

"You are, yes," the Sage clarified. "I'll give you all the help I can."

"But you won't come with us?"

"Do you want a group of mind-controlling narcissists to get their hands on a Sage?"

Emily took a breath, thinking. "No, I don't think I do."

"Alright then," the Sage said, as if that sorted everything out. "You're going to need Grant and Lessia. Grant first, though, you need to go with him back to his hideout."

"Alright, but he doesn't know where that is, and I don't really want to wander through the forest until we stumble over it."

"And that's where you need me." He seemed a bit smug. "I can manipulate time and space, and you and Grant can walk back along his timeline to yesterday morning."

"What do we do there?"

He pursed his lips. "For now, you take note of what you find there, make sure you can find your way back there, and then you come back here. Nothing too complicated yet. We need to know what's there before we can decide how to proceed."

Emily got to her feet, bending a bit to make sure that everything still worked after being on her knees "Okay, so I just grab Grant and go?"

The Sage got to his feet as well. "Not this Grant, no. You need your own Grant."

Emily opened her mouth to say something, then closed it. After a second, she asked, "What?"

"That Grant is borrowed from some time in the future. I just needed a Grant, you need your Grant."

"I'm going to stop pretending that I understand anything you say."

"That's fine," he said, grinning. "Your Grant is out wandering the field of fractured time and space."

"How am I supposed to get through there and find him?"

"Oh, it's much easier from here." He offered his hand. "Take a walk with me?"

She took it graciously. "Will it make any sense out of this?"

"Probably not."

Emily shook her head with a grin. "Alright, show me anyway."

The Sage led her through a winding maze of corridors, more than could possibly have sensibly fit in the building. "We have to avoid the other Emilys," he said unhelpfully.

"The other... and why?"

"Yes, other versions of you, and because if we don't, there's a chance that the interaction could be... bad."

"Bad?"

The Sage shrugged. "It's easier just to add corridors and move differently through the space each time."

"How is that easier?"

He just smiled and shook his head again. "You're not a Sage," he replied. "It's my job to worry about this. And besides, we have other things to discuss, beyond my very Sage-like machinations."

Emily smirked. "You so clearly want to talk about it."

"Yes, well." He looked a bit uncomfortable. "We really don't have time to get into all of it."

"You're gonna impress me with Sage cleverness later."

"I might not be the only one," he says as they emerged into the cool evening air. The Sage's garden was lush and green, full of local and exotic flowers and trees. A neatly-kept path ran through it, which the Sage led them down. Like the halls in his home, the path branched and twisted more than seemed reasonable or possible.

"Are there more Emilys around here, too, that we have to keep away from?" the Wanderer asked.

"Yes, and other things to worry about."

Emily soon spotted the fence that she had seen surrounding the garden when they were out in the field. "This is a very strange place."

The Sage chuckled. "Try living here a while, it doesn't get easier."

They stood at the fence. Emily looked out over the open field. Several figures moved about in the distance, far enough off that she couldn't really make out who they were. Often if she stopped concentrating on one, she'd look back to where she remembered seeing it and it would be gone.

"Maddening, aren't they?" her companion asked, startling her.

She nodded. "Who are they?"

"They're all you, Grant, and Lessia, popping in and out of various points in time and space."

"They're all us?" She looked again, incredulous. "There's got to be a couple dozen people out there! And the whole time we were walking it was mid-afternoon!"

The Sage pointed out one figure in particular. "There. That's Grant. That's the Grant you need, actually. Just focus on him. Keep your eyes right on him, don't let him out of your sight."

Emily did as she was asked. "Why that one?"

"Because if you grab another one, either that one won't happen, or it'll be one you from too late who's less useful to you. That's the ideal Grant."

"So if I get one too early, what, he's not ripe yet?"

"If that helps the metaphor, sure, we can go with that." The Sage sounded a bit helpless. "Actually, that's the first time Grant is alone. All the other Grants you can see that are behind him on the timeline are still tied to an Emily or a Lessia, or both."

Emily decided not to ask about the 'or' in there. "So I need that Grant. What do I do after I ... catch him?"

"Meet him, explain what's going on, and walk backwards along his timeline until you reach this morning."

"Now you're being confusing again. Just when I get things sorted out."

The Sage scratched his head. "Okay. Try to think of time in terms like a Sage does. Ah," he held up a hand quickly to keep her from responding, "the first thing that we're taught is that time has direction, there's a 'forward' and a 'back,' just like opposite points on a compass. Later things get more complicated, but for now there's 'future' and 'past,' and you need to take Grant and walk 'pastward.'"

"Okay, how do I know which way that is, exactly?"

"Listen for the lute," the Sage replied. "The lute is in my dining room, right? If you can hear it, you're going towards the dining room, which is forward in time from where you're going to intercept Grant."

Emily rubbed her temples. Too much of this could give anyone a headache, she said to herself. "Okay, once we walk back along his timeline to this morning?"

"Not just to this morning, you want to reach a point where he's already left his hideout but before you broke his horn, then see what happens when his horn breaks. From there you'll probably want to use your home charm so you can find that place again. And... well, that's about it, really." The Sage shrugs. "Find the place and time, and come back here."

"And I guess to get back, then we go towards the sound of the lute?"

"Good guess," the Sage smiled. He looked Emily over once more, and she got the distinct impression he was looking for his own benefit, not for any need of the task at hand.

Emily laughs. "At least something makes sense. So I just hop the fence and..."

The Sage nods and indicates the way forward with a wave of his hand and a half-bow.

Emily put a hand on the waist-high fence. "Two questions before I go..."

"One, we're not using the gate because we don't want to get in Lessia's way, and two, if I could do this, I would, but I can't."

Emily frowned. "I can see why everyone hates Sages." She vaults the fence easily, landing lightly on the far side. "I don't suppose I could get a top?"

"You only ask now?" The Sage grinned, a bit incredulous.

Emily blushed. "I just don't want to burn..." She put her hands lightly on top of her breasts. "I'm sure you understand."

"Ah." It was the Sage's turn to blush. "I do understand. Unfortunately, I don't have anything hand. At hand. Handy."

She grinned and winked, taking a little perverse joy at actually flustering him. "I will somehow survive." She gave him a wave, fixed her sight on the right Grant, and headed off to meet him.

It wasn't long, maybe a minute, before she could hear the faint sound of the lute. That made sense, given that she was moving towards Grant's future, although how the lute carried that far... She stopped thinking about it, questioning it just made a mess of the already very odd matter of dealing with a Sage. The lute is forward, quiet is back, Grant is forward, listen to the lute, go towards Grant.

Listen to the lute, go towards Grant. Simple.

The distance was covered impossibly quickly. Grant had been at the edge of her vision, barely distinct, and Emily had figured a couple hours' walk, assuming Grant didn't walk towards or away from her, but with no particular reason, the distance closed in minutes, not hours.

Grant—who she had briefly forgotten was a topless as she was—seemed as surprised as Emily. "I was just wondering," the Bard said, a bit wide-eyed, "if I was ever actually going to see either of you again, once the ropes came loose."

"Oh I think you'll be seeing a lot of us in the..." Emily blinked. "In the future. Gah, this mess with a Sage..."

The Bard nodded. "When someone can manipulate time and space, they can sure be strange about it. You've been to the end of the road, then? Metaphorically."

"Yeah, it's a very big palace inside a very small house, and a very big garden surrounded by a small fence. And you're already there, and so is Lessia."

"That sounds like a Sage, definitely," Grant laughed. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Near as I can figure, we're supposed to walk backwards to this morning, so we can find your hideout, and report back what we find there," Emily explained, sitting down on the ground.

Grant sat down next to her. "Need a break?"

She nodded. "Just to sort all this out."

"First rule of thumb," Grant said, taking her hand. "Sometimes it's better to let Sages sort themselves out, just do what they say, or don't, and go along with things. We don't always need explanations."

"Oh, but he so wanted to tell me," Emily replied with a grin, squeezing Grant's hand. "I don't know if he was trying to show off or if he just can't help trying to sort out the confusion."

"Probably more the latter. It's Bards that are the show-offs, of the three of us. Sages tend to be reserved."

"I don't know, this one seems a bit too smug for just that," Emily giggled. "But he's really nice, don't get me wrong. He's got a banquet set up for us and everything."

Grant grinned. "I do love food."

"A universal trait, I think."

"Then," Grant said, getting to his feet and helping Emily to hers, "we ought not to keep the Sage waiting. Were you given any indication of which way is which?"

Emily nodded. "Yeah, you're playing the lute in your future, so if we hear that—"

"Lute is the wrong way, alright. I hope I can hear it, too."

"I guess we'll find out." Emily offered Grant her hand, and together they walked across the field, not speaking so they didn't miss the sound of plucked strings.

"Oh there it is," Grant said a moment later. "Yep, 'My Bonnie Lass a Fair Deelai Be,' that's definitely something I play."

"Don't know that one."

He guided Emily away from the music. "It's an old, old story. Boy meets girl, boy finds out girl is a window into an intergalactic multidimensional hivemind, boy gets absorbed into the collective."

"A timeless love, no doubt," Emily laughed.

"Well, yes, in that they're both part of an immortal cybernetic commune." Grant shrugged. "I can imagine worse fates, personally." He held up a hand for silence, then nodded and continued in their new direction. "This sounds like the right way."

"It's like a maze of music," Emily commented as Grant led the two of them in twists and turns through the apparently open field. "If we just randomly walked this way, would it have taken us back to this morning?"

"Ask the Sage," Grant grunted, concentrating. "He's probably busy keeping the path open for us or something."

"Why not give us a straight road, then?"

The Bard shrugged. "The future is everywhere. The Sage probably opened the only path he could through it, or maybe just the best path."

Emily thought about that for a moment. "That actually makes a lot of sense."

"The return trip should be easier."

The forest loomed ahead of them, almost suddenly. Emily was sure they were approaching it, but she couldn't really have said how long it had been getting closer, or even that it had been, until it was right on top of them. Definitely making progress, she thought, and marvelled, too, at how much better Grant's hearing was than hers; it was rare that she could hear even a note or two above the rustle of the wind.

"We should be able to avoid the effects of the terror spell," Grant said, "but we should probably stay off our old path, too."

"The Sage said a lot about not running into my past self, I assume that applies here, too."

"Do you want to try to explain to yourself what you're doing, exactly, in a way that doesn't make you choose to do something else?"

Emily grinned. "I think you just made more sense in one sentence than the Sage did in fifteen minutes of trying to get me to understand."

Grant squeezed her hand. "That's what we do, Bards. Make Sages understandable and make Wanderers sit still."

The territory looked familiar, at that point, although even to the seasoned Wanderer, one tree did look a lot like another.

Grant held up his free hand again and came to a stop. "I hear us."

Emily strained, listening. "What do you mean?" she whispered.

"I hear us, talking."

Emily paused, and could make out three familiar voices, though not what they were saying. The two of them waited, listening.

"Wait," Emily said, "if they're in front of us and we're travelling backwards, won't they be walking away from us if we walk towards them?"

The Bard seemed about to answer, then stopped to think about it.

"So we could just keep walking and they should be staying at a distance."

"I... think you're right, yes."

Emily took a step forward. "Only one way to find out." Grant resisted the pull for a moment, but shortly after that let her drag him along. Sure enough, as they followed their own trail backwards, they would often hear the indistinct chatter of their past conversations but never actually saw their previous selves.

And then they heard the splash. The two of them looked at each other and flushed. Emily giggled. "It'll probably be a little different this time," she said.

"A pity," Grant replied.

They stared in each others' eyes for a moment. Emily felt herself getting warmer, and not just in her face.

"Lessia's not here to rescue us this time," Emily pointed out.

Grant took a slow step towards the clearing where they had been trapped that morning by the distraction magic. Then he paused. "I don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed."

"What is it?"

"The music," he pointed out. "We don't continue along this road."

Emily listened closely, and could pick out a few notes in among the strange birdsong and laughter in front of them. "But it's the way we came this morning."

"My path must have crossed this place before you rescued me," Grant explained, walking in a small circle while holding Emily's hand. He pointed. "That way!"

The two of them forged on through the woods with renewed energy. It felt like they were close to their destination. Emily looked up as they picked their way through a copse of trees, carefully pushing branches aside, and realized that the sun was rising. Or was sinking in the east, she supposed, as they walked backwards across time.

"You couldn't have picked a clearer path?" Emily asked as the third leaf struck her in the mouth.

"Apparently not," he said, coming to a halt. He held up his free hand again.

Emily listened for the music, but couldn't hear it. She did hear someone pushing through the trees. Grant put his finger to his lips and pointed. Emily looked, and saw Grant as he had been dressed that morning, carrying the horn in his hands.

"We're here," the Bard murmured as they watched his previous self walk by. "Guess we don't have to worry about him coming back."

Once they were sure that the younger Bard had gone, they headed in the direction he had come from. Almost immediately, Emily felt a physical warmth chasing away the cool of the new morning, and a moment later, they made their way into a small clearing. A bedroll sat on the ground, running the width of the space, with a small heating crystal on a stand next to it, which was doing a fantastic job of warming the area around it, and was probably designed to ward off precipitation and small insects as well. A little further in were four tall glass tubes attached to a base, clearly human-sized; in fact, one of the tubes was occupied by a tall, thin, nude, dark-skinned woman with long dark hair, floating upright, defying gravity, arms at her side, eyes closed. She wasn't moving, wasn't breathing, kept in some form of stasis by the device.

"Nice campsite," Emily said. "Not sure I care for the decor."