Any crossing over a body of water lent Ilyien no small measure of unease. His clothing and his boots were spelled - always - but his instinct strongly warned him against nearing that element which could harm him easily. In Ylric, during the rainy season of the desert, scores of phoenix worked in shifts to maintain psionic shields that surrounded their city in a sphere - above and below ground. For weeks after the rain, more shifts ran to heat the ground and burn off the deeper water of the rain. Nothing grew in Ylric but those few plants meant for the alchemists - and those precious things were carefully tended in pots of earth and stone. So it was not only instinct but also his own society which warned him away from the river now. Such conditioning was useless in the Outer Realms. One could not function and avoid the water as well. Even still, he was the last to board the ferry.
The children were pleased - as was Aeotha, it seemed - to be so close to what they termed their home. What must it feel like, to rejoice at the return of the place where you were born? Ilyien knew no such feeling. His was a sentence that would last until the end of his lives - and when he finally drew no more breath from the sky above, he would not return. His son would not know when he was gone. The Obsidian Circle would not know. All of this was underlined by the laughter of the slaves, muted but still joyful, as they stepped onto the bank of the river.
Ilyien paid the boatman twice - once for the first and once for the second trip - and set boot on solid ground again. The loaned horse had been returned - along with ample compensation - to the man of Tyr whose cottage they'd left behind in the early morning. He himself carried the saddlebags on either shoulder - burdens that slowed him down, but not as much as one would have expected, despite the weight that they seemed to carry. Indeed, he moved with a quiet, hard confidence under the weight as if he had carried it - and more - countless times before. And he had. Saddlebags were lighter than bodies.
"The temple of Tyr is an hour across the city," he told the slaves, careful to address them instead of only Aeotha. There was a comfort in knowing what to expect, and he wished to give them as much of that comfort as was possible. "Stay close to us, even in the city," he instructed. "If you hold onto each other's hands, then it will be easier for us all to assure that no one is lost."
Now he looked to Aeotha, and the message was clear. She would lead. It was proper that the protector follow, to assure the safest vantage point. And the girls would feel better seeing her before them all. With her elvish heritage, she almost glowed with the light of her goddess. Ilyien did not find women in flesh forms to be attractive, but the holiness Aeotha carried around her was as beautiful a thing as he had seen. Perhaps the slaves saw it as well.