The Long Road Home

The little girl in the green pyjamas watched the snow fall out of the upstairs window. She had, to her own certain knowledge, never seen snow before because she had lived almost her entire life in a jungle, living in a tree hollow under the shadow of the Great Skull Rock. The little girl, whose name as we should realise by now was Rachel Rummage, had lived a peaceful life, never wanting for anything, never cold, never hungry but a prisoner all the same, sleeping nights in terror of the giant bat that lived in the hollowed out cave at the summit of the Great Skull Rock.

Rebecca's father, James, assured her that in Levercastle snow fell every Christmas, after which he had kindly explained Christmas to her. Rachel imagined that being cold was always unpleasant, that long nights would make her feel sad and that having to wear wellington boots to avoid wet feet in snow would be a tiresome chore. She was surprised to find that all these things were bearable if you could live in a warm, cosy house called Rainbow Reach with your mother and your father. She had also imagined that living in the world of men, far away from Faerie, would mean she missed all the friends she had made after she had left the Skull Garden.

Happily she did not have to get used to a life where she never saw the brave Sir Cobb, the powerful Phoebe September or the mighty Princess Anabyl Spireshine. Levercastle was a town unlike many others where the little holes in reality that allow the world of men and the world of folk to interact are many. The residents of Levercastle are generally happy with the arrangement because many of them have stories like Rachel's and know that there is more to the world than might, at first, meet the eye.

"Hey you, time for bed means time to get into bed, not time to loll around on the window seat in your pyjamas," said dad, James, coming in to Rachel's bedroom.

"I was just looking at the snow," Rachel said. "Remember I've never seen snow before."

"So which would you rather?" James asked. "Look at snow or hear a bedtime story."

"How about hear a story while watching the snow?" Rachel asked.

James sighed and sat down next to his daughter on the window seat. He watched the snow flakes with her for a minute. Then he asked:

"What story do you want to hear?"

"Tell me a story about when we came here, when Lester opened his brother's grave," Rachel said.

"That only happened in September, honey," James said. "Don't you want a story about Avan Weatherstrong, or one of the stories about Anabyl when she escaped the Terra Draconis after the Vanishing, I just got a parcel from the Archive chronicling Sir Cobb's journey through the Upside Out."

"No, I want to enjoy remembering what happened three months ago," Rachel said. "I just want to hear it like it's a story, but to know I was there."

"Okay," James said. "I guess that would be fun, in a weird kind of a way."

And so James recounted the events of three months previously, as if it was a story, but both of them knew that all of this had really happened:

So the story goes there was once a man who lost his brother and could not find him no matter where he looked. In the end, out of desperation, the man tracked down the Master of Mischief to ask for help with his quest.

"Are you quite sure you want to find your brother?" the Master of Mischief asked. "You may not like what you find."

"All I want in this world is to see my brother's face once more," the man said. "Please help me, or if you will not then send me on my way, for I know that you are prone to play games. I know that not all of your games are kind."

"Do you understand the threads I would have to pull? The patterns I would have to break? The mischief I would have to do to give you your heart's desire?" the Master of Mischief asked.

"If I knew what needed to be done to find my brother," the man replied. "Then I would not bother you. Please, will you help me?"

The Master of Mischief smiled his smile, the only part of the Master of Mischief that remains the same no matter which particular face he has chosen to wear that day. The Master of Mischief knows more than he ought to, for which reason the Master of Mischief lies to people, but always for the betterment of all worlds, or so he tells us.

"I am in a good mood today," the Master of Mischief said. "So I will help you. Go to death's garden and dig with a spade. You will find your brother under the earth."

And that is where the story ends. Well, most versions of the story, for stories are lies, and stories are mischief of the purest kind in all places but one. The one place where all stories are reflections, or chronicles, or accounts is the Faerie Archive at Sommerslip. The story is told there almost as rendered above, but there is one major difference. After the Master of Mischief says 'So I will help you' the sentence ends. Underneath is printed, in neat block capitals:

CONTINUED IN 'THE TALES FROM BRIDGETOWN - BOOK ONE'

Of course Lester Topping didn't know any of that. As far as Lester Topping was concerned he had received a letter from his twin brother Chester recounting that Chester had stopped off in Bridgetown to pick up some supplies and was heading on in three days to a distant shadow.

Having become quite lonely without the companionship of his brother Lester had raced to Bridgetown, got himself lost, missed the window to meet up with his brother and been asked by a curious man in a tall hat to watch a mermaid in a tank. None of that resembled the story of the man who had sought the assistance of the Master of Mischief for help with looking for his brother, for that reason no one who knew the story and travelled with Lester put the two things together, not even Lester himself.

This is how the Master of Mischief works. He lies. For the betterment of all worlds, or so he tells us.

So when Lester Topping found himself in death's garden, looking down at a small wooden box revealed within the tomb that, allegedly, marked the remains of his twin brother, his confusion was, perhaps, understandable.

He was glad that the tomb did not appear to contain Chester's remains, Lester could only imagine how upsetting that would be. Still, that did not completely rule out the possibility that within the small wooden box was an urn containing Chester's ashes. There was no note or inscription to explain the tomb's contents, Chester had proven himself an avid communicator, the content of his communications was gnomic at best.

"You should probably open it," Phoebe said, standing with the others, respectfully, at the edge of the grave site. "You have looked for this place for a long time. Whatever is in there will be your answer."

Would it? Lester wondered as he approached the box and lifted it out of its hollow by the two brass handles hanging from the sides. He knew that it should but now that he was, in theory, at the end of his journey he couldn't convince his brain that the moment was at hand.

The box was not heavy. It had, rather, a reassuring solidity that strongly implied the container's importance. The wood of the box was a nice golden brown, not too dark, not too light, like the burnished surface of a fiddle. Brass corners had been fitted to prevent the wood finish from scuffing or splintering. The handles in the side held firm, appearing as if they were part of the wooden body of the box itself. The craftsmanship of the item could not be second guessed, it was impressive in its simplicity.

There was no lock on the box, just a simple latch, a switch that moved from right to left, embossed with the symbol of the hourglass. With a smooth click the lid was open, Lester lifted the lid on well-oiled hinges to reveal the contents.

The box did not contain an urn filled with ashes. It contained a brass hand mirror, its reflecting surface turned down to rest on a cushion of red velvet. Without even thinking about it Lester picked up the mirror to look at his face.

"What is it?" someone asked, he thought it was Eos.

"I don't know, exactly," Lester said, studying his face in the mirror. "Oh, this mirror is broken."

"What do you mean?" Frederick asked. "Is it cracked? It must have cracked before someone put it in there, no shock would reach it through the earth and the rock and the box and the padding."

"No," Lester said. "It's not cracked. It's just when I talk my lips don't move. My whole face is stuck, like a photograph. I can't even... ah, no. I can wink. I can see my eye it looks like its inside something, like I'm wearing glasses or..."

"Your face," Phoebe said. "It shows you that your face is a mask."

"It does," Lester said. "I've worn a mask, all this time. I didn't even know it." He stopped for a second, he could feel his face smirk although the image in the mirror remained completely still. "That means that when I was at Lady Crimzona's party I was wearing two masks, one on top of the other. How silly."

"Well," Rachel asked. "Aren't you going to take the mask off?"

"I had better," Lester said. "It's been far more fun than I thought it would be to wear a mask for all these days, but now I think, somehow, that it is far more important that I take the mask off. So, here goes."

Lester reached up under his chin and caught the edge of his Lester mask. He felt his false face lift off the surface of his real one. It came away easily, not even fixed to his head by a length of cord. Magic had kept Lester's mask in place, in the mirror it was easy to remove for it was all part of the same spell.

Before Lester could see his real face he turned away from the hand mirror to look at the blank white object in his hands. He looked up at the faces of his friends and smiled.

"How do I look?" he said, playing a game for he already knew.

"Honestly?" James said. "Exactly the same."

Chester's grin broadened, for now Lester knew that he was Chester, his own missing twin brother. The absurdity of disguising oneself as one's own identical twin brother was delicious to both of them. Chester realised that it was he who had felt a small twinge of regret at the need to remember all the things that made up Chester Topping, eccentric, traveller and alchemist. Lester wasn't good for much, that was all part of the mask, what Chester had discovered through Lester was a constant and abiding sense of innocent wonder at the world and all it contained. Sometimes, Chester knew, he was far too clever by half.

"I don't get it," Frederick said. "I don't mind being the first to say it but I am willing to bet I'm not the only one. I don't understand what's happening."

"It's all part of the plan, dear boy," Chester said to Frederick. "All part of my plan to get the Quintessence Crystal into the hands of people better suited to its guardianship than myself and poor Professor Rummage there."

"Professor Rummage?" the gnome asked looking up at James. "And here was I just thought he was a common or garden talking mouse when first we met."

James coloured red.

"I didn't, I don't... remember," he said. "I'm a professor? What of?"

"Well, mostly, folklore," Chester said. "It's a little more complicated than that. As far as the world we come from knows, Jimbo, you are an anthropologist and expert on the mythical beasts of world cultures. Anyone inside our social circle knows that you are the foremost expert on the natural history and evolutionary biology of such creatures, that's a key part to how we ended up in this pickle."

"Dragons," Anabyl chimed in. "James found out about the Vanishing, what had happened, where the crystal was."

"Indeed, brave knight," Chester said. "Most unfortunate for he was not the only party interested in the acquisition of such knowledge. As a consulting alchemist to the Grand Order of the Covenenant of Lies I was sent to Levercastle, Professor Rummage's place of residence, to ensure his safety, and the safety of his beautiful family.

"Alas, I was too late, by the time I arrived the wicked agents of Count Bartolomeo Okulas had already turned James into a mouse, saying that they would give him twenty-four hours to see sense and that they would return on the morrow when they expected he would share his secret. I had to think fast, I came up with a plan that was the child of expedience more than prudence.

"I am, in fact, rather glad that things have played out as they have. I cannot claim any particular good judgement on my own part in that, I rather think that I provided an opportunity for several wrongs to be righted in the great tapestry. Our stopgap measure was, therefore, exploited by the Master of Mischief rather than expedited by him."

"Oh, my dear Monsieur Topping," said a new voice that everyone recognised but nobody could place. "How desperately cynical of you. Why could I not merely have found myself in a giving humour?"

The curious man in the tall hat emerged from shadows that no one could remember being there a moment before.

"Apologies," Chester said to the Master of Mischief. "I did not intend my invocation to carry such strength."

"No apologies necessary, alchemist," the Master replied. "I came of my own volition. Mostly because I like to see those who do not wish to deal with me squirm. Partly because I am tired of this business and would like to see it done."

"What is there left?" asked Chester. "I think I have explained everything."

"Well," Frederick said. "There you and I are going to have to differ. I still don't really understand what's going on. You're not Lester, you're an alchemist who looks like himself and James the mouse is really a professor of dragons and there's something to do with Count Okulas, aside from that... I don't really know what we're all doing here."

"Allow me to fill in the gaps," the Master of Mischief said as his famous grin slowly painted itself from one of his ears to the other. "Chester and James were sought after for James's forbidden knowledge by Count Okulas. The one place Chester knew that James could be hidden that Okulas would not find was the same place that the Quintessence Crystal was hidden. James, his family and Chester came here, to the Skull Garden.

"When they all began to forget things Chester understood what was happening. He forged the Lester mask using the garden's own magic to make the enchantment more powerful," the Master shot a sidelong glance in Chester's direction. "That was very cunning by the way," he said, and then returned to his story. "Knowing nothing but the story Chester had told the mask Chester sent himself away to Bridgetown, Lester arrived. Such a bizarre and powerful magic suddenly manifesting in the Patchwork Market attracted my eye. I settled to study it immediately.

"When I understood what was happening I saw the potential to undo one of the most heinous acts that has ever been committed in all the lands of Faerie. The Vanishing of the Terra Draconis was a work of sorcery and witchcraft that, although literally diabolical, was outside my direct influence. Nobody said that I wasn't able to assist those who wished to put things right.

"My only problem is that, as Master of Mischief, I am one of the most powerful figures in the whole of creation. I have to be subtle if I want to weild my powers, hard as it is to believe I am not invincible. In short, I must be perceived to be neutral.

"So, I nipped reality, I tucked it, tipping people on particular paths down little back alleys of my own devising, ensuring that the great mechanism of mischief brought things out as they have become. Frederick, Phoebe, Anabyl, Eos, you are, between you, quite capable of guarding the Quintessence Crystal from the hands of evil doers. James, Chester, Rebecca and dear little Rachel, you are to be freed from a burden too great for you to bear."

"And what about me boss?" the gnome said. "When does the little girl's wish end?"

"It's not your place to ask such questions," the Master snapped at the gnome. "You'll live as I wish and be grateful for the opportunity."

"Yes boss," the gnome said miserably.

"Don't you talk to my friend like that!" Rachel cried out, outraged.

"Darling," Rebecca said. "That's the Master of Mischief, he's very important."

"I don't care how important he thinks he is," Rachel insisted. "The gnome's given me and James our wish, and helped out with all the other stuff too. I think he deserves to be free now and nobody should be rude to him, not even a scary man in a big hat."

"Dear Rachel," the Master said, kneeling down to bring their heights closer together. "You misunderstand. This gnome is not your friend. He is with you because he is bound to you. He is just an accidental random conglomeration of mischief that calls itself a gnome. I doubt he can feel emotions. He's nothing, really, beneath your notice."

"He's my friend," Rachel said. "And he's never done anything mean or horrible. I don't know what you're talking about but it sounds mean and horrible to me. Mean and horrible people are nothing. The gnome is the gnome."

The grin disappeared from the Master's face. Most were silent, the gnome and Rebecca drew in breath sharply.

"Sometimes," the Master said sadly. "It seems even I can forget my place. Very well Cholmondeley, you shall have your own garden, but first we should see to the end of the wish."

"And how do we do that, exactly?" Rachel asked. "If you know so much then you can help us. We haven't done very well at the job ourselves."

"Why, all the answers your poor father ever needed are behind this door," the Master said pointing to a simple wooden door in the base of the Skull Rock that had certainly not been there a moment before.

The Master opened the door and it was as if they were looking out of a house onto a street. Opposite their position was a small wooden fence, painted blue, that surrounded a two storey detached house completely surrounded by well defined, but slightly overgrown flower beds.

"Rainbow's Reach awaits Professor Rummage," the Master said. "And all the stories that you hold within your head will return within its walls. Once that is done so will Cholmondeley's work."

Saying goodbye to all the friends they had made on the long road home James, Rebecca, Rachel and Chester went through the Master's door and back to James's home where their long adventure had begun so many years before, or so it seemed.

When James remembered exactly who he was, and where he had been, and the nature of those things, he understood that life in the Skull Garden unfolded at a vastly different rate to time in his own world and he had, in fact, been gone only a single night as far as his world was concerned.

Unfortunately this meant that, unless Rachel wanted to squash into a crib, which she did not, she had to sleep that night in her parent's bed. None of them minded that arrangement at all and the next day a brand new bed was bought for the little girl who had grown up in the Skull Garden not knowing anything of who she was or where she came from.

The Guardians of the Quintessence Crystal took their responsibilities very seriously indeed, and their stories are even now depicted, along with all the rest, within the deep, dark stacks of the Faerie Archive. That would probably be the best place to read them for, although the Master of Mischief will claim that he can tell you what came next everyone knows that the Master lies to people. Although, you can be assured, he only does so for the betterment of all worlds. Or so he says himself.

THE END

Chester Topping Rest In Peace

Before the gnome lost his temper completely everyone had a moment in which they all believed that the wish would end. Lester, in fact, was pulling for this to happen almost as much as he imagined the gnome was. Once the gnome was free then he could spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find his brother's grave.

The idea of being keen to find the grave of his beloved sibling was not sitting well in Lester's head. It was almost impossible to separate the notion of someone having a grave from the notion of someone being, well, dead. Whenever that particularly unpleasant idea came around on the carousel of Lester's thoughts he reminded himself of what a remarkable and tricksy individual Chester Topping was. Lester wouldn't show much surprise if this whole thing hadn't been cooked up by Chester and Loki working in tandem.

Still, a gravestone. Surely even having a gravestone was an ill-omen. It might not be alchemy but it was certainly witchcraft.

"Oh... bother it!" the gnome cried eventually. The little sprite ran up to the base of the skull rock and gave it a hearty kick. "Owww!" the gnome cried. "That hurt."

"Kicking a gigantic rock generally hurts," Eos said. "That's why it never took off as a pastime."

"I should be free!" the gnome shouted. "This is it, the loop is closed, the journey is ended, the adventure has concluded, so why can I still feel the wish? Why am I flopping around, bound to the people who freed me? Why am I not allowed to make my own way in the world?"

"It would seem," said Rebecca gently, "that we may have misread the small print, so to speak."

"No!" the gnome replied. "No! I reject that completely, utterly, the terms of the wish were quite plain. Rachel wanted to leave the Skull Garden so that they could go on an adventure and he could see all that the world could be. That's what she said. Now I am aware that the phrase 'see all that the world could be' does leave some room for interpretation but the powers of mischief are not usually that particular."

"Not usually," said Rebecca, "but sometimes, sometimes there is something that they are waiting for, something that will just cross the last 't' or dot the last 'i'."

"Maybe," Lester said, without really knowing which part of his mind was providing the words, "the term used is tied to something James should see. Maybe when James feels that he knows all that he needs to know then he will have seen all that the world can see."

Everyone was looking at Lester. The gnome scowled.

"That," he said, "sounds exactly like the kind of stunt the forces of mischief like to pull." The gnome swivelled his eyes to fix on James, quiet now, still not as steady on his feet as he should be. "So what is it that you feel you're missing out on?" it asked. "Come on now, out with it, let's show you what you need to see so I can clock off."

"I... I don't know," James said.

"You have to know!" the gnome wailed. "Folk. Honestly, I am going off the lot of you. Born as babies, dying arbitrarily, don't know what you want, or where you're going, or how you feel. Why is the world filled with folk?

"Sprites are nice and simple. Pop into existence, do what you do, go where you have to, and then just fade away once your time is done. Why can't folk be more like sprites."

The gnome tramped over to the foot of the Skull Rock and sat down, defeated.

"I'm sorry," James called after him. "I just don't know."

"It's okay," Rebecca said, putting her hand on her husband's shoulder. "You're still confused. Take a moment, take a breath, let the thing you want come to your mind naturally."

James closed his eyes and took a breath. Another few moments passed.

Maybe James wants to know what happened to my brother, Lester thought. He banished the thought immediately as being inherently selfish.

"Maybe," Rachel said. "Dad just wants to know what happened to Lester's brother. I know I do, and dad's been travelling with Lester since we first popped into the market."

Lester held his breath while the others weighed up this suggestion in their minds.

"It can't hurt to find out, can it?" Eos asked.

Lester felt a sudden flip in his guts, like his stomach was trying to pop out of his mouth and run away. They were going to search, it was finally time to search.

"There's only one problem with that plan," James said. "The area we refer to as the Skull Garden is all of the jungle as far as we can walk by day and still be back here by night. If you expand that line so it becomes the radius of a circle and then plot out the area of that circle... I mean, we could be months searching for this grave, if it's even here."

This pessimistic, but unfortunately rational, appraisal of the situation was interrupted by the flopping noise of a rope hitting the side of the Skull Rock.

"Hello!" cried a voice from above.

The unhappy party at the foot turned their gaze upwards to see who had hailed them.

"Frederick!" James called out. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh you know," Frederick replied. "The usual kind of thing, killing giant bats, rescuing princesses trapped inside a crystal along with an entire lost continent, taking in the afternoon air."

Following Frederick down the rope was Phoebe, and above her a young boy that Lester didn't recognise. Above the boy was another young woman that Lester thought he didn't recognise, then from other angles he thought he did.

The four adventurers reached the ground and a general round of greetings and introductions was carried out. Lester was introduced, firstly, to the small boy whose name was Wish Forbetter and then to the mysterious young woman.

"Hello Lester," the young woman said. "How are things?"

Not being the kind of opening one might expect from someone you had never met before Lester was rendered momentarily speechless.

"Found yourself lost in any sorcerer's dungeons recently?" the young woman asked. "James is looking well, distinctly less mousey than the last time we met."

She followed the comment up with a cheeky grin that Lester couldn't help but recognise. He went instantly from speechless to gaping. Eventually he found his tongue:

"Anabyl?" he asked.

"Took you long enough," she said. "Although I have to concede that some water has passed under the bridge since last time I saw you."

"But... you're here, in the Skull Garden and, I mean, what happened?" Lester asked.

"It's a long story, I travelled with Avan Weatherstrong, escaped the Vanishing, trained as a dragon warrior and helped protect the quintessence crystal from evil-doers who wanted to possess its power," Anabyl said. "It was an interesting time. What have you been up to?"

"Um, went to an evil masked ball, then I was chased down a mountain by a troll, got lost in the Undone, helped rescue a mermaid from a witch and now I'm looking for my twin's grave, here in the garden.... my twin's grave... is," Lester managed to recount his recent history, just about.

He couldn't help but note that the full catalogue of events sounded, maybe, more impressive than he'd imagined. This was a thing about adventure, at the time you were just scrambling desperately to survive, only afterwards did you realise that, having survived, your exploits had graduated from terrifying to exciting.

"Sounds like you've kept busy," Anabyl said. "How are you planning to find your brother's grave?"

"Well," Lester sighed. "That's kind of the thing. You see we have no idea where it is, and James was just pointing out how large the garden actually is. If we stay here too long then we will start to forget who we are, or why we came here in the first place. So we need to find the grave before that happens obviously. It could take a long while. Maybe we could think about shift work or something, but I bet the gnome won't be too happy about that."

"Why would the gnome care?" Anabyl asked.

"We think he might not be able to become a full gnome until James sees Chester's grave. It's a wish magic thing," Lester explained.

"Well," Anabyl said, "If I remember correctly you and Chester are twins, are you not?"

"Yes," Lester said. "We are."

"Well, then, maybe in the matter of choosing a grave-site you both think alike, it's worth a try," Anabyl said. "I've got lucky like that on more than one occasion."

This suggestion appeared to Lester to be far too sensible a one to actually work but, because it was so sensible, it was also mandatory to give it a go.

"Okay," Lester said. "Let's have a think. Well, first of all, if I were Chester the whole point of this grave is to hide it so that only I can find it."

That didn't immediately make Lester think of a location. After all, Lester had to admit, he wasn't the most imaginative of people. If he'd have come to this place alone, seeing the gigantic stone column with a skull on the top at the centre, he probably would have headed straight for that. Here they were, for other reasons, there was no grave.

Of course, the idea of putting the grave here did not exactly make it hidden. Unless, of course, the grave was unmarked. If that were the case then it would probably be somewhere here, under the column. In which case, there would probably be some sort of indicator that only Lester would understand, probably on the column, at the bottom.

Lester stalked around the base of the column, searching for something, anything. It didn't take him long to find it. There was an arrow carved into the stone, it pointed North, you could tell because it said 'N' at the top of it. Underneath was the number '58'.

"Here!" Lester said, excitedly.

The others came to join him.

"What does that mean?" the gnome asked.

"It's the orientation course," Rachel said. "I followed it a few times, started really early in the morning. I don't know how far I got. You walk in the direction of the line for that many paces and you reach another rock with another arrow and another number. I got about forty of them before I had to come back, because of the bat."

"But now the bat is dead," Frederick said. "So we can just follow the arrows to the end."

Everyone seemed very excited at this prospect and preparations immediately got underway to start the course. Lester was happy with the explanation but something still seemed off to him. After all, Chester could not know that the bat would be dead when Lester got there.

Chester had to have thought this through. Why would Chester send Lester off running around in the woods like that? For a start Chester and Lester both had one leg longer than the other. They couldn't easily walk in straight lines, they always veered off to the right. Something was wrong with this.

It was only as the party got ready to stamp off north for fifty-eight paces that Lester thought he understood what it was Chester had done.

"Stop!" he cried out before anyone had taken more than two paces north.

Everyone stopped. Lester's heart was beating in his throat at the idea that for once he had worked something out. He was the one with the answer, he was not just some oddball standing on the edges. For the first time since he had started his quest Lester felt like he might have the makings of a hero.

"We shouldn't go," he said. "It's a trap."

"What do you mean?" Rebecca asked. "What kind of a trap?"

"We lived in the garden for years and years," James said. "We never found a trap."

"No," Lester said. "But you did completely forget who you were, or why you were here."

"So?" Rachel asked.

"Think about it," Lester explained. "Someone evil comes here, they find the course, they kill the bat. The bat killing, in particular, is something I don't think I could do. But the evil person they have no problem with it. So they follow the path. Eventually the path is so long they have to rest. So they rest. Then they keep following the path.

"At first they accept the difficulty of the task, after all if Chester's grave was easy to find then it wouldn't be a challenge. Eventually they get annoyed, maybe they give up. If they don't, one day they wake up and, maybe, they can't remember exactly why, but they know they're following the arrows. So they go further.

"Now remembering things gets harder, they can't remember if they've seen arrows before. Eventually they either forget who they are give up and wander away or they keep mindlessly walking in circles lost in a labyrinth of arrows and pacing until they die.

"The whole task is a trap. Chester knew I would know that because the apparent simple task is one that both he and I would be singularly awful at if we were on our own."

"So, what does that mean?" James asked. "That we don't know where the grave is after all?"

"No," Lester said. "It means we know exactly where the grave is, because we're standing on it. The other thing Chester and I have in common is that we're very very lazy. The marker doesn't tell me to go tramping about in the forgetful forest. No, what it says to me is, Chester made a mark, so there must be something here worth marking."

Frederick ruffled in his pack and brought out a small collapsible spade.

"Only one way we're going to see if he's right," Frederick said. "I'll get digging."

Nobody said much as Frederick found a piece of earth that was soft enough and dug straight down. The hole went deeper than a regular grave but after about forty minutes he hit something solid.

"Oh, wow," Frederick said. "That's deep. We could be here until nightfall."

"Oh, no, Frederick," Phoebe said. "Come out of that hole. I think I can help."

"No offence," Lester said. "But I've seen how you help, I don't want to cremate my brother's remains in a massive plasma explosion, I just want to uncover the grave."

"I think I might be of assistance here," the gnome said, rather unexpectedly. He looked about at everyone regarding him, surprised expressions on their faces, and his brow knitted in annoyance. "I'm a gnome people, a gnome? Earth elemental? Really, and I thought you were an educated woman Miss September."

Phobe looked a bit awkward, she had spent many years in Faerie's premier magical academy.

"I just didn't really think about it," she said by way of explanation.

"Why didn't you mention this half an hour ago?" Frederick asked, still sweating from his own exertions.

"I didn't know whether you would find anything," the gnome grumbled. "Not going to put my back out blasting away a big hole in the earth for no reason, now, am I?"

The logic, irritating as it might have been, was irrefutable. The others all stood back and gave the gnome room to work. With very little effort the sprite shifted all of the earth from Chester's grave and even landscaped the surroundings into a sweeping natural curve.

The grave stone was about eight feet long and three feet wide. In the centre of the slab was carved an ornate embossed hourglass, the carving, elegantly swirled around this central motif outwards to a geometric frame about half an inch in around the edge of the stone.

"That doesn't look like it's going to be fun to move," Anabyl said.

"Ah," Lester said. "But you're failing to take into account that this place was designed to be uncovered by a single lazy man with a spade and a couple of days to spare. By the time I'd got down to this on my own I imagine I would be so tired I'd probably just take my spade and have a good old lean, like this."

Lester grabbed Frederick's spade, walked into the middle of the slab and placed it point down on the hour glass. He leaned on the handle and there was a deep and audible click as some hidden mechanism was pressed into service.

The two halves of the grave stone separated along invisible seams and lifted gently upwards to reveal the contents of Chester's tomb. But what was beneath the gravestone and how it brought our friend's adventures to a satisfactory, if not permanent, conclusion, is most definitely a story that I will tell you. Just, not right now is all.

The Princess Liberated

Frederick hadn't acted in his capacity as pest-controller for a while now. He had heard that, in the age of dragons, a jobbing knight would start small with giant rodents and work their way up through lizard men and vampires as a way of scaling their monster killing abilities to the level of dragon.

As the giant bat expired on the blade of Frederick's sword he found himself doubting this theory. Of course, to the layman the idea of working your way up the food chain to dragon slaying appeared reasonable. Frederick did not know for certain that it was not. However, if what he had heard about dragons, and their smaller, sentient cousins the draco, was to be believed the king of all mythical beasts was in a different league to the rest.

You could hack your way through armies of trolls, gryphons and giant snakes but it probably wouldn't serve you well when it came to facing the old, wise and wily dragons of yore. It was as desperate a comparison as saying that taking out a goblin horde was any sort of preparation for taking out an Ogre Champion. The two games were fundamentally different.

It didn't really matter, as far as Frederick could tell, how many foot soldiers you carved up, when you faced the lich in command those experiences counted for nothing.

Even taking on a giant bat was a different game to besting a minotaur, for example. The two monsters had completely different temperaments, strengths, weaknesses and common strategies. The one lesson taking on a bestiary of hostile creatures taught you was that no two were alike enough to be the same fight. There was enough variety within a single species to fox those who did not exercise the proper caution.

That said, sometimes you got lucky. The transformed Lady Crimzona had proven a much weaker foe than this similarly sized giant bat. Frederick imagined that this was due in no small part to the fact that Lady Crimzona was not used to being a giant bat, this fella had got very used to his capabilities. He had even landed a couple of nasty swipes on Frederick's chest and thigh.

So, possibly, there had been some variety in the capability and threat presented by dragons of various types. Maybe some dragons went down easier than others. If there was one comforting thought a knight could take into such a confrontation it was that maybe this dragon would be having an off day.

"Are you alright?" Phoebe asked from behind Frederick as he stood, instinctively holding his left hand over the scratches on his chest and hanging his weight so that it favoured his right leg.

"I'll be okay," he panted. "He was... feisty, is all."

"If I wasn't filled with magical potency," Harvey said. "I would have to get someone to remind me never to annoy you."

"You annoy me all the time," Frederick said. After a battle etiquette choices frayed and crumbled. Frederick allowed himself to be more blunt.

"Yes," Harvey said. "Because I am filled with magical potency. You might be good at monster slaying but you can't follow a simple logical through-line, can you?"

"Not the time, Harvey," Phoebe said absently, pulling a jar of unguent from her knapsack. "Then, it never is, is it?"

Harvey shrugged and subsided as Phoebe approached Frederick and started smearing the greasy paste onto his wounded leg.

Frederick had listened to lurid bardic accounts of fighting men and the women who tended to their wounds. The poetic temperament would have you believe there was some sort of romance, or passion, about a nurse tending a wounded soldier. In some instances maybe there was. However the undoubted, undiscussed presence of unsavoury ingredients in most of these pastes presented large challenges to the development of such a heady emotional atmosphere.

The unguent was enhanced with enchantments but that didn't stop it smelling of vinegar, fat and bad milk mixed together. Neither did it abate the deep burn it put into the wounds upon its application. The burn quickly faded, the odour of the healing medium lingered, in some cases for days.

"Well, now that we have that over, we should probably find that tricky crystal," Harvey said, standing by the entrance as if he were inspecting the hold of the arrow trailing rope embedded in the rock. The head of the arrow was a clockwork device powered by an alchemical crystal that burrowed into rock to form a tight bond.

As the mouth of the cave was where the party had entered the chances that the Quintessence Crystal was lying there, unremarked upon and undiscovered, was vitually nil. Everyone could tell that Harvey was mooching about adjacent to the nearest source of fresh air to avoid the smell.

"Good idea," Phoebe commended him. "Why don't you start somewhere other than where we came in?"

A look of disgust evident on his face Harvey complied with Phoebe's request. Frederick had learned that the djinn often did things voluntarily, rather than wait to be bound by Phoebe. Frederick believed he could understand the sprite's motivation. In a way it was a cruel trick of the binding that the one bound would often prefer to do something because they were obedient, not because magic was compelling them to do it against their will.

That left a question though: Was Harvey really doing what he wanted? Was he truly acting on his own agency? Just because he chose to obey did that mean that he had somehow 'beaten' the binding, or did it just serve to enslave him at an even deeper level?

Frederick's tricky philosophical puzzles would not be answered now as Phoebe cried out. She didn't say 'aha' but it was a noise that meant 'aha' so more or less the same thing. Phoebe carried a small wooden chest out from a dark corner in the back of the bat's lair. The front was closed and bolted but not locked. Frederick reasoned that the person who had left the chest here had believed that anyone who would slay that bat to get to the chest probably deserved the contents.

That bat itself had not been a terrible problem, any mediocre knight should have found it within themselves to dispose of it effectively. The chest's real security was that it was in one of the most distant shadows, right at the limits of organised reality, cloaked in deep magic that would hide the garden's existence from seekers and interfere with the memories of those who had visited. The bat was just a further inconvenience for one who had beaten the heavy duty barriers to entry.

Phoebe opened the chest to reveal the quintessence crystal. Frederick had hoped for something more than your basic glowing crystal, in this he found a small note of disappointment. The quintessence crystal was certainly a bit larger than other magic crystals Frederick had seen but it was, otherwise pretty much identical in every other respect. It glowed a soft yellow-white that filled the cave, there was a high, clear note, resonating from the crystal at a low volume.

"Let's see if this ring that the story-gatherers gave us does the trick then," Phoebe said, donning the small piece of silver jewellery. As it sat on Phoebe's finger the crystal in the ring began to resonate in sympathy with the quintessence crystal. "Oh," Phoebe said, alarmed. "It does work! Quick, grab my hands!"

She held out her hands, Frederick took hold of the left and Harvey of the right, there was a moment of uncertainty, an odd see-sawing feeling in Frederick's gut and then they weren't in the Skull Cave any more.

They were in a long stone corridor that stretched on for as far as the eye could see in either direction. Stone arches divided the corridor into sections at regular intervals. Frederick's ever-present knight paranoia noted that there was just enough space for an attacker to hide in the small recesses in the corners of each section. Doorways, tipped with pointed arches, were visible in some of the sections.

The corridor was lit from above with a soft, flat, grey light. Frederick looked up to see that the light was cast from a roiling layer of luminous clouds above their heads. The shapes of dragons heads, and the forms of people and buildings were occasionally visible in the ever-shifting cloud bank. As soon as you saw a shape, so clear that you could make out the pattern of a dragon's scales, the windows in a tall building or the lines on a person's face, it disappeared back into the mass, invisible once more.

"Well, this is in no way sinister," Harvey said.

"So, what now?" Frederick asked. "We've got into the crystal, what do we do now?"

"I don't know," Phoebe said. "I guess we just have a look about, see if we can pick up Anabyl's trail."

They took a few steps along the corridor, their footsteps making flat clamping sounds against the stone. Frederick found the noises quite disconcerting. He had been expecting a confident ringing echo, not this barely audible slapping noise. He imagined it was something to do with magic, these things usually were.

"Wait," Harvey said after they had gone about twenty paces. "I think..." he paused, closed his eyes and lowered his head. "I think I can feel the... her. I think I can feel Anabyl."

"What do you mean?" Frederick asked. "Feel her how?"

"This," Harvey motioned at the ceiling and the floor with some airy hand waves. "All of this is our minds interpreting the crystal lattice and the energies contained within. We're not part of the qualic stream, the, uh, essence of the Terra Draconis, locked into the crystal lattice. I think the energies are represented by the clouds up there. I don't think that Anabyl is part of that either. She's locked out of the stream, so she's somewhere else in the lattice. I'm made of pure magic so I can feel the resonance of her presence, it's not even that far away."

"Okay then," Phoebe said. "Well, let's get moving."

Harvey lead the other two down a number of corridors that looked, at least to Frederick's eye, exactly the same as the first one they had arrived in. The corridors were all identical and appeared to cross back and forth at random. The corridor intersections were not at the traditional ninety degree angles from one another but often at more a forty-five degree slant, some sloped up, or down, the passages themselves appeared straight but Frederick began to believe that they were subtly curved. Each segment was straight but connected to the next at an almost imperceptible angle.

After walking through this labyrinth for about ten minutes a figure became visible in the distance, standing at an intersection.

"Come on," Phoebe said. "That must be her."

As they drew closer they realised that rather than being a properly defined person the figure was like a three dimensional opaque black shadow. It was roughly person shaped but a little blobby on the right hand side.

"This isn't her," Frederick said.

"No," Harvey responded. "It is, but it's just... I think she's out of phase with us. The crystal resonates with a particular tone, when we're inside its lattice we are riding the waves of that tone, experiencing the crystal's reality as a series of tonal moments at the same part of a repeating wavelength. Anabyl's just experiencing the same thing on a different part of the same wavelength."

"I was with you right up until you said 'resonates'," Frederick said. "Look, I don't need to know what's happening. I just need to know that we can fix it."

"I can fix it," Harvey said. "Although it may bind us more tightly to the lattice. Getting out of here might be trickier than we thought."

"We can't worry about that," said Phoebe. "You'll have to do... whatever it is you need to do, Harvey."

"Very well," Harvey said. "Could we all, possibly, link hands again?"

They all did and Harvey closed his eyes again, concentrating. Frederick began to feel very giddy, the vertigo was sudden and he was forced to drop onto one knee.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Quiet," Harvey said. "Need to focus."

Frederick's senses were beginning to see-saw, the corridor bending and shifting about him. There was a moment when he believed he could see a stone plaza in a great city beyond one of the stone arches then the image was gone and there was just the voice.

"...be long now Wish, you'll see, these shadows probably mean that..."

There was the sound of a sword being drawn.

"Who are you?" the voice demanded, its tone had switched from soothing to harsh in the time it had taken to draw the sword.

"Princess Anabyl Spireshine?" Harvey's voice asked. "I believe you know my companions. Give them a moment to recover."

"It's us, Anabyl," Phoebe said, her voice sounded shaky, Frederick's vision was still blurred and he felt very much as if he'd like to be sick. Frederick blinked a couple of times and tried to take a steady breath.

"Phoebe?" the woman with the sword asked. "And... Sir Cobb."

"Yes," Frederick managed to bite back the nausea and speak. "It's us. We've come to get you out of the crystal."

"Hear that, princess?" said a voice Frederick didn't recognise. "We're getting out of here."

Frederick's vision finally settled down enough that he could see who he was looking at now. Anabyl certainly looked a lot different than the last time they'd crossed paths. For a start she appeared to have ditched the penchant for frilly dresses for a quieter gender-neutral look in breeches and a thin wool jacket. She wore a long dark cloak bound on the left shoulder by a large metal brooch.

As Anabyl had grown her face had lengthened and become leaner, the light of chaotic mischief in her eyes had not burned out but now came with a kind of controlled danger. Her long dark hair was wrapped up in a bun on top of her head.

Standing to Anabyl's right was a young boy in more ragged clothing, the other speaker. Putting things together from the story they had read in the Archive Frederick realised that this must be Wish Forbetter.

"How long have we been in here?" Anabyl asked. "A while, I imagine, if you're the ones to come rescue me."

"We saw you off from the market after facing down Sir Vaskorn about a month ago," Frederick told her. "We understand that you found a way to visit the Terra Draconis in the meanwhile."

Harvey cleared his throat.

"As much as I hate to break up the reunion it's time I dispelled my own magic to get you all out of here," he said.

"Yes, probably a good idea," Phoebe said. "So how will that work?"

"You just all need to place your hands on me, preferably about the shoulders from my point of view and we'll soon have you all back to the cave."

"What about you?" Wish asked. "Aren't you coming with us?"

"I'm afraid not," Harvey said. "I have... other things to devote my energies to."

"What?" Phoebe's question sounded like some sort of reprimand, this wasn't unusual.

"Sorry, Feebs," Harvey said. "Guess I lied to you again. A while back, just before I found you, I was actually floating in the Undone. Didn't even know myself, to be honest, I was just stuff. I annoyed the wrong person, ended up dispersed. So the boss comes to me and offers me an out, not just out of the Undone, out of service to you, a chance to be something else, more than just Harvey Raine, the chaos sprite.

"He told me that if I took the out I would be bound to you again, the way Ma Moorshade always wanted it but the boss explained that if I sacrificed myself for a wish that I would be allowed to move on. The boss is like that, always talks in riddles. Guess it runs in the family. Anyhow, when I saw that the young lad here was called Wish I knew what was coming. If I'd told you about it earlier you might have argued or delayed and, honestly, I don't think you have time.

"If I expend every iota of magic I have I can probably get the four of you out of the Quintessence Crystal lattice, but there won't be enough of me left for me to exit. I guess I will just have to trust the boss to come get me."

"But we can't just leave you behind," Frederick said, he wasn't sure either why he said it or why he meant it but both were true.

"You can, and you have to, your journey's not over by a long chalk," Harvey said. "Come on folks, time's a-wasting."

Frederick could tell that Phoebe was itching to start a row about this. At the same time he could see the realisation on her face that Harvey intended to do this. Plus it was possibly the first selfless thing he would do in his existence. How could she argue with that?

So she didn't. Along with the others she put her hand on Harvey's shoulder. Once they were all in place Harvey looked around them all as if to say goodbye and then he began to glow. Harvey's glow, set against the flat grey-white from the ceiling of the lattice, was a warm and comforting orange-pink. It shone from his eyes and from the lines on his face. The light caught the djinn in a bright halo until Frederick thought that the sprite was no longer present in person, he looked, rather, like a painting of himself. Then the glow from his halo became too bright and Frederick's nostrils were suddenly filled with the scent of bat droppings.

Now there were four of them, stood in the skull cave staring at the Quintessence Crystal. For a moment they could not speak.

A voice from outside broke across the silence.

"If you expand that line so that it becomes the radius of a circle," said a voice that Anabyl, Phoebe and Frederick all recognised. "I mean, we could be months searching for this grave, if it's even here."

The three adventurers exchanged a glance.

"James?" came from Frederick's mouth before he had even really understood the concept fully.

And indeed it was James although no longer a mouse, and Lester, and Rachel, along with James's wife, Rachel's mother, Rebecca. But what they did when they all met once more in the Skull Garden I shall tell you next time.

Meet The Rummages

"Delighted for you," said the gnome. "Couldn't be more so. Absolutely. Delighted. However, I do feel that the full spectrum of experience associated with the word 'adventure' has now been thoroughly fulfilled. I don't want to appear rude but I have a whole existence to be getting on with. There's a meadow in a quaint little shadow not too far away by bridge and I would very much like to live my life there starting, oh, well, as soon as possible."

"I don't think now is the time, honestly," Eos said. "Can't you see that James is unwell?"

"Unwell?" the gnome said as if he honestly hadn't noticed. The little sprite turned his attention to the former mouse, now a tall man hunched over and sitting on a tea chest being fussed over by Rachel and Rebecca. Lester watched on, not really certain what to think.

"Then there was a morning in winter, my mother had a cold," James said. His words floated up from his chest through the arms he had folded on his knees. His head was buried in this little cocoon, his words having the lilt of delirium. "Porridge on the hob, good boy, helpful boy, porridge is easy. Burned so badly to the bottom of the pan mum had to throw it out. Scrap metal for the scrap metal man. Lots you can do with scrap. Got to be able to melt it, to shape it. Not my department. Call an engineer!"

"He'll be fine," the gnome said. "I have a good ear for mischief. Whatever's happening I think it's temporary."

"You know what's wrong with him?" Rachel asked, turning her full attention in his direction.

Although the gnome had wanted Rachel's whole attention, and everyone else's, not moments ago, now it looked extremely uncomfortable. No doubt it would have been fine to have everyone looking in the gnome's direction to discuss the gnome's requirements and demands. The probem here was that now the gnome had cast himself in the role of advisor, such a role stood in the way of attention to requirements and demands.

Lester had to admit that he could understand that feeling completely. He was awash with unsuitable emotions at the moment. Fear of abandonment, sadness at the meandering aimlessness of his journey, irritation that he had spent so long on a road that provided no more than a diversion from Lester's own concerns, guilt that he felt anything other than concern about James's well-being.

Maybe if he could work his way up to a good session of delirious ranting he would be okay afterwards, Lester reflected. There didn't appear to be any other appropriate way of communicating his own feelings of loss that didn't seem self-indulgent and whiny.

Not that he would have had a problem with being self-indulgent and whiny if that had been a layer in a complex personality, but it wasn't. Lester was beginning to realise that when it came to personality self-indulgent and whiny pretty much summed him up. Oh, and meek, and directionless, and not much use.

Look at the gnome. On the one hand it was here demanding stuff when another person was in dire straits not five feet away. The sprite somehow managed to act as if it was oblivious to this while stamping its foot and carrying on like it was the only being that mattered in the whole of Faerie. On the other hand at least the gnome had some sort of motivational through-line. At least it was a force to be reckoned with.

Lester stood in the corner and didn't know what to think and tried not to be any bother. At least he wasn't any bother. At the same time he was becoming extremely tired of not being any use, either. His head was actually starting to throb at the concept of his own complete irrelevance to everything. On his travels he had met knights and magicians, merchants and royalty, what had he ever been through any of it? He had been Lester who could lend a hand with anything not too difficult.

Lester promised himself that as soon as equilbrium was restored he would rock the boat a bit, he would upset the apple cart. He would make his presence felt. Not so felt that people lost their tempers or anything, just felt enough to make Lester feel less on the edges of everything.

"Uh, well," the gnome said. Lester marvelled that he'd managed to fit all that thinking into the space between the gnome becoming awkward and deciding what to say next. "I can see that a lot of what's happened to James... ah, your father, is as a result of mischief casually melting away some deeper enchantments."

"What do you mean 'deeper enchantments'?" Rachel asked.

"Anything mischievous, I can detect," the gnome said. Although it was plain that there would be a time to talk further on the gnome's wish list, for now he was relishing the role of 'expert'. "But I couldn't tell that your dad was enchanted, not when we first met, he just looked like a mouse. A normal mouse. Oh, yes, he could talk, but that isn't such a big deal, you know."

"So what does that mean?" Rachel asked.

"It means that the magic that transformed James into the mouse was very complex and meant to bind. I'm not entirely sure that he was supposed to forget that he was a man, or your dad, or whatever, but I think that's a separate enchantment, after all, you don't remember much about before being in the Skull Garden either, do you?"

"No," Rachel said. "Honestly, I still don't."

"When we took you there," Rebecca said. "You were very young, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you didn't remember what happened before. I forgot everything while I was in the garden too. I only began to remember when I left, and then, well, I got dispersed."

"So you see," the gnome said, inserting himself back into the conversation, determined to monopolise everyone's attention. "The effects of the garden are slow and deep, but not permanent. I wouldn't advise anyone to remain there for too long, could get tricky."

"So how long before Ja- my dad, is back to normal?" Rachel asked.

The gnome got half way into a shrug before James himself broke into the conversation:

"They were all in the castle when the storm came!" he said. "There was the dragon and the frog. They weren't alone. They thought they were. But the mouse was careful. It stayed out of sight. Mice can hide, best hide, best way to stay out of the way. Not like the man who went to see the master of mischief, no. Desperate man, clever man, but desperate, confused. Needed to find his brother, needed to find a way to his brother, not just a disguise you see... really. Because you can't have two mice. Don't you see? Two mice are always bad. Two bad mice."

James looked around at the assembled group, who were all still trying to unravel this stilted dialogue. All except for Lester.

In the couple of seconds it usually took him to lose the initiative Lester realised that no-one had said anything, further, he realised that he had something to say.

"Are you telling me that I went to the master of mischief?" he asked James.

James's glowing, beatific expression dropped into one of deep disappointment.

"That's what you took from that?" he asked.

"It's me, isn't it? You're not the only one who's had their memory messed with," Lester said. "I am looking for my brother and... the man in the tall hat, he is the master of mischief."

"Oh, yes," the gnome chipped in. "That's the boss, Loki, everyone knows that."

Everyone looked at the gnome.

"Well," the gnome corrected himself, gruffly. "I thought everyone knew that."

"It has to be said," Eos said. "I'm sure there are lots of people who have looked for a missing brother through history. I heard a story myself about a man who went to Loki asking for help with a missing brother. I heard it when I was a girl. That story obviously isn't about you, Lester."

"And in the story," Lester asked Eos, feeling more purpose than he could ever remember having felt before. "What did the master of mischief tell the man to do?"

"Loki sent the man to death's garden with a spade. When he dug the ground he found all of his brother's secrets. I always thought it was a metaphor."

"Are you saying you think my brother is dead?" Lester asked.

"I'm saying that I think the brother of the man in the story was dead," Eos said. "We've already established that it wasn't you."

Lester's scalp had started to tingle as all the elements came together: frequent encounters with the master of Mischief, adventuring with escapees from the garden of death, stories about secrets buried in that garden. It didn't really matter what Eos said, Lester knew what he felt about his recent experiences. Everything was just beginning to make sense and Lester wasn't going to let that stop.

"We need to go to the Skull Garden, right now," Lester said.

"Oh, at last, thank you!" the gnome cried in agreement.

"Lester..." Eos said, the first chiming note of dissent.

"No, Eos," Lester said. "I know what I feel, for once, and what I feel is that my brother is in the Skull Garden."

"If he is then, surely, he's dead," Eos said. "Do you believe that Lester?"

"If he's dead then that's what he is," Lester said. "But if I've learned one thing about Chester these last few months it's that he is a man who is rarely where you thought he was and seldom what he seems."

"I know a way," Rebecca said. "But... should we all go?"

"You have to all go," the gnome said. "I need you there, so I can be free."

"Well, technically that's just me and dad," Rachel said, the little pause where she changed 'James' to 'dad' still noticeable but less so than it had been.

"You don't understand," Rebecca said. "We might forget who we are, that's what the Skull Garden does."

"It's a powerful magic," the gnome said. "But it is built to endure. It would take weeks, maybe months to forget everything completely. You can go long enough to set me free, then you can leave."

"But we never could," Rachel said. "You could not reach the edge before the bat would leave the Skull Cave, it would get us all."

"We can fend off a single bat," Lester said.

"It's a giant bat," Rachel pointed out.

"We've done it before," Lester insisted.

"I think you'll find that was Frederick," Eos said.

"So. What?" Lester asked. "We're going to all just give up? The gnome is enslaved to this wish forever? I never find out what happened to my brother?"

"Now hang on just a minute!" the gnome cried out, anxious at the possibility of never being the master of his own destiny.

"I can get us out," Rebecca said. "I got out before, but I'm worried about James. He hasn't recovered from leaving the garden yet. I think it's the mouse enchantment, he's so confused."

"I think," Eos said. "That we shall have to wait until James is maybe a little better, but at that point we shall ask Rebecca to take us to the garden and then we shall see what is what."

And that is exactly what they did, but what they found when they returned to the Skull Garden for the very last time is a story for another day.

In Which The Vanishing Has Swallowed The Terra Draconis

It is a morsel of common wisdom too kind to reflect reality that anything Avan Weatherstrong did not know about magic was probably not worth knowing. It is certainly true that the youngest son of the House of Weatherstrong was the most versatile practitioner of the magical arts to ever walk among the lands of Faerie.

For this reason the storm that consumed the dark side of the Okulas Moon did not impress Avan the way that it intimidated his young companion Saeed. All magic, fundamentally, was elemental. To make a rain cloud one could easily combine air and water manufactured from raw mischief. A gigantic black-hearted storm was air and water bound with raw white plasma and amplified using power and chaos. A gigantic storm was devastating, but it was a show piece for the easily cowed.

There was no subtlety to Okulas's working, it was achievable by any idiot with a rudimentary grasp on the basics and the coin to drop on the equipment to make it happen. It was hard to explain to an individual seeing the awesome power of the storm first hand. For this reason Avan didn't even try.

If Avan were to be honest about matters, and he tended to be, he would be forced to admit that the flying potions that enabled Saeed and himself to arc over the storm and settle upon the rim of the crater at the storm's eye was no more impressive to a master alchemist. The ingredients of the potion altered the gross weight of the flesh until it could slip through the air. There was a question of balance, a good flying potion was a hard thing to prepare, but once one had the technique the application was pretty tedious.

Again, it was hard to communicate to a non-magic user how unimpressive a thing a decent flight potion was except in the degree of its responsiveness. Avan's flight potions were something he was proud of but for technical reasons, not merely because the gifted the imbiber with the power to fly for one turn of the hourglass.

There were several flourishes that any alchemist would have been happy to tell you were very hard to pull off in Avan's potion. The potion allowed for mental control of the relative density of the flyer's flesh, the control was quite precise, different parts of the body responded the need to move in harmony with the flyer's wishes. Essentially, when you flew with Avan Weatherstrong's potion you found the business of flight surpassingly easy. The end phase was nicely feathered also, a soft landing at the end of your flight was almost always guaranteed.

This marked the difference between Avan and Okulas. The Count had money, which he had used to buy power to use as a bludgeon. Avan possessed diligence and wisdom, which he had used to craft elegant solutions that got the job done in the spirit of efficiency.

In a completely fair world it would be Avan and Saeed who easily triumphed over the rich bully with the expensive toys. Anyone who has ever encountered a rich bully with expensive toys will tell you that the world is hardly ever fair at all.

By the time Avan and Saeed landed Okulas's plan was already at an advanced stage. As Saeed crested the dark, swirling cloud bank that surrounded the crater a long silver thread became visible, emerging from a structure at the centre of the crater and curving around almost doubling over to cross the moon's horizon and disappear downwards towards the vague craggy outline of the lands of Faerie below. (For the scientific among you wondering how the sky could be filled with the distant image of the lands below, suffice to say that if geography in Faerie is eccentric, interplanetary spacial location is totally insane.)

"We need to aim for that building!" Avan shouted over the whirling, crackling mass of stormclouds.

Avan and Saeed swooped down, on a course to land outside the structure. They didn't make it halfway before an arrow zinged through the space between them. One arrow was quickly followed by more. Before long the air was filled with hurtling arrows, some of them on fire. Saeed and Avan dodged and weaved as much as they could but in the end they were forced back, eventually landing half a mile from their intended destination.

"I really hope that there aren't more glass monkeys," Saeed said.

As hopes went it was not a large one, if heavily armoured guards were an acceptable replacement for invisible simians then Saeed should have been well pleased. For a short while more arrows attempted to find them but Avan put up a glowing shield the arrows bounced off. Eventually a horde of cavalry soldiers reached the pair but, galloping past, they could not penetrate Avan's defenses.

"We must not be delayed," Avan said. "This shield cannot be moved but I can make us fast. Get ready!"

With that Avan threw a small clay pot onto the ground hard enough to shatter, a black-gold glowing powder bloomed outwards, engulfing the two men.

"Stay sharp," Avan instructed, once the dust had cleared. "I'm taking down the shield."

He did so and Saeed looked about to find himself in an even stranger world. Okulas's army was all around him, twisted faces snarling, strong arms bristling with weapons, all intent on cutting down the two men who would seek to interfere with the events unfolding in the nearby building. All of these soldiers were moving as if caughtin treacle, the air was filled with the slow throbbing growl of their cries, slowed down by Avan's magic.

"You still have to tread carefully," Avan said. "But this should last until we reach our destination."

And so they went, jumping over enemies, treading lightly upon the backs of trolls, lizard men and burly folk. Avan and Saeed raced across the army that was trying to kill them. As they reached the outer walls of Okulas's hide away the growl of the army had raised in pitch and tone, the motions of the soldiers a little faster.

"We haven't got long," Avan noted, "let's get up the wall."

Saeed and Avan scrambled up the outside of the building and ran across the roof dropping down into the courtyard just as the effect of Avan's speed bomb wore off. Saeed considered that it must have looked to the observers as if Avan and himself had skimmed over the roof like swooping birds landing precisely at a single spot each already focused on the scene before them. Saeed understood how intimidating such a display would be and understood a little more of what had made the name of Weatherstrong a central pillar of Faerie legend.

Okulas, a dark-haired, pale-skinned oily kind of individual who was, unsurprisingly, shorter than one might have expected, acted as if the arrival of the Prince and Saeed were expected and on schedule.

"Welcome, Prince Weatherstrong," Okulas said. "You will be disappointed to hear that your valiant efforts to preserve the Terra Draconis are all in vain. The skybow's arrow has tethered my moon to the continent and the apparatus I had built by a team of witches has distilled its energies into a single crystal, the crystal of quintessence. All that remains is for the quintessence crystal to be placed within the mounting on an amulet, linked to a ring of power and my claim to the title of Faerie's most powerful sorcerer will be passed into the pages of history."

Okulas was so intent on his gloating that he failed to notice Avan make a subtle hand gesture to Saeed that they had settled upon previously whilst quelling the riot in Dracopolis. They had only decided upon this signal less than three weeks ago but Saeed noticed it with some surprise.

The signal meant 'create a distraction'. Providing such a distraction as Saeed could was appropriate when you wanted to lead a group of trolls into a blind alley where they could be stunned and bound away from the main throroughfare. In this situation Saeed could not imagine a distraction such as he might take responsibility for that did not end with him being frazzled, throttled or otherwise demised by a powerful wicked sorcerer.

Saeed tried to put all of that into a double raised eyebrow aimed at Avan. Avan, lacking an organised response merely waved his thumb in a vaguely upwards direction.

"If I meet death today," Saeed muttered under his breath as Okulas finished explaining his plan. "I will not be impressed in the slightest."

"Even so he thumbed a little smoke bomb that Avan had made for him from the hidden pouch in his belt and smashed it on the ground. As Okulas's personal guard reacted by waving their pikes in his general direction Saeed took the opportunity provided by the confusion to punch a couple of them in places that Saeed knew would temporarily cripple them. Even so, these soldiers were the best that Okulas had under his command. Saeed could not hope to best them alone.

"Grab him!" Okulas shouted pointing in Saeed's direction. After that things went bad for him very quickly indeed.

The world became filled with flying crossbow bolts and swishing blades. Okulas's personal guard had clearly prepared well to take down individuals causing trouble in the vicinity of their employer. Saeed tried to see where Avan was, even as the noose of wood and steel attempted to close about him, but he could not see the prince anywhere.

Making a snap decision Saeed decided that he had to make a break for it. He couldn't hope to survive if the full focus of the guard remained on him. Saeed back flipped over a pair of surprised guards and ran away from the courtyard and into the building through a tall pair of double doors.

The only thing that saved Saeed's neck in that moment was that he had developed a sixth sense for the layout of unfamiliar archectural structures. He found a way down into the building's cellar and from there a trapdoor sealing an escape route into the caves below the moon. The guard, who knew the building far better, stayed in pursuit, but only because they had the home advantage.

Whatever the reason Saeed hoped that he had not made a fatal miscalculation. The narrow passages of the Okulas Moon's cave system were not an ideal place to escape from a horde of pursuing guards. Before long Saeed had exhausted all the obvious routes, perpetually finding looped passages, dead ends or sheer vertical shafts. Without any magic of his own it seemed that he had cornered himself.

In the end he found himself in a passage, hemmed in by guards on either side. Roughly half way down the passage was a shaft showing a way upwards but the rock was smooth and slippery. Saeed could not gain access to the upper shelf of rock and his small spider-silk grapple had nothing to hook onto. As the guards approached Saeed watched his options decreasing. He drew his sword but there was no real way he could defeat a small army all by himself.

As the guards drew together under the chimney, completely sealing Saeed's available escape routes Saeed focused on the fiercest looking guards and waved his sword about.

"I may be reintroduced to my mother this day," he shouted, "but I will be taking some of you with me, mark my words!"

The guards did not look impressed, Saeed swung his arm back preparing for a first blow. As his arm reached its ready position there was the sound of a crack and someone shouted: "Shiner!"

Saeed closed his eyes and blocked his ears as he always did when he heard the word shiner. The shiner was a small bomb developed by Avan that put out a loud noise and a bright white light that could stun anyone who did not protect their eyes and ears when it went off. The devices did not do much physical harm but were immensely useful in asserting a surprise tactic against a group of adversaries.

With the short warning the sound of the shiner was louder in Saeed's ears than he might have liked, but e managed to shield his eyes from the light. When he opened them again the guards were all clutching their heads and moaning. A sliver of white cord was hanging down to Saeed's side.

Saeed did not hesitate, he scaled the rope up the chimney and was greeted by Avan at the top.

"You cut that about as fine as I think you possibly could," Saeed said. "Thank you."

"Sorry," Avan said. "I had to lose pursuers of my own, then, I found these."

Avan held up a number of crystals, all of which looked like they could be the quintessence crystal.

"What is this? More magic?" Saeed asked.

"Raw mischief, trapped in dragon crystals as luminosity," Avan said. "Only one of the crystals is the one that contains the Terra Draconis, the others are decoys."

"So, the Terra Draconis is safe?" Saeed asked.

"Trapped in crystal," Avan nodded, "but out of Okulas's grasp. We need to make sure it stays safe, until the magic can be reversed safely."

"Can you do that?" Saeed asked.

"Not easily," Avan said. "I think the safest extraction method will prove to be alchemical but whoever does it will only get one chance. The responsibility for restoring this land is a grave one. I fear that, although I will be able to start upon a solution it won't be easy and I may not be the one to complete the work."

"So what do we do now?" Saeed asked.

A small light appeared in the passage behind Avan, it was about the size of a hornet, coloured a pale yellow.

"Hello, Starspark," Avan said, then to Saeed: "This is Starspark, I found her in one of Okulas's dragon crystals. She was an experiment in preserving mischief inside the lattice structure of the crystal. She was also my first experiment in extraction. Starspark, this is Saeed, an honest thief."

"Hello, Prince Weatherstrong," Starspark said. "Hello, Saeed."

"Starspark knows these caves, she can take us back through the roots of the tree to the light side of the moon and I can use magic to take us back to the haunted house in Faerie," Avan said. "After that you and I will hide the decoys, and, of course, the real crystal. Hopefully that will buy us some time to seek a remedy for this wicked act."


And this is exactly what they did, but as for the rest that will be told another day.

Vespula Velvet's Problem

The Patchwork Market may not be the most remarkable place in all of Faerie, but it is certainly unique. As has been noted elsewhere the notion of geography is applied somewhat liberally in the Faerie Realms. The most geographically stable location is the area covered by the Hundred Kingdoms, even that has its back ways, turnabouts and confusions.

The problem with Faerie geography is the existence of places that are at the centre of the world. The way that you can tell such a place is that you can traverse such an area and get to any other destination in fairly short order, as long as you know the way. That last part, that's always the bit that misleads people. Knowing the way is not as easy a thing as many suppose.

The most obvious, and also the most difficult, central location in Faerie is the Forest of Grymm. That's the name of the forest but really it may as well be called 'The Forest', because all wooded areas are connected to it, so there is, at some level, only one forest in the whole of Faerie. The problem is that some of the kingdoms separated by other forest areas don't see it like that. Someone could circumvent, for example, Sommerslip Woods near the Faerie Archive and never see any part of the Forest of Grymm. However, once they step among the trees, even on a well maintained path, they could take the wrong fork and end up in Grymm, from there they could emerge anywhere, not necessarily back in the county of Sommerslip.

There are other places of a similar nature, the great city of Luminis, the Black Ocean, the Soft Places on the edge of the Undone (those get _very_ complicated), the Celestial Sphere and the NeverWill. All of these places can be reached from almost anywhere and lead to absolutely everywhere. The Patchwork Market shares this distinction, the Market and Luminis are the only two such places that are built. The difference between the two is simple, Luminis is closed, the Market is always open.

As such the Patchwork Market is the most welcoming of all the inbetween places. If it were as wilful as Grymm or as bizarre as the NeverWill or as outright dangerous as the Black Ocean then it would make it hard to sell things to people, this is the Market's entire reason for existing. If trade were not facilitated in the Market the Market would cease to exist.

Even so, the Market has it's dark secrets and hidden corners. Not everything that goes on among the tiered plazas of this world within the world is clean and legal as anyone might wish. Of course, the Market permits the existence of its Master and the Master's Watch, they do the best they can to maintain peace and order conducive to the spending of a substantial amount of coin.

They can't be everywhere, from time to time evil still works its way into the Market. A fact Eos came to appreciate in an entirely new way when she awoke in chains fastened to the wall of a ruined structure in the darkness of an abandoned plaza.

There was one thing in Eos's mind beyond her own immediate inconvenience, concern and discomfort.

"Rachel?" she asked, unabashed, not whispering, the importance of knowing that her charge was in good health overriding other concerns.

"Eos?" Rachel's voice brought a flood of relief.

"Tasty little snippets," a third voice interrupted the auditory reunion. It was a quiet voice, a voice soft like sucking mud dangerous as a whippingcord serpent. Eos recognised that voice, she was pleased that Rachel had never heard it before.

"Vespula?" Eos asked.

"Enjoying myself I was," the witch replied, not bothering to confirm her identity to Eos. Vespula Velvet knew that the mermaid princess whose kingdom Vespula had usurped would not forget the voice, or be in any doubt as to its owner. "I was in my little undersea cave, rebinding the bristles to my broom when I feel a stabbing pain, as if someone had thrust the blade of a steel knife through my old heart."

The platform on whic Eos found herself was shrouded in darkness. She could see the edge of a ruined wall defined by the glow of a low, orange-flamed fire burning beyond it. She could not see the witch who had taken away her birthright. All she could hear was the wheedle of the ancient sorceress's thin voice.

"Bound to our enchantments we are, magic workers," Vespula said, Eos could hear soft footsteps, the voice sounded louder, nearer. "I knew when you bought that ring, so you could walk upon the land, that didn't trouble me much. I hired me some trolls, to find you, bring you to me. Must have hooked up with some clever sorts though, disappeared from the Hundred Kingdoms, found you in the soft places, then all on a sudden you were here, in the market and I was on the floor in pain. So much pain."

Vespula was very close now, but still not visible, somewhere on the other side of the partial wall to which Eos was bound.

"So I contacted my troll master, and told him where to get him a cloud of sleeping dust. He found you on the Market Floor, near to the Master's Island. Had to get you before you reached the Master of the Market. Too much trouble, not that you were hard to find, just walking around without a fear in the world. Had you forgotten fear, dearie?"

The breath of that question warmed Eos's left ear.

"I'm not afraid of you Vespula," Eos said, although she knew she was lying.

"Don't bother," Vespula said. "I can smell the terror on you, marinating you, making you and your little friend ready for Vespula's pot. You know how much power I can get from the bones of two young maidens such as yourselves?"

"The little girl is nothing to do with this," Eos said. "Let her go!"

"You have forgotten what it is to be a wicked witch, Teleosti Shaleshore," Vespula chortled. "It does not matter what that girl is to whom. She had the bad luck to fall within my power and that means that now she is no more than soup. Can't you smell the stock cooking, bubbling away in my cauldron? Sweet with wolfsbane and nightshade, hemlock and brimstone."

Eos knew that Vespula would happily swill down Eos and Rachel broth. Vespula was one of the vilest witches in the far shadows. She thrived on poison, fear and heartbreak. Even so, one could not simply give up, defeat may be inevitable but ultimate victory should always be withheld.

"Let us go, Vespula, or you will be hunted down and killed," Eos said, she was uncertain, in herself, that this would be the case but Eos had made friends, and Rachel certainly had people behind her, even if the chief among them was a talking mouse. There was a chance that Phoebe September or Frederick Cobb would care enough to avenge their disappearance, if they knew who to look for. It was a slim hope and not one of much use if they had, in the meanwhile been eaten, but it was all Eos had.

Vespula Velvet chuckled again, a hoarse, bubbling sound. The twisted shadow of the witch's form cut between the broken wall and Eos's field of vision. Eos still couldn't see the gnarled enchantress but she knew the old woman was there.

"And who will ever know that it was my doing, little one?" she asked. "Who will there be to tell. The kind of folk that would look for you would not even think of asking trolls so full of the darker blood as I would hire. Trolls such as them would rather kill friends of yours anyhow. No, sweet morsel, Vespula shall drink your blood, and no one shall ever know that it was done."

"Excuse me, ma'am," came a voice from far away, beyond the broken wall. "I think the stock is prepared but I have not the tongue to taste it."

Vespula did not appear best pleased at this interruption, she spat back:

"You have the tongue to spoil my delicious moment, though," to her unfortunate henchman.

Actually, Eos considered, welcoming any distraction from the consideration of her present dire circumstances, it did sound a little as if it might be a hench-woman. Distinguishing the gender of a speaker, if that speaker was a troll, which this was, was not an easy task for anyone other than another troll. Those of dwarven stock were pretty similar.

"Apologies, mistress," the troll replied. "Our stomachs are not able to take in any food save rocks, stones and earth, we may only drink water. We cannot taste a stock for meat-people, nor would it do our insides any good at all."

"Well," Vespula grumbled, "I suppose this will be one of the more important meals of my life. Very well, I shall taste the stock. Hopefully it will be fine and fulsome in its flavour, ready for the addition of my tender tasty morsels."

The troll came forth from behind the wall with a ladle in its hand. Vespula took the ladle, lifted the bowl of it to her lips and sipped at the liquor within.

"Hot, spicy," Vespula crowed triumphantly. "A full, sweet, flavour that just needs the addition of flesh and bone from a pair of maidens, to fill Vespula's stomach and warm her old meat through with every vile type of magic. Perfect for hexes and curses and-eep."

For the barest fraction of a moment Eos wondered if an 'eep' was some kind of dark magic that she had not previously encountered. The grey cast to Vespula's usual greenish countenance told Eos that she may have received a reprieve from the cooking bowl.

A hard noise, like stones cracking against one another, came to Eos's ears. She could see that Vespula was starting to petrify, turning to rock from the feet up. Nothing as refined as becoming a statue. No, Vespula's legs were turning into dark rocky pillars of uneven shape.

"Your one and only mistake," said the troll walking round so that Vespula's furious eyes could see it. "Was to think that you could casually decide to eat my daughter."

In a falling sift of sparkling fairy dust the visage of the troll fell away to reveal the face of a woman that Eos had never seen before.

"Its you!" blurted Rachel from her own wall adjacent to Eos. Since Vespula had arrived the little girl had been too terrified to speak but her surprise trumped her fear for a moment. "The Green Lady."

"Her name is Rebecca," said another voice that Eos recognised as belonging to Rachel's mouse, James. "And she is your mother."

The owner of the voice, it transpired was no longer a mouse, but a tall, thin man, who emerged from the shadows beyond the wall to join the slim woman who had disguised herself as one of Vespula's trolls.

"How?" Eos asked.

"Mischief probably," James said, smiling at Eos. "Lester and myself were lost in the Undone, a magician helped us get back here after we helped him out with a wolf problem... there's a lot to explain..." James turned away from Eos to look at Rachel. "Not least of all to you, Rachel."

"James?" Rachel said. "Is that you? You're a man again! Oh, I am so pleased for you."

"There's more than just a transformation here," James said to Rachel. "We have a lot to discuss. First, though, we should probably see about freeing the both of you. Lester, do you mind lending a hand?"


So James and Lester helped liberate Eos and Rachel from their chains and the whole group went on to the Patchwork Market to find a place for tea and a complicated chat. What they did after that is a story for another day.

Whatever Happened To The Terra Draconis?

This is one of the new told stories of the old times. In the years after the Vanishing wiped the Terra Draconis from the worlds of Faerie there were remnants, survivors, a few who had evaded the cataclysm that lead to the eventual disappearance of all the dragons from Faerie.

Unexpectedly the person made most unhappy by the complete disappearance of the continent was the instigator of the plan to wipe it out in the first place. Count Okulas had planned to use the qualic energy of the continent and its vast reserves of elegantly balanced magicks to become the most powerful sorcerer in existence. Once the deed was done and the energies were contained in a vessel other than the Count he was beside himself with fury and determined to recover the vessel of power he now regarded as 'his'.

Unfortunately for the count the Quintessence Crystal, the vessel containing the energy the Count craved, had been well hidden by Prince Avan Weatherstrong's thief companion shortly after the time of the the Vanishing.

It was only a matter of time before Okulas located the crystal. While he may not have been the most powerful sorcerer to ever have existed he was still an incredibly gifted magician with whole armies at his command. His singular martial innovation was a creature known as the glass monkey, a beast strong, stealthy and loyal, although not terribly bright. The glass monkeys were Okulas's eyes and ears in the remaining lands of Faerie.

One day a glass monkey came to Caer Okulas, nestled in a deep valley in the dark shadows far beyond the edge of the Hundred Kingdoms, with the news of the location of the Quintessence Crystal; a city on the border of the Hundred Kingdoms: Deepwight. Okulas reached out to the eyes of his monkeys near to the crystal and in moments he saw...

"...need it for anyway?" asked a small, grubby little boy dressed in rags as he handed a package wrapped in thin canvas to his companion, a tall, slender figure obscured in the shadows of an alley way.

For a moment Count Okulas felt a shiver of excitement. Was the prize he sought within the canvas package? Then he realised that it could not be. The package was long and flat, not thick enough to contain the crystal.

"Never you mind," the shadowy figure said. "The less you know about my business the better, Wish Forbetter."

"Right you are," Wish shrugged, feigning disinterest. "I have several shiny coins in my possession, so I really don't know what I'm doing here talking to you."

Wish casually spun on his heel and disappeared up the street towards Deepwight market.

Forget the boy, follow the other one. Okulas ordered his glass monkey. The monkey obeyed and as the slender figure disappeared deeper into the alleyway the monkey scaled to the roof and took up an aerial view from the edge of the eaves looking down upon the figure. As they emerged in-between buildings Okulas could see that the figure wore a hooded cloak, it was impossible to see their face.

The dark sorcerer urged his servant to find a vantage point from where some clue to the identity of the stranger could be determined but, although glass monkeys are very difficult to spot, they do make noise so every one was nervous of getting within earshot of people. Particularly the kind of people who did strange deals in alleyways with street urchins and wore long, heavy, grey hooded cloaks.

The only identifying feature that the person wore was a large golden brooch that pinned the front of the cloak to the stranger's left shoulder. The brooch was bright and round, it told anyone who knew of the old Dragon Lore that this person was representing to be one of the last of the Dragon Warriors.

That wasn't entirely impossible. There were a few such left scattered across the Shadows, the Hundred Kingdoms and out in far-flung Araby. It was only a matter of time before Okulas found them all. Maybe this one would be one of the first to go.

The monkey continued to follow the slender Dragon Warrior into the warrens of Deepwight's poor quarter. The further they went the more evidence of filth and crime surrounded them. This person was walking without fear into the worst part of the city. Before long they reached their destination, a building that bore the secret markings that denoted it as the real thieves' guild house.

Every city had an official Thieves' Guild. Thieves, of course, could be employed to commit crimes, theft being the least of them. They were also often used as freelance spies, secret couriers, the quietest whispers between the courts of kings spilled, silken, into the ears of thieves for carriage. A thief's skull held a lot of powerful magic, if one had the stomach for such sorcery, Okulas knew.

The problem was that the official Thieves' Guild building was, like so many things with the thieving community, just a facade that concealed the places where the real business got done. The real Thieves' Guild was always in the poor quarter, the building disguised to look like any other hovel in such a place. There were outward signs for those that knew to look for them and Okulas knew what it was he was seeing.

His monkey, on the other hand, knew nothing. It scampered along the roof of the adjacent building ready to leap onto the walls of the guildhouse.

Stop! commanded Count Okulas. We shall have to wait and see if our friend comes back out.

Proper Thieves' Guildhouses were steeped in defensive magic so heavy that not even an invisible monkey could get inside. They also had multiple entrances and exits, not all of which were visible at street level. Okulas reflected angrily that he had, in all likelihood, lost the trail here.

Then the monkey turned its head and saw that it was not the only one to have followed the slender warrior to this location. On the roof opposite the urchin, Wish, had followed the warrior to the Guildhouse. He scampered down a drainpipe from the roof and slid into a sewer opening at the side of the road.

Don't dawdle! Okulas commanded his servant. Follow the grotty little twerp.

This was the best opportunity they would get to pick up the trail again. If the boy knew a way in, fine, but if he didn't then the Thieves would reason it was the boy who set off any alarm that was raised. There would never be any evidence of a glass monkey anywhere near the building. Okulas loved a win-win

As it happened the boy did seem to know a route into the Thieves' Guild without tripping any of their security. Okulas felt a tiny quiver of admiration, the boy was no more than fifteen years of age, at the outside, yet he had found a way to circumnavigate a series of security measures that even a glass monkey had to be cautious of.

Once inside the building one of the Thieves' passive security measures came in to play. A natural thief had to have a good sense of direction, without one a building with many identical rooms and hallways became very difficult to navigate. This observation was deeply embedded into thief lore and all proper thieves' guild building interiors were square, grey and featureless, so only a thief could get their bearings in them.

The boy was good, but he wasn't that good. He spent an hour just bumbling around, hiding from thieves who nearly spotted him and not finding the person he'd given the package to. Eventually, by sheer luck, he heard a conversation saying that she (a she? Okulas should have known but was still surprised) was taking the Grand Canal out of the city.

The boy knew where the underwater dock was and went there fast enough to be able to get onto the barge that was taking this female dragon warrior on towards her destination. The glass monkey followed, and watched carefully. If this street-urchin hadn't come along for the ride then Okulas would never have known where this woman was going; or even that it was a woman.

The barge took the small party away from the poor quarter and out to the main canal ways, toward the market quarter's shipping yard. Once there the Dragon Warrior, the urchin and Okulas's monkey switched to another boat. As this boat left the ship yard on to the canal way that would merge with the Deepwight River the Dragon Warrior's companion, a gruff looking boatman, spoke aloud for the first time since the boat transfer.

"Did you get it?" he asked the woman.

"I did," she said. "Wouldn't be here if I hadn't. Can't get past the padfoot without it."

"You could probably have just tried telling it off," the boatman remarked, the shadow of a smile upon his lips.

"There's nothing that will disperse this padfoot save the Storm's Eye, it's a geis," the woman said. Her face was still not visible within the hood but there was the sound of a grin in her voice.

After this brief exchange the conversation devolved into an exchange of pleasantries and tidbits of tedious gossip. Okulas ceased to listen, instead pressing the glass monkey to look about and see where they were headed and who else was on board the barge.

The answers turned out to be, southwards and nobody else. The former did not tell Okulas very much, except that they were heading into the Hundred Kingdoms. The latter pleased him greatly, particularly as Okulas was going to have to keep any activities he undertook within the Kingdoms very quiet indeed.

Eventually the boatman took his rest and the woman piloted the barge down the river alone. In the small hours the boatman took the tiller again and the woman rested. While the boatman was in charge he steered the boat off the Deepwight River and onto a tributary branch. They headed north again, as well as to the east, but not far enough north to leave the Hundred Kingdoms once more.

It didn't take long before they reached a small inland port with space to provide mooring for maybe twenty barges. The barge that carried the four passengers was the only craft at this place. The boatman moored the barge and woke the Dragon Warrior.

As the morning grew to full strength another person approached the port. A thief, riding a horse, a second horse tethered behind. The woman saddled up the second horse and climbed on its back.

They were in the process of bidding farewell to the boatman when the urchin revealed his presence. He tumbled from under a mound of sacking on the aft of the barge, not four feet from the tiller of the craft and stood, looking defiantly sheepish out on the edge of the dock as the three figures regarded him with amazement.

"Wish Forbetter!" the woman said, dismounting from her steed and coming over to the boy. "What do you think you are doing stowing away on Old Jed's boat?"

"I wanted to see where you were going," Wish responded. "It seemed like an adventure."

"It's more than any adventure a lad should be along on," the thief responded, a note of anger in his voice. "I shall have to take you to the nearest town, that will delay us by at least a day."

"There is no time, Garnet," the woman said. "He will have to come with us. We can't afford the time. Okulas will catch wind of what we're doing."

Okulas permitted himself a moment to preen at this clear evidence that his own hidden passenger had not been detected. As pleased as he was by this he was concerned that the boy might be sent away before the party got to its destination. He didn't want to ruin any more of his own plan than absolutely necessary with a thief and a Dragon Warrior knowing his minion was even present. A quick strike at the key moment would be the best plan.

"You can't take a boy into Hammerlode!" Garnet objected.

"We don't have a choice, he will have to ride with me," the woman said. "We had best be quick, in and out. Okulas has eyes everywhere you know."

The thief Garnet did not seem terribly happy at the arrangement, but he deferred to the Dragon Warrior's command. The three of them left the port side and rode their horses up a mountain road that soon turned into a thin trail. The trail ended at the mouth of an old mine, its entrance covered over with boards of weathered wood.

"You stay with Garnet," the woman said to Wish before they approached the mine entrance. "Don't think you can lend a hand to me, because you can't. Understood?"

Wish nodded, solemnly. With that warning in place Garnet and the woman pulled down the boards over the entrance and proceeded on into the mine. Wish trailed on after Garnet, the glass monkey slunk along behind them all.

They hadn't gone very far into the shaft before they were greeted by the sound of a mournful howl coming from the dark tunnels ahead. The woman and Garnet both took a moment to light torches. The flickering yellow-white flames illuminated the mine walls but the light did not push back the shadows a great distance.

"You sure this is going to work?" Garnet asked nervously.

"The Storm's Eye was forged to defeat a spectre-hound," the woman said. "I haven't personally tested it though, no. They're not very common these days."

Garnet was visibly unhappy at this news, the woman shrugged.

"You want to go back?" she asked.

"No, carry on," Garnet's tone said the exact opposite of his actual words. The woman listened to the words and not the tone.

The mine shaft sloped down and was extensive, eventually it levelled out and divided. After following a few twists and turns without even pausing Okulas guessed that the woman's route was pre-planned and memorised. If the Quintessence Crystal was here it was really no wonder that the Count had never found it, Weatherstrong's thief friend had done an excellent job of hiding it.

That made Okulas wonder why it was that this Dragon Warrior had taken it upon herself to move it. Given all the time that the Count had spent on locating the crystal without success so far there were really only two options. One was that the woman was a paranoid idiot, the other was that where they were moving it to wouldn't stop at being an obscure location, it would probably also be resistant to being located at all.

Okulas had long ago become averse to the risks of assumption. That meant he had to be very sure that he did not lose the crystal this time. Otherwise he may never get another chance to drain its power.

The Count had barely had time to make this resolution before the attack happened. Okulas had encountered a padfoot before this one was a large and particularly ferocious example of a breed that was formidable even in its weaker members.

The woman fought the spectral hound with the sword that she had obtained from Wish. Okulas commanded his monkey to stay well out of the way. A spectre-hound had all the senses of its material counterpart enhanced with some magical senses as well. None of the folk in the mine shaft could see the glass monkey but the padfoot might.

And indeed it did. Spectre-hounds have a keen sense of threat and a glass monkey was definitely the most threatening presence in the party. The hound broke from its engagement with the Dragon Warrior to run towards the glass monkey.

Okulas's servant panicked and turned to bolt away. There would be no chance for the creature alone in the dark tunnels. Okulas took control of the creature expending some of his magical energy to dominate the monkey's will. He made the monkey turn and dodge past the padfoot. He wanted to bring the beast back towards the woman.

In normal circumstances this would have been risky, the glass monkey might be revealed if it could be heard or felt. In the heat of battle it was a risk that had to be taken. Okulas imagined the woman was already puzzled at the dog's sudden switch of focus. Okulas intended that the focus switched back.

Placing the monkey behind the woman worked beautifully. The padfoot came back towards the woman. The new situation provided an unexpected bonus for everyone except the spectre-hound. The padfoot was trying to kill the monkey but whilst the woman was in the way she was attacking the monster. As a result she didn't have to try terribly hard to stab and slice at the padfoot because it was distracted.

Within a few moments the spectre-hound dissolved, defeated. The woman looked over to Garnet and Wish and caught her breath.

"See," Wish said happily. "No problem at all."

"Seemed too easy," the woman said, looking about her, suspicious.

Okulas took his cue and withdrew the glass monkey to a safe distance.

"Sometimes things are what they are, Princess," Garnet said flatly. "Can we be done?"

The woman, the princess, nodded curtly and continued on her route through the mine. A short distance further on they came to another downward shaft, the top of a ladder visible over the edge of the excavation.

They climbed down the ladder and walked along a short passage into a small cavern. Inside the cavern was a single item: a giant, stone pumpkin. The pumpkin was carved in two interlocking pieces. The princess stuck the shaft of her torch into the floor and shifted the top half of the pumpkin, inside the carved husk was a book, an old volume of simple spells such as might be given to a student witch. That was not something one would go to the trouble of hiding down here.

The princess opened the book, the inside was hollowed out and nestling within the space carved into the pages was the shard of crystal that contained all the power of the Terra Draconis.

Now was the moment. Okulas pushed the glass monkey to lope forward and jump onto Garnet's back. The monkey dug its hands into the man's neck and Okulas pushed the force of his mental domination forward through the man's flesh.

Dominating the mind of a man was not at all as simple a business as dominating a servile glass monkey. Garnet resisted but all resistance melted before the sheer force of Okulas's determination. Within a second Okulas had drawn Garnet's knife and put it to Wish's throat.

"Garnet?" the princess was genuinely shocked by her companion's apparent betrayal. That was an important tactical advantage Okulas decided to play the traitor card for what it was worth.

"Sorry, Princess," Okulas said through Garnet's mouth. He hoped the fact that he did not know the princess's name wouldn't cause him any problems. "You want the boy, my master wants the crystal."

"The Count is not your master," the princess said. "He killed your wife."

"And now all I have is money," Okulas said. He knew that some people put ridiculous sentimental attachments above the acquisition of money and power. He also knew there were fewer of this type of person among the ranks of thieves than elsewhere.

"I can't believe this Garnet," the princess said. "You wouldn't kill a boy. Think of Flint, think of your son."

"But this ain't my son," Okulas responded. "This is just a boy who will never be a man unless you give me what I want."

"I can't let you have this," the princess said.

"Then the boy dies," Okulas responded. Garnet was fighting the control but Okulas did push the blade tighter against Wish's neck. The blade pierced the skin and Wish cried out.

"I'm coming closer," the princess said. She held the glowing crystal aloft, her spare hand was open, empty, reaching out towards Wish. The princess was looking straight into Garnet's eye as she came forward.

"I can kill him before you can pull him close to you," Okulas warned her.

"Then I won't pull," the princess said as the glow from the Quintessence Crystal instensified. The princess's hand brushed Wish's cheek and the white light became a blinding beacon that obscured Okulas's vision. When the light had cleared the princess, Wish and the crystal had vanished, leaving Garnet and the glass monkey alone in the mine.

Okulas howled in frustration but it was too late, the princess had taken the crystal away.

"Does it tell you where they took it to?" asked Phoebe September, listening to this tale in another time at another place.

"It does," the story gatherer reported, looking up from the page of the tale. "But the reference is vague, it says that she hid the crystal, herself and Wish in a place called the Skull Garden, a place she had heard of from her friends when she was young. We never had those stories, till you came."

"Then our destination is written somewhere in here!" Tabarnas said, motioning towards Volume One of Anabyl's adventures.

And indeed it was, it didn't take them long to work out the route and the Story Gatherers sent them to the Garden, but what happened when they got there is a story for another day.