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.

Lester And James Distract A Wolf

"So what are we doing again?" Lester asked, twitching the wrist of his right hand, uncomfortably grasping a short sword, to swish the blade about a bit in the air.

"We're a distraction," James said. His sword remained still, his eyes searching the forest path intently.

"Okay," Lester said. Lester hadn't felt proper misery now for quite some time. Panic, confusion, fear, awkwardness, guilt and even terror, all yes; misery, not so much. He didn't even really know how to express his misery because the reasons for it would either sound stupid or selfish or both.

Since James had found his own form in the Undone; since they had escaped, all three of them, into this charming little shadow kingdom; since they had set out into the woods in the hope of picking up a trade route back to Bridgetown, Lester's misery had grown.

Was Lester miserable about James now not being a mouse? It was true that the lanky, intense individual that had replaced the sarcastic, emotionally complex little rodent was a bit of a system shock. Someone's physical shape should not play such a huge part in how one related to them, Lester felt. Yet here was James, now not a cheeky mouse, instead a charismatic and intelligent man approaching a distinguished middle age.

The transformation appeared to demand that people took James more seriously, not to mention the man's kind and lovely wife. Rebecca had known the man James for longer than the mouse James. From the first moment they had been together Lester knew that Rebecca would never have viewed her husband's rodent form as anything more than a horrible affliction. Lester had never known James as a man and so had always thought of him as a mouse with amnesia.

The amnesia was another thing that had put Lester off kilter. A mouse could have amnesia and it was possible for an observer not to take the whole thing terribly seriously. After all what important memories could a mouse have? When the mouse was a man, the pain of forgetting written in the lines on his face, you were forced to confront your own flippancy.

None of this was a recipe for much more than confusion and a period of necessary adjustment, of course. The problem was the misery and sense of loss that accompanied the confusion. Lester realised that whilst he and James had both been bewildered, both seeking things that appeared impossible to find, that their bond had formed organically, without either one of them noticing. In a world where the finding of a clue to the location of a brother, or a memory that might help upon the road to a mislaid daughter, was a task of gargantuan proportions the funny young man in the pinstripe flannel suit and the amnesiac mouse had each other.

James had gone with Lester on an amazing journey, through some of the strangest places in Faerie, they had seen the ruins of a sorcerer's palace, the edge of the Undone and the colourful stalls of the market at the centre of everything. James's journey had restored to him many (although still not all) of his memories, his daughter, his wife and his physical form. Lester had managed to harvest an elliptical letter and a bottle of potion he had used up to escape the Undone.

Lester knew that his quest was ongoing, and probably a worthwhile endeavour, but when he compared his progress to James's the results were not encouraging. Still, Lester felt incredibly selfish for resenting his companion's progress and feeling the blank, empty helplessness of his current empty-handedness.

Even trying his hardest to put all this aside Lester still felt that he was losing the best friend he had ever had, before he'd even ever really had a chance to tell this friend how he felt. He couldn't help but gain the impression that James believed that they were companions because of circumstance and not because of friendship. As James now had a family to think about, and some handy opposable thumbs, it became more and more apparent that Lester was somewhat of a third wheel in any situation James might find himself in.

That was difficult and caused a sadness that Lester couldn't just squash down out of the way.

"You know," Lester said, filling the empty, silent air with a distracting burble of noise. "Things have happened pretty quickly today. I'm not even sure that I know what we're standing here for."

"I just said," James repeated, absently, "we're a distraction."

"Yes," Lester said. "I got that. I just don't know what we're a distraction from, or indeed what it is we're supposed to be distracting. It has something to do with a wizard. I remember the wizard, and you, you were talking to a mouse."

"Yes," James said. "Gargantuus Redstorm, who lives in the wall just yonder, told us that he was the member of a tribe that gathered intelligence for Silas Strumpkin, a wizard who lives in that house over there." James pointed at the house just visible along the path about fifty feet away. "Wizard Strumpkin is currently engaged in commune with the weave, trying to gain some information paid for by a noble in the next shadow. A rival noble has sent a lupine mercenary to kill Strumpkin whilst he is vulnerable. Gargantuus and his tribe are not able to warn Silas and so we are here to defeat the mercenary before it can get to the wizard."

"Right," Lester said. He took a look down at the lumpen, poorly forged metal rod in his hand. A poorly constructed melange of sword and mace. He had never held a weapon before now, he wasn't sure that this was the weapon to start with. Also, how was he supposed to be of any use fighting a wolf? There were more questions. 'Why?' seemed to be one of the most pertinent, so he asked it.

"Gargantuus knows that Silas has recorded a spell of transportation in his book of spells. If the wizard awakes from his trance alive and in good humour Gargantuus will persude him to send us back to Bridgetown."

"So all we have to do is kill a wolf to save a wizard and we go back to where we started from?" Lester said. "Done much wolf killing, have you?"

James shook his head.

"Almost none that I can remember," he replied. "We're not really supposed to kill it, we're just supposed to keep it busy until Rebecca can kill it with an arrow."

"Oh, okay," Lester nodded. "And what happens if the wolf comes from the other direction?"

"Then she'll be in the ideal position to kill it before it ever sees her or us," James said, his tone was beginning to gain an edge of annoyance. "You weren't listening at all back there, were you?"

"Not really," Lester admitted, allowing a little ire to leak out in his tone. "I'm tired, and afraid. I'm pretty hungry and... if I'm entirely honest... I was busy wondering why a mouse was called Gigantuus."

"It's a mouse thing," James said. "I discovered this when I was one. Mice think of themselves as the biggest creatures in the world. Anything bigger than them is, to them, just as big as them. So they like to call themselves big, tough names, to recognize their awesome stature and whatnot. They're mostly a species of proud warriors."

"I see, they always struck me as a little nervous," Lester said.

"They're very proud of their flight reflex. They have almost no voluntary control over it," James explained. "I had more because I wasn't born a mouse. Regular rats and mice will run automatically in the face of overwhelming odds without even really being aware that they're doing it. They call it 'saviour ghosting', well, they do when they get away intact."

"Wow," Lester said. "There's quite a lot going on with those mice then. I never knew."

Silence fell, which was not a good thing for Lester as his mind was instantly alerted at his failure to actually admit what was really troubling him when he had said 'if I'm entirely honest'. Worse Lester had realised that he had given James a hard time about not being entirely honest when he himself had been too confused to be honest on several recent occasions.

Lester had made a decision to improve his honesty and was now failing miserably to speak up and be direct about things. Lester didn't feel comfortable with the notion that emotions could be difficult, they were going to happen no matter how complex or inconvenient they were going to be, but that didn't make them any simpler. Lester was in danger of becoming wreathed in sadness again. He had to talk or his feelings would overwhelm him.

"So, you're glad... to be a person again?" Lester asked. If he brought up a topic of conversation that put James's transformation on the table maybe he would find a way to say the difficult things.

"It's definitely an advantage," James replied. "If I could just get my memory, my daughter and my home back then I would feel a lot better still."

"Yes," Lester said. "That would be nice. Having everything sorted out would be nice."

James looked over at Lester, the clear, grey-green human eyes in James's human face were far more expressive than the small dark eyes of the mouse he had been. Lester found human James too human to deal with. Adding guilt to the misery Lester realised that his sense of loss came with the realisation that he was no longer the most important person in the duo. He was a drifter looking for an elusive brother. James... well, James was some kind of important.

Someone had robbed James of his memories and put him into a faraway shadow not far from the edge of the Undone. Someone had turned James into a mouse and dispersed his wife. Someone had wanted James hidden away and imprisoned. Whatever James's full story was it was a story that mattered a great deal to several powerful people.

What about Lester and Chester Topping? Chester was so important that he had been forced to hide himself from everyone, including his twin brother. All Lester was trying to do was find him. Lester was not important. Lester was just Lester.

"If I can do anything to help you find Chester, when I have the power to do so, then I will, of course," James said quietly.

There was no time to respond to that. Lester saw a movement on the path, not far from where they stood. It looked as if the mercenary had arrived.

Lester looked pointedly at the approaching figure, James turned to look in the direction Lester was indicating.

"Just concentrate on staying safe," James said. "Try to knock him back, give Rebecca a clear shot."

Lester nodded. The sudden tension in his stomach made him completely unable to feel sadness, or inadequacy, or guilt. Lester shifted his grip on his wonky sword. He wondered if he could get used to this sort of thing, like a knight.

About sixty seconds later Lester had firmly decided that, no, he was never going to make a knight. The wolf was being kept back but this was mostly due to a lunatic ferocity he was managing to exhibit in his sword waving antics. The adrenaline flooding his system prevented him from looking over to see if James was doing any better but, regardless, a few seconds later the whole thing was over when an arrow in the chest put down the ravening lupine mercenary.

"Remind me to avoid being a decoy again," James said, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees, exhausted.

"Same here," Lester replied.

They got about a minute to gather themselves together before Rebecca joined them on the path and the three of them went back towards the wizard's house. Once James had talked once more with Gargantuus, and the three of them had shown that the mercenary had been thwarted, they went back to the house with their rodent companion.

After a few hours Silas Strumpkin came out of his trance and, upon being told by Gargantuus of the bravery of the three strangers was happy to make them a portal to transport them into the Patchwork Market. So James, Lester and Rebecca stepped through the portal back to their destination, but what happened to them when they got there is a story for another time.

In Which There Is Trouble On The Okulas Moon

"I must confess," Saeed said, as the light of the rainbow bridge faded from view, "I never expected the moon to look like this."

They stood on a wide, featureless plain, covered with a sparse scrub in patches of hard, black soil. Although the stars could be seen, a bright canopy overhead that suggested night, there was plenty of ambient light surrounding Saeed and Avan.

"The moon wears many faces," Avan replied. "She is the mistress of illusion."

"'She'?" Saeed asked. "The moon is female?"

"That is the one thing all the faces have in common, yes," Avan said, then, pointing towards one horizon: "I think that is where we need to be headed."

In the direction that Avan had pointed Saeed could make out the twisted form of a gigantic tree, the only large form on the visible landscape of the Okulas Moon as far as the eye could see in any direction. Saeed and Avan began the long walk toward their destination.

As they drew closer Saeed began to realise that they were not headed towards a normal-sized tree that was a short distance away but, in fact, an enormous tree that was much further away than it first appeared. Even so, as they first crossed the part of the plain where some roots of the enormous tree were becoming visible Saeed could see birds swooping and wheeling around the branches far above his head.

One bird, not flying, was sat on a larger branch about sixty feet up. An impressive looking owl that, while not on the same exact scale as the tree, was large enough to look a little more comfortable with the enormity of its perch than it might have otherwise.

The size of the external roots grew larger and larger as Avan and Saeed drew closer to the bole of the tree. Before they reached a place where they could think of climbing the trunk a voice called out to them.

"Couldn't resist the challenge could you?"

Saeed and Avan turned to see Miranda Felix standing twenty feet up on the ridge of one of the roots.

"You want to give up," Avan said. "You'd be no match for me if I was alone. Let me assure you that your defeat will be swift and humiliating when you face both myself and Saeed."

"If I was alone," Miranda Felix replied. "I would not have called attention to myself. You know as well as anyone I like to pick my battles, my handsome prince."

Saeed surveyed the area around him. All he saw was the rough bark covering the tree roots, appearing grey in the strange blue of the ambient illumination, and the black and blue scrub of the earth.

"You have hidden lizard men, or trolls nearby?" Avan asked.

"I have glass monkeys," Felix replied. "Nearer than you think."

Saeed felt the brush of Avan's arm as he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.

"I must confess," he said. "I've never heard of a glass monkey."

"No, something new on the moon," Felix said. "Dreamed up by a darling little madame I have safe inside a mirror. Mischief sprites can have the cruellest imaginings if you just scare them a little."

"I've never heard of a glass monkey," Saeed muttered to Avan under his breath. "She could be bluffing."

Avan looked about, scanning the ground around them for some sign of Miranda's invisible henchmen.

"So we're supposed to just let you get away because of this assurance?" Avan asked.

"Oh, my sweet boy," Miranda said. "I know you too well to think that you'd take my word for anything." She drew in a breath and called out: "Attack!"

There was a shift in the air and a rhythmic pounding rumble like dozens of feet suddenly moving forward. Something screeched and Saeed felt himself struck in the face so hard it sent him tumbling backwards.

Thankfully Saeed had excellent reflexes. He turned the fall into a backwards hand spring, drawing his sword as he came back up. He swung his blade in an arc around him and drew out the sound of shrieking monkeys as they tried to avoid his random swipes.

"I am not going to be able to keep this up for long!" he shouted at Avan, who had somehow managed to cloak his entire body in fire in the few seconds since the monkeys had attacked.

"No, neither am I," Avan called back. "Besides, Felix is escaping while we're dealing with this nonsense."

"Nonsense, in my experience, tends to be less fatal than this," Saeed called back.

"This should help," Avan said pulling a gourd from one of the pouches on his belt. "Take a deep breath," he warned and threw the gourd into the air. Being a wise thief Saeed inhaled as large a lungful of air as he could in preparation for whatever was coming next.

There was an explosive popping noise and the gourd bloomed into a cloud of green smoke that settled down over them. The green smoke was made of a fine powder that settled on Avan, Saeed and also on the glass monkeys. Now Saeed could see the outline of the places where the powder fell. The monkeys did not like the powder and were scurrying away, trying not to get it on them.

Even as they did so, however, the monkeys began to swoon and fall, there were the sounds of monkey bodies hitting the floor as the green powder caused them to fall into slumber. There were more monkeys than could be caught within the radius of the gourd, of course. But clearing the space gave Avan and Saeed all the head start that they needed.

Swinging their blades ahead of them they charged towards the trunk of the tree and the remaining glass monkeys scampered out of their way, unsure what to do next. When they were outside of the reach of the cloud of green powder Saeed risked opening his mouth to speak.

"I don't think we're going to be able to climb this tree faster than monkeys, not even glass ones," he said.

"Don't you worry," Avan replied. "I don't think that we'll have to."

Avan dodged to the right into a shadowed crook between the out growth of two huge roots and disappeared. Hoping that this was not the result of some kind of sorcery Saeed followed. He was amazed to find that the shadow was far longer, and deeper than he might have imagined. Also, it felt as if he was running along in some sort of darkened interior.

"Hurry!" Avan said from up ahead. The sound of glass monkeys chattering and squealing was growing louder at Saeed's back.

Saeed felt a strong hand pull him forward so he stumbled and fell to the floor. There was the whistle of air sliced by a blade and then the rumble of unspooling rope and the rattle of metal through guide rails. Finally there was the crash of a heavy gate hitting the floor.

Avan muttered one of his minor magical incantations and a soft yellow glow permeated the space around them. Saeed was amazed to see that they were inside the tree, in a room carved into the root, a room with a heavy gate blocking a passage that lead outside.

"How did you know?" Saeed asked.

"Neither Felix not Okulas are lovers of slumming it," Avan said. "I didn't believe either of them would concede to living in the unfurnished branches of a tree, whatever it's size. Besides, I believed I could detect the suck of air entering the tunnel when we were outside."

"So... you could very easily have just run straight into a wall?" Saeed asked as the two of them started to make their way through the hallways and rooms carved into the roots of the tree.

Avan shrugged.

"What's life without a risk once in a while?" he asked.

The two adventurers made short work of finding the grand hall at the core of the tree structure. A vast cylindrical vault ran up the main trunk of the tree. Saeed guessed that it wasn't wide enough to have hollowed out the whole of the tree interior but it was still over one hundred feet in diameter, a series of circular galleries were connected with broad stair cases sweeping upwards in elegant arcs to the branches of the tree above.

"Looks like nobody's home," Saeed said after walking slightly behind Avan and nervously checking over his shoulder every five paces for about ten minutes.

"Worrying," Avan said. "If this place is empty then the forces Okulas had here must have gone somewhere else. The question is, where?"

"Let's hope the owl knows," Saeed said. "And that he's in a mood to share the knowledge."

When Avan and Saeed emerged onto the branch they found that a smooth path had been carved into the upper side of the surface leading out to the owl's perch. Now that they drew closer Saeed could see that the owl was roughly twenty feet tall, an imposing creature indeed, nestled in the branches of this mighty tree.

"You are one of the First?" Avan called to the owl as they drew close enough that it might hear them.

The owl rotated its enormous head. Huge golden discs, the owl's eyes, oriented to regard them.

"You are Prince Avan Weatherstrong, and you are Saeed ibn Abihi, the wanderer," the owl addressed them. "I have been waiting for you."

"What concern are we to one of the arbiters of fate?" Avan asked, his delivery was clear but Saeed had travelled with the Prince long enough that he could detect the quaver of concern in his companion's voice.

"Dark times are ahead, Prince Weatherstrong, only the deepest knowledge and the strongest soul can prevail," the owl said.

"If you tell us where we may find Okulas," Avan declared. "Then we will save the Terra Draconis."

"You will preserve it," the owl told them. Saeed had travelled too long not to note the ring in the owl's voice that told them this was a correction, not an echo. "This is the weft of the Weave. You will find your quarry in the eye of the storm that rages on the dark side of this moon. Nothing larger than a speck of dirt may penetrate the walls of the storm."

"Then that is how we must approach," Avan said. "Great thanks, wise one, we shall show that your trust in us was well placed."

"I do not trust," the owl replied. "I deliver the will of the weave. All things are as they must be."

With that the owl shifted its weight forward to drop off the perch, spreading its wings and swooping away from the tree on the Okulas Moon.

"I have to say that I did not find that conversation at all reassuring," Saeed said.

"Neither did I," Avan said. "But we have come too far to turn back now."

"I promised that I would undo the evil I was tricked into unleashing," Saeed replied. "So I am with you, however dark the road."

"Then you should brace yourself," Avan said. "Because I think we're about to experience a very bumpy ride."

And indeed they did, and in the eye of the storm raging over the dark side of the Okulas Moon Saeed and Avan confronted Count Okulas, but what happened when they did is a story for another time.

How Tabarnas Came To Sommerslip

Tabarnas always felt nervous whenever he was separated from his stock. It wasn't just a matter of distance, if the stock could be left outside a walled city whilst negotiations took place with the Master Chief of the town's trader's guild then it didn't matter; these were negotations and something any goblin trader would be well used to.

The separation anxiety began to bite when the stock had to be cached because outside circumstances, not conducive to trade, dictated that carting a load of sale items around might not be prudent, in the strictest sense of the term. Then your stockpile could be safely under lock and key in the next street and you'd still be worried.

It wasn't the distance, it was the prospect of thievery, or acts of nature, or acts of deliberate plunder and villainy. In short, it was generally acknowledged that any kind of risk was bad for business. The prospect of risk sent a shudder down Tabarnas's spine. Well it might, because if a risk matured then money would be lost. And if money was lost... well, what was the point of trying to wed that self-evident disaster with a 'then'? Money... would be lost. There would be a loss of money. How could anything be worse than that?

What made matters worse, at least in Tabarnas's opinion, was that they were well within the bounds of the Hundred Kingdoms, surrounded by crossways, not even in the brightest of shadow realms. Most people were perfectly safe here, protected under the rule of law. Not Tabarnas though, not with his current cargo and his current travelling companions, not with his current business.

He had to stop for a moment and ask himself why he was doing any of this.

The answer, of course, was stories. His story books had continued to evolve and change over the week that it had taken them to come to the edge of Sommerslip woods. Tabarnas had checked the main points of the Chronicles of Avan Weatherstrong and the new work detailing the life and adventures of Princess Anabyl, the Dragon Warrior.

The general shape and tone of the stories was the kind of stuff that Tabarnas liked best. Tales of derring-do and high heroics. There were little notes, swatches of darkness, where heroism, it was implied, was not enough and the battle, it was suggested, may not be won by the correct side.

These scurrilous passages, nestled away in the reams of epic prose needed to be excised, redacted, reversed, put right. The only people in the whole of Faerie who could wrangle a story were the Story Keepers of the Faerie Archive. It was these individuals that party or parties unknown had determined should never meet with Tabarnas, or his little band of helpers. Tabarnas had graduated from reading tales of heroics to being in them.

The only slight disadvantage to this being that Tabarnas did not feel, had not ever felt, and was extremely unlikely to feel in the future, like a hero. He was a trader, a business man: along with knowledge of the deeply important mission that he had accidentally become a part of was a natural curiosity as to whether he could broker a deal with the paymaster of the mercenaries who were currently pursuing him for the very items that he was supposed to protect.

There was nothing Tabarnas could do about this, it was his nature. So, altogether the best idea would be to sit here in the Sommerslip Inn and not do anything. He didn't want to end up betraying anyone by following his instincts.

A plain looking. burly farmer with a low brow and a missing tooth slipped into the booth opposite Tabarnas.

"Tabarnas," the farmer said. "Don't worry, it's me, Harvey."

The farmer reached up to his chin and pulled forward his face, the narrow jaw and high cheekbones of the djinn peeked out from the shadowy interior space that opened beneath the man's face. The farmer returned the chin to its initial starting place before continuing:

"I adapted some masks that I took from the House of Mirth," Harvey explained. "It means that we can all get around without causing too much panic."

"So why didn't you give one to me?" Tabarnas asked. "I'm positively sick sat in this nook, trying to be unobtrusive."

"Only the three masks, I'm afraid," Harvey said. "Don't worry, the trolls aren't bright enough to spot you. Freddie, Feebs and I are much easier to identify. I don't think anyone knows much about you beyond the fact that you're a goblin trader, and there's lots of them."

"So, what? I just have to sit here until you've... done... something...?" Tabarnas asked. He found the djinn terribly condescending. Tabarnas believed that Harvey regarded him as nothing more than a talking animal, and not one of the sophisticated types either. Like a dog that someone had enchanted to ask for food or beg for a stick to be thrown.

"Feebs seems to think she can give Freddie a boost," Harvey shrugged. "Then we can work out a strategy for getting the trolls off our back."

"I've got the distinct feeling," said a gawky looking young woman who slid into the seat next to Tabarnas without warning, "that things may, shortly, begin to get a bit frantic. I invested in a crossbow, and some new vambraces."

"Phoebe?" Tabarnas tried.

"No, it's Frederick!" the woman objected. "I would have thought the talk of weapons and armour would give it away."

"It's just, you're..." Tabarnas didn't know quite how to put it.

"I look like a girl, yes," Frederick said.

"Which some people might think was closer to reality," Harvey said. Frederick shot the djinn a look of tired disappointment and annoyance.

"Actually, Phoebe was going to take this mask," Frederick said. "But then she realised that if we swapped masks then it would probably help throw the trolls off the scent."

"But..." Tabarnas said. "There's still a male mask and a female mask, presumably, how does that help?"

"They're looking for a man buying weapons and a woman buying witchy things," Frederick explained. "Not the other way round."

"You have to remember," Harvey said. "These trolls are not much for subtlety and they're pretty easy to fool. In fact, the only advantage that they've got is that there do seem to be quite a few of them. Also they are all very strong."

"So what did you find out?" Frederick asked Harvey.

"There's three patrols walking around Sommerslip. The locals are pretty happy and peaceful, so they stick out a bit, that plays to our advantage," Harvey explained. "Unfortunately there isn't much in the way of a town watch, that I can see, anyhow. So if trouble comes our way then it looks like we could be on our own.

"The rest of the goons are assembled near the Archive building, there's a folkish chappie ordering them about and looking like his trollish soldiers are treading continually on his last nerve. The operation, as a whole, does not appear to be going smoothly.

"Oh, and he was wearing one of those rings, like the one we pulled off the fellow at The Castle."

"If we could find out who that ring belonged to," Tabarnas said. "Maybe we could work out how to get rid of them."

"Maybe," Harvey said. "But I think, at the moment, the small army of armed trolls hunting us down are the immediate concern. As long as trolls get paid they don't worry overmuch about who's doing the paying, and they're incredibly difficult to reason with. I think Feebs was right when she said we should deal with the immediate threat before identifying the general one."

"Did you just say I was right about something, Harvey Raine?" a toad-like middle-aged man said, sliding into the booth next to Harvey.

"Well, you said pretty much what I was thinking," Harvey said. "So obviously it was the correct thought to be having. How did the shopping trip go?"

"Immensely well," Phoebe said. "Turns out that this town is riddled with crossways, not only that but the town on the other side is pretty normal, not really mortal at all. There was a magic shop, down on the sea front, no trolls, I went there to get the supplies."

"So, what have you got for us?" Frederick asked.

"Ingredients for a nice piece of sympathetic witchcraft," Phoebe said. "Also, I was passing a shop as I came back to the crossway that had this in the window."

She held up a slim black-jacketed book.

"It's an alchemical guide to the classical elements. I think it's intended for students, it has some pretty impressive quick recipes for pre-prepared fire potions," she said.

"That you can mix up in an alley? Before the Day Bell?" Frederick asked.

"In theory, as long as the book's recipes are accurate." Phoebe shrugged.

"And if they're not?" Frederick asked. "What are the chances that those close by will be rendered into some sort of thin red paste?"

"Are you suggesting that I lack skills in alchemy?" Phoebe asked.

"I just don't like alchemy, generally speaking," Frederick replied. "It's really nothing personal. I am suspicious of all alchemy on an equal basis."

"Well, I think everything will be fine. I know how to stay safe when mixing potions," Phoebe said sniffily.

"Maybe," Tabarnas broke in. "We could stop arguing about it now and see if we can actually commit to some sort of action."

Everybody appeared to be able to agree on that point. Frederick hired a room and the party all went upstairs to allow Phoebe to work. By the time she had finished soaking things, burning things and infusing things with plasma energy the Noon Bell had rung. Phoebe presented the fruits of her labour, an hourglass, to Frederick.

"So, what does this do?" Frederick asked. "It's not going to explode is it?"

"Oh, heavens, no," Phoebe said. "That magick's a lot less subtle. This is a single use charm of enhanced vigour. It will make you stronger as long as the sand is travelling from the top bulb to the bottom bulb. I didn't have time to properly bake it, unfortunately so it will only work once. It's highly important that the hourglass is not smashed before the charm is finished or the remaining energy will disperse with a nasty snap."

"Define 'a nasty snap'," Frederick said, still regarding the charm with suspicion.

"She means," Harvey explained. "That the previously organised and directed magical energies will, all of a sudden, revert into a localised mischief field and they will be rather cross about it, so it won't be gentle mischief."

Frederick did not look happy about this.

"It's alright Freddie," Harvey said. "I'll come along and take care of the charm. They won't smash it while I'm looking after it."

"Bind him to that," Frederick said to Phoebe. Phoebe opened her mouth to say the fateful words, before she could speak Harvey cut her off.

"Now wait a minute!" he said. "Binding me to protect that charm is tantamount to declaring that you don't trust me to do it by myself."

Phoebe and Frederick looked over at Harvey with eyes that said: 'Seriously? You believe that morally indignant outrage is your right at this point?' far more eloquently than mere words could have expressed the sentiment.

"Further," Harvey said, warming to his theme. "You are implying that I'd rather see Sir Freddie beaten to a pulp than get rid of these trolls."

The look from the other two did not change.

"Well, I think that's a bit much," Harvey complained. "If Sir Dimwit there gets pulped then I will surely follow shortly thereafter. To damage our strong arm is to damage all of us. I don't mind you thinking of me as a sneak and a traitor, but stupid? I am not stupid."

Phoebe bound Harvey anyway before he and Frederick went off to find some trolls to beat up. Tabarnas stayed behind to help Phoebe with the fire bombs.

"I'm not sure I like this," Tabarnas said to Phoebe whilst he was stirring a flask of clear yellow liquid for her. "Violence tends to be bad for business."

Phoebe nodded.

"Mhmm," she said, emptying some red crystals into a pestle, while looking at the open page of her book. "I have to say I absolutely loathe violence. Unfortunately I'm very good at it."

"I know they're trolls and everything," Tabarnas said, trying to approach his misgivings from a different angle, "but I'm a goblin myself. We're genetic cousins. I've never really been a big fan of fighting and such."

"You read all those stories," Phoebe pointed out. "They're full of fighting."

"Well," Tabarnas said, although he couldn't think of what to say after that single syllable. He had a nasty feeling his pacifist agenda was about to be completely undermined. "I mean, Avan Weatherstrong, that was a long time ago, before... well, before."

Phoebe finished grinding the red crystals into a powder. She took the yellow liquid from Tabarnas and dumped the powder into the flask. She stirred it and the whole mixture turned into a black slime. Phoebe rested the flask on a stand over a burner.

"So you don't mind old violence, from the past?" Phoebe asked Tabarnas. "You just don't like the violence when it's in the present? Have I got that the right way round? What do you feel about violence in the future?"

"It's not that simple," Tabarnas complained. "In the past... Times are different now. The Hundred Kingdoms are at peace, the shadows are mostly stable, the Shadow Emperors have been defeated, the Black Dragons disappeared in the Vanishing. The age when there were great evils that needed to be vanquished have passed."

"Have they?" Phoebe asked. "Then why are people chasing us for your books? What do they not want us to find in the Archive? How do you think people like us felt when they had a problem with a single unit of Emperor Shymak's army, for example? Do you think those people didn't pray for a hero to liberate them from oppression? And when the hero came along do you think he stood aloof because peaceful oppression was better than violent liberation?"

"But nobody's oppressed here," Tabarnas objected. "Sommerslip is under the rule of the third Lord Sommerslip, direct descendant of Avan Weatherstrong. The trolls are only bothering us."

"And what happens if the trolls steal the books? What do you think the person who is paying the trolls will do with them? What do you think their plan is?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know that," Tabarnas asked. "How could I?"

"We could give them what they want, stand back and see what happens," Phoebe suggested. "How do you fancy that?"

Tabarnas didn't know how to respond to that. Phoebe was pretty adamant that what they were doing was necessary. The only way Tabarnas could argue otherwise was to take a position where he was, underneath it all, wrong, or at least mistaken about something. If the paymaster of the trolls really was ultimately harmless then where was the sense in not giving them the books?

Did Tabarnas believe that nothing bad would happen if whoever was behind the small army of mercenary trolls got what they wanted? No. Tabarnas decided he did not believe that. He had no proof that fighting would make the world a better place but he felt very strongly that not fighting could make it a worse one.

"Very well," he said as the liquid in the flask turned white. "Just try not to hurt anyone."

"I always do," Phoebe smiled. "Now, were did I put that packet of Coagula Powder?"

As Phoebe rummaged in her satchel a noise floated up from the street outside, a shout, the speech too indistinct for Tabarnas to hear through the shutters over the room's windows. Tabarnas opened the shutter enough to peek outside, he saw a small boy running through the streets shouting something out. By the time Tabarnas's ear had started to make sense of the words the boy was too far away to be heard.

It didn't take too long before one of the squads of trolls came hurrying past underneath the window. They were headed in the direction of the archive.

"I think the trolls have called everyone back together," Tabarnas said. "Frederick must have begun fighting."

"Just give me a couple of minutes," Phoebe said. "Then I'll be ready." Then, after a brief pause: "Why don't you walk down there. Take your books. The trolls are probably too busy to mess with you now."

Not having another idea Tabarnas complied. It was nice to get out into the fresh air anyway after spending the morning sweating in a corner of the inn. Tabarnas did see one other squad of trolls hurrying down towards the sea but they were far too busy to concentrate on anything but forward motion.

It took Tabarnas about ten minutes to walk out to the Archive. He dared not get too close because the scene that greeted his eyes upon arrival was chaotic to say the least. Frederick jumped, ducked and punched his way around the twenty or thirty trolls that were attempting to take him down. The huge monsters were shouting at Frederick and each other in some confusion as to what, exactly, was going on. They knew that a single young man should not be able to fight all of them together and yet Frederick was there, holding his own against this small army.

Of course not all of this was due to Phoebe's strength charm. Anyone could see that Frederick was actually a pretty skilled fighter. Wherever a troll's fist or foot happened to be Frederick tended not to be. Frederick's defence was all him. It was the punishment he was dishing out that was down to magic but Tabarnas knew that Frederick was fighing on borrowed time. Tabarnas hoped that Phoebe would not be too long.

Indeed she wasn't. Shortly after Tabarnas arrived she swooped out of the air on a broomstick and started dropping off little paper wrapped parcels from a height. As soon as the packages hit the floor they bloomed into bright white flowers of flame.

For a couple of minutes this just gave Frederick something else to think about, as the sudden additon of fireballs into the melee served only to confuse the trolls. When they worked out that the fire was against them, not supporting them they sensibly began to cry out and one by one thought better of fighting the super strong knight with fireball air support.

Maybe the trolls would come back when they knew it was safe but in the meanwhile Tabarnas went unimpeded up the path to the Faerie Archive. The Story Gatherers welcomed the goblin and his friends inside the high walls of the Archive and were extremely interested in the contents of his books but the hows and whys of that situation are a story for another time.

Eos and Rachel in the Casa Perdita

"What if he's dead?" Rachel asked.

"Where did you get such a morbid thought from?" Eos asked, although looking out from the mouth of the cave at the charcoal sky and continual fall of rain told her the probable source of Rachel's dark feelings.

"They disappeared, didn't they, into the undone," Rachel said. "Then we turned around and the gnome had gone, then the rain started. Why would the gnome have disappeared if nothing bad had happened?"

"From what I understand from talking with the little gentleman," Eos said. "The gnome has to remain equidistant from the two people involved in the wish he granted. If James had died then the gnome would be bound to you, he wouldn't have been able to leave. So he must be somewhere inbetween you and James, who must, logically, be alive. Don't you think?"

Rachel did not look convinced. She cast her gaze over the glossy black tree trunks down at the swollen muddy earth and up to the bruised skies.

"So what if he's hurt, or in danger?" she asked.

Eos sighed. She really wished that Lester had made more of an effort to remember James when they had run from the undone. Eos had decided that she didn't dislike Lester as intensely as she had when he had been trying to sell her rainbow grease from a market stall, that still didn't mean that she liked him, at all.

He gave every appearance of being some kind of guileless, naive and clumsy idiot. Not that she really thought that was a front. Some of the things Lester did no one would do as part of an act, in her opinion anyway. The problem was... intuitive.

Eos believed that there was this whole other layer to Lester that no one else could see. The trouble was that she didn't even think that Lester could see it. That sounded a bit mean and more than a bit crazy, so she was probably wrong. Feelings, Eos realised, could be wrong and no one could do anything about them. You couldn't just change a feeling because it didn't fit. So she was stuck with it.

Happily, she didn't have to deal with that at the moment because she was sheltering from a heavy storm in the mouth of a cave with a scared, tired and upset little girl who had lost her closest companion. Not only that Rachel had lost Tabarnas, her second closest companion a couple of days ago, after spending a long period (hours? days?) hiding in a completely different cave whilst Eos had been bewitched by the evil Lady Crimzona.

The immediate problem, therefore, became how to distract Rachel's thoughts away from the dark mental images of what she imagined might be hapening to James at this very instant. Eos looked at the skies, if the storm would just clear then walking would provide adequate distraction, but they would be drenched if they stepped outside now, besides they would likely sink up to their waists in mud before too long and that would be no good for anyone.

The only problem was if the storm continued on until after dark. Then there would be the issues of cold and hunger.

"We need a fire," Eos said firmly, and she meant it.

"How are we going to make one?" Rachel asked and Eos was pleased to note this was the first thing Rachel had said that didn't centre on James and the possible calamity that might have befallen him in the last half hour.

"We'll have to scout the cave, while there's still enough light," Eos said.

"Okay," Rachel said. "I was beginning to get a bit chilly anyway."

"Don't go too far," Eos said, she removed the corded belt that looped several times around her waist forming a belt to her dress. Unwound the cord made a single string about ten feet in length. "Here," Eos said. Take one end of this. We should never be further apart than the ends."

"Okay," Rachel said, taking the end of the cord.

The two of them went back into the angular shade of the cave. Searching for dried wood or some other kind of kindling. After a few moments Rachel cried out:

"Ow! My leg!"

"Rachel!" Eos called, alarmed, "what's the matter?"

"There's something back here," Rachel said. "It's big and solid, it's not a rock."

"What is it?" Eos asked following the cord back to Rachel.

"I don't know," Rachel said, "it's too dark to make out."

It was very dark in the corner Rachel had found. Carefully Eos felt about and her hands made contact with something smooth but textured. It had the warmth of wood but it had been carved and varnished. Eos believed that Rachel had found some sort of box. Eos felt the edges of the box and pulled it out into the light for inspection.

What was revealed was more than a simple container. It was an ornate chest decorated with scrollwork in the shape of leaves. Engraved into the top of the chest was something surprising:

'A GIFT FOR EOS AND RACHEL FROM THE OWLS OF WISDOM. REGARDS, PRINCE AVAN WEATHERSTRONG'

Rachel and Eos swapped a surprised look upon reading this. Eos looked back down at the chest a note of nervous energy fluttering near her throat.

"Well," Rachel said. "Should we open it?"

"I suppose we should," Eos said. "Owls of wisdom are not known for this kind of thing."

Eos reached out and undid the chest's latch. She eased open the lid. Inside was a folded parchment on a velvet cushion, sealed shut with red wax. Eos picked up the parchment. She could feel that it was wrapped about something contained within. Closer examination revealed the end of a red ribbon poking out of the seal she imagined the other end of the ribbon was bound around the item inside the parchment.

Using her finger Eos broke the seal and unfolded the document. The red ribbon, freed from its folds, slid to one side and pulled tight as the object tied to the end dangled off the edge of the parchment. Eos picked up the object in her hand to look at it more closely. It was a shard of mirror, the edges appeared sharp.

"What do you suppose it means?" Rachel asked. Eos was pleased to note that Rachel was now entirely consumed with the notion of the mysterious parchment and the shard and not so worried about the health and well being of her tiny companion.

"Well, the edges mean that you definitely shouldn't touch it," Eos said. She transferred her attention to the parchment. The document was a map. Across the top was written: 'Return the shard. Make a wish.' To the right of this directive there was a simple compass rose indicating which direction was North (although compasses were a lot more complicated in Faerie than in the mortal world due to the somewhat lazy approach Faerie had to reality and geography).

The main part of the map showed an area of the forest, the cave, a road way that Eos had not spotted before the storm and, at the side of the road, not too far away if the map's scale was to be believed, an old house marked: Casa Perdita. A dotted line connected the cave and the house.

"Is that where we are supposed to go?" Rachel asked, although the dotted line made it quite plain what was expected.

"I can't say I don't have questions," Eos said. "However, I must admit that I don't have a better idea."

"Okay," Rachel said. "What about the rain?"

"I was scared that we'd get stuck in a swamp," Eos said. "If this road is as nearby as the map suggests I don't think that will be a problem. We might get a bit wet though, not that I particularly mind that."

Eos left Rachel in the cave for a couple of minutes to see if she could find any sign of the road from the map. Sure enough not even fifty paces from the cave mouth Eos found a crook in the cobbled road that was clearly marked on the map. The cobbled throughfare was clearly old, possibly even ancient, but it existed and it looked to be in good shape.

Soon, holding coats over their heads and trying to move as quickly as possible through the belting rain, Eos and Rachel were making good progress along the road. A good job, too, because, by the time they reached the Casa Perdita, the first shades of evening were beginning to draw in.

The house was not in the best shape, it needed more work than the old road that ran in front of it, but the roof was mostly in one piece. The door to the porch in the front of the house was locked but they found a side door, next to a wood pile, that lead into a long kitchen with a stove at the back end. Eos quickly located kindling for a fire and before long she and Rachel were enjoying the first warmth they'd experienced since the sun on top of the Eyrie.

After a brief period in which Rachel and Eos sat and stared into the yellow tongues of fire licking at the walls of the stove Rachel stretched and yawned.

"So, we should find the place to put that bit of mirror," Rachel said.

"I imagine that we should," Eos replied. "After all, we don't really have another plan. I don't know about you but I'm starting to get hungry. We were lucky with the wood but I don't imagine there's much food about here."

"No, I don't think anyone's used this kitchen in a long while," Rachel agreed. "Maybe we could wish for some, when we find the mirror."

"I'm not sure," Eos said. "Wishcraft has a nasty habit of appearing simple but winding up complicated. Also the map said 'make a wish', not 'make as many wishes as you would like'. If we only get one wish each it should be for something a bit more than a sandwich."

"Oh, well," Rachel said. "Mine's easy. I shall wish for all my friends to find their way, safe and sound, back to the Patchwork Market."

"I guess, if I had a wish, I'd wish away the curse that stops me enjoying my tail on demand. This ring still feels like a bit of a risky necessity."

"Well, we won't get to wish for anything if we don't find the mirror," Rachel said. "So I suppose we'd better get on with it."

With the matter decided upon Rachel and Eos left the kitchen by a door that led into the hall. To their right a set of steps lead upwards to the top floor of the house, the front door was to their left, two more doors were on the opposite side. One door lead through to a room at the front, the other, adjacent to the stairwell, lead to a room at the back of the house.

"Upstairs?" Rachel asked, her tone of voice told Eos that Rachel regarded the shaded gloom at the top of the stairs with the same suspicion as Eos.

"Maybe we should try the parlour," Eos suggested, indicating the door directly opposite.

"Okay," Rachel appeared happier with that decision.

Eos and Rachel stepped through the door into what remained of the house's front parlour. A door to their left in the back wall lead through to the back of the house. In the room there was a single wooden chair near the remains of a fireplace. Parts of a couple of other wooden chairs littered the bare floorboards. The walls still had peeling paint that was a murky colour like pale olives, in places the colour was a lighter green in squares, indicating the places where pictures had once hung.

"This is like the house that got undone," Rachel said, Eos could detect a note of panicked melancholy in Rachel's voice. Clearly this was not a time to slow down.

"Well there's no mirror in here," Eos said, so let's take a look out the back."

Eos crossed the parlour quickly and threw open the door. The disorienting sense of confusion was instant but the rationalisation of it was slightly slower to come along.

At first Eos believed she had got turned around and had wandered back into the kitchen, or mistaken the layout of the house. She turned and looked behind her, verifying that Rachel was still there and the front room was still there. Both were true.

Then Eos's head began to go to war with her in a more serious fashion. She had seen the hall, crossed the hall and entered the front room. The kitchen only had two doors, the one to the hall and the one to the outside lean-to containing the woodpile. She was stood in the door that should go to the hall.

It appeared as if someone had built an exact replica of the kitchen in two places within the house. Then Eos realised that the stove was lit and radiating warmth into the room. If this room were a replica it couldn't possibly have a lit stove, unless there was someone else in the house.

"I don't understand," Eos said under her breath.

"What?" Rachel asked. "Why is the kitchen there?"

"I don't know," Eos sighed. "I am as confused as you. Let's backtrack."

Eos left the door open and crossed the parlour headed back to the hall. She opened the door. Still a hall. Not the same hall.

Now the top of a set of stairs was visible set directly to the left of the open doorway, a short landing went ahead of her with a second door immediately to her right, another one adjacent to it at the far end of the landing and one set directly opposite her. Eos looked back into the front room and over to the kitchen, still visible through the door way on her left inside the room.

"Um," Eos said.

"What's happening?" Rachel asked.

"Something's very wrong, is what's happening," Eos said.

"The house is jumbled up, isn't it?" Rachel said, cutting through the shroud of impossibility covering Eos's mind.

Rachel, taking matters into her own hands, once more distracted from upsetting thoughts, opened the door adjacent to the one Eos had just opened.

"Yes," Rachel's voice said, with a curious ringing tone that appeared to be, simultaneously right in front of Eos and a little way off over to her left. "Very jumbled indeed."

Eos looked back towards the kitchen but now the kitchen wasn't there. Instead there was Rachel, standing in the doorway to the left. Eos turned her head, her senses reeling, and saw Rachel standing in front of her just at the door of the room she was standing in. Eos wondered, for a moment, if she could catch sight of herself leaving the front room if she were to hurry past Rachel fast enough.

"Rachel," Eos said, battling nausea that appeared to settle into her stomach after it had fallen from the brain she believed was actually starting to ache now. "Please, close that door."

Rachel complied and Eos heard the door to the left latch shut in perfect time with the door Eos's eyes told her were right in front of her.

"So..." Eos said, turning to the left and walking back to the door that had, moments ago, shown the kitchen. "Where now?"

She opened the door to find herself looking at the bottom of the stairs. This time viewed as she might have expected from the other door out of the front room. The front door of the house was immediately to her right.

"I hope that this magic stops at the exterior doors," Eos said and turned the handle on the front door. The door was locked on the inside as well as the outside and there was no key in the lock. Panic growing Eos opened the door to the kitchen and found herself looking down the upstairs landing at Rachel stood almost ten feet away at the top of the stairs the bottom of which were now immediately to her left.

"Oh, Eos," Rachel said. The little girl moved to the staircase and started down the stairs. Eos turned her head to look up the staircase and see her companion now descending from above, looking just as miserable as Eos felt. "I think we've walked into a trap," Rachel said.

Eos was hard pressed to disagree on that point.

"We shouldn't panic," Eos said, she was looking at Rachel but the comment was largely intended for her own sense of sanity. "I don't think that this is entirely random, it's not just a trap, I think it's also a puzzle, a test."

"What, to see if we're clever enough or something?" Rachel asked.

"Absolutely to see that, yes," Eos said. "So there must be some logic to this somewhere."

"So how do we work out what that is?" Rachel asked.

Eos thought about this for a moment. Eos had never really had much concern about whether she was clever or not. She had always appeared clever enough, at least in her own reckoning. However, this had meant that she had been taken from her family, cursed and, for a brief while displayed for tourists and otherwise exploited. These indignities had always appeared to be moral, maybe, if she had been clever enough, she might have escaped them.

This left the problem that now she had to face up to the real possibility that she was not clever enough to solve the current riddle. As much as she didn't know if she was clever enough she also did not know for certain that she wasn't. So now was the only and also the ideal opportunity to find out.

"Let's see if the rooms cycle, or join up in any particular fashion," Eos said. She crossed the hall and opened the door to the parlour. She found herself looking into a gloomy bedroom, there was a light rectangular area on the floor where the bed had once stood and the left half of a wardrobe lying on the floor to her side, the missing half having been removed forcibly leaving the sad remains of one door and a jagged edge of the back of the wardrobe flush to the wall.

"Right," Eos said, Rachel had come to stand beside Eos and had grabbed hold of her right hand. Eos looked down at the little girl and gave her what she hoped would be interpreted as a reassuring smile. "Let's see what happens now."

She closed the door, then opened it again, same room. She closed the door and opened it again, upper hallway, closed, open, a long, empty room, some cutlery was scattered on the floor, from the shape of it, and the position of the doors and windows it looked like this room was the final room that was intended to be on the ground level. Closed. Open. Upstairs Hall. Closed. Open. Bedroom. Closed. Open. Kitchen. Closed. Open. Upstairs Hall. Closed. Open. Parlour. Closed. Open. Bedroom. Closed. Open. Kitchen.

They continued to close and open the door for the next couple of minutes, no pattern was discernable. Eventually, one time that they opened the door and found the kitchen Eos went over to the side entrance to ascertain whether they could, at least, escape.

Thankfully the house appeared quite content to allow them to leave. The side door consistently continued to open up to the outside and the lean-to. So there was no progress to be made inside but always an invitation to leave.

"Maybe we should just give up," Rachel suggested unhappily.

Although there was, in truth, a good deal of sense to this suggestion Eos found it to be an irksome one. She did not want to walk away from the house feeling that it had, in some sense, beaten her. She had always found brain-teasers and puzzles tiresome and frustrating, the less she had the answers the more she burned to possess them. Maybe that was why she had always avoided them.

Unfortunately this left her with no strategies to cope with the puzzle at hand.

"Maybe we should," Eos said. "Let's have a rest and, if that doesn't help, we can think about leaving. I'll put some wood on the stove."

"Okay," Rachel said and sat back in her chair by the fire.

Eos went out to the lean to and began picking up wood. The lean-to was really just a tall fence with a frame built off the top of it and a canvas roof applied across the top of the frame like the skin of a drum. It looked like the kind of thing the homeowner had done by themselves rather than hire a carpenter or builder to do it for them.

Even so it was a pretty good effort. The person who had put the structure together had even included hooks screwed into the beams from which hung gardening implements, lengths of rope and, in the back corner a small bin had been defined in which was stacked a rolled up bundle of fencing made out of wire and wooden stakes.

Eos turned to take her bundle of firewood back inside but, at the threshold of the door she hesitated, thinking about the items she had just seen in the lean-to. She looked back across the roof hooks, specifically at the coils of cord hung on the inside corner.

Eos began to think that she might be clever enough to solve this after all.

"I think I've worked this out," Eos said as she put the firewood into the stove.

"I knew you would," Rachel beamed. "You're clever."

Am I? Eos thought, she imagined that she might, in fact, just be lucky but she didn't say anything because she didn't know for certain that Rachel was mistaken.

Instead of worrying about the relative state of her cleverness she went outside and took down the loops of cord. There were three hung up, all reasonably lengthy. She tied all three together and then tied one end of the super long cord she had made tightly to the hook.

She then took the rest of the looped cord and walked in through the kitchen door. She crossed the kitchen to the door and opened it until she opened it onto one of the hallways. Fortunately this happened to be the lower one.

She crossed the lower hall and opened the door opposite until she opened it onto the parlour, as was intended in the normal layout of the house. She walked through the door continuing to pay out rope behind her and opened the opposite door she opened and closed that until she found what she considered to be the "right" room, the one with the cutlery on the floor. Once she had that room correct she opened the other door into the back of the downstairs hall until that came up correctly.

During this process she noticed that the number of rooms the next door could open onto never included any of the ones the rope ran through. The rope was creating a single line, preventing the doors from randomly closing when you couldn't see them, preventing the enchantment from including those areas in the jumble of rooms that could be behind the next door.

When she opened the door to see her cord crossing the area at the bottom of the stairs and going in through the parlour along the parlour to end up in her hands in the remains of the dining room Eos went to the foot of the stairs. She wound the rope around the bannister in one complete loop and then went up the stairs to the landing above where she turned and immediately opened the door to her right at the top of the stairs.

After a few more doors and a little more cord strung out there was only one door left in the whole house. The door at the front of the house in the upstairs. As Eos reached this door she realised, in all the random rooms she had seen everywhere else in the house she had never seen the room behind this door come up, not once.

Only now that she had, in a very real sense, strung the other rooms together, could she see that this was the room that was the end of the path. The only way to reach it was to make it impossible for there to be any other room behind the door than the one that was actually, geographically, structurally, intended to be there.

Feeling a small thrill of excitement Eos reached out and opened the door to the last room in the house.

"Make it quick!" said a little voice as the door swung open. A little woman, no more than six inches high kneeled down at the edge of a bedside table stood next to the remains of a sturdy wooden bed. "I'm sorry I hid, but... I just didn't want to die."

Eos stopped at the threshold and looked over to the little woman. She was dressed in the mode of the common house wife, thick skirts, pinafore tied to the waist, heavy high neck blouse and a frilly dust cap. She reminded Eos of the housekeeper from Caer Shaleshore. Being only six inches high Eos guessed she must, in fact, be a sprite.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thnk you must have me confused with someone else. I'm not here to kill you."

"You're not?" the little woman said, opening one eye and looking Eos up and down suspiciously. "You've been tramping through the house, opening the doors, wailing and carrying on. If you weren't trying to find me then what were you doing?"

Eos reached into her belt and carefully pulled out the shard of mirror.

"There is a broken mirror somwhere here," Eos said. "I was told to come here and repair it with this."

"Oh," the little woman said, the surprise completely overriding her fear. "That will be the mirror in the porch. You'll need the key."

The little woman turned around and opened a small box on the bedside table. She reached in and pulled out the key. Eos crossed the room and took it from the tiny woman. The sprite had found the key to be something of a burden, the key was half the little woman's height. Eos took the key between her thumb and forefinger.

"Thank you," Eos said.

"Oh, anything I can do to help," the little woman said. "It's my job, not that I've been able to do it for a long time."

"I'm sorry to ask," Eos said. "But why did you think I would want to kill you?"

"Well, I'm a house daemon," the woman said. "I look after the owners, but this place hasn't had owners in an awfully long time. This used to be a stop on the way to the coast, before the Vanishing. When the coastline disappeared all the trade routes dried up and people had to move on. The last owners of this house left me behind. It was only a matter of time before one of the agents of the undone came to scrub me away.

"As the mistress of this house I was able to rearrange the insides, made it very difficult to get to this room. It's the only one I feel comfortable in, they left behind this furniture, the old owner's wife said that the room was old-fashioned, so they just abandoned it."

"Well," Eos said. "You'd better not stay long, the undone itself is nearby, less than a day's journey from here. It might get slowed down swallowing the mountains but it won't take forever to reach here."

"Oh, dear," the little woman said. "But I do love this house. If the house is going to go then I suppose I had better find somewhere else to be."

"Me and my friend, we're going to the Patchwork Market," Eos told the sprite. "If you came too maybe then you could find somewhere else to settle."

"Well, yes, I suppose if I must, I must," the little woman said. "Never let it be said that Ivy Cosynook outstayed her welcome. If I have a fault then I guess it could be said I get a little attached. I'm only a bit houseproud, where's the harm in that, particularly for a house daemon."

"I must confess," Eos said. "I don't really see it as a problem, but then I've never met a house daemon before."

"We're not much for fuss," Ivy said. "I don't think the owners of this place ever knew I was here, that's just the way we like it. Shy, see?"

"I see," Eos said, instantly wondering if she'd ever unwittingly stayed in a house with a daemon of its own before.

"Anyway, didn't you say you needed to fix the mirror, hadn't we better be about it?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose we should," Eos said.

With the key Ivy had given her Eos opened the porch, Rachel and Eos got their wishes and they took Ivy with them to the Patchwork Market, what happened when they got there is surely a story for another day.