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.

Anabyl's Choice

Princess Anabyl Spireshine was not always as dedicated to the cause of the Dragon Warriors as she became in later life. The dragon epitomises the polarity between chaos and order encapsulated in a single entity. Dragons formed mischief into majesty, this transformation was accomplished through understanding, clarity and wisdom.

The Dracopolis Academy was never that concerned about taking on students in possession of large amounts of understanding, clarity or wisdom from the start. Chaos is hard to cultivate, like a fire burned out of control it tends to eat itself eventually. Natural chaos, on the other hand, can, potentially be moulded into the stuff of a great Dragon Warrior. It was on this basis that Warden Razath first accepted Anabyl into the Academy under the patronage of Prince Avan Weatherstrong.

Anabyl would tell anyone who asked that when she stepped into the Academy she was attracted by the availability of many martial devices essential to the creation of serious amounts of chaos. The concept of training, discipline and achievement were the furthest thing from her mind. It took Anabyl about seven hours to become thoroughly bored of the Dracopolis Academy and wishing she could go home to Spireshine. Nine hours after her arrival someone let all the criminals out of the Dracopolis Jailhouse.

Never one to miss an opportunity Anabyl took advantage of the skeleton staff left to look after academy attendees, stole a sword from the armoury and found a way into the Dracopolis Sewer System. Twenty minutes into her new subterranean adventure thoughts about what she might do if actually confronted by a perilous situation began to occur to her.

The Princess did not, as many young people alone in the dark, wet tunnels of a major metropolitan sewer system, surrounded by potential hazards, feel any fear. For Anabyl fear was a thing to be inspired in others, not to be experienced by oneself. Wariness and caution were not things that Anabyl had previously had much use for but with fear off the table she decided that these would do in their place.

As it turned out watchfulness and sneaking, two vital components in any worthwhile and serious mischief-making enterprise, were also handy when trying to navigate through an unfamiliar underground environment without bumping into troublesome escaped convicts. She got into the swing of this so quickly that it came to a point where the business of skulking through the shadows not making any noise was only occupying a tiny part of her attention.

She made her way in the direction of the city walls (Anabyl had never questioned her uncanny sense of direction, it was always a given and, hence, taken for granted); as she did Anabyl thought about the sword.

The sword was a training sword, being an ideal size and weight for a smaller person. It wasn't a short sword, or an elaborate dagger, it also wasn't one of the fine balanced fencing swords that Anabyl had seen in grand cities like Bellespire. The weapon would have appeared a little odd in the hands of an adult because it wasn't built to an adult scale. For someone Anabyl's size it was just about perfect.

Anabyl had never used a sword for much before, mischief was one thing, violence was something else altogether. Anabyl was no stranger to fire, concussion, humiliation, itching or other types of general unpleasantness associated with bringing self-important people down a peg or seven.

When she had been a very young child Anabyl had never needed anything more than pig-jousting, rotten vegetables and an unlimited supply of mud. Swords were fascinating, of course, anything that could destroy other things was interesting. Anabyl came to realise that she had honed the art of inflicting pain and discomfort on people she considered boring to such a fine point that real weapons had just naturally never figured into her schemes.

Anabyl knew that if you picked up a weapon then you were either an idiot or you intended to really hurt someone, and not in a fun way, or both. So why had she picked up the sword on her way into the sewers?

A few months ago she would never have done that, no matter what the circumstance. It didn't matter that she was in a fabled land in a far off time, cut off from everything she knew with no way home. It didn't matter that she was moving through a series of dark tunnels and could hear the screams and hoots of a riot going on above her head as she stepped under the grating covers for street level. Not so long ago Anabyl wouldn't have cared about any of that, she would have naturally assumed it had nothing to do with her.

Then an owl of wisdom had told her about dragon warriors, shortly after Peregrine Pagebinder had made it plain there was one person in the universe that she couldn't get the better of. The facts of these things had combined in her head to form the potential that one day Anabyl could be...

Anabyl had always assumed that she could just dodge the business of growing up. The world didn't work like that. She had met sprites who never grew up and she liked to humiliate those foolish creatures as much as any other idiot she met in the course of daily life. She remembered distinctly the feeling of not wanting to be like some idiot adult-child. She had been to the world of humans once and seen one of their picture box shows about old women (to Anabyl anyone over 20 years of age was old) who tried to act in a childish manner.

The whole concept brought Anabyl as close to fear as she had ever been.

No. Anabyl was determined not to be that. The only way to avoid it, unfortunately, was to grow up. That was unpalatable for a number of other reasons, chief among which was the idea of being married to some boy-prince and living out your life in a castle coping with the fallout from the actions of her children. Sons, she could probably handly discipline for a bunch of snot nosed little boys, no problem. What put a little ice into Anabyl's heart was the concept of the kind of daughter she might produce.

No. Altogether not something to be countenanced. She had decided to grow up in her own way, on her own terms. She had never known what they were. Then she had heard about dragon warriors.

A woman could be a soldier, or a knight, she had read the stories. Surely the dragon warrior was the best kind of knight. That had to be a contender for one of the best ways to grow up.

The discipline did not appeal, there was the problem.

Still, even in her escape she had taken a sword. This meant there was a new seriousness in Anabyl's heart, one that could not be denied.

This rather troubling notion was the last thing to play through Anabyl's mind as she exited from a drainage pipe outside of Dracopolis's city walls. Close to the drainage opening were a few small stone huts, locked up with rust-tinged metal doors, along the path away from the sewer tunnels was an old house. The house appeared as if it was abandoned, probably for some time. The question was: had the house been left empty long enough to attract ghosts?

Anabyl had a keen interest in ghosts, it was almost a hobby of hers. Her fascination with the spirits of the dead was unique in her personality as being the only thing she could be preoccupied with that didn't ultimately lead to someone ending up covered in some kind of wet slime. She had enquired of one spirit she had met about the possibility of obtaining some ectoplasm but found that the ghostly substance was a myth.

Still, she found the dead had a simple view of the world that she appreciated. They tended not to be judgemental and they didn't often have any agenda with which she might disagree. When she was a little older Anbyl would articulate that she appreciated the clarity that death appeared to bring to people (most people). At that moment all she knew was that if there were ghosts in the house she wanted to say hello.

Anabyl climbed the steps and crossed the porch area to find the front door locked, or at least jammed shut by something. A little further investigation revealed an open window that she wriggled through without any problems.

Before the final occupants of this house had moved on they had done a pretty thorough job of emptying it of anything that they might have formed a sentimental attachment to. There wasn't a stick of furniture, a picture hook or a scrap of textiles anywhere on the ground floor.

Of course, Anabyl wasn't really interested in those things, she was more interested in the possible inhabitants of the house.  If there were ghosts here they were shy ghosts. The trick with a shy ghost was to not look directly at where they might be, because they could hide more easily if they knew you were looking. You had to catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye.

The ghost of one of her great uncles had told her that, with a little concentration and effort, dimming a ghost's natural glow was an easy thing to achieve. However it did take some concentration and effort, and it became hellishly uncomfortable after a while, a bit like a live person holding their breath. What a ghost needed to do if it didn't want to be seen was move out of the way and then relax their concentration when they believed they were out of view.

So the way to get a glimpse of a shy ghost was to enter rooms suddenly, turn around unexpectedly and other wise try to look in places you hadn't been looking moments previously. Somewhere in the remains of the kitchen Anabyl believed she had got a glimpse of something, but the ghost in question was extremely shy because she couldn't catch it out a second time.

On the upper floor of the house Anabyl noticed a new smell accompanying the damp odour that permeated the lower floor, a smell of burned dry hair. Anabyl knew the aroma from somewhere but she couldn't quite place the exact memory. Irritated by this small mystery Anabyl stopped trying to catch out the local ghosts and searched the upstairs for the source of the smell.

In one of the upstairs rooms Anabyl found a small locker chest and a basic cot bed. Someone was using this place as a home.

This prospect made Anabyl feel a little awkward about being here. If there was someone alive using this property Anabyl felt it was her duty to soak them in something as soon as possible. She hadn't seen a well, or a mud patch or any other source of the necessary sogginess nearby. The prospect of not springing an unpleasant and hilarious surprise on a stranger due to a lack of materials made Anabyl uncomfortable.

She didn't want to stay in the mouldy house with the reclusive ghosts anyway. She reasoned she had best be on her way directly. She went down the stairs and through the front room to the door. She opened the door to find herself looking into the softly glowing orange-yellow eyes of an enormous wolf dressed in a fine crimson jacket, a light-yellow silk tunic and breeches of the same crimson as the jacket.

Anabyl knew a bit about wolves, it being the kind of distressing subject that her parents believed she should be shielded from. There were, of course, a full range of completely normal wolves ranging from smaller dog-like varieties to enormous dire-wolves. Then there were the spectrum of talking wolves. Unlike cats, dogs, mice and sundry other animals there were no talking wolves that appeared to be normal every day wolves until they asked you if you might not mind getting them some food.

Every variety of talking wolf wore clothes of some fashion. Previous to this Anabyl had only ever encountered the slim and erudite kind of wolf that was common in the Hundred Kingdoms. There were legends of vastly powerful talking dire wolves, or Royal Wolves, a war-like, aggressive species; Anabyl had only ever encountered them in stories because they had died out long ago.

Of course, now Anabyl was long ago, so the presence of  a Royal Wolf shouldn't have been as much of a surprise as it was. The problem with slipping through a hole in time was that sometimes you forgot that you had done so. For this reason Anabyl found herself surprised and without a response to the enraged predator whose dwelling place Anabyl had disturbed.

"What are you doing in my house?" the wolf demanded reaching out to push Anabyl backwards. Anabyl's long developed instinct for avoiding any grabbing hand kept her out of the reach of the gigantic creature.

"I was just passing through," Anabyl said. "I was a bit lost and I just wanted to ask for directions."

"Well, I'd say you'd taken a wrong turn," the wolf snarled. He flailed forward meaning to grab at Anabyl a second time. "Because when I catch you then you won't live long enough to regret coming here."

Anabyl considered ducking past the wolf at this point and running back towards the sewers. The only problem was that she wasn't terribly sure of her way and she was pretty confident that the wolf would turn out to be faster than her.

For the first time in her young life Anabyl realised that something was actually trying to seriously kill her. This annoyed her intensely, she considered it doubly rude seeing as she hadn't done so much as let a stink bomb off near this wolf and here he was acting like she'd left him for three days in a tree-snare. When she'd left one of the groundskeepers in such a precarious position all she'd got was gruel and a grounding. On that scale the wolf's unjustified anger seemed a bit of an overreaction.

More out of practicality than any intention to strike back Anabyl pulled out her sword and waved it at the wolf.

"You think a little girl would come out to such a scary part of the woods and walk around a creepy house if she didn't know how to stab a monster with a sword?" she asked. As bluffs went it relied heavily on the passion of the delivery, thankfully this wasn't a problem to Anabyl.

"I don't know," the wolf sneered. "Let's find out!"

It lunged for her again and she dodged away, swinging the sword in a manner that clearly owed more to enthusiasm than skill. Anabyl reminded herself that she had either better think of a good plan or get instantly a lot better with her sword if she wanted to see sunrise.

Anabyl backed away from the wolf trying to spot an escape route and babbling on about how jolly sorry the wolf would be if he came any closer. Spotting a doorway to her left Anabyl ducked through it and found herself at the top of a set of steps leading into a cellar. The growling noise behind her indicated that if she was in for this particular groat then she was most certainly in for the whole bronze mark. So she hurried down the steps three at a time.

It was at about this moment that Anabyl had a momentary pang of regret regarding her disdain for plans and strategising. She knew she was belting down stone steps into a dark basement. She knew she was being pursued by a seriously angry, powerful and inherently nasty royal wolf. Somehow the thoughts in her brain wouldn't allow her to do anything else.

She wasn't under any illusion that she was being manipulated or controlled. She was just acting, like she always did, the only difference being that this time her stream-of-consciousness approach to life might very well get her killed.

She found the basement to be a long corridor giving access to three rooms. She hadn't seen a ground level exit from beneath out at the front of the house so she vaulted over the bannister and headed for the room at the back. As she approached the door at the end of the passage she made great efforts not to think about what might happen if the door was locked or if it just lead into another boxy room with no exits.

Her relief at seeing a ground level window in the ceiling of the basement room was immense and all consuming. She lost no time in running towards the opening, scrambling up the wall, grabbing and pulling at the latch. The latch sprung and the window opened inwards. Surprised Anabyl fell back to the floor, stumbled but remained upright. She could only have bare seconds before the wolf was on top of her. She scrambled once more at the wall.

"Help me," said an unexpected voice behind her.

Anabyl didn't have much time to react, she turned her head to see a bird that looked very much like an owl of wisdom sitting in a cage. Next to the cage was a writing desk and a chair, the only proper furniture she'd seen in the whole house.

She didn't even think about it. She took the writing chair across the room and jammed it under the door handle just as the wolf tried to open the door. The door swung about an inch open on its hinges before jamming as the chair legs scraped against the bare stone floor. The royal wolf bellowed in rage and began rattling the door. Anabyl had only bought herself a few seconds.

She didn't waste those seconds. She worked the lock on the cage eventually prising it open with a letter opener she spotted on the writing desk. The owl thanked Anabyl and had just flapped out of the window when the door burst inward and the royal wolf charged into the room.

"My owwwwwwl!" it screamed, its already boiling fury seeming to kick up another few notches. "You will pay."

Anabyl realised that there was really nowhere else to run. She could try to get through the window but then she would just be dragged back into the room. If she was going to die then she decided that she had pretty much better look it in the eye and see if she could distract it into a staring contest.

"You!" she shouted at the wolf, "are about the meanest and most awful creature I have ever met in my entire life! How dare you keep an owl of wisdom in a stinky cage? I'm glad I let it out, I hope they come back and poop all over you!"

The tirade momentarily caused the wolf to pause, wondering why this strange little girl was not crying and screaming and pleading for her life and, further, why she felt she had the right to tell him off. After a moment he plainly concluded that it was all bravado and bluff so he snarled at her preparatory to eating her right up.

But by then it was too late.

The enormous royal wolf that had been ready to swallow Anabyl whole a second before now found itself in the body of an embarrassingly small and rat-like dog. It's snarl sounded like a large rat trying to clear its throat. The wolf brought itself up short, throwing a second confused and awestruck look in the direction of Princess Anabyl.

"Don't look at me," she shrugged. "It wasn't my doing."

"Not directly, anyway," said another voice emerging from the darkest corner of the basement room. "I can't very well have the children in my care getting eaten by royal wolves on a field excursion now, can I?"

Peregrine Pagebinder emerged from the shadows and picked up the little dog from the floor. The former royal wolf now looked irritated beyond all reason not to mention absolutely disconsolate.

"I did wonder where you were hiding," Anabyl said peevishly, determined not to show Peregrine any gratitude whatsoever. If the annoying sprite hadn't sent her on this field trip then she would never have ended up in this situation anyway, that was her reasoning.

"I have not been hiding," Peregrine said. "I have been looking at the possibilities for the continued unfolding of your educational curriculum. It's time for options, young lady."

"Options?" Anabyl asked. "What are they? No. Don't answer. Anything to do with you has to be stupid and boring."

"Not so antagonistic please, Anabyl," Peregrine said. "The path we are engaged upon is for the betterment of us all. Now, the question of how much better is entirely in your hands. You must choose your next step carefully. That is the option you will be given, how to proceed with your education, understood?"

"Unless going home and having you move out permanently is one of the choices I don't think I'm going to be interested," Anabyl said.

"I'm afraid not," Peregrine replied coolly. The calmer he was about Anabyl's volley of vitriolic insults the more obnoxious she was determined to become. "There are two options, option one is that we now return to Caer Spireshine and you embark upon a programme of extensive social education with the aim of turning you into a master stateswoman."

Anabyl felt the only response to that was to stick her tongue out and make puking noises.

"Option two," Peregrine continued, ever unruffled, "is to combine the advanced discplinary, tactical and spiritual educative methods of the Dracopolis Academy with some more focused sessions on history, natural science and other useful academics with the aim of turning you into the finest dragon warrior the lands of Faerie has ever or will ever know. I should tell you that this latter option is the more difficult of the two, however it does give you the potential to fulfil one of the grandest destinies that the world has ever known, if you can stick to it."

Anabyl tried to muster up some enthusiasm for puking at that option too. She was surprised to find that she couldn't. After today's near miss she reasoned that if someone could teach her not to fight her way into a corner that would be a very good thing indeed. The Dracopolis Academy appeared to be a place of rules and discipline, neither of which were Anabyl's favourite things. In a contest between martial discipline and political protocol though the discipline won every day.

Then there was the thing about the destiny.

"What do you mean 'the grandest destiny the world has ever known'?" she asked.

"One of the grandest destinies the world has ever known," Peregrine said. "Choose that path and you will come to find out in time."

So she did, and she did, but all of that will be told at another time, in another place, for the hour is too late now.

The First Eyrie

"Owls," James said, a word that seemed, to Lester, to be pretty much apropos of nothing.

"Where?" Lester said, making a guess that Lester was referring to some owls that might be somewhere nearby.

"Here," James said. "Or at least they used to be. I recognise this place from pictures. It's the First Eyrie."

"Oh," Lester said. "Good. So how far until we get somewhere less... remote? Ideally a place that is less imbued with feelings of lurking menace."

"James!" Rachel cried out running over to join the pair standing among the perches on the enormous stone slab. "You're safe."

"Yes, uh, yes Rachel, I am safe and well," James said. Lester believed that he detected a note of awkwardness in James's voice.

Without even saying 'hello' or 'how do you do' Rachel dipped her hand into Lester's pocket and fished the mouse out. She held James up to her face, wreathed in smiles.

"Well," she said. "This has been a fine adventure, but I think, perhaps, it is time we found our way home."

"I couldn't agree more," James said.

"Well, we'll wait for the gnome to wake up and I'll get him to take us home, or we can just get some directions," Rachel said.

"You meant the Skull Garden, didn't you?" James asked.

"Well, that's home," Rachel said. "I think we've been wandering around for too long now, although, to be fair, I mostly stayed in Bridgetown Market, it was you that travelled."

"Yes, I did," James said. "And I discovered a few things."

"Oh yes," Rachel said. "Like what?"

"Like..." James gave the sentence a short run up but it appeared to be a particularly tall sentence so it wasn't enough. The words sank back down into his throat as soon as they'd emerged.

Lester swapped a glance with Eos, who looked back at him with a cold gaze. He had to remind himself that he'd been the one who had played along with keeping her in captivity, if only for about three hours. Three hours was plenty to liberate an imprisoned mermaid. No one felt the sting of that more than Lester, well, possibly Eos did.

Right at this moment, however, there was one more pressing emotional concern. James had remembered, during his time with Lester, that he was Rachel's father, transformed into this rodent form, memory wiped and dumped into the Skull Garden. This was bound to be a charged moment, Lester could feel the air of anticipation like a low charge of plasma squirming across his skin.

"Well," James said, Lester recognised the music of that syllable, it was the lost, confused and helpless tone that Lester found so irritating in himself. "I remembered that... I don't come from the Skull Garden..."

"You don't?" Rachel said. "So where do you come from? Can we go and live there? Is there a giant bat where you come from?"

"Um, I don't think so," James said. "I just remembered that, and also, I used to be a man, not a mouse."

"A man? So how did you become a mouse?" Rachel asked.

"I don't really know, I don't remember everything yet," James said. Lester could now hear a sort of forlorn relief in James's voice and Lester imagined that he might know what that meant, although he couldn't quite believe it.

"Well we should definitely try to get you turned back," Rachel decided. "Then you could be like my big brother or something. Maybe you could take care of me, instead of the other way round."

"Yes," James said quietly. "Maybe."

And then he said nothing else, and neither did any of the others.

"Well," Eos said eventually. "I guess that we'd better have a look around this place, see if we can find an exit or something."

"Definitely," James said.

"What about the gnome?" Rachel asked. "He doesn't look very well."

Everyone turned their attention in the direction of the gnome who was laid out, unconscious under a perch about fifteen feet away from where they had gathered. They all moved over to examine the sprite.

"Is he breathing?" Lester asked Eos who was the first to reach the prone figure.

"I don't think sprites breathe," James said from Rachel's left shoulder. Lester found it both less annoying and a little sad not to hear the correction directly from his own left shoulder. Now that he had his daughter back Lester imagined James wouldn't want to hang out in Lester's pockets any more. That shouldn't have really meant anything to Lester, but he was confused to note that it did.

"How should we tell if he's alive then?" Eos asked, looking down at the gnome's bearded face.

"He exists," James said. "Technically I don't think you're supposed to be able to render them unconscious."

"So he's pretending then?" Lester asked.

"No," James said. "Magic: pure, coalesced, intelligent magic is a complex. What we're seeing is not an unconscious living being, we're seeing a translation of the state of the magic into our terms. So in our terms the thing that is the gnome is unconscious, unable to interact with us but still present and whole."

"So how do we wake him up?" Eos asked.

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

"You seem to know a lot more about everything than you did when I left you, though," Rachel said. "So that's a good thing."

"Is it?" James asked Rachel. "Sometimes I'm not so sure."

"Sometimes," Lester said, although even he couldn't quite figure out why. "What you remember is that you have, oh, I don't know, a huge secret or something."

Lester then got the opportunity to add 'pointed glare' to the number of facial expressions he had now seen first hand that probably had never been observed previously on a mouse.

"Yes, well," James said loudly before anyone could respond to Lester's comment with anything awkward or troubling. "We could have a look around for some smelling salts or something. That might help."

"I thought you said it couldn't breathe," Eos said. "How would smelling salts help it?"

"Like I said, it's magic translated into a physical being, sometimes the translation works both ways, it's a kind of interaction of archetypal metaphors."

James paused long enough to realise that no one had any idea what it was he had just said.

"Trust me," James said. "We can try smelling salts, they may work."

"You're much smarter than you used to be," Rachel said. "That's cute."

With that they all made a move away from the gnome to look for smelling salts.

"Wait!" Eos said before they could go four paces. "We really can't just wander off and leave the gnome by himself. I'll stay."

"You shouldn't stay alone," Lester said. "I'll just go and have a look for something, you all stay here."

"I should go with you," James said. "I might be able to spot useful things."

"I'm not leaving you," Rachel said. "I'll have to go too."

"But I already said," Lester said. "We shouldn't leave Eos to watch the gnome by herself."

"Then you stay," Rachel said. "I'll take James to look for the smelly things."

Although the logic appeared sound Lester didn't exactly relish being left alone with Eos at the moment.

"This is a strange place," Lester said. "A little girl and a mouse can't walk about it by themselves."

"We're adventurers," Rachel said, sticking out her bottom lip. "We can do what we like."

"Well, if you like to get eaten by monsters in strange castles that's certainly true," Lester said.

"Lester!" James said. "There's no need to be unpleasant. Okay, look, Rachel, I promise we are not going to be split up. I'll go with Lester and have a look around for some smelling salts, or anything else that might help the gnome wake up. Once we've revived the gnome we'll get out of here, together. I promise."

"But..." Rachel said, her bottom lip was now quivering, and her eyes shone with tears. "We've... we've only just found one another. What if there's another broom?"

"Lester," James said, "despite appearances to the contrary, is a smart cookie, he'd never been caught on a flying broom before but he never ever makes the same mistake twice. You're just going to have to trust us."

Rachel miserably acquiesced to this and passed James over to Lester. The two of them skirted the edge of the stone slab and, before too long, found a set of steps down on one side. The view around the other four edges of the slab told them that this perch was built high up near the top of a mountain on a small shelf of rock.

Underneath the slab was a single layer of domestic type rooms, a dormitory, a living area and a kitchen. Most of it was abandoned and bare but the kitchen still had some bits and pieces left in the cupboards and shelves.

"So," Lester said, as he gathered together all the items they had discovered onto a small table. "You didn't tell her."

"I don't want to talk about it," James said.

"Well, I do," Lester said. For some reason James's cowardice, as he saw it, had really upset him. Lester was not a man given to deep moods but in this instance he was certainly approaching something like anger on the topic. "Until now we've been in a very similar position, you lost your daughter, I lost my brother. Now you have your daughter and you begin the reunion by lying to her. I just... don't think it's the right thing to do, that's all."

"Well, what if I don't care about your opinion one way or another?" James asked.

"That's not the point," Lester said. "You can't agree or disagree with the right thing to do. In the end telling lies to someone you love is always the wrong thing to do."

"I'm not sure that's true," James said. "I think sometimes things are more complicated than they might first appear."

"Oh what nonsense!" Lester replied. "You think it's the best thing to lie to people? I don't. When Chester left on his great adventure he promised me that he would write to me every week. He promised me he would be home soon. He promised me that he knew what he was doing. All lies. I'm sure he would probably have said he was doing the right thing but it wasn't was it? Now he's disappeared and all I have left of my brother is this stupid bottle of - oh!"

As Lester fumbled in his breast pocket the vial of liquid flew from his grasp, spinning end over end through the air.

"Wurgh!" Lester cried out stepping forward, stretching out his arm to attempt a mid-air catch.

The first step turned into a second wobbling grasp as the vial remained enticingly out of reach. With the second step Lester's hand brushed the vial altering its trajectory. Trying to adjust course as he went Lester tangled his ankles and dove down at full strength, determined not to lose the only clue he had to his brother's whereabouts.

Lester heard James squeaking and felt the mouse's claws digging into his neck. The little mouse was clinging on for dear life as Lester crashed into the floor. The vial of liquid fell into Lester's outstretched palm and he curled his fingers, attempting to grasp the vial firmly. All he succeeded in doing was providing a ramp for the vial, powered by inertia, to run up before it flew a few more inches through the air to tap delicately against the stone floor of the kitchen.

The vial didn't shatter but a spider web of cracks spread out through its bottom half. The, now delicate, vial rolled to a stop, whole but not to be trusted, a few inches further on from Lester's position.

"Oh dear," James said.

"Not good," Lester said. "Really not good."

"Well, there is a small up side," James replied. "We are in a kitchen, however abandoned that kitchen may be. We should be able to locate some alternative vessel for the potion, if we're careful."

"Careful," Lester said, like the word tasted bad, "Right, careful."

Lester picked up the vial with a suitable amount of care and attention. He placed it, and James onto the nearby countertop.

"Hold on to this, very gently," Lester said. "I'm just going to find something to decant the potion into."

"Okay," James said, placing his paws onto the cracked surface of the vial. The cracks were so fine that even James could not really detect them by touch, only by looking at their gossamer white threads promising that, at any moment, the vial could shatter soaking its valuable contents into the wooden surface below.

"You know," James said, as Lester rooted through a cupboard filled with junk, "this could be the moment your brother referred to in his note, the one where you're supposed to drink the contents of the vial."

"You reckon?" Lester asked.

"Well, it would be one way to ensure that the contents would end up in their ultimate destination, i.e. your stomach," James pointed out.

"Don't you think that's a bit... arbitary?" Lester asked.

"To be honest," James said. "I find the whole business of gnomic prophecy to be a bit... eep."

"A bit eep?" Lester said. "I don't know that word. Is that another one of those terms from your place of origin, like interweb?"

James did not reply because James was looking into the shining, yellow, hungry eyes of the thing that had made him go eep. The shining, yellow, hungry eyes of a rugged looking tabby tom cat.

"Lester," James said, his voice low and urgent. "You might want to come and get the vial."

"Why?" Lester said standing up and seeing the unfolding drama of survival taking place on the nearby counter top.

"Because..." James said, as Lester hurried forward anticipating the probable impending second disaster, "I... think... I'm... about... to... have... to..."

Lester, showing a reflexive dexterity wholly absent from his last encounter with the forces of inertia and gravity, snatched the flying vial out of the air as James tossed it and scampered off toward the edge of the counter. Lester swiped out with his spare hand but it was just a little too slow to catch the, now energised, tom cat.

The stocky feline form exhibited surprising speed as it loped after James who was pelting hell for leather towards the end of the counter with no seeming plan for what to do when he reached his destination. Lester watched on in awe as James leapt from the end of the counter to dig his little rodent claws into the trailing edge of a dishrag which swung once forward and then once back before James hurled himself from the zenith of the rag's forward journey once more to land on the counter at the far end of the kitchen and lose himself in the pile of broken kitchen utensils someone had left there.

Undeterred the tomcat followed, keeping its eyes down and plodding amongst the twisted metal remains of pots, pans and various large utensils on its quest for fresh mouse.

"Keep moving, James," Lester said, trying to sneak up on the tom from behind. "Keep moving."

Lester could not see James, but then neither could the cat, as Lester came up behind the predatory beast. Lester attempted to pick the tom up by the scruff of the neck, but the cat was too fast for him. It wheeled around, eyes wide, mouth open, hissing and spitting at Lester. Lester, startled, recoiled from the creature's flashing white claws.

"Well," James cried, "here goes nothing."

Lester tore his attention away from the growling tom cat to see that James had reached an area near the wash basin. Stringing some dirty elastic between the exposed prongs of a ricer that had lost its head James had quickly improvised a kind of slingshot by wedging the ricer's handle into a slightly open drawer adjacent to the sink.

James pulled back on the elastic as far as he could before quickly spinning around in his 'seat' and being hurled from the counter all the way over to the opposite side of the room. He landed on top of a handle placed next to the hatch for some sort of dumb-waiter type device.

Despite the evident acrobatic impressiveness of this move the tom had since lost interest in James, continuing, as it did, to growl at Lester. James is safe, I guess, Lester thought, I'm not sure I am. No sooner had the thought formed than the aggressive feline launched itself at Lester's head, hissing and spitting. Lester braced himself for a face full of angry cat and was amazed when the animal failed to make contact.

"Oh," Lester heard James's voice filled with surprise. "Well, I guess that's okay then."

Lester opened his eyes, the tom was nowhere to be seen.

"Did it vanish?" Lester asked, somewhat befuddled.

"No, it's behind you," James said. "Just passed straight through your head."

"Passed straight..." Lester turned to see the cat sitting behind him, regarding him with naked, impotent hatred. "I don't understand," Lester said.

"I think it's dead," James said. "I think that's a ghost cat."

"A ghost cat?" Lester sounded shocked. "Can cats have ghosts?"

"Apparently they can here," James replied. "Oh, well, no harm, no foul, come get me and we'll... oh."

"No," Lester said. "Not, oh, we've had enough oh for today and I'm putting on an oh embargo. An embarg-oh, if you... oh."

"With a creaking, clanking slow inevitablity the lever next to the dumb waiter that Lester had landed on began to descend. Lester hurried over and scooped the mouse up before he could tumble off the end of the lever onto the floor. The lever, once it had started its journey, continued to move downwards until it had locked in the downward position.

"I guess that just brings the dumbwaiter up," Lester said. Examining the area around the device. "Probably nothing to... ah."

"Ah?" James said. "'Ah' is worse than 'oh', any man who says otherwise is a liar. What's the matter?"

Lester crossed to the dumb waiter and pressed a button next to the hatch immediately to the left of the lever that had just been activated. There was the slow and grinding noise of machinery operating behind the hatch. Eventually a broken bell sounded an off-key ping behind the hatch.

"I think that's the dumb waiter control," Lester said

"So what does that lever control then?" James asked.

Any answer was cut off by the sound of a low and eerie moan echoing up into the eyrie from some place far below thier feet.

"You had to ask, didn't you?" Lester said.

"I think, maybe," James answered. "It might be time for us to leave."

And so they did, but what happened after, and the tale of Saeed and Prince Weatherstrong catching the dastardly Miranda Felix, and the story of Phoebe September ridding herself of her burden and the answer to the question of how story books can change by themselves will all be told in another time and place, for the candle is low and it is, most assuredly, now time for bed.

END OF BOOK TWO

Avan Weatherstrong, The Storm and the Owl of Wisdom

When the time of the Vanishing swallowed the whole of the Terra Draconis the castle at Turbae had, built into its base upon the eastern side, a whole section of foundations that showed clear signs that they had been rebuilt from underneath, in a hurry. The beginning of this story details how it was that such rapid and essential repair work had become necessary.

It had all started when the ward of the travelling prince Avan Weatherstrong, a girl known only as Anna, or, more often, Hell Child, stole a cart and attempted to drive it at some speed across the limits of the Kingdom to evade the justice of the guard. The ins and outs of that particular situation were subsequently lost in a nest of contradictory data and half-remembered anecdotes, none of which settle down until the point at which Prince Weatherstrong was cast into the dungeons beneath the castle for fraternising with a suspected Hell Beast.

News of the prince's impending execution spread rapidly. Many were of the opinion that Lord Turbae had been rash in his summary judgement over the visiting prince. There were some who were concerned about Prince Weatherstrong's abilities as a worker of powerful magic, still more were concerned about the possibility of inciting a diplomatic incident.

As it turns out nobody needed to worry on either score because the night before the execution the aforementioned Hell Beast engineered a jail break as lacking in subtlety as it was efficacious. Not long past midnight bell the night before the execution the sound of a mighty explosion rocked the castle on its foundations. A potion of elemental destruction had disintegrated a large portion of the foundations on the eastern side of the castle whilst leaving everything not made of stone entirely unharmed.

The prince emerged, choking on the remaining clouds of dust, to find Anna sitting upon a broom that she had flown in on to pick up the prince. The account of the incident that resides in the main archive at Sommerslip does not include dialogue. To find the actual words that passed between the Prince and his ward at the point directly following the explosion one would have to travel deep into the dark and perilous stacks in one of the archive's sub-basements. In the region where the leatherbound scrolls scratch themselves into a dense and dangerous existence you could read, if you were brave or foolish enough:

"What is going on?" asked Prince Weatherstrong, his ears still ringing from the sound of the explosion.

"I'm not having any stinky lord execute you because of me," Anabyl replied. "Besides, rescuing you meant I got to play with your alchemy book. I think I did quite well."

"I thought I told you to leave my alchemical journal alone," Avan thundered, his temper getting lost easily in the drifting cloud of powdered rock that surrounded them.

"As I have explained," Anabyl replied calmly, "you are my travelling companion, you don't tell me what to do, if you fight me you will lose."

"In all of my travels..." Avan began, but his tirade was swiftly cut off by the sound of keys opening the jail cell door behind him.

"So, are you going to stay here and get decapitated?" Anabyl asked. "Or are you going to take your seat on this broom I made using the notes in your Druidic Journal?"

"I told you..." Avan began but it was no use. He did not relish the idea of killing Turbae guards, his name in these regions was already black enough. At the same time he did not want to be executed.

When he had presented himself before Lord Turbae asking for the mercy of his court, only to have that mercy declined, he had been angry and afraid. Maybe not angry and afraid enough to cause severe structural damage to Lord Turbae's castle in retaliation but this appeared to be the consequence of defying Princess Anabyl.

"We are going to have a very serious conversation about this," Avan assured Anabyl as he took his seat upon the broom. Anabyl coaxed their wooden steed into life, soaring up into the air, putting some distance between them and the scene of chaos below, speeding towards the edge of Turbae, away from immediate, painful and drastic retribution.

"Boring," Anabyl replied as the broom sped through the dark night sky. "Why don't we just put this behind us and try to have some fun?"

"Anabyl," Avan said, he used her real name now that they were flying through the night sky, well out of earshot of anyone who might record the girl's real name and enter inconvenient paradoxes into any subsequent record. "This can't continue."

"What can't?" Anabyl said. "Me rescuing you? Don't worry, it's fun. You get into trouble you can count on me to get you out."

"You've nearly destroyed that castle!" Avan objected.

"They nearly decapitated you," Anabyl pointed out.

"Because you stole a cart, set fire to a village and turned a flock of chickens into..." Avan found himself out of concrete descriptions. "Well, a herd of some kind of carnivorous lizard. It was only purest chance that no one got hurt."

"I didn't think that you would actually turn yourself in over it. Didn't you get my note?" Anabyl asked crossly.

"The one advising me to run for the border because you believed Lord Turbae to have shifty eyes?" Avan asked.

"He likes to throw his weight about that one. I know the type," Anabyl said darkly. "If we didn't have to leave I have something I'd love to put in his bed, that would teach him."

"Anabyl!" Avan shouted. "This is no way to live your life. One day all of this... this... chaos it will catch up with you."

"Catch up with me?" Anabyl asked. "I thought you'd have noticed, it's all about me, right now. I live in it. Oh and in case I didn't mention it earlier: boring."

"You can't evade the consequences forever," Avan said. "It's a basic principle of the Wheel. The longer it takes to turn the worse it will be for you in the end."

"It's a wheel, right?" Anabyl said. "I guess I will just have to find the brake."

"The... brake?" Avan echoed, his voice faint. "Anabyl, I don't want to have to fight you."

"Why?" Anabyl said. "Are you a bad loser?"

"You're going to make me, aren't you?" Avan asked. "You're going to force me to fight a little girl."

"I'm not forcing you to do anything, the same way you're not forcing me to do anything, even if you try."

"Very well," Avan replied. "If the one thing I can accomplish in the universe is to give you purpose and discipline then I imagine that mine will be a life well-lived."

"We can put that on your gravestone if you like," Anabyl said merrily. She turned around to flash him a grin.

Avan Weatherstrong did not smile back at his small companion. His face grave and serious he muttered a single word under his breath. The name of an elemental, a gift given in return for a service once rendered.

"What was that?" Anabyl said. "I didn't quite catch- oh."

The princess stopped talking, noting that the sky around them had gone from clear and cold to cloudy and charged with brooding electricity.

"You might want to land the broom," Avan said.

"What did you do?" Anabyl demanded.

"Something that means you should land the broom," Avan replied.

Avan's face lit up for a fraction of a second all pale white skin and deep shadow. Following the light came a dangerous rumble that appeared to shake the very air surrounding the broom.

"Alright," Anabyl grumbled. "There was no need to be such a grump about it."

By the time the broom had reached the ground the storm clouds had started to loose a downpour that was more like a deluge. Anabyl and Avan ran for cover in a cave that Avan had spotted from the air.

"So you can make it rain?" Anabyl said, looking out from under the sheltering rocks, wet and a little miserable.

"One way or another all things are possible," Avan replied. He muttered a minor cantrip he had devised for occasions when there was no wood to make a fire. A ball of heated white-orange plasma formed in the palm of his hand and then floated downwards towards the floor. About six inches away from the dusty rock at the mouth of the cave the ball stopped moving. Heat filtered up and out from the ball, filling the cave mouth.

"Fire too," Anabyl said. "You're a much better at magic than daddy's alchemist, and his warlock."

"I have a repertoire suitable for travel," Avan said. "I'm sure that your father's magicians have their own specialisms."

"One snores so loud the entire castle can hear him and the other is so deaf that many swear supernatural intervention," Anabyl shrugged. "Aside from that I couldn't tell you."

The pair sat either side of the plasma ball and looked out at the rain.

"This storm is awful," Anabyl said. "Can't you make it stop? I've landed now."

Avan shook his head.

"I had the power to call down a storm quickly," he said. "I have no power to make one stop."

"That's a bit rubbish," Anabyl said. "Why would you do something you can't undo?"

"Why do you?" Avan asked.

Anabyl shot Avan a peevish look and said nothing.

The prince and princess sat for a long time, staring out of the cave mouth. They sat so long that it began to appear as if dawn should be breaking. The whole sky was so filled with dark clouds that no light was allowed through.

Out of the dark woods west of the cave there came the flutter of wings. A shape darker than the dark clouds, as shadowed as the tree trunks but in motion. became visible. Eventually an owl came into view, its flecked brown feathers picked out in the light of the plasma ball.

The owl swooped in towards the cave and landed at the cave mouth. It stepped back and forth a few times dripping onto the stone at the cave entrance. Then it swivelled its head to look at Anabyl, after a moment seeming to dismiss her and turning his attention to Avan.

"You did this?" the owl asked.

"I'm sorry if the storm has inconvenienced you, I can only apologise," Avan said.

"I was soaring in the sky, following my thread," the owl said. "Then the clouds came down, and the pattern changed."

"The pattern?" Avan said. "Do you mean the Weave?"

"What other pattern could an owl of wisdom see?" the owl asked. "You changed the pattern, I don't think you intended to."

"I certainly didn't," Avan said. "A storm should not have the power to alter fate."

"And you complain that I break things," Anabyl said. "I've never broken destiny."

The owl spun its head again, studying Anabyl once more.

"No, indeed you don't," the owl said. "You are tightly woven, this is exactly where you are supposed to be."

Anabyl instantly looked uncomfortable. Avan had come to know his ward well enough to understand that if the princess found out that she was anywhere near where she was supposed to be she would want to be somewhere else as soon as possible.

"Strange for you to say," Avan said. "For my companion is a very long way from home, lost, trying to find a way to return."

"Well, I can't tell you anything about that," the owl said. "All I can see is that her road leads from here to the Academy at Dracopolis, after that I cannot see further."

"The Academy?" Avan asked. "That is where they train Dragon Warriors."

"What's a Dragon Warrior?" Anabyl asked in a tone of voice that said she was guessing what it was and hoped she wasn't wrong.

"Dragon Warriors are the elite armies of the Dragon Empire," Avan answered. "Some are draco, some folk, there are even goblins, sprites and trolls among their ranks. They have a fearsome reputation. It was the first Dragon Warriors that turned the tide of the Great Conflict in the opening verses of the Dragon Song."

"Indeed," the owl of wisdom chipped in, "Some say that the banishment of the Dragon Lord Decaroleth to his castle of eternal slumber was the completion point of the Weave's first pattern. Since that time the Dragon Warriors have pledged vigilance in the face of all evil for the growth and prosperity of the Terra Draconis."

"Well," Anabyl muttered. "They obviously didn't do a very good job."

"Anabyl!" Avan said. "We have talked about you keeping your knowledge of the shape of the Weave that we do not know to yourself."

"Besides," the owl said. "You are wrong about that. The Dragon Warriors play a vital role in some of the Weave's most intricate patterns. No great catastrophe or turn of the Wheel can dilute or fragment them, they are the most tenacious fighters in the entire land of Faerie."

"Well that doesn't sound so rubbish then," Anabyl said.

"Not rubbish at all," Avan agreed. "The Dragon Warriors, as I understand it, have martial powers allied to both the Weave and the Wheel. According to this owl we are supposed to travel to their Academy at Dracopolis. You have some business there, something destined to be."

"You mean I'm going to be a Dragon Warrior?" Anabyl asked. "Is that why fate brought me here?"

"I can't answer that," Avan said, he looked down at the owl.

"All I know," the owl said. "Is that your path leads to the Academy. My path leads the other way. Oh look, the rain is stopping."

As Avan and Anabyl had conversed with the owl of wisdom some grey light had started to filter through the clouds and the rains were abating.

"I must be on my way," the owl said. "And so must you."

The owl flapped its wings and made its way up into the cold morning air. As the moment of dawn ended the night Avan's plasma ball faded and died with a small pop.

"I'm going to be a Dragon Warrior," Anabyl said, a grin plastered across her face.

"The ranks of the Dragon Warriors are known for their unwavering discipline," Avan said. "That might be something of a stumbling block to your ambitions."

Anabyl stuck her tongue out at Avan: "You're just a grump," she said. "We'll see who becomes a Dragon Warrior and who doesn't."

Indeed they did, but that is a story for another time.

The House of Masks Revealed

"I suppose," said the owl, "that I should tell you to be careful. Not that it will do much good."

"Why won't it do much good?" Frederick asked.

"I told Lester and James to be careful," the owl said, "they are still missing, unlike the rest of them they haven't been gone long. Maybe they'll come back."

"I don't like this," Phoebe said. "Not one little bit."

"Six people disappear and you're concerned that there may be some kind of a problem?" Frederick said. "Full marks for observation."

"I was expressing my concern," Phoebe snapped. "It was a heartfelt comment, not a clever one."

"Are you going to look for them?" the owl asked. "Because there's really no one else left to, Felix has to guard the wagon, he's been told and I can't leave the castle."

"Castle?" Frederick asked, looking around and up for the usual tall, grey structure sprouting from a nearby hill. There wasn't one that he could see.

"It's a replica," the owl said. "A ghost can haunt anything domestic, scale isn't really an issue."

"You're a ghost?" Phoebe asked. "Fascinating."

"Usually I'd agree," the owl replied. "At the moment it's no more than an inconvenience. I can stay and I can watch, otherwise I am powerless to intervene."

"So where did they go?" Frederick asked looking about the nearby streets. It was near enough dead centre in the period between noon bell and the day bell, the streets of Steephill Fell were bustling.

"They went into the first small alley arcade on the left hand side of the street to the West," the owl said. "Actually they combed the area poking around everywhere. That arcade is the last place that they went. They investigated but then they never came back."

"I guess we'll have to be careful then," Frederick said.

"I'll swear I just made a comment to that effect not thirty seconds ago," the owl said but Phoebe and Frederick were already halfway down the street. "Oh, yes, and goodbye. Hope you find them. Not least because this street corner is really rather tedious."

Frederick was doing a little better now. There was a sense of menace and mystery, nobody had tried to beat him up in just over an hour and he had plenty to think about besides the way Phoebe's hair fell when she tilted her head over to the right in thought. He was most definitely too busy with the disappearances and what-have-you to think about the latter item much at all, and that was definitely a good thing.

"You don't need to stamp about the place looking so serious," Phoebe said from about half a step behind him. "It's not like you're in charge or anything."

The sudden tweak of annoyance in Frederick's gut cleared almost all other thoughts out of his head in an instant.

"I'm just worried," he said. "I don't want to get disappeared like the others."

"Do you not?" Phoebe asked. "Then how do you propose that we find them all?"

"Fine," Frederick said. "We can follow them, but we don't want to get lost like them."

"How do you know?" Phoebe asked. "They might have all gone somewhere so nice they just don't want to come back."

Frederick had to stop and think about that for a second and in that time Phoebe swanned past him and into the arcade. The small ginger tom cat, Harvey, plodded along behind. As they disappeared into the covered passageway Harvey looked back to give Frederick a narrow-eyed grin.

Now it was Frederick's turn to come bustling up the small cobbled passageway behind Phoebe, striding past fishmongers' stalls. The arcade smelled of fish that was on the point of turning ripe, most of the merchants were adjusting their prices downwards, trying to move on whatever it was they had left to get rid of.

"What about these people?" Frederick said as Phoebe studiously ignored the fish traders. Harvey was paying more attention, at least to the merchandise, but he looked as if he hated himself for it.

"They don't know anything," Phoebe announced airily.

"How do you know?" Frederick asked.

"If people disappear the last thing they will have done before they vanished is talk to your common or garden fishmonger or trader in seafood," Phoebe said with the ring of certainty evident in her voice.

"So what will they have done?" Frederick asked.

"Talked to the unusual, shady, creepy or otherwise darkly mysterious purveyor of briny goods, like him," Phoebe said pointing out a dark stall displaying jars of pickled seafood at the very end of the arcade.

"So they talked to him," Frederick said. "What about?"

"Let's find out," Phoebe said and marched over to the stall. "Where are they?" she asked without preamble.

The merchant gave Phoebe a look that indicated that he had seen it all before, even if 'it' was abrupt witches bluntly assuming that you would know what they were talking about, and pointed at the wall opposite his stall.

"You play patty cake with the bricks," he said. "Door opens. Will take you where you need to go."

"Where we need to go?" Phoebe said, looking at the wall. "So it's a different destination for everyone?"

"Don't know," the merchant said. "I just sell pickled seaweed, and other refinements."

"So, what?" Frederick asked, looking at the rather grimy looking wall of dark stone bricks that had been indicated. "We play patty cake? We don't play patty cake?"

"I think we need more information," Phoebe said. "Harvey dear?"

The ginger tom looked up from its activity, sniffing around an unpleasantly wet looking sack to one side of a stall further down the arcade. Harvey came slinking up to Phoebe before transforming back into a rakish red-haired youth.

"What's up, feebs?" Harvey asked.

"There's a portal, in that wall," she said. "What can you tell me about it?"

Harvey went over to the wall and sniffed about.

"Pure mischief," he said. "Not one of the boss's little side doors. This one's from the source. Nobody can control it, not even the boss."

"So if we go through it we won't follow the last people to go through it?" Phoebe asked.

"Can't tell," Harvey said. "sometimes these things won't even take two people who follow one another to the same place, sometimes they switch destinations in the tween, sometimes they just randomly do whatever they feel like doing. They tunnel through time and space, they could send you to the moon in the future, or to the mortal world in the past."

"You're not being very helpful," Phoebe said. "Is there any way we could get more details?"

"If you open it," Harvey said, "I could probably pick up a scent from the other side. While it's closed I can smell the door, and the scent of the people who recently went through, even over the fish, but I can't tell you whether those scents continue on the other side."

"If we open it," Frederick asked. "How do we close it again?"

"Almost all of these things close after about ten minutes, or, in the worst case, in the tween," Harvey said, he spoke a little slower as if telling something to someone slightly backwards.

"What's a tween?" Frederick asked, not caring how dumb people thought he was.

"Magical concept," Phoebe said. "A tween is any place inbetween one thing and another. Doorways in and of themselves are tweens. Crossways are tweens. There are also well established major tweens in time such as midnight, the space between one day and the next. If midnight happens where you are then it tends to reset any non-persistent magical effects in the area."

"So the door will definitely close by itself at midnight?" Frederick asked.

"Nothing will definitely ever happen when it comes to magic, dimbo," Harvey said. "Particularly not when that magical something involves pure magic, straight from the source."

"But it would be highly unusual if it didn't," Phoebe cut in. "Right, Harvey?"

"Hey, he asked a big boy question," Harvey said. "Excuse me for giving him the big boy answer."

"There's a lot of chaos in magic, isn't there?" Frederick said.

"We call it mischief," Harvey said. "Chaos has too many negative connotations."

"This isn't a magical theory lecture," Phoebe said. "We need to find out what's on the other side of that door, and if it's our friends."

With that she stepped up to the wall and slapped out a quick game of patty cake. On the last hand slap her hand penetrated the wall appearing to disappear into the solid stone of the bricks.

"Open," she said. "Harvey, get sniffing."

"Um," Frederick said to the pickle seller. "You might want to make a sign or something, in case we don't go through." The pickle seller looked at Frederick like he was some sort of odd insect that he'd discovered under a rock in his garden. "You know," Frederick said. "Caution... advisory... of caution... no. Okay."

Frederick turned away to see Harvey sniffing around the doorway, in his cat form. The djinn transformed back into his other shape.

"We're in luck, sort of," Harvey said. "The way through still has a scent of the last couple of people to go through."

"Are you sure?" Phoebe asked.

"One of the things that went through this door," Harvey said. "Was very, very tasty, small, grey, furry, likes cheese, you follow my drift? I can't get the smell out of my nostrils."

"What about the others?" Frederick asked. "The little girl? The mermaid?"

"Too long ago," Harvey said. "So, are we going on a mouse hunt."

"Do I have to put you under an injunction, Harvey?" Phoebe asked sternly. The red-headed youth flinched.

"You are about as much fun as, well, you," Harvey complained. "And that is no fun at all. I wish nobody had ever touched that magic shovel. I was having a nice holiday."

"I can only imagine," Phoebe said. "But I won't because it will only make me cross. Come on Frederick, let's get on with it."

"Sir Cobb," Frederick said as Phoebe swished through the magic door. Now he was alone Frederick could not help the urge to further qualify himself. "My name is Sir Cobb, I'm a knight," he said to the pickle merchant.

"You might want to hurry," the merchant said, unimpressed. "Door don't open long."

Frederick gave up on trying to impress upon people his chivalric qualifications and walked through the door behind the others.

"You really need to be more assertive," said the sword at his waist. "As your manager I am concerned that you don't have a strong enough brand."

"A what now?" Frederick asked.

"I'm resident in metal," the sword said. "As such I occasionally receive transmissions of mortal information streams. They, the mortals, have this kind of magic called a brand. You put a brand on something, like a shoe, and its magic makes people want to buy it, well, to own it. They haven't ironed that exact distinction out, causes some problems, anyway...."

"Are you talking to your sword?" Harvey asked.

Frederick realised that Phoebe and Harvey were looking at him. They were stood in a small, bare stone cell on the other side of the door. Phoebe looked as if she was running out of patience. Harvey looked amused, but not in a good way.

"I wondered how you found a conversational companion to be your intellectual equal," Harvey said. "Now I know."

"If everybody's quite finished messing about," Phoebe said. "Harvey, follow the scent."

"I'm just a nose to you," Harvey said. "It's really quite insulting."

With that he turned into a cat and sniffed away along the floor, following the scent he had detected. Phoebe and Frederick followed along behind. They walked down a few musty corridors and up a set of steps to a hallway with many doors leading off it. Harvey sniffed around the edges for a bit before turning back into a boy.

"They walked back and forth here a few times," he said. "I can't tell where they went last, I'm not a dog."

After a short examination of the surrounding rooms all they could find was a broken window in one room and an hourglass on a shelf. Above the hourglass, engraved in a metal plate, was the legend:

Come, spend an hour and visit with us.

"This is it then?" Phoebe said. "We turn the glass?"

"What do you think will happen?" Frederick asked.

"It's an area effect magic, low level, druidic," Harvey said. "Anyone in the room will be caught within the field when it's turned."

"So what will it do?" Frederick asked.

"It's not a door, dimbo," Harvey said. "So I have no idea, something magic."

"Maybe they didn't turn it over," Frederick said.

"Their scent trail says otherwise," Harvey replied. "They went across the hall a couple of times, upstairs for a bit and outside but there's no sign of them further than the sun dial in the back garden."

"Maybe you just can't smell it," Frederick suggested. "After all you're not a dog."

"Hey, whatever makes you comfy, Sir Clueless," Harvey said. "I personally don't really care what you do. I'm just behaving so I don't get any major mojo slapped on me by my burden."

Phoebe glared at Harvey who grinned and then turned back into a cat.

"We've got to go on," Phoebe said. "We don't have a choice, we've come too far."

Frederick shrugged.

"Alright then," he said. "Turn the glass."

Phoebe picked up the hourglass on its little shelf, reversed it and put it back down. The sand began to run through the pinch in the centre. Instantly Frederick felt like the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. His head felt dizzy and his breath caught in his throat.

"Oh wow!" said an excited voice behind him. "Even more visitors!"

Things had changed. The sound of jaunty folk music stuttered through the air forming a bed to a murmur of conversation, the odd shout or scream of delight and the occasional eruption of laughter, or applause, or both. As Frederick inhaled he caught the scent of roasted meats in competition with the sharp sweetness of sugary things, probably cakes.

Frederick had not eaten a proper meal in a long time. Being a travelling knight and an incompetent cook he had neither the money nor the skill to find good food for himself. He subsisted on energy-providing stodge with a side order of telling yourself that it was all for the greater good.

Suddenly finding himself at a party, the air itself changed from cool and still to warm and vibrant, Frederick didn't really know what to do next. A small, bearded man wearing a long nosed mask and with a brightly coloured conical cardboard hat perched upon his head came round to study Frederick. Cheerful eyes twinkled as they looked him up and down.

"A beautiful girl, a handsome knight and..." the little man looked at Harvey sat on the floor and surveying the scene half-hungry, half-suspicious, "...and an animal, all guests at the party now!"

"What party?" Phoebe asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

"You've arrived at the House of Mirth, my dear," the little man said. "Where the party continues through the day and the night."

"What's the party for?" Phoebe asked.

"For?" the little man said. "Who said a party had to be 'for' something? At the House of Mirth laughter and levity are more than occasional, they are the very stuff of life. Come, let me show you the buffet, let me show you the musicians, the dancing, the entertainment. At midnight will be the great unmasking and then the festivities will be over for today. You can stay until then? Of course you can! Oh, but you will need masks."

"Uh," Frederick said. The smell of the food was making his belly growl, the evident jollity was enticing, at the same time Frederick could tell that something was off here.

"Excuse my silly friend," Phoebe cut across Frederick before he could rouse himself to a sensible response. "He has few wits and even fewer manners. I will certainly need to give him a firm talking to prior to entering the party. Particularly if he is to be masked. Who knows what he will get up to otherwise?"

"I am sure that he will get into the swing of things," the little man said. "Now is not the time for blame or recriminations. Fear and sadness have no place in the House of Mirth."

"I understand," Phoebe said, an edge to her voice. "However we must confess that we did not know that we would be coming to a party, so we are ill prepared for the party mood. A few moments and we will be ready to pull on our masks and join in the fun."

"Ah, but fun flows like a river throughout the House..."

Thunk.

The little man keeled over and fell to the floor unconscious. Harvey stood behind him holding a piece of wood with a jewel at one end, possibly a magic wand.

"That," he said. "Is how you deal with trouble like that."

"Trouble?" Frederick said. "I don't understand."

"Why am I not surprised?" Harvey said.

"This isn't a party, Frederick," Phoebe said. "It's a trap."

"A trap?" Frederick asked. "A trap with a buffet, dancing, entertainment and masks?"

"The worst kind," Harvey said. "I can smell the mischief in this place, and it's curdled. Mischief turned this bad is like poison."

"Party poopers!" declared a voice at the door to the room. "New arrivals! And they're party poopers!"

Frederick turned around to see the owner of this new voice, high-pitched and ringing, the kind of voice that was used to obedience. The voice came from a tall, slim woman in a sparkling party frock, on her finger she wore an enormous ruby set into a ring and the rest of her outfit appeared to follow on from that key feature. Currently she was pointing the ring in the direction of Phoebe, Harvey and Frederick. The ruby was glowing with a dangerous red light.

"Party poopers must become the life and soul, because this is my day, my sweet sixteen and nobody is going to ruin it for me," the young woman said.

The last thing that Frederick remembered before being swallowed by the bright red light was Harvey, shifting to cat form and dodging past the woman. Then Frederick stopped worrying and wondered whether there were any prawns on the buffet. He liked prawns.

Frederick and Phoebe were in trouble, but they escaped from the House of Mirth and with them they brought James, Lester, the gnome and all their other friends. How they did it is a story for another time.

Phoebe's Burden

Phoebe September had been born far away from the Crossway Realms, outside of the Hundred Kingdoms in a small Shadow Realm called Overwyrd. There are not many happy Shadow Realms, the number of benevolent ones ruled by a powerful council of magicians numbers in the single figures. If we wanted to be particular about it the single figure in question was one.

Overwyrd contained with in its borders five cities, one for each of the main magical disciplines and the City of Celestia, known by many in Faerie as the Capital City of Magic. Although the Celestian Council of Twelve (the ruling body of Overwyrd) had no objection to this assignation they all knew it was a lie.

Magic did not, in fact have a capital city, it couldn't, magic was everywhere, permeating everything. It is a joke often told in The Hermetic Academy of the neighbouring city of Ergus that they had wanted, as their coat of arms, a circle whose limit was nowhere and whose centre was everywhere but they couldn't get it on the flag. Alchemists have an odd sense of humour, by and large.

Phoebe was born in the times of the old heroes, before Avan Weatherstrong had fought his final battle, during a period of time dubbed the Thaumaturge War in Volume XI of "The Tales Of Avan Weatherstronge". She was born in the city of Neiros the child of two witches, although in those days they were referred to more properly as druids or priests, until they went bad.

This was before the convention of the Celestian Council, when the land was ruled over by the Overwyrd itself. The Overwyrd was a sprite that had grown to significant power, an elemental of magic itself. Using a variety of geis it had set itself up as a powerful force for all magic, a controversial role in and of itself. The more powerful the Overwyrd became the more aloof it became, even as magicians of all disciplines came together to study at its feet so the political turmoil inevitably rose to the boil.

By the time the child of Cyrus and Megara September was named Phoebe the city of Neiros had already been at war with the neighbouring city of Ytha for a generation and no end to the conflict was in sight. Those in the sight of the Overwyrd had expressed concern about the motivations of an entire city of sorcerers, this gossip had done little but fuel the growing unrest and quicken the Ythan's thirst for conquest and domination.

Although Ytha had begun attacking both Neiros and Ergus the druids and alchemists were finding their own peace process difficult. Both cities had signed peace treaties with Oph, the city of bards, Oph themselves had taken a position of neutrality in the conflict that raged around them.

Ythan forces had attempted to march on Oph, of course, but the concerted effort of the Ophans has resulted in the bloodthirsty Ythan warband settling down for a coffee around the many excellent cafes of Oph. During their short, placid stay the hardened mage-warriors discussed the ultimate nature of reality and the power of music to unlock powerful sensory experiences, before leaving peacefully having bought a large number of 'I Heart Oph' tourist trinkets such as mugs, tunics and novelty belt buckles. The one thing all three warring cities could agree on was that Ophans were not to be trusted and far too rich for their own good.

Phoebe learned quickly of the follies of her elders and learned first hand of the constant dread that played companion to those living in the heart of a mage war. As far as Phoebe could tell you took charge or you got flattened along the way. War, she decided, was for idiots, peaceful resolution to any situation was by far the preferred option.

This was a shame for Phoebe who, temperamentally, had a short fuse and, magically, had a talent for the manipulation of various forms of plasma. Against her better judgement she pledged to the Circle of Elements at the Hallowed House (the Neiran equivalent of the Hermetic Academy) and learned to be one with the primal spirit of energy; specifically Ouro, the serpentine embodiment of the energetic principle.

Being one of those whose natural gifts tended towards both healing and harming Phoebe was groomed for a life of military service. It was during this time that the first peace pacts were signed between Neiros and Ergus. Phoebe lived in hope that her temper would not be unleashed upon the Ythans because she was, at heart, a peaceful person and wanted nothing to do with killing or death.

All that had been several lifetimes ago, even to one of the elder folk. Now Phoebe was cut adrift from her past by the hand of an Ythan sorcerer by the name of Vikas Moorshade. Moorshade had been killed as Phoebe had lain entombed within a crystal coffin at the foot of Moorshade's throne. Phoebe's former life could not have found itself more effectively erased with the most powerful entreaties to Chronos, the spirit of time.

Phoebe September found herself without family, without home, without much of a purpose in a world she barely recognised. She was helping a mouse find a little girl because she didn't know what else to do. Right at this moment she was moving this greater goal on by applying an unguent to relieve pain in an old woman's spine for which she would receive the princely sum of two shillings.

So far this morning she had earned two crowns in various health treatments, she was still a good way off the Bronze Mark she had set as a target. Still, there was time enough until the day bell, noon bell hadn't sounded yet although it couldn't be far off. There were plenty of ill people in the magic enclosure of Steephill Fell's market square, all Phoebe had to do was show some efficiency.

It wasn't even too much of a chore. Dispensing head poultices, potions, tinctures, balms and unguents, all juiced with various types of raw magical plasma, was by far the most mundane and peaceful activity Phoebe could remember engaging in for years.

No wonder, she considered, that she was remembering the Hallowed House. Her college days would have been the last time before the Battle of the Gates of Bone that she had enjoyed a period of calm reflection.

"Ooh, that's a relief," the old woman said, shifting her shoulders and smiling a wide and toothless smile. "You're ever so good, what herbs are in that stuff?"

"It's a little white fire," Phoebe said. "Not herbal, direct from the source."

"Oh I don't understand all that alchemy stuff," the old woman said, apparently she didn't know about alchemy seeing as the manipulation of raw plasma was something only witches did. "All I know is that I can walk comfortable. There you go dearie."

The old woman dropped some coins into Phoebe's outstretched hand. Phoebe placed the coins into her purse and by the time she'd looked up the old woman had wandered off. Phoebe wiped the last of the unguent from her hands with a rag.

"Who's next?" Phoebe called out to the crowd. "Relief from pain, cessation of minor ailments, all natural, all straight from the source." If there was one thing they taught you in the Circle of Elements it was how to sell your services. Druids had to earn a living.

"I heard that someone dug you up, Phoebe September," said a voice Phoebe recognised. After all that melancholy regarding her lost history the sound of a voice she had hoped never to hear again was another cruel stitch in the pattern of the weave. The noon bell began to strike in the background, providing a sombre note to accompany this sudden irritation.

Standing at the corner of the small pitch she had hired all day for a shilling was a short, rakish gentleman whose bright green eyes were the first thing that anyone would notice. He had odd, wiry red hair, a freckly complexion and the general demeanour of one you couldn't help but like, even though you knew you could not afford to trust them under any circumstances.

"Really, Harvey Raine?" Phoebe stared back at the youth, refusing to show how upsetting his presence had made her. "And who did you hear that from? I'd love to know seeing as everyone else who would care is presumably dead."

Harvey Raine raised his chin a little, as if proud to be caught out in a lie, he laughed, a smooth sound that somehow managed to be dangerous.

"Well observed, Feebs," he said. "Indeed, I believe you are right about that. There's only one person in all of the realms of Faerie I am bound to by my geis, that person is you. I knew when someone had freed you from the crystal coffin, I knew when you visited the patchwork market, it didn't matter how fast you flew to Steephill Fell I came, once more, to stand by your side."

"I'm touched," Phoebe replied, her tone flat. "You need not have troubled yourself."

"Don't be like that Feebs," Harvey said. "You know the ins and outs of geis when it comes to sprites. I could not stay away. You think I want to be tied to a grumpy lump like you? Not likely. I came because I was compelled. So we might as well make the best of things."

"I didn't think the bond would last beyond the point of the sorcerer's death," Phoebe said. "I thought if he died with the ring on his finger that his death would dissolve the geis."

"Apparently not," Harvey said. He appeared to be bored by the conversation, he pulled an apple from his pocket and took a bite out of it. "Vegetation," he said with some disgust. "I still can't get the hang of it."

"Well, now you're here you can sit at my feet and wait patiently until I conclude my business," Phoebe said. "This I-"

"Now wait!" Harvey cried out, shocked out of his langour. "There's no need to use force. I remember how this works. Here." He threw her the apple, which she caught on instinct. Then Harvey Raine collapsed, deflating, melting, changing form, until there was no rakish young man just a ginger tom cat that looked as if it had seen too many cat fights. The cat padded over to Phoebe and sat at her feet, managing to look offended that it was even present.

"Good boy," Phoebe said. "Now, let's get back to business."

Before Phoebe could call out for any more business a large man wearing a stained leather apron forced his way out of the crowd.

"Oi," he said to Phoebe, "where'd that fellow go, the one with sneaky eyes."

Phoebe knew that the man must have been referring to Harvey, but she wanted to move on from her encounter with her burden's human face as quickly as possible. Besides she didn't know what he'd been up to without her there to control him.

"I'm sorry," she said. "He went off into the crowd, I didn't ask him where he was going."

The man scanned the crowd, trying to look over the heads of the people in the market to find out Harvey. Phoebe felt a little guilty, knowing that the mischief maker he sought was at her feet, currently licking at his paws like he didn't have a care in the world. That was the problem, of course, he didn't.

"He was hanging around my stall," the merchant said. "I don't get many people stupid enough to thieve, I'm an alchemical apothecary. You steal an unmarked bottle off my stall the contents could kill you, or worse."

Phoebe began to feel the murmur of a deep and terrible concern. Harvey wasn't above thieving, that she knew, but if he was hanging about next to the pitch of an alchemical apothecary there were worse things he could do than steal.

"I think that maybe-" Phoebe began but it was too late.

There was the sound of a terrible explosion from a few stalls back. The merchant spun on the spot, aghast.

"My stall!" he cried out and hurried back into the crowd.

"We'd better go and help," Phoebe said to the ginger tom. "We'd both better be as helpful as we possibly can be, a full and honest confession might not go amiss." The tom's face darkened. "This," Phoebe said and felt a little thrill of moral satisfaction as the tom's face turned to a comical mask of panic at the syllable. "I do command thee."

As the final 'e' left Phoebe's lips the ginger tom transformed back into Harvey's human form. Face like thunder he found his way mutely into the crowd. Feeling a bit better about the current state of affairs Phoebe followed on behind.

As she reached the ruins of the Alchemical Apothecary's stall Harvey was just explaining that he had set a vial of one chemical he knew would combine with explosive effect with another to the merchant. The merchant was clearly both furious and bewildered at the unexpected resolution to the destruction of his livelihood.

"What I don't understand," the merchant said, bunching and unbunching his fist. "Is why you have decided to own up."

"I wouldn't have," Harvey said miserably, "save that I have been compelled to do so."

"Compelled?" the alchemist asked. "By whom?"

"Hey," a voice said behind Phoebe, she turned to see Frederick's honest but slightly damaged face behind her. "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"Currently," Phoebe said, "but watch this space." With that she turned back to the unfolding scene of unwilling contrition and called out: "Compelled by me, sir." She stepped forward. "I must apologise for my burden, we have spent some time apart and it seems that he has forgotten who it is he answers to."

"You?" the alchemical apothecary said, "but I don't understand, you were just... you said he'd gone..."

"That was before he blew up your stall," Phoebe said. "I promise he will answer for what he has done, as will I. Here," she held out her coin purse. "This is all the money that I have in the world. It cannot make up for what you have lost but it is all I have."

The merchant looked at the meagre collection of coinage, it did not appear as if this was going to mollify him much. He had every right to object, Phoebe just hoped she could avoid a street fight, more for the merchant's sake than for her own, although things could get even uglier if some plasma ended up burning the wrong backside. Places like Steephill Fell were less prone to get so burn-at-the-stake crazy than shadow towns like Hamsamperburg but every burgher had their limits.

"I think, I may be able to offer something a little more substantial," Frederick chipped in from Phoebe's side. He held out a sovereign that Phoebe had not expected to see.

This went a little further towards cooling the merchant's ire. He shot a poisonous glance at Harvey.

"You just keep him well away from me, that's all," he said and tramped off into the back of his stall to assess the damage.

"Harvey," Phoebe said. "Heel."

"I'm not a dog," Harvey complained, but not too loud. "I'd forgotten what a kill joy you can be, I wish I'd not come back to you."

"You know as well as I do," Phoebe said. "Neither of us has a choice in that while Moorshade still has that ring on his finger."

"Um, excuse me," Frederick said behind them. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of an introduction. I paid quite a lot to that merchant, I think, well, I, um, deserve one."

"Oh, yes," Phoebe said. "Frederick, this is Harvey Raine, my burden..."

"I'm a djinn," Harvey said, his tone cold. "Calling me a burden is so... so... negative."

"You just cost me all of my money and Frederick all of his," Phoebe said. "You're a burden."

Harvey tutted and collapsed back into cat form.

"Where the hell did you get that from since the trader's bell?" Frederick asked.

"Oh, he's from way before that, he's from before Vikas Moorshade put me in that box," Phoebe explained.

"Why?" Frederick asked. "I've met evil sorcerers, they don't tend to get annoying sprites to irritate you into submission, they pretty much tend to just kill you."

"I don't want to talk about it," Phoebe said. "Come on, we'd better find the others and get ready to move on. I think we've burned our bridges here."

"Um, yes, I suppose," Frederick said as Phoebe pressed into the crowd making her way towards the stone arch holding the market bell.

Phoebe's stomach had turned to water. She felt a warm flush of anger, embarassment, shame, sadness all of her least favourite emotions, fighting for attention in her gut. Since she had been freed not one good thing about her past had come back, only the very worst things had returned to haunt her.

She decided it was probably best not to think about such things, it might lead to accidental plasma leakage and that was never a good thing. As she came within sight of the market bell she nearly unleashed a torrent of electric fire in a random direction when she saw that Lester was not there.

"This is not acceptable," she grated, stomping across the cobbles to the now redundant meeting place. "How dare they disobey me."

"Phoebe," Frederick said, his tone carefully modulated. "We're not in charge of them. Besides, maybe they didn't want to leave. Maybe something happened to them."

That brought her up short. Shame won the battle for the dominant emotion. She stopped stomping and sighed.

"Oh," she said. "Yes, I hadn't thought of that. We should look for them then, I suppose."

"Nothing else we can do," Frederick shrugged. "Maybe they aren't too far away."


So the two of them, followed by a sullen looking ginger tom cat, searched the nearby streets of Steephill Fell, it didn't take them long to find the trader's wagon, an owl sat upon the edge of its roof. They talked with the owl and found out where their friends had gone but what they did next is a story for another time.