The Long Road Home

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What story do you want to hear?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CONTINUED IN 'THE TALES FROM BRIDGETOWN - BOOK ONE'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James coloured red.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yes boss," the gnome said miserably.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE END

Chester Topping Rest In Peace

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone was looking at Lester. The gnome scowled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hello!" cried a voice from above.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Anabyl?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why would the gnome care?" Anabyl asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Here!" Lester said, excitedly.

The others came to join him.

"What does that mean?" the gnome asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So?" Rachel asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Which Saeed and Avan Find Vasky Jantnor

"I don't deal with criminals," Avan said flatly.

"Too bad for you," Vasky Jantnor replied. "What are your options? I'm already under threat of execution, you can't harm me without becoming a criminal yourself."

"I can force you to share what you know," Avan growled, he pushed his face closer to the bars. Vasky Jantnor met Avan's glare steadily, his yellow eye glittering in the light from the torches on the walls.

"You won't," Jantnor said coolly. "You don't believe in using that kind of magic."

"I can deal with criminals," Saeed cut in. Since he had met Avan he had been happy to allow the prince to lead. After all Avan Weatherstrong was a legend and Saeed was just a thief who had made some poor decisions. Over time, however, Saeed had come to realise that there were disadvantages to being Avan Weatherstrong and advantages to being Saeed. An example was the fact that Saeed did not feel compelled to indulge in a circuitous political pantomime to associate with street trash.

"Look at you, Prince Weatherstrong," Jantnor said, a white toothed grin spreading across his face, "fraternising with the enemy."

"What do you want me to do?" Saeed asked before Avan could become defensive. "Ask and, if I am able, it shall be done."

"You could take a leaf out of your servant's book," Jantnor said standing and coming towards the bars of the cell, looking Saeed up and down. The draco was very tall, his movement lithe and sinuous. Saeed would not have liked to face Jantnor in unarmed combat, even half-blind as he was, thankfully the mercenary was caged. "This boy is very polite. I like it when people are polite, makes me cooperative."

Jantnor delivered his statement without removing his gaze from Saeed.

"I just want some comfort in here, son," Jantnor said to Saeed, "in my last days, something to bring a little light into this dark cell. I'm sure you'll find this a hoot. I keep a pet, a small white mouse, the type my more backward cousins regard as a snack but I call him Snowdrop and I keep him at my home. I left him two days ago with fresh food and water. If I don't have him returned to my care he will die. Probably he will anyway when I am executed. Until then I would appreciate it if you would bring Snowdrop to me, so I can tend to him as long as I am able."

"That's what you want?" Avan said. "Your pet?"

Jantnor still hadn't looked away from Saeed. He held a hand up, dismissing Avan.

"This ain't your deal, Prince," Jantnor said. "This is on the boy now. What do you say, junior? You bring a man his only comfort and joy in exchange for the information you seek?"

Saeed opened his mouth to do the deal and Jantnor moved his hand waving at Saeed to be quiet.

"Be careful, son," Jantnor said. "If you agree to this you have to enter the White Woods alone to go fetch. I won't take kindly to you sharing the burden. So only accept if you're up for the journey."

"If this is what must be done to find Miranda Felix," Saeed said. "And it is I who must do it, then that is how it shall be."

"Excellent news," Jantnor said, his tone quietly satisfied. "The prince and I shall eagerly await your return. You will know my house by the wooden training dummy in the front yard. I painted the symbol of my old troop on the wall, so that friends would know a welcome and enemies would be warned."

Jantnor displayed a brand burned onto the inside of his left forearm before turning his back on them and crossing his cell to lie out on his bed.

"If you want me," he said, "I will be napping here, be advised Prince Weatherstrong, I will hear you leave, and if you do I will never tell anyone where Felix is, whatever they bring to me for aid and comfort."

Saeed looked over to Avan. The prince did not appear to be in the best of moods. He turned to Saeed.

"I suppose you'd better be about your business," Avan said although his eyes betrayed another conversation lurking in his mind.

"I suppose I better had," Saeed agreed. Saeed did not know what objection Avan would have to this enterprise but, at this stage, he did not really care. "I will be back as soon as I am able."

With that Saeed left the dungeon, on his way to the White Woods.

Saeed was not so much of a fool that he had believed that acting as a companion to the greatest hero who had ever lived would be a position free of problems. However he had been badly mistaken as to the nature of those problems. The dangerous situations and fighting were inevitable, of course. However, Saeed had believed that the problems between himself and the noble prince would mostly be ethical, or differences in approach to a particular problem.

Actually, that's exactly what most of the issues were. However the final resolution of such issues was usually an urgent requirement. The sooner objectives could be completed the better for everyone. What was left behind, however, was a vast ocean of problems unresolved and conversations that there simply wasn't time to have.

Saeed was surprised that he felt some hurt that Prince Weatherstrong actually didn't appear to really like him. Of course, their initial meeting had not been optimal in this regard. Saeed was a thief and had engaged in an act of mercenary thieving when Avan interceded. Add to this the fact that Saeed proved himself a dupe, fooled into actions whose consequences were far in excess of what he had expected and he could fully understand the disapproval of wiser minds.

Where the hurt came in was that this first impression never appeared to be replaced in the Prince's eyes with anything closer to the person that Saeed was trying to put forward during his tenure as Avan's companion. Saeed wanted to show a greater consideration of ethical concerns, a deeper wisdom with its roots in the humility and shame of ill-advised actions that could not easily be undone.

Saeed had committed to this atonement and that commitment had not changed. However, he couldn't help but feel that Avan was, in a rather mean-spirited way, not giving Saeed any credit for these decisions.

It was this array of points: how Saeed's reform was not acknowledged in any way by his travelling companion, why the fact of this bothered him, and what he could do to reverse the situation, that occupied Saeed's mind as he rode his horse into the White Woods.

So distracted was Saeed that he quickly found himself at the end of the trail near to an abandoned hunting lodge. It didn't take Saeed long to see that this was not Jantnor's home so he turned his steed around and picked his way back to the last fork he had taken.

The White Wood was a quiet, cold place and Saeed had not encountered another living soul since he had arrived. Trying out a few more paths lead to more dead ends. Abandoned paths, paths that had been overgrown or turned into swamp, circular paths to abandoned mines or clearings that may once have furnished herbs but were now no more than barren scrub.

The day was almost over as Saeed realised that Jantnor had not been honest and straightforward in his request. The White Woods were a larger space than he had implied and Saeed, even given his excellent sense of direction, realised that he had no way of telling where Jantnor's home might be. There were hundreds of paths criss-crossing the wood, if the home were off the path in a secret corner of the forest then Saeed had no hope of retrieving the prize.

Saeed had never experienced such frustration, he felt foolish, but beyond that there were unpleasant currents of anger and humiliation. The prospect of failure in such an apparently simple task filled Saeed with a cold dread. What made it worse was that it wasn't the mockery of Jantnor that upset him so much as the quiet disdain that was almost inevitably going to come from Avan's direction.

Here was the issue with projecting new wisdom and humble acceptance of one's own past failings: once you realised that you still had failings after that acceptance things got complicated. You could easily begin to understand that your new wisdom wasn't as deep as you might have hoped; present humiliation had even more burn to it when stacked on the embers of past humiliation.

"Sad boy! Sad boy!" a voice rang out from up above.

Saeed looked up to see a small bird, a sparrow, sitting in a tree.

"Sad boy! Sad boy!" the sparrow chirped.

"Are you talking to me?" Saeed asked the sparrow.

"Technically," the sparrow replied, "I was talking about you. Now I'm talking to you."

"You have an impudent mouth for one so small."

"Small birds are always impudent," the sparrow replied. "We have to tease the bigger birds to maintain our territory."

"I see," Saeed said. "I had always heard of talking animals, but I have never met one properly. Oh, I once encountered a talking mouse but I understand he used to be a man. I don't know how that changes things."

"Is this why you are sad?" the sparrow asked. "Because you have never met a talking beast. Maybe you have and you just weren't ready to hear what they had to say."

"I can imagine that being the case," Saeed said. "I think... It makes some kind of sense. But no, that is not why I am sad. I am sad because I promised to do something and now I find I cannot do it."

"Well, that was a stupid thing to do," the sparrow said. "I never understand the actions of folk. You appear, at least to me, to be entirely contrary creatures. I have never promised to do something I could not do, nor would I."

"I didn't know I couldn't do it," Saeed said. "At the time I imagined it would be a simple matter to find a house with a wooden dummy in the yard and a strange symbol painted on its wall. I had no idea how big the White Woods were."

"I see," the sparrow said. "If that house had bread or seeds in it would you give them to me?"

"If you could show it to me and if it has any kind of bread or seeds inside its walls then you could happily have as much as you could eat," Saeed replied.

"Then I hope for my sake that you can keep this promise," the sparrow replied. "Follow closely, I have no time for laggards"

The bird hopped off its perch in the tree and flew into the forest. Saeed followed the bird closely, never losing sight of the fluttering black punctuation mark of its body. Sure enough the house was found within the hour, Jantnor's pet was retrieved within its home (a large skull that may once have belonged to a beast man or similar large animal). Using his thieves senses Saeed found his way out of the woods and returned triumphant to the jail.

Upon being presented with his pet Jantnor's expression became shifty and awkward.

"I am much obliged, son," the draco said to Saeed. "Now I must admit that I cannot tell you exactly where Felix hides herself away, but I do know a step along the route."

"I knew this would all be a big waste of time," Avan said.

"Hold on there," Jantnor said. "I'm a mercenary, that makes me a business man, I don't believe in short changing folk. What I've got may not be everything but I think it's close. You probably know that in our line of work there are people you can deal with that you may not exactly trust one hundred per cent. Felix, well I'm not sure I trust her even ten per cent. So when I took that job from her, the one that ended with me in here, I tailed her after the meet."

"She must have known you were following her," Avan said. "She's like that."

"Normally I would agree," Jantnor said. "It was one of those things that I figured wouldn't pan out, but in the back of my head I thought 'what if it does', so I did it anyway. I followed her to an abandoned tollhouse, used to stand to the side of the bridge connecting the Twenty Kingdoms to the Okulan Empire. Obviously Okulas didn't take too kindly to having the forces of order so close at hand, his men destroyed the bridge."

"So how did she get across?" Saeed asked.

"She didn't," Vantnor replied. "From behind a rock I watched her pay a ghost with silver and he opened up a different kind of bridge, a rainbow bridge, up to the moon over the Empire."

"You expect us to believe that?" Avan asked, his face impassive.

"Believe whatever you wish," Jantnor shrugged. "I traded my mouse for what I know, that's what I know."

"I know the bridge he's talking about, it is some distance away," Avan said to Saeed. "We shall have to use magic to get there."

Having no other option Avan prepared a magic portal that brought them within half a day's walk from the tollhouse. Vast mountains stretched upwards around a broad valley path in which were visible the remains of an old brick road. Many of the stones from the road were missing, weeds and grasses grew up in between those that remained. Avan and Saeed walked with silent purpose along the road towards their destination.

At the end of their journey the companions cautiously approached the ruined tollhouse that stood at the lip of the great chasm.

"I have travelled extensively for one so young," Saeed said. "But this is the first time I have ever trafficked with a ghost."

"They're really just a form of sprite," Avan said. "They are a sort of elemental, filled with the powers of death."

"That's not reassuring," Saeed said.

"It is not intended to be," Avan replied. "The dead can see the forces of the weave and the wheel with a clarity that the living seldom achieve. They have knowledge because they are almost totally unable to use their powers of insight. They know all the consequences of telling you about things that are to come, as a result they tend to keep their own counsel. It is almost impossible to coerce them, so they are often aloof."

"A fine grasp of the academics Prince Weatherstrong," said a voice from the shell of the tollhouse. The ghost emerged through a wide crack in the wall, a gentleman in a formal tunic, he had the appearance of wearing a wig and carrying a lantern. His face was thin, deeply lined and grave.

All Saeed could think of were questions about this apparition. One found its way out of his mouth before he could think better of it:

"I always thought," he said, "that ghosts could walk through walls."

"One day, no doubt, you shall learn better, Saeed ibn Abihi," the ghost replied. "Today, however, you are here on a business other than metaphysics."

"We seek access to the rainbow bridge," Avan said in the formal tone of voice the prince used whenever rehearsing a matter of protocol.

"Then it is best that you furnish me with the toll," the ghost said.

Avan pulled a silver piece from his money pouch.

"Will this suffice, tollkeeper?" he asked.

"Only honest hands have touched that metal, Prince Weatherstrong," the ghost answered. "I cannot take it in payment."

"Give it to me," Saeed said. "I am a thief. If it's dishonest hands he wants well, mine are as bad as anyone else's."

"Noble humility," the ghost addressed Saeed, "but you misunderstand, great sage. The silver itself must be dirty; stolen, to employ the vernacular."

"The toll to cross the rainbow bridge is a piece of stolen silver?" Avan asked, more in the spirit of confirmation than actual enquiry.

"Just so," the ghost confirmed.

Saeed reached into his own belt pouch, even as he did so he felt his cheeks begin to burn. The topic of the silver key that he had placed within the pouch had never appeared relevant to the current situation. As long as no one asked about it directly he was not compelled to talk about it. Paying the toll with it was going to raise questions, but if their journey was to continue without delay there was nothing to be done about it.

"Will this suffice?" Saeed asked the ghost, holding out the small silver key.

"Indeed it will Saeed ibn Abihi," the ghost said, a humourless grin lighting upon his face. "Then, you already knew that it would."

The ghost held out his right hand and Saeed dropped the key onto it, curious as to what would happen. As the silver hit the palm of the ghost's hand it sparked bright white for a second, a flat chime appeared to sound and the key disappeared.

"I shall open the way," the ghost said and raised his lantern up. The light within the housing intensified, starting to shift within the glass like a thing alive. The liquid glow spilled forth from one side of the lantern in a spray of unexpectedly intense colour stretching up over the chasm, piercing the clouds above and continuing on to the flat silver orb of the moon in the sky.

"Step forth, travellers," the ghost said. "The continuation of your journey is at hand."

Avan and Saeed stepped into the rainbow light and were transported along its length towards the Okulas Moon. What they found on the moon and what they did when they got there are stories for another time.

In The Undone

Surrounded by white mist, melting away, Lester realised just how complicated he, in fact, wasn't. He imagined that some people, Phoebe September for example, might take a long time to be undone. Lester got the impression that Phoebe was a very complicated person. Not nearly as complicated as Chester, of course, Lester's brother was an extremely complicated man.

For a moment it seemed totally appropriate that Lester's last thoughts should be of his missing brother. After all Lester didn't have much motivation beyond that. Lester could comfort himself with the thought that, even though he would no longer exist to be reunited with Chester, Chester would continue to exist elsewhere, finding remarkable things, doing remarkable deeds.

Then the moment passed and Lester remembered Chester had left Lester a small vial of potion with instructions that Lester should consume it when the time was right. Well, soon there would be no more time to be right, and what was a righter time than that?

Lester picked the vial, wrapped in a handkerchief, from his left jacket pocket. He took the stopper out and swallowed all the liquid that he could. It tasted of nothing but had an electric texture that poked and prodded at his tongue as it passed over. The strange, jangling, spiky sensation continued down his throat and proceeded to spread through his limbs.

Lester began to feel less like he was drifting and more like he was standing in a huge white hall on a white floor, lit in white from all directions. Lester was lost in the fog of the undone, alone, saved temporarily by his brother's potion. Lester held the vial up for inspection, there was still about half a teaspoonful of the liquid left in the bottle.

His thoughts beginning to circulate more rapidly Lester scooped the wispy form of James from his pocket.

"Quick, drink this," Lester said holding the rim of the vial up to James.

James appeared to be incapable of drinking unaided so Lester forced the lip of the vial into James's mouth and upended it. The drops of potion slid out of the vessel. Lester hoped fervently that James could still swallow them. Drowning the mouse with the potion that might otherwise save him seemed a very cheap and unsophisticated irony.

As it turned out James could swallow and within a few seconds he sat up on Lester's palm and looked about himself. The mouse's eyes had regained their usual sharpness, much to Lester's relief.

"Well, here we are," James said.

"Yes," Lester said. "We're definitely here."

"In the undone," James said.

"In the undone," Lester agreed.

"So, I guess the question is," James said. "How do we get out of the undone?"

"I don't know," Lester said. "There's no indication where the exit might be."

"It would be handy," James said. "If we could have some sort of map."

"A map?" Lester asked. "What, of the undone?"

"Well, I guess, just a plan of where the edge is. The undone must have an edge, we were on the other side of it about an hour ago."

"That's true," Lester said. "I think to find the edge we would have to know where we were and the problem is it doesn't matter where you stand everywhere else looks just the same."

To demonstrate his point Lester took a few steps away from where they started out, there was no sound to indicate movement and the atmosphere remained undisturbed.

"See," Lester said. "Everything in every direction just remains white."

He spun round on the spot showing James the complete lack of detail or reference points. Lester's demonstration was slightly undermined by the presence of a small square of paper lying on what, for want of a better phrase, could be called the floor back where Lester and James had come from.

Lester walked back over to the paper, bent down and picked it up. Holding it out in front of him he read the four words across the top: "Map of the Undone"

To the right of the title was a small compass rose indicating that North was towards the top of the map. This might have been helpful were it not for the fact that the rest of the paper was entirely blank.

"Very amusing," James said. "Not even a 'You Are Here' marker."

"But, this wasn't here a few minutes ago," Lester said.

"How do you know. It looks like you might have been standing on it and not even known."

"Until I took the potion," Lester said. "I don't even think there was anywhere to stand. I felt like I was just drifting apart, there was no up, no down, nothing but undone. I don't believe the potion both pulled me together and provided a novelty map."

"So where did it come from?" James said.

"You were talking about it," Lester said. "You were talking about it and then we found it."

"Well, that does look like my kind of punchline," James conceded. "So, you think that if we can conceive of something out here it comes into being."

"Maybe that's how the undone becomes the done," Lester said.

"So if we think about it hard enough then we'll find a way out?" James asked.

"Excuse me," said a third voice from behind them. "I don't suppose you've seen a jungle around here anywhere?"

Lester turned around. Standing a few feet away from him and James was a slim woman wearing a light green dress that matched with her long, shiny hair. Lester could see a pair of translucent wings fluttering at the woman's back showing that she was some species of sprite, possibly an elemental.

"Uh, no," Lester said. There were many other things that he would have liked to say but he found the sheer number of questions available to him so bewildering that he couldn't focus on any one in particular. "I don't think there's one nearby. But then, I didn't think there was, strictly speaking, anything nearby at all and in the last few moments I've found a map and, uh, well, you found us but you see where I'm going..." the fairy did not respond immediately, just stared at the curious, gabbling man holding a mouse in his left palm. "I mean... I'm... we're... not possibly the best people to tell you what is, or isn't, nearby."

"Oh, dear," the fairy seemed disconsolate. "I was looking for my husband and my daughter, for a long time. I heard that Okulas had put them into a jungle he had made, with a rock at the centre, shaped like a skull. It's not really a jungle, it's a prison. I wanted to find them and then I got lost, something happened... I don't know. Oh. I don't think I shall ever find them."

The fairy looked about for something to sit down on, but there was nothing about except for her and James and Lester. A silence fell between them. Lester's question count had escalated even further, his head was starting to spin. The fairy appeared to have lost all will to do anything.

For the second time in the last day Lester believed, having talked with James about his past, that this woman had been searching for James and Rachel, the only question was: would James be overwhelmed by the situation a second time?

The words "Well, are you?" found their way out of Lester's mouth aimed at the rodent sitting in the palm of Lester's hand.

"Put me down!" James said. "Put me down on the floor! Right away!"

At the sound of James's voice the fairy's gaze suddenly snapped in the direction of the mouse's small grey-furred body. A look of incredulity came upon her face.

Lester knew when James was using his urgent voice and complied with his companion's instructions. James scampered across Lester's fingers but by the time he had reached the empty white pseudo-ground of the Undone he had taken a step with an actual foot, a human foot. Lester, who had been watching this, couldn't quite remember how it was that he had been looking at a mouse and now he was looking at the blue of a pair of coarse-cloth trousers but that was what had happened.

"Am I the only one who doesn't understand any of this?" Lester asked, stepping back to look at the man James had turned into.

"James!" the fairy cried out. "It's you!"

"Rebecca!" James replied as the two embraced, holding onto each other tightly.

It was clear that the two were overjoyed to be reunited, especially as one hadn't remembered the other until a few seconds ago and the other one hadn't recognised the first until the same time. Lester felt it was probably high on the list of things not to do to interrupt immediately.

Touching as the scene was it didn't change anything else around them so Lester felt he had to interrupt.

"Um," he said. "Glad you two have found each other and everything but, well, I can't help but point out that we are still lost in the undone. I'm not positive how long the potion's effects will last so, jungle or not, we do need to get out of here, quickly as possible."

James broke the embrace with his wife and stood back. Now that he had been de-moused Lester could see he was a tall, thin man with a mop of floppy dark hair. He was wearing a long-sleeved grey tunic cut in a manner Lester had not encountered before, blue trousers and a pair of very strange looking shoes.

"You're right," James said. Lester was already finding it strange to see the mouse's voice coming from this non-mouse form. "I think that finding Becky here demonstrates that we are affecting the undone with our thoughts, even the ones we're not aware that we're having. Somewhere, when we were understanding the map a part of my brain thought about Becky and then... well... here she is."

"I'm not entirely sure that I understand that in its entirety," Lester said. "Still, it seems the best explanation we have, however not very good it is. So, what? I just try to picture the forest around the house and we return back to Eos?"

James shrugged.

"Worth a try," he said.

There followed a few moments of odd facial expressions and furrowed brows.

"Apparently not that simple," James said with a sigh. "We must be missing something."

"Well," Lester said. "We'd better stop missing it pretty soon, because I don't think our magic will protect us forever."

"James, what's happening?" Rebecca asked.

"We're lost in the undone," James said. "Lester here had some potion that stopped us floating away and also appears to make the undone respond to our thoughts. We need to get out of here before the potion wears off. So far, not as simple a task as we might have wished for."

"Where's Rachel?" Rebecca asked. "What happened to her?"

"Well, that's the thing," James said. "She was with a friend of ours, a mermaid called Eos, when Lester and I wandered into the undone. I'm sure she's safe. It would appear, however, that we can't just will ourselves back to the point where we got lost."

"I had wondered whether this was one of Okulas's torments," Verda said. "Then I realised that if it was then there would surely be glass monkeys about. Of course, there might be, it's always so hard to tell."

"Becky," James said. "I'm afraid that I've suffered some memory loss. Since Rachel and I left the Skull Garden things have been coming back to me, but not many and not all in order. I don't know who Okulas is, or what a glass monkey is."

"Okulas is the man who put you in the garden," Rebecca said. "Although why a Count would care about you and your work I don't honestly know. Something about it made him unhappy. One of his glass monkeys was spying on you. We didn't know it at the time because they're invisible. Wherever we went they would find us. If we get out of here then there's a chance they will find us again, then what will you do? How will you stop yourself being imprisoned again?"

James didn't say anything, Lester guessed that was because the former mouse, having half his memories missing, had no real answer to Rebecca's question. One thing, however, was totally plain.

"It doesn't matter if glass monkeys or wooden tigers or even copper badgers will catch us out in the world," Lester said. "If we stay here eventually we will definitely be undone and then we won't be any kind of animal made out of any kind of non-traditional material. So could we please focus?"

"Absolutely," James said, the most wholehearted agreement that the sarcastic mouse had ever shown for anything Lester had said. Lester didn't flatter himself that his own sarcastic comment had carried any more weight than anything else that he had said so far. Lester imagined that James had seized on the need to get out of the undone as a distraction from the ever-present fact that what he didn't know (or at least couldn't remember) could get him in very deep trouble indeed.

Lester watched James look up and about, pondering the current predicament. Lester flattered himself to believe he could still detect traces of the mouse that had been about the lanky, long-faced individual he had become.

"Reference points!" James said suddenly.

"What?" Lester and Rebecca said, almost simultaneously.

"Imagine somewhere," James said to Lester, "anywhere, imagine it."

"Okay," Lester said, thinking of the Patchwork Market.

"What colour cravate is the tall gentleman with the green eyes standing behind your left shoulder wearing?"

"I hadn't been thinking about a tall gentleman with green eyes," Lester said.

"That's the problem," James said. "Although we could all imagine the same location we would all imagine it differently. Only if there is a singular image in our minds will the undone respond properly. I imagine that we both thought of the map the same because we both understand my sense of humour. Becky came straight from my subconscious without interference from you. I think that's because someone dispersed her into the undone and I forgot her: so you didn't even know she existed. I could re-imagine her because she was here to be re-imagined."

"Okay so, what do we do?" Rebecca asked.

"To make an exit," James said, "we all need to think of something that we can agree on, something that's pretty much the same for all of us whenever we interact with it."

"Like the moon?" Lester asked.

"That'll do," James said. "Everyone, concentrate on the moon, then look for it."

Lester concentrated and looked up and around to where he expected to see the moon. Amazingly it was exactly where he thought it would be. The undone made it look a little indistinct but it was definitely the moon.

"Over there," he said, pointing.

Following the moon Lester, James and Rebecca emerged from the cloudy expanse of the undone onto a road cloaked in night leading towards the cheery lights of a small town in the distance. What they did when they got there is a tale for another day.

Lester and James In The House of Secrets

"How long is it until noon bell?"

James sighed. He had never realised before how impatient Lester could be. He had no way of knowing the precise time but it couldn't be more than half an hour after mid-morning bell. Lester had already asked his question five times.

"What's the problem?" James asked him refusing to say 'five minutes less than the last time you asked' again. "Yes, we have to stay still, but it's not the most tedious environment in the world. There's hustle and bustle, the various colours and shades of a dynamic market town. It could be much worse."

"That's your opinion," Lester said. "We have to wait here for ages and do nothing. That's not right."

"Well, what else could we be doing?" James asked. "Neither of us can do magic and neither of us are really cut out for cage fighting. Even if they had a rodent league. I don't think I'd be very good. I don't like the thought of hurting anyone, even a mouse."

Lester took a look about, at the market in the square, at the archway that housed the market bell, at the streets of Steephill Fell laid out beyond the market.

"We could spend a little more time looking for the trader's wagon," Lester said. "After all no one will be making a bronze mark within the next twenty minutes, probably."

"Phoebe told us to stay here," James said.

"Well, so?" Lester said. "She doesn't own us. We're free agents."

"That's a bit of a change in attitude," James said. "A couple of days ago it was yes Phoebe, no Phoebe, three bags full Phoebe."

"Three bags full of what?" Lester demanded, his annoyance somewhat undermined by the random thing he had chosen to identify as the source of his annoyance.

"Wool," James said. "Like in the nursery rhyme, you know, yes sir, yes sir, three bags full... one for the master... one for the dame... and one for... the little boy... down the... you don't have any idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Don't worry," Lester said. "I've met a lot of strange people, you're not the strangest. You're just a bit crazy and you make up new words and it's like you talk in a completely foreign language sometimes. It's really kind of endearing, in a way."

"Well, anyway," James said. "I had received the impression that you had a bit of a fancy for the irritable witch, what's changed?"

"I don't know," Lester said. "Well, I do, I think Cobb likes her too and I can't compete with that. Besides, when we met Princess Butterstone I realised, well, I just like pretty girls, any pretty girls without any sort of discrimination; particularly the ones armed with dangerous weapons... is that weird?"

"A thousand teenage boys with internet connections would tell you no," James sighed. "As for the rest of us..."

"There you go again," Lester said, "talking complete gibberish, what's an 'into net'? And what does one 'connect' it with?"

"The internet," James said. "You know, the computer network, with all the pictures of naked ladies, and people arguing about Star Wars, and the emails filled with spam and malware?"

"I was with you right up to 'the'," realising that needed qualifying, Lester qualified it: "the first one.".

"Now that you come to mention it," James said. "I had noticed a distinct lack of technology in these parts. I think I'm quite angry. I'm the wrong species, I'm lost in the wrong world and I've lost my daughter." James stopped. There was a period of heavy silence. "Oh," James said. "My."

"You're talking about Rachel, aren't you?" Lester asked. "Rachel is your daughter."

"I don't like this," James complained. "My head's like a house full of stuff, but it's all in the wrong rooms, the settee is in the bathroom and the oven is in the garage. Every so often something suddenly goes back where it's supposed to be but all that does is make the rest of it seem even more confused." James felt the hideously heartbreaking cute of tiny mouse tears at the corner of his tiny mouse eyes. He couldn't give into the terrible sentiment of the mental image. "Hang it!" he said loudly. "You're right Lester, Phoebe's not the boss of us, let's go look for that wagon."

"Okay," Lester said, a smile spreading across his face. "Let's do it."

They started the rebellion small wandering in a broken circle around the fringes of the market and poking their head down a few of the streets always keeping the archway in sight. They'd already taken a look around the market when it was opening up so they opted, instead to have a quick walk about Steephill Fell proper.

It didn't take them long to find the high street where a number of more permanent shops were set up selling all the things the modern resident of the Crossway Realms could wish to buy. There was everything here from gentleman's outfitters to suppliers of magical trinkets, to shops crammed full of curios from far off Kingdoms.

Further along the main thoroughfare were a number of smaller shops and the road splintered into a number of specialist arcades, one for cobblers and tanners, one for dealers in fresh vegetables, one for fishmongers and one for tradesmen specialising in the repair of various items.

A little further along still and the road changed its nature to become more residential, interrupted by the presence of the odd tavern. It was while taking a cursory glance around these streets that James noticed the trader's wagon.

At least, he presumed it was a trader's wagon. It was a tall covered wagon painted in bright colours and bearing the legend 'Riseandshine & Titsadaisy - Goblin Merchants'. Beside the wagon was a nine foot tall metal statue of a man. That feature seemed a bit out of place, stood, as it was, in the gutter. James decided he had better things to worry about, such as catching up with his freshly remembered daughter.

"Lester," he said. "I think we may have found what we're looking for."

Lester turned to look at the wagon.

"Well, technically I'm looking for my brother," he said. "And I only have the word of a strange man in a tall hat that this is the way to find him. That does look like what you are looking for, though, yes."

"Well, come on then," James said, refusing to feel guilty about Lester's brother for the time being, "let's get over there."

Lester crossed the street and walked up to the wagon. As he approached the statue it surprised James by turning out not to be a statue but, in fact, a man made out of metal. Another piece of furniture dislodged itself in James's mind and slotted into a space that allowed James to understand its nature. This metal monster was an iron golem.

Golems were rare now, although once there had been an age when golems were widespread, many had since been smashed or melted down. There were many stories about golems and the problems they could cause because of their nature.

"Not so fast," the golem said, appropriately enough in quite a deep, slow voice. "This wagon is private property."

"Oh," Lester said. "I'm sorry, it's just it... well, we're looking for the owner is he about?"

"Mr Riseandshine is currently out on business," the golem replied.

"Oh, okay," Lester said. The trail end of the remark left James in no doubt that his companion was rapidly running out of conversational road.

"It's not really Mr. Riseandshine we wish to speak with," James said. "It's Rachel, the little girl he's travelling with."

"There's nobody here," the golem said. "Just Felix. Felix just watches the cart. Says 'Not so fast' if people come near. That's Felix job. Security."

There was a motion from the direction of the wagon, James looked over to see what had moved. The flapping wings and giant golden eyes set every rodent nerve in James's little mouse body alight with a keen instinctive pain. Without even thinking James scrambled forward and dove into Lester's top pocket, where he crouched in the darkness waiting for the vision of the death's head to fade from his retina.

"You can tell the mouse not to worry," said a voice that James didn't know. "I haven't been hungry ever since I died."

"Who are you?" Lester's voice asked.

"I am Micras Whitney," the other voice replied. "I live in the model castle in the back of the wagon. I am travelling with Tabarnas and Rachel."

His tiny rodent heart still thumping like a drum James risked poking his head out of the pocket to look at the monstrous form of the white owl perched on the edge of the wagon. Even knowing that this was a spirit form the creature was still terrifying to James's eyes.

There was a part of James that knew he was not a mouse, or at least was not meant to be a mouse. Right now, however, he was scampering about in a mouse body, with a mouse nervous system. This meant that his only thoughts regarding owls were running and hiding and desperate prayers about avoiding death.

"You know where they are?" James asked, sticking to the point, trying to control the quaver in his voice.

"Eos, she's a mermaid, she told me that they were going to the fishmonger's alley," Micras said. "Some kind of trouble."

That gave James something else to worry about. His daughter was in danger from fishmongers, something he didn't even really have a frame of reference for. This was the problem when parts of your identity were both old and new at the same time and then new information came in concerning the things that you hadn't even sorted out in your own head yet.

"When was this?" James's mouth said ignoring the sleet of nonsense that was happening in the rest of his mind.

"It was just after evening bell, yesterday," Micras said.

"That's over twelve hours ago!" James said. "You haven't seen any sign of her since then?"

"Tabarnas, Eos and Gerda, he's the other Iron Golem, they went off together, nobody's been back since," Micras said.

"Lester, you've got to take me to the fishmonger's alley, right now," James said.

"Yes, I will," Lester said. James got the impression that things were moving a bit too fast for Lester but that couldn't be helped, every tiny ounce of James's little mouse body was desperate to find his daughter and make sure she was safe. Vagueness and confusion would not be tolerated.

"Um, bye," Lester said to the golem and to Micras as he hurried back out onto the main street and up towards the entrance of the fishmonger's alley. They headed up the alley with the strongest briny smell emerging from it and found it lead into a quaint covered arcade that contained a number of fish stalls all offering a variety of seafood for sale.

"Now what?" Lester said.

"Ask someone," James said desperately. "I would but this isn't the time for 'oh, a talking mouse' and all that rubbish, please, Lester."

To be fair to him Lester finally got over James's panic and methodically went from stall to stall asking if anyone had seen a little girl, a goblin merchant, a mermaid or an iron golem. Right at the back of the alley there was a final stall that appeared to be offering a wide variety of pickled seafood in various glass jars. The stink from this stall was particularly strong and, as such, it was alone at the end of the alley opposite a dead blank wall of stout stone bricks.

Lester approached the old man tending the pickle stall.

"Excuse me," he said. "I don't suppose that you've seen a little girl come this way? Or possibly a goblin-"

The old man held up his hand for silence. Lester stopped talking.

"I'll tell you as I told the rest," he said. "She went through the magic door yonder." He pointed at the wall opposite the store front. "I said to her, be careful, you'll slip through the door if you mess about there, she didn't listen."

Lester looked at the wall and then back to the pickled fish merchant.

"Magic door?" he said.

"How do we get through?" James cut in no longer caring about the inevitable talking mouse comment that was bound to follow.

"You play patty cake with the bricks," the merchant said, fixing James with a serious stare. "The door opens, as I understand the thing it will take you where you need to go."

"Well, that's handy," James said. "Because I need to find my daughter."

"I didn't see no mice go through there, but then mice are small," the merchant said.

James couldn't be bothered to explain.

"Lester, let's move," he said to his companion.

"But," Lester said. "Magic door, does it work both ways?"

"I've seen people come out from time to time," the merchant said. "Never the same as went in."

"Lester," James said, trying his utmost to make his tone of voice dangerous, this continued not to work.

"Phoebe said..." Lester began.

"Phoebe said what she said because she assumed we would have to travel further to catch up with the trader's wagon," James replied quickly, hearing the impatient grate to his tone of voice. "We've found the wagon and the only thing standing between me and my daughter now is you and a game of patty cake with a wall. Don't argue with me Lester."

At this point Lester could very well have said: 'Or you'll do what? Poop in my shirt pocket?', but he didn't. It was one of the few occasions that James was glad that Lester constantly appeared to be about three moves behind everyone else.

He dutifully stood and patted the wall whilst reciting some rhyme about bakers. Upon completion of the first couplet the next slap turned into a swish as Lester's hand passed straight through the apparently solid brickwork of the stone wall.

"Door's open," said the merchant behind them.

"Go on," James said. "Walk through."

Lester paused for just a moment but then he stepped towards the wall and on through the stone bricks. James didn't know how the experience might have affected Lester but his ears popped and his paws went numb. The temperature of the atmosphere suddenly dropped from comfortable to cold. The light levels sunk dramatically.

For a few moments it was impossible to see anything in the gloom but eventually James's eyes adjusted. They were in some sort of cellar, lit only through thin slits cut into the top of the walls below the ceiling.

"I'm getting a sense of deja dungeon," James said. "How about you?"

Lester instantly turned one hundred and eighty degrees and pressed his hand up to the wall at his back. He played patty cake with the wall. It stubbornly remained a wall.

"Well," Lester said. "We're stuck here now, I hope you're happy with yourself."

"Lester," James said. "My daughter could be here, wherever we are. We are travelling towards my daughter. I don't really care about the operating methods of magic one-way doors."

"I'm just saying," Lester grumbled, "I don't like places like this."

"It's a dungeon," James said. "We've survived worse. Come on, you're on your way to being a seasoned adventurer. This is your second dingy castle in a week. Let's check the rest of the place out, see what kind of evil doer buried grumpy witches in this place. Your next crush might only be six feet of loosely packed earth away."

"You're not funny," Lester said. "Not at all."

"So shut me up by taking in the sights," James insisted.

Reluctantly Lester wandered out of the bare stone room they'd arrived in and down a number of even murkier corridors until he found a set of steps leading up. The ground level was less damp than the cellar, but that just meant it reeked of age and dust. Lester walked from empty room to empty room, occasionally discovering the remains of some forlorn item of furniture but no evidence of anything alive.

"What is it with the empty places?" Lester asked. "Mountain strongholds, weird stone houses, why can't we ever go anywhere nice?"

"The town was quite nice," James pointed out. "The one we just left, not the witch burny one. The Patchwork Market's a fun place to be, very vibrant."

"And then we leave," Lester said. "And come to a place like this. Oh, what's that?"

In a small room behind the remains of a kitchen Lester had spotted an hourglass resting on a shelf. There was a small metal plaque screwed into the wall above it. Lester approached the artifact to read the plate. Engraved into the metal was a short message:

Come, spend an hour and visit with us.

"What do you suppose that means?" Lester said.

"You've clearly never played a point and click adventure," James replied. "It means turn over the hourglass."

"I think I understood half of that," Lester said, reaching out for one of the wooden rods that formed the hourglass housing.

Before his fingers made contact there was the sound of breaking glass from a room behind them. Lester withdrew his hand as if his fingers had been burned.

"It wasn't me!" he protested.

"No, and it wasn't me either," James said. "So that begs the question, who was it?"

"So, what?" Lester asked. "Am I turning the hourglass or not?"

"Not before we find out what that noise was," James said. "Come on let's go back."

Sighing, Lester turned away from the hourglass and went back into the body of the house. Crossing the kitchen and a corridor they found the source of the glass breakage. Lying on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and tangled up with the snapped shaft of a broomstick was a figure James recognised instantly.

"You!" James said to the gnome. "What are you doing here?"

The gnome looked a little confused, he turned his head to the left and to the right trying to get his bearings.

"Oh," it said. "It's you, the nervous mouse."

"Yes," James said. "The nervous mouse. So how come you're here in this mysterious house."

"Well," the gnome said. "I'm always only allowed to travel within a certain range of either you or the little girl who made the wish," the gnome said. "For a while there you were separated by a vast distance, but now you're not. I think this broomstick has brought me back to within an acceptable proximity of both of you."

"You mean," James said breathlessly, "that Rachel is nearby?"

"Must be," the gnome said. "About as close as I was brought to you. I think this broomstick was from The Office. I don't like those guys. They're bossy."

"She's here!" James rejoiced, "she's within about thirty feet of where the gnome landed. Lester, we've got to find her, now."

"I got the message," Lester said.

The three of them ran around the house and out into the grounds surrounding it calling out Rachel's name. There was still no sign of her. They stood in the garden of the house, beside a neatly tended garden, outside the window the gnome's broom had crashed through and looked around hopelessly.

"I don't understand," James complained. "Your magic is broken," he addressed the gnome.

"Impossible," the gnome said. "There are few things in the world which are properly impossible but for my magic to be broken in this instance is one of them."

"Then where is she?" James asked.

"Hey," Lester said. "What's this?"

"Is it another hourglass?" James asked.

Lester wandered away from the house down onto the lawn and across to a simple stone sundial mounted on a column. A parcel was sitting on the dial face, wrapped in brown paper, tied up with red string.

"That's funny," Lester said. "This looks like one of the packages that... oh."

Lester picked up the parcel. Printed on it in neat block capitals was:

FAO LESTER TOPPING

"This is identical to the packages my brother used to send home," Lester said. "Absolutely identical."

"Well, but-" James was about to object to Lester enthusiastically untying the package but having just had a brush with fresh hope himself he checked his skepticism for the moment.

Inside the package was a small bottle of yellow liquid and a note. Lester opened the note and read it out:

"'Dearest Brother'." He paused and smiled. "That's me, oh wow, this is incredible," Lester paused again before continuing to read. "'I'm afraid I am short on time so must be brief. Keep the potion safe, you will know when you need to use it. Turn the hourglass in the pantry and continue on your journey. I will make contact again when the weave permits. Your Loving Brother, Chester Topping Esquire.'"

James looked up into Lester's face, the young man's eyes shining with tears.

"Well," James said. "Are we going to do it? Turn the hourglass?"

"Of course," Lester said. "If Chester said to do it then we have to."

So they did, but what happened next is a story for another time.

The Princess Digs Up A Witch

"This spade must be magical," Anabyl said. "The earth's just flying out of this grave."

The door was stout wood. Someone had built it to endure rather than to be ornate; a slab of wood on long metal hinges, a large lock housing and a metal ring handle. The air of foreboding that surrounded it was probably accidental. Probably.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," Lester said.

"What? After the strange room, dark tunnel and the mirrored dragon? Let alone the frosty topping: a series of  rooms furnished by the 'Popular Dungeon Factory Warehouse'?" James asked, not even making an effort to conceal his incredulity. "What were you expecting to find at the top of an ominous wide spiral stair case hewn into the dark granite cave walls? An open plan pine kitchen flowing through to a chic modern living area in a trendy condominium dwelling?"

"I have no idea what half the words you just said mean," Lester replied. "I can still tell that they were, in the main, hurtful and grouchy."

"Are we going to open it?" the princess asked.

"I don't know if we should," Lester said. He was beginning to tire of the constant parade of ominous portals that his life had become. Life had taken a bleak downturn since falling off that broom through the skylight. His fatigue was, in one sense, impressive seeing as this was only the second actual door he had encountered. The cellar complex they'd left behind was filled with gates sporting heavy locks and spiky tops and bottoms.

"Well, what else should we do?" the princess demanded, she was a young lady, it appeared, perpetually on the edge of completely losing her temper. "We can't stay down here."

"She has a point," James pointed out.

"Maybe there's another way out," Lester said, although even he wasn't convinced by that argument.

"I don't care," the princess said. "I'm going to open the door."

She strode over to the massive wooden slab and pulled at the handle. The mechanism unlocked with a quiet click and the door swung silently outwards.

"I'm sensing a theme," James said. "No tigers again."

"What a shame," the princess said. "Tigers would have been fun."

Lester and James swapped a glance. The princess definitely had a strange definition of fun.

By the time they had looked back the princess had already wandered off into the corridor beyond.

"Uh, Arabella!" Lester called out.

"Anabyl," the princess called back. "No 'ah' at the end. Just Anabyl."

"Yes, but, be careful," Lester said. "There could be, um, monsters."

"Oh, yes," Princess Anabyl said, slowing her pace. "I definitely wouldn't want to miss that, thanks for telling me."

"No," Lester said, "I didn't mean..."

But it was too late. Anabyl had already turned a corner and was heading further up into the building beyond.

"Well, are we just going to stand here?" James asked. "Or are we going to let the little girl clear the way for us?"

"Oh, no, I mean, uh, of course not," Lester said and picked up the pace to a light jog. He could feel James's claws digging into his shirt sleeve as he ran to catch up with their small but fearless companion.

Around the corner at the end of the short corridor was a long walkway that opened up into a covered passage up the side of a mountain. Great stone arches divided up the spectacular vista displayed upon the left hand side. On the right the rock face of the mountain was mostly untouched. In a few places the surface appeared to have had large spikes and jagged edges removed to make the wall smoother.

"Where are we?" Lester asked, awestruck. He was not even sure who he was asking the question to. It seemed inconceivable to Lester that many people would be familiar with a strange place like this.

"Looks like a sorcerer's castle," Princess Anabyl said. "They have all sorts of weird rooms, strange dungeons and stuff."

"I hope he's a friendly sorcerer," Lester said.

"I doubt a sorcerer who lives in a place like this would be friendly," Princess Anabyl said, without a hint of worry infecting her tone. "Doctor Dweezlepuff says that most sorcerers are just nasty. The ones who get big castles on the top of mountains are the worst of all."

The princess continued blithely on her way up towards the gates now visible in the distance. The path curved around as it climbed upwards and they had already covered half the distance. Lester found himself slowing down, not keen on the idea of evil sorcerers. Yet, as the princess continued onwards without a care in the world, he couldn't quite bring himself to stop.

"Er, shouldn't we, um, be, you know, a bit more careful then?" he asked. "I mean, I've never met a sorcerer and... ah... well, if he's going to be mean..."

"He's probably dead," James said. "Many of the more notorious sorcerers are. They don't have a huge life spans due to the fact that everybody hates them. Kings will task entire armies with the job of killing them. When you have a party of a couple of thousand men wanting to do you in it tends to shorten your life expectancy."

"How do you know?" Lester asked.

"Hello there, my name is James, I'm currently a mouse but I'm starting to remember that I was once something else, how do you do," James said. Then after a microscopic pause. "Oh, yes, I forgot that we already did that... twice. Do try to keep up."

"Well, I'm not sure who the expert is now," Lester said. He had finally lost his temper and given free rein to the full and awesome power of his very mild tendency towards being a bit crabby. "I just think it is a bit unwise. You know, to go strolling into the castle of a powerful and evil sorcerer who is entirely likely to do something... horrible to us. Sorry for asking questions."

"What are we supposed to do?" Princess Anabyl shrugged. "There's only one way to go. We can't just stand around moaning and crying like pathetic little girls."

Lester was saved from the trouble that blurting out: 'But you _are_ a little girl' would have bought him when James said:

"Sorcerers in castles usually can't keep track of the whole place at once, anyway. They have to rely on a security system, magic mirrors, familiar imps, flying monkeys all that sort of thing."

"That still sounds somewhat dangerous," Lester said. He couldn't help but notice that they were only about twenty feet from the enormous black metal gates now. The steelwork was impressive. Blade like tubes of steel laced through the gate, forming an intricate pattern. The web of metal wove together at the summit to make a strange, magical sigil.

"The good thing is," James said. "That most of the creatures a sorcerer binds to guard his palace can't stand the sight of him, except for flying monkeys. Flying monkeys are loyal. Green, yes. Expensive taste in jackets, sure, but loyal as they come; it doesn't help that they're also damnably stupid."

"So we might be fine as long as there are no flying monkeys?" Lester asked, sounding bewildered and exhausted all at once.

Neither James nor the princess had a chance to answer Lester's question. As they came within a few paces of the gates, some of the metal bent out of its original shape. The air filled with a mighty scraping noise, like nails down a chalk board. The metal contorted into the shape of an ugly face that proclaimed:

"No flying monkeys in the Pleasure Dome of Vikor Moorshade! Halt strangers!"

The small party stopped.

"So, is Mr Moorshade at home?" Princess Anabyl asked. "Tell him that a real princess is at the gate and if he isn't suitably impressed he's in a jolly big pile of trouble."

"The master is, regrettably, deceased," the gate explained. "Which is a shame for him, really. He would have taken great interest in finding out how anyone had managed to break into his research dungeon when he was alive. When you take his death into account, that could only have increased his curiosity. Let alone the intriguing composition of the party: a princess, a talking mouse and a foppish lackadaisy."

"Um," Lester didn't know where to start with being described as a 'foppish lackadaisy' by a talking gate. He decided that he had nothing so he kept quiet.

"So can we come in?" the princess asked. "We really just want to get out and go home, if it's convenient. Of course if there's any big pieces of interesting treasure... Or, even better, fascinating weaponry, lying about in there I might have to call finders keepers."

"Weaponry?" James said but everyone was too interested in the gate's response to pay much attention.

"I suppose that would be fine," the gate said. "There were no standing orders when that young man left with his prize. It was all a bit of shambles to be honest, he left his sword behind and everything."

"Sword?" Anabyl said. "Is it a magic sword?"

"It is," the gate said. "And as such I have a boon to ask regards that particular enchanted item."

"Which is?" Lester asked, he wanted to convey the message that he was being careful in his questioning. The nasal tone he employed meant he ended up feeling like he just sounded a bit stupid.

"Well, as you can imagine, being a metal ifrit bound into a heavy gate for four centuries with no one to talk to is a terrible and tedious fate. If you could bring the sword down here and touch it against the frame I would be able to, sort of, decant, using the ambient magic field. I would boost the sword's enchantment and then, well, let's just say it would be a good career move. It would give me an opportunity to see the world. So, yes, if it would be alright by you..."

"I don't see a problem with that," James said.

"Hold on a minute," Lester said. "I mean, I don't want to be rude, but... I can't help but notice that  you're a large and forbidding metal gate. One that guards the walkway from an evil sorcerer's castle..."

"Pleasure Dome," the gate corrected him. "He read a poem about one once, he liked the ring of it. If anyone called the property a castle he had a habit of burying them alive."

"If I were a proper cross sorcerer," Princess Anabyl said. "I think I would be more inclined to bury my enemies dead."

"Hang on a minute here!" Lester said. "I am not sure we can all just place our faith in the good intentions of an evil gate."

"What choice do you have?" the gate said. "If I don't open you won't be able to make me. I'm also connected to the portcullis, if you don't let me go I can keep you trapped here forever."

"See!" Lester said. "Evil gate!"

"Gate that wants a few more career options. Be fair, he has had four centuries to gain an assertive attitude in business dealings," James said. "I have to say, I personally can't blame him. Stop being a bore, Lester."

"But, I..." Lester said.

"Stop being a bore, Lester," Princess Anabyl said. "Of course we'll put you in the sword," she said to the gate.

"Glad to see some of you have sense," the gate said. "The master died with the sword sticking through his chest up in the grand hall. Just follow the stairs around and take the big archway on your right at the top."

With that the face disappeared in another groaning screech of twisting metal and the gates swung open.

"Come on," Princess Anabyl. "First one to the top gets to be the best princess."

It was a race Lester didn't try too hard to win.

The inside of Moorshade's Pleasure Dome was both opulently grand and extremely chilly. It was clear the late sorcerer had a taste for marble in black and blood red. It left the impression you were taking a walk round the coiled intestinal tract of a gigantic, fossilised snake.

The sorcerer's grand hall was an overwrought affair. If the interior design was a reflection of the owner's ego then Vikor Moorshade had a disturbingly high opinion of himself. There were massive gold chandeliers hung high in the black marble ceilings. Red marble columns defined a long sparkling parade up to an enormous plinth. The sweeping curves of a smug throne squatted at the summit.

At the foot of the plinth's stairway was a sadly chaotic jumble of skeletal scree. All that remained of Vikor Moonshade. A silver short sword stuck into the air through the ribcage.

"Hey, look at this!" Princess Anabyl said, ignoring the skeleton for a moment and taking a look at an unusual feature on the right hand side of the throne dais. A small grave site, covered over with soft earth, formed an incongruous, grisly ornament.

"'Here lies, Phoebe September. In accordance with her wishes placed at her master's right hand over her dead body'," Anabyl read. "And look, there's a broom over the gravestone, and a spade, there's something else written on the handle of the spade... 'To be used in case of forgiveness'. What do you suppose that means?"

Lester had approached the skeleton. The thing that disturbed him most was that Vikor Moorshade appeared to have had a skull made out of gold. He found his conscience divided between a desire to steal the item and to never ever see it again as long as he lived.

Turning his attention away from the skull he picked up the silver short sword. He examined an engraving etched into the blade: a shooting star.

"Nice sword," he said quietly.

"Much expertise in the field of weaponry?" James asked. His voice so dry you could have toweled off with it.

"Not as such," Lester replied. "I can still tell that this is a nice sword. You can tell that just by looking at it."

"Maybe you want to be spending less time on amateur sword appraisal," James said. "And more time addressing the arising situation with the tiny grave robber."

"What?" said Lester and turned to see Princess Anabyl digging away at the grave site with what might be described as unholy vigour. "Oh, hey no!" he cried out running towards her.

"This spade must be magical," Anabyl said. "The earth's just flying out of this grave."

"What are you doing?" Lester demanded.

"I'm using the spade. It says 'in case of forgiveness' but I think that was a reminder for the evil sorcerer and he's dead," Anabyl said.

"Yes and someone else is dead down there!" Lester objected.

"The gate said he liked to bury people alive," Anabyl replied.

"She's right," James supplied unhelpfully, "it did."

"But... but..." Lester said. "Whoever's in there will have been down there for four centuries. They're going to be shrivelled and rotten and... oh... gosh..."

In a matter of minutes Anabyl had excavated the grave, unearthing a coffin made from a gold filigree. The gold formed a frame. The spaces in that frame were filled with panes of crystal clear glass. The occupant was not, in fact, shriveled or rotten.

"She's beautiful," Lester said. He felt a bit creepy having his heart in his mouth over a body in a coffin, however well preserved, but he couldn't help himself. The woman inside the coffin definitely was beautiful. She had long, sleek dark hair, high cheekbones and coffee coloured skin. Lester thought that she looked exotic and dangerous.

"You are soppy," Princess Anabyl said. "Soppy as a wet, soppy fish." She made hacking pukey noises as she tested the lid of the coffin for catches.

Her mock-vomiting did not stop her finding the latch for the lid and the coffin sprang open, its hinges augmented by springs. The body of the woman began to glow and coloured patches of light swam around her. A harmonic note thronged through out the Pleasure Dome's vaulted roof and the woman began to levitate out of the coffin.

"Brilliant!" Anabyl breathed as the body rose up. Lester's awe at the woman's good looks found itself squashed by a cautionary flutter in his stomach. It was evident that powerful magic was here present.

The woman's body tipped up till to orient her vertically. Her eyes fluttered open, they were big eyes and rainbow-fire irises shone around dark pupils. She was both gorgeous and completely terrifying at once.

"Vikor Moorshade!" she said, and her voice thrummed with magical power and boiling fury. "I will raze your precious palace to the ground! I will hammer you and your ego flat beneath these marble hallways."

As good as her word she flung out her arms and there was a crack like thunder. The noise was actually caused by the stone floor breaking apart, dust and rubble sifted down from high above their heads.

"Uh, young lady," James called out. "I think you'll find the sorcerer's already dead."

Sealed in a glass coffin by an evil sorcerer for four centuries, it would seem that Phoebe September was in no mood to listen. The palace foundations continued to shake.

"This is amazing!" Princess Anabyl shouted, a smile painted from ear to ear.

"Let's hope you're still so pleased with yourself when we're all dead," Lester complained.

They would never find out if the little princess would be, because they didn't die. But what happened next is a story for another day.