"Do you know why your father created the dweemtweezles?" the gold-light of Val’ha’s mother Chext’a asked her.

"He always said they were a mistake – he had been working on a lavender potion that went awry, and the dweemtweezles were born when one of his vials broke on the floor of our hut."

"Silly, sealed-book Ma’hadrin, he even kept their origin a secret from you. No, dear daughter, it was for companionship. It was for you." That night, while Val’ha’s body slept in the abbey of the Holy Convent of Moncrovia with her friends, she communed with Chext’a in the green lake of her dreams. She laid back in her white-barked boat, her eyes soothed in the presence of the limbic heavens and the guardian presence of her mother.

Chext’a for the first time shared the intimacies and histories of their past. "Chamberlain Gregarcantz and your father had been in embassy to Asch’endra – before the joining of the old kingdoms – thirteen years before it happened. Gregarcantz told Ma’hadrin that he would minister to the Conschalan side of the mountains, but by 2846 he had settled in Denlineil and did little else for Ma’hadrin or your grandfather, King Ma’rhechu. Your father’s greatest alliance was with Oromasus, in his first Terran incarnation and wizard to King Oliver the Emancipator, troth to Queen Moncrovia herself. For a time Ma’hadrin’s accomplishments were manifold and celebrated: To the sylvan Elves he reestablished relations with the gods after thousands of years, to the world of mortals, magic enough to honor their highest ideals, and which taught us to share our crafts for the welfare of others."

"You speak, mother, as though the sylvan Elves created magic."

"We did, Kephu’mir, millennia before the Great Terr’Uproar 3,100 years ago – something happened in the blood of she who became Bylikros’ first ruler, and from that day forward her children carried and expanded the light of her power. Some journeyed outside Bylikros, to the Terran realm, and so began the mixing of our bloods and the birth of wizards and Volcans, who have since receded into their own realm of Volcan within the mountains. We did indeed create magic – through our lineage, all of the potions, spells, rituals that Humans now practice came into being, method and practice. Your father and I believed in the end, though, that our forebears must have communed with the gods before turning away and so forgetting from them – perhaps the gods gave Elves our blood."

"The Baroness once mentioned Dark Elves to me."

"Dear love! It was the War of the Elves that brought about the Great Terr’Uproar in the first place, when the Dark Elves launched bloodsport upon Bylikros and were defeated. It was the start of Terra’s current age."

"What became of them, m’irth Chext’a?"

"They left – none can say but that their leader Orcus became Prince of the Undead in the House of Terr’des. Ma’hadrin told me once that because of their evil, his followers, doomed to eternal banishment by the rest of mortal and Elfkind, grew gnarled and rotted. Their magic flowed away, their brows grew thick, their hatred boiled their minds and they ended the poor, dirty creatures that bear Orcus’ name. If that is true, they dwell in the underparts of our world." Chext’a told Val’ha that after Ma’hadrin killed Xorus in 2856, attention to his ambassadorship began to decay. "In 2879, two years after Oromasus departed from his first life in your world, Ma’hadrin returned home to Bylikros and convinced Ma’rhechu to recede from the Terran realm. Even then, in our own kingdom, we became hermits, hiding from our families until the end, but eventually your father, who like you has a strong kinship with the Song of Terra, was convinced from its corruption that Xorus had found the way into Bylikros, and so he renounced his title and we left there, too."

"Did you ever go back?"

"No, to my eternal regret, we never did. I did not even have a chance to say goodbye to my own father, Ver’Sol Greenlight, and it was during our blind, mad flight that I saw the last of anyone Elven, Terran or otherwise, again – but for the accursed wraiths."

"Oh." Val’ha’s heart was in her throat, so sad had her mother become.

"Well," Chext’a said after a full minute’s pause, "it is part of your story now. It is vulgar to me how the Dark God has been allowed to hurt, kill, use so many. That he has tesseracted through the Terr’dean veil is violation enough of the Song, but for him to corrupt nature, time and the elements…alas, it is the way of evil."

"I have seen for myself how he takes lives, spirits and the undead to bear his will and feed him."

"Yes, Xorus must feed. When he breached the barrier of the Outermost Realm into Terra with the curse-messenger First Wraith and its nine replicants, he began to siphon away the life force of those with magickal blood to gather enough power…"

"Father…"

"…and others, yes, to enact his malcraft and cause his portal-stone to make its way to Loran, where even now his essence spreads within the northwest forest, as it is around what was once Moncrovia."

"I thought that he had located anew to Castle Moncrovia."

"No, lovely daughter, his opal birthstone is, if you will, a seed that once planted begins to feed on spirits of the newly dead, magickal essence, now even the dreams of Elfkind – anything that allows it to take root. But once it does so and grows, and spreads, and strengthens itself and therefore him."

"Are you telling me that the birthstone will seek to infect other regions?"

"Until his thirst is sated – until it is checked, for I do not suspect he would ever be satisfied, even with all the lands of your world and all the bodies in every graveyard, blessed or unblessed."

"I begin to understand," said Val’ha, "why you were both burned upon the family pyre."

"It was more than custom, though that is the way of the sylvan Elves in any regard, and if you begin to understand that it was to keep our bodies and spirits from his clutches, then you begin to understand correctly. Now daughter, I have waited twenty-five years for this time. Before he left for the Convahan realm, your father and I as kindred spirits mixed in bliss, and I await the completion of my task so that I may spend everness with him, but before I do, tell me in your own words what you have been through since Ma’hadrin’s life was ended."

Val’ha satisfied Chext’a’s wish and reveled her with thoughts, dreams, feelings and visions; the development of the green-light magic she and Ma’teus inherited from their maternal grandfather, Ad’hiac, inspiring many questions from Chext’a’s about her long-missed daughter; and Val’ha’s travels off Mount Carias – Moncrovia, Castle Ohrt, the Isle of Sipsids, Aentfroghe’s sky-palace, Denlineil, the Island of Dragons, Joh’oprinia, the Fields of Claraudice and the Xoran fog to the Holy Convent, as well as her coming itinerary through Bylikaegra, Apocania and the northwest forest to Reiglo Isle, the seat of Tarl-Cabot’s duchy.

"Ambitious and brave for nearing Loran, you have truly seen for yourself how odious is Xorus’ existence, how much evil his birthstone has brought into your world."

"I wonder why Sigrid or Zeus’ messenger-god have not told him what is happening here sometimes – why our god is allowing this to occur."

"I have no answers." Suddenly, something Chext’a said earlier, simple words – "before I do" – struck Val’ha, and she asked her mother what they meant. It seemed like hours when Chext’a answered, her gold-light hovering in the limbic night. "When I leave you, it shall be to complete my journey."

"To Convah?"

"Mm-mm." Her mother’s gold-light sounded like the softest pillow, the tastiest fruit, a delicious rest – and spikes of sadness, too. "To be with Ma’hadrin."

"But, m’irth Chext’a!"

"Daughter, our time grows short – there are two other things I must do, and one of them is the reason I have never come to you before this."

"But why?" Val’ha fought through her tears. "Why? And why have you never spoken with me before this year? Ma’teus told me when she was a child there were gold-lights in her dreams."

"It was not successful, it was not Lord Zcymthic’s design and he forbade me from ever speaking to either of you until now, but I had to see, at least, that Ma’teus was taken care of and safe. Some nights I came to her to be, to comfort…she was only half-Elf and her ability to commune never went beyond rudiment."

As her mother went on, Val’ha wanted to leave her dream so that Chext’a could not complete her last "two things" before recanting her selfishness in depriving her parents’ reunion. She remembered the bliss she had felt from Lord and Lady Sipsids when their spirits had been freed from their glasshouse prisons and lingered in her mother’s warm light for an illusory lifetime before she asked, "What must you do, m’irth Chext’a?"

"As a balance to Zcymthic’s Terr’dean powers, our God-King has approved Oromasus’ godhood and the creation of an limbic alliance to watch over the dream-realm. It will be called the Magickal Circle and Oromasus, as patron of wizards, its leader."

"You once told me the Goddess of Fidelity, Phanla, had been sent from the Zeusan House."

"Phanla is here now with her lover, Dynamos, patron of the Order of the Sages. The Magickal Circle has given me a directive to guide you in the coming days."

Val’ha laughed to herself. "I do not know what day it is, Mother, and have not for some time."

"In your realm it is Mocrolester 70 and less than a week until your sister’s twenty-fifth birthday on Zynlester 4 – do you know what this means?" Chext’a did not wait for a response. "Oromasus has just found out as well, but only through me can he communicate what I am about to tell you, dear daughter." Val’ha’s skin grew cold. "When I complete my journey through the heavens, the power of your amulet will abate to nothingness, and it will fade from existence. I could not have wished for or seen this, but it will happen."

"But, Mother! Xorus, the wraiths…"

"It was part of his hex upon our family, Val’ha: A daughter shall be conceived into the world on the day of the twenty-fifth year of their daughter’s life, and from this firstborn, the firstborn mother shall die, and so it shall go for all time until they are no more. By your own birth you saved your sister from our fate, but in the next six days – on the fourth day of the coming month – the doppelganger-wraiths will find and bring upon you the next generation of our curse. I have done all I can to see if it can be any other way, but there is no remedy."

"None?" Val’ha heard her voice become timid and small, the pip of a mouse, and she was weary beyond reckoning. "None?"

"None but to destroy the birthstone, though it is no longer in Moncrovia."

"Where? How?"

After a long moment, Chext’a said, "It is on Prince Joel’s regency flagship leading fifty other ships bound for North Mibwaze where Lath-vecat has become High Wizarder to Emperor Delvi-Alana. Prince Joel wishes to massacre the imperial court of North Mibwaze and with the portal-stone allow Xorus to begin manifesting himself."

"But Mother, even if we were notheaded toward Apocania, there is no way I could get a ship in time."

"I love you, I love you so much, Kephu’mir! There may be one other way, but there are none who can locate it."

"What! What? What?" Val’ha asked in desperation.

"Your father took with him when we left our homeland a gift from his father, a golden libra, a balance that contained blue garnets, the magickal stones of Bylikros found nowhere else. I thought it merely a trinket, handsome yes, but never useful on Carias. But it is long gone."

Val’ha recalled the dying last words of the mortal Oromasus when he had put upon her the task he and the Sages had thus far been unsuccessful at: the destruction of the birthopal. You will find a way, he had said, the balance is in the islands. She remembered then the first words he had ever said to her in private: Your destiny awaits you in the islands. Strong and vague, through circles of dusty wind, damned is this counsel, that I even sense your fate in my own.

"There are so many islands in Hafer’ty, Kephu’mir! How will you find it? None that I know have been able to, and by the time we were aware of its significance, your father already crossed the gate on the path to Convah."

"I do not know, Mother, but I cannot thwart the wraiths or reach the stone, so I must." Finding only the smallest comfort in the possibilities of the golden libra, Val’ha wondered what properties the balance contained or had been imbued with that would alter her destiny.

"So you must and so you shall, my love." But, it seemed to Val’ha, every path led to the same conclusion: the destruction of the birthopal, now somewhere in Flooher’ty Sea. But where can I even begin with this balance, and once I find it, what shall I do with it? "…last task." One of the limbic dots started to grow, coming nearer until a yellow-light pulsed silently alongside Chext’a’s gold-light and so filled the sky above the green lake that Val’ha saw what a Terran sky with two moons would look like.

"Lady Val’ha." She recognized the Woman’s voice emanating from the yellow-light, and as low as she felt, her spirit plummeted even further, for it was High Wizarder Heemstress from the court of King Percivale X of Joh’oprinia, her sheer presence in the dream-realm indicating she had somehow died. "Prince Joel personally slew King Percivale the day they arrived, on Mocrolester 63 after my testimony against him. WHY? WOE! It is the end of the Silver Dragons!"

"Lady Heemstress, what happened?"

"The Prince stormed into Bjursk-la with hundreds of Black Dog fighters and took the court commanding abdication or trial for abetting you. The King agreed to a trial. What mockery of justice! What a violation of the Hafer’tian accords!"

"Lady Heemstress, our time grows nigh."

"Yes, yes, Chext’a. The Prince accused King Percivale of conspiracy, treason and harboring murderers. By the fall of night, Joel killed the King with his own sword and had to be stopped before he placed Percivale’s head in the Bjursk-lan townsquare. Oh, bitter foil!"

"Why are you summoned to me, Heemstress?" Val’ha asked.

"The Prince returned to your kingdom almost immediately after they were crowned rulers. I agreed to serve under Ardanla, she was practically a daughter to me, you see…"

"You do not seem, with all due respect, ready to depart from the limbic realm." Heemstress grew silent at Val’ha’s words.

"The Destinies have so willed it, for both of us," said Chext’a, "but for Heemstress the burdens she brought upon herself in her mortal life nearly fated her to Terr’des."

"Betrayal, m’irth Chext’a?"

"Do not speak as if I am not here! I have atoned, am atoning. When High Wizarder Lath-vecat discovered that I had been speaking to Cagliostra after her rejection by the Order, I was dismissed and…I never wanted it to end like this!"

"What happened? Did Princess-Queen-Princess Ardanla order your execution?"

"She did not have to, no, she did not, though it would have been in short order. I took my own life – I could no longer bear my guilt at what has transpired, and so waded into and was taken by the waters of Flooher’ty Sea, where my predecessor, Feefthemf, went on his last voyage. Before I did so, however, I heard the Princess withdraw from the accords in alliance with Asch’endra-Conschala."

"Joh’oprinia and Asch’endra-Conschala…"

"It is their intention to forge from two kingdoms one great power."

"How many of the Silver Dragons joined them?"

"Hundreds, most under fear of death, a few swayed by the charismatic Prince. Some were killed in a battle outside Glaustenbury, there is a contingent headed to the Northern Wall to test the fealty of the Dragons there, and another, large force marching across southern Joh’oprinia to amass at Reiglo Strait with other mercenaries."

"Reiglo?"

"With Delvi-Alana’s rebellion, I heard Princess Ardanla and him discuss their lack of trust in their other siblings, mostly against Princess Igri, and that Delvi-Alana’s rebellion could inspire their own. What I must tell you, however, regards your powers."

"What do you mean?" asked Val’ha.

"Lath-vecat communed with another of your allies, Lady Aeysla."

"Aeysla!" Val’ha was thrilled to hear her friend’s name again after so long. "How is she? What has become of her?"

"She is in the northwest forest of Loran with three others," said Heemstress after several minutes. "They are awaiting the arrival of others, but that is not of importance at present. I am urging – for your sake and for that of your friends – that you contact her, for you are both gifted with communion."

"How can I do this? I have not received instruction."

"You carry with you a blessed mirror, do you not?"

"Heinghold’s mirror? Yes, its maker said it contained the magic of the Faielves, but I have used it only for battle and rest."

"During the nights you laid your head down upon it," Chext’a said, "what happened on those nights?" Val’ha thought back, and recalled that those had been the times she had flown in her sleep. "Rest your head once more upon the mirror and it will amplify and give strength to your focus."

"I hope that we never meet again," said Heemstress, "for if we do, it will mean that you have failed. Good luck, Lady Val’ha! Send Xorus back to Terr’des, and may the gods walk with you in your days ahead!" With that, Heemstress’ yellow-light blinked away.

"Zcymthic has passed her through his gate, onto the Path of Convah," said Chext’a after a time, "and so it is with me now, my love. Go, you, with the grace of Zeus and the centuries of your ancestors."

"But, Mother!" Val’ha tried little to control her sobs, the rainmaking on her cheeks, as the gold-light began to waver. "Mother, the amulet – he will hurt my friends…what, how will I shield them? Mother…" Seeing that their last seconds remained, Val’ha took hold of herself and wiped her tears on her shoulder. "I love you, m’irth Chext’a, and ever shall. Carry my love to p’irth Ma’hadrin."

"Your love, and your sister’s love, will lighten our spirits for all the tomorrows of time hence. Be strong, give Ma’teus my love, and…Zcymthic calls to me. I love you, goodbye, daughter." Val’ha stood in her white-bark boat, reaching toward the limbic sky to stop her mother from disappearing, but instead she fell into the green lake. The protection amulet fell off when she plunged in, but her water-ring glowed and she knew she would be able to breathe as her body slid through the cold, dark, bottomless water.

"Mother is not here! Mother is not here!" She was back in the convent stable, Ma’teus shaking her awake. "You were having a nightmare – you have been shouting for over a minute!" Ma’teus squinted, let go of Val’ha and plunked down on a mound of straw as she realized what they both had been saying. "Mother is not here?"

**

Val’ha’s companions did not take the news of Chext’a’s departure – particularly the protection amulet – very well. The others had returned to the stables from a very early breakfast ready for Bylikaegra when they found Val’ha and Ma’teus holding each other in lamentation. With no convent stablehands in their midst, Val’ha bade them to sit for the developments of the night, which Tarl-Cabot and the Baroness did not. As Val’ha spoke, Pivrax’ face drained to light grey and then dark brown at the subversion of the Bjursk-lan court: the murder of his beloved King Percivale, the throne-claiming of Ardanla and Joel, Heemstress’ drowning and rectification. By the time Val’ha finished, his hands were cupped over his ears and he fled the mountbarn. Her last communion was a flask of poisons for everyone. "What do you mean our cloak is gone? Do you understand what this means, once we are off hallowed ground? We are rabbits in an open field! Do you have the power to counter a GOD?!? Incomprehensible! Mad!" Spittle flew from the Baroness’ lips and she rattled her sword, her eyes full of outrage and frustration.

For Tarl-Cabot, they could not get going soon enough. "The amassment at Reiglo of two armies, Outlander mercenaries as well, against Igri."

"How can you all be so horrid?" demanded Ma’teus. "It is all tragedy and mayhem that has happened, but curse you all! Have you no sense, no care for Val’ha’s pain? She has lost contact with our mother, forfeited the charmpiece and found that her death has been told! For godsake, open your hearts a little!"

The journeymates fell silent, leaving the sound of the horses, mules and Vuvu as they breakfasted on timothy, wheatstalks and fresh straw. Finally, Tarl-Cabot grunted, "The moment is much bigger than any one of us, Lady Ma’teus. We must move on – I would have thought that Val’ha sensed our compassion and understood that our hearts perish daily with the senselessness of the crown-stealers and their master. Val’ha." Tarl-Cabot kneeled before her and took her hand in his. "Lady Val’ha, I pledge and dedicate myself toward freeing you from Xorus’ hex, be it this gold libra, the opalstone or something we have not yet discovered."

"As shall I," said the other knights, Sir Porcie and Sir Quigley, placing their hands across their chests.

"As do I." Ma’teus took Val’ha’s cheek in her hand and kissed it.

The Baroness pursed her lips. "It was never a question that we would, but if it is so necessary to voice our feelings, Lady Val’ha, then, my friend, I am in your quest, though for me it is less in honor as I have nothing left to lose."

"What of your daughter, the Countess?"

"Why, indeed!" She smiled and with that the most senior knight of them all, Baroness Val Tress, committed herself to the end of the stone.

**

"Goodbye, goodbye, and go with Gelfar!" called Sister Ulsruvula, her arm over Fanita’s shoulder and the great crowd of children, refugees and whatever staff had not banished themselves to their cottages after having been seduced into the Circ’Axorn. "It may come very soon that the Dark God’s evil spreads such that we are forced to take flight from these blessed grounds, but today I hold hope that this will not come to pass. We shall ready ourselves in either outcome. Farewell, Val’ha! Farewell, Master Pivrax! Farewell, friends!"

"The mercy of the godhost and heavenly light shine upon your journey," said one of the prioresses, and the companions trotted back down the golden entryway of the Holy Convent, the roar of cheers, hails and laughter lightening their hearts as they turned back three, four and six times to wave and absorb the crowd’s warmth.

They passed the nearby Clerickal Church, set back in the woods on the ridge of a foothill, its access off Magickal Road running through a long narrow field where the trees had been cut away. Porcie’s shoulders slumped. "There." He pointed right of the Moncrovian Church, a big alabaster box of a building, to rows of descending white grave markers that dotted the Terr’Sol-strewn hillside. "By the will of Zeus and the grace of Ariadne, my love is protected in that hallowed ground, the Cemetery on the Hill."

"It only takes one Human agent of the Dark God to undo the blessing of any land, or to remove bodies from them," the Baroness said. "For ourselves, we should think about what we will do when Xorus detects our presence – it will not be long before we are through Bylikaegra and off, as you say, Sir Porcie, hallowed ground."

"I would rather think of Kayleen," Porcie said, more to himself than any other.

"Have you ever known courtly love?" The Baroness peered at Val’ha, alongside whom she rode, then raised her lip. "No, I can see that you have not. It is the greatest thing, when you find your kindred spirit – every song, every poem of beauty brings his image to my mind. When I am dark or when I am inspired, I think of him. There have been others, yes, but the Baron…aah."

"I hope, Baroness Val Tress, that you are not referring to the poetry of Dolliwid!" After they had hooted and discussed the poor quality of the famed bard’s work, Tarl-Cabot said, "Everything within me, what we have gone through, reinforces my aspiration toward my Igri. We were betrothed only a day when…I had one night with her after our banns…" He blushed and knifed his breath. "When we get to Reiglo, there will be many more dukes and duchesses."

"Have you ever considered – understanding that once Lady Val’ha communes with Aeysla through the power of the mirror, both the Bugbear and the Dwarfkeep will be at our disposal – what we shall do with our mounts?" The Baroness asked.

After a long silence, Val’ha offered, "What surprises meis that Flegretha could smith such magic at all." Their laughter filled the Bylikaegra Forest once more, but then none found they could answer the Baroness’ question.

"Have you ever loved?" Porcie asked Pivrax.

"Oo-n-nly m-m-my Vuvu." The companions laughed again. "B-b-butt n-n-no – I-I-i…w-w-w-ell-l, Im-mm no-no-not yet old en-en-en-enough." Even with the normal struggle and pain that the common tongue caused Pivrax, Val’ha sensed his enormous embarrassment. But she joined the others and Pivrax in a fresh round of madcapping anyway.

"I have never been in love," said Ma’teus.

"Never?"

"Never – though on occasion, I sometimes found the nightlife of Eastern Denlineil engaging."

"Perhaps it found you, Lady Ma’teus," said Tarl-Cabot. "As one who traveled its streets a few years back…"

"Ah, yes, Sir Tarl-Cabot, your ‘Tropruscht years’ as we have come to learn…"

"Yes, indeed, lady elfling. That was not what I call true, trothal love – but I suppose when you consider Tarlos, it was, love."

"An entirely different kind, errant knight!" Amid his companions’ howls and joshes, Porcie asked Sir Quigley, "And what of you, cousin traveler? I have been at your side for many nights and days, and not once have you uttered talk of a lover to me."

"But I have spoken of him," said Quigley, "Tropruscht’s eldest, Chalister. When we are through this, I shall find him again."

"Farron’s Chalister?" Ma’teus asked. "I knew him, barely – before Andy –though now discover his kinship to my fosterling brother. He was a strongman, I remember that! He left Denlineil awhile ago, and travels Conschala."

"Thank you for that, Lady Ma’teus. It is Chalister, Lord Porcie, to whom I shall pledge my banns one day, and we shall find a place in the Reiglos to spend the rest of our years."

"Have such oaths of trust been taken before? I am curious."

"Not that I have seen on the mainland, but with the Reiglan descendants of Azimq’haadrin, Baroness, it is so. I would offer that as one who has set many new standards, you should attend our ceremony as a guest of honor."

"Shant and dast, perhaps I shall, Sir Quigley," said the Baroness, "perhaps I shall."

**

"Let me instruct you," said the Baroness the overcast morning of Mocrolester 70, "on governing, for you, Duke consort, and you, Crown Princess Val’ha – ah, look at you, you have never heard that before, have you – both shall someday take your place…" With Baroness Val Tress prattling pleasantly on, Val’ha did not know if she would ever do any such thing with Ma’hadrin’s renunciation, but nearer came Bylikaegra, the Magickal City, a hub where six roads fed the beck and call of every nascent or novice conjurer, alchemist, magician, witch or wizard, Terr’dean, Zeusan, Clerickal or anything in between, to join guilds, share secrets, gain knowledge and train, sell their wares and vend their services to nonmagickals. "It was human, agrable farmland when the first of the woodkin, Elven-taught tribes from Bylikaegra Forest, began to populate the city, and so it has become today." The woods ceased and the end-grasses of an empty, low valley came into view, causing the Baroness and several others who had seen it before to gasp in astonishment – for Bylikaegra had vanished. Not completely: The other five routes ribboned their way down sister foothills, buttressed by the forest beyond, and Val’ha could see the Magickal City’s alleyways, streets and main roads to their eastern end-blocks, a hodgepodge of rectangles and squares, the townscape shaped and curved as the land ordered.

"My, my, sister!" cried Ma’teus suddenly. "Can you see it? Can you see them?"

"Inn-nd-d-deed." Pivrax was as awestruck as she, and when Val’ha questioned why, he was confused. "Mu-mu-mm-mil-laddy, I-I sh-should-d th-ph-think-k y-you of all w-w-would-d see th-th-thiss." The Humans failed to discern what Pivrax and Ma’teus pointed to in the sky, but Val’ha located it immediately: At the base of the thin veil of grey-black clouds, a light autumn rain had begun to descend in warm sheets that misted upon their faces and as it did, the outline of twocities appeared, one overlapping the other. Buildings, animals, wagons and wares, sentient creatures of every race and color, the items within every household, merchantry represented Bylikaegra.

Val’ha explained it all in wonderment to the four knights, "I see the pattern of the city’s grid to its end-blocks. There are thousands – every color of light outlining the magickals – the others, nonmagickals, animals, are red and the inanimates are…"

"P-p-ph-pale b-bu-bl-blue."

But there was also an Elven city, outlined in a whiter shade of grey. At the center, spires rose almost to the bottom of the heavens, Val’ha thought. The sylvan Elves, their bodies crossing through the Bylikaegrans in what Ma’teus referred to later as "a commotion of ants and honeybees sharing lairs," moved more slowly, in pairs and alone, while the faster-paced Bylikaegrans hoisted, purchased, bagged and traded items from merchantries of magic. "Most from ill-gotten sources, I am sure," the Baroness said, her tongue jealous for lack of better sight."

"Astounding!" Porcie said. "Two cities, one on top of the other? Really? How shall we pass through them?"

"Airs and fashions, Man! They pass through each other like a Sword through a light-circle!"

Passing through Bylikaegra and Bylikros – floors of moving patterns rising many levels above their heads, spirits and object-lights passing through them and their slightly unnerved horses – was overwhelming enough to Val’ha, Ma’teus and Pivrax, but for the sisters’ magickal blood, the omnipotence of the land’s ancient sacredness and the electric spark of thousands of sylvan Elves stirred loss and longing in Val’ha’s heart, but many more thousands of Terrans riveted them frozen and speechless for as long as the companions passed through the conjoined cities. By the time they turned northbound at the gold-fountain hub and crossed over the first foothill toward Apocania, the sprinkling had stopped, but so tingling was the sisters’ blood that they glowed bright green.

**

"Half a day gone, they are," said one of ten Black Dog guards to another, "and here you are, fighting for the next drop of rum!" As the journeymates peered through the edge of the wood, the Black Dogs sloshed flask and flagon to their lips, spilling half of their liquor. They were ugly, dirty and loud; Porcie recognized two of them as former Blue Rose knights, and Pivrax identified a third as a Silver Dragon from the Dark Forest of Joh’oprinia. The two who fought for the rumflask and five others wore longcoats over their Black Dog heraldry, shins and arms bare of the light armor that Prince Joel’s Men wore. Where the three loyalists used shaving-stones, the seven mercenaries’ beards and hair were matted, flaxen and dull.

"Th-ph-they arre f-from-mm the Out-out-outland-ds, be-be-beyond-d the N-no-n-north-therrn W-w-wall," whispered Pivrax.

"Lightfolk," said Tarl-Cabot, "people of the snowlands."

"Scum," summed up the Baroness.

"Scum," he said.

Several hours had passed, with the Song diminished in Val’ha’s ears as they departed magickal terrain and the hilliness of the region, allowing them to see the bridge where the Black Dogs drank themselves into aggression. As the Verdish chain swept toward the west coast in hills and bowl-shaped valleys riven by crevasses and sharp ridges of rock. Nearly the entire Bylikaegra Forest rode the foothills between the mountains and Mighty Number Three, the great Yogurt River, one of only three so large and deep that ships could sail them without craft or oar.

While the Black Dogs continued sousing and gibbering and spitting up, the companions could not arrive at any reasonable diplomatic method of dealing with them. "Come, think," urged the Baroness. "We have two Elves, a duke here, not to mention not one but two high advisors – advise!"

"NA-AH-AH-AH!" Vuvu, Pivrax’ mount, bleated – a very, very loud bleat. The rough jollity of the Black Dogs came to an end immediately.

"What in the name of the gods…" said the Joh’oprinian Black Dog, he and the other Men casting about wildly and replacing their liquor with swords.

"Where did that come from? Who goes there!?" The Black Dogs yelled to the trees and abyss, several crossing the bridge and the others fanning across the field.

"B-b-b-b-b-badd-dd girll!" Pivrax admonished his giant goat.

"I will say one thing." The Baroness reached over her shoulder for her crossbow and glared at the Grey Troll. "While we have left a shard of surprise, let us use its advantage. Tarl-Cabot?" Tarl-Cabot slid his longbow into one arm, and a bow from his quiver; the two of them took aim at a pair of Outlanders who were a hundred yards away and let fly. Upon the whiskof the arrows through the musky air, came the sound of them hitting the Outlanders’ chests, the thud of hands to their hearts; their knees buckled, swords dropped and they fell dead, shock on their faces. "Aha, surprise! Let this be their education on proper shielding! AWAY!"

"Men! They’ve killed Vin and Erich!"

Pivrax held back as the other six companions sprayed out toward the Black Dogs, hoisted his javelin pike back over his shoulder and sent it sailing over the others’ heads into the midsection of one of the Outlanders, pummeling him backward.

The Baroness and Tarl-Cabot made toward the bridge, catching the Joh’oprinian and one of the Outlanders with their arrows as they raced past. While the Baroness’ arrows had found their third victim and sent another of the Outlanders over the bridge, Tarl-Cabot let Crundin’s flame splash against another who joined his comrade in the crevasse.

Quigley, Porcie and Val’ha did a slow circle-dance with three Black Dogs. Porcie spat at the two once-insipirile knights. "Pah to you, traitors to the king!"

For a moment the Asch’endrans were confused, until they blinked – whether from the drink or recognition, Val’ha could not tell – and then laughed miserably. "If it’s not Sir Porcie of Lords, son of his great father!"

"Sir Porcie." The other licked his teeth, tapped his cheek and gazed toward the clouds. "Sir Porcie, hm, Sir Porcie…who might that be, Sir Grimwald?"

"Don’t rightfully know, Sir Cuspis, I don’t atall…perhaps one of the outlaws, killed the King? A nice reward set for their capture – here’s the she-Elf, even! Whaddaya say, brother?"

"Curse on your grave and vultures in your eyes! You took an oath to King Joel, wretches, skulldiggers!"

"HA!" Cuspis leaped at Porcie, forcing him back; Quigley crossed his swords and recrossed them as he did the same to the Outlander, leaving Val’ha with Grimwald, a pockfaced Man with too much hair growing out of his ears.

"Come on, lovely Elfwoman, come on-n-n…" Grimwald teased. "Fair up to ten thousand goldies will I put in my pocket for your capture when this day is through…"

Behind the clanking swords, shifting armor and taunting Black Dog, Val’ha said, "I do not think so," her blood tingling. She smiled sweetly at Grimwald and returned her scimitar to its sheath. "I do not think what you say shall come to pass." She concentrated her green-light in her hands, slapped her palms together and pointed her fingertips at her combatant; a river of electric power coursed through her arms with backthrowing velocity, shooting Grimwald at its tidefront toward as the crevasse. He hurtled over it, Val’ha pulled her hands apart and the ray of light ceased, leaving him for a moment flailing foolishly in the air before he dropped, his rum-slurred voice swearing and pleading as it diminished into the abyss.

Quigley swung and slashed, moving his adversary back to the cliff’s edge before cutting once across the Outlander’s left hamstring, once more into his right ribs, a third time into the veins of his neck, and last with a skullbuck to his head that sent the Man sprawling into the sheer.

The last Black Dog grew disenchanted and fretful, his eyes flitting toward escape as Ma’teus, Porcie, Val’ha and Quigley closed in around him. He raced toward the bridge, there too corralled by for the Baroness and Tarl-Cabot, their swords askance, smiling big, warm smiles. "Coward, malefaction, you mock me, you mock insipirility, you mock the royal crest!" So perilous was Porcie’s anger, the Man did not even honor him by turning around, but instead dropped his sword, ran and threw out his arms like a flying-squirrel into the crevasse.

The journeymates suffered no serious wounds during the battle, and so threw the corpses of the other Black Dog guards into the ravine and continued on their way. "There is no celebration, no pride in this victory," said the Baroness, "but there was necessity."