FicWad

Chapter 5 - Another Girl’s Paradise

Sarah awoke with a scream, bolt upright - then collapsed back onto the mattress, panting. And had another shock, although considerably muted compared to the first.

Strange bed…oh, that’s right.

Mandorways
Courts of Chaos
Middle o’ Nowhere, about five-zillion light-years from anything she could call home.

She suddenly thought of Shara and wondered how the girl was making out in her new life - her old life - then realized that she had absolutely no idea what time it was here, let alone there; there wasn’t a single clock in any of her rooms, or indeed in the library, at least not that she had seen.

I wonder…

Sarah got up and put on the white robe that ‘went with’ her black nightgown (oh well) and a pair of slippers and wandered over to her front door. She had left her pendant on the vanity where it glowed as brightly as any nightlight. Opening the door and looking out into the library, she saw that the sky on the ceiling was still starry but the moon had set and the background color was beginning to fade a little.

4:00 A.M. maybe, she thought, closing the door. Then thought better of it and left it open so the light could wake her up - she’d have to talk to Mandor about this. She belatedly remembered his vague warning about the doorway and was instantly curious again, albeit with a healthy level of caution for once. Very tentatively, Sarah put her left hand through the portal slowly, halfway to her elbow, held it there for a count of ten seconds, then drew it back in. There did in fact seem to be a palpable barrier of sorts here that had absolutely nothing to do with a physical door; she had simply walked through too quickly to notice it the first time. It had a definite sensation but it was difficult to describe, somewhere between a very thin membrane and a temperature change in a very tiny localized area - warmer. Sarah grabbed the Lizard Land storybook off the coffee table and without a second thought she quickly stepped through the doorway into the library and made her way down the stairs to the couch seated in front of the fireplace; she didn’t feel like being bombarded with light at the moment. Disturbing dreams of her recent past had been plaguing her sleep all night and while she knew she needed to try again, she was in no hurry to get back to bed.

The fire seemed to burn with an unnatural consistency, as if the wood stacked in the grate was only for show, but the golden light was steady and the heat comforting. In no time she was devouring the myths and legends of another ancient civilization: the battle of the gods of the heavens that destroyed half the planet, the ballad of Kazir and Eria and the magical elixir of fearlessness, and humorous tales of a large, dancing desert arachnid who was their Trickster. Eventually, the fatigue of reading the gracefully flowing sigils and the cozy warmth overtook Sarah and she nodded off into a dreamless slumber, the large book draped across her lap.

It is pointless to speak of measuring time by precise hours in such a place, but suffice to say Mandor returned promptly at greensky - approximately early morning in the library - and came in to see if she was up yet. He intended to let her sleep in if she was still out but he didn’t want her to have to wait for breakfast if she was up and hungry; dinner the previous ‘day’ had been very early. No lights on - she must still be asleep. He was about to go when a slight movement in the shadows over by the fireplace caught his eye. Readying a sphere, he noiselessly crept up to the couch - and relaxed with a sad smile. Sarah was there, passed out with the book of tales from that distant reptilian shadow that he had retrieved from the wreckage of the car and translated for her, open as if she had fallen asleep there reading. She’d have a stiff neck from lying at that angle over the arm but he wasn’t about to wake her; she’d obviously had a terrible night. He momentarily considered erasing the memories that were no doubt the cause while she was still unconscious but quickly decided against it; she would find out eventually and distrust him. When she finally got desperate enough, she would ask him of her own free will, and the rest of his and Suhuy’s plans would be comparatively easy once his influence over her was well-established. He only needed to be patient.

Mandor carefully lifted the heavy tome off of her legs - she turned in her sleep - and lay it down on the cushion beside her, then made his way back to the desk and worked quietly on various tasks by a small, glowing spirit-light: social correspondence, important matters pertaining to the House of Sawall (he practically was the house in a political sense at this point), a tentative curriculum for Sarah, which he would have to run past Suhuy, of course, and more of the same.

At last at about mid-morning, he saw definite stirring out of the corner of his eye, and arms that were raised straight and up, stretching. Sarah yawned and sat up, one hand rubbing the back of her neck. She started a little upon seeing Mandor but he just smiled and greeted her.

“Good morning, Sarah. I trust you got some rest at any rate, although I’m sorry it wasn’t in your bed.”

“Just a lot on my mind, I guess,” Sarah tried to nonchalantly brush it off. “How long have you been in here?”

“A while; I returned early this morning.”

Sarah got up, trying to stretch the kink out of her sore neck, and shuffled over. “So you got to talk to your uncle Suhuy, then?”

Mandor stopped what he was doing and swiveled the chair to face her, legs crossed. “Yes, and you had better address him by his title - Lord Suhuy - unless he gives you permission to call him otherwise. I have been very casual in dealing with you up till now but you must realize that this is no democracy, Sarah, and you must behave accordingly. This is a world of inherited rank. Even the clothing I have provided for you states heraldically that you fall under my protection and rule and that of the House of Sawall. If anything were to happen to you here, you would be under my jurisdiction.”

Eeek. “So…should I still keep calling you by your first name?” Sarah asked tentatively, embarrassed at how disrespectful it suddenly seemed.

“Perhaps not in public, but in here that will suit me just fine,” he gave a wry little lip-smile. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and dressed and we’ll have breakfast. I plan on having at least one meal with you daily if not two so you do not feel so alone here for at least the first couple of weeks before you are ready to go out. Is this acceptable?”

“Oh, of course!” she nodded, turning and quickly striding back to her room. “So he agreed to teach me?” she yelled over her shoulder.

“Yes, and he’s rather curious about you,” was the resounding reply right before she shut the door. Mandor just shook his head; she was such a child it was almost scary that she had power at all.

Sarah rushed not to keep Mandor waiting any longer than he already had been and soon she reappeared in a long black skirt and a high-necked white blouse with black details and snug-but-comfortable leather flats to match; he nodded approval at her choice. He himself was wearing a long black velvet suit with white Venetian-style lace at the collar and cuffs and a white dress-shirt underneath. He motioned her over to the table and pushed in her chair as she seated herself at the foot. Rather than sit far away at the head, her host seated himself on the other side to her right.

“While we were traveling, I was conserving energy in the way I was procuring our meals,” Mandor stated. “Normally I just do this.” He tapped the tabletop sharply with his fingers and an entire breakfast spread spontaneously appeared, making Sarah jump slightly. There were strawberry crepes, eggs scrambled with bell pepper, thick-cut crispy bacon, ice-cold juice and steaming-hot tea. “I usually serve in courses but let’s let you get used to one thing at a time, shall we?” he noted, passing each of the dishes in turn. “Juice or tea?”

She looked up. “Can I do both?”

“Of course,” he replied genially, filling two cups, then following suit.

Sarah had to concede that in spite of him sort of being forced into this situation - nearly almost as much as she had was, really - he was genuinely trying to be a good host. And the meal was fabulous as usual.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said between bites, “why aren’t there any clocks in here? Is it just a personal preference or is this something that isn’t done in Chaos? I realized very early this morning that I had no way of knowing when I might be expected to get up without seeing the ceiling in here,” she glanced up at the slowly progressing image of the sun; it provided light for the room, but no heat.

“There is such a thing as a Chaos clock but it would be of very little use to you at present, although I see what you’re getting at. I can have a similar display installed in your bedroom if you wish, perhaps formed like a window, so you can tell when it’s morning without having to get up.”

“That would be appreciated, thank you,” Sarah took a sip of juice. She had no idea what it was made from - it was a deep green almost bordering on turquoise - but the taste was sweet and musky without being overly cloying, the perfect compliment to the crepes. “So, when’s S- I mean, when should we be expecting Lord Suhuy’s arrival?” Sarah corrected herself.

“He should be here in a turning-and-a-quarter, or” he pointed up - a small cloud appeared in the perfectly clear blue sky, “when the sun passes under that cloud. You have time to acquaint yourself with the different sections of the library before he gets here and I would strongly advise you to do so; he is a man who does not waste time when it comes to business and you will need to be able to do the necessary reference work yourself.”

Sarah nodded, quickly finishing the bacon on her plate and went to stand up to gulp down her tea when Mandor actually reached over and grabbed her arm to stop her.

“In my house you will eat your meals, not inhale them; sit back down,” he calmly reprimanded, letting go. Sarah took her seat again with slight irritation; she didn’t say anything but her muted expression was imminently readable as she made a show of daintily sipping her tea, pinkie up. “Part of being your guardian means I get to raise you for a while, Sarah,” he continued, “to choose what is right for you at certain times. You had best get used to it,” he said with a frowning little smile, taking a sip of his own tea. Putting down the cup, he tapped the table again and everything vanished except the tea service, to be replaced with a platter of fresh fruit (both familiar and foreign) and two small plates. “Now be a good girl and eat your vitamins; you’re still growing.”

Sarah laughed a little quietly at the role he was suddenly playing, but dutifully filled up her plate.

After breakfast was quite finished, Mandor sketched a rough schematic of the organization of the library for her and left her to her own devices to go explore. The sheer variety of books in this room, both in age and subject matter, was staggering. It would take lifetimes to read it all – let alone understand it - and yet the vast majority of volumes she picked up showed definite signs of wear: dog-eared pages, underlined passages, even occasional notes in the margins, all in the same quick, fluid script. One incidental fact was becoming very clear: Mandor was as bad of a bookworm as she was; he’d just had more time to do it, apparently. Sarah honestly had no idea how old he was and wasn’t about to ask but, if one Chaosian biology book she ran across and skimmed was anything to go by, she would hazard a guess of at least six-or-seven-hundred years (and even at that he was very prematurely gray, so-to-speak.) Quite a number of these tomes were much older than that, however, and more than a few seemed to be only held together by magic. It was an awe-inspiring collection.

She was up on the second level to the left pouring through books of poetry when she noticed that the light was getting a bit dim - then she remembered. Hearing the door to the library open below, she raced across the causeway and quickly made her way down the flight of stairs in the back of the room (why there was only the one set all the way back here was puzzling) and began to cross the expansive room…and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks. She could tell that Mandor had just finished transforming back into a man - his form still wavered slightly - but his companion seriously made her question her guardian’s previous reassurance that this wasn’t hell. The creature with him certainly looked like a very convincing demon: large horns, dark grey-and-red scaly skin, bright yellow cat’s-eyes she could make out clearly all the way across the room, large black-clawed hands. He was speaking to Mandor in a surprisingly human-sounding voice; as he drew closer, she could see his fangs when he spoke.

“No one wants to see a scaly old man. At least in this form it is expected.”

“Just for now?” Mandor pressed. His companion sighed, but it betrayed a kind of fondness.

“Very well.”

And at that, his hideous sinister body and features melted down into a humanesque form, a stooped-over man of greatly advanced years, robed in red and gold, with long white hair and a well-kept mustache and beard, the yellow eyes now a very light brown with regular rounded irises. He walked with the assistance of a small cane now; he hadn’t needed it in the previous form.

“It’s all right, Sarah,” Mandor called over to her, seeing her watching them with decided trepidation, “ this is who we were expecting.”

Still a bit nervous, she crossed the remainder of the room to meet them. The old man she took to be Lord Suhuy saved her the terrible ordeal of trying to figure out how she was supposed to introduce herself.

“And this would be young Sarah Williams of Shadow Earth, then.”

“Sarah,” Mandor quickly interjected, “may I present to you Lord Suhuy of the noble House of Swayvil and Keeper of the Logrus,” he rattled off gracefully; definitely centuries of practice there.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, my dear,” Lord Suhuy said, taking Sarah’s right hand and inclining his head, nearly what Mandor had done upon first meeting her. “Lord Mandor has had nothing but good things to say about you, but I expect no less of him.”

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” Sarah offered awkwardly; to her surprise, Suhuy smiled good-naturedly and patted her hand in an oddly grandfatherly fashion.

“Don’t worry about protocol just yet; we shall cover that as well,” he offered generously, letting go of her. “But before anything else happens, I must assess how well your body is handling the Logrus imprint to be certain that your trial did not leave impeding damage and that you are physically assimilating the extra energy adequately enough to facilitate magical use.”

Suhuy reached into his robes and brought forth a thin, clear circle of an unknown substance, the size of a compact disk. Sarah watched, fascinated, as he worked on it, making it grow and expand until it was a three-dimensional low cylindrical pedestal on the floor; it seemed to contain a set of darkly-colored crystal points set in a certain configuration, almost like a primitive circuit. Suhuy stood back up and turned to her.

“Now, if you would be so kind as to simply step up onto the platform and just hold still for me.”

Sarah took his proffered hand and climbed up on top of the arcane device. Suhuy spoke a set of archaic words in a language that might have been the precursor of Thari - she caught the general gist but would’ve been hard-pressed to give a literal translation, something along the lines of ‘activate dark light holy potential.’ And in the next second the crystal platform was glowing - and so was she! The surface of her body had taken on its’ own aurora borealis effect; she gasped upon seeing it, wide-eyed.

“It is all right, Sarah, the Revealer won’t hurt you,” Suhuy reassured her. “This only makes your energy field completely visible. Hold your arms out slightly from your body so I can get a better look.

Sarah did so and he began to putter around the pedestal, seeming to examine different points. Sarah couldn’t stop staring at herself - she was yellow and blue with a swirling overlay of a variety of colors that kept pulsing and flowing as if they had a mind of their own! From the part she could see (albeit, from the inside,) her hands were glowing very distinctly. She happened to notice the ring Mandor had given her - it was emitting its’ own color - a dark blue - and upon turning her arm over she saw that a thin strand of the same color ran up her arm to her heart. She looked down at Mandor, who she now noted was also watching her intently; he caught the wary question in her eyes and gave a slight nod of acknowledgement.

“Is the ring she’s wearing messing up your readings at all, Suhuy?”

“Not really,” the old man replied from behind her, “but I would like you to take a look at this,” he motioned Mandor over. “Sarah, could you lift your hair up and to one side for a moment, please?” She did so as Mandor walked over. Suhuy sighed.

“Just as I thought; she’s only barely metabolizing this, it’s almost too strong. You will note the break point in her thoracic vertebrae and again at the base of the skull where the Logrus energy is trying to escape her circuit. Fortunately it seems to be looping back into the system but it means that even trained her power could be rather volatile, and I will have to be careful not to overexert her during lessons - it could overwhelm her physically. The overall pattern is cohesive, however, and I am not seeing any wild fluctuations. Her body appears stable enough for our purposes.”

“It is about as I guessed, then,” Mandor nodded, “although if you wish to see how she does in a minor Logrus power situation, we could easily set up a demonstration right here and now - remember her power object; I have given her a trump also. You can lower your arms, Sarah; he’s finished with that.”

Suhuy’s brow furrowed in thought. “I am not certain I desire her to toy with a power source we do not yet understand, but I suppose we can check her with the trump, see how she physically reacts at this level. Do you have any objections to this, Sarah?”

“I guess not,” she shrugged. What she mildly objected to was the fact that she was currently being treated like a lab rat, but at least they were still being fairly polite about it.

“Where is the trump currently?”

“In my room,” she pointed. Then looked down hesitantly at the pedestal. “Do you want me to go get it?”

“Allow me,” Mandor stated, walking back around her and facing the door to her apartment. He raised his right hand - the door opened by itself and the trump came flying across the room into his hand! Sarah gaped. “I can only do this because it is one of me,” he offered as he turned back around, holding it out to her. The old smile was still there but it was mostly in his eyes. The moment she took the card from him, she received an unusual burst of insight: he was being deliberately reserved in front of this other man. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it but she would remember the sentiment and possibly be a little cautious herself. Lord Suhuy had given her no reason to distrust him, as far as she could tell, but it didn’t hurt anything to be careful all the same.

Suhuy watched her take the trump and noted the immediate burst of red in her aura but it quickly dissipated - satisfactory. Everything still appeared stable. Mandor had commenced the walk to the far side of the room, in the right corner next to the bookcases. When he got there he called back.

“Try it now, Sarah!”

Doing her best to ignore Suhuy’s almost paralyzing scrutiny, she turned the trump right-side-up and began to concentrate. The upper levels of her energy field responded in a ripple-effect until it began building upon its own synchronicity, the frequency and pulse pattern slowly accelerating. There was a very brief moment when the weak points Suhuy had seen arced out, the power almost too much for the circuit, but it held and within the next moment she made contact and it seemed to even out at the higher level.

Sarah saw in the trump that Mandor had turned away from them and was facing the wall because, seeing him from this angle, she could actually see herself in the background! “Testing, testing, one, two, three, four…”

He genuinely smiled this time. “Coming through loud and clear. Do you want to try the other part of this as long as the setup is here? Just a quick jump across the room?” He reached out to her with his right hand in a receiving gesture.

“Mandor,” Suhuy began to protest, his voice a warning, but he was too late. Sarah saw herself reach out to the Chaos lord through the card; the moment she made tactile contact she jumped forward and vanished in a dazzling chromatic effect, rendered almost blindingly bright by the pedestal - only to reappear in Mandor’s arms a split-second later, herself once more.

“There, that was fairly easy,” he said, letting go of her, “although normally just a hand-clasp and a step forward are sufficient,” he looked down at her, amused.

“MANDOR!”

They both automatically turned around.

“When I said I would like to see her, this also included the continued ability to see in general,” Suhuy scolded him, blinking and squinting, although his expression wasn’t angry. Sarah immediately recognized the prank and could scarcely believe it as Mandor casually strode back as if nothing untoward had happened at all, and she followed him. She knew the man had a sense of humor but this just seemed so out of character for him; there had to have been a reason for this, but what?

“And here I thought you would appreciate the opportunity to make sure she has a healthy transition pattern as well,” Mandor calmly quipped as Suhuy deactivated the pedestal and shrank it down to its previous dimensions, putting it away. A single look passed between the two men and Sarah caught part of it; it was challenge and treaty at once. Suhuy walked over to a nearby couch and Mandor quietly motioned that she should follow.

“The initial battery test which you just underwent is almost completely noninvasive,” Suhuy began again, “but the brain scan I am about to administer most certainly is, however you should not feel much. Please be seated,” he gestured to the couch.

Definitely more nervous this time - now realizing that she had absolutely no idea what to expect - Sarah sat as directed. Suhuy produced a tiny silvered metal hoop and made it grow until it was a little over a foot in diameter. He held it over her head, centered, and let go; it floated there of its own accord like a stereotypical halo.

“Now I need you to hold very still for me and try to relax - this will be over in under a minute.”

With a single word command, the device began to silently, slowly lower over Sarah’s head. True to his word, she couldn’t feel much but what little she could feel was almost sickeningly crawling beyond description. It wasn’t pain, just sensation in a place that there shouldn’t have ever been any feeling at all! She closed her eyes and did her best to keep her breathing steady; she absently realized that she was clutching the cushion she was sitting on.

“Easy, it’s almost over,” she heard Mandor’s voice and felt a steadying hand on her right shoulder. Five more seconds and the thing suddenly dropped lightly about her neck.

“Finished,” Suhuy announced, taking it back off of her as she did a full-body shiver, trying to shake the feeling. He seemed to activate it again, differently this time, sitting alongside her; Mandor pulled up a chair to sit across from them. Sarah forgot to breathe for a second as a beautiful three-dimensional holographic image appeared in the circle: it was a full-scale energy photograph of her brain! Suhuy simply proceeded as if this was the most normal thing in the world.

“It would appear on the whole that you were correct in guessing her current state to be reasonably unharmed,” he addressed Mandor, “but take a very close look at the right frontal lobe.” The image was transparent and in a multitude of colors, but there was a very minute but visible black streak, like a crack, about half-an-inch in length, embedded near the top of the right side in front. Mandor sighed, looking equal parts concerned and disappointed.

“Alright, what does that mark mean exactly?” Sarah asked a bit nervously.

“It isn’t serious,” Suhuy reassured her. “All-in-all you were very lucky, but it would have been rather strange for you to not have experienced any damage at all. The true Logrus physically assaults both brain and body of all who dare walk it, both a test of mettle and the nature of the beast, as it were. It is not unusual for an initiate to be covered with superficial lacerations by the end of the course. The worse damage possible is mental, however, as is the case with you. Fortunately, the Hand of the Logrus only left a slight mark in the creative section of your brain, not enough to totally hinder your magical capabilities but nevertheless something that I must be careful of in teaching you, an obstacle you must learn to work around. If it were anywhere in the left quadrant or straddling the two, even that much would have to be forgone. Thankfully, this is not the case.” The holographic image vanished and the ring shrank down again; Suhuy stashed it back in his robe. Sarah was on the verge of asking what would have been done with her had she not been capable of magic, but Suhuy interrupted her train of thought.

“Which means that if there are no objections I can commence with your training immediately,” he addressed her. She glanced at Mandor.

“The sooner the better,” he pronounced, standing up. “In fact, I had drafted a rough lesson schedule against your arrival. You are free, of course, to instruct her as you see fit, but she has quite a lot to learn and hopefully we can complete it in one Chaos year; this I also leave up to your discretion.”

“Very well,” Suhuy said, slowly coming to his feet, “let’s see what you have in mind.”

Sarah watched the two men walked away to stand over at the large desk, for all practical purposes planning out her immediate future as if she wasn’t even in the room. She remembered Mandor’s words from earlier, that as her guardian he would be choosing what was right for her. Now she sincerely hoped he’d meant it.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

And so began the tutoring of Sarah Williams of Shadow Earth in the ways of Chaos (I should say ‘in the Ways of Mandor’. Or, rather, ‘in Suhuy’s way’. Or…oh, nevermind.) Her schedule seldom varied. She awoke early each morning to an artificial golden dawn streaming in through the fake window Mandor had installed in her bedroom for this purpose (skylight), got cleaned up and dressed in nice black-and-white attire (in spite of the variety to choose from it felt sort of like a school uniform in under a week), had a sumptuous breakfast in the library with Lord Mandor (he had yet to serve the exact same meal twice), and the rest of the day was largely comprised of intermittent studies with Lord Suhuy and solo research and homework practically until bedtime, with Mandor in attendance for either lunch or dinner - never both (although both were always scrupulously provided by him regardless of the company eating it.) He was known to duck in from time-to-time to make note of her progress and even to help if the occasion warranted, but mostly he was careful to stay out of his uncle’s way.

The huge leap in volume of Sarah’s schoolwork made her feel like she had just dropped out of early high school to pursue a master’s degree in arcane studies, and - among a vast multitude of other things - she had to quickly learn how to pace herself. The work load of the first week had kind of been a shock but it was getting easier to handle as time went on. Under any less demanding circumstances, she would have been rather lonely, but, frankly, she really didn’t have the leisure to worry about it much, at least initially; it was all she could do just to keep up with Suhuy’s speed-teaching. Normal coursework like this took years if not decades, and even with her considerable magical handicap - both as a human and as a Fixed Logrus initiate (as she found out she was) - her tutor was rather skeptical that she would be comfortably proficient in what he could teach her in just a year even if all the subjects could be reasonably glossed over initially in about six-to-seven months’ time to start, and he was cramming himself in the attempt to meet the proposed deadline.

By comparison, Sarah’s Thari had come swiftly and easily, as Mandor had hoped, with the use of the translation device; it had been turned off for three days now and on the whole she seemed to be managing all right without it, only needing the dictionary now and again. She hadn’t spoken a single word of English since the day of her arrival; the one English book in her possession was currently buried under a mound of assorted tomes from the library, all but forgotten.

Her magic, however, was quite a different matter altogether. All shadow-copies of the Logrus, the Fixed Logri, had built-in imperfections and defects - sections which never moved versus the eternally active original - and this expressed itself as glitches and faults in the initiates’ powers, if not their minds. Apparently Lord Suhuy’s definition of ‘not serious’ was closer akin to ‘not fatal’; Sarah’s condition was certainly serious by her way of thinking. She had been wildly lucky that the damaged area Suhuy had seen did not perceptibly affect her day-to-day existence, but once he began instructing her in certain types of magic the error started to rear its ugly head during class. The worst was trying to bring objects through from different shadows using Logrus tentacles, reaching ones arms into them like gloves and using them to extend through the void to retrieve what you wanted or needed. Even when the tentacles didn’t freeze up and it nominally worked, books melted in her hands, clothing caught fire, some small items just exploded like miniature bombs. The action itself relied too heavily on her creative imagination - the break was in the right frontal lobe - and she just couldn’t hold herself together long enough to do it well; the process almost invariably triggered high emotional instability and usually ended in either panic attacks or a half-hour-long crying jag. But not everything was this theatrical. Mostly the results of her efforts were simply inconsistent to the point that for the first two weeks he forced her to keep a log of what worked when under what circumstances so they could see if it was cyclic. But there was no discernable pattern - the outcomes seemed completely governed by chance - and the log was thrown out.

As she was deemed unfit for most of the higher magics and she already showed a natural propensity toward it, she was given extensive training in the trumps - a major accomplishment by Amberite standards but only considered a minor art in the Courts. This would be especially important for her due to the fact that Chaosians technically used Logrus tentacles for basic transportation as well and this was simply out of the question for her. Normally this would entail being taught how to make trump cards as well but Suhuy deemed this too risky also; she might have been able to do it, but any she could create herself carried the danger of the Fixed Logrus and the active possibility of not working properly and dropping her off someplace deadly instead of the intended locale – or literally freezing her in time-space inbetween. In consequence, she worked only with pre-made trumps but became quite adept at them nevertheless, and Suhuy painted one of her in due process for Lord Mandor. On top of limitedly using them for communication and shadow-transport (she was never allowed to travel alone for her own safety), she could tell if one was being used in her vicinity, block or force through calls for herself and others, keep someone from being able to see where she was during a call, listen in undetected, and even use a deck of them to tell her own fortune. The one exception that he promised to teach her later on was the Trump Doorway, which, if properly executed, cannibalized itself for power instead of draining the one who made it and could be used as an inter-dimensional portal for almost an entire day in her case (the ones drawn with the power of the real Logrus could last longer), a fairer way to ensure that the destination was safe if she truly ever had to do this.

Her basic arcane training wasn’t completely a lost cause, however. The very land the Fixed Logrus sat on biased certain abilities in the initiates’ favor, and having run her course through the land of the Labyrinth, this granted Sarah a strong affinity for rock, and it was here that she excelled. The results were breathtaking. The trumps she handled most easily were of rocky deserts with large formations - in fact, it was becoming apparent that her natural affinity had even affected some of Mandor’s capabilities initially upon driving her to Chaos. She could will up mountain ranges straight out of the ground in seconds, rend the earth apart, instantly creating gigantic crevasses so deep she couldn’t see the bottom, induce resonances in a series of crystals that could do everything from creating small amounts of electricity to healing a physical wound - if it had to do with geology, she could do it and do it well. Her lava flows were simply not to be believed. It wasn’t long before she deduced the precise current necessary to trigger a magnetic response from Mandor’s metal spheres, but she was blocked at the last minute from snatching one for inspection one day - the error from the Fixed Logrus had intervened, not her guardian; it had happened almost too fast for him to have been able to stop her! Sarah’s Logrus-sight seemed to be the one annoying exception to the powers that she regularly used with success. Oh, it worked. She could mentally summon the image of her version of the Logrus - the one copy where all the possible variations had been laid out side-by-side practically on top of each other for miles - but rather than being able to see hidden spells or magic on a person, object or place, using it as a looking glass, she only learned their physical mass, mineral composition (if any) and possible conductivity levels, and this she saw as through a thin slice of mica; slightly prismatic but not terribly helpful on the whole usually.

Being human, she could not shift her form, but after some experimentation Suhuy figured out a round-about method that she could safely utilize to temporarily disguise her appearance. To the observer, it would seem that her face - or, indeed, her whole body - became physically encased in rough-cut quartz of about the shape and features she wished to take on, and the lifelike image would slowly fade in over the illusory base-construct one section at a time. The whole process took about ten minutes of intense concentration but it was getting easier and faster with practice. She’d only messed it up once on the second try and Mandor had had to smash her arms free: the ‘quartz’ had become real.

Sarah’s cultural studies were coming along as well; she was quickly realizing that if she ever made it back to Shadow Earth America she would never take her country and its inherent freedoms for granted ever, ever again. Openly secretive and privately paranoid, Chaos had an extremely long, convoluted and very bloody history. The Courts had brutally conquered thousands upon thousands of shadow worlds in their immediate vicinity and subjugated many more in the dim past, taking entire populations for slave labor. Even now, ‘servant immigrants to Chaos’ outnumbered native Chaosians in the Courts proper about thirty-to-one. This number didn’t even take into account the hordes of small demons native to the Pit of the Abyss, the monumental landmark the City was situated at the very edge of, which they forcibly recruited for similar purposes, although, oddly, most of the demons didn’t seem to mind. What Sarah thought was peculiar was that she had never seen another living soul other than her guardian and her tutor so far. Mandor had to have servants - as head of the House of Sawall it would be socially expected of him, if nothing else - but Sarah had to reflect that she was still limited to the two rooms of Mandorways she had started out in and, now that she thought of it, they always seemed a little cleaner whenever she got back from her brief shadow-outings with Suhuy. Perhaps Mandor was not allowing her to mix society with them, which wouldn’t be terribly surprising.

To be blunt, culturally-speaking, native Chaosians on the whole were hopeless snobs, seeing themselves as the apex of evolution of all the worlds, superior to all other beings, complete masters of their own domain, the very collections of shadows they inhabited being deliberately altered to suit their individual tastes and maintained in this state by legions of labor. In spite of this outrageous stance - perhaps because of it - socially they were unfailingly polite almost to the point of being patronizing; it wasn’t your fault you were inferior, it was simply the way things were. Mandor actually wasn’t too bad this way as far as what Sarah had seen firsthand, but, now that she knew what to look for, she could definitely see it at times in Suhuy (who, by-the-way, had point-blank, very politely, refused to allow her to simply address him by his first name, and he was so nice about it she was almost ashamed that she’d even asked. Almost. They were that good.) Her tutor had, however, had begun to show up in his power form and stay that way during her lessons on the days when they were going to go out into Shadow, which was more than a little distracting at first but she couldn’t really fault him the decision; the Logrus seemed to shoulder the infirmity of his old age - he was much more able-bodied this way than in his humanoid form. It still made her a little nervous almost instinctively even though she knew perfectly well that it was him underneath, and to try to assuage her natural fear Suhuy showed up with the genuine article in tow one day, almost like a bizarre show-and-tell: a green-and-silver creature with bat wings and a somewhat comparable face but with fierce-looking fangs and claws, standing just about four-and-three-quarters-feet tall. His name was Gryll and apparently he had been in service with the House of Sawall for over six generations now, which really meant something with these people’s momentous lifespans; he was surprisingly intelligent and pleasant company, and was happy to show off some of his own small magics for Sarah’s benefit. This was still going to be an immense paradigm shift, but it seemed that even here - perhaps especially here - one was judged by one’s actions and not immediately by one’s genus.

The other thing that was changing, albeit more slowly, was the library. Finally aware of the beautiful illusion she had been obliviously living in for the past two months, it was fascinating watching the large room gradually morph back into its original form (‘natural’ was too strong of a word): black and deep jewel tones replaced the sunny faux-baroque theme (although the ceiling diorama was meticulously retained intact), smooth undulating line predominated in the furnishings, some of the furniture now looking nearly modernist. The smaller tables had commenced floating last week but at least they were still largely stationary, although Sarah had a brush with a little circular one near the fireplace that made her seriously wonder if they were at least partially sentient if not intuitive; she had been about to get up to get herself a drink and when she turned around the little table was right there with a filled glass on it! Speaking of floating, the mystery of the inconveniently-located staircase had been solved also: the risers could literally float independently of each other, and, if one was careful, they could easily be called over to carry a rider to whatever portion of the library the person desired to see. The stairs were rarely - if ever - used in their normal configuration. It was actually kind of fun, but Sarah was still working on getting the hang of it. In general the room felt less like a palace library and more like the sorcerer’s private study that it was. Her apartments were being left alone for the time being, the Order-friendly schematic being deemed more calming and a healthy respite for her mind. Sarah could have argued the point - the constant comparison was definitely more jarring mentally than just being immersed to adapt - but she had learned long ago that both Chaos lords thought that, in matters of their own expertise, they were right no matter what, and that such an exercise was pointless.

Although there were times late at night that she had to begrudgingly admit that they may have had a point, but the issue at hand was private and rather sore by now: the dark dreams had not abated. She seemed to have less of them gradually as time went on, but the ones she still had were becoming increasingly varied with her growing knowledge. The Logrus was simply a part of her now; she had accepted this. It almost seemed as if the Logrus itself was taking greater issue with the situation, incapable of assimilating Sarah’s inborn, immutable sense of Order, and was periodically just trying to psychologically squash it. The really terrible thing was she couldn’t tell anybody, although she had a sneaking suspicion that for all her efforts to conceal the distress (she had gotten rather skilled in this out of necessity) Mandor knew anyway; he kept making vague allusions in their private conversations that she could use to easily segue into the topic and discuss it if she so chose. To his blank amazement (and private consternation) she never did.

In all other matters, however, she held no secrets from him. In spite of his outside social requirements, Mandor was generous with his time and his company, sometimes helping her with her homework until odd hours. He seemed to have taken the idea of guardianship to heart, for he always seemed to be there right when she needed him, but his presence was never stifling. He was just there, always ready with a word of praise or encouragement or practical assistance, always ready with a listening ear or a crying shoulder if necessary, always pushing her to try just a little harder, be a little better. And she wanted to be - for his sake as much as for her own. She wanted to impress him, make him proud of her. It felt very strange, but Sarah slowly realized that she was beginning to perceive Lord Mandor Sawall almost like a surrogate father-figure. What was really wild about it was that it wasn’t truly overt but he owned it all the same. Sarah’s biological father on the other hand…she sighed.

Robert Williams really was a decent man at heart but he was also a weak-willed one; he seemed much more at ease with a strong woman around to run the show. It had been all right when her mom had been home. Sure, life had been crazy at times but it was a good sort of crazy, with late nights in the city and her mother’s friends from the theater dropping by at all times, sometimes even playing with little Sarah: painting her up in stage makeup or doing her hair just for fun, acting out scenes with her, dropping off bits of costumes that weren’t needed anymore for her toy box. As long as the company was quiet enough to let their daughter sleep at night, Robert hadn’t objected to any of it; he only wanted his wife to be happy. In fact, the only thing he ever openly objected to was Linda’s affair, and that had taken some nerve on his part. After her mom left, he had just seemed lost but it wasn’t only the grief. He didn’t understand what to do with Sarah at all, and the house just went to pot. He remarried a little too quickly by his daughter’s reckoning, to the first woman he met who could lead him about by the nose. Karen was decisive and efficient and had quickly put his life to rights, but she was neurotypical with a capital ‘N’, and extremely narrow-minded at that, and couldn’t stand creative/artsy types…like her new stepdaughter. Her level of parenting extended to about the depth of,

“You need to stop daydreaming your life away and figure out where you want to go to college so you can start writing for scholarships while there’s still time, and for pity’s sake, change into some regular street clothes!”

Sadly, the oddball Chaos lord she was currently residing with was better at real, ‘hands-on’ parenting than all three of Sarah’s parents put together. He had retained a little of his old formality around her but it didn’t strike her as personal distance anymore; she suspected that ultimately it was just a byproduct of his own upbringing.

There was one topic of discussion that she noted was never brought up at all, although it certainly wasn’t forbidden: the official religion of Chaos, the Church of the Serpent. As a major part of their history and culture, she’d had to learn about it. As powerful as the Roman Catholic Church in medieval Europe, everyone living in the Courts of Chaos was automatically a member, although levels of involvement varied considerably. The priests were forbidden to hold any public office, but their influence over the millennia was well-documented and, for all practical purposes, the Church was very quietly above the law. One certainly didn’t slight ‘the Great Serpent on the Tree of Matter’ in public and you might think twice about doing it in private. Sarah had read some of the texts and knew their basic tenets of faith but she wasn’t ready to buy it; perhaps she was biased by her Order background but it seemed to her that the doctrine was more than a little revisionist on several points. Suhuy had merely presented the information at an academic level, no more, and her host was not a terribly pious man (at least not demonstratively), the upshot being that the subject was never really pushed, which was, of course, fine.

If the old axiom about a human being able to unlearn a chosen behavior in three months’ time was true, then Sarah Williams was well on her way to breaking herself of nearly her entire life prior to coming to Chaos; so much of it felt like a dream or someone else’s life, and in a way it was. Her courtly manner was starting to feel natural as was the clothing and the small magics she could do on a regular basis; the formality no longer bothered her. Close to the three-month mark, Mandor finally relented and switched her rooms back to the way they really were. The water that came out of the taps shot in any direction she darn well pleased and the small bench from her vanity practically became a simple personal assistant. She was allowed more control in trump traveling, choosing destinations herself from the assembled deck, even to the point of limited shadow-walking, but still always accompanied and never anywhere populated (she was told it would be too dangerous this close to Chaos.)

This was the one nagging oddity about her tenure that she couldn’t ever get a straight answer about. Even with the little time in which she was actually left alone, the isolation was beginning to get to her. She began toying with the furniture in the library when nobody else was there, getting different pieces to fly around and act silly together for her own amusement. It was no secret that she was dying for varied company and, at length, Mandor personally inquired what Suhuy’s continued objection was for; surely they could find or make a close shadow with comparable people for her to interact with.

Lord Suhuy had simply sighed and said, “You’d better take a seat.”

The two men were in Mandor’s sea-bottom receiving room for privacy’s sake. An immense deep-sea gulper shot by the window just outside, doing what it did best.

“She’s right, of course,” Suhuy continued, pouring himself a drink. “If circumstances were any different I would have had you take her disguised into society weeks ago - she would certainly be capable of handling herself - but it appears that our little human experiment has a built-in detonator button.”

Mandor looked up from his glass. “Don’t even joke about something like that.”

“I am afraid this is quite serious, nephew. She has the energetic potential to become a very powerful weapon due to her particular set of Logrus-generated flaws in conjunction with her natural physiognomy. All it would take is the correct application of Logrus tendrils and a little personal boost. I know you find this kind of work unsavory but you must be made aware of the possibility.”

“And when had you really been planning on telling me about this, Uncle?”

“I only became certain myself within the last couple of days; I have been running a series of very discreet tests on her without her knowledge for the better part of a month now. I did not wish to speak prematurely and be proven incorrect. If you want to protect her, we must continue to keep her very existence a secret and pray that the Serpent does not see fit to use such a weak instrument in this manner.”

Mandor nodded gravely. “Then I must come up with an apt distraction for her; the child must be going spare in there in our absence. The other day I walked in unexpected and found her flying about the room ceiling-level at top speed on a riser from the staircase, balanced standing up!”

Suhuy just laughed, seating himself in one of the plush black leather chairs. “I believe humans call that sport ‘boarding’ - obvious - but there is usually an added prefix defining what surface is being ridden over, if not part of the device. Air-or-Skyboarding in this case, probably. Remember her youth, Mandor,” he admonished, “a real sport might peak her interest. Fencing, perhaps?”

“You may be right,” Mandor conceded, finishing his glass and setting it down on a drifting table, getting up. “I’ll speak to her about the possibility; I’m due back anyway.”

Mandor casually crossed the familiar grouped-aberration of space and time that he called home, making his way to the library. It had taken a while for him to adjust to the idea of there being a physical door in his house but now he automatically grasped the still-amazingly-solid handle. He would have to congratulate his Shadowmaster the next time he saw the man. Mandor reflected upon opening the door that he did not have to be physically near Sarah in order to feel her restlessness; it was plain enough in the fact that he always had to search for her when he came in after hours. But he was not expecting what met his eyes as he stepped into the room: his heart almost stopped when the large stuffed desk chair swiveled around and Dara Sawall was in it! His stepmother sported short, dark brown hair and was wearing one of her signature tunic-and-trousers outfits, red and black this time - classic. The woman was known to only wear skirts on special occasions, finding them too unwieldy for her regular mover-shaker-and-conniver lifestyle. Even a planned visit from his father’s second wife was not without a certain element of inherent danger. If she had run into Sarah…

“Dara! I did not anticipate seeing you here and unannounced! Have you been waiting long?”

To complete his bewilderment, the lady burst into laughter, applauding him.

“You should’ve seen your face!”

And then he recognized the voice.

“Sarah, that wasn’t funny in the least.”

She was still laughing though, the false features, body and clothes melting away until she was just herself once more. Mandor looked none too pleased.

“Oh, come on, I’ve been waiting all day to spring that on you! Aren’t you even just a little impressed I could pull it off?”

He simply vanished. She sighed.

“I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t mean to make you angry. Please come back!”

Silence. She must’ve really hit a nerve there; he’d never done it like that before. It was pointless trying to locate him with her incomplete Logrus-sight; if he didn’t want to be found, she couldn’t possibly find him. She stood up anyway, pacing away from the desk.

“Mandor?”

“There are rules about these things for a reason, precious,” came the crisp British-accented-English right in her ear! She gave a scream of surprise, just about jumping out of her boots, instantly turning, only half-believing until she saw…

The Goblin King was standing there in all his foreboding glory - cape, armor and all - and looking supremely pissed…but the dark expression melted into an oddly familiar, fond smirk.

“Mandor,” she exhaled, catching her breath as her hammering heart began to slow back down.

“It isn’t as amusing when the shoe is on the other foot, is it?” he answered in his own voice and language, making the apparition even more bizarre. “You’re lucky you only tried that with me; Lord Suhuy would have found a way to make you do penance. I trust we’ve learned our lesson,” he said sternly, beginning to change back.

“Wait! Stop!”

He looked up, surprised. “What’s the matter?”

“I just…you don’t have him right.”

Mandor relaxed, amused. “Very well. What’s amiss, then?”

Sarah stifled a smile. “He’s shorter than that.”

“That is true; I’d nearly forgotten.” The fake Jareth dropped four inches in height. “What else?”

Sarah stopped and thought a moment, trying to place it. “You’ve made him too young.”

Mandor nodded. “It has been a long time since I had any dealings with him. I do not know what he currently looks like but I can age the features generally.”

Sarah watched, astounded, as the terrible passage of time rapidly worked on the strangely handsome face, the nose growing longer, the skin losing elasticity.

“That’s too much! Take it back a bit, he only looks like he’s in his early-to-mid forties.”

“In human years, you mean. Just the beginning of age, then.” The biological clock seemed to run backwards until his hair turned light-blonde again and there were only slight wrinkles at the edges of the eyes and a stray line or two in the forehead.

“Right there - stop!”

Jareth’s ghost stood before her, lightly smiling; he took a quick, flourished mock bow. It made her feel strange, seeing such a gentle emotion on that face; she wondered if the real man was even capable of that and couldn’t resist walking a circuit around him.

“Is it really that much of an improvement, Sarah?” Mandor teased.

“No,” she laughed, flustered, “it’s just that before…I…”

Mandor intercepted her train of thought. “You didn’t have the leisure to actually get a good look at him while you were there. A chance to study your opponent in a sense.”

Sarah nodded, coming back to the front. “It’s just trippy seeing even this much of him again, that’s all. I never expected to.”

“Show’s over,” Mandor said quietly. Sarah was almost disappointed to see the alienly attractive features morph back into a face that she had been looking at day in and day out for months on end. He went and sat down at the desk.

“Did you talk to Lord Suhuy about my going out? Surely you must concede I am ready by now!”

“He is still refusing for the moment.”

Sarah gave a frustrated huff. “But why? There must be a reason which he refuses to tell me! Do you know?”

“It’s nothing you can help,” he replied a bit sadly. “Don’t fret over it; I’ll fabricate a retreat for you on my own, without his knowledge. In the meantime, how would you feel about learning to fence from me?”

The question took Sarah by surprise. “I think I’d like that, actually, but do you think there’s really enough floor-space in here?”

“Hardly; we’d be in the gymnasium, of course.” Mandor saw her eyes light up at the prospect and knew he’d have to have his Shadowmaster back over to attach the room to the library and free up more of his schedule accordingly. “If you desire physical exercise I am more than willing to provide it, especially if doing so means that you’ll stop risking your neck riding the staircase about,” he gave a frowning smirk.

“Hey, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!” she laughed.

He shook his head, still smiling. “Such behavior is not dignified for a man of my age.”

“It wouldn’t hurt you to loosen up a little every now and again. Who’s even here to object?”

“You hold a valid point. Perhaps you can show me how it’s done after you’ve finished your homework, but you must promise to stay closer to the floor in the future.”

She brought over a chair as she often did on nights like this, along with her books and study materials, and they both worked on opposite sides of the desk (it was large enough), him sometimes glancing over and giving her pointers, her sometimes asking him about his outside life - the nobles he’d been visiting, the minor political matters he was negotiating at the time, the other shadows in his holdings; he always obliged her with colorful, interesting stories as long as she kept working. But tonight her thoughts were elsewhere as she completed her history and metascience exercises and he seemed not to notice her relative silence. She was remembering the Labyrinth and the friends she had made on that crazy, dangerous shadow.

She wanted to go back.