FicWad

(David Bowie, Diamond Dogs: 'Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing' – yeah, it's a haul, but listen, especially the beginning…)

(Enya, Amarantine: Less Than a Pearl)

Chapter 8 – Worldfall

Sarah came back around quickly enough… to find herself tied to a wooden chair, with her arms bound behind it, her woolen cloak on the floor to her right, on a slightly raised wooden stage…

In time to witness Jareth – back in his more 'normal' clothing – standing at the edge, physically absorbing everything else that had been in the room, including the goblins! It was all dissolving, melting down, glowing like the fire-energy that it was; he was taking on that glow as he bodily sucked it into himself! Soon all that was left was the stage and the spotlight, in an empty, quiet rectangular black box!

There was no door now, either…

"Ah," he exhaled in obvious relief when the process was complete, the 'inner light' fading already as he turned to face her. "That feels quite a deal better. That scene was surprisingly easy for me to manifest, but this power-style is a bit foreign-feeling; I must confess I'm still in the 'learning curve', you would call it. Not bad for a beginner, though, eh?" he impishly grinned down at her!

"Is there any particular reason you're trying to give me heart failure?!" Sarah angrily screamed right in his face.

"Would you have voluntarily stopped to chat with a debt collector to whom you owed a great sum of money, when there was the chance that you might've been able to bail out by simply skipping town?" he idly put to her, her only response a furious glare. "I thought not. And besides, your reaction wouldn't have been so severe if you'd taken even a sip of your drink; there is method to the madness, Precious."

"Stop calling me that! I owe you nothing – you're not even the real Jareth!"

"Wrong," he stalked closer, "you owe me everything! I risked myself to save your life! And now I am here to collect, as well as to earn a considerable bounty by turning you and your contents over afterwards, since you chose to dishonor our agreement."

Who?!… oh, no. "Jasra," Sarah winced her eyes shut.

"You always were a bit slow on the uptake, but it's almost admirable how you keep on trying anyway," he only half-taunted, bending down to meet her eyes, resting his left gloved hand on his thigh as the fingers of his right brushed across the delicate blooms that still encircled her brow. "You even trimmed the present – how thoughtful," backs of his fingers strayed down her temple, across her left cheek; Sarah turned her head, snapping her teeth at them, but he easily pulled his hand away, tisking. "I'm beginning to think I should've drugged you while you were out; that's still an option if you won't play nicely," he commented with almost appalling casualness.

"How well do you play with grey barracuda-man aliens?!" she shot back. "A pod of them is probably about to break down the front wall any second now! Good luck on that one," she smirked bitterly.

"You will doubtless be relieved to hear that we are completely alone," he purred in her right ear, making her uncomfortable for reasons she was uncomfortable admitting! "This room is flying to the Keep of the Four Worlds even as we speak, but the transit is hardly teleportation. We have time," he uttered warmly with a suggestive smile, pulling back. "But why rush things? Let's see what other goodies you've brought me."

Sarah wasn't certain whether she was flushed more from anger or embarrassment as he sat easily on his heels on the floor in front of her, the stance uncannily similar to Mandor's, opening up her carryall bag. He carefully removed the bundled-up Dreamstone, stuffing it into his shirt-front after he'd unwrapped it to confirm it was the correct merchandise. "Really, you should be grateful to be getting rid of the bloody thing; just using it has obviously taken a few years off your life-span already," he confided with note of actual candor. "Better for it to be in the hands of someone who can direct its pull to something other than their primal life-force." The rest was emptied out onto the stage: there went the water canteen, the newspaper with the theater listing, Ghost's booklet, the carved caribou figurine – he 'pocketed' that one with the Stone, after 'feeling' it.

"Disappointing," he pronounced, casting the bag aside. "I thought for sure you would've had a spell book or some other manner of magical apparatus-"

"The geography book!" Sarah suddenly blurted out. "And the amethysts! I – !" she made an aggravated noise in her throat!

"Oh, dear me," Jareth looked as if he were trying very hard not to laugh. "And when and where, pray tell, did you lose them, Precious?"

Sarah was of half a mind not to say another word as she glared daggers through him… but if she was going to have any chance of retrieving that priceless tome…

"My hotel room," she ground out through her teeth, looking away, "under the mattress."

He did quietly chuckle, then. "Of course, you weren't thinking of being apprehended elsewhere," he added a bit patronizingly. "Were any of those items truly magical?"

"No," she sighed, "but the book was… a collection of shadow-maps, with 'walking' instructions."

His wild eyebrows shot up at that! "What language is it written in?!" he demanded, suddenly serious.

"Amberite Thari."

Her unwanted companion rather unaccountably relaxed. "From what I have seen of your world, Earth-humans are a curious lot in general, but not terribly imaginative when it comes to certain things. When it's discovered, they'll likely think it merely an obscure art book, a collector's item. It'll be on the auction block before you know it, then inhabiting an antique bookshelf in someone's private library for a couple hundred years, I expect, as the estate and associated properties keep getting handed down… unless someone decides to buy it for a university, with the outcome being almost exactly the same. I've no intention of attempting to go back for a mere curiosity, especially when the chances of it doing damage of any kind where it is are relatively low. The semi-precious stones are mundane also?"

She nodded, pursing her lips in self-disgust.

He suddenly leaned forward, tracing them with his thumb-and-forefinger!

"Don't do that unless you mean it, love."

"Stop it."

"Am I making you nervous, pet? Your natural reactions hardly project physical revulsion… wait." He had just noticed a bulge in the bottom of the bag that hadn't caught his eye with all that bulk on top of it. "Is this what I…" He picked back up the carryall and reached in, carefully taking hold of the smallish, smooth object, slowly lifting it out, almost as if he were afraid to drop it: it was her crystal orb! "Where did you get this?" he breathed, unable to tear his eyes from it!

"Originally? From the real you," she couldn't resist rubbing in. "But it's been through the Pattern trial with me; I'm not sure how it would work anymore. I'm frankly a little surprised that you can even touch it without it absorbing you on the spot, or something."

"It works as they all work," he answered, seemingly enthralled enough to have completely missed the personal digs, "as a single-use power item, one wish. This one's not very powerful, though; I can only guess as to what it was formulated for. It won't even get us to the Keep any faster," he sighed. Then met her eyes over it. "Which, I must confess, suits me just fine," he rested his left hand against her thigh, dropping the now-empty bag aside, moving in towards her face…

"How are you here at all?" she suddenly inquired, trying to keep her voice from faltering, nearly succeeding.

"So uncaring, Precious – we'll have to remedy that. But the witch offered me conditional continuance, provided that I accepted this commission; I wasn't exactly in the position to refuse, either," his lips brushed her cheek, his body too close as he leaned against her, but she shied away as far as she could, restrained as she was; he forcibly turned her back to face him. "There were also certain perks of the job that I found personally appealing." He gave a sudden sharp laugh, startling her. "What is it Earth-humans say, about being able to have everyone except for the one you truly want? Or is it everything? Business," he shook his head with a mocking smirk… but it wasn't directed at her! "The lady's not bad to look at," he shrugged, "I might even humor her, but I'd be there in body only, never fear," he crooned knowingly, lazily trailing his fingertips down the side of her neck, lower, tracing…

"And once you've all had your fun," Sarah spat bitterly, "do you really think she'll keep sustaining you? I know more about her than you do; she's killed off lovers in the past, when having them no longer suited her! And those were real shadow-people! How long do you think it will take her to become bored with a solid hologram? Or before she tries to reprogram you?!"

She involuntarily gasped a little shakily as Jareth leaned in, right next to her left ear, his wispy, trailing hair tickling against her collarbone!

"I'm sorely tempted to show you just how solid I am," he murmured, his lips moving against the delicate skin… but he unexpectedly gave a dejected sigh, which he was somewhat amused to see raised the hairs on the nape of her neck automatically! "But I'll admit the thought has occurred to me, also. I fully intend to make the best of a tight situation, however," he slowly kissed the back of her earlobe, down the side of her neck as his free left hand began to wander…

Sarah's mind was reeling, and not just from the sensation! What could she possibly do to even stall him?! And almost more importantly, how could she ever hope to stop Jasra from tinkering with the Dreamstone, in all likelihood compelling her just to utilize it! Sarah felt more trapped even than she'd felt in that oubliette! She frantically cast around mentally for something, anything!

"The crystal!"

"Mmm?" He hummed tunelessly against her skin, drawing his face forward again higher, resting his forehead and the bridge of his nose against hers, gazing deeply into her pretty, panicked green eyes.

She could scarcely think with him doing that! "It… it had been a… peach," she offered weakly.

"And a forgetting spell?" He pulled back slightly, kissing the very tip of her nose. "I think that could be arranged, love," he gave her a knowing little lip-smile. "Do you want it before, or after?"

"That wasn't what I meant!" she all but shrieked! "I mean… you asked… it was an edible spell, originally..."

"If this is an attempt at foreplay, you're dreadful," he answered levelly, removing her flower garland, casting it aside, "and if it's an attempt to stall, it's pathetic. Is this vague conversational gambit actually going somewhere, or did you merely intend to circle the block as many times as I would allow?"

"You don't have a backup plan, either!" she pressed ahead, undeterred. "We're both in the same boat, here only at someone else's sufferance! Oh, why can't you see that?! Doesn't it concern you at all?! Aren't you going to even try to do anything about it?"

"I was attempting to enjoy myself," he sighed, "but I suppose I should let you get this out of your system so that you can better relax; we have over six hours before we reach the Keep… long enough to change your mind about me," he traced the hollow of her throat with one finger. "I've never used coercion. I'll even play along, Precious, just to show you what a good sport I can be," he knelt down before her, his lips quirked into a smile, wicked intent dancing behind his eyes. "Go on, make your case; you have my undivided attentions."

Sarah took a deep breath that shuddered a little more audibly than she liked, wracking her brain for her Chaos-training; nothing would serve without the Logrus at her disposal, not even basic shielding spells! And her previous brilliant idea of using that crystal as her new power-object was clearly a bust; it wasn't even strong enough to accomplish much of anything, at that! If only there could be more time to think! To plan! But if she was silent for much longer, he would interpret it as a forfeit and… oh, if only one of the gods would come and stick their proverbial finger in her ear and zap her with the… answer…

"Don't tell me you've just figured it out," Jareth commented, irritatedly waiting, watching her expression of dawning comprehension. "I swear you have the worst timing of any Earth-human I have ever met in my life."

"… could you make a different edible spell with that thing, if I talked you through the preliminary steps?"

"Possibly," he replied guardedly. "That might depend upon what particular result you had in mind. I both understand and appreciate that there are certain spells which can be difficult to cast upon oneself, but if that's the hang-up we can work around that easily enough without the extra trouble. Why would it even have to be in that form? If you want any further help from me, I expect full disclosure this time. And extra… compensation, shall we say?"

"It has to be edible because we'd both be eating it," Sarah didn't even deign to acknowledge where this arrangement seemed to be going, as far as he was concerned!

Jareth actually hesitated – then smiled. "You don't think you can pull a fast one over on me quite that easily, do you? I'm going to require painfully specific information here before I'll even consider it," he commenced stroking her inner right calf through the woolen dress, his lithe fingers dandling about her knee.

"It's… do you mind?! You're making it even harder to concentrate than it already is!" she exclaimed, flushing furiously; he grinned, but let go. "Thank you! Now… have you ever heard of something called the Chaosian Coiling Enlightenment Spell?"

"Alas, no, but it sounds fascinating – do continue."

"It's a spell that works only when someone is asleep: it sends a person through the winding corridors of the subconscious and sometimes even the unconscious – places that are usually closed off to the waking mind – in a lucid state, that is remembered upon waking. Sometimes it even bears the hallmarks of true psychic experience and learning, though the case-by-case results can be difficult to predict."

"And you would intend to visit this upon yourself… and me?"

"I know you've already basically given up, but I can't, and it's not just for me! Don't you get that yet?" Tears were starting to accumulate in the corners of her eyes.

"The idea being to knock the answer loose in one of us, if there is one."

She mutely nodded.

"How long does this spell take to expend itself?"

"Only about two hours max, in one abnormally long dream-cycle, which is remembered clearly upon waking," she sniffed.

"And there are no aftereffects – hangover, and etcetera?"

"No after-effects." You cowardly bastard, you're afraid of your own medicine!

Jareth rose to his knees. "And if there isn't a way out? For both of us?"

"Then I'll… beg Jasra for help myself," she uncomfortably closed her eyes, unable to meet his. "The real world's apparently going screwy with this thing missing from where it belongs, and its starting to affect Shadow – you had to have seen those ghosts who were in here before me!" she looked back at him. "I've no idea what will happen if this goes on for much longer, they're so desperate to get it back! Even Jasra has to ultimately care about the overall state of Order; her world depends on it, too! You know, she might even be strong enough to go up against Dara, come to think of it, with the powers of the Keep to draw on," Sarah suddenly mused aloud.

"Dueling sorceresses? That sounds to be a good show," he conceded, beginning to smile at the thought. "Alright, you've convinced me, I'm in. What needs to be done?"

It took Sarah the better part of fifteen minutes to describe the spell in detail to Jareth, step-by-step, incantation by incantation; the formula had to be altered to fit his own current brand of unusually unaffiliated, almost prana-like power. Once it was determined to be both correct and finished, the construct was imposed within the crystal – no mean feat in itself, since the powers didn't quite mesh; it reminded Sarah of those two electrical settings on a hair dryer, to be changed depending upon which country one was plugging it into. There was one tense moment when it seemed the crystal might shatter from the strain, but at last the deed was done, and Jareth set about adding his own finishing touches. When Sarah saw what it was turning into, though, she interrupted him midway.

"Can you make it into an apple or something instead? That last peach tasted awful."

"It's going to taste strange no matter what fruit it resembles; it's not real food," he explained, "merely a corporal container at best."

"Just humor me."

Soon a ripe-looking gala apple stood in Jareth's fingers; he passed it under her nose so she could smell the luscious perfume. "There. Does this one pass muster?"

"Providing it works," she was still eying it with slight apprehension.

"Of course it will work; these always do." He was frowning, though.

"What is it?"

He didn't immediately answer her, but to her surprise he untied the ropes that bound her ankles to the chair!

"If we're not to be immediately separated in astral travel – which is what this operation suspiciously sounds like – then there needs to be skin contact between us, lots of it, preferably intimate, but torso should suffice, close to major organs."

"You are not feeling me up my dress! … untie my hands, too," Sarah huffed irritatedly.

Jareth eyed her with a high level of suspicion.

"I'm not going to shadow-walk out of here; I have no idea where I'd even run next, and I can't keep running. But if we have to do this… well… you already have exposed skin," she openly eyed his chest, revealed by his very-low-cut white poet's shirt. "Would it work if I…"

"Thought you'd never ask," he smiled congenially, walking around behind her, freeing her tightly-tied wrists, massaging them each in turn with his free hand (which, she noted, was now definitely ungloved,) kissing the pulse-point of the right one as she unsteadily came to her feet and turned around, still in his grasp.

A wine-colored, velvet chaise lounge had appeared behind them, just out of the beam of the spotlight, and she allowed him to lead her to it, doing her best to ignore the other obvious implications along with his bedroom-eyes, sitting down beside him. Without any warning at all, he took her left wrist and made her place her hand upon the pale, bare skin of his chest over his heart, pulling her close, wrapping his other arm around her as he lay down, pulling her on top of him with a smile.

She wasn't. "Don't get any funny ideas."

"Of course not. This is a vision-quest… at least until we wake back up. Ladies first," he held the juicy-smelling apple up to her lips.

Hold the phone – this is begging for date-rape! She shook her head… yet took the apple. "Together. On the count of three?" she forced him to sit back up. He put his hand over her own upon the fruit as she turned it sideways, feline amusement clear in his eyes. "Well, here's to saving the real Big Apple."

"Here's to your charming Snow White complex," he quipped back.

"One…two…three!"

Their faces came together, to the fruit, biting huge chunks out of it on opposite sides, the remainder discarded on the floor as they lay back down, quickly chewing, swallowing… the room was blurring, shimmering…

…warm skin, beneath her hands… smooth hands sliding down her back, through the neck-yoke of her dress…

… Stairs. She was descending a long, open, spiral staircase in a black void… no middle column, no banister… like yet not unlike that brief, unnervingly dangerous-looking flight in the Ways of Sawall, save that these rises were thankfully connected!

"A trifle heavy-handed with the obvious euphemisms," she heard a cynical male voice comment at her back, and glanced over her shoulder: Jareth was walking just a pace behind! "Hopefully the scenery will improve once we get wherever this leads to."

"Oh, take it easy, we've barely even started yet!" she exasperatedly rejoindered, looking where she was going again. "Although I'm wondering myself just what form this is going to take, with both of our subconsciouses conglomerately influencing what we're about to see here."

"Play it as it's dealt, I suppose," he shrugged. "I doubt anything that happens to one in a state like this really matters, anyway."

The continued downward spiraling truly felt trancelike after a while; Sarah lost conscious track of where she was, who she was, what she was doing, the form completely taking over her mind… but eventually it did end – which was something of a surprise when it happened – terminating in an endless greystone wall with an open iron gate…

Sarah shuddered in recognition, abruptly self-aware again.

"It can't be," she shook her head.

"It isn't," her companion calmly noted, walking up to and touching the near wall. "Do you feel anything?"

"No."

"Exactly. This is just mental furniture; with me along for the ride, this form is probably inevitable. Shall we?"

They stepped through, into the eerily familiar dank-and-mildewy, eternal-looking brick hallway – the one with the trick openings.

Sarah gave a humorless little laugh. "Well, this is your old stomping grounds. Which way do you think we should take?"

Jareth seemed to be considering the matter somewhat dubiously. "I strongly suspect that our way forward may be entirely arbitrary. I'll even bet that headtrip of a staircase is already gone. Nothing here exists beyond what we're currently looking at."

Sarah couldn't resist a backward glance the way they came: he was right!

"We might as well follow opposite paths," he continued, "so as not to interfere with each other's revelations. You're familiar with the branching path to the right; I'll take the one to the left. See you on the other side," he began to pace away.

"Wait! Don't…"

He stopped, turning back, the beginnings of a sly smile playing about the edges of his mouth. "Don't tell me you're scared, Precious – this was entirely your idea. I wasn't going to leave you alone, remember?"

"It's just… if anything should go screwy here, we'll probably be safer if we stick together."

He was smirking as he strode back over to her, taking her hand.

"If I didn't know better-"

"You do."

They continued on in silence for several yards, then Jareth began testing the walls on either side with his free hand… then again further down… a hundred paces later… His hand never passed through.

"I think we've taken the wrong passage," he finally commented, "perhaps we should attempt to go back and try the other-"

"Hold on a sec… does that vanishing point on the horizon look real to you?"

Sarah advanced another seventy feet… and came face-to-face with a photo-realistic wall! Curious, she pushed against the edges; the left side swung open easily.

"Clever," he muttered appreciatively, following her in-

-to a stone corridor, lined with Helping Hands holding thick tallow candles – mostly straight – at regular intervals on either side, a starless black void framing the tableau above!

But those walls were covered in mirrors: big, small, all shapes, all frames, glass tints, distortions even, in an equally never-ending parade!

"Enforced self-introspection," the energy-double of the former Goblin King regarded himself in a thin, floor-length reflecting glass framed opulently in gold filigree. "If this was all you had in mind, I could've saved us both a lot of trouble and just conjured up a magic mirror."

"This seems familiar to me for some odd reason," Sarah studied her reflection in a sizable oval amid dark branches like a nest, "but I can't quite place it; I'm sure I would know in an instant if I was awake. Something about having to look into all of them as you pass by."

"A form of self-hypnosis?"

"Not quite. We'll know when whatever-it-is happens, but it won't right away. Come on."

Regardless of its rugged appearance, the hallway grew comfortably warm as they continued on along it, studying the mirrors on either hand.

What is it about this place? Was it something I learned? Sarah was trying to remember, but it was so hard trying to concentrate on anything in here! I must have… it's almost like the art gallery in the Ways of Sawall… but…

"The only way through here is through one o' these mirrors!" a thick Scottish brogue abruptly announced from the right, making Sarah jump!

"That's right!" a second Liverpudlian voice added.

"Ah," Jareth stepped up to the white-and-sky-blue checked tall rectangular frame: within was one of the pairs of goat-faced guards in the Labyrinth that had reminded Sarah of playing cards, with the way the second one was sticking out underneath, hanging on upside-down to their heavy-looking heraldic rectangular shield! "The truthful pair," he mentioned aside to Sarah, "this might actually be worth something. Hello, Albert, Tom," he greeted the images of his servants imperiously.

"Your Majesty!" they both straightened as far as that was going to happen, and saluted on cue.

"And it's Alistair," the upright Scot added sheepishly, ducking back behind his shield, peeking out from behind.

"Whatever," the king callously brushed the matter aside. "Am I to take it that you're here because you have something to tell me about this specialized labyrinth I happen to find myself in at the moment?"

"Ooh, yes, sire! We felt it our duty to warn ye we've ne'er seen the like, have we now, Tim, lad?"

"Indeed not! This place is queer, is what! Practically anything could happen!"

"You'll be needin' all your powers and your wits, sire! But ye must know what ye'er doing to be here; good luck to ye! And to your companion – the lass looks familiar…"

"Good day, then, Alphaeus, Jim – keep up the good work."

"Long live Your Majesty!" they saluted in unison with the proper level of patriotic enthusiasm.

"His hearin' ain't right, that's what," Tim could be heard muttering as the pair vanished from sight. Plain mirror again. Jareth glanced sideways at Sarah.

"Perhaps you might know what you're doing after all, in this instance," he grudgingly admitted, offering her an arm; she took it, continuing on. "We'd both best keep a sharp eye out… then again, if you set about looking for trouble lucidly in a place like this, you just might find it," he ruminated.

"You do realize how incredibly rude and hurtful it is when you never get someone's name right, don't you?" Sarah suddenly felt the need to speak up, "especially when they're loyal subjects like that?"

"You try keeping over five-hundred interminable creature's names straight; some of them are only animal noises," he shook his head. "Besides, it hardly matters, seeings as they're not real people; the vast majority of them couldn't even exist outside of the construct of the Fixed Logrus."

"You're not real, either," she coldly pointed out.

"You just have to keep harping on that point. One of these-"

"It would seem," a familiar, cultured male voice interrupted him in Thari, "that the surest sign of a trouble-prone Patterner is that they all wind up traversing the Hall of Mirrors sooner or later."

That's it! Sarah thought in blank astonishment, suddenly looking around a lot more closely! The realization was a sobering one: the phenomenon had first been recorded as occurring on the fourth floor of Castle Amber itself, running between two walk-in utility closets, but the place seemed to have developed almost a mind of its own, appearing and disappearing on confirmed Pattern initiates in various localities in recent years, even in dreams like this one! And it certainly was dangerous – the unwary truly could lose themselves mentally to the effects; there were a few well-reported deaths associated with the Hall! But, if one was extremely careful (and lucky), the place could be of genuine prophetic value, referencing many minds for wisdom and insight, though whether that referencing came from within the viewer or the outside worlds was still up for debate, likely never to be resolved.

Sarah cautiously approached the black-painted one-by-two foot portrait oval anyway: it contained Mandor Sawall!

"Are you alright?" she uneasily queried him in Thari. "Did you…"

"Did I what, Sarah?"

"…nothing, nevermind," she sighed, almost in relief; perhaps this phantom wasn't aware of what had happened between them recently!

"You are making a very foolish and rash mistake, in thinking you can return the Dreamstone yourself," he coolly continued. "You've already refused my assistance. My retinue will be waiting to intercept you at the Keep – yes, I know of where you are going; I'm even on relatively good terms with the sorceress who currently holds the place. But don't expect me to openly help you again."

His aspect was terribly cold!

"They why would you even come to warn me that you're about to pick me up anyway, no matter what happens here?!" she asked, scarcely believing how he was acting!

He blinked, and the ice in his far-apart eyes thawed by a single degree. "I would think this is just a manifestation of your subconscious wish for an idealized father-figure to come and clean up your mess for you. You've lost the grace to ask me that. Figure it out for yourself." His gaze shifted, suddenly regarding Jareth with something akin to a sort of startled surprise. "How did you ever get out of that Ways, to wind up here?!"

"Is that what you did with me? House-arrest?" Jareth suddenly laughed. "I'd wondered where I'd gotten off to – whether I was still unraveling psychologically in the web of the Fixed Logrus you'd set me up in, or whether I'd broken free. I choose to take this sending as a good omen, you congenial, blue-nosed bastard – that I can still catch you unawares!" he forcefully pulled Sarah away, striding quickly down the Hall!

"What did you do that for?!" she wrenched her arm free of his grip, looking back… at empty rows of her own reflection in a bizarre collection of funhouse mirrors, all framed in a garish assortment of florescent pigments with polka-dots.

"He wasn't about to help either of us, and it's been ages since I've had the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind – gods, that felt good! How in the worlds do you know him?! What was he to you?"

Sarah couldn't meet his eyes, looking rather at the hundreds of reflections of the pair of them, and the reflections of reflections that surrounded them on all sides. "He was my tutor, in magic and other subjects."

"You're well rid of him," Jareth noted seriously, reaching for her hand, gently taking it, "he's far too duplicitous and untrustworthy. Take it from someone who knows."

Sarah irritatedly plodded along after him in silence for almost a full minute-and-a-half, past chintzy junk shop broken mirrors and frames, interspersed with gold-flecked reflecting glass and rococo shell-patterns that could've come from a palace! But the way suddenly dead-ended in a glass wall; Jareth nearly walked straight into it!

"That shouldn't be there," Sarah observed warily. "Now what?"

"I can try to blast it open; stand back," Jareth waived her behind him, letting go, the glow of his power beginning to coalesce around him. The barrier was so well-polished, the lighting such a uniformly warm, near-omnidirectional glow, that it had been completely invisible at only five feet away! Glancing about, something decidedly unusual caught Sarah's eye: a low trapezoidal-shaped mirror near the floor, framed with peacock feathers, showed not themselves and the section of the Hall that they currently stood in, but a different hallway altogether, running perpendicular, which, upon closer inspection was also lined with mirrors!

"Jareth, wait! Look," she pointed the anomaly out to him. Bright brows furrowing, he got down on his hands and knees to further examine it, reaching for the surface of the glass: there was none! He chuckled.

"Come along, then, Alice Liddell," he replied wryly, crawling through the opening into the new section, Sarah following right after his boots.

Neither of them saw the animalistic stirring in the darkness beyond the wall of glass…

Standing up to explore, this section appeared to be much more like the outer corridors of the true Fixed Logrus, with the winding stone walls that ran in crazy configurations all over the landscape. Only these were peppered with mirrors – a rather striking sunburst one with crystal points was just around the corner, followed by a whole set of various glass-tints in mismatched frames.

"Sarah? It can't be…"

Sarah turned into a dead-end alcove to the left, following the direction of the painfully familiar female voice… and was faced with a vision of her own mother, framed in carved white roses, behind a faint pink tint!

"Mom? Mom!" Tears spontaneously stood in her eyes as she jogged up to the circular glass; to her amazement, her mother's hand passed through the palpable barrier to hold her cheek! Sarah embraced it, kissing the warm palm, openly crying.

"No, don't weep for me, sweetheart," Linda Williams stroked her daughter's brow with her slender, soft left hand, "everything's alright; I'm happy where I am."

"But I need you so bad!"

"Oh, Sarah," her mother sighed fondly, "you haven't needed me since you learned to tie your own shoes and make yourself sandwiches. I was never much of a mother to you – I know that now – but you were always so determined and independent, and I didn't want to stand in your way, trying to do everything for you. Doing things for yourself is how you learn."

"That's not the only kind of need there is! I needed you to be there!" she sobbed. "Oh, Mommy…"

"I'm here now," her mother said firmly, stroking her hair. "What's wrong? What's going on?"

"I…I don't know that I can even explain," Sarah sniffled, "but I might be in a lot of danger and I don't know what to do!"

"Is the danger avoidable?"

She shook her head no.

"Then just do what you absolutely must – and get out of the proverbial crossfire as quickly as you can. And try not to do whatever it was again; chalk it up to experience and move on… Oh, I miss you, too, but I don't want to be seeing you joining me in this state any time soon. Now go live your life and be happy. I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too, Mom. Forever." Sarah reached through the barrier without thinking, hugging her tightly through the aperture, against it.

Jareth found her in the alcove with her eyes closed, in the process of sobbing them out, hugging herself, alone.

An unexpected warm hand resting on Sarah's shoulder brought her to her senses – and upon opening her eyes she was bewildered to find the mirror empty! Had it only been a hallucination, then? She worked to bring her emotions to rein, suddenly self-conscious.

"You never told me," he said quietly.

"When would it have come up?" she forced a bitter laugh, wiping her eyes dry with the heel of her left palm, turning back toward the obscurely zigzagging path.

Twenty long paces later there was a divide in the road that hadn't been visible upon the approach; both sides appeared to be almost identical, 'almost' because no two of these mirrors were ever alike.

"Alright," Jareth exhaled, "you pick this time. Which way are we going now?"

"…when you come to a fork in the road, take it," Sarah thought out loud, not certain why that odd quote had come to her. Why did this feel so familiar?"

"Pardon me, but the dream's obviously getting to your lucidity faster than it is mine; you're not making a whole lot of sense, Precious," her companion observed almost with a touch of concern. "Perhaps I'd better pick-"

"The passage to the right! Come on!" she suddenly exclaimed, grinning broadly, pulling him after her! "I think I know who's next, if only I can-"

"Well, well, didn't think to see you around these parts," an unfamiliar middle-aged scrawny/wiry man in sage's robes that were covered in woven constellations, amulets and charms hailed Jareth down in a rather debased form of Thari. "Did Mistress Death finally come to lay your blackened soul?"

"Hardly, Rhom," he approached the shrewd, dodgy-looking character, "though she might be laying my true body as we speak."

The other cackled a harsh laugh. "Whatever you've been through, you haven't changed for the worse."

"You've not altered for the better."

"Enough! Ask what you've come to oracle of me and then be on your way; Selene rises from her watery bed, to mount the night sky – soon I shall hold her and her powers in my tender embrace," he pantomimed holding someone, stroking long phantom hair.

"Any woman with a shred of sense would know to avoid you, certainly a goddess – but go on, play with your powers, pretending they are not playing with you in truth. But as long as you're here anyway, I'll ask: if you had a priceless bauble fall into your lap but there was a considerable reward for returning it, what would you do?"

"Me? What kind of a reward are we not-quite-hypothesizing?"

"Not a financial one – something far more basic that might even be dispensable, the more I think about it just now."

"Screw it – go find yourself a better deal: barter or sell the thing and take your hard-earned winnings and run."

"What if it were something a bit more… Armageddonish?"

"Ask for more; run faster, party harder. What is it, if I may inquire? And who is that sweet little delicacy you have following you?" he eyed Sarah hungrily.

"None of your damn business," Jareth muttered, shepherding his young companion out of the reach of an overt lech; the itinerant sorcerer had stretched his right arm out of the frame to touch her hair, but missed by a foot.

"Who was that?" Sarah asked some yards later, metallic frames glittering about them in the candlelight.

"A man with whom I was once acquainted much earlier in life. I should've just kept right on walking; he was always a second-rate sorcerer and a fifth-rate person."

"I'm sorry you don't have better friends than that."

Jareth just looked at her disbelievingly for a beat or two as they paced on, but he said nothing, eventually looking away at more mirrors. After a few more seconds, Sarah took the lead again, cutting across two perpendicular branching passages as if she actually knew where she was going, checking the right wall the whole time. Heavy stone frames – mirrors that were more like sculptures with a bit of reflecting glass in the centers – were coming up fast. One long, rectangular one had ornamental green-men spouting leaves in all four corners… and a fashionable doppelganger of herself was staring out of it at her!

"Whoa! Who the heck are you, and why do you look so much like me?! Am I dreaming?"

Sarah stifled her joy at getting to see Shara Wilkins again, thinking fast. "You are dreaming right now. I am the personification of your repressed creative side. The world is much larger, richer and more magical than you are consciously willing to admit, but you know in your heart-of-hearts that it's true. The library is your friend. Try trolling the school role-playing club for dates; a lot of the guys in those associations are just dying for the chance to be some girl's knight-in-shining-armor, really sweet."

"Since this is my dream, I guess I have to accept this – I took a psychology course in school last year for a sociology requirement; I know a little about Jung now. Hey, who's the hot rocker dude?" Jareth had approached the frame out of curiosity, and was clearly now within her range of stimuli.

"Jareth, King of the Goblins, the personification of your desire, at your service, miss," he reached through the barrier, taking Shara's right hand by the fingertips and kissing them, making her giggle and blush hard! "Should you ever wish to see me again, all you have to do is-"

"Read lots of young-adult fantasies!" Sarah butted in. "You might actually like the Bordertown anthologies; they're pretty new. There are punk elves in there."

"Wow… um, thanks," Shara laughed. "Bordertown, Bordertown… I think I'll be able to remember that."

"I know this is sort of an off-the-wall question," Sarah added, "but… do you feel like you have any advice for me? There's a reason I'm here; we can help each other."

Shara couldn't tear her eyes away from Jareth's bright mismatched ones. "Don't be afraid to flirt to get what you want. Man, I wish I could come with-"

"Sleep now," Jareth commanded, passing a hand across her face; as she faded from view – her unfocused eyes drifting closed – he turned back to Sarah. "If you don't want me interfering in your plans in the future, don't interfere in mine."

"Oh, for-" Sarah finally just sighed. He was a certifiable nut, that was all there was to it. There was no point in trying to talk sense into crazy.

…twists and turns, shells and gemstones, beautifully cast gold and silver, hammered copper plating with rusty iron nails…

"Don't go on!"

"Go back while you still can!"

"This is not the way!"

"Take heed and go no further!"

"Beware! Beware!"

"Soon it will be too late!"

And a whole hall-section of Phony Alarm rock-faces, all bellowing their gloomy forecasts behind glass at the same time in booming cacophony! Jareth openly laughed his head off all the way to the sharp turn in the hall where they ended!

"They're a very good sign," he finally confided in Sarah with a wink once they were past them.

"YOU!" an anguished male voice roared!

Sarah jumped, clutching her chest, warily peering ahead with the sudden sinking feeling that perhaps the warning hadn't been so superfluous after all… When she edged toward the filled glass – the frame tilted as if hung incorrectly, covered in white padding that instinctively made her nervous – she could scarcely believe her eyes, and her companion actually restrained her from stepping any closer as her eyes widened in comprehension, amazement, pity and terror:

It was Jareth! The real one! He looked haggard, with dark circles about his reddened, sleep-deprived eyes, his garments threadbare, his face shockingly gaunt! A wild sort of rage burned almost out-of-control behind his bright, mismatched eyes; he lunged for her beyond the glass, but his energy-double wrapped an arm about her chest, hauling her out of the way in time!

"You ruined me, you pathetic little brat! Come, let me show you how I have changed," a note of insanity crept into his voice as he beckoned; Sarah started moving toward him against her will, but her companion held her fast!

"I don't claim to know what happened here," her Jareth uttered calmly, fearlessly meeting his own gaze, "but we still had freewill the last time I checked. If there were ruinous choices to be made, that responsibility and guilt rests upon your own shoulders. Yours alone."

"I would have never done it! I would have bided my time-"

"We were going mad anyway," the other roundly rejoindered. "Whatever happened obviously just hurried things along for you."

"Mandor!" Jareth shrieked in open terror! "I knew not what torture was! Losing my sense of self, my memory, living a half-experience, constantly distracted by interminable, hollow pleasures or drugged, drowning in opulence-"

His double burst into laughter! "Oh, yes, that sounds like a truly terrible private hell! How many women did he grace our harem with? It doesn't sound like such a bad way to retire!"

"To not know-"

"What came before? What we went through for centuries? A kindness… that is, unless you wake up from it, I suppose. How did that happen, anyway?"

The former Goblin King glared daggers at Sarah.

"Oh…" his doppelganger quietly chuckled, stroking Sarah's hair. "All right, Precious, what did you do this time?"

"I didn't do anything! I've no idea what he's raving about!"

"Think. What all did you do with the Stone, when you unintentionally summoned me into existence? I'm not quite that thick; I've known for some time now that it was accidental."

"You want an accident?" his original threw a crystal at them, but his double countered it with a showy blast of fiery energy, exploding it before it could turn into anything!

"Think faster!" he urged Sarah. "I don't want to be here with this one much longer!"

"I told you I don't know! All I…" She quietly gasped, realizing her terrible mistake, the fallout from a single charitable thought, a moment's gratitude. "I wished him – you – well," she winced her eyes closed. "I would've never dreamed-"

"You've never done anything but dream!" the Jareth in the mirror rapidly shot back, starting to try to climb out! "By the time I'm finished with you, you won't even know when you're awake, let alone who you are!"

"Sarah, get back!" his double ordered her, shoving her aside, readying fire-filled crystals in both hands – but before he could throw them, his original threw one first! It ricocheted off the wall and into another mirror before turning into a huge boulder; it crashed through the glass with a rumble, but kept right on going, straight past and into the mirror just across the hall parallel, absorbing, vanishing! Her Jareth had fired his missiles effectively, however, knocking the other of himself back into the mirror – a hand shot out a second later, catching him by his long hair, literally hauling him off his feet, viciously dragging him inside!

"Catch!" she heard one of them yell just before she lost sight of him for a moment… and the bundle of fabric that held both the Dreamstone and her carved caribou was chucked back out of the mirror; the pitch was too high, too hard from being thrown almost blindly, and it sailed straight through the glass of another mirror, kitty-corner across the Hall!

"NO!" Her lunging grasp was a minute late and a mile short! The Stone was…

"Lose something, Patterner?" a deep alto voice inquired.

Sarah blinked and looked up, still hearing the sounds of the fracas going on behind her: standing in an inverted triangular frame of malabar carved into red flames, was the form of a feline-reptilian creature with protruding, serrated, razor-sharp jaw-fangs and ruddy-auburn fur! Yet the dark-brown eyes were startlingly familiar, as was the expression… A sharp-clawed 'hand' dangled the bag within the mirror before her teasingly!

"Fortunately for you, neither I nor my House have any enterprises that would benefit from inciting the end of the current way of things, but I know not what your own motives are – turncoat."

"Gilva Hendrake?!"

The alien features lost their amusement. "Do not address me so informally, shadow-girl; we weren't exactly on intimate terms to start out with. What is your intent with the Soul of the Eye of the Serpent, that you carry it about?" she demanded imperiously.

"To return it to its rightful place, in Tir-na Nog'th – I guess that's its rightful place at the moment."

"And you are not working for either of the Orders in doing this?"

"Well, I'm working for Order if I'm trying to restore things to the way they were – can't deny that – but I'm not taking orders from any particular power at present. Does that satisfy you?"

Gilva gave her a rather stern sideways glance… but tossed her the bundle with a rueful smirk. "I am a soldier by training, not a prognosticator, but at least you had the courage to come here." A sudden burst of colorful light erupted inside the mirror where the two Jareths were currently duking it out – one just dashed past the 'window', but Sarah would've been hard-pressed to say which! The stimuli caught Gilva's attention also, and the demonformed lady slowly smiled, revealing the rest of her teeth, like a drawer of steak-knives! "You even had the decency to provide me some entertainment for my time and trouble – that's a rather inept shadow-sorcerer battling an energy construct of himself, isn't it?"

"Yeah. I'm officially striking the Shadow-Earth colloquialism 'things can't possibly get any weirder' from my future conversations from now on," Sarah shook her head, watching in disbelief: was that a body-slam she just heard? Grappling skinny forms shot by again!

"My money would be on the construct; he seems to have limitless power at his disposal somehow."

Real flames singed the top of the white-padded frame!

"Uh… have any idea what would happen in this place if one of them manages to…"

"It feels as if, if the man wins he will absorb the construct's power, but if the construct wins he will take on the man's corporality and personhood: win-win, I'd say. Who are you rooting for?"

Sarah sighed. "Both of them. Neither. I'm the reason they're fighting, apparently… the energy guy," she finally conceded, even though it still felt sort of terrible to say it out loud.

"Boys will be boys," Lady Hendrake shook her head, arms akimbo. "Always remember that girls are better. But you still walk in danger; only a fool would go unarmed where you intend to. Here," she loosened something below where Sarah could see… and offered her a heavy, sheathed rapier, pommel-first! The inch of exposed steel was dark, with a Chaosian damask-style design baked into the metal! "Go on, take it; I have many others. Wield it with honor in my memory. Be strong."

"Your unbidden generosity will not be forgotten, Lady of Chaos," a baritone voice resounded from further down on the left-hand side, "but it is not necessary. Wield it, rather, in the memory of this night."

"Carl!" Sarah dashed toward… the exact silver-chased gaudy frame that had been around Prince Corwin's portrait in the prison-shrine! He just gave an irritated sigh upon seeing her.

"You're too easily duped, kid," he pronounced, crossing his arms. "If you'd been mine, I would have drilled a little more common sense into you by now. Haven't you ever heard the old Shadow Earth Buddhist proverb: 'If you ever see the Buddha, kill the Buddha'? When someone shows up claiming to be God, you shoot first and ask questions later if they're somehow still standing there intact afterwards! Guess that'll have to be filed under 'future reference'."

"I'm sorry," Sarah sighed, not even questioning how he had known this, "but my trumps got destroyed years ago, and Merlin's never given me another of himself; I couldn't contact anyone while it was happening even if I'd wanted to!"

"I'd rectify that as soon as possible then, if I were you; grovel if you have to. The next time I see you, you'd better be carrying at least one. To be mixed up in our business is usually the only lifelong affair any of us has ever known; just try to be careful so that life isn't short."

Sarah nodded. "I understand, I'll try harder. …in case you hadn't noticed, your highness is on display in the Hall of Mirrors," she added awkwardly. "Was there anything you feel compelled to tell me? I'm not trying to be bossy or disrespectful or anything; it's just what I've heard about the place."

The prince – whichever version of the man he was – looked up and away thoughtfully for a moment.

"I think the Pattern Herself is going to be sending in reinforcements on your behalf – this is that important: it will be the only woman I would have ever trusted with my life, and a man whose honor I would have doubted in any lesser scenario – and that's all you need to know," he looked back to her. "Definitely trust the woman, but respect them both. I'd come myself, but I'm detained by my own affairs in Corwinia at present," he confided with a sharp little glint in those impossible emerald eyes. "I can't speak for my Pattern-ghost, however – yeah, you got the genuine article this time; he's filled me in on you," the prince suddenly smiled, shaking his head. "What will those crazy, freewheeling Powers of ours think up next? Watch your front as well as your back – hell, go Amber-native and include all the cardinal directions as well as above and below in that trite warning."

"Thanks. Any idea if I can turn up your son in here? I should probably be talking to him, too; he seems to be my liaison these days."

"I believe," a different male voice, coming from an oval rose-gold frame with hammered leaves, addressed her, "that you will find the current king of Chaos thirty-five mirrors down on the right-hand side, past the next turn. Avoid getting sucked into the tunnel, if you can," he added tauntingly with a devious smile. Red hair, red beard, with eyes like blue fire…

"Thank you, my lord," Sarah replied to Prince Bleys as she paced past with a slight nod of acknowledged respect.

"Do not be so hasty to dismiss an oracle!" he called after her; she turned back, but he was already gone… and it finally hit her for the first time that she was alone in here. She almost shuddered at the thought – then thought of the Jareths again. One way or another, terrible as it was, he would be free at last; she could only selfishly hope that the one who wouldn't be out for revenge would come out on top…

She gasped as the rest of the thought blossomed: how had he had the bag with the Dreamstone in it on his person in here in the first place?! That could mean…

"All is illusion, little shadowling," an ancient voice rasped: it was Dworkin in a frameless distortion mirror that made his weathered old face unnaturally large! "Do not allow yourself to be troubled by the fact. Rather, think how it suits your advantage. That was the rest of Bleys' message. Now, as one of my grandsons would doubtless remark, were any of them present, something is rotten in the City of Ghosts: be about your business quickly. I might even surprise you, with the end of this round." His grin was ghastly, unnerving… but Sarah waited this time. "What are you standing there gawking at an old man for?! Be off!" he irritatedly shooed her away, shuffling out of view, muttering to himself.

He never claimed to be God… Sarah mused, nervously fingering the Dreamstone, feeling her energetic connection with it even here. Alright. Somehow, at some level, this was real, she finally conceded to herself. She didn't have to understand it; she just had to remain consciously aware of the fact.

Sarah suddenly remembered the other odd piece of advice… and started to count mirrors; she'd already passed four. Pacing along at a good clip, she was tallying on her fingers so that she wouldn't be distracted into forgetting what number she was on. The frames were getting progressively more bizarre with each turning in the corridor – she had just passed one that was a miniaturized aquarium with tiny live fish swimming around inside! Clockwork gears that moved and ticked, live moss moist with life, a collection of dried, bleached bones from some unknown animal, alien fur that was a deep-cobalt in hue – that one made her sneeze! This was ridiculous! And, repeated over and over and over, her face in various profiles, her hair, the green of her dress, the shading all a bit warmer in the soft, golden light. She was likely lucky to have had Jareth's conscious imprint over this: the true Hall ran in an eternal straight line, the monotony of the course eventually mesmerizing.

She hadn't seen any faces for quite some time – could she be nearing the end? And once she was there, then what? Where the heck was she?! Sarah was beginning to even doubt that her body was still in that black box of a room…

And what about Jareth?! The contradiction hadn't even occurred to her until just now! It was almost like…

Like being in that enchanted ballroom – then waking up several miles from where she had passed out with that drugged peach! Darn him, this was real! He'd formulated it wrong for it to just be a vision; his normal modus operandi with these obviously involved a transport spell!

Which meant she could be anywhere. Sarah hurried, zagging left three times before zigging to the right twice. She had to find Merlin: somehow everything would be all right as soon as she located him!

…27…28…29…

There was a veritable congregation of whispering coming up, a flowing rushing sound like wind or water, indistinct yet becoming slightly clearer as she drew nearer. When she finally saw where it was coming from, she literally sank to her knees: there was an absolutely gigantic, high stone-vaulted perpendicular corridor that ran on as far as the eye could see in both directions, well-lit with long rows of cut crystal chandeliers that hung from the ceiling, reflecting rainbows sparkling everywhere along with the beautiful light – not dim like the open-roofed Hall she had been passing though!

But, impressive as it was, this was not the main thing that Sarah had reacted to: the walls were covered with scads of mirrors from ceiling-to-floor… and they were all filled with different images of her! Some of the scenes that she could make out in the left corridor instantly brought happy tears to her eyes: she was younger in them – a child – and her parents were still together! The reflections were all things that had happened to her, with her! There was a carved inscription in the white marble flooring, in a beautifully flowing Thari script, embossed with gold: 'Reminiscence Joyous' it would have translated in idiomatic English. Beyond that was a plush red runner-carpet that had never been trod by anyone, brand-new, waiting for her!

Tearing her eyes away, she forced herself to look down the other… the result of which was almost even more emotional! That one's inscription read 'Hopes and Dreams' (or rather, literally, 'Dreaming Hope'), the carpet runner a pristine white! Images of her getting married, of being on the stage, of traveling to luxurious far-flung locales, of being a mother: it was simply too wonderful, like looking at a photo album of what was going to come to pass in one's life! The flagstone Hall she had been traversing seemed so plain and uninspiring by comparison! The only thing that kept her from instantly running off into one of them, doing ecstatic cartwheels along the way, was the fact that there were two of them: she was completely torn as to which way to take first! Every last happy memory she had ever had – some likely even forgotten – or every happy thing that could possibly happen to her for the rest of her life?!

For the rest of her life…

The sheer size, the enormity of the display she was looking at, was suddenly daunting. It could take a very long time to examine all of the images closely and thoroughly, to properly appreciate and enjoy the exhibit. Months, years maybe. Especially the vaulted tunnel to her right, with all the years of life she likely had ahead of her…

The tunnel. She blinked; Bleys' mocking, halfhearted warning was ringing in her ears – don't get sucked down the tunnel! The simple fact that she couldn't see the end on either side seemed vaguely menacing now that she was thinking in this manner, knowing that unlike the near-immortal princes and princesses of Amber that this 'show' was finite.

Perhaps her eyes or her mind were playing tricks on her at this point – more likely than not, really – but for a second she thought she saw just the tiniest bit of black… flowing, shifting position, far down the right-hand tunnel… a teensy reflected silvery fingernail against the white, like a scythe…

Is that Death?

Sarah got up and ran, past the breezy, talkative, sinisterly pristine tunnels, heaving a huge sigh of relief once she was around the bend, surrounded by plain tan flagstones and empty reflecting glass and its bizarre menagerie of frames once again! That way lay not enlightenment, but rather an overtly indulgent and selfish denial of the present, the results of which were potentially lethal! Sarah still had her memories and dreams; she didn't need a museum to call them to mind any time she wanted. And that future couldn't be real at all unless she continued to exercise her freewill, to make choices that would make it happen!

… and in the process of this inner and outer seductive temptation and personal turmoil, she'd lost count, darn it!

"It's gotta be one of these," she thought aloud, carefully pacing along, "now, which…"

She forgot to breathe: one of the hand-shaped candle holders reached out straight to point forward at a particular frame to the right-hand side, wax guttering on the stone flooring in the process!

"Thanks," she whispered as the thing straightened itself, the excess wax dripping down the side into a cup at the base.

Warm brown eyes, full of rueful concern, a half-hearted quirk of a smile framed by dark-brown hair and a well-kept mustache-and-beard, which was in turn framed in black-and-purple snakeskin, faded behind gray-tinted glass…

"You don't have to tell me, Sarah; Dad's already given me an earful," Merlin sighed. "If I were just an Amberite duke – which actually is one of my lesser titles – I would have no problem with you having an easy-to-use trump of me, but I'm afraid my old man doesn't appreciate my position here, both personally and politically. Having ones 'contact cards' floating around with known defectors is a sure-fire way to find a Chaos-blade magically planted in one's kidney when you're the king. I'll have to work out some manner of emergency contact for your end of things, though; if Random wants someone to blame, you can point at me for negligence this time."

"…do you know about Mandor?" she winced, feeling like a tattletale in spite of how serious the implications were.

The king of Chaos took his time to answer, suddenly looking about fifty years older as he studied her, no longer smiling.

"I shouldn't be this reluctant to censure him for this dangerous of an unauthorized gambit, but…" he looked away. "I'm not sure how much of this I should tell you, but for as independent and self-directed as my older brother seems, I suspect that Lord Suhuy has been… using him, for many years – possibly even most of his life, without his knowledge. If I indict Mandor, and by proxy my uncle, if Lord Suhuy's level of involvement in the struggle of the Logrus and the Pattern is made public, it would be analogous to admitting to the continuation of what basically amounts to a 'cold war' between us and Amber, which would be disastrous for the Concord and our mutual trade agreements, to say nothing of the general peace. I know only too acutely what it feels like to know that you only exist so that someone else can play with you; Mandor knows something of his predicament now, but I think he still doesn't suspect the full magnitude of his situation. And maybe it's the sentimental weakness of my Order-blood, but I don't have the heart to tell him. I was always sort of an outcast at home; I grew up not fitting in, not thinking I had any right to anything in that society – and I was basically okay with it, because I expected it. But something like this would break my elder brother's pride, his confidence in his considerable intellect and powers that he has spent so many centuries in cultivating. It isn't good policy, but I would rather resolve this matter as quickly and quietly as possible, especially considering what all has been happening to Amber herself in the interim; any mention at all of rogue Chaosian agents would cast the affair in the light of an act of deliberate domestic terrorism, which would prompt immediate retaliation on Amber's part, an opening salvo to a second full-out war, which, as far as I'm concerned, neither side can afford."

The thought was stunning, that Dara's motives had run so politically deep… which indicated, from what Sarah had been taught, that there were some pretty powerful Chaosian lords backing this move, possibly even using the lady's apparent need for revenge as a blind for a far more dire operation in the field!

Merlin looked as if he had just read her thoughts; he nodded grimly with a slight facial expression of disgust. "And my going in person to raise her blockade on the ghosts would be tantamount to admitting the same. You're going to be in good hands once you get there, Sarah, but I have to transport you. Even in this I will not force you against your will, no matter what anyone else involved wants. Are you willing to undertake this for us?"

For a single moment, Sarah nearly faltered… then the coldness of her Chaosian psychological conditioning reasserted itself under the extreme pressure, and she impersonally reminded herself that this wasn't a real choice, just an unfortunately necessary concession to her potential physical and mental weaknesses as a mere shadow-being…

'Be strong…'

"I'm ready to end this," she gave him answer, suddenly feeling like a true adult for the first time in her life. "Are you going to just zap me where I need to go with your ring, or were you going to utilize the Ghostwheel?"

"Actually, I had something far more subtle in mind, something my mother might not be expecting; it should at least give you the advantage of surprise, however brief. Would you have any objections to using the mirror? Does visual distortion make your stomach turn too easily, or would you be fine with it?"

"… I guess it might be okay, if it doesn't take too long."

"All right, that's a reasonable answer. In that case, I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine," he gestured toward the pale oval lavender mirror just opposite the pentagonal frame he currently occupied: a very pale yet beautiful young woman with long, straight black hair, wearing a deep-red dress, stood there; upon seeing Sarah, she smiled – revealing the fangs of a vampire!

Sarah must've looked startled before she could repress the knee-jerk reaction.

"Sorry about that, Merlin," the lady apologized promptly, a little embarrassed, "I'm merely excited to be able to help you with this. A moment." She closed her dark eyes, concentrating; the fangs receded to normal-length canine teeth! She looked at them both expectantly.

"She's safe to be around, Sarah," the king of Chaos added, "human blood isn't in her diet, just things that go bump in the night. Rhanda, allow me to introduce you to Sarah Williams of Shadow Earth," he rested his hands on Sarah's shoulders a moment. "Rhanda and I have known each other since we were very little kids. Go with her; she knows the way," he gave her a gentle little shove, as the young woman held her nearly-white right hand beyond the barrier of tinted glass in a receiving gesture.

Sarah forced herself to breathe as she crossed the short space that lay between, and took it firmly, feeling the world swim around her for a moment before her vision settled again… sort of: the world she had come into was a place of twilight and odd angles; gray buildings towered in the distance, people who were difficult to discern clearly walked the tilted streets, or spontaneously rose into the air and vanished, as they took hold of the thin, dark bands of something that blackly waved and wavered in middlespace, the distance empirically impossible to determine! She clutched Rhanda's cool hand tightly, afraid of what visual dimension she might fall into if she let go! The lady reached up and grabbed one of the black lines – and it appeared to open up as they flew through it… into another shadowy city, the dim skyline different! Crooked streets, barely enough light to see by; the silence was simply oppressive, alien. So few people…

The black lines engulfed them many times before they appeared in what might have been the only thing that could've rendered their current prospect any more macabre: a ruined old cemetery of sorts. Passing through the open iron gates, picking their way around broken tombstones and eroding funerary statuary, they approached an elaborate mausoleum with a walking garden bereft of life, yet ornamentally pleasing to the eye with sculptures. Entering, walking down a short flight of stairs, down the close corridor past intermittently filled walls inscribed in a language Sarah couldn't read, they reached the end of the dim passage; there had been no change in the light-level from the outside to the inside – in fact, there was no visible source of illumination anywhere!

There, behind a beautifully-carved stone sarcophagus, topped with a life-sized sculpture of an armored man lying in state, clutching the hilt of his drawn sword in both hands with the foible pointed down toward his stony boots, was a wall-large mirror, spangled with flakes of imbedded silver Sarah guessed from the color… or perhaps this world was simply flooded with color in the infrared spectrum and she merely lacked the physical components to enjoy it!

"Just through there," Rhanda whispered, gesturing, letting go of her. "You will be met quickly on the other side. Good luck."

"Thank you," Sarah whispered back, taking a deep breath, bracing herself for the odd sensation; she took one long stride through the thickly membranous barrier…

… and found herself coming out of a shattered-yet-standing mirror set into a wall behind a raised sarcophagus – but the lighting conditions were so much better on this side, and she was certainly no place underground! Sarah smelled fresh growth, of an intensity native only to-

Amber! She was in Corwin's cenotaph! Noiselessly tiptoeing forward, she beheld the prince's 'death mask', set into the reclined statue, meticulously carved out of a flawless white marble; she couldn't resist touching the face…

"He's always been sort of handsome like that."

She jumped, her eyes darting – but a tall, black-haired, black-enamel-scalemaille-clad woman stepped out from the shadows, armed with both a bow and a quiver of arrows, as well as a small battle-axe slung at her belt! In spite of the medieval weaponry, Sarah almost collapsed in relief: definitely not Dara! There was something almost unspeakably regal about the stranger, and a great tragic sadness filled her beautiful blue eyes.

"You have the item?" the woman huskily whispered in Thari, approaching the sarcophagus from the other side.

"Maybe," Sarah whispered back, taking a step back. "Are you who I'm supposed to be meeting? Or should I just start blasting away?"

The woman's smile was reminiscent of the Mona Lisa. "Wisdom learned late is better than wisdom not learned at all. I am Princess Deirdre Barimen. And you would be?"

"Sarah Williams, of Shadow Earth," Sarah automatically dropped a curtsy, really bewildered now: wasn't this lady supposed to be dead?!

"And many other places, I'm sure. Sarah of Shadows," she uttered experimentally – in British English! "It has a nice ring to it in your language," she resumed her own native tongue. "Normally I would like to chat longer with anyone whom I have just become acquainted, but we don't have much time before my brother's former love learns that we are here, and the moon above the True City is already near half-spent. My other brother will provide cover as we retreat, and I will be with you to protect you, should it prove necessary. Come."

Without any warning, steel-encased fingers closed over Sarah's, and she found herself being force-marched out of the open-air mausoleum, out into an otherwise gorgeous if chill Amberite night, with that true velvet midnight blue covered in so many diamond-like stars that it still didn't look real to her!

Up the remainder of the mountain then, the moonlight garishly bright, through the spruces, then above the tree line – silent as one of those green tigers, the princess, Corwin's blood-sister, lovely and strong; Gilva would have approved. She was so mindful of the path she trod, watching for rocks and roots, giving her young companion's hand little warning squeezes so that she wouldn't trip over anything. The lady was tireless, never slowing for any reason at all…

But she fell in Patternfall, Sarah couldn't stop thinking; Deirdre Barimen had accidentally been pulled after Brand into the Abyss! …or she's a Pattern-ghost, she finally realized belatedly: the Pattern's reinforcements – easy enough to generate them on this end, so close to all of its iterations!

On they dashed, hand in hand, over long wild grasses and around low shrubbery and jagged rock outcroppings… but there were flashes of light coming up, near the summit – unnatural colors, in explosion-like bursts…

A stroke of real lightning fell from the clear heavens! Sarah was both blinded and deafened for about a minute – but found herself hauled to her feet by the princess and dragged on before her senses could even recover! More lights, and acrid smoke…

As they achieved the broad summit, Sarah's eyes widened involuntarily: a bright-violet goat-beast and a man in red and black Renaissance garb were engaged in a sorcerous duel! A red-glowing funnel cloud was howling away in the distance up in the night sky – not near them – but each combatant kept blasting away at the other in their own unique methods! The ground about them was scorched and torn up in places; there was a big pile of sand over there! The man had excellent reflexes for a non-Chaosian, but it appeared that his chief defense was a force-field that glowed slightly red…

He's using the Jewel of Judgment! Sarah realized in astonished fright as she and the princess quickly crept up on the pair, behind the demonformed goat… that could only be Dara Sawall! Certain Chaosians were recognizable in any form, she had been taught – by their actions. The black-haired, incredibly handsome man had been inching closer to his enemy in spite of her myriad attacks, any of which would have reduced him to a mound of ash without that layer of protection! She was throwing everything at him except the kitchen sink (probably only because she didn't know what one was) but the goat-figure paused before the next strike… and spun on them!

And was instantly paralyzed by the Jewel! The redness had conferred over to her! The funnel cloud drew nearer, chugging away like a freight train!

"What in the worlds were you waiting for?!" the man angrily thundered at the princess as they warily approached; Sarah could see that Dara was trying – and failing – to shapeshift in there! "I was almost getting fried up here!"

"You acquitted yourself splendidly, Eric, as always," Deirdre carefully praised him, tactfully turning his adrenaline-pumped ire aside. He glanced in passing at Sarah, and she instantly lowered her eyes and sort of bowed: one respected dead kings – even one as megalomaniacal as Eric Barimen – when they came back to defend their lands from evil. "Do we have time to mount the stairs and get up into the City before that arrives?" the princess nodded upwards.

"I'm not about to slow it down for you; this demon-lady's damn slippery to hang onto! Why couldn't Corwin have just stayed with that common whore he'd fallen in love with back in Benedict's world?"

"We don't have time for this pettiness," Deirdre quietly reprimanded him. "Sarah, you know the way – get going! I'll be right behind you momentarily."

"Wait," the prince pointed at Sarah with his free left hand, his right one still clutching the Jewel, "bring it here. Let me see it."

"No!" his sister protested. "We've no idea how it will react in the presence of the Jewel of Judgment! You wield the true one's power even now – I beseech you, for your own sake, be content!"

"I just need to know!"

"It's only a big opal," Sarah offhandedly interjected – then took off straight up the ghostly staircase with such speed it was like dashing up a moving escalator four risers at a time, leaving the bickering siblings far below on the rocky mountaintop, night's splendor turning to almost daylike brilliance as she approached the gateways to Tir-na Nog'th! But there was the back-reflection of a red flash in the mist, and she dared a quick glance downward in the direction of the stone stair: Dara was gone – but so was Eric! And where had the whirlwind vanished off to? She hadn't even heard it!

"Run! To the Castle!"

Deirdre was pounding up the stairs, with open panic in her bright eyes! Sarah needed no second bidding to take to her heels, achieving the platform, passing the gate, dodging the shadowy pockets of void on her way up to the fortress – it was like someone had taken a bazooka to what passed for 'reality' in this place! There were huge, gaping holes in the fabric of existence simply everywhere, rendering even wide streets a veritable obstacle course, to keep from falling through! And where were all the people?! This city might have been only a facsimile of Amber, a pantomime of the True City far below, but it had appeared to be just as bustling and populous as its corporal counterpart before! It was a true 'ghost town' now! The quiet felt deathly as it hadn't before, the muffled sound of their boots beating against the unlit cobblestone streets barely making a dull thudding noise… Past empty, vacant stalls in the market…empty shops… empty houses: where had everything gone?! Sarah fought back tears, hoping against hope that she wasn't too late, fearing that she was; a second later the princess caught up with her, catching her right hand again, her long sable hair flying out behind her, shining in the starkly garish, grey light…

…up the Concourse, dodging holes, up the causeway to the Palace, deserted, up, up, up… The portcullis was raised as it normally was during peacetime, but there were no guards as they passed through the reinforced open doors of the front gate. They entered without any resistance at all, through the ajar double-front doors; the carving of the Unicorn that covered both had been viciously effaced by some sharp object, the effect chilling as a murder… Colorless tapestries and collected weapons flew by as they tore down the main hall, ducking through a hidden panel, down a thin side-passage to the left, stealthily mounting a thin stone staircase in the dark, turning right, up one of the servants' passages to the second floor, past the open-walled lower sections of extremely long beveled windows, toward the musicians' loft in the Great Hall-

The full-color figure of a red-headed man in a very old-fashioned green riding suit stood at the top of the flight, barring their way forward! Deirdre instantly came up short with a shudder and a gasp!

"And thus the sacrificial lamb greets her executioner," Prince Brand blithely quipped in ill-greeting, leisurely stepping down a couple risers toward them. "Alas, your life is not mine this night, sister – perhaps another time; a different set of actions is foreordained." His unearthly green eyes lit upon Sarah… and he genuinely smiled! "It was a goodly attempt, to be sure, at destroying this place and the one below it, shadow-agent, and I commend you. You led them all on a merry chase for weeks! But a compromise has been reached, one that I never thought the Mare would make: behold the future king of Tir-na Nog'th!" he gestured grandly to himself! "And as such, I will naturally act to defend my new kingdom, to set things to rights." He suddenly laughed. "Every godlike being has need of a traitor from time to time, it would seem, to make the stories more interesting, more complete. I am the Pattern's chosen Judas, and shortly I will oppose the 'rightful' king with her blessing, or at least with her blue eyes averted. Any more philosophy than that will cost you in blood. But first give me the Dreamstone – it is all right," he extended his open right hand toward Sarah, palm up!

Sarah was simply dumbfounded; his expression at the moment was completely open, non-threatening – honest! She uneasily glanced askance of the princess, who appeared to be weighing the matter far more seriously, frowning in clear disapproval… yet she nodded!

"Do it. Let him find his end in this place."

"Again and again, lady!" he taunted her. "With or without your help! Neither of us can die now, not so it matters!" His speech was speeding up as he uttered this in a clear fit of exultation, his eyes wild. Manic. "Quickly, girl!" he barked at Sarah.

Fumbling nervously, Sarah extracted the heavy chain and what was attached to it, untangling it from the little carved caribou antlers, gingerly holding it out, her eyes uncertain, questioning. More than a little frightened…

The prince greedily snatched it from her fingers – he could hold it! – and immediately thrust the silvery chain over his head… exhaling, relaxing, closing his eyes as a beatific smile swept over his features: he was glowing with a white light, from within! Clasping the Dreamstone in his left hand, he opened his eyes – the irises blazing Arden Green, like two lit jewels – as he quickly drew the sword at his side and raised it high: the liquid-gold Pattern tracery upon the legendary blade Werewindle blazed like the sun, outshining the brightly cold moonlight beating in through the windows! Sarah couldn't help thinking he looked like the Magician from the Major Arcana, as she squinted hard, her eyes watering from the strain; he should've had a glowing infinity symbol floating over his head in lieu of a halo! A split-second later, a shockwave emanated from the blade, brightening and coloring Tir-na Nog'th in its wake; in moments the Great Hall was alive with light – and solidity!

The prince casually lowered the weapon, looking as if he were about to sheath it again, when Dara Sawall stormed into the Hall from the main entrance with murder in her eyes! Black lightening flew from her hands – all three of them had to duck behind the low barrier wall to miss it! Brand appeared more amused than irritated or surprised by her presence, however.

"She just doesn't know when to give up, does she?" he laughed, in high spirits. "It shows she's related, damn Benedict's fertile balls! He ruts once and healthy children instantly fall from the lady's womb! I had to lay my wife for years before she could even conceive! The lady down there must be tired, though; she's taking her sweet time about reloading," he mockingly remarked.

It felt strange, but in this moment – of seeing Brand almost happy like this – Sarah did think of 'Luke Raynard', of what he had said about missing the better times with his old man. Before she could lose her nerve, she touched his left arm to get his attention: yikes, she had it!

"I just… wanted to tell you that your son, King Rinaldo of Kashfa, still loves you. He never stopped," her voice almost broke on her; she had to swallow.

Brief emotion flashed by behind those unnaturally bright eyes… but it was quickly replaced with a devious little lip-smile. "You are both free to flee like mice as soon as it is convenient to do so; I have known that creature yonder since she was but a girl of ten years. I can take her alone; I have no need of your axe, sister," he added teasingly.

"Don't be so certain," Deirdre warned him, "she's already made it past Eric and the Jewel!"

"Eric is a moron – all brawn and very little brain," he fearlessly stood up in clear view! Sarah could feel the force-field emanating from his body as he quickly strode away from them, across the musicians' loft, running easily down the two short flights of stairs down to the ground-level! "Come out if you want to play with me, little niece!" he rashly shouted, glancing about for her, for she had vanished.

Dara dropped on him from above in a winged demonform! Brand quickly wrestled her to the floor beneath him, rapidly spitting the beginning out a Chaosian incantation for paralysis – one Sarah recognized as The Convenient Coat Rack – but she raked his left arm with her talons, breaking his concentration, and teleported away, her form flowing; he blasted her with a rainbow of raw power the split-second before she vanished! When she reappeared again, she was across the Hall, panting, humanformed, wearing a bright-red blouse and black riding pants and boots, drawing a saber with a serrated black blade!

"Ah," he saluted her with his own rapier, "so we are down to this business already. I suppose I could be induced to provide you with one final lesson, although the cost to you will be a high one this time: you have chosen an opponent you cannot even bleed," he displayed his left arm as he paced out to meet her – even the tears in the fabric of his coat-sleeve were gone! "If this is truly the end that you desire, then by all means let us see how much you remember from your favorite uncle – oh! Forgive me! I forgot; that title falls to Corwin now," he cattily baited her, striking an en garde; she copied.

"I shall take great pleasure in ridding the Logrus of even the ghost of so weak and ineffective an agent!" she barked bitterly, her voice hoarse from exertion, commencing the attack.

The glowing prince parried and feinted, matching beat for rapid-fire beat of her blade, pressing her in a leisurely advance down the open aisle between the long trestle tables, throwing in the occasional thrust almost seemingly for fun – knowing full well that time and stamina were on his side, that the lady was practically running on the end of her batteries, so-to-speak, mostly upright on adrenaline more than anything else; she had already been reduced to fighting with raw Chaos power, which was dangerously draining if indulged for too long – and they both knew it. His opponent suddenly got through his tierce guard in a complex feint-beat-feint combination, resulting in a highline stab to the shoulder, fairly deep… but it healed completely in three seconds flat, even the fabric mended, just a spot or two of blood to show it had happened at all; Brand laughed aloud as he felt it! "You'll have to do better than that, niece!" he feinted, beating her blade thrice in high guards before making a devastating lunge to the abdomen that Dara had to literally vault backwards to avoid landing! She continued her measured retreat back toward the fourth trestle table, pausing to grab one of the heavy dining room chairs, hurling it at his head! He caught it single-handedly, carelessly dropping it aside upon the stone floor with a resounding thunk… and grinned: she had taken to the tabletop!

"Were you only looking for a suitable piste? The surface might be sufficiently level, although I doubt it is regulation length and width," he jumped up to join her, resuming right-of-way – only she immediately advanced, hoping to trip him at the edge; he grabbed the wicked bare edge of her blade near the forte with his naked hand and yanked hard to the right, throwing her off balance! She stumbled and fell to the floor, rolling, barely missing hitting her head on the tiles; his hand completely healed before she could even regain her footing, as he jumped back down! "Those rules just might exist for a reason, thou child," he openly taunted her as she fumed; she charged back at him, her blood finally up enough to respond reactionally rather than rationally, but he held his ground rather than move, easily turning her thrust aside with an incorrectly twisting seconde, spinning her, almost spraining her wrist in the process!

On it went, back and forth…well, mostly back, on Dara's part; it was only too clear now that she had to plan her thrusts very carefully – anything less than a deathblow would have no effect whatsoever, and she altered style accordingly, dancing out of the way of his thrusts, always striving to keep her ripostes in low-line, aiming for vital organs only! In the process her own guard was beginning to suffer; he'd nearly nicked her earlobe a moment ago! She tried for a head-cut unsuccessfully, counter-parried in quarte, feinted another highline, then disengaged, lunging for his guts – only to incur a long slice along her sword arm!

The metallic racket continued as Deirdre and Sarah crept back down the thin staircase, past the turn, almost to the ground-level back hallway… but a familiar voice arrested Sarah's movement, and she couldn't resist dashing back up to the gallery to peek over the edge!

"What's this bloody racket in my palace?!"

The form of Mandor Sawall angrily burst in from the main hallway – wearing Random Barimen's fiery heraldic colors, his hair a Nordic blonde like it must've been originally!

"Just ridding your land of a demon," Brand shot back gaily, not missing a beat of Dara's blade, "a service which you shall shortly be recompensing me, with your crown!"

"Like fun you are!" the king drew his own rapier, advancing upon pair of them as they danced nearer!

"Priorities, friend, priorities!" Brand responded, feinting to his opponent's chest and head, then going for her arm again, slicing the fabric upon her right bicep but not flesh! "She's first, but I upon my word you are next! Unless you would care to help me, to speed up your time in queue!" he continued to parry and disengage, deliberately alternating high and low defenses to wear down her injured arm faster; the blood from her previous wound had begun to smoke!

"Guards! Guards! Down here right now, like I pay you!" the king yelled, carefully watching the duelists, waiting for an opening! In seconds, the sound of many boots hammering against stone floors and the jingling of scalemaille armor could be heard in the main hall!

"I'm no demon – he is!" Dara suddenly shouted, remising from a parry in quarte, counter-parrying quinte, and riposting to the head, missing the eye she'd been aiming for purely as a temporary distraction! "Can you not see Brand the Destroyer in your own palace?!"

"And I shall cherish the title!" the prince crowed. "Know you not a destroyer may destroy 'evil' as readily as 'good'? Or have you fallen from our faith as well?" He stamped and slashed for her head with no preliminaries – she just barely ducked, but a shaving of dark hair floated through the air!

Sarah gasped as the ajar doors to the Great Hall slammed closed of their own accord, and a wall of purple Chaos-fire ran blockade about the perimeter of the room! The king looked as if he were ready to jump into the fray, yet he was holding back, still sizing up the combatants as if he were trying to decide who to attack, which one had just done that! The booming of a battering ram commenced just outside!

The fire cut off the way they had come in, too! Deirdre ran back up the stairs; they were forced to crawl across the musicians' loft as quickly as was possible!

"Sarah, stay down!" the princess harshly whispered, yanking her arm, but Sarah couldn't resist another quick peek at the continuing action down below – there went another chair! They reached the stairs on the other side, passing the room – but that way too was barred by purple flames! There was only one way left: down into the Great Hall itself! But from there where?! Edging along the far left perimeter, the princess bravely approached the eerily blazing doorway ahead of them, looking as if she were determining whether one could survive passing through by rolling – when the flames there abruptly extinguished as another figure ran past them through the doorway from the outside, down the stairs into the room!

Random?! Sarah thought in disbelief!

The man was the spitting image of the current king of Amber, yet he wore the black-and-white of his cosmically-distant otherself; even his skin and hair were paler, now that there was color! He looked as if he had expected to have to instantly join a melee, armed as he was with a long, black-bladed Chaos-dirk in each hand… yet he paused as he viewed the true nature of the confrontation-in-progress, his 'liege' seemingly in no immediate danger!

Drawing his opponent back up the aisle between the tables in retreat, away from the king, Brand suddenly spotted the newcomer briefly out of his peripheral vision… and it was all he could do not to laugh!

"What, ho! A fellow conspirator!" his voice rang out joyfully. "I would salute you for – finally being on the right – side – but I find myself – occupied!" he continued parrying and counter-parrying Dara's progressively sloppier attacks, swinging widely himself to try and tempt her into making a deadly mistake, opening her defenses too far! "If you've nothing better to do, good sir, would you care to – assist me in taking out – the bitch who initially stabbed me in the back," – he deflected a stab to his front! – "leading to – my terrestrial – ruin?" he advanced, beat in quarte, and would have landed a severe cut to Dara's flank had she not vaulted out-of-line again, aiming a karate-like kick at his chest in the process, which did land him on the floor momentarily as she garnered a better position to defend herself!

"I sense that you are in the right on this one point, Patterner, though I know not how I am certain, yet it is not by coercion," 'Randor' gave answer, sounding spookily like the man he was garbed as, metal spheres levitating out of his pockets as he cautiously advanced, glancing askance of 'Mandom', who shrugged… then began to come also! Brand rushed to close with her again, this time not waiting for her to compose an attack, enveloping her blade, attempting to wrench it aside by brute strength, bringing them up corps-a-corps! "And I cannot help but feel that something of my own has been stolen also in our current situation – a mere hunch, but one I'd be willing to stake my life upon. Were you asking for a second, or-"

"Ambush her, you pretentious fools! She just got her second wind!" he leaped back, his wrist badly cut! She had just produced a dagger!

The two of them dashed toward the combatants – and Sarah was startled to alertness, dragged through the now-open doorway, nearly getting mowed down by a pack of armored soldiers as they dashed across the back passage! On through the servants' quarters, toward another hidden, squared staircase!

"We'll never get through below now – too many people! I never slaughter the innocent, even in abstraction!" the princess called back to Sarah as they pounded their way up the risers! "We'll get away out the window in my room! This way!"

Reaching the second-floor landing, the pair zigzagged right, then left down a long stone hallway, passing the first connected passage but taking the second to the right, almost all the way to the end, stopping at the last heavy, polished wooden door to the left! The princess extracted a key out from under her short scalemaille tunic; a second later they were in! Sarah dashed past a small but well-appointed modern living room, into the sleeping area!

"Strip the bedclothes, the curtains, everything! We'll use my clothing if we have to!"

Working as fast as they could, the princess' queen-sized mattress, windowpane and wardrobe were all on the floor in under a minute, the tying together process nearly completed in five! Normally a happy sight, Sarah was terrified to find the initial preglow of the dawn spreading across the far eastern horizon beyond the ocean, coming up faster than it ever came up on Earth – or even Amber below!

Below!

Tying the first blanket about the leg of a heavy bookcase near the narrow window, the remaining bundle of fabric was gradually let out so that it wouldn't get stuck: it was fifteen feet short at the end, but it had almost reached the courtyard! As the princess had predicted, most of the activity was happening near the inner front portal now; there wasn't so much as a single guard on this side for the moment – and the portcullis was still open!

"You go down first," the princess ordered, "I'll stand on the blanket on this end just to make sure it doesn't slip. Hurry!"

Sarah peered out the thin, gothic-arched portal and gulped: it was still a long ways down! Golden trailers were starting to cut delicate, lacy holes through the castle's outer wall, straight through reality as before, the effect even more startling because the place actually looked real now!

Deirdre surprised Sarah, suddenly taking her in her arms, crushing her to her armored breast in a fierce hug, kissing her brow before releasing her!

"Go with love – I'll hold the line steady!"

Sarah gingerly sidled out of the thin opening, careful not to scrape herself against any of the sharp edges, clasping the fabric for dear life… then jumping over the side, the makeshift 'rope' swinging for a moment as she kept breathing! Shimmying down with her knees, hand under hand, as fast as she could without getting rugburn, she couldn't ignore the increasing light, the bigger golden holes, the beginnings of warmth on her back… she made the mistake of looking down and screamed: a quarter of the ground was already missing, rapidly edging toward a third, Amber's choppy ocean showing clearly through the rifts!

"Don't stop!" the princess cried out. "Slide and run!"

Sarah gritted her teeth and loosened her grip, feeling the friction like fire against her palms – but the progression of that unmerciful dawn was simply too fast; only broken pathways of ground remained, and those were thinning as she stared after them! By the time she was reaching the bottom, there was no longer a reason to let go: she dangled precariously miles above the ocean… and the Castle was starting to go as well!

Sarah was so shocked that she couldn't even cry; she suddenly felt as if this wasn't real at all, as if she were only dreaming. Looking back up, she found that she could see straight through the walls: the full-out brawl in the Great Hall was still raging on in spite of everything, the many figures within blurred, obscured… except for Brand – oh, how he shone, fallen angel that he was, come into his kingdom at last. For him she could almost cry…

At least she was seeing the best sunrise in all of existence. She turned away from what was left of the inner walls to face the rising rim of the sunstar, not bothering to shield her eyes; that brilliant light, that pure warmth, would be the last thing she would know…

… but a dark form she couldn't quite make out from this distance was floating rapidly toward her from the south, flying with apparently no visible form of propulsion, its shape so strange that it took her overtaxed brain several seconds to even attempt to identify it; at last it drew close enough to be unmistakable, yet still unbelievable!

A sleigh, drawn by a team of flying reindeer?! Sarah had heard of seeing one's life flash before one's eyes moments before death, but she was just overtly hallucinating! Santa?! No, but…

"Hey, joy to the friggin' worlds, already!"

"Carl!"

"It ain't Father Christmas," he dryly quipped, closing the distance between them, the old-fashioned vehicle on skates coming in just beneath her! "Drop in, kid!"

Sarah let go – and fell only three feet, collapsing onto the generously-sized fur-covered bench seat, spontaneously sobbing in relief… then in a flash it all came back to her: she hadn't been alone! "The princess!" she screamed in alarm, pointing up toward the open window!

"DEIRDRE!"

It was amazing that she was still there at all; the line of blankets blew away, unmoored from the lack of a bookcase! She was clinging precariously to what little was left of the vanishing windowsill, crouching in it… and she was physically unraveling, too, the matrix of her Pattern-form becoming apparent!

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Corwin called up, standing in the sleigh, wheeling his team higher! "And I finally learned a way to save you! Just hang in there a little longer! You're going to be fine!"

But it was only too clear that he was already too late: the lady was translucent, and her feet and legs were beginning to disappear! Tears suddenly filled Sarah's eyes.

Deirdre's expression was one of peace, a gentle smile gracing her beautiful features.

"I love you, too, Corwin."

It was all she had time to say – before she fell, straight through the bed of the sleigh, evaporating in the sunlight!

"NO!" Corwin screamed in anguish, gripping the edge, looking out over the side –

But there was no one there. The princess was gone.

They both missed seeing a lone solid figure – a woman in red and black – plummeting toward the surface of the water far below… only to vanish seconds before impact.

The prince numbly sat back in the bench, his eyes closed with tears he refused to shed; Sarah moved over to him, but he caught her off-guard, stiff-arming her, denying even a show of sympathy.

He refused to speak for almost ten minutes.

Sarah carefully gave him his space, drying her own eyes on the sleeve of her dress, going to wipe her nose… when she realized that she was still clutching that stupid cloth bag – and that it was not empty! She slowly removed the carved caribou with a new-found reverence – then blew her nose on the cloth, carelessly dropping it overboard, watching it sail like a bird down to the surface of the water, washing under in the waves. Looking back up, Tir-na Nog'th had vanished completely. Whatever had been done was done now; it was up to the ghosts to set things right from here. And Prince Brand, what was left of him; she had no idea what form his power would take on there, or even what manner of ruler he would make. She could only hope that with an entire world on his side for once that his better impulses would rule him. Rinaldo had to have loved him for a reason.

Ghost-Corwin finally glanced in Sarah's direction with a decidedly jaundiced, drier eye. "I'm certain the moment I say this you're going to censure me as everyone always has, but no living man has ever had a sister as I had. I've spent centuries asking the deaf powers, why, oh why did she have to be my sister? No better woman has ever walked the worlds: she was brave and beautiful and so kind…"

That was a strange situation! Under normal circumstances Sarah would've been nauseated at even the mention of the idea, but this… having met her…knowing that it was all-but-impossible for a Barimen to ever feel truly and wholly understood by someone who was not as they were…

She only nodded, stifling her moral misgivings for the prince's sake, reminding herself that cousin and indeed sibling marriages were the social norm for many ancient-world monarchies… and then an even stranger thought occurred to her!

"What bearing could even familial physical relation have for two Pattern-ghosts?"

The prince looked thunderstruck. "Mainly that we remember what we were before – technically, none! I'll admit, some of the finer existential points of this state-of-being still elude me in practice, something about 'not seeing the Arden for her spruces'," he took the reins that had been resting in the bottom of the sleigh into his hands again, shaking his head. "Good call, though, kid," he gave the reins a little shake – starting his team again – then looked at Sarah more closely. "You're not a kid anymore. How old are you now?"

"Eighteen."

"That's adult in my book," he commented offhandedly, circling them back around the summit of Mount Kolvir; the panoramic view from up here was simply incredible! But there was something brilliantly white down there, standing on the remaining three stone steps at the base of the ghostly flight that only ran up to Tir-na Nog'th at night.

"Is…is that…oh, it couldn't be!"

"Don't look Her in the eye; the experience can be fatal for humans," the prince warned… with a sudden smile! "I guess I can mention now that we were really in the neighborhood on business, and She made you a part of it."

Sarah nearly slapped herself in the forehead. "Yeah, I suppose it's sort of stupid to think that you just magically appeared right when I needed you out of the goodness of your heart. So, what's going down in Argentland?"

"Détente," he pointed down, away toward the trees: Sarah couldn't quite see what he was showing her at first… but then a silvery figure emerged from the evergreens, walking in stately fashion, warily approaching Amber's fabled progenitor, his rack of antlers gleaming in the morning sun: it was the Silver Reindeer! "This incident with the Dreamstone came just a little too close to home for Him. He alerted me to your approach to our set of shadows, of the superficial psychical damage that even the Stone's fleeting presence had caused there just from you passing through with it! He's had time to come to terms with the fact that he's an unwanted child, so-to-speak, but we've come in peace to see if some kind of an understanding can be reached between the two Orders – with both equal, neither greater or lesser than the other. Together we could provide a unified front against any new threats from Chaos and its denizens; just think of how much of the spectrum of Shadow we dominate already! He has no argument with the Order he proceeds from. She should have no true reason to hate us beyond general principle on the basis of having held supremacy alone for so long. This might be the world She brought into being by driving my grandfather to insanity, but it is no longer that time. She must be made to understand this, for all our sakes – look away!" he suddenly warned!

The deep rumble of faint thunder pulsed through the air like a giant's heartbeat! Sarah scooted way down in the bench as Ghost-Corwin leaned over the side, making the team circle again.

"We don't just exist to piss you off, Grandmother!" he called down… and all-of-a-sudden Sarah felt as if she had just made the proverbial jump out of the frying pan; the middle of that ocean below them on the other side was likely safer than where she was sitting right now! "All I can hope is that whatever Dworkin's cooking up, that you still have him wrapped around the tip of your horn – you knew the goods were odd when you took him! Our ancient enemy is still far too dangerous for us to be weakened by in-fighting, when we all basically want the same world-outcome! Leave us alone, and we'll have your back where it counts, out by the Divide! Say you are for us, Grandmother, please!"

Sarah's heart was in her throat – the silence down there was way too tense!

…was that a soft nickering? The prince was still watching over the side, stone-faced, revealing nothing. The rumble came and went, came and went… and then it started to mist lightly, blowing sideways from a smattering of relatively non-threatening-looking clouds, out of the west!

Sweet, fresh rain! Not even a downpour, just enough to pleasantly moisten the world below! Sarah leaned back in profound relief, letting the light precipitation wash her face as she unclenched her hands… from around the carved caribou – and remembered!

"Carl, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I was given a message for the Reindeer! A strange being that calls himself Raven says 'hi' to the both of you; He should know who that is!"

Ghost-Corwin raised his dark brows, eying her carefully, clearly dubious of the request, but nevertheless shouted it down. "Hey, do we know anybody named Raven? He's sending his friendly greetings, for whatever that's worth!" He looked back at Sarah. "I think He just nodded down there; He's not about to mess with environmental stimuli in the Unicorn's territory after what we've just managed to accomplish here. Someone you ran into, I take it?"

Sarah nodded. "A very, very long way from here… probably not far at all, the way you would count it. I don't think I even passed the Dancing Mountains, so far as I know."

"Why doesn't that surprise me," the prince settled back into the bench himself, giving the reins a good snap, sending the vehicle flying out to the north, over the dense Arden Forest far below. "I think I'm finished in Amber for the day. Did you need a lift home? Or do you want to come visit Corwinia for a while? You would certainly be welcome in our capitol city, now that you're not wearing something that could destroy it. In case you hadn't noticed, we're still in the process of recruiting for our corner of the multiverse: talented misfits, artists, and otherwise skilled people who won't be a pain in my original's ass are being encouraged to emigrate from nearby shadows, the way my old man initially populated Amber, but with cushier incentives to come and stay than free plots of land to build a peasant shack on. There's already housing and amenities because the Argent Pattern was drawn from an urbane mind. What do you think? Want to come spend a little time with an old friend?" he gave her a winning little smile.

Sarah felt flattered for all of three seconds – before she realized that the bid meant that she had something that the Argent Pattern wanted, badly enough to save her life! Twice! It had to have been her imprint from the true Jewel of Judgment, she quickly decided; having two adepts on hand was always preferable to having only one, especially when the second one had a seemingly unique set of capabilities. And considering the new power's still-uncertain future, the move made sense if even from a strictly passive-preemptive position. But she couldn't possibly accept.

At least not right now…

Sarah scooted right next to Ghost-Corwin and leaned in, giving him a light peck on the cheek! "If I didn't have somewhere else I need to be, it would be tempting."

He automatically glanced down at her in surprise, but his expression was bemusedly wary.

"Watch out, or you're going to grow up to be one of us."

Sarah grinned at the remark, sitting back again – then stopped, suddenly thinking. "Okay, I'm going to just come right out and ask this: are spoken sentiments like that supposed to be complimentary coming from an Amberite, or is it a real warning, or even a statement of acknowledged threat? I got the feeling it's considered a compliment in the Courts, but I was never certain the practice followed elsewhere."

"Take it at face-value," he answered her just as bluntly, "it's probably a little of all of the above. Was that a 'yes' on the ride home, then?"

"Yeah, but I'm in Syracuse now."

"Nothing wrong with moving upstate. You are going to school up there?"

"Yep; Syracuse U."

"And you've been ditching classes in your first semester to go gallivanting across the multiverse why?" he grilled her.

Sarah laughed, but it sounded closer to a sob.

"It's a long story… hey, whatever happened to your BelAir? I guess you can't go flying in it – or can you?!"

"Would you believe that it got stepped on by a dinosaur who could've passed for Godzilla?"

"Unfortunately I can – hopefully without you in it?"

The prince chuckled, shaking his head. "Just one of those stupid occurrences in shadow that nobody warns you can happen and then does: one minute you're stepping into a fast-food-style restaurant to pick up a bucket of Kenni Roi's Kentucki Fried Lizzard Partes, and the next thing you know the main course has gotten loose and is taking its aggravation at being incorrectly anesthetized out on the parking lot! Glad you weren't along for that one; I'm not going back to that shadow until the place gets some better management."

Sarah in turn talked for the better part of two hours as they soared over constantly changing shadow-landscapes, mountains rainforesting over to lush valleys filling to swamplands running into an ocean… but after a time she slept, dead exhausted – and awoke much later to find she'd been covered up in the prince's long cape.

It's like a letter-jacket, she thought with a smirk, feeling the soft fabric from the inside before folding it up nicely, asking him to pull over for a pit-stop.

They were right in the middle of lunch (not Fried Lizzard Partes; chicken roasted with savory herbs and diced grilled potatoes) when she got a trump-call – from Merlin!

"Sarah! Thank the powers you're all right! I'm so sorry I didn't contact you any sooner, but I literally just escaped a four-hour meeting with the king of Amber that had begun as an emergency war conference, with him and a whole mess of angry Amberite nobles! Averted, I see now, but…" he exhaled a huge breath, "that was way too close. Where are you? You seem to be in public. I can lighten the transmission a little and give you time to excuse yourself."

"It's alright, your excellency," Sarah whispered, smiling – and grabbed Ghost-Corwin's forearm from across the table!

"Dad?!… oh, not again!"

"It's good to see you, too, son," his father dryly remarked with a little smile. "You were busy being important to a lot of other people, I take it. If your great-grandfather is still able to putter around in Shadow, then your old man can certainly shake a leg every now and then. I've just heard the whole account if you'd care to hear it under better circumstances; among other things, it's instructive of just to what extent the more intelligent creatures of Shadow are actually keep tabs on us, actually recognizing from experience that we are not as they are. But we're eating just now; when we're finished I'm taking her home. Can you give us a couple hours? Or would you care to come through and join us? We can step outside and bring you in."

"The offer's generous, Dad, but I'm afraid I don't have the time – and neither does she for that matter; there's a little personal business of hers that demands my immediate attention, from the little I've managed to glean from my sources."

Sarah went cold; she'd clean forgotten! Her apartment – and her fetch!

"Do I have to leave right now?"

"Finish what's on your plate. I'll give you fifteen minutes."

He was gone.

"Now do you see why I decided against the whole 'king' business? It winds up eating your entire life so you don't have any time to take care of the things that truly matter," Ghost-Corwin observed, recommencing his meal. "But if I'm about to have to say goodbye again, tell me more of this Raven character – you've just given me an idea, but I'll have to run it past my Pattern."

Sarah quickly recounted absolutely everything she could remember between hurried bites, ruing that she never had any time to hear him talk on any subject at length!

"I know someone like me is probably small potatoes in the big picture of things," she laughed self-deprecatingly once they were back outside; she was stroking the lead reindeer in his team, hearing the odd, soft, hoglike grunting noises it made. "But don't be a stranger? If it's not presumptuous, I really would like to spend some time with you when the world isn't ending or something. You seem like an interesting guy."

The prince coolly observed her, slowly tilting his head back. "You realize you've just invited a manifestation of the Argent Pattern into your life? Are you sure you really want that kind of bother on your home-turf, with both of the others already squabbling over your pawn-piece?"

"They'll be doing that anyway," she shrugged with a little smile. "And apparently I'm considered a rook."

When Merlin appeared again in her mind's eye, she stepped behind Ghost-Corwin to be out of the line-of-sight of the restaurant; taking the king's hand, she vanished-

-reappearing in the passenger seat of a parked car, just outside of her apartment building! It looked like it was evening here, and the king of Chaos was sitting behind the wheel, dressed simply in his humanform: just a purple flannel shirt, blue jeans and boots.

"Thought I'd give us a little cover," he explained quietly, "this whole vehicle is currently surrounded by a Silence Curtain, besides. Now that I have you here, I can explain this a little better without an audience I don't want hearing what I'm about to tell you under any circumstances, is that understood?"

Sarah nodded firmly.

"I'm giving you full disclosure in letting you know that I'm telling you very little of this. Suffice to say that the responsible party merely copied your memory bank, enough so to make the ruse seem realistic. Your soul isn't separated out; you're as whole as you ever were, and keep repeating that to yourself until you believe it again. That was entirely accomplished by the power of suggestion! You're actually nominally okay, as far as I can tell, considering what you've been through – and I will give you a method of messaging me before I leave tonight, in case you ever need to talk to me about anything. That part's no problem. What you should be worried about is what the heck the perpetrator left behind here in your place. You'd better let me go first; some of our demons can be difficult to control, let alone predict. I can protect you, but I want you here for this: you deserve to know at least this much after all that. Shall we?" He touched his ring for a moment – then unlocked the car doors and opened the driver's side, stepping out. Sarah exited also, looking about; nothing untoward out here, not that she could sense, anyway…

As they quietly walked up to the front door of the building, she noticed that he was fiddling with his ring some more, as if readying it for use! Opening the door for her, he mounted the stairs ahead of her noiselessly, not even stopping to ask her which landing, which door; he had to have been feeling his way! He stopped just outside of hers.

"I don't have the key on me," she whispered.

He wordlessly motioned her back – then incinerated the ward like tissue paper and opened the door as if it had never been locked, power viscerally coursing through his body in black waves! He uttered a fast string of syllables in Ancient Chaosian Thari as he boldly strode into the living room area, a bidding spell that would brook no uncompliance!

Sarah's breath caught as she saw her own form float into the room, changing shape, changing color, morphing in midair, into-

"Please! Not the face! I beg of you!" a trembling female voice pleaded… one Sarah thought she would never hear again!

"Sofi?!"

Large coal-black angel's wings were cocooned about the small, odd, sexless black body, more in the manner of a bat! They slowly unwrapped: the creature was holding her three-digited clawed hands over her face, beneath the thin, grayish downy feathers that passed for her hair… but she presently lowered them, observing Sarah with Sarah's own features in monochrome like an onyx bust, tears standing in the bright, red-irised eyes!

"Do you swear by the power of the Abyss that spawned you that you will not attempt to harm either of us – nor anyone of this shadow – if I release you?" Merlin put to her sternly.

"I would never harm my young mistress," Sofi quietly gave answer, sounding subservient as ever, "but for your exalted sake, I will so swear."

The king of Chaos carefully retracted his power, retaining his own personal ward, as the demoness landed upon her huge bird-feet upon the living room carpet – and Sarah raced to embrace her, falling to her knees!

"Oh, Sofi! Are you alright?"

"I am now… I think," she carefully returned the hominid-style embrace for a moment, before backing away. "But it has been a torture being separated first from my good master in a new house, then stolen away and compelled even further against my will! Please believe that I tried to fight the Lady of Sawall, but she was too strong for me!"

"I forgive you," Sarah said calmly "but what happened?"

"… may I roost on your 'coffee table', Mistress? There isn't quite enough room for my wings for me to sit upright here, as befits the presence of the king – after you, your exalted excellency," she gestured graciously toward the sofa with one lithe, black-scaled arm… then seemed to remember herself! "Oh, forgive my impertinence, Mistress! I have grown so used to being mistress of this tiny houselet!"

"It's alright," Sarah sighed, getting back up. "Do you want some coffee, your excellency? I should still have some around here; I doubt she drank it."

"I'll never turn it down," he smiled, seating himself, "but you bring up an interesting point: what have you been living on out here, demoness?"

Sofi made a parrot-like flutter-hop up to the tabletop, settling in. "Strangely enough, there is a specialized diet option upon this shadow that nearly allows one to eat as I require: it is called 'At-kins', but what it means is 'meat and almost nothing else'! It is touted to make a human body lose excess fat mass; I have done nothing but gain at brief intervals!" she laughed.

"What do you know," Merlin commented wryly with a smirk. "Robert Atkins finally did something other than raise somebody's cholesterol."

"What was that you said about a 'new master'?" Sarah pressed, turning on the percolator before coming over to join them, sitting down on the sofa .

"I believe you might be a little more familiar with this social phenomenon that you might think, Sarah," the king began carefully. "Really, some of the aspects of losing one's title are not unlike what can happen in a divorce on Earth – or a bankruptcy, for that matter, if you want to get really crass about it – with a redistribution of goods, possessions, dependents, etcetera. Guess who counts as a possession?" he glanced at the sizable, birdlike figure upon the table, who demurely lowered her eyes.

"My new master, Lord Despil Sawall, is not a bad master… or at least he hadn't been; I've no idea what he will do upon my return! He will think I broke the spell and ran away!"

"He probably hasn't even noticed," Merlin reassured her, "but I'll talk to him. Please continue."

Sofi shifted her feet. "There is a proverb, Mistress, which has been deliberately circulated by the Chaosian nobility amongst my people for eons: 'better a clean cage with good care, than freedom with neglect and want.' I had never believed this saying, for even one such as myself recognizes it as propaganda, but I think I understand what it refers to now. Lord Despil was kind, in putting me at relative liberty in the Ways of Sawall, for he had no immediate use for me, and simply bid me to be at my leisure against such a time as he might call upon me. My new master appears to prefer servants of a more… oh, how to say it…"

"Of a more sinister persuasion?" Sarah tried.

"I would not have put it quite so forwardly… but, yes. I was wandering all-but-freely for perhaps the first time since my initial capture – exploring my new world – when Lady Dara… found me, somewhere I had not been warned to avoid as private property." The demoness winced her humanoid eyes closed. "She compelled me to tell fully of myself – I thought that she was merely curious about an unfamiliar trespasser; such avenues of recompense are common practice in our world, usually paired with minor geas against such happening again. But when I got to my association with you, Mistress…" she lowered her head in shame, "she trapped me. I know not what else she did to you beyond your initial deception. I only knew that you were in danger and that there was nothing I could do to help! I have meditated upon you – for you – but I know not if it ever did any good," she looked up at Sarah uncertainly. "Even with the memory implants, it was difficult for me to integrate into your society, but I have dutifully gone to your classes, interacted with your equals, and taken notes for you – all in Thari, I'm afraid. My handwriting is a bit challenging to read besides, for I have but seldom been called upon to even hold a pen, and you have two more digits than I am accustomed to utilizing. I am certain I have not done it as well as you could have, Mistress – again I beg your forgiveness for my inadequacy."

"Oh, Sofi, you did what you could," Sarah reassured her. "Actually, the more I think about it, I'm almost a little proud that you could pull that off at all: being thrown into a totally alien world and 'passing' in it!"

Sofi's black cheeks lightened grey as she suppressed a small smile. "Thank you, Mistress; you are kind." She glanced in turn at Merlin a bit more uneasily. "But I think it is time for me to return where I belong now, with his exalted excellency's permission and assistance, if it is not too bold to ask? I have never even dreamed of being so far from home, and I could not mark the way on the shadow-pull over, for I was deliberately kept in a state of passive confusion," she stood up, hopping off the table with an unmistakable look of duty in her brightly-colored eyes, beholding the king expectantly.

Merlin looked as if he were mulling something over as he lightly stroked his short beard.

"Do you actually want to go back to Despil?"

"…forgive me, your exalted excellency, but I believe I am not free to answer that question-"

"Answer it – that's an overriding order," he sat up straight, directly facing her. "And your choice now will affect your future."

A sudden look of hope came into her strange eyes. "Would you… would you send me back to Lord Mandor instead?" her voice almost trembled.

The king of Chaos smirked. "You and every other female who's ever met him" he shook his head a little. "The saner of my two younger brothers is certainly level-headed enough for one of us when it comes to most things, but apparently he doesn't know what to do with an Ariel-type spirit: it's a bad match personality-wise. I don't think Mandor would have any objections to taking you back; as far as I know, he's currently 'roughing it' with only a scanty humanoid staff at the moment in his new residence with my aunt Fiona; it is on this side of the Dancing Mountains, though. You would actually be fine with that mentally?" he balked a little.

Sofi looked as if she were suppressing a laugh… and Sarah suddenly recalled that Mandor had already been here – and had apparently dealt kindly with her!

"If I was allowed my own will in this, I would happily go and be a songbird in my old master's house once more, wherever it is. But… as long as you have tentatively granted me permission to speak my mind… would it not better serve your own interests if I stayed on here through the end of the week? Even I can tell that Mistress is exhausted, and she has quite a lot of information to learn in such a short space of time! Let me be her for just three more Earth-days, then she can return to her classes herself next 'week'?"

"Better make it two," Merlin edited flatly, sitting back again, looking for all the world as if he were truly holding 'court' here! "I can't promise brother Mandor will be quite that lenient; you know well how he runs his life. I suppose there could be a small delay in the communication of our intent about you," he mused, "considering how covertly I have to contact him these days. But you do realize that you would probably never return to Chaos-proper if you agree to this. You are officially committing to a more solid set of shadows, no matter what happens from here on out."

Sofi's look was decidedly hard for Sarah to read – enigmatically pragmatic, possibly. "As long as the clean cage is of Chaosian design, I'll be fine."

"It's settled then, by royal decision. You have two Earth-days to get Sarah up-to-speed academically, starting now. I will retrieve you punctually via spikard at the end of this time: you had better make the most of it."

"Yes, exalted excellency," she reverently lowered her head momentarily. "I cannot possibly express my gratitude sufficiently."

"You can express it by staying close to Mandor and his household in the future, away from my mother," Merlin added dryly. "Oh, Sarah! Do you still have that 'calling card' ring I gave you back-in-the-day?"

"Yes; did you want that back, too?" she winced a little.

"No, I was actually thinking of utilizing it as a two-way walkie-talkie of sorts, linking it up with my spikard; the connection will be almost impossible to trace using an insularly private, third-party power-source. Bring it here and I'll set it up quick; let's see how my uncle's and aunt's intention spells are holding up," he surrendered a smile.

Sarah dashed to her bedroom and dug the little carved black box she had gotten for the artifact out of the back of her sock drawer; retrieving it, she brought it back to the living room. Sofi had flapped up to one of the cupboards and was in the process of pouring the coffee – into three mugs! – flying them back to the small table! She caught Sarah's surprised expression.

"I had to learn to consume this publicly, for it is a social 'norm' among your peers," she confided with a small conspiratory lip-smile, handing Sarah hers, going back for the powdered creamer and sugar dispensers!

Settling back into the couch, Sarah handed off the ring, and the king of Chaos immediately set about examining it with his own, the amethyst cabochon touching one of the spikard's lines of energy, his eyes closing in concentration…

"…alright, guess I should've disabled those other two a while back; they're breaking down in there, although the process wouldn't hurt you even if you wore it now in its current condition. It just wouldn't work properly. Bear with me for a minute."

Sarah would've been hard-pressed to be able to tell what precisely the king was doing without use of one of the powers to 'see' with, even though she could sort of feel the energy about his person viscerally changing every so often; a short while later, he opened his eyes again.

"There; that should hold for a long time, and I'll be notified if it ever needs an update," he handed it off to her. "It's safe to wear normally; it won't do anything at all unless you activate it by both voice command and deliberate mental intent; I'll come up with a good pass-phrase later and shoot it off to you. But for right now… I hate to chat and run, but I'm going to have to take this to go," he caused a travel mug to materialize out of absolutely nowhere, pouring his mug of coffee into it, adding a little cream-and-sugar – then getting up and walking over to the pot, topping it up before screwing on the lid! Both women stood out of culturally conditioned habit "The time-differential between here and the Thelbane is simply brutal," he added, turning back. "I've already been away for nearly two weeks there, and I've had to keep checking in about every twenty minutes just to make sure they're not lining up my successor, in the event of my political assassination in Amber! I promise I'll be in contact you tonight via trump, Sarah. Take care." He was fiddling with his ring.

"Thanks for everything, your excellency," Sarah curtsied; Sofi was bowing low to her left.

"Don't mention it – no, really, don't mention this to anyone; there's near-peace between the two poles of existence once again and I'd like to keep it that way! I'll be talking to you later."

He vanished in the blink of an eye.

"I suppose I had better be gathering your study materials," Sofi mentioned quietly, awkwardly walking to Sarah's bedroom, her natural gate pigeon-toed; the girl followed her.

"I still can't believe you did all that; I really am proud of you, Sofi. But… would you mind terribly coming up with a different face? It's starting to feel really peculiar looking at 'mine' like this," she sat down on the side of the bed.

"Oh, but of course! A moment," the demoness went and stood facing the corner, covering her borrowed features with her alien hands, literally adjusting them for a few seconds; when she turned back, she was far lovelier than Sarah could ever hope to be! Her face looked as perfect as a black porcelain Venetian mask!

Which is kind of what it is, Sarah reflected…but she nodded approval, once she picked her jaw up off the floor!

"Good shock? Or bad shock?" Sofi queried uncertainly.

"Good…its good," Sarah couldn't stop staring. "You have no idea how pretty you can make yourself, by our standards."

Sofi smiled self-consciously at the compliment, looking away; her humanoid smile was dazzling. "I merely learn from example, like any trained 'bird'. But we should be getting to work." She grabbed and hoisted Sarah's laden black-leather backpack onto the bed, where it landed with a light bounce, flapping her wings once to hop up also; there was just enough room for her to move like that in here! "Do you want your coffee in here, Mistress? Or do you wish for us to adjourn to the 'living room'? I never ate or drank anything in this room out of habit."

"Not even the truffles?" Sarah jokingly quipped.

She should've known better. "Oh, no, Mistress! I would never do such a thing after expressly being instructed not to! They are safe – right here!" Sofi rushed to the closet and dug the small, white paperboard box out from a box filled with photographs on the top shelf, carefully bringing it to Sarah, presenting it as if it were a precious object… looking a little guilty. "I was curious: I sniffed it – very quickly – before stashing it hence, when Lady Dara left with you. I could detect the blossom essence immediately, from the shadow my good master graced you with during your stay with us, but I must confess I do not understand the attraction of the other substances it is infused into. Forgive me."

"Oh, relax, I was just joking with you! But… alright, I can try to describe what this is like: you don't have to tell me what it is – it'll probably have the same low-level of appeal for me as these do for you – but just imagine your favorite food flavor, the best version of it you've ever had, then condense it way down so that it's powerfully rich yet still palatable in a really small amount – just a bite's worth – then spike it with an extremely rare compound that would make you comfortably euphoric for a day-and-a-half, with no withdrawal afterward. That's what this is, for me."

Sofi gasped at the revelation with a light shudder of pleasure – then had to swallow, licking her lips! "You make me salivate, Mistress!" she laughed. "My master must understand you very well, to concoct such a wondrous gift for you!"

Sarah looked away, stroking the bedspread absently. "Offhand, I'd say he's made a science of understanding what makes the people in his circle-of-influence incredibly happy… because what makes him happy is exercising active power over others. He must really get off on it, like you or I would with what I just described before."

"I had never thought of it quite that way, Mistress," Sofi hopped up beside her, facing the other way so that her wings could hang off the side of the mattress. "Perhaps you are right. But even at that, he would seem to… control the 'impulse' well. I can think of much worse things to crave," she added quietly.

"No argument there," Sarah sighed, pulling over and opening up her backpack, digging out a pile of textbooks and folders she had never even laid eyes on. Oh, why couldn't this have just waited until summer break like the last time?!

"Did you want your coffee in here, Mistress? You never said…"

"Yeah, go ahead and get them; if you're getting hungry again, I'll even phone out for delivery from the barbeque place downtown for pulled pork and tell them to hold the sauce."

"It is a truly kind offer, Mistress," Sofi called back from the living room, coming back with her hands full, "but I still only eat once a day, in the 'morning'. How strange the passage of time in Chaos must have felt for you, when you grew up with such an obvious, unchanging and well-demarcated progression here!" she set the drinks down on the night stand, with coasters.

"If anyone's noticed, they'll think you're – I'm – anorexic," Sarah commented, grabbing hers, taking a sip, opening up the obscurely scrawled notes, "not eating enough on purpose, possibly for the same reason that we're seemingly on the Atkins diet."

"Oh dear, I didn't know that was wrong! I suppose I've been making a mess of your life here, haven't I? Again I-"

"Sofi?"

"Yes?"

"Stop constantly apologizing and demeaning yourself already and just help me study!" Sarah sagged exasperatedly! "Do you realize how difficult it would be for me to even learn to function as you do – let alone carry out what you might consider 'daily tasks' – even if I physically had the ability?!"

"I… never gave that much thought, either," the demoness looked down at her 'lap', such as it was, settling back in on the mattress with her mug. And suddenly smirked. "Should you wish, you may resume your native tongue with me," she added – in careful American English! "I was 'given' the rudiments of your language along with your recent memories, but I have since learned to speak it passably; I had thought it might be rude, however, to use in front of the king," she enunciated clearly!

Sarah glanced at those knowing, bright-red irises, that in turn tentatively met her own. She was still the same self-deprecating, self-underestimating, riddling old bird…

"Remind me to tell you about a creature I met off in Shadow named Raven, before you have to leave; I think you might like him," Sarah smirked, opening a hefty literature tome, mentally bracing herself for the heaviest scholastic cram of her life.

Thank the powers it was only Wednesday, by the perfectly marked-off wall calendar…