A Circle.

High above the largest park in the City of Orintar, a circle was convening under the stars.

The largest tree in the city is almost a thousand feet tall; maybe more than a thousand, depending upon the size of your feet. Nestled in its crown is a round wooden platform that presents to its occupants the appearance of being surrounded by Orin bushes. Those seeming bushes are the tips of the branches that uphold the platform. A particularly large branch toward the northeast supports the steps by which one ascends to the platform from the trunk of the tree. An opening cut out of the disk of the otherwise circular platform allows access from the steps to the surface of the platform. Through that opening the Duke of Orintar led a small party of humans. To his right as he emerged, which is to say, in the north, stood a pair of gnomes. To his left, which is to say, in the east, a pair of pixies. In the west a pair of Nixies. In the south, a very small golden dragon. Very very small: even as the Duke looked at it - at her - she transformed into humanoid form though her skin, hair and eyes remained golden. He recognised Zorla, a dragon who was already old when she welcomed his forebear, Mellinostar of Mendarion, to this city. They smiled at each other in recognition. He realised that if the light were better he might well recognise the gnomes too; he thought it likely that they would turn out to be a pair of those he had met in the gnomish tavern beneath the tree. Gromyl and Gramyl, possibly?

Next after the Duke came Douglas DeLaurence, adventurer, fop about town and, in this context, also somewhat of a mentalist. His eyes confirmed what his sense of presence had already told him: ten beings arranged in a circle approximately half the diameter of the platform, plus two in the east, two in the west, two in the north and the presence that his attention had been most drawn to due to its vastness, now shrunken to human size and shape, in the south. Zorla, as his recognition of presences had indicated. His mind catalogued each presence he had not previously encountered. "Deosil," he whispered as the Duke momentarily paused, uncertain of how to proceed. The Duke nodded slightly and headed toward the Pixies. Douglas stood aside to let the rest of the humans follow the Duke.

Next, John Baker, Guildmaster of the Bakers' Guild, an ordinary enough middle-aged human male dressed as for an upper middle class night on the town. A figure that would not seem out of place at any upper crust establishment catering to the well to do. Douglas directed him with a wave and a nod to follow the Duke.

Close behind John, Gaffer 'The Creampuff' Millerson, past Guildmaster, a Grandmaster Baker. Doug offered him a hand, but he declined the help. "I'm not that decrepit yet, lad," he objected with a wry smile.

Doug's well oiled gallantry, and possibly the advantage of youth over age, beat the Gaffer to the courtesy of helping Bertha Riverside, next of the party, from the steps onto the platform. She waved the gaffer along and turned to wait for her husband.

Terrence Riverside, Master Baker and husband of Bertha, joined her and together, hand in hand, they turned to follow the Duke.

Fetching yet mature, Crissy, fiery redhead, last of the party of humans, smiled at Doug and gave his hand a little squeeze as he helped her, quite unnecessarily but as demanded by foppish courtly manner, onto the platform. She followed the Duke's procession, her hair aquiring a more fiery gleam moment by moment, which Doug correctly interpreted as an indication that she intended to take station in the south. But his eyes could not linger upon her, as the Princess's party was about to enter.

Alrana, breathtakingly beautiful elven Princess, had waited courteously to allow Doug his courtly conceit of helping her. He unbuckled his swordbelt with one hand while helping her with the other, and held the belt aside toward a branch, looking a question at her. "Guard our backs," she whispered and moved along in Crissy's wake.

Finally Marella, comely elven Wayfarer bearing a platter heaped with cakes of waybread. She smiled graciously, holding the platter balanced high upon her left hand as she allowed Doug to exercise his foppish manners. Her practiced waitressly balance and dexterity made it obvious that she needed help at least as little as Crissy did. She spun the platter down into both hands again and gestured with it toward an elf watching from closer to the centre of the platform.

The elf thus indicated nodded, approached, and relieved her of the platter. Like most elves she seemed youngish, but Doug recognised her and knew she was reputed to be at least as old as Eldarimar.

Marella smiled at Doug. "We shall guard the entrance together," she said, then nodded at the other elf. "Thank you, Elmara."

Elmara smiled at them both and returned to her place in the central circle of elves. Doug looked around the circle. Crissy stood in the south beside Zorla. Bertha and Terrence were in the southwest. The Duke, John Baker and the Gaffer in the northwest. An elven couple moved from the central circle to station themselves in the southeast.

Alrana approached the east, wielding a leaf-shaped spearhead, seemingly carved from emerald, in her right hand like a knife. All sounds from beyond the platform, even the rustling of the branches around its edges, faded while sounds from within the circle seemed to amplify. All eyes were upon Alrana. She bowed to the pixies. They bowed back. Alrana raised the spearhead high and invoked. "Witches and Mentalists, link with me if you wish, lend your strength to this Circle and this Rite." She paused, linking with Douglas and with others. "Powers of the Air, we welcome you to our Circle and our Rite." A zephyr breeze swept through the circle from the east. She lowered the blade and proffered it haft first toward the Pixies. They each laid a hand briefly upon the haft end and nodded. From behind them rose a pillar of yellow light, curving overhead toward a point above the centre of the platform, from which paler yellow light swept down on all sides delineating a dome covering the entire platform before pillar and dome both faded as swiftly as they had appeared.

Alrana progressed deosil until she stood before Zorla and Crissy, facing south. "Powers of Fire, we welcome you to our Circle and our Rite," she invoked, blade raised high. A wave of warmth radiated across the circle from the south. As before she offered the blade, as before the confirming touches and nods were given. The pillar and dome that swiftly appeared and as swiftly faded were red.

Onward to the west, the nixie couple, the Powers of Water, a swift pleasant gentle shower of fine rain or heavy mist, pillar and dome of blue.

Thence to the north, the gnome couple, the Powers of Earth. The wooden platform seemed to turn to stone, richly adorned with gemstones, the branches all around grew with uncanny speed to delineate the dome of protection over the entire platform, the floor seemed to rise up on all sides as hills, mountains, cliffs, and closed overhead creating the illusion of an underground cavern. The pillar and dome of light that followed the ritual touches and nods was green, and the illusions faded with that light.

Cakes and Wine.

Alrana stood beside the gnomes, facing the centre of the circle. "This night of the year," she announced, "many a year ago, Mellinostar of Mendarion, Zorla of Orintar, and Eldarimar of the Treehouse broke bread together and drank Oringe wine together here under the stars." She paused, allowing people time to absorb what she had said. When she felt that enough time had passed, she looked around and smiled. "Of course it was not called Oringe wine in those days. The fruit of the Orin, and thus the wine made from that fruit, was simply called Orin back then. It was later, as tales told by Zaladar became popular among elves, that some among us started calling the Orin fruit Oringes." She waited again for people to piece things together or even merely to ponder what was behind her words or where they were heading. "Oringes," she said, lifting her empty left hand higher and higher until, suddenly, a blue-skinned fruit appeared in it, "are blue." Her pause this time was shorter. "I see some of you smile; it is a long-standing inside joke among friends of Zaladar." She lowered her hand. "As is the term Baker's Treat." She shrugged. "Apparently both terms gain something in translation. Notice that those most familiar with Zaladar smile more broadly. Evidently some among us are Baker's Treat Irregulars." She looked at the Gaffer.

The Gaffer managed to suppress a chuckle, but all eyes were upon him and few missed the fact that he was clearly amused.

Alrana shifted her gaze to Elmara, bearer of the platter of waybread.

Elmara stepped into the very centre of the circle, and the other seven elves forming the central circle backed away from her to space themselves out making room for others to join them as one circle. Elmara stood in the centre holding the platter above her head while everyone else rearranged themselves into one circle and sat or squatted, as each found more comfortable. When that was accomplished, not without some whispering of introductions among circle-neighbors, Elmara gracefully spun the platter down to the floor in the centre and found herself a place between Douglas and Eldarimar. She smiled at Doug. "So we are introduced at last," she whispered.

He acknowledged with a nod and a smile, and they returned their attention to Alrana, sitting crosslegged just west of the gnomes.

Alrana gathered everyone's attention and gestured toward the platter. Three cakes levitated from the platter. One flew to the Duke, one to Zorla, one to Eldarimar. "Elf, Dragon and Human broke bread together," quoth Alrana. Eldarimar broke his cake in two, opened his palms. The pieces floated back to the plate. Zorla, then the Duke, followed suit. But while the attention of most was caught by the waybread floating from the Duke's hands to the platter, some noticed that as Zorla had let go of her waybread she had lowered her hands to her sides and raised them bearing jewelled goblets, one of which remained in her right hand while the other floated toward the Duke. Eldarimar now had his cup in his right hand and a jug of wine in his left. Three more cakes floated from the platter. One flew to the Gaffer, one to John Baker, one to Terrence Riverside. "Baker's Treat," Alrana smiled at them. First the Gaffer, then John, then Terrence broke bread and allowed the pieces to float back to the platter. More cakes began to fly, and more cups to appear, and jugs; and cups to fly, and jugs, filling cups, until everyone had broken bread and everyone had at least one piece of bread from someone and everyone a cup of some liquid pleasing to them. Yet more cups and cakes and pieces of bread and jugs of liquid floated above and around until they seemed to overflow from the platform into the sky around and rain down upon the park and the city and the countryside. Then the illusions faded and what people had in hand was real and good; nourishing refreshing and tasty or precious beautiful and jewelled. The sun was fully set, the crescent moon not yet risen above the mountains to the east.

"We are gathered under the stars," Eldarimar announced, lifting his cup, which floated from his hand to hover above the centre of the circle.

"Let the attention of the stars focus upon this place and this time," said Alrana, lifting her emerald spearhead, which likewise floated from her hand. It placed itself above Eldarimar's cup, point down, and slowly its point descended into the cup.

In no particular order, others of those assembled raised their cups toward that central spot, assuming various miens of concentration, contemplation or prayer. Only when all had done so did Eldarimar speak again.

"Light and life, love and laughter, spirit soul and mind," he said.

"Earth and air, fire and water, root and stem and branch," quoth Alrana.

"Let us give thanks for the fruits of what we have planted in the past, and tend carefully the seeds of the future," they recited together. The cup and spearhead floated back into their hands and, again in no particular order, the assembled company lowered their cups.

Matters At Hand.

"The King of Mendarion has made a noble choice," Alrana announced.

Upon the platter still sitting in the centre of the circle a tree seemed to grow.

"He is wizened and aged," said Eldarimar, "and his physickers have been hard pressed to keep life in his body these last several years."

The tree, by now about the height of an elf or man, grew wizened. It was not an Orin tree, indeed it might not have been any species known but, rather, a unique tree, a tree painted by some clever painter for this occassion alone. For, in sooth, it was of course an illusion, and this fact the illusionist was not attempting to conceal.

"This night the King shall step down," said Alrana, "in favour of he who can rightfully wear the Crown."

An image of the Crown appeared above the tree, and the topmost branch of the tree blossomed and bore fruit: a golden apple. The crown faded, and as the tree also faded the apple fell to the platter and rolled from the platter to rest before the Duke. Around the circle the greenery seemed again to grow rapidly.

"We may travel now to Mendarion," said Alrana, "if all are willing." She looked around, gathering assent. The greenery continued to grow all around, weaving a canopy that gradually closed in above. She looked at the Duke. "Simply do not resist, and it shall be done," she explained.

The Duke nodded, and the greenery began to unravel, changing in character as it did so. The floor also changed, from wood to stone. Stone battlements were revealed as the greenery changed to climbing vines.

"We are now upon the northeast tower of the Royal Palace of Mendarion," Alrana explained, "where the wizard Zaladar was wont to consult under the stars." She looked at Douglas and Marella, sitting in the northeast where stairs ascended from below. "Mayhap the King is ready to join us," she suggested.

Marella and Douglas nodded and rose to their feet. A light shone from the stair. Slowly a stretcher appeared, floating, followed closely by a jolly dark-haired man who smiled broadly at Doug, twirled his moustachio, stroked his goatee, and gave a little bow. Upon the stretcher lay the King. Slowly the stretcher tilted, the coverlets holding the King in place transforming themselves until they became royal robes of state and the King seemed to stand upon his feet.

Douglas bowed deeply. "Your Majesty."

The King smiled weakly. "Let that be the last time you address me so, Douglas, for tonight I abdicate," he said, and looked around the circle until his eyes settled upon the Duke. Upon the platter in the centre of the circle, the Crown appeared.

The King bowed to the Duke. "Your Highness, it has come to my attention that your forebear, Mellinostar, was the rightful heir to the Crown," he said. "Accordingly, I would have you try the Crown to witness the truth of the fact that you are in sooth Mellinostar's rightful heir."

The apple resting before the Duke jumped into the Duke's hand. A little surprised, the Duke stood and bowed deeply to the King.

"The Duke has brought you medicine," quoth Alrana.

The Duke smiled, and proceeding deosil around the platter he brought the apple to the King. "My liege," he said, and bowed again, presenting the apple.

The King nodded, accepted the apple, and looked toward Alrana.

Alrana smiled. "Health and long life, your Majesty," she said, and nodded, raising her eyebrows a little.

The King held out the apple upon the palm of his right hand and looked around the circle. "I thank you all," he said, and bit of the apple. His eyes closed in a kind of ecstacy, and he shivered from tip to toe, his mouth falling open, his head tilting back. He held this pose for a moment, savouring the healing juices, then recovered his composure with some little difficulty and closed his mouth. Doug and Marella helped him to sit.

The jolly little man with the moustachios and goatee raised his eyebrows at Crissy and made his way deosil around the circle to sit beside her, then waved a hand toward the Crown, which thereupon rose from the platter. With his other hand he waved at the Duke. "Onyx of Jasper at your service, your Highness," he said. "Would you try the Crown for us now, if you please?"

The Duke nodded gravely and approached the Crown. As he reached out it floated into his hands.

"It is certain that it will not harm you," said Alrana, "but still it was thought best to make the test before the public Coronation."

The Duke nodded gravely again, then lifted the Crown and placed it upon his head.

The King, now sitting crosslegged upon the floor, a pose that would moments ago have seemed impossible to him, made a kind of bow. "Your Majesty," he said.

The Duke returned the bow. "Your Highness," he replied.

The King smiled. "No," he said, "do not say so, for I am stood down now not only from the Kingship but also from all noble holdings of the Kingdom of Mendarion. I am now, if I understand correctly, a subject of Lady Eos, and am to become a student of various Faery Folk who, while not necessarily immortal, are nonetheless long-lived beyond the normal span of mortals."

The Crown floated from the Duke's head and returned to the platter in the centre of the circle. The Duke looked around a moment as if unsure where to go or what to do or say, then at a gesture from Alrana resumed his place in the circle and sat. Marella and Doug also sat.

The King swallowed, for all this time he had continued to savour his first bite of the apple. He took another bite. Moment by moment his health was visibly improving. Noticing that Alrana and Eldarimar had turned their attention toward Crissy, he too did so.

"You shall be known as Young John, or John Young," Crissy told him. "You, like the Duke and I, descend from Fox, an old friend and associate of Lady Eos. It is Fox who shall answer to Lady Eos for your training and comportment, and Fox has chosen me to be your guide for the time being. You may address me as Crissy or as Mistress Crissy."

Young John's health was certainly improving, but he still looked far from young. He nodded at Crissy, waved the apple in her direction, swallowed. "Mistress," he acknowledged, and took another bite of the apple.

"You are about to enter your second childhood," Crissy continued. "It may well prove more arduous than your first. The task that you face now is that of making yourself worthy, in but a few short centuries, of such an apple as you now hold. Much study and exercise, practice and experience will be required. There are many more who desire such apples than receive them, so there will be plenty of people who will resent you. We are under the stars, and will spend plenty of time under the stars, so your situation is no secret to any who scry or divine. You will be the subject of much petty intrigue and competition. Accordingly, for at least a year and a day, you must never be alone."

Young John smiled and shrugged. "I have not been alone since shortly before the wizard Zaladar was slain in this very palace," he admitted, "and Lord Onyx has stayed nearby since he, Douglas and Marlo slew the corrupt Primate and, it seems, possibly thereby also drove off the Queen of Darkness and her minions."

Crissy looked askance at Onyx.

"Ahem, about that," said Onyx.

Young John, too, looked askance at him.

"Well, actually, about that Lord bit," Onyx continued. "I am not the Lord of Illusion, as that title would doubtless be contested by he who is also styled the Lord of Lies. I am also not the Lord of Jasper, as I allowed you to imagine me to be." He shrugged. "I have served you in the capacity of Master of Deception as well as Royal Wizard; you will forgive, I hope, this little deception that Crissy, it seems, would have me disabuse you of. You may, however, address me as Master Onyx, or even, if it pleases you, Grandmaster Onyx." He winked at the Duke then smiled broadly at Crissy. "May we take it, Milady, that you know a thing or two of Jasper?" He asked.

She smiled back at him. "I have admitted as much earlier this evening," she said. "I am a student of the tales of Fox, through which it is known to me that she who taught you the arts developed by the Lord of Lies was none other than Fox.

Onyx raised an eyebrow and stroked his goatee thoughtfully. "Fox, eh?" He mused. "That explains much."

Crissy smiled around at the assembled company. "It was Fox who set Onyx in the path of Oliver Bronze," she explained. "Unfortunately Oliver seems to have come to much the same end as did he who slew the wizard Zaladar. In short, hubris."

"Ah yes," said Onyx, looking at Young John again. "Thus the disclaimer as regards the title of Lord, Your Youngness." He grinned, and quickly, to save Crissy the trouble of correcting him again, added "Not that I myself am any older than you, of course, or if so then doubtless not much so."

Crissy smiled approvingly.

"Speaking of the Lord of Lies," said Alrana, "it seems that he is available to us this night, should any here desire him to make an appearance. Apparently he would not be averse to taking this opportunity to parley before witnesses with His Youngness Onyx of Jasper."

Onyx shrugged. "I have no objection to such a parley if none here oppose the idea," he said.

Eldarimar looked at the Duke. "Better at the Treehouse than here," he suggested.

"I bow to your wisdom," the Duke replied.

Eldarimar looked at Onyx.

"I agree," said Onyx. "I doubt that such a parley is a Palace matter."

"If the Lord of Lies finds it convenient to spend a day or two at The Treehouse," said Crissy, "and, of course, if The Treehouse finds him an acceptable guest, then it might be that he could also obtain an interview with Fox."

Eldarimar looked at Alrana. "If we are to guest the Lord of Lies in Orintar," he said, "we should first consult he who will soon be the new Duke."

"Agreed," she replied, and paused for several seconds before continuing. "We should know within the hour."

Eldarimar smiled at the Duke. "If we are to have both Fox and the Lord of Lies under our roof, we should take the opportunity to see if we can flatter them into helping create for your Coronation such a display as even His Youngness Onyx might be hard pressed to provide by himself."

"Hah!" Crissy exclaimed. "Fox, yes, I expect we have a good chance of convincing her, but if you can convince the Lord of Lies... well, mayhap if he be permitted to do it incognito..."

"Good thinking, Crissy," Eldarimar replied. "Indeed, to have the Lord of Lies officially provide entertainment would be too much of a coup to hope for so soon."

"Exactly," said Crissy. "Fox does not wish to undermine his standing among the Northerners too much at this time."

Eldarimar smiled at the Duke. "The Northerners are relatively young," he explained. "Their culture seems to regard hubris as a virtue." He looked at Onyx. "He has picked up a little of Faery culture, however, and seems to enjoy it well enough."

Crissy, too, looked at Onyx. "Fox and some of the Elves have been working on the matter of the Lord of Lies for some time; that you practice his arts is on Fox's head, not yours. It was she who stole them from him, and she who taught them to you. You have taught no others?"

Onyx shook his head in negation. "None."

Crissy looked at Alrana.

Alrana nodded at Crissy then paused a few seconds. "The message has been sent," she said. "Also, Nord's Witch Queen conveys her usual message to Witches everywhere that she and her Covens throughout Nord continue to offer their aid and goodwill to any Witches who oppose the Queen of Darkness and her ilk."

"Please convey to her," said Crissy, "that there might now no longer be a need to leave anyone in doubt as to who it was that fashioned her crown."

Eldarimar frowned slightly. "If it is as I suspect," he said, "then some among the Northerners might accuse Fox of having fermented rebellion, dissent, and revolution on Nord."

Crissy smiled. "If that be so, mayhap the Lord of Lies and Fox shall yet be known again, as they have been before, as the Lord and Lady of Mischief." She made a mischievous grin, turning toward Douglas that she and he might compare grins and achieve a consensus that, yes, such an expression does indeed express mischievousness. She returned her gaze to Onyx. "It was to his Lady of Mischief that he taught his arts," she explained. "That is how Fox came by them."

Onyx demonstrated that he, too, was capable of producing a mischievous grin.

Alrana turned toward Marella. "The Wayfarers convey their support as usual?" She enquired.

"If there be any Coven on Nord that has not a Wayfarer associated, I would be pleased to know of it," Marella responded.

"My pardon," Alrana replied. "mobilisation has proceeded faster than I knew."

"Tonight was the deadline," said Marella, "so as I said, if there be any such Coven..."

Alrana nodded, and conveyed the message. Shortly she nodded again and smiled at Marella. "I am assured that the deadline was well met." She looked at the Pixies, but they shook their heads slightly in negation. Either they had no messages or enquiries to make or they were making them directly. So onward to Zorla, but no, she merely smiled ironically, causing Doug to wonder whether she, too, had her own resources in such matters. So, the Nixies?

"We have a son," said the female Nixie, "who wishes to be fostered in Oceania. But the heart of his wish is a desire for training such as a Knight of Oceania receives. In short, he burns with ambition to study with Hess the Untouchable."

Alrana paused to consult the stars, or, more accurately, to consult those with whom she was Starspeaking, before replying. "If he feels that he has outgrown the teachers in his home waters, he should seek training from the Nixies of the Mendarion Reservoir before Hess would be likely to place any credence in such a desire," she said.

The Nixie smiled. "Those very Nixies tell us the same thing," she said. "It shall be so." From the west, which is to say, from the general direction of the reservoir, a sound of rushing waters was briefly heard.

Alrana looked at the gnomes beside her.

The male gnome, Gromyl, looked at Crissy and nodded. "It was Fox who taught Gnomes the art of enchanting jewelry," he said. "I am confident that if the Gnomes of Faery could be of service to Fox in a matter of some importance..."

Crissy smiled. "What, but none are faster nor more cunning than Fox! Do you imply that with all the Gnomes of Faery aiding her she could turn out more useful items, more quickly, than she could without such aid?"

Gromyl grinned a wide grin. "Of course not! How could you think such a thing! No, I merely meant that should she prefer to laze about while others do the work, and the work is important..."

"Ah yes, that is a different matter indeed," Crissy admitted. "Doubtless the Gnomes of Faery have done far too much of her work for her already. If she has done anything for them lately I'd be pleased to hear the tale."

"The Gnomes of Faery," said Alrana, "assure me that Fox has this very night made it widely known that it was she who made certain tokens of royalty, during the making of which she was not loath to permit certain gnomes to putter about in her workshop and even, if their family traditions be accurate, permit them to make small contributions to the making of said tokens. Their families are not ashamed of those contributions, nor do they fear, now, any retribution any jealous personages might try to bring upon them should Fox happen to mention..."

"That is good," said Crissy, "for the tales that I have of the making of those tokens are somewhat specific about such details, and I was, I confess, not a little concerned as to what dangers Fox might be bringing upon various families by entrusting such information into my keeping."

"I am also told," said Alrana, "that it is not two days since Fox scared away a band of goblins that the Gnomes had found somewhat bothersome and the Elven border-patrols had been delayed in dealing with, having, they claimed, momentarily more pressing concerns."

"Aha, a new tale of Fox," said Crissy. "As I doubt that I will be visiting the Gnomish Hills for quite some time, I would like to commission four copies of the tale, two in Gnomish, two in the common tongue of Eos." She looked at Terrence. "Copies for my own library and copies suitable to be given as gifts to the dwarf Norina, of Orintar." She smiled expectantly at Alrana.

Soon Alrana had the reply. "Later tonight, beneath the Treehouse," she said, "or at any time during the next few days at that same place, scribes shall be pleased to convey to you the information required for the fashioning of such a tale, to take it down verbatim as composed and told by one of Fox's own storytellers, translate it as necessary, and return to their workshops to fashion such copies as you may require."

Crissy looked at Eldarimar. "I will work extra hours, if necessary. I would that they be my guests, not just for this working visit but also at a time, or at times, of their choosing as often as they feel to be not merely a sufficient, but indeed a generous, recompense for their work." She looked at Alrana. "If Fox is available at this moment mayhap you can ask her if she will do me the boon of conveying these scribes herself? I doubt me not that they would be flattered by such an honour."

Alrana smiled. "Doubtless the more direct Fox's involvement the greater the value of the proposed books to a collector," she said. "Let us see." She paused again a while. "Fox is, as you know, an accomplished teleportationist," she said. "She has teleportations to accomplish this night already, in that not all of those with whom she is currently in circle are near their homes or themselves capable of teleportation. As no-one is as fast as Fox, I doubt me not that after the circles convened this night around the world break up, by the time we have accomplished our own teleportation back to Orintar the scribes will already be there, transported personally by Fox." Alrana looked around the circle. "Any other messages, questions, whatever?"

"That is not a rhetorical query," said Eldarimar. "Truly, anyone, speak your mind. I say this particularly for the benefit of those who have not circled with us before, lest they imagine Alrana is merely mouthing an empty formula as some might be imagined to do. Each of you, search your heart. The Starspeaking must continue for some time in any event, as in every circle, around the world, all are similarly consulted."

Douglas paused some seconds to ensure he was not about to interrupt some other who wished to speak, then spoke up. "Well," he said, "in that case..."

Alrana and Eldarimar smiled at him. "Yes?" Eldarimar asked.

"Is there news of my father?" Douglas enquired.

Alrana turned her gaze skyward, indicating, presumably, that she would ask or was asking.

"Anyone else?" Eldarimar enquired.

Douglas cocked his head as if he heard something, then turned an unfocussed gaze somewhat skyward.

Eldarimar noticed. "I doubt me not that Douglas is receiving his answer," he said. He looked at each of the other humans in turn, queryingly. No-one spoke up. He turned toward the Duke. "There remain the matters of the Bakers and of Zurban," he said.

"Zurban?" the Duke queried.

"The Third City and the Third Dutchy," Eldarimar clarified. "You must stop thinking of yourself as the Duke of Orintar, your son shall be that, at least for a time. You are to be King over the Four Dutchies and Lord Protector of the Royal Preserve, which latter title, by the way, should, we suggest, be taken up in sincerity or dropped from the list of responsibilities tradition associates with the Crown." Young John made as if to speak, but Eldarimar cut him off before his mouth was fairly open. "No, John, do not fret about the Royal Preserve. This is a new suggestion, not any reflection upon previous Kings." He addressed the Duke again. "In the Year known by the Wagon People as the Year that Ancarion and Melinara came among the Wagon People, which was during or very close to the lifetime of Mellinostar, a peace was forged with the Wagon People by Ancarion and Melinara. During the ensuing centuries, the Golden Dragon Trust Company, which, as you likely recall, Mellinostar was instrumental in causing to come into existence, has traded with them. We can speak of the Royal Preserve at some other time. For now it is my belief that the matters of Zurban and of these Bakers are more urgent, and as to Zurban, intelligence from there will be among that which Alrana is currently gathering or is about to gather."

"The Duke nodded understanding. "So then, these Bakers. What of them?"

"The short of it," Eldarimar replied, "is how should the tales account for the fact that a Master Baker of Orintar resorted to a Final Recourse this day?"

The Duke frowned. "In that false alarms should be discouraged?" He asked.

Alrana turned briefly toward Eldarimar. "The daughter," she said, and turned her gaze skyward again.

Bertha Riverside clutched her husband's arm. He, for his part, patted her elbow with a slight shake of his head and returned his attention to Eldarimar.

Eldarimar addressed Bertha. "Your household was evacuated the moment you left the house. Unless they are extraordinarily skillful at penetrating illusions they remain unaware that they are not still at home. If your daughter awakened she will have been brought to The Treehouse. Brother Finch is with them, as his is a familiar face." He faced the Duke again. "When we left the city, Mellinostar's pennant will have been taken down, as it is not proper to fly it in your absence. By now it should be here in Mendarion."

"It is in the room below us," Onyx volunteered. "Guarded by they who brought it and, in addition, the guards who accompanied the Crown and Young John to that room."

"Mellinostar's Pennant!" The Duke exclaimed. "I do afterall have a question. Crissy showed me that Pennant when I was a child, yet later my father claimed that it was lost. But this evening I found it exactly where it had been stored when Crissy had last shown it to me."

"Fox stole it from your father," said Crissy, "and, sometime between his death and today, returned it for you." She looked at Eldarimar. "Of course she had no right to do so," she acknowledged, "but she assured me that when she absented it from the Ducal Palace she hid it on the grounds of The Treehouse and that it was from the same hiding-place that she brought it when she returned it. Whether Fox is cunning enough to conceal such a thing right under your nose, so to speak, for so long, without your discovering it, I leave for you to judge."

Zorla, beside Crissy, waved her cup in the general direction of the Duke's. "And your cup, which as you may have noticed is the cup I gave to Mellinostar a few centuries ago, I took from its stand after you had set out for The Treehouse. None gainsaid me, not, I hope, for fear of me as a Dragon but, rather, due to the justice of my assertion that as it was mine to give, so also was it mine to take. As it its main stone is a diamond, signifying Mendarion, I suggest that it remain in Mendarion. Your son shall, if he meets my approval, receive a cup bearing a sapphire to signify Orintar. The Duke of Dragonkeep has a cup bearing a ruby. No Duke of Zurban has yet received any such cup from me."

The Duke smiled. "Ah. The matter of Zurban." He looked at Bertha Riverside. "But first, the matter of the Bakers." His gaze passed to Gaffer 'The Creampuff' Millerson. "You are a Grandmaster Baker?" He asked.

"So it has been said," the Gaffer replied.

The Duke addressed John Baker. "And you?" He asked.

"Not that I know of," that worthy replied.

The Duke looked at the Gaffer again. "So then, Grandmaster, I hold you responsible for having stepped down from the position of Guildmaster in favour of a mere Master, and question the wisdom of your decision to do so. As to whether the Grandmaster or the Guildmaster should be held responsible for the activities of Masters, you likely know better than I. In considering what to do about the whole affair, it would please me if you would take into account whatever intelligence our elven friends can provide regarding potential danger to children."

"The Queen," Alrana volunteered, still gazing skyward.

"Three questions," said the Gaffer. "Of the Duke I ask whether banishment beyond the borders of the Kingdom be too harsh a penalty for abuse, by a Master, of a Final Recourse. Of the Elves I ask whether Oceania would be willing to accept refugees of such a banishment. Of Crissy I ask whether, as an alternative to such banishment, Lady Eos could find a place for a not totally incompetent baker somewhere not too far from her own place of rest. I ask these things because I know of none save Oceania, Eos and Fox whom I might reasonably expect to be able to mount a respectable defense for the child against the Queen of Darkness, and am not at all confident that her mother would be pleased at the idea of having the child accompany Fox upon who knows what adventures to who knows where against who knows who."

"The Cockatrice Feather in Lethron," said Crissy. She looked at Alrana. "Could they use a Master Baker?" She returned her gaze to the Gaffer. "Lethron is the nearest village to the so-called Palace of the Overlords, known at times in the past as the Palace of Eos even though Lethroners seem more often to recall it as the Palace of Agamemnon." She threw a smile at Onyx. "Agamemnon was one of her consorts," she informed him. She looked at Bertha. "Mayhap your daughter could dance upon the Plaza of the Moon some day." She turned toward the Duke. "You might well not yet have heard of the confrontation that occurred not so very long ago at and near the Plaza of the Moon, when not only the Queen of Darkness but also swarms of so-called Einheriar of the North were repelled and the true end of the Ring of Angbedar was accomplished. The North knows now that the City of Eos is not as lost as had been imagined, and that the Plaza of the Moon still functions."

"Where Fox and Eos danced the Moon into the Sky," the Duke replied. "I have heard of it. Could I hope, some day, to see it?"

"You might yet live long enough to see the child dance there," Crissy assured him.

"So then, while we wait to hear from the Cockatrice Feather," the Duke replied, "there remains the matter of Zurban."

"If I might venture..." Young John ventured.

The Duke bowed to him. "Indeed you may, young man," he said. "You have had far more dealings with Zurbani than have I. Also I should point out that, to the best of my knowledge, this circle, despite its current location, is governed by the elves, not my erstwhile nanny Mistress Crissy. It is my impression that the elves have indicated that, at least in circle and during this phase of circle proceedings, it is their wish that people speak their hearts."

Crissy gave the Duke a thumbs-up gesture, familiar to many of the friends of Zaladar and common to the battle-languages of various forces as well as some other sign-languages. "Its true, I was his nanny," she stage-whispered to Onyx, swishing her hair.

"So then, as to Zurban," Young John continued. "My venture is this: if the Duke does not make an attempt upon the Throne then other Zurbani urging him to do so might well push him aside and choose another among themselves to do so. Even if they make no attempt upon the Throne of Mendarion I would expect an attempt to succeed from the Realm to make of Zurban a Kingdom."

"Trying to take the view of the people, as Zaladar taught," said the Duke, "it sounds like Zurban might, for once, not fall apart completely, which, for the people, might be a good thing."

Crissy gave him another thumbs-up, with a smile that might almost smack of a touch of... pride? "The Duke of Zurban is of a type likely to respect your father highly and hold opinions of you much akin to those your father held," she said. "If he sees your father in you you should have little or no difficulty with him." She noticed the look the Duke was now giving her. "No, I was not his nanny nor has he frequented some bar where I have worked. I but pass on an observation I received from Fox that seems lent credence by all that I have heard of the current Duke of Zurban. I do not say whether it is true, as Fox has from time to time asserted, that her grandson inherited his strategic sense from her, but for my part I have often found her observations of this kind to be puissant. Which reminds me. Do not discount her grandson. Accounts of his demise have tended, over the centuries, to turn out to have been exaggeration or even mere wishful thinking."

Persons At Large.

"You mentioned the final end of the Ring of Angbedar," the Duke reminded Crissy.

She shrugged, and pointed at waxing moon, which here in Mendarion had no towering eastern mountains to hide behind. "You might have noted the change in the moon some time back. It marked the occassion of the rite performed upon the Plaza of the Moon."

"The marking known as The Sprite," he said.

"Exactly," she confirmed. "There was a Sprite among the dancers. I know because Fox was there, and she has told me so."

"And her sword?" the Duke asked.

Crissy smiled. "The Sword of Fox," she replied. "Also known as the Sword of Fox and Hound."

"Is it also true, then, that Hound lives?"

"It was true when that rite was danced," She replied, "and as far as I know, and, indeed, also hope, it remains true now."

"Hound and the Sprite both live," Alrana volunteered, "and The Cockatrice Feather protests that if their favourite barmaid feels that they require a Master Baker they must have one. They but hope he can bake something more manly and warriorish than creampuffs, flans and such."

Crissy smiled. "Ah yes, of course. Baker's Treat Irregulars of Ilyoni Warrior persuasion don't eat flan." She looked at Terrence Riverside, Master Baker, erstwhile of Orintar. "Will that be a problem?"

"If they do not know the difference between quiche and flan," the Gaffer observed, "then they do indeed need a Master Baker to instruct them."

Master Terrence raised his eyebrows, smiling. "Never serve quiche to an Ilyoni Warrior," he said. "That one Twelve Ovens did explain. Well, maybe not exactly explain, as such. He claimed they would take it as an insult, and that was explanation enough for me at the time." He looked at the Gaffer. "I was but an apprentice," he ventured.

"And not an initiate of the Baker's Treat Mysteries," the Gaffer replied. "It is, I understand, yet another Zaladar-joke."

The Duke looked sharply at Crissy. "And Zaladar?" He asked. "He lives?"

Crissy's jaw dropped. She put a hand to her head as if in pain. Then, shaking her head, she grimaced. "Ouch," she said. "I think that is something I do not, and mayhap should not, know." She narrowed her eyes. "Zaladar was not of this world. Some part of him would live, it was said, regardless of whether he as we knew him in this world lived or died. Mayhap there is a Zaladar in every world, though he himself thought not. Merely in more than one world, was his opinion. It is more advantageous strategically at present not to know whether, in this world, he lives or may yet come to live again. Thusly if he is not to return, our doubt might lead enemies to imagine that he will, while if he is to return or has returned or never left, our doubt might lead enemies to discount him from their calculations."

"With all that has been revealed already," Eldarimar suggested, "mayhap we might as well simply admit that for all we know, Nicodemius of Nord might well turn out to have slaughtered not one of the good people with whose demise he has from time to time been credited."

Crissy perked up no little at that suggestion. "Excellent, Eldarimar!" She exclaimed. "Not only does that hugely enhance the roster of those whose memory we can profitably recall to the consternation of enemies but it even suggests, if thought through in a certain way, that reports of Nick's own demise might also turn out to be exaggeration or insufficiently wishful thinking." She looked at Young John. "I would hope, too, that if the latter turned out to be true we could also hope that Oliver Bronze might yet turn out be numbered among the living." Turning toward Onyx she explained "they were both excellent specimens; their loss to hubris, if true, was a waste of good material."

"Not a total waste," Onyx replied, "in the case of Nick the Blue; for I understand that he is survived by several children."

"Nicodemius the Red," Alrana volunteered. "Last known location this very city."

"Under True Lead," Onyx contributed. "But not fasting. If he left, he must have set up some procedure that kept his meals coming even in his absence. If he is still here, he can be traced to his hiding-place. Conveying a message to him would be even easier, if, for example, someone sought a parley with him."

"Who does he hide from, and why?" Douglas DeLaurence enquired. "On Nord he lived openly. Is he fled from enemies there or harbouring dark designs here or neither or both?"

Crissy looked at the Duke. "Nicodemius of Nord, also known as Nick the Blue, claimed to have mated with she of the five heads. This was after Zaladar and Ezekiel had thought they had slain her. Upon finding she was still alive, they slew her again. But it is said that Nicodemius had secreted somewhere ten eggs, two of each colour, and that these eventually hatched. The tales say that of this there came of each colour one of form reminiscent of Gamerin and one of form reminiscent of Ezekiel. Furthermore it has been said by some that those of the Ezekiel type are innately telepathic, a trait inherited, it is claimed, from their paternal grandmother."

Eldarimar addressed himself to Douglas. "Nicodemius of Nord," he said, "once upon a time came to Castle Faraway, thinking to slay the Lord of Wisdom." He smiled briefly toward the Riversides. "Ancarion, husband of the Lady of Life, Melinara, Queen of Faery." He turned his attention back to Doug. "In the course of the ensuing interview Ancarion learned much of the upbringing to which Nicodemius had been subjected, and Nicodemius, for his part, admitted among other things that the entire project to which his father had enjoined him, to wit a kind of belated vengeance on behalf of their forebear Cammel, apprentice of Angbedar, was not his true heart. He began to regret, in fact, the path he had already trod toward carrying out the mission to which is father had devoted him. The upshot, it seems, was that he decided he would allow Ancarion and Melinara to live. The relevance of all this to the case of Nicodemius the Red, the red child of the Gamerin-like form, is that it is believed none of these children ever met their father. That is, they hatched after his purported demise. It is likely that, to the best of their knowledge, they were conceived by him for precisely such a project of vengeance as he himself was sired for. In essence, Cammel's line was engaged in a breeding project. Nick the Blue perceived in Gamerin and Ezekiel seeming advantages in combining draconic and humanoid stock. Gamerin and Ezekiel both being major figures in bringing down Cammel, what better creatures to create to counter these specific opponents? It is not yet known whether any of these children would give any credence whatsoever to elven tales of their father's regrets, his desire to direct his energies in a more positive direction, mayhap even to make up in some way for things he had done in the service of his father's project."

"Gamerin is commonly assumed to be alive and thus Nicodemius the Red probably assumes he has at least that one key opponent upon this continent who will slay him out of hand on general principles," Doug ventured.

Eldarimar nodded. "There is in that pair also a question of nurture versus nature, as Zaladar might put it. Red Dragons and Golden Dragons seem generally assumed to be natural enemies."

"I am not convinced that such mixed blood is an advantage," volunteered Zorla. "Some are of the opinion that Gamerin's human blood, despite its worthy lineage, tainted him."

"If this Nicodemius the Red is in this city," quoth the Duke, then I wouldst fain interview him or have him leave."

"Noted," quoth Onyx. "How soon an interview, where, and with what manner of witnesses, guards, and so on on each of your parts?"

"If he is a guest in this city, then an interview appropriate to a guest of his situation and standing, of course," the Duke replied.

A Coronation In The Offing.

"So then, the matter of your Coronation," Zorla suggested to the Duke.

The Duke looked at her and considered her suggestion carefully. "As regards whether creatures such as this Nicodemius the Red might attend, and what reactions might be provoked by allowing them to do so?"

"Just so," she confirmed.

"Mayhap you can do me the honour of describing the kind of reactions you envision?"

Zorla shrugged. "Dragons are noble creatures. Like any noble creature they should be treated nobly unless or until they behave ignobly. But what constitutes noble treatment varies widely from culture to culture, and many humanoids seem from time to time to feel that Dragons are not worthy of being met in single combat but rather, mayhap on account of the relative size, weight, strength, age, experience, and so on of the combatants, should be attacked by multiple opponents simultaneously."

"Cries of 'it is a monster, kill it'?"

Zorla nodded affirmation. "There you have it," she said.

"It seems likely then," the Duke observed, "that those more similar to Ezekiel in form than to Gamerin would produce less disturbance, and that if like yourself and, if I recall correctly, also Gamerin, this Nicodemius the Red is able to assume a more humanoid form he might mingle more smoothly with other guests."

"I caution you," said Zorla, "that while this line of argument might well serve in the case of the children of Nick the Blue, or, as one might also style them, the grandchildren of his mother, having a purebred red dragon, or a child of she of the five heads by a dragon father, as a guest might be quite another matter."

"Golden Dragons enjoy privileges within the Kingdom of Mendarion that are not customarily extended to other Dragons." The Duke observed. "They, and or the Platinum King, are jealous or territorial regarding this privilege?"

"It is told that Dragons were conceived and created as weapons with which to wage war upon Eos," quoth Zorla, "and that the metallic dragons were conceived and created as defensive weapons to counter them. Such history, I venture, dies hard."

The Duke smiled. "So then. I should interview this Nicodemius the Red before the Coronation, that I may judge whether to invite him to attend the festivities."

Zorla, too, smiled. "Just so," she confirmed.

"The date of the Coronation," Alrana hinted.

"Midwinter," Onyx volunteered. "The Renewal of the Sun."

The Duke smiled. "I like it." He looked around the circle. "Objections, counterarguments, concerns? Anyone?"

"It shall be dreamed upon," said Alrana. "There is a concern, or as some might see it, an opportunity, regarding a conflict involved in Light triumphing over Darkness. If we invite such a conflict, are we prepared, in sooth, to carry it to the desired conclusion, and would the Coronation Festivities be the best venue for such a conflict?"

The Duke nodded at her. "An Equinox, then?" he asked.

Alrana consulted the stars. "Autumn is too close, and spring too far," she said. "Mayhap let it be known that the date will be announced this coming Equinox, and also let it be known that auguries are being consulted regarding the auspiciousness of the Solstice as the date?"

The Duke looked around the circle again, and then again. "So be it," he decided.

"It is likely that by the Equinox the outcome of the contest will have been foreseen," Eldarimar suggested.

Alrana smiled. "Some consider it likely that by then the Queen of Darkness will be out of favour in the Rainbow City." She smiled more broadly. "One-eye himself considers it likely."

Eldarimar grinned. "Then who is to say otherwise? It is likely."

"One-hand grants that for his part he would consider it bad form to interfere with the festivities," Alrana continued.

"The Lord of Mischief also," Eldarimar added. "He has arrived at The Treehouse. He proposes that any who wish to make a conflict participate in a Festival of Misrule shortly after the Coronation, whereat all sides may test their mettle and that of their opponents of choice, and that if conflict is still desired thereafter the Summer Solstice be the favoured date."

"One-eye concurs," said Alrana.

"The Lady of Mischief suggests that the Winter Solstice is, therefore, the correct date for the Coronation," Eldarimar contributed.

Crissy frowned at Eldarimar. "The Lady of Mischief? Not some pretender?" She asked sternly.

Eldarimar smiled. "My pardon. Fox advised me that The Lady of Mischief suggested that the Winter Solstice is, therefore, the correct date for the Coronation."

Crissy gave him a smile and a nod. "Thank you for that clarification."

The Duke smiled. "Then let it be so. The Solstice."

And a little child...

Eldarimar addressed Bertha Riverside. "Your daughter is awake. She has been brought to the room directly below us." He looked at Crissy with a mischievous smile. "Not that we mistrust the Lord of Mischief, of course." His gaze returned to Bertha. "She desired to be brought to her parents. May she come up?"

"For my part, certes," said Bertha. "If that would not be out of place at an occassion such as this."

Marella and Douglas stood and faced the stairs.

As Bertha's friend and confessor Brother Finch ascended hand in hand with a charming girl of mayhap five or six years of age a gentle light began to glow around Terrence and Bertha, so that the girl had no difficulty picking them out in the relative darkness of that towertop under the stars. It was clear that her urge was to rush directly across the circle to her parents, but Brother Finch hushed her gently and guided her slowly deosil around the circle, pointing out the sights highlighted as they proceeded by a gentle glow that travelled with them. By the time they had passed her parents and reached the Nixies, she was wide-eyed indeed.

"Pixies!" She enthused to her mother. "Nixies! Air, Fire, Water..."

"And next," Brother Finch gently urged, "Earth..." He led the girl to stand before the gnomes, who sat between Alrana and Eldarimar.

"Gnomes!" The girl enthused.

"And a Princess," Brother Finch hinted.

"Alrana?" The girl mused, looking the Princess eye to eye.

Alrana smiled. "Alrana," she confirmed. "How did you know?"

The child smiled. "Because you are the most beautiful Princess in all the world," she asserted with utter seriousness and sincerity.

Eldarimar looked suspiciously at Doug. Alrana quirked an eyebrow at Brother Finch. Onyx looked at Crissy. Marella peered down the stairs as if wondering who else might be down there.

"Of Queens, Princesses, and Great Ladies," the child recited, "Oldest is Oceania, Fastest is Elfmother, Cunningest is Fox, most beautiful is Alrana, haughtiest is..."

"Enough, child," Brother Finch chided.

The Duke spoke up. "Daringest is Elmara, wisest is Eos, bravest is Hecate, most healing is Melinara, naughtiest is..."

"Me!" The girl exclaimed, and giggled.

Alrana looked at the Duke. The Duke looked at Crissy. Alrana raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes heavenward to signify 'of course, naturally, wouldn't one know it' and asked the girl "Who taught you this, child?"

The girl pointed across the circle toward Crissy. "Nanny," she said.

"Just now?" Bertha enquired.

The girl turned toward her. "No, silly, lots of times," she said. "Nanny hides cookies for me, remember?"

Bertha looked suspiciously at Crissy.

Crissy spoke while binding her hair in a scarf, which made a surprising amount of difference in her appearance. "Not for years now," she asserted. "Only at first, and occassionally, to encourage her to seek for them." She looked around the circle. "Bear witness," she said, then addressed the child. "Lady Naught, can you find the cookie in the centre of the circle?"

The child smiled broadly, giggled with delight, rushed directly to the Crown where it sat upon its platter in the centre of the floor, reached in and brought out a cookie.

"I rest my case," quoth Crissy.

Bertha looked askance at Alrana.

"Oh it was Lady Naught's doing, certes," Alrana assured her, and caught the child's eye again. "Does Lady Naught have another name?" she asked.

"Most studious," the Duke volunteered, "is..."

"Barbara!" The girl exclaimed.

Crissy smiled at Bertha. "Sharp and retentive is..."

"Barb!" the child exclaimed. "Sharpest and most retentive!"

Bertha shook her head slowly and solemnly at Crissy. "And I let you go because you were hiding cookies for her," she said. "I apologise in all sincerity."

Crissy shrugged. "She was good friends with Brother Finch by then." She looked at Alrana. "In Zaladarian, or Zaladarish, or whatever one wishes to term the language of Zaladar's people in the world from which he came, 'barb' is a word which can be used to refer to that part of a fancy fish-hook that lends it its retentiveness." She smiled. "Also, 'barbarian' is a word that can be used to refer to the clumsy, the foreign, the untutored, the uncouth, the uncultured."

"Barb the 'Barbarian'!" Barbara exclaimed, which in the common tongue of Eos was an invocation of a barbarous name but which, if you translate it correctly into the otherworldly tongue known by some of its speakers as 'English', requires the application of little if any 'English' in order to achieve some degree of intelligibility. Or so, at any rate, some scholars of otherworldly languages assert.

Alrana nodded at Crissy. "'Barber', 'Occam', 'Razor'", she pronounced: three more barbarous names or otherworldly words.

The Gaffer looked at Terrence. "Baker's Treat essentials, I am told, so pay attention, lad," he said.

"When Hound is Lazy, Fox can o'erleap him even if she be in a brown funk," said Barbara, followed by an extremely barbarous incantation that, we are told, requires no less than two dozen symbols to inscribe if done properly, even if one be a baker.

"That is what I said!" Barbara objected.

"Indeed you did, Milady," Crissy admitted. "After a fashion. Fox, brown yet fast, lets sleeping Hound lie by o'erleaping him."

Barbara looked at her suspiciously, evidently sensing layers of meaning just beyond her ken. "Hound wakes up and tries to snap her out of the air without hurting her," she ventured.

Crissy smiled. "Hound gets a cookie," she suggested.

Barbara beamed, and examined the Crown more closely. "Two!" she exclaimed.

"Two!" Exclaimed Crissy. "I wonder who the other one is for?"

"For Fox, of course," Barbara explained. She looked around the towertop, then turned to Brother Finch. "I don't know which way she is from here so can I crumble it in the bushes so if she is lazy the Birds will steal it from her?"

Brother Finch smiled. "We are in circle. Is there a special time for such things?"

"Oh!" Barbara's face assumed a thoughtful mien. "When we thank the quarters?" She asked.

Brother Finch consulted the faces of Alrana and Eldarimar, smiling.

Eldarimar beamed at Barbara. "Perfect," he said. "Nanny Crissy has invited you, with your mother and father too of course, to live with her and her friends in Dragonkeep Province. What think you of that?"

Barbara looked at Crissy. "Lethron?" She asked. "The Cockatrice Feather?"

Crissy nodded.

Barbara turned toward her mother. "When in Dragonkeep, be sure to visit the Cockatrice Feather," she recited. "May we? The Cockatrice Feather isn't in Dragonkeep Town, it is in Lethron, which is south of the Palace of the Overlords." She threw Crissy a grin. "The Palace of Eos!" She exclaimed. "May we dance on the Plaza of the Moon?"

"We are only about so far," said Crissy, spreading apart somewhat the thumb and a forefinger of one hand but by no means stretching them apart, "from doing so this very instant. But first you should meet Lady Eos."

"Which," Eldarimar suggested, "I suspect we are only about so far," holding thumb and forefinger apart no more than was necessary for it to be seen that they were, in fact, apart, "from doing this very instant."

The girl looked, wide-eyed, from Crissy to Eldarimar to her mother.

Her father looked at her very seriously. "Lady Naught," he said, "It seems to me that, indeed, we must go to Lethron. If not this very instant then soon, very soon. I am glad that you find the idea a good one."

"Can we see Gamerin's house, and explore the Palace, and go through a teleportal to the Palace of the Overlords of Nord?" Barbara asked.

He looked bewildered. "Milady, I know not," he replied. "Ask Nanny Crissy?" he ventured, clearly out of his depth.

Crissy addressed the child. "Come now, retentive one, surely you remember that those teleportals only worked for those for whom Zaladar made them. We shall have to ask him to make one for each of us, if we happen to meet him."

"Or Fox," Barbara replied. "Zaladar made them a long time ago. No matter how great a teleportationist he was Fox must have caught up by now, because Fox is fast." She faced her father again. "Very fast," she assured him.

"I can see that you have a lot of faith in her, my dear," her father replied. "Do you know that we are, this very moment, in Mendarion? It seems to me that Brother Finch must have brought you here from Orintar in but a moment, and it sounds to me as if Fox must be even faster than Brother Finch."

Barbara looked around in wonderment. "This is Mendarion?"

"So I am told," said her father. "And that is the True Crown, and young John, there, was King this very morning, and our own Duke there, the Duke of Orintar, is the True King."

Barbara looked, wide-eyed, at the Duke. "You truly can wear the True Crown?" she asked him.

"It has been proven this very evening," he assured her.

She turned and smiled at Crissy. "Maybe when the True King wears his Crown!" She exclaimed. "Maybe when a True King sits upon the Throne! Ha!" She faced her parents again. "When shall we visit Dragonkeep? Maybe when a True King wears the Crown! When will I dance upon the Plaza of the Moon? Maybe when a True King sits upon the Throne! Ha! Ha! And Ha!" She did an abrubt about-face and stalked to the Crown, closing her eyes and grasping it with both hands. Her face assumed an expression of fierce concentration. "When will cookie jars o'erflow? Maybe when someone takes up the True Crown!" She lifted the crown, and cookies spilled from beneath it onto the platter. She looked at Crissy with a look almost of shock. "When shall I be a Queen," she whispered, looked a few times back and forth between Crissy and the pile of cookies, set the crown down upon the cookies, and ran into her mother's arms.

"'And a little child shall crown him'," quoth Alrana.

"Who wrote that?" Doug enquired of her. "Fox? Or someone equally cunning?"

"They are the words that came to Lady Eos, that she spoke to Fox, when first Fox rehearsed the plan of making such a Crown," Crissy explained. She looked at Alrana.

"Upon the Plaza of the Moon," ventured Crissy.

Not Upon the Plaza of the Moon.

"Upon the Plaza of the Moon," confirmed Alrana, holding her right hand open, palm up, her spearhead resting upon it.

"Where we are not now," Crissy observed.

"And where, if I read her augury aright, the child had best not dance until a True King sits upon the Throne," Eldarimar suggested.

"But which is in Dragonkeep Province, whence by the same logic the child had best go when a True King wears the Crown," Crissy deduced. "So to Dragonkeep before the moon shines fully down upon us?" She queried.

"Dragonkeep under the stars rather than Dragonkeep under the moon?" Eldarimar clarified. The tension noticeably relaxed.

"It seems so," Crissy agreed. She smiled. "Mayhap it is true, as some have speculated, that the moon is heavy."

"Mayhap," volunteered Douglas, who, like Marella, was still standing, "as some have also speculated, it grows heavier as it grows more full."

Crissy smiled. "Let us speculate, then, that the moon can be heavy, rather than that it necessarily or constantly is or must be heavy."

"You are talking the moon into the sky!" Barbara exclaimed.

Crissy clapped her hands together, once. "Precisely! Or at any rate, with hopes of honing our precision. Mayhap being upon a Tower rather than a Plaza offers some kind of leverage, else how could mere talk achieve what elsewise might require dance?"

"I can dance," the child volunteered.

"Indeed you can," said Eldarimar. "We have witnessed it."

Alrana addressed the child. "Barbara, do you know what this is that rests upon my hand?"

The child considered, looking at each person present one by one. "I don't know the right word," she ventured. "The thing that the Guardians of the Quarters watch, to work together like dance or music?"

"Yes," Alrana confirmed. "When we greeted the Quarters they each touched this object to show symbolically to everyone that in at least some symbolic sense this object has been loaned at least some of their powers or will or influence or some such thing."

"A focus," the child ventured.

"That is a good word," Alrana confirmed, and looked at Crissy.

Crissy smiled. "So we hope that you will believe me when I tell you, as Fox has told me, that when one dances upon the plaza of the moon symbols themselves can have power."

"That is how Holy Symbols are made?" The girl asked.

"It is related to the making of Holy Symbols," Crissy answered. "But it is not carved in stone. Each gesture can become so full of power that, well, for example, one might experience heaviness. And that is but the tiniest little start at how arduous such dancing, or gesturing, or symbolising, or statement making, or implying, or implicating, can become."

"You want me to touch the focus before I dance, so that the power, if gets too much for me, knows that it must also answer to lance and grail, air and fire, water and earth," the girl suggested.

"Sharp and retentive indeed," Crissy acknowledged. "Various artists or craftspeople might think, instead of lance and grail, of stylus and mark, or figure and ground, or plough and soil, or similar ideas of some such kind." She looked at Alrana, upon whose palm the spearhead, or focus as the child had referred to it, still rested. Lightly, it seemed.

"Bear witness," quoth Alrana. "A child prepares to dance upon a Tower of the Stars." The spearhead shifted upon her hand, presenting its base toward the child.

Barbara watched the spearhead, and made some small, experimental movements of her body, hands, and arms, from her position in her mother's lap. Then carefully, slowly, she rose and approached it. Placing her right hand upon the base of the spearhead, she invoked. "Air and Fire, Water and Earth, Lance and Grail, I pray that you will help me to avoid causing harm." She frowned and concentrated. "I intend no threat. That is, pray do not imagine that I mean to cause harm if you fail to help me." She tilted her head a little, as if listening to or for something, then smiled. "I ought better to have said I pray that you will help me avoid causing harm." She made that listening-tilt gesture again. "Blessed Be." She nodded, turned, and waited, eyes directed at some point above the centre of the circle. "I didn't complete the circle," she said, turning to smile at Elmara. She walked slowly past Elmara until she stood facing the stairs, and made a single wide curtsey directed at Douglas and Marella both at once.

Douglas bowed to her. Marella curtseyed to her and sat. Douglas sat.

She commenced a deosil transit of the circle, making the wide, inclusive curtsey to the Guardians as she came to each Quarter and, except in the North, naming the Virtue associated with it by the tradition in which she had been schooled. In the east, "To Know." In the south, "To Will." In the west, "To Dare." Scarcely had she uttered the words "To Dare" than she felt a sudden urge to look back over her right shoulder toward the northnortheast. Elmara caught her eye, grinning eagerly, and winked. In the north, she remained silent rather than saying out loud "To Keep Silent." Then she smiled at Elmara. "Elmara?" She asked, wide-eyed.

Elmara curtseyed to her. "You have achieved the state of mind that allows Mentalists and Witches to hear mindspeach directed at them by other Mentalists and Witches," she said aloud. "We call that state of mind Mentalist Focus."

Barbara remained still then for a few minutes, still in the north, face toward Elmara. Presumably she was listening intently to Elmara's mindspeach and, who knows, mayhap also that of others. Then she looked over her left shoulder at the Nixies while extending her right hand toward the spearhead. It flew into her hand. She smiled at the Nixies and approached Elmara, who presented her own left hand palm upward. Gently, Barbara drew the point across Elmara's palm, eyes flitting between Elmara's eyes and palm. Elmara smiled. Barbara pressed harder, drew blood. Elmara smiled more broadly. Barbara used her left hand also, to steady the blade. Elmara pressed upward and drew back her hand, creating a deep cut, still smiling reassurance. The Nixies were whispering to Barbara's parents, reassuring them. Elmara blotted blood from the cut with a kerchief so that Barbara could see clearly the rapid healing that then took place, and offered the kerchief on her palm for Barbara to wipe the blade, which she did. Then Barbara held her own left hand out palm upward, held the blade, point upward, toward the south, and looked over her shoulder at Crissy and the Dragon. The blade seemed bathed in pale blue flame for mayhap half a minute or so. She extended it, still point up, toward the Pixies and smiled at them. An intense, tight blast of cold air cooled the blade. Barbara drew the point experimentally across the palm of her left hand a few times, testing the point and the skin and the sensations she felt. Then she pressed the point in until a tiny spot of blood appeared. She examined it closely, then let Elmara blot the blood away so that she could examine, and watch, the pinprick wound carefully. She watched, she tilted her head this way and that, squinted and scrunched her eyes in various ways, but eventually offered her hand for Elmara to heal and let the spearhead rest ungrasped upon the palm of her right hand much as Alrana had been doing earlier. She looked over her left shoulder at Alrana, who smiled and shook her head. She let her right hand grasp the spearhead again.

"Practice, practice, practice." Elmara said aloud.

Barbara gave her a nod and a curtsey, turned toward the centre of the circle, and raised her eyes again to a point somewhere above that centre. Slowly she again ungrasped the spearhead, letting it rest freely upon her palm. Then she smiled, grasped the spearhead, and seemed to try to sketch images with it in the air. To no apparent effect. She tried faster, faster, faster, watching the blade seem to blur. Suddenly a swathe of emerald blur hung in the air. Her eyes widenened, and it disappeared. She looked at Alrana, seemed to listen for a moment, then went back to trying the rapid waving of the blade. Suddenly the blade was drawing so much blur that a swatch of green hung in the air, and this time she stopped waving the blade and just watched the swatch carefully. Slowly she ungrasped the blade, and this time it did float from her hand back to Alrana. But Barbara seemed oblivious to that. She was manipulating the swatch of blur.

"So," Alrana said, with gentle tone but sufficient volume for all to hear, "we may converse again if we keep in mind that Barbara is trying to concentrate despite the distraction." She addressed Bertha and Terrence. "She should master, truly master, the Mentalist Focus. Every waking moment save whilst actually performing some specific miracle such as causing cookies to be found. What she is practicing now is a Mentalist form of Illusion. When you hear of people causing feasts of many and varied foodstuffs to appear or to be found it is often actually the case that they have merely produced loaves, cookies, cakes and such of waybread and fancied it up with illusion." She smiled at Onyx. "Or, mayhap even more often, naught but illusion with no actual material nourishment, or inedible material rendered seemingly edible by means of illusion."

Onyx gave her a mischievous grin.

"A major part of why we had her attempt an illusion is that it has served as a way of estimating her talent for Mentalism. Almost anyone can learn, in time, with effort, Mentalist Focus and thus be enabled to hear mindspeach, but learning to actually speak, rather than merely listen, in mindspeach requires more talent than some people seem to have. We now have good reason to believe that she can learn to speak in mindspeach and also in starspeach. We consider it important that she master Mentalist Focus as soon as possible because that will maximise her chances of hearing any mindspeach directed at her, which in turn will maximise her ability to check, by means of listening to mindspeach, whether she is or is not focussed at any particular moment. That in turn will become important as she attempts to advance to starspeach. In short, she should listen for mindspeach all day and, at any time that she is under the stars, she should listen for starspeach. The cookies that she finds are waybread, meaning they are completely nourishing. One actually needs, technically, no other food. Eos is more than willing to take her on as a temple dancer - a trainee Priestess. If she can be lured away from the Cockatrice Feather, that is." She smiled.

"Did I understand aright," Terrence asked, "that Lady Eos has been waiting for Barbara to appear since before the making of the Crown?"

"Remind Crissy to have your potential for Wizardry checked," Alrana replied. "In other words, yes to the latter part and thus also yes to the preamble."

"How long has the Queen of Darkness been waiting?" Terrence asked.

"More than two babies were switched," said Crissy. "Hecate, Witch Queen, she of the Emerald Crown,"

"was a contemporary of Mellinostar," Crissy continued.

"Most charismatic," Barbara supplied.

"Her name," Crissy continued, "is Zaladarian, or Zaladarish, or whatever term you wish to use for words and names brought by Zaladar from that otherworld from whence he came."

"Came?" Terrence frowned.

Crissy shrugged and grinned a mischievous grin. "'Bingo'!" she exclaimed.

Barbara stared at Crissy with narrowed eyes.

John Baker squinted briefly at Terrence, learning nothing, then directed his attention to the Gaffer, who for his part was enjoying himself immensely.

Elmara watched Douglas, whose attention was, at that moment, busily re-checking its inventory of presences in the rooms below whilst also attempting to correlate even their most subtle movements with sounds both from here and from below. In short, he was highly alert for eavesdroppers of the normal, physical-presence type.

Bertha watched her husband.

Terrence demonstrated that, yes, indeed, his daughter did have his eyes. Crissy, for her part, stared right back at him, but one of her eyebrows was raised.

Eldarimar watched Alrana, who seemed still to be involved in the world wide web of starspeach and mindspeach.

Onyx knew exactly what needed to be asked and why asking it would be a bad move, and was racking his brains for some improvisation that might fill the function that, he perceived clearly, bakerish or bakerese or whatever term one might choose to use for these curious incursions of Zaladarisms - mayhap Zaladarisation, he pondered - filled among Baker's Treat Irregulars and thus even more so, so he deduced, among Baker's Treat Regulars, should any such creatures exist. Slicing away the convolutedness, he satisfied himself that the mere fact that asking it would be a bad move implied the answer, unless one re-arranged the question in such a wise as to render yes as no and thus, also, no as yes, which, in turn, of course leads to the realisation that the yes or no is irrelevant. Ergo it was obviously the question, not the answer, which carried significance. He raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes upward at this standard, normal, usual, typical, almost, in fact, stereotypical, incarnation of the same old same old "we are more clever, cunning, smart, savvy, intelligent or wise than our opponents" type of thinking. Accordingly, he began categorisation, as in, into which category does this precise instance fall? Clever? Cunning? Smart? Savvy? Intelligent? Wise? Etcetera? Etcetera? Etcetera? Cunning, he decided. It was, in short and as translated to the best of his ability into Bakerish, a Foxism. What wasn't called for, he decided, was a translation of the question into Jasperian, Jasperese, or Jasperish. Accordingly, he set about the task of composing one, his fluency in Bakerish being so poor as to have rendered the question gauche.

Marella shook her head in bemusement. Wizards! Yeah yeah, so so, what what. "Meanwhile, back on planet Occam," she ventured, which turn of phrase had, in her experience and observation of empirical studies, which is to say, in actual use, seemed often enough to somehow come out in Wizardish as something along the lines of "Meanwhile, according to the most wizardrous," and in this case, as we are about to see, did in fact turn out to do pretty much that very thing. At the cost, be it admitted, of revealing to any and all hypothetical eavesdropping opponents how crucial an investigation into the meanings, legends, myths, uses, associations, implications, and so on and so on and so on, possibly even including history and or etymology, of the barbarous word Occam might well turn out to be.

Onxy smiled at Marella happily, suspecting that he was about to learn whether planet Occam was clever, cunning, smart, savvy, intelligent, wise, or some other category of planet, and, furthermore, that it would turn out to be cunning. It seemed already a long-foregone conclusion, of course, that wherever it was that the Queen of Darkness came from was almost certainly quite a bit further from Occam than was Fox's place of origin. Meanwhile, back to whether Zaladar was sent, was brought, was called, or had taken it into his own head seemingly out of nowhere...

Matters of State.

"The self-styled Queen of the Underworld," quoth Alrana, "having shown gross disregard for something or other, such as, for example, the wishes and desires of someone or other, blah blah blah etcetera etcetera etcetera..."

The Duke addressed Onyx. "Your court functionaries are about their preparations for the festivities?"

Onyx grinned at him. "I am Minister of State all of a sudden? My pardon, that nuance must somehow have slipped by me. I shall see to it right away. Or do you refer to the court of Jasper?"

Crissy quirked an eyebrow at Eldarimar. "Someone has finally gotten around to succeeding She of the Five Heads?" She grinned a mischievous grin. "That would be who exactly? The Ezekieloid White? One of the Gamerinoids? Some other among Her children?" She winked.

Alrana tried to suppress a chuckle, but failed. She did succeed, however, in restraining herself from an outright guffaw. She settled into an asymettric ironic grin.

Eldarimar, for his part, accomplished a countenance that conveyed an impression more of amusement at Alrana's discomfiture than of having found Crissy's remarks at all witty or funny.

Meanwhile, back to the Duke, who for his part asked of some point above the centre of the circle, mayhap even that very point to which Barbara had earlier directed her attention, "where is Marlo when you need him? Good administrators are so hard to find..."

John Young addressed the Duke. "Oh hadn't you heard? He built a nice little town not so terribly far south of the Dragon's Jaw, gosh that was, what, only a few years back, certainly less than a century if I recall correctly..."

"The Minister of State of Mendarion," quoth Alrana, "having presented his credentials etcetera etcetera etcetera blah blah blah..." She smiled at the Duke. She winked!

"I hasten to point out, Your Highness," Onyx hastened to point out, "that there is another somewhat prominent position that I find myself somewhat uneager to readily admit to having any great ambition to occupy, and that is Minister of War."

The Duke looked at John Young, but upon receiving only a shrug in return he shifted his gaze to Crissy. "Harking back to the idea of impressing Zurban, if not Johan, then who?"

"Feisty Count Johan," she replied, thereby deftly helping Barb to avoid both an otherwise likely confusion with Johan of the Dozen Ovens and an otherwise likely exclamation regarding that particular Count's feistiness, "like and in the company of the unflappable Marlo, has also been in person to the Rainbow City. But think ye, there is a very capable Minister of State. Were I in your shoes I am sure I would be eager to entertain the opinions of that worthy as regards almost any other appointments."

The Duke addressed that famous spot above the centre of the circle again. "Marlo?" He enquired.

"Marlo is still going through the blah blah blah stuff with the Rainbow City administration," Alrana admitted. "Saw this, interviewed reliable witnesses who saw that, Healers testified to this that and the other mutilations, blah blah blah, forced to encourage to leave city, nay not merely city but entire valley, hooligan caused further damage in another Province, blah blah blah, Johan will do nicely, should get together someday, back to testimony, blah blah blah, evidence of involvement in vandalism in Orintar, to wit an Earthquake, etcetera etcetera, blah blah..."

"Attempted poisoning of Nixie reservoir supplying City of Mendarion, profligate drain upon Nixie healing supplies during disturbance of peace near Plaza of Moon," the female nixie suggested.

"Spillage and spoilage of stout and other beverages, caused by earthquake," the gnome Gromyl added.

Crissy addressed the Nixie. "Plaza of the Moon involved more than just her. Or at any rate explaining away the Einheriar as having been somehow hers bids fair to make an amusing tale if it is attempted. We should have no need to let her be the fall girl for some other villian or villians."

Smooth and Slippery?

Onyx looked at Crissy. "Unflappable Marlo put several mentalists into positions here in the Palace. But I know not at what kind of range he and his erstwhile or current associates are able to operate."

Crissy shrugged. "The Palace seems to have functioned smoothly enough since the two of you brought Doug in, took the Primate out, threw out the northerner priestesses and increased relations with various fay folk," she observed.

"Well," Onyx admitted, "Young John here was a useful enough lad too in his way. He at least managed not to get in the way too too much." He smiled at John Young. "You're looking a wee bit peaked though, lad," he suggested. "Maybe you'd better have yourself a cookie." One of the cookies on the platter wiggled. Barb smiled at John and nodded, whereupon the cookie flew into his hand.

John made a little sitting bow to Barb. "You are gracious, milady."

Barb stood and made a curtsey for him. "Any more for any more?" She asked, looking all around.

Onyx, and mayhap also other levitationists, watched, so that a cookie flew into each hand that reached for one. Then he resumed his point with Crissy. "What I was hinting at," he admitted, "was that Lady Naught might find it convenient to be well settled into her new environs by the time the moon attains its zenith. If his unflappableness is well able to conduct Palace affairs from wheresoever it might be that he presently is, and our invaluable friends and allies from Orintar can operate as well from there as from here... well, I feel the lure of circling through the night but am not sure all others here would be as happy as I to do so."

"The Royal Wizard is trying to get rid of us," Alrana observed.

"It is not welcome that we are upon his tower, eh?" Young John enquired.

Onxy flapped his hands in negation, fending off, as it were, these foolish misapprehensions. "No, no, rather the opposite if anything," he admitted. "I have been stuck in the Palace for so long, and had been accustomed to much travel and adventure and such, or at least the prospect of it, until his unflappableness and I took it upon ourselves to have some fun with the upstarts from Nord who were upsetting our enjoyment of this city. Perceive that it is as if I have done this fun and challenging thing for the Realm and, in return, have been sent to my room. This talk of the Palace of Eos, the thought of visiting Lethron again, well, it quickens my blood. To be in Dragonkeep Province before the moon attains its zenith appeals to me." He smiled at Crissy. "I have made too little mischief for too long."

Barb looked at him. "You're not Onyx." She looked askance at Crissy. "Smooth and slippery?"

Onyx spread his hands. "I rest my case. Witness what confinement has done to me."

Barb's eyes widened in wonder and she looked at her parents. "May he?" She asked.

Terrence couldn't suppress a guffaw. He raised an eyebrow at his daughter. "Seems smooth enough to me," he suggested.

Bertha looked askance at Onyx. "Plenty smooth," she confirmed.

"Suit yourselves, but for my own part," Onyx said, and made an expansive gesture with his right arm toward the east. "My chariot approaches even as we speak."

Indeed, from the east there came the sound of a huge door creaking open. It took those who looked - and not all, be it admitted, did look - varied amounts of time to perceive any sight they could associate with the sound. The moon, having risen across mayhap half or so of its path from rise to zenith, was of course approximately a half-moon. But now, instead of continuing its customary gradual waxing that would lead to its being full at the zenith, the dark half was swinging open like a door to reveal the remainder of the full moon within. The sprite upon the moon had sheathed her sword and was opening that door! Even as they watched, she waved to them, and turned to look within the circular doorway in the sky that was the moon. A chariot was emerging! The sounds of its horses' hooves could be heard as they scrunched stars into stardust. The sprite stood aside to let it pass, then stepped within the moon and closed the door - they heard it creak - completely. No moon! Just a radiant, sparkling, gleaming chariot pulled by horses that were constellations. As it approached, those constellations gathered more and more stars, until by the time one could begin to make out the materials of the chariot itself the horses were white white horses, bright white, bright as a full moon, quite blocking one's view of what, if anything, might be happening behind them, where the moon had been. The chariot was clearly at least as big as a small house, and covered, totally encrusted all over, with gems of every kind!

Onyx himself, meanwhile, had merely made that gesture toward the east without even looking away from Terrence and Bertha. "Of course if you already have a ride..."

Barb, for her part, was quite captivated not only by the sights and sounds associated with Onyx's chariot but by the ideas they represented or implied. That the entire moon was but a stable, or even merely the door to a stable, for Onyx's chariot! Not Fox's chariot, or Lady Eos's chariot, or the chariot of some other mighty figure of myth and legend, no, just Onyx, a mere Royal Wizard of one of many Kingdoms, and a Kingdom of mortals at that. Scarce could she imagine what the chariots of more important personages might be like, nor where they could be kept!

Marella, of course, having taken it upon herself to guard the entrance, pretty much had to look, at the first sound of the opening door.

Elmara seemed simply to continue watching Doug, although that did not really preclude also watching Marella.

Doug, for his part, merely quirked an enigmatic smile and continued watching Onyx while keeping track of any and all presences his mind sensed nearby.

Eldarimar, who expected soon to meet he who taught she who taught Onyx this art, tried to observe carefully the entire process, from Onyx to Onyx's illusionary chariot and back. Was Onyx actually doing the illusion without looking, or was Onyx himself also at least partly an illusion, presenting to the eyes an image of one who is not looking while, in fact, the real Onyx was watching carefully?

"Blah, blah, blah, stole the Moon Goddess's chariot, blah blah," quoth Alrana with a mischievous grin.

Barb tore her eyes away from the spectacle to stare wide-eyed at Alrana.

"A jest," quoth Alrana. "Of course it is Onyx's chariot, didn't Crissy tell you all about it yet?"

Barb's jaw dropped. Her eyes narrowed. "Believe neither your eyes nor your ears, your nose nor your tongue, not even what you touch, but enjoy what you enjoy?" She asked.

Alrana smiled. "So then. Do you enjoy riding in chariots?"

Barb's eyes lit up. "I don't know," she admitted, turning immediately - and eagerly - toward her parents.

"One way to find out," her father was swift enough to point out that Barb - and indeed, the entire assembly - was spared the asking of whatever question had been on the tip of her tongue.

Barb turned again toward the chariot, and as it continued to approach it became clearer and clearer that it was quite a bit bigger than a small house.

"Maybe we could pick up our house on the way and take it with us," Terrence suggested with a smile.

Barb turned her head a little and frowned, narrowing her eyes. In concentration? Slowly she turned to look askance at Terrence.

She narrowed her eyes a moment, cocking her head a little. Mayhap 'twas a quizzical look? Then she smiled, nodded, and turned back toward the east to continue watching the approaching chariot, which now seemed large enough to carry the entire towertop.

Onyx condescended at last to glance at his chariot, but almost immediately returned his gaze to Terrence. "We could take this entire level of this tower without difficulty," he said. He looked around the circle. "But if so what of those who have other destinations or who would prefer to remain here yet a while?" He looked at Crissy. "Mayhap a spin around the Kingdom dropping off all who want off?"

"If so," she asked, "will there be room for their house in addition to this towertop?" She quirked an eyebrow.

He looked again at his chariot, tilting his head first to one side then to the other. "I see what you mean," he admitted. "Depends on the house of course, but it could be a tight fit." By this time the chariot had slowed to a stop, the heads of the huge horses yay close to the battlements.

"Then let us make a plan," said Crissy.

Barb swivelled to face Crissy, beaming expectantly. Sure enough, Crissy's eyes were waiting to catch hers.

"If we had a few platters," Crissy ventured.

Onyx gestured toward the stack of a few platters, in the centre of the circle, upon which rested Barb's cookies, upon which rested the Crown.

"That Barbara could set out for us," Crissy continued.

"Most studious!" Onyx exclaimed with a big grin at Barbara then wiggled slightly the fingers of his hand that was still gesturing toward the stack of platters. The top platter levitated a little.

Barb slid the stack of platters out from under the floating platter, which then descended gently to rest upon the stone floor of the towertop. Or should one rather think in terms of seeming to have slid the seeming stack of seeming platters out from under the seeming floating seeming platter which then seemed to descend gently to seemingly rest upon the seeming stone seeming floor of the seeming towertop? Whichever, she did seem to count them.

"So then," Crissy continued. "Let us imagine that the the full platter is this towertop in the City of Mendarion, and the cookies are people or parties of people, some of whom might wish to go somewhere else. The Crown, of course, isn't going anywhere, it lives in Mendarion. Let us imagine other platters or stacks of platters to be other places. We know that we want to go to Dragonkeep, which direction is that?"

Barb adjusted the stack of empty platters so that it was toward the west of the central platter. Well, actually, somewhat south of west, but not somewhat enough to be southwest.

"Aha!" Onyx exclaimed. "I think I see something."

Crissy quirked an eyebrow at him.

"I think I see that a few destinations have departed from the tower, leaving no destinations behind, and that those few destinations now all seem to be headed somewhat south of west."

"Somewhat perceptive," Crissy admitted. "Is that, in fact, the plan, or have we gone astray so soon?"

Barb grinned. "We could ask," she ventured.

"Orintar is a destination," Eldarimar suggested. "Do those destined for Orintar all wish to proceed there by way of Dragonkeep?"

Barb took the top platter from the empty stack of platters and held it above the Crown. "Imagine this one"

"And mayhap others," Crissy put in.

Barb smiled. "And mayhap others," she agreed, "had stayed behind. It - and mayhap others - could have gone south instead."

"Most sharp!" Onyx exclaimed. "But did it, in other words will it, by which of course I mean to say is that, then, the plan?"

"For my part," Eldarimar contributed, "it is so far a plan that I think I would be pleased to follow."

Barb placed the empty platter south of the central platter, picked up a cookie, looked at Eldarimar. "You," she said, and placed it on the southern platter. She began moving cookies from the central platter to the somewhat south of west platter. "Mother, father, daughter, nanny, charioteer, anyone else?"

"Me?" Young John ventured.

Barb giggled as she moved another cookie. "Naughtiest. Anyone else?"

Barb moved another cookie, balancing it on the Crown. She smiled at Brother Finch. "Up in the air," she explained. "Anyone else?"

"I too am up in the air, so to speak," Doug admitted.

Another cookie moved, to balance on Brother Finch's. "Anyone else?" She looked around the circle. "No?" She frowned. "Anyone else for anywhere else?" She looked around the circle again. "No?"

Brother Finch spoke up. "I am concerned about leaving people behind who cannot make a plan." He looked at the Duke. "Especially you, Your Highness. If you are staying here you should have someone with you who knows how to make a plan."

"Aha!" Doug exclaimed. "You have penetrated my secret plan, which is to stay here guarding these people until someone else, mayhap even an unflappable administrator, comes along who can make a plan. Let us then execute it together!"

"It is understood, of course," commented Eldarimar, "that my party, as represented by the cookie on the southern platter, consists of elves, pixies, nixies, and gnomes?"

"That is my understanding," Zorla admitted. "But in my natural form there are parts of me that are flappable."

"For my part," John Baker admitted, "it had not crossed my mind that I was not a part of the Treehouse party, or the Orintar party, or, as if I recall correctly milady designated it, the you party, to wit the party on the southern platter. Certes I had imagined that the plan would, upon its successful execution, result in my being in Orintar. I admit that I enjoy being in Orintar, and unless I were to believe my eyes, my ears, my nose, my tongue, or that which I touch, I might well be in Orintar at this very moment."

The Gaffer smiled. "What he said."

Barbara lifted a cookie from the central platter and waved it in John Baker's direction until it had his attention, whereupon she caught his eye and held his eye while placing that cookie upon the the southern platter and continued to hold his eye until he nodded his acknowledgement or aquiescence or whatever the heck it was that he imagined himself to be nodding. She and the Gaffer exchanged smiles, then she examined disapprovingly the arrangement of platters purportedly representing the plan. She switched the positions of the central and southern platters and moved the Crown back from the southern platter to the central platter, so carefully that she did not dislodge the two cookies that were balanced on the Crown. She looked at Crissy. "Something like that?" She asked. She consulted the layout of platters as she rehearsed the plan: "Everyone goes to Orintar except us, the True King, uh, the up in the the air guys and," she scrutinised Zorla carefully then caught Crissy's eye again. "Your fellow Guardian of the South?" She ventured.

"Oh but she is too precious!" Zorla exclaimed. "I'll take her, and dozens more like her!"

"Over Lady Eos's dead body!" Crissy retorted. She and Zorla exchanged beaming grins and a nod apiece while Barbara watched patiently. Then Crissy addressed Barbara. "A moment, please," she apologised, removed her headscarf, shook out her hair, and looked again at Zorla. When she had Zorla's eye, she gave her hair a little flip. "Thats better," she said, shook out her hair once more, caught Barb's gaze again. She gave Barb a deep curtsey, twined a lock of hair a little with her fingers, caught an individual hair and plucked it out. She dangled it between thumb and forefinger until it had the simultaneous attention of Barb and Zorla then, still holding it, turned to Zorla. "Truly," she said. She paused a few seconds, then made some kind of rapid but not seemingly complex manipulation of her hand that ended with the hand palm up, the hair, no longer straight, resting in curves upon it. They both gazed it it for several seconds, then she closed her fingers upon it. "It shall be placed upon her grave. You may join me in so doing this very night if you wish." She caught Barb's eye again. "A gift to place upon the grave of Lady Eos," she explained. "It would please me to have you join me; you may bring either or both of your parents with you if you wish."

Barb gave Crissy a deep curtsey, twined a lock of hair a little with her fingers, caught an individual hair and plucked it out. She dangled it between thumb and forefinger until it had the simultaneous attention of Crissy and Zorla then caught Crissy's eye. "Truly," she said. She paused a few seconds, then made some kind of rapid but not seemingly complex manipulation of her hand that ended with the hand palm up, the hair, no longer straight, resting in curves upon it. They both gazed it it for several seconds, then she closed her fingers upon it. "It would please me too," she said.

Crissy looked at Doug. "Douglas DeLaurence, the tide has changed. Hitherto Therion has vouchsafed your soul. Herefrom it is you who must save his. Ware ware and thrice ware etcetera etcetera etcetera. Your will is your own. Grave matters lie ahead. Etcetera etcetera etcetera." She looked briefly at her closed hand then back to Doug. "Truly, every hair does count. Blessed Be."

She looked at Elmara, whose eyes were already upon her. "Therion thinks himself clever or cunning or some such thing. The line he seeks to find cannot be found for him by another, he must find it himself and walk it himself."

She looked at the Gaffer. Again, the eyes were already upon her. "Think not that you brought us such a treasure and got turned back out upon the street for your trouble. Eos knows your heart aches to come with us this night, what you feel is her pain at seeming unable to make you feel the welcome you seek and that she aches to extend to you. But - and oh how that word hurts - there is, as the saying goes, a war on. Young John has a gift for your compost. Eos adds this: do not believe that it is seedless, nor infertile." She grinned a mischievous grin and winked. "Enjoy what you enjoy, as the saying goes."

Her hands rummaged around somewhere in the neighborhood of where her headscarf had appeared from and disappeared to. "There are two places that can give you, both in sense and in truth, the welcome that you seek. The first is Faery, if they permit, where you may, if they see fit, quest in search of the true worth of these four gems." She opened her hands toward him, palm upward, revealing on her right a diamond and a ruby, on her left a sapphire and an emerald. "Spend them well. They are, for commodity purposes, commodity items, to wit alchemical gems such as one may see squandered in any commodity market that deals in such commodities. It is in purposes other than commodity purposes that it is hoped you may find their true value." She made a violent flick of her wrists and fingers, hurling the gems into the air, four high, and thus easy to catch, trajectories. Each gem came down within easy reach of the Guardians of a Quarter: diamond in the east, ruby in the south, sapphire in the west, emerald in the north, but by then Crissy was already rummaging again.

"In case you would prefer to make your own choices, as Eos and or Fox did for those four stones, as to precisely which alchemist or alchemists you wouldst fain have custom-make for you four such stones, here" - flicking four cards at once so that, like the gems, they made themselves available to the Guardians of the Quarters - "are chits from Mistress Glorianna, Jewelsmith, in Orintar, redeemable for brilliant cut stones of these same four varieties sufficient for the performing of the alchemical experiments that, if successful, produce these alchemical stones." She smiled. "Of course, it is the fond hope of Eos and or Fox that the choices they have made as to alchemist or alchemists will meet with your approval thus freeing up these commodity brilliant-cut stones for use as commodity cash for defraying such expenses as persons upon quests encounter in the course of questing." She smiled.

"Mayhap you perceive the potential of these eight objects, if used in collaboration, to seed a production-line. I therefore commend to your attention again Young John's gift, in connection with the second place that can give you, both in sense and in truth, the welcome that you seek. It is a place in sequence and time, for it is your own home when you return there following the proposed quest, by which time the fruits of Young John's gift should have made themselves sensible." She grinned. "In case anyone other than myself might be wondering, no I do not know what I am chattering on about, but I have placed my faith in Eos and or Fox in the past and have lived to tell the tale, so here I am doing it again." She shrugged.

She looked at Onyx. "Blah, blah, blah, stole Onyx of Jasper's chariot, blah blah." The chariot began preparing to take on boarders.

She looked at Barbara's parents. "Terrence, Bertha, come. We must away e'er break of day, and all that good stuff. By mount of zenith, in fact. Chop chop, hurry hurry, don't take all night, etcetera etcetera etcetera."

Young John carefully balanced an applecore on top of the two cookies that Barbara had balanced on the Crown, then approached the northeast. By then the chariot had manoevered to come up alongside the east, horses toward the south. A panel in the side of the chariot swung down to become a gangplank, fitting neatly through the embrasure closest to the head of the stairs to make a ramp from the towertop's floor, through the embrasure, into the chariot.

Douglas attracted Young John's attention with one hand while the other, by means of some kind of quick-release mechanism, separated his scabbard from his swordbelt and handed it over, sword and all. This was accomplished so perfunctorily that the sword was in John's hand before he quite had time to even realise what was happening. The impression was not of any breach of courtly etiquette but, rather, as if John was some valet or doorman expected, as a matter of course, to take charge of any apparel or accouterments his guests might choose to divest themselves of. Doug gave him a big smile and, maybe, could that have been, the tiniest little hint of a slight little nod? Of his eyes certainly, even if not of his entire head.

Crissy fussed ushered and bustled her party, which, it seemed, included Zorla, along from behind, urging them up the ramp ahead of her. Then just before she herself set foot upon the ramp she glanced at Brother Finch. "Whatever will you tell the Abbot, Brother Finch? That you carried the child to a place where Onyx of Jasper baffled your senses and haven't seen her since?"

Brother Finch smiled, glanced at Alrana and Eldarimar just long enough to check that they had no objection - not that his eyes could be believed, of course, but just in case somehow they might know, wherever they really were, that Onyx might be abusing their countenances, and choose somehow to intervene - and hurried toward the ramp, at the foot of which Doug addressed him with serious mien.

"I shall attempt to bear word to the Abbot."

Brother Finch paused long enough to reply before hurring up the ramp. "Abbey of the Birds."

Doug nodded, Crissy hurried up the ramp behind Brother Finch, the ramp swung up like a drawbridge behind her. The horses neighed, reared rampant, snorted, sucked all the stars out of the sky into their lungs, and whoosh! The chariot was off around the south into the west and vanished into the distance so fast that a trail of blur was all that one actually saw of the path it had taken. The moon, just over half full, floated alone in a sky bereft of stars.

Onyx looked at the Duke and rubbed his hands together, wiggling his eyebrows and making a grin that might possibly have been intended as some kind of a pretence at an evil grin. "Heh heh heh," he said. "Having separated him from dragon, nanny and sovereign, the infamous Onyx and his catspaw Doug had the Duke at their mercy." He looked around. "I seem to have taken the south," he said. He held out his left hand, palm up but fingers closed. Then he looked up at the empty sky, opened his hand, and a few feeble stars sprang up from it, flying only a foot or so before falling to the floor and sputtering out. "I hope someone here can call the stars," he said and looked around.

Alrana smiled at Eldarimar. He nodded. Together they recited. "Star light, star bright, first star we see tonight..." At the first phrase, a small amount of light had seemed to sparkle around the Pixies. At the second, the elven couple in the southeast also sparkled briefly, brighter than the Pixie couple had. By the end of the third phrase Alrana, Eldarimar, Onyx, the Pixies, and more and more others were looking around as if seeking a star. No-one seemed to notice yet that there was only one platter now, that being the one with the majority of the cookies upon it.

When everyone was done looking, there was silence and stillness. Which stretched on...

Onyx bowed to the Duke. "Your Highness." He gestured toward the Crown. "Observe that the Crown, presented but recently upon a platter, is no longer represented as being upon a platter." He paused a few seconds to permit anyone who wished to do so the luxury of observing that state of affairs with their own eyes - not that they necessarily would believe what their eyes told them, of course.

The Duke surveyed the layout that had, but recently, served as the representation of a plan. "The party headed for Orintar, however, does seem to be represented as being upon a platter," he observed. "But inasmuch as my eyes also seem to tell me that two people or parties continue to be represented as being up in the air I wonder whether this representation of the plan is up to date."

"For my part," Doug contributed, "I have word to bear to the Abbey of the Birds. Thus I submit that the cookie representing my party or I might find itself more representationally placed were it located, rather, with or near the Orintar contingent. But this matter of Orintar being upon a platter gives me pause. I am bound for the Abbey of the Birds. Is the Abbey upon a platter or elsewhere?"

No-one seemed inclined to answer that question.

The Gaffer smiled at Onyx and held out his left hand, palm up and open.

"I purport that I am not familiar with the ways of these affairs," Onyx said to the Gaffer, "and that I thus find myself wondering whether there is some meaning implied by which hand one chooses to use for such a gesture as you are currently making such that had you utilised your other hand the meaning of the gesture would have been in some way different."

The Gaffer shrugged. "I am not, as far as I am aware, a southpaw," he admitted. "I share your concern that such details might have meaning and thus deliberately chose to use the hand that some who read meaning into such distinctions might agree to be at least symbolically my more receptive hand."

"Thus had you chosen to bestir yourself to fetch the item, you would have utilised your other hand?" Onyx enquired.

The Gaffer smiled. "You see how confusing such attention to detail can become," he observed. "I am open to receive gifts but, I hope, not greedy to snatch them up."

Onyx looked around the circle. "It seems you are not alone in that," he observed. "In all four quarters, my eyes tell me, your gifts appear to have been set down freely."

The Gaffer looked around. "My eyes seem to agree with yours on that count," he observed. He looked at Alrana. "If Faery has some special use or need for four alchemical gems, Faery is welcome to have them."

Alrana grinned. "What, and deprive Faery of the enjoyment of watching you quest in search of such use or need? If you do not enjoy bestirring yourself mayhap you have not yet nibbled enough of what is left of that apple."

The Gaffer grinned. "Let us see whether this underexercised body I wear can accomplish the arduous task of retrieving the apple." He started to get up.

"Nay, nay," Alrana objected, "save your strength rather for the quest!" She glanced at Onyx. The applecore flew onto the Gaffer's palm, the cookie it had been resting upon, representing Doug or his party, levitated into the air a finger's width or two. Onyx raised his eyebrows and looked at Alrana.

Eldarimar smiled. The cookie still balanced on the crown, representing Brother Finch, flew somewhat south of west to join those representing they who had departed in the chariot. Eldarimar gestured toward the platter with his cup, which sailed from his hand a few feet and hovered. "Mayhap but a trifling technicality or mayhap of some significance, it seems to me as if the destination now referred to as Orintar had earlier been referred to as The Treehouse, and as Steward of that Tree I find myself concerned as to what exactly it means to be upon a platter and whether it is Orintar or the Treehouse or both that are, for whatever reason, represented as being in such a strait. Wherefore I offer this cup for consideration as a candidate for a symbol whereby The Treehouse might be represented in our representation of a plan."

The Duke grinned. "An excellent notion! If I understand correctly, it is Orintar that rests upon or surrounds The Treehouse, not The Treehouse that rests upon Orintar?" He queried Eldarimar. The top platter of the stack of two platters rose into the air far enough not only to make space for the cup to fit underneath it but, further, enough that all had a clear line of sight by means of which they could see, if they chose to do so, that the platter remaining on the floor had a hole in the centre large enough to accomodate the base of the goblet that Eldarimar and others had referred to as a cup. The levitated cookie representing Doug flew under the levitated platter and hovered.

"I know not where exactly the Abbey of the Birds is located," Onyx apologised, "and levitation is not really my best skill..."

"East," the Duke smiled. The cookie settled in the east quarter of the lower platter.

Eldarimar smiled. "My eyes now inform me of two objects to which such terms as platter, tray, dish, platform, disk, plate, or any of a number of other such terms might, not unreasonably to some, apply or be applied," he stated. "Imagining the levitated platter therefore to be a platform..." His goblet, a species of cup, floated under the levitated platform and settled with its base in the hole in the centre of the lower platter so that, like that platter, it rested upon the floor of the towertop. The levitated platter representing a platform balanced itself upon the goblet.

Onyx smiled at the Duke. "Now that the Crown appears to have been relieved of extraneous burdens it is my thought, Your Majesty, that we may proceed to regard you as King, albeit as yet uncrowned, and your heir as Duke of Orintar. Furthermore I submit that so doing might permit us to dispense for the nonce with the term platter and utilise, rather, some other terms such as platform and city or platform and province or some other terms yet to be generally agreed upon by the concensus of those here assembled. Also I remind you that I am not without skill as a representationalist thus if represention of a plan by means of found objects seems insufficiently accurate or representational more elaborate and detailed representations can be contrived with little difficulty." He waved toward the centre of the circle, and the lower platter momentarily blurred then resolved itself into a representation of the City of Orintar, which is to say, a city surrounded by a wall in the shape of a somewhat embellished square. The cookie representing Doug floated above the eastern wall. "Is the Abbey of the Birds within or without the walls?" He enquired.

"Without," His Majesty replied. The cookie settled to the floor east of the city.

"Thank you, Your Majesty. I now purport that another skill that is not really my best is elementalism, such as, for example, the manipulation of the element of fire. Therefore absent some alternate suggestion from those assembled I propose to focus rather upon those virtues alluded to earlier by Barbara. I invite you, with that thought in mind, to join me here in the south."

"As you will," His Majesty smiled. Lifting his right foot as if to start walking he looked at Doug and seemed to try to ask him something by hand gesture and expression.

"When in doubt, deosil usually seems acceptable," Doug suggested.

His Majesty proceeded deosil around the circle toward Onyx. During this journey Onyx spoke.

"If you would do me the honour of standing to my left, thereby granting me the appearance of being, so to speak, at your right hand, would that be appropriate or would you prefer to be at my right hand?" Onyx enquired.

His Majesty shrugged and glanced at Doug, who shrugged. Thus it came to be that the King placed Onyx at his right hand.

"So then," said Onyx to the King. "Is it Your Majesty's will that the stars return?"

Alrana, Eldarimar and various others gasped, guffawed, widenened their eyes, dropped their jaws, or some combination of such expressions betraying surprise, perceiving in that moment that Onyx had been setting this up ever since his chariot's horses had drawn breath to depart.

Between the Worlds.