Light by N. D. Hansen-Hill

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Blurb
BOOK SIX OF THE TREES SERIES
In Light, Book VI of The Trees Series, hope lies nearly crushed in the darkness - trapped beneath rock debris, and sliced by cadaverous claws. There are creatures of the dark, who might not be nearly as threatening - given a little light...

Light

Book Six of The Trees Series

by N. D. Hansen-Hill

***

Dedication

To Robert John Fry
***

Light

Seep thy thoughts into my mind,
Crazed illusions, screeched and whined.
Loss of soul and loss of thought,
Loss of life so grisly sought.
*
Bleak despair where dreams have fled,
Forfeit life as blood runs red,
Hopelessness and endless dark
Living death, so cold and stark.
*
Slicing claws and eyeless sight,
Dangling flesh and skeletal bite,
Hunting prey for strength and light
Expiated tithe to appetite.
*
Confusion reigns in dragon's wake,
Turmoil rises and mountains quake.
Life is caught 'twixt stalker's scales,
Dragon lore and Banshee tales.
*
Light is borne to bleakest lands
'pon stem and seed, by mutant hands;
Rekindled hope 'neath a bright'ning sky,
A return of dreams as nightmares die.
*

by N. D. Hansen-Hill
***

Prologue

        Just as a green patch in the desert suggests water lurking beneath the heat-baked surface, so do the Trees serve as a marker for things beyond the human realm. They stand nearly alone now - their stiff-leafed austerity and grotesque abnormalities appearing unusually lush against a decimated backdrop. They are more distinctive than ever, yet the forest floor beneath their canopy shows no more life than that beneath their blighted neighbours.
        For many years they have grown around a dimensional gateway. Their seeds came from a world far from Earth, yet they thrived in Earthen soils. Their genestock may have originated in one dimension, but was shaped by the physical and chemical demands of another.
        The Trees possess an inherent hazard to Earthen creatures. Whereas human tradition denotes a searing fire as a means to banish evil, smoke released in burning these Trees induces a life-changing mutation in creatures of this world. Those who inhale the smoke can never be the same. They have incorporated part of another dimension within their bodies - once changed, they have to learn to live with the consequences.
        They can now access the dimensional gateways, and traverse the channels between worlds. Interaction with off-world visitors helps them to realise that friendships are not limited to one species, or even one world, and that they will never be alone in their plight. An upsurge in strength and vitality, in addition to enhanced perceptions, makes them recognise that there may be as many benefits to their mutations, as limitations.
They have much to learn yet, about survival. About natural laws in lands other than their own, and the boundaries of relationships with species whose origins lie far from Earth. They are finding that the balance between hunter and hunted is not always easily defined, and the most difficult balance to maintain is that between life - and hope.
***

Chapter One

        Lily joined Katy and Mari, her aura flickering back and forth between Dag's pungent sludge, and Lily's golden glow. "I do not know what is happening!" she said worriedly, when Dag would let her speak. "Why are we here?"
        "Apparently, we're following some nonsensical venture to get a black crystal," Mari said. "And, something to do with the dragon, but I'm not sure what."
        Lily looked horrified. "A black crystal? But, that would mean -"
        Mari nodded, her own eyes reflecting some of Lily's terror.
        "The crystal's not for the dragon," Katy told them. "I think." A little gingerly, she touched the big lump on the side of her head. "We must be out of our minds," she mumbled.
        "How's the head, Katy?"
        "Still thinkable."
        Mari smiled. "I'll take that as a good sign." Mari put a hand on her shoulder. "Just stay quiet while Lily and I figure out exactly where we are, and how we're going to get home."
        Katy wiped a hand across her forehead, surprised to find sweat there, when she felt so cold. "Where's Peter? And Trevor?" She looked to Lily. "Thyme?" Lily mirrored her confusion. "Why would we come without them?"
        Mari tried to hide her fear. "I don't know, Katy. I'm sure they're okay -" She looked to Lily for confirmation.
        Lily nodded, then said, "My senses are confused, Mari, but they do not lie about this. Their sensory patterns hold strong and true. They are well."
        "Then why aren't they here?"
        "Maybe they're as confused as we are," Katy said. She watched as Mari turned toward the ridge. "Don't go!" she pleaded, then blushed, embarrassed by her words.
        Mari smiled at her, understanding how she was feeling. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't think of it. I just want to go up that slope, to see how far we've come."
        "I can tell you. Look over there -" Katy indicated the ribbons of purple light, weaving through the treetops. "It's not far to the other gate." She added in a whisper, worried now, "Not nearly far enough for a fairy."
        "Lily!" Mari said, eyes scanning the surrounding forest, "Can you fly up, out of danger?"
        Lily started to suit action to words. Katy stopped her with a loud, "Don't!" The others turned to look at her curiously. Katy tried to explain. "I'm afraid if we let you go, Lily, you may go into the Sylybin world - alone."
        Lily looked indignant. "Never would I do that, Katherine -" she started to say.
        Katy interrupted. "But Dag would," she said bluntly.
        Mari nodded unhappily. "She's right. Can't you control Her?" she asked Lily, knowing that the fairy would have no trouble realising who the "Her" was.
        Lily was close to tears. "If I could, I would!" she said irately. The red glitter in her eyes cooled as she sensed her friends' concern. "All is confusion," she admitted. "Dag knows far more of this than I. And she is not telling."
        "I can't remember much of anything after I fell from the dragon's mouth," Katy said. "That must have been when I hit my head." A new thought occurred to her. "There was a dragon, wasn't there?" she asked.
        "Yes," Mari said, remembering the heat, and pain, and terror.
        "Mari," Katy said quietly, "am I losing it? I don't even remember setting out on this little trip."
        Mari gave her a wry smile. "Neither do I. And I don't have the excuse of a head injury." She thought about it for a moment. "Katy, when I first spoke to you, you mentioned something about a 'crying thing' - that we were taking back to its own world. Does that make any kind of sense to you now?"
        "No. 'A crying thing'," she repeated. She started to shake her head, then winced. "No idea."
        "'No idea'," a voice at her side mimicked. "No ideas of any kind," it continued nastily.
        "Dag." Mari didn't know whether to be scared about Lily's lack of control, or pleased because the rebel side of her might be able to answer some of their questions. "Can you tell us about the 'crying thing'?
        Dag fluffed a drift of stench her way, then nonchalantly picked her nose. She waited until Mari was squirming with impatience. "It is a creature who distorts your world. It cries to dispel its pain."
        "Is it dangerous?" Mari asked, wondering if they'd actually been running from it. "Where is it now?"
        "It is far, but not far enough!" the fairy answered angrily. "Its voice strips the mind, so that even a fairy cannot think. We must rid ourselves of it," she said firmly.
        "But, where is it?" Mari asked again, looking around fearfully.
        "Far from here, but it will come quickly once the black crystal is in our hands." Dag gave Katy a crooked-tooth gapped smile. "Katy is going to fetch one of the crystals for us."
        "No," Mari said. "We'll wait for the others, and then maybe we can do it together."
        "And, in your waiting, the madness may set upon you once more. You may even feed yourself to the dragon, while you 'wait'," she said sweetly.
        Mari weighed the fairy's words, wondering if she was lying. Then, she looked around at their location and sighed. If we can come this far, and know nothing about it, then would we even realise it if something set us off again? Mari shuddered at the thought of facing the dragon once more.
        "Is getting a crystal the only way to make this cry-baby leave?" Katy asked irritably, resignation sounding in her voice.
        Mari stepped between her and the fairy. "No, Dag. We go back," she said firmly.
        "If you go back, the madness will be upon you before you reach the next curve in the path," she announced.
        "Wait a minute," Katy said, trying to think clearly. "If I get the crystal, and this thing comes straight for me, how will I get away - if it's 'stripping' my mind?"
        "You will go to my world, and lure the crying lump - this Banshee - through the portal. A black crystal in the light stream will scream to the Banshee -" Dag gave a wicked cackle, "- as loudly as she screams us to madness. As she passes through the gate, you must fling the crystal away, through the portal to another world. The cry-baby will follow the quickening of the crystal."
        "I know that word: Banshee. Mari, remember that phrase, 'screaming like a Banshee'?"
        Mari nodded, then shivered, her eyes searching the forest around them. "I can't say I ever wanted to meet one - any more that I wanted to meet a dragon."
        "Will - will the black crystal harm this Banshee, Fairy?" Katy asked.
        "No, Katherine Ryder," Dag said, "as much as the thought might bring me pleasure, the black crystal will merely drain the creature, so the Banshee can return to its own world." For a moment, it was Lily hovering there. "It is a good plan, Katy," she said.
        Mari shook her head. "It might even be a great plan," she argued, "but I have one big problem with it." She held out her hands for them both to see. "I don't have the healing crystal. And without it, none of us are going anywhere."
*
        "Celios!" Melkanbub whined, with a nasal shrillness that was calculated to penetrate even Celios' air of absorption.
        Celios turned to look at his adviser. It pleased him to have one to offer him advice. Somehow, it made him feel both more like a leader - and a little less responsible for his actions - at the same time.
        His "adviser" twitched with impatience, his bent legs swaying his body side to side as he nervously awaited Celios' response.
        Am I so important, then? Celios thought. He lifted his shoulders high, as befitted a leader. "We near the ancient scent, Melkanbub," he said majestically.
        "This is true, Celios," Melkanbub yammered, "but the yabberdaws are fearful. Some say the blackened wind also carries the scent of - of -" His eyes grew huge and his mouth tightened into an hourglass of dismay, "- of water!" he wailed in horror.
        The word was cast abroad into the small mass of yassels, who took it up like a chant. With each hissed rendering of the dreaded word, a high-pitched yabbering followed, so that the glass in Henry's windows shivered with the vibration.
        Celios, like every other yassel in the group, was horrified. A wetting would dampen their heads, and wash away their layers of protective filth. His crabwalking became spasmodic as he shuddered at the thought. He swivelled his head to look at his own motif - a thing of true beauty that he had dared much to procure. Its swirls had risen from a wallow of sour mud, and it had been a work of courage to tap the near-liquid source.
        But fire and water had no place together. He could only think of one instance where it was not so - where fire and water co-existed. He had heard rumours of a lake, that blebbed fire to the skies. Celios shook his head. That was merely a tale, to frighten foolish yabberdaws against venturing near the water. No - fire and water are enemies. Where one exists, the other cannot endure. And, surely, there is too much blackness on the wind to allow the moisture to remain? Celios began to wish he truly possessed the wisdom he had thought was his.
        But, the wails went on and on, the thunder of agitated feet stirring dust clouds that hid the others from his eyes. The familiar sounds echoed in the space under Henry's house, almost like the echo of their home caves. Celios scratched the back of his head with one spindly leg, in an effort to relax.
        Fire and water do not co-exist. This much was true. So, if they wished deliverance from the wetness they must embrace the fire. Since Celios had never really encountered fire, except as the unrecognisable blasting light from a gnome's gift, the idea seemed very sensible. The sulphur scent, which had first alerted some innate warning signal, was now gone. All that remained was the dirty, smudgy air, which choked almost as much as the dust from their abandoned caverns.
        Celios smiled on a wheeze. "My yabberdaws!" he shouted, raising the pitch to a whine that shattered something in the cave above. "Where fire rules, water cannot survive. If the wetness touches the glowing surface, it hisses in agony, and is flung away to the sky. We must embrace the fire!" he whined eagerly.
        "Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!" The young one took up the chant.
        Celios yabbered in harmony. Here was true yassel greatness. If yassels were to dominate the fire, the wetness could never harm them again. He skittered out of the sheltering overhang, to following the thickening wisps of blackened smoke.
*
        "It's like this, Henry," Peter began. Then, he stopped, frowning - something was wrong. "Katy!" he yelled loudly. "Katy! Where are you?!"
        Trev picked up some of his anxiety, and began to do some searching of his own. "Mari!" he called. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" He'd thought, when the ladies didn't turn up, that they were hiding from this unexpected guest. He scrunched his eyes, and tried to focus on her sensory pattern. "I don't get it, Pete!" he complained. "It's all confused! I mean, it's Mari all right - but it's not clear!"
        Peter was already doing some focusing of his own. What he registered made him frown. "They're not here, Trev. And Katy's sensory style isn't reading right." He was quiet as he thought back to the night before. He remembered things that he'd been too excited to note at the time: little things, besides the strange way she'd been acting. Things like a wincing when she moved her head, and the wooziness that he'd thought was a by-product of her passion. The problem was that pain bore a sensory pattern very close to ecstasy - and I didn't stop to consider if there was something wrong with her, he realised. Something that might have affected her judgement. Worried now, he concentrated harder. Katy-my-love, he thought, sending her a rose-studded picture - where are you?
*
        "Make him stop!" Katy whispered, grimacing. "He doesn't mean to -" she groaned. She sat forward, pressing her hands against the sides of her head.
        "Katy! What's wrong?" Mari asked in concern.
        "It's Peter! He's trying to call me - he doesn't mean to -" she gasped again, grabbing Mari's hand. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she flopped limply into Mari's arms.
        Mari looked at Dag, who fidgeted impatiently at Katy's side. "Do you still want her to go fetch a black crystal?" Mari asked the hag angrily. Then, she saw that Dag's expression was one of concern and - yes - regret. "Look, Dag," Mari said quietly, as she shifted her unconscious friend to a recovery position. "If you want to help, find a way to get Peter to stop. The way he's going, he could kill her with kindness."
*
        "Thyme!" Trevor said. He shook the slap-happy, smiling fairy - wondering if this was the fairy equivalent of intoxication.
        Thyme tried something he hadn't done before: diverting energy from the other parts of his aura, he made the places where Trevor gripped him heat up, so Trevor felt he was encased in gloves made of live coals. "Gotcha!" Thyme said, laughing giddily, as Trevor flung him away. Righting himself with a quick whirring of his wings, Thyme hovered in Trevor's face, to say - in a tone full of ominous portent, "It is unwise to trifle with the supernatural." Chortling with amusement, he darted swiftly beyond the reach of Trevor's angry grasp.
        "Thyme!" Peter said sternly. "Lily's in trouble!" He figured that would get through to him, even if nothing else would.
        It almost worked. Thyme froze - then shook his head to try to clear it. The clarity of daybright skies seemed a long distance away, and he fought to sharpen his thinking.
        "How so?!" Thyme asked stupidly. Attuning himself to Lily suddenly seemed as slippery an endeavour as trying to catch the tail of a swift-sliding earthworm. "I can sense nothing!"
        "But, that's what's wrong!" Peter was insistent. "Shouldn't you be able to?" he asked quietly.
        Thyme's wings began to buzz, sounding much like a particularly annoying alarm clock that Trevor had once owned.
        "Tone it down, Sludge Brain! I can't concentrate!" Trevor didn't think that Thyme would be much help in this condition, but at least he didn't have to be a hindrance.
        Trevor was really getting worried now. Why would Mari leave him? Especially after last night? Unlike Peter and Katy, Trev didn't yet have a sense of security in his relationship with Mari. He was afraid she might have left of her own accord - maybe because of the things they'd done. Did I push her? he wondered.
        Then he thought about the way she'd acted. No, if anyone had done the pushing, it had been Mari. Shy Mari. Who would have thought it? Trevor grinned. He just hoped she'd push him again. Peter's next words recalled him to the present.
        "I get the feeling they're a long way from here. Could they have gone through the gate?"
        "The gate?" Trev asked. "Why would they do that?"
        "I don't know, Trev!" Peter said in frustration. "Look - let's spread out and see if we can find them."
        "What about him?" Trevor indicated Thyme's fluttering form.
        Peter looked at Henry, who raised both hands in protest. As much as he was in awe of this winged creature, he'd just seen what it was capable of. No way he was going to touch it. Peter nodded in understanding. "I'll take care of him." Peter flopped Thyme over one shoulder. "Henry," he said apologetically, "I'm sorry, but Katy and some others are missing. We need to find them." Peter looked around, but there was nowhere for Henry to wait but the tool shed; not even a porch to sit on. "We're sort of thin on hospitality right now," he said grimly. "Is there any way you could just go home?"
        "No," Henry said, and decided that any admissions he made wouldn't make him sound any crazier than he must already be. "I'm worried I might have company. Are you missing any other visitors from around here?"
        Peter looked puzzled. "I don't understand."
        "Look - I saw 'em here first, pouring out from under your porch. Loud, short, bent legs - stink like an open sewer -"
        "Yassels!" Peter and Trevor shouted together. "You've got some at your place?" Peter asked.
        "I didn't actually see them - but that smell is rather - how shall I put it - unforgettable?"
        "No kidding." Trevor frowned in distaste. "The only thing worse is a rotting fairy."
        Peter sighed as Thyme dove from his arms - to come in low, then abruptly sweep upwards as he hit Trevor's rear-end. He was gone in the next moment, leaving Trevor flushed with embarrassment as he tugged material out of his crack. "Damn fairies!" he muttered.
        "Fairies?" Henry asked, disbelieving.
        "You haven't seen him at his best." Peter shrugged, while Trevor merely offered him a grimace. "I'm sorry, Henry," Peter said impatiently, looking pointedly at Trevor, "but we really don't have time for this. I have to find Katy." Henry heard Peter call back to him, as he took off at a jog, "Try to make yourself at home -"
*
        "I was dreaming about Peter."
        Mari looked down, noting that Katy's eyes looked bright once more. "That was quick. Feeling any better?"
        "Much." Katy sat up, and Mari saw the dark circles that were forming under her eyes. "The black crystal awaits."
        "And it'll still be waiting ten hours from now - or however long it takes you to heal."
        But, Katy wasn't listening to her. Mari watched the clarity of her gaze change to something else - a wary, sly flick of reddish light that reminded Mari of Dag. Uh-oh, she thought. Shifting her eyes to Dag, Mari saw that all traces of Lily were gone. And I'm next, she thought nervously.
        Katy was already climbing to her feet, and beginning to stumble in the direction of the purple lights - those ribbons of colour that indicated the presence of the trans-dimensional gate. "Ready, Witch?" she asked Dag.
        Dag cackled in response. Mari looked from one to the other, realising that there was no way she could stop them, short of physically restraining them. And, with Katy's "gifts", and - she looked at her friend's reddened eyes and shuddered - her temper at the moment - I don't think I'll try it.
        She did the next best thing. Unable to stop them, she came up next to Katy, slipping an arm around her waist, and gradually taking some of her weight, until it seemed natural when she also pulled one of Katy's arms over her shoulder, to offer her still more support. Although no words of gratitude were forthcoming, Dag nodded at her in approval. The small gesture made Mari angry, and she wondered if her mind, too, was beginning to slip. "Don't think I approve, Fairy," she said harshly, "because I don't. But I'm not going to let her die from neglect. Or you from your own folly."
        Dag snorted, "There is no folly here, Healer. But be glad you do not bear the healing stone. Without it, the Sylybin may let you live."
        "You'd better be your most sly, Dag. For, without that, the Sylybin will never let you leave." Mari turned away, and helped Katy continue toward the shifting lights of the glowing portal.
*
        Direygayn quivered in her sleep; a jerking movement, almost like a spasm. Her command over the dimensional reaches of the portal kept her attuned to it, just as her slipstream allowed her to ride it, jettisoning herself at any level she chose. And as a human might scent the delicious aroma of fresh-baked bread, to awaken hungry and salivating - thus did Direygayn: taunted by the glorious yeasty aroma of prey on the light stream.
        Her scales unshuttled once again, in that curious clacking melody that awakened the gremlitch in their dens. As her eyes slivered open, the red triumphant glare made flickers of remembered flame dance at the centre.
        The hunger was there, but more as a titillation drawn forth by desire, than as a need. Like the reptile she in so many ways resembled, the dragon's appetite had been appeased, and she had no need for a repast. After all, centuries had been known to pass between feedings, when the sleep had held her in its thrall.
        No, the triumph came not from an anticipated meal, but rather from the certainty of her success. The food was there - and by entering the portal - it had come to her. It was payback time. Direygayn gave a toothsome yawn, followed by a clickety-rattling stretch. Yes - it had come to her - and there was no way she could lose.
*
        Thyme flew upwards - high into the sky, where the air remained forever cool. He fluttered for a few moments, letting the small updraughts and eddies buffet his wings. Long, deep breaths helped to chase the weird fogginess from his brain, and he felt the giddy rush go with a feeling of near-regret.
        He recalled the ads on Peter's TV - with the scent of fresh-brewed coffee delicately wafting into human nostrils - and the humans' anxious sipping of their morning drink. Now, he could understand the excitement that the ads portrayed.
        But, Peter had said that Lily was in trouble. The words had stayed, even though everything around him appeared to be drifting in a dimension of its own. He rapidly sucked the clean, cold air, forcing out the last wisps of confusion. Then, he did a rapid twirl, aimed downward like a spike, and shot to the surface below.
        He was just in time to hear Trevor's words.
        "Pete!" Trevor was yelling, his tone urgent. As Peter came loping over, Thyme joined them. He hovered by Trevor's side, grim - and, for once - silent. Trevor pointed to the floating images drifting into the dead forest, his expression aghast. "Katy left a note."
*
        "They've gone to get a black crystal?!" Peter stared at the wispy forms of Sylybins in horror. "Are they out of their minds?"
        Thyme thought of the night that had just passed - not only had the females been driven by strong emotions, but the Crying Lump had appeared to shunt any remaining sense from their beings. "Yes, Peter Trevick," he said unhappily, "I very much fear, for the moment, that they are -"
        "You haven't seen the worst of it," Trevor said, his voice shaking. "When they get through with those 'minor matters'," he choked out, waving a dismissive hand at Sylybins and dark, sombre-looking crystals - to point instead at an illusory pattern that had caught a stray wind, and was galloping off by itself - "they're going to hunt down the dragon."
*
        Henry stared at the ruins of the little white house, remembering how often he'd been there, both before and after Peter Trevick had bought it. Squatting down, he sifted a stick through the ash and charcoal debris, looking for the familiar - something to stir more memories. He hit something hard, and pulled out an oddly-shaped piece of metal.
        Rubbing it hard on his shirt, he saw it was shaped like a fairy - not like the floppy, sloppy creature he'd seen, but like the glowing illusory images of fairy tales and children's dreams. It wasn't anything he recognised, but he guessed it was part of a set of wind chimes, that had been left to twinkle in the breeze. As he looked from the bent and fire-stained piece of metal in his hand, to the blackened wreck from which it'd come, he felt a stirring of pity for Peter Trevick and his kind.
        Henry thought of the dark Entity who'd scared him from this place, not so long before. Although the vague discomfort - that always hit him when he came here, and which he'd accustomed himself to over the years - was still very much a part of his surroundings, he no longer had a feeling of threat.
        Part of it was Trevick. He'd known him before he turned into whatever he was now, and had always liked him. Whatever-he-was-now remained a mystery, but at least Henry was certain that Trevick wouldn't hurt him. He even felt a certain awe that Peter had been so glad to see him.
        He stepped away from where the porch had been, and stared down at the Trees - the ones Peter had once asked him about. They were the only ones that were still green. The only ones that hadn't been destroyed between here and town. Henry thought briefly of his own place, where greenery still shrouded the shrubs and trees; where the intervening acres of grass pasture had somehow saved the forest from harm. How did these Trees - this odd stand that had fed the rumour mill since long before Henry had moved here - how had they survived the tree disease that wiped out all the others, when they stood right in the middle of them? Bad taste?
Somehow, Henry didn't think so.
        Peter had been interested in the Trees. In these Trees, that he couldn't recognise, and had seemed strange to him - a plant scientist. And that means he probably took it in his head to go down and fool with them. Henry remembered, shamefully now, that he'd even encouraged it - taunted him with it. "Take a close look -" he'd said. Well, maybe Peter's 'close look' had been a little too close.
        Henry shoved the metal fairy into his pocket, briefly wondering what other grim secrets were lost in the shift of windblown ash. He didn't want to walk that long, lonely road to town, and - remembering Peter's response to his complaint about the stink at his place - he didn't feel any desire to return there, either. Lost, uncertain, and lonelier that he'd ever been in his life, he walked over to the relatively-undamaged tool shed, opened the door, and tugged his ever-present book from his back pocket. With a last shrug, and a quick glance around, he stepped inside and shut the door.
*
        Mari tilted her head to look into Katy's eyes - hoping to find some sign of sense there. But, the Katy she knew was lost to her. This female was hot-tempered and shrewish - ready to battle the world, and anyone who got in her way. What frightened Mari the most was that something in herself responded to the nastiness, and wanted to go along with these two's appalling plan. Was even eager to go along with it.
        The swirling lights of the gate waited just ahead. Mari hung back, even as Katy propelled her forward. Did Katy have any memory of the last time they were here? When it was Peter whose memories and mind were lost to another's demands? Mari didn't think so. She opened her mouth to remind her friend, in hopes that the recollection of it would bring reason in its wake.
        But, it was no use. Mari sensed it already. For, even as the portal's intangible fingers grasped her, and started to draw her forward, she knew her words could have no impression on the wildness. The wildness that had Dag, and Katy, and, yes - her - in its grasp. It was an insatiable stirring for action - so strong that Mari felt any attempt to stop would render her palsied or spastic; her body ajerk with its demands for activity. A wildness that knew nothing of fear or failure.
        Mari reached out, snatching Dag by one wing and tugging her close. It was her last conscious act, before the wildness sucked her reason dry. Her last conscious thought was, I know that I should be afraid -
        They stumbled into the moving ring of lights.
*
        "Fastest way?"
        Peter didn't have to ask the fairy twice. "Down the Shimmer's throat -"
        Peter nodded, and took off toward the Trees. Thyme floated at his shoulder, and Trevor, just noticing they'd left, was coming up quickly from the rear. The fairy looked at his two friends, wondering briefly if it was not only the females who were crazy this day. He cleared his throat loudly, before inquiring delicately, "And what, pray, do you intend to do with the Shimmer?"
        The glance Peter gave him was grim, and even Thyme quailed at the look in his eyes. "The mood I'm in, Fairy, it's the Shimmer who'd better watch out -"
        Trevor grabbed Peter by the shoulder and held him back. "Pete, hold it! Mari and Lily wouldn't let Katy do anything this crazy!"
        Thyme sensed that Peter was wavering - unable to totally tune out Trevor's appeal to his reason. Knowing Lily was in danger, he decided this was not the moment for reason to supersede action. "Mari and Lily!" he scoffed. "Last night, Mari and Lily nearly killed each other -"
        "What are you talking about, Thyme?!" Trevor asked angrily.
        "When you were trapped in your prison, Trevor, they fought for possession - of me!" As a glint of humour flickered in Trevor's eyes, Thyme pressed his point. "Do you remember the way Mari was last night, Trevor?" The glints were becoming speckles of anger now. Good, Thyme thought. He is beginning to take me seriously. "So crazed was she, from the Banshee's assault upon her senses, that she would have pounded Lily to pulp - just as Lily did her best to blind her!"
        "My God!" Peter said, stunned. "Where was Katy?" he asked.
        "She was dying, Peter - and the other two had forgotten her."
        The revelations sent Trevor's warm recollections of connubial bliss plummeting. If Mari was crazy enough to do battle over this mis-begotten fairy, then was she just as crazy when she'd seduced him? "I am sorry, Trevor," Thyme told him kindly, reading the disappointment in his eyes. "Her motivation for last night may be suspect, but her feelings are true. Remember that."
        Trevor smiled. "In that case, I take back the 'mis-begotten' I was thinking about you." Then, he frowned. "If they were fighting over you, did one of them get you?" he asked angrily, wondering what had gone on when he was trapped.
        "Oh, yes," Thyme said, "But your women -" his look included Peter, "- saved themselves for you." He didn't add that, although he'd been occupied, he'd realised how close both Mari and Katy had come to doing otherwise.
        "Does either of you realise what's going on?!" Peter yelled, exasperated. "We've determined they're crazy - and that there's no one to stop them - and they're about to feed themselves to the damn dragon!" He slammed his fist into the tree. "Who cares whether they were faithful, if they're not around to share it with us?!"
        Peter turned around, purposefully heading toward the gate once more. He deliberately closed his mind to what he would do when he got there. Until Thyme buzzed in, to shove himself into Peter's face. "Have all you humans gone mad?" he asked shrilly. "Is it not enough that Lily seeks her end? Must you all fling yourselves into a hungry mouth?"
        "Where does the gate from the flaming tree world lead, Thyme?"
Thyme looked momentarily confused. He'd been so sure there, that Peter was feeding himself to the Shimmer, that he needed to re-orient his thinking.
        "I do not know, Peter -"
        But, Peter was now thinking ahead. "Thyme, how will they find the dragon? I mean, can you fairies sense it, the way you can sense us?"
        "No, Peter. If that were so, it would have been something more than the ominous presence we felt lingering outside your wreckage."
        Peter noticed the slur, but ignored it. "Then, how will Lily find it?" he asked.
        "She will not," Thyme answered in a subdued and frightened voice. "She will wait for it to find her." His eyes were glowing with sad blue sparkles as they met Peter's. "For, like the Shimmer, I am certain that the taste of mutants on the stream will lure the dragon forth."
        Peter considered it for a moment. Then, for the first time, he smiled. He grabbed Trevor's arm and yanked him forward - toward the portal, but on the other side - away from the Shimmer's waiting gullet.
        "Where are you going, Peter?" Thyme asked in confusion.
        "To play trans-dimensional roulette," Peter answered. "We're going to spread our molecules across so many places, that Madam Dragon will be clueless as to which path to follow." He looked at Trevor. "Ready?" he asked.
        "Ready," Trev answered, gulping. "I trust you, Pete," he said, but his voice squeaked at the end.
        Peter smiled his thanks, then turned to the fairy. "I can't think of any other way to do it, Thyme," he said, his words a plea for reassurance.
        But Thyme was already grinning widely. "It is a good plan, Peter Trevick - but with one flaw: do not leave so much of yourself with the dragon, that there is nothing left to come home." He grasped first Peter's, and then Trevor's, hands. "Be careful, my Friends."
        "And you stay clear of the Sylybin. Right minds or not, Katy and Mari will protect Lily from the Sylybins' touch."
        Thyme thought of Dag and cringed. "If Dag is in control, Peter, it is not as much of a worry as you might think." Thyme darted toward the other side of the gate.
        Trevor called him back. "Wait!" He placed the healing crystal into the fairy's hands. "Tell Mari I sent it with my love," he said.
        Peter looked at Trevor, then nodded, launching himself forward into the swiftly-moving circle of lights.
        Trevor hesitated for a moment, to look around at the world of his birth. He hoped he'd see it again some day. "Well, I always wondered what it'd be like, to be appreciated for my good taste," he muttered loud enough for Thyme to hear, then flung his molecules into the trans-dimensional stream.
***

Chapter Two

        Direygayn flapped her leathery wings, enjoying the tickling sensation of the near-vacuum change in pressure beneath her scaly span. Her eyes narrowed, as she focused on the electromagnetic subtleties of the portal before her; trying to fix upon the gradient that would most readily align her with her prey. For a moment she had it - and, sure of herself, she started to launch her large body forward, into the stream.
        The next moment, it had shifted, and Direygayn growled in frustration. Were they trying to cheat her once again? To soil her dignity further, by offering the prize, and then wresting it from her grip? She remembered how she had held the morsels in her mouth, so that the taste was already leaching down her throat; tantalising her taste buds for the nourishment that matched those enticing tidbits.
        Then it was gone. As was her tail - that source of a dragon's pride and balance, that levelled her in the wind, and kept her from playing the fool.
        As I am now. With a slapping of her stub, a snarl, and an angry flapping of wings, Direygayn dove into the swirling circle, and was gone.
*
        The residue of the gate's bright lights danced in Katy's vision, as she sought to focus on her shadowed surroundings. The dimness, the black incrustations beneath her feet, the sense of cold and terror and loneliness - spoke to her of the Sylybin world. To come suddenly to herself in such a place was both shocking and horrifying, and she wondered if Mari and Lily were similarly affected.
        Lily was a nearly non-existent bundle in Mari's arms. Dag had already abandoned her - leaving Lily to face the dreaded Sylybin darkness with no false bravado to hold her firm. She was wrapped to near-crushing in Mari's terrified grasp, but made no complaint - no sound to draw attention to her person. It brought Katherine near tears, to sense the strength of her small friend's terror. As Katy watched, Lily huddled even smaller in Mari's grasp - her aura a dull blue, owing something to effort, but more to the draining influences of shock and terror.

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        Katy didn't want this: nothing they could gain was worth the chances they were taking, in bringing Lily to this world. Mari's senses were screaming silently in protest by her side, but Katy didn't know if she had enough strength for them both. For, it would take her colour stream to shield them from the Sylybin's attack.
        And Katy knew they'd come. The Sylybin were watchful of those who entered their world, and the lure of a fairy would draw them as nothing else. Katy shuddered, her head pounding, as she saw the lethal stirring of shadows that marked their coming.
        Katy remembered something then. Something that might save Lily from harm. "Lily," she whispered, "the other side of the gate -" She didn't add that the passage would be for Lily alone - that she and Mari could never traverse the pitfalls that barred their way. But Lily - if Lily could flee! For Katy could already sense how badly the Sylybin wanted her small friend.
        Katy backed up, pushing Mari behind her, even as Mari stumbled on the uneven terrain. "Go, Lily!" she urged in a whisper, pointing to the gate.
        "No!" Mari cried, as Lily lifted briefly from her arms. Mari had seen a movement among the rocky layers - a movement that went beyond the shifting patterns of the gate's lights. "They're waiting!" she told Katy in horror as she snatched Lily back into her arms.
        Katy nodded, and stepped resolutely forward once more. Her head seemed to be beating out the pulsing of her heart, in a loud rhythm that nearly deafened her to Mari's words. She hoped Mari wouldn't interpret her terror correctly - wouldn't guess at how she doubted her ability to defend them all. We are here to steal from them. Thyme said they have long memories. Do they remember how I killed their brothers, to steal from them before?
        Mari's warm hand grasped her arm, and Katy jumped, realising that the Sylybin song had been working on her brain - insinuating itself into her mind to feed her regrets. Nodding to Mari, to show she was once more in possession of her senses, she moved forward rapidly, pulling the others behind her. I cannot take a crystal, she admitted to herself. For, even if it would lure the cry-baby Lily spoke of, I cannot compound my crimes here to save my sanity.
        The futility of this effort descended on her like a dank cloud, and it took Mari's prodding to bring her back to herself once more. Still, she couldn't shake off the feeling of wasted effort - and wasted lives.
        Mari was watching her - seeing her stumble, even where there were no crystalline incrustations to her passage. How could I have agreed to all this? Mari cursed herself, wondering at the nature of this mental affliction, that could make them sacrifice themselves. Katy wouldn't have hurt me, she thought guiltily. I should have restrained her. Even as she thought it, though, she knew the truth: Katy would merely have pushed me aside, and continued on this foolish quest alone - or with Dag at her side. At least, I'm here to help - But looking around at the cold, and the darkness that made every movement a question; feeling the ice seep into her being - Mari wondered just what she could do to salvage the situation. Katy will never be able to defend us - never be able to shelter us from harm. But she'll kill herself trying -
        The dreadful shadows - their mouldering remnants dangling coarsely in fragmentary ruin, moved their scarce-fleshed bones swiftly now, intent on sundering the small grouping. The huge, dark figures wanted at the heart of it - that glowing, living fairy light whose substance would dissolve in reams of nourishment that nothing else could match. "Between us!" Katy whispered frantically, knowing that if they laid bony shafts on Lily there would be no salvation - they would merely part her there and then - grasping whatever small pieces they could savage from the others. "Lily, can you fly?" Katy pleaded, as much for herself as for the fairy. Perhaps, with Lily's going, some of that implacable intent might be deflected. At Lily's nod, Mari tossed the small form to the skies - too swiftly for the vast numbers who piled in, eager to snatch at the fleeing prize.
        "It's all right, Katy." Mari's voice whispered in her ear. "She's safe. It's just you - and -" she hesitated, feeling guilty, "- and me." Katy nodded her understanding; but kept her eyes on the ethereal masses, whose size dwarfed her - making her feel insignificant - her abilities incapable of staving off these predators, who wanted to feast upon her flesh -
        Stop it! she told herself, squaring her shoulders and gritting her teeth. She could hear Mari's mumbled prayers at her back, and gave her friend's hand a quick squeeze. "I won't let you!" she yelled to their attackers. She was gratified when some of them took a step back.
        But, they were still being drawn by something - and the lure was strong enough to overcome their fear of Katy's colour stream, that they sensed lay latent beneath the surface. Katy knew only that there was purpose here: a hunger that went beyond retaliation for past crimes.
        "It's me." Mari's voice was thick with horror-drawn tears. "Dear God - they want me!"
*
        "Are we going to keep flopping in and out of these things all day?" Trevor asked wearily. At first, the excitement of new vistas had made each venture through the swirling lights like an adventure, but now it was beginning to drain him. Trev looked at Peter, seeing a matching weariness on his face.
        "As long as it takes," Peter said determinedly.
        "Yeah, but if we're jumping all over, and Mari and Katy and Lily are all hanging out in one place, isn't the dragon going to go for them?" Trevor asked worriedly.
        Peter looked horrified at the thought. "I was hoping we'd create so much confusion that it wouldn't know where to look."
        "Admit it - you figured we'd accidentally run into them by now." Trevor sighed. "So did I."
        "My brain tells me we've only been at this a few minutes. It's just that going from day to night to afternoon to - do you remember that last one?"
        Trevor shook his head. "Only the bruises. That one had spikes. I'm a new believer in 'hands-on' dimensional travel now," he said sarcastically. "'Hands-on' anything that could get damaged in transit." He covered the offended part of his anatomy.
        "Yep," Peter agreed ruefully, glad that if he had to be bruised in a place that counted, it was better today than before last night's session. "I think we've done all the damage we can do. If we haven't confused that she-beast by now, I want to be with Katy when it comes. Let's disembark at the first familiar-looking port."
*
        Mari remembered how relieved she'd been that the healing stone was no longer in her hands - no longer there to focus the predators on her healing gift. Now she knew that her relief had been naive - unaccepting of a gift that was innate, and part of her. Something in the intent gaze of her adversaries told Mari that the Sylybin still recognised that gift - remembered her - knew her for what and who she was.
        There was no fame or security in this recognition - no self-congratulatory pride that she held a place in their memories. No, this was the cold terror of knowing that a cancer has intimate knowledge of your cells, or that your tombstone already awaits you by an open grave. I didn't give them enough credit, she realised. I've been thinking of them as things, but they know me - they know what I can do. Mari drew her breath in horror as she realised that, next to the fairy, some piece of her would serve as trophy to the masses.
        Don't let them get to you! She tried to convince herself that she was wrong; that they couldn't harm her - not here - not with their lack of mass and substance. But, she hadn't reckoned on their touch - the touch that, like an ultra-sharp knife, can cut before the pain is ever felt -
        "Katy!" she screamed, as the first bony fingers raked her arms - clawing her with iced stiletto fingers that sought to rip her skin. "Help me!"
*
        Thyme darted through the portal, then did the fairy equivalent of pacing as he flickered and darted - all the while buffeted on the stiff breeze that was blowing in his world. Lily! he cried silently. His worry was anger, then terror, then fury as he sensed the horrors that were taking place just beyond this damnable light stream - the one that would not take him where he wanted to go. He suffered as his senses chased bony fingers raking across green skin, that he had traced so delicately with his own hand. He whimpered, as Lily did, at being unable to change the destinies of those he loved.
        For, he did love these friends. They had bonded with him, in ways that other species might ridicule, but he respected them for the magic of their thoughts, and the depth of their caring. Even now, he thought, with a trickle of a tear upon his cheek, Katherine will refuse to kill them. Having suffered at her hands once, she will let them clean their bones upon her person, before she will render their ill-born bodies back to the dust from which they rose.
        And Mari - who had a better grasp of that balance 'tween life and death - would always try to tip it toward life: even should it mean laying down her own. Thyme quivered as he felt this one's pain - she, who suffered so with every injured creature who came her way.
        He froze then, his wings barely hovering - letting the wind drag him where it may - as he sensed Lily's horror-drawn paralysis leave her. With it went safety, and he wept aloud. But, he knew that she could no more play witness to this massacre than he would have. "I will always love you, Lily!" he screamed, hoping that in the dark and cold world in which she lingered, it would come to her like a flicker of light -
*
        They were weighing Katy down - each light and empty form adding its substance to the others, until she felt she was being smothered by the masses. Peter! she screamed inside, over and over. Peter, help me!
        But, it took a fairy light to break through the litany of fear and horror and pain - to let Peter's voice break through. Fight it, Katy! he told her sternly, and there were no roses or sweet scents in the words - only thorns that tore at her aching brain. Fight it! Now! he yelled at her - in a voice he'd never used before. You have no right - he began, but the words were lost in the anger that soared to the surface. The anger that gave her the strength that nothing else would. Peter's anger. Katy felt the dregs of colour spill from her; coating her and Mari, and making the Sylybin jump back in silent protest. Lily was a swift flicker that darted out of reach - too high, perhaps, but terror-driven to unreasonable levels. Katy wondered what it had cost the fairy to throw her light into the fracas, knowing what could have been the consequences of her actions.
        Katy huddled with Mari under a colour blanket, that even now was starting to fade. Mari wrapped an arm around her friend's waist, gritted her teeth, and started to crawl. But, she already knew that - black crystal or not - they would never make it.
        "Can you run?" she whispered desperately to Katy, unaware that she was panting with terror.
        "If you help -" Katy said. She thought of urging Mari ahead, to dart through, while she fought off the black hordes. But she knew Mari would never leave her.
        "Now!" Mari yelled, coming up hard under Katy's arm, and half-dragging her along. But, it was almost as though the Sylybin could read their thoughts, for the filmy forms were everywhere, death eyes and death thoughts pressing at them from all sides. There was no forward, nor back - there was only an endless circle of death surrounding them, and the two of them dropped to their knees.
        "I'm sorry, Mari!" Katy cried as they raked her arms; breaking her free of Mari's clinging grip. She could hear Mari's screams of terror, but bright lights were flashing in her skull, and she couldn't seem to channel them. Her head whammed into a black crystal, and her last thoughts were those of recognition - that this was what had lured them - and she remembered the words of warning, "the black crystal is death -"
*
        Trevor began to tremble, and Peter sensed it as his friend's reason started to flee, and Mari's terror and pain tumbled in. In the next moment it was Katy - a Katy who was screaming his name for help - an agonised screaming that tore at his mind.
        Trevor's fists were clenched, and Peter reached out to him - not caring if it was safe to touch him - to urge him in and through to the next world and the next and the next - on and on until he could reach Katy and pull her free -
        They were going to tear her apart. Their filthy hands and their death thoughts and their never-ending bleakness - parting the one who carried the light and joy to his existence. Peter eyes burned red, and he was filled with fury - a fury that was fed by frustration and pain at her loss. Fury at the Sylybin for their assault, at Katy for daring to risk that which he valued most, at his own helplessness to reach out and help her. The anger was suddenly too much, and, like a carbonated drink whose contents have been shaken, it spilled up and out - filling Katy with the wrathful strength to tap her colour stream.
        His anger erupted, thrusting before it the products of Peter's questionable "gift". His limbs had been glowing as the tension mounted, but now all control over his chilly outpouring had fled. It was spilling out of him - that slippery white that had been born on the lights of this damned, seemingly endless, stream - and he counted it a wasted effort, but he couldn't hold it back. He watched as the viscous fluid fled his fingers, fleeing through the lights like a ropy line - being drawn inward by its own affinity with its source. Already, he could feel it tugging him - yanking him along - as a tethered end within the vast reaches of the trans-dimensional linkage.
        He reached for Trevor, anchoring himself with a hand-grip - uncertain if Trev was even aware of him, or whether his senses had been ripped from him by the strength of Mari's need. "Trevor!" he yelled, as he began to be pulled away from Trevor's loose grip. "Trev!"
        Peter's icy grip burned like fire. Trevor shook his head violently, staggered, and nearly fell. But he grabbed Peter as he did - refusing to let go. Peter looked him directly in the eyes, letting his friend see his matching anguish as another wave of pain and horror came drifting their way from the far reaches of the Sylybin world.
        It was then the idea came to him - conceived in terror, but born of his and Trevor's combined gifts. "God damn it, Trev!" he yelled, forcing one of Trevor's hands on to the band of cold light spilling from his own - Peter's - clenched fist. "Use it!"
        Peter thought he saw Trevor nod, and he wondered if his friend had understood. In the next instant they were gone - drawn like a shot into the ring of ever-moving lights.
*
        Lily lingered briefly - high in the darkness - and wished that the madness were yet upon her - that all before her was unreal, and that the next moment would see them all safe and warm, in the small house on the hill.
        But, it was gone - all of it gone. Gone forever, if the Sylybin were to have their way. Her sorrow sought to puncture her - deflate her like a wasted balloon, but then it snagged on something inside her; a rock-hard something that could see her through, if she could but come to terms with it.
        "Dag!" she cried aloud. "I need you!"
        "Why?" came the voice that was the other part of her. "To deny me, and hide me, until I grow distorted and cruel - an unbearable hag to be thrust upon the world?"
        "No, Dag," Lily answered, weeping. "I need you for your strength. Somehow, we have become separated from each other these last few nights. You, who have always been a part of me -"
        "- a lesser part?" It bore a sour edge.
        "Yes, Dag," Lily answered honestly. "For I could not permit selfishness and cruelty to dominate my life."
        "Yet you need those qualities now?" There was a cackle of amusement from inside.
        "I need the fire in you that will lessen my pain in harming others; that will call forth my anger to salvage these females I call friend." She wept with shame. "I need you to make me unafraid -"
*
        As the pain seemed to go on and on and on, Mari wasn't sure which pain was the worst - the physical damage the Sylybin were inflicting on her, or the mental torment in which they weighed her thoughts, so they were no brighter than the black crystals which had brought them here. She was still struggling, but she knew that soon, they would have so weakened her that there would be no struggle left - only a bleak surrender to this endless darkness.
        The light hurt her eyes - it flared so bright and bold - and Mari wondered with relief if she was dead. Anything to end the horror of being slowly eaten alive. It took a moment for her to realise that the light had been a fairy light, deliberately bright to catch the cadaverous gaze of the Sylybin. A brilliance that they would be unable to resist.
        The light had shifted, and flickered now in odd pulsing flashes that seemed to have a near-hypnotic effect on the shadowy creatures. Mari, seeing the direction of their dark and eyeless stares, began to crawl.
        The hand that touched Katy's arm came away covered in a crystalline coating that Mari knew was blood. She put her head against Katy's chest, and heard the heartbeat that was still fluttering weakly, and said a silent prayer for crazed fairies who would dare to taunt their enemies.
        What fools we are! Mari thought again, as she wrapped one arm around Katy, and began to pull her toward the other gate.
        Then, she didn't dare think again, until the unwelcome question, how long can Lily distract them? filtered into her brain. Hers and Katy's journey was beginning to seem endless - even though she knew it was her own weakness that was to blame.
        The thought of bats drifted into her head, and she knew that consciousness was slipping. Her eyes flickered to the gate - nearly as far still as they had yet come - then back to the big black shadows. No, she thought, blinking hard - bats. They were big, black, fluttery bats - all wings, and light as air - with no substance except claws. Claws and teeth to tear you apart. She had one last rational thought, but it didn't bring her any peace. How long can Lily distract them? Not nearly long enough.
*
        Direygayn could smell eddies of her preys' molecular mix-up, drifting on the electromagnetic stream, and swiftly came to the conclusion that they were taunting her. Her anger grew as she chased their trail from one world to the next, always finding a trace, but never any substance.
        The heat of her frustration ate at her, much like the internal fires that ate her expelled stomach gases in the world of the humans. But, the majority of her anger was fed by her wounded pride, as she suffered indignities insupportable to dragon stature.
        She finally thundered out into a world, where the heat of the mutants yet lingered on golden soil. She smiled, the gesture slitting her eyes to a mere fingernail of red light. She snapped her jaws in anticipation, and the action sent a shimmer along scales that - in this world - shone with scintillating blue flickers. I will have you, she said in a silent oath, as her long, forked tongue sensually slid along the still-warm soil. Or, she thought, remembering the odd loyalties of this species to its brethren - I will make you wish I had.
*
        I should have gone to the other gate - Thyme cursed as he realised his mistake. From this place there was no entry to the Sylybin world. He'd thought it a good plan to wait for Lily's arrival, and battle any wraiths that chose to follow her passage. It had seemed the quickest way to help. Now he wished he'd followed in Lily's steps. But he'd known, even then, that he'd never make it in time.
        Now he was suffering the torment of helplessness. Thyme found the inactive waiting a near-impossible trial for one of his temperament.
        In agitation, he fled, to seek out Symmerley and Zylon, who came eagerly at the word that their rebel talents might be needed. For, there was no rebellion they liked better than the bearing of those former humans on their backs. Humans whom they now counted as friends.
        Symmerley eyed the fairy uncomfortably as he went into nervous flickers at the gate. Never had he seen Thyme so scared - a fact that brought the esquior a momentary pleasure. It was a pleasure which quickly fled at the news that Lily, Katy, and Mari were nearly lost to the Sylybin hands, and there was nothing either fairy wings, or esquior hooves, could do. Peter and Trevor were worlds away, and could well be caught forever in an endless quest to find their way home through the confusing channels of the light stream.
        Thyme's flickering aura wore smudges of Spigot, in a tangled blue and mangled gold mix. Symmerley met Zylon's eyes and shook his head sadly. What would Thyme be without Lily? Symmerley didn't know if there was enough rebel in his small friend to deny the grief that would undoubtedly tear him apart. The esquior didn't think that Thyme had ever recognised just how much his Lily was a part of him.
*
        Lily saw Mari's head droop, and she gave a keening fairy wail to the darkened skies. I seduced the Sylybin, she thought. It had taken all her bravery to overcome the dread that would always be with her, of these clever, soulless beings, who derived their nourishment from the sufferings of others.
        I hate you, she told them in shrill fairy. They knew, as well as she, that her friends were theirs for the taking now: there was no fight left in them. And that leaves only me, she thought. They would wait and linger, and watch for her flight to grow ever weaker. And they will taunt me with the consumption of those I value - until I fling myself into their arms in a last attempt to salvage that which cannot be saved.
        But, as much as she knew her efforts would be wasted - that it would merely give the Sylybin a chance to add fairy to their diet - she could not stand by when the willowy corpses closed on Katy and Mari once more. As the first of the giants squatted, and she knew it was to feed upon her friends' unconscious forms, Lily gave in to her anger, and launched herself into the group.
        The first time she had done it - earning Katy and Mari a brief respite - it had come as a surprise to the Sylybin - that one so tasty should tempt so much. But now, they were prepared, and Lily sensed it with horror, as she thrust her brightness into their midst.
        This time, the keening wail was for herself, as her wings were caught and held. Her eyes sought the brightness of the gate, as an intense longing for freedom filled her. "I will always love you, Thyme!" she screamed to the heavens, unconsciously echoing his words, but knowing it would do little to ease his grief.
        She wriggled and struggled ineffectually - her wing zaps seeming a non-existent deterrent to her determined captors. One of the Sylybin bent closer, its ghost-like carcass of shredded flesh drifting across her skin, in a touch as delicate as a fairy wing. Her gorge rose as the empty eyeholes drifted in, and she realised that he intended her to pass right into his foulness - to be insinuated into that blackened corruption that hid the bleakness of the Sylybin spirit. Lily screamed, and screamed again - but as she opened her eyes, to suck a final breath of this dismal world, the gate beyond exploded into brilliance.
        Peter and Trevor came spilling out on to the dark ground.
*
        Thyme was beside himself. He felt Lily's screams as though they were his own, and her keening wail might have been issued from his own lips. So attuned was he to her, that he suffered each quiver - each terrified writhing movement away from the hell-spawned wraiths that sought to feast upon her golden being.
        He had been there. He knew the blackness and the filth that walked that place - the walking corpses that sought only to feast upon others. He remembered the heart-stopping terror of these soulless visions - the mindless fear that aeons of predator-and-prey victimisation had inspired - the traditional fear, in all peoples of his world, that to cross the path of a Sylybin was to court death.
        He remembered the icy dread of his time within one - the gel-like chill that didn't stop with the body, but somehow penetrated right to the soul. He knew Lily's memories - after her long stay - were far worse, but she would never speak of them; never share that which, for a fairy, must have been far more torturous than her freezing in the ice caves. For a Sylybin sought to freeze the soul; to deaden the living spirit in a promise of a dark, dank, and miserably cold hell of eternity. Thyme wept, shaking with the depth of his emotion as he realised how his Lily must feel; what she was even now hiding from him as she faced the loss of self once more - spilling her energies into the sustenance of those who would convert it to evil and death.
*
        Symmerley and Zylon watched his tortured perception with saddened eyes. They, too, called Lily friend, and death by Sylybin was a horror not even to be spoken of. Symmerley wondered what could have transpired, to send the gentle fairy into the Sylybin world - a place where only a fool-hardy, or slightly crazed (he looked askance at Thyme) fairy would wander - and Lily was neither. He wondered that Thyme would have let her go, and judged correctly that this small rebel friend had no part in the decision that had brought her to this end.
        Symmerley felt her loss keenly, but he knew that Thyme would feel it like none other. The bond between the two had always been strong, but now there was an inner glimmer to Thyme's being that Symmerley recognised: more than auras had been blended since he had last seen this one, and Thyme had made her his. Now, he was paying the price, as the connection of their being was ripped apart. Poor Fairy! Symmerley thought, realising it was the first time he had truly felt pity for Thyme, who always seemed too strong to need it.
*
        Thyme sensed Lily's shock - at Peter's and Trevor's arrival - but completely misinterpreted it. They have her wings! he cried, knowing this was the way the Sylybin liked to hunt fairies; ending their flight while severing any chance to escape. Shaking now, in agonies of apprehension, he was momentarily so horror-stricken and bereft, that he actually forgot to fly. Symmerley, watching him closely - and, after his long association with this one realising that the unpredictable was often the norm - came up quickly under the small figure, to catch the fairy on his long neck. Even as Symmerley settled to the soil, Thyme rolled head-over-heels, to end in a sprawled flop across the esquior's back.
        The fairy lay there, unwilling to get up, unwilling to move, and uncertain if - without Lily - he would ever want to move again. He was far from the coil of bright energy that Symmerley usually sensed in him. Instead, the esquior registered his form as a sorrowful well of dark thoughts. Symmerley had heard it said that fairies - and he assumed this also applied to Thyme, as insensitive as he had often proved himself - could die from grief. He wondered if Aristi - this one's parent - should be summoned to offer comfort. Symmerley worried that Thyme might become so lost in his mourning, that his aura would fade into nothingness.
        Symmerley did the best he could: he curled his shimmery tail around the fairy's huddled form, and spoke to him of flight and friendship, adventures and rebellion - sprinkling it all with happy memories, and a healthy dash of hope. Hope is the flicker of wind that lifts your wings in the stillness, he told Thyme solemnly. That bears you high when all else is stagnant. And you can hold on to it, by working so very little, Fairy - merely by fluttering your wings to sustain you above the ground.
        Zylon stood by, his glowing gaze sympathetic, as he sensed the weakness in this one who was usually so strong. From time to time, in a quick offering of friendship and hope, he'd rub a gentle muzzle along the fairy's back, letting him know that - if everything he'd thought he valued was lost to him - he yet retained the friendship of two esquiors, to lift the darkness of his thoughts.
*
        The Sylybin were bloated with a gloating conceit over their easy victory: two prized delicacies had been thrust into their midst in short order. Add to this the vanquishing of an enemy: her colour force had been subdued, and was soon to be non-existent. Consumption of this enemy would merely reinforce what they had always known - violate a Sylybin at any time, and he would destroy you at his leisure. No amends were possible - perhaps because the enemy was almost always edible. Robbing this one of her power, for example, would serve to empower others, through the sustainment of their being. It somehow increased the scintillation of their victory that this should happen in their own world, where so many came to traverse their dimension. A warning to all who dared venture through their land. The land where so many Sylybin could benefit - by a mass partaking of their scavenged feast.
        When the other humanoids tumbled out across the rough crystalline surface, the Sylybin scattered - recognising these intruders as enemies, who had previously violated their world. But, the conceit which was with them still - over their superior numbers, and their easy defeat of these would-be-rescuers' cohorts - left them only momentarily perturbed. The Sylybin knew little of fear, and wariness was a trait they had only recently acquired.
        But they knew much of torture. The torture of hunting prey, who knew they were being stalked; the torture of slow consumption of the suffering; the torture of twisting a mind to levels of agonising mental pain. One of the Sylybin, remembering the warmth of connection between these creatures and their downed comrades, turned to greedily feed once more. In a moment, all the scavengers who had been momentarily scattered by the eruption of the portal, returned en masse: intent on assuaging both vengeance, and their raw, empty hunger. Lifting scalpel-sharp fingers, the Sylybin prepared to sever the fairy's wings -
*
        Peter saw it all. He saw the flock of feasting vultures pecking over Mari and - God help him - his Katy. The shock and obscenity of it - of this consumption of the living - momentarily stunned him. In horrific slow motion, even as he fought to untangle the ropy lengths of the ectoplasm that bound him as surely as rope to Trevor's squirming form, he saw a Sylybin reach a bony finger toward Lily's glittering wings -
*
        It exploded out of him. But he wasn't prepared for the connection that yet linked his own light force, with Trevor's potent power. As a stream of blinding, yet solid light, was ejected from Peter's fingertips, it drew Trevor's fury right out of him. The two mingled, in an ear-popping explosion of white light, drops of residue, and far-flung mouldy carcasses - Sylybin carcasses, that finally acted like the flimsy creatures they'd appeared.
        "Oops!" he heard Trevor mutter at his side, and he knew that Trevor, like himself, was in shock over what they had done. Peter stared with frightened eyes at the scene: Sylybin were lying everywhere, like lifeless floppings of old cloth. And in the midst of it all, had been Katy and Mari and Lily. He ripped himself free of his own ectoplasmic residue, and began to run.
***

Chapter Three

        Henry had been trying to concentrate on his book, but it hadn't done much good. He'd hoped that by re-reading the familiar, he could somehow claim back the mind that he'd always been proud of - and the good sense that had somehow been lost during the last few months.
        He'd forced his eyes back to his book for the fifth time, when he heard an unfamiliar clicking sound from outside the shed. He stood silently - a new awareness of the abnormal making him cautious. His thoughts scanned the list of local animals that he'd come to know over the years, but he couldn't find anything to match the weird sound.
        His nose gave an audible sniff - almost of its own accord - as a pungent aroma of wet faeces seemed to waffle in under the door. At the same time came a high-pitched whining sound - and his brain asked him, if this is what it sounds like through the wall, what's it like out there? The noise seemed to set everything around him rattling; making an odd sort of tuneless music of pinging glass, panging metal, ear-filling whines, and odd, irregular clicking. Henry backed up against the far wall, putting as much distance between himself and the door as he could.
        He felt like raising a rough cross before himself, to deliver himself from evil. Only he didn't know if it was evil or - and the thought was even more frightening - a product of his own mind. Maybe, he considered dismally, it's an LSD trip twenty-five years late.
In the same moment, some part of him revolted - rejecting the fear that was making him so impotent; resenting the could-be delusions that were robbing him of his freedom and peace of mind. How much of what he'd seen was real, and how much imaginary? How much had he magnified - taking a few startling incidents, and letting them overpower his good sense?
        You've always known, Henry, that there is much in life which can't be explained. You've just never let your fears dominate your existence like this - until recently.
        He forced himself forward, stumbling across the rough floor, to reach for the door with shaking hands. Face it, Henry! he told himself sternly. You're letting your imagination - and some stupid actions in your past - ruin your life!
        He stepped out the door, and looked at them: big, fat, squat creatures, with squished mouths and spindly legs. If this was an illusion, it was one he recognised. Though why he'd choose to delude himself again and again with such ugly sons-of-bitches as these things, was impossible to fathom. He'd not only tainted them with a particularly foul odour, but now he'd added clicking and high-pitched whines to their repertoire. As though envisioning them bulldozing a house wasn't enough… By this time, Henry was smiling - a sort of half-grin, as he tried to reason away this remnant of a bad "trip".
        Glancing around, to make certain no one would see him wrestling with his personal demons, Henry squatted down, amused to see that his imaginary friends scooted backwards swiftly in response. But, their movement was like a wave, that reaches a blockage and is shot back on itself in response. So it went, as the creatures bounded against Katy's big "objet d'arts", and rippled back the way they'd come.
        Henry was just priding himself on the thoroughness of his imagination, when it happened. "You're not real -" he started to say. It was as far as he got. At his words, the ripple had just returned to the front of the restless crab-walkers, and - unknown to Henry - they were already set in forward. The sound, issuing from his rounded mouth, set the yassels into a stampede. With a whine and a whinge, a hunching of shoulders, and a nervous clicking of teeth, this small segment of the yassel nation exploded forward, ramming and running over everything in their path.
*
        "Oh, Katy!" Peter groaned, appalled at the amount of blood he could see, even in the half-light of this place. He looked over at Mari, now in Trevor's arms, to find she was in much the same state.
        "Damn vultures!" Trevor said angrily.
        "Where's Lily?" Peter asked. He looked around for a trace of her golden aura.
        "I don't know," Trevor said. "Here, let me look -" he said sarcastically, booting floppy Sylybin forms carelessly with his feet. "I'll just check some more," he continued, working out some of his anger on seeing how far he could kick their light-weight adversaries.
        "Trev - show some respect. This is their world -" There, I've said it, Peter thought. Said what Katy would want me to say.
        "All right," Trevor told him with a flash of a grin. "Now that you've got that out of your system," he said, "do you want to help me look for her?"
        Peter remembered the feelings of conceit and gloating that the Sylybin had emanated, as they stepped in to gorge themselves once more. The thought made him feel physically sick, and he looked again at the hundreds of small cuts that covered Katy's skin - reaching out a gentle hand to smooth the pain-wrought tension in her brow.
        His eyes met Trev's. Trev deliberately flung the nearest skeletal form high in the air. "Don't you wanna -" Trevor grunted as he booted two more, raising a cloud of mouldy dust, "- help me look?"
        Peter made Katy as comfortable as he could, then started searching vigorously through a particularly hefty pile of these heartless carnivores. "With pleasure," he said, as he flung them out of his way.
        A few minutes later Peter remarked, "You'd think we'd be able to sense her."
        "Too faint," Trev said, engrossed in his own search. "I can't even sense Mari right now -" His eyes lit up in panic, and he ran over to check her, before exhaling with a sigh of relief. "I even scared myself on that one."
        "Well, since you're so into scaring people, check Katy while I tackle -" Peter flung a Sylybin in a windmill gesture out across the distance, "- this little load."
        Trev whistled. "Fifteen points on that last one. Did you see the way I -" At Peter's expression, Trevor shut his mouth and felt for Katy's pulse. At first he couldn't feel it, and Peter was at his side, his head against Katy's chest, before Trevor got out his panicky, "Pete!"
        Peter sighed. "She's okay. But we've got to get them out of here, Trev." He knelt there for a moment, leaning back on his haunches while he tried to reason it out. "Lily's so light, Trev, and that thing was holding her up in the air when we - got out of control."
        "Speak for yourself," Trevor interrupted.
        "Anyway, she may have been flung quite a distance - which means -"
        Trevor looked at him nervously. "Which means we'd better find her before any of those other scavengers do." He looked down at Mari and Katy. "I don't think we should leave them alone, Pete," he said firmly.
        Peter shook his head. "Not a chance. Trev, can you take them through the gate yourself?"
        Trevor did a small "rat-a-tat-tat" with his fist on Peter's head. "Anybody home?"
        Peter rubbed the spot. "Cut it out. You know damn well it'd be safer -"
        "Not for you. Face it, Pete. You need me."
        Peter grinned. "You're probably right, you idiot. But, Trevor -"
        "Yeah?"
        "If danger comes calling, don't feel shy. Give me a yell, okay?"
        "Same for you."
        Peter started to jog away, stopped, then called to Trev again. "And if danger comes before I can get here, think with your head, not with your -" At Trevor's look, Peter changed what he was going to say. "I mean, remember about Katy, okay?"
        "Count on it."
        Peter turned and ran off into the darkness.
*
        Direygayn's long tongue lapped delicately at the lights of this latest portal. She tilted her head, then lapped again, just to be certain. The brightness of discovery lingered in her eyes, to mingle with anticipation. They had not moved - and they were close enough to a portal to feed its lights.
        Direygayn compressed her scales against her body - once more appearing like the creature that had arisen from a rock-strewn bed of ancient soil. It was speed she wanted now - a speed that she could manifest best when streamlined - with no impediment to sidetrack her into unwanted visits of what, for her, were empty worlds.
*
        Trevor saw a flaring of white a short distance away, and listened for the scuffle. But, all he heard was the soft thudding of Peter's feet - a muffled, "Ow!" - and then Peter was there, triumphantly bearing Lily in his arms. Lily's aura was like a bluish cloud. But, at least she has one, Trevor thought. If we'd been a few minutes later - He didn't let himself finish the thought.
        "Have any trouble?" he asked in a whisper.
        The fact that he was whispering made Peter move closer to Katy. "No," he said, as he squatted down at her side, to lay Lily against her chest. "Nothing major." He scanned the area, seeing flickers of movement along the perimeter. "Do I need my hands free?" he asked quietly.
        Trevor bent down and picked up Mari in his arms, then waited while Peter did the same to Katy. "Not if we hurry," he answered, with a ghost of a grin. He took off at a jog, making certain that Peter was keeping pace.
        The Sylybin kept their distance - wary of these two who had done so much damage to their kind. "I think we're going to make the 'Flesh-Flappers Five-O'Clock Report'," Trev commented.
        "I can live with it," Peter remarked. "As long as we don't make their 'Most-Wanted' list."
        The gate at their backs gave a weird crackling sound - a hissing and popping that Peter had never heard before. "What's that?" he asked warily, looking back, before quickly switching his eyes to the portal they were about to enter. "Trev - you're the one who plays with electricity. Do we have a problem?"
        Trevor studied the electromagnetic gateway, seeing how the lights were wavering, as though being drawn several ways at once. He turned - as Peter had, to look at the portal behind them.
        Peter nudged him with his shoulder. Just beyond them the Sylybin were poised - either unknowing, or uncaring - of any misfunctioning in the dimensional gate - concerned only with the loss of their most highly-prized prey. "Did I ask if we have a problem, Trev?" Peter repeated, as he urged Trevor into a run once again. "In a word: yes. And I'm not referring to the gate."
        The portal in the distance was still crackling and spitting flashes of light when they reached the relative safety of this one. It's almost over, Peter thought with relief. "Well?" he asked Trevor, anxious now to get Katy back to a world of the living.
        "It might be some kind of electromagnetic storm," Trev started to say, sure that, for once, he was going to impress Peter with the quality of his thoughts. All at once, the distant gateway exploded, searing into a blast of light, that thrust the emerging giant into a weird silhouette. "Unless it's something else -" Trevor yelped, stunned.
        Peter saw that, whatever the thing was, it was emerging at a rapid pace. From his perspective it looked almost as if the gate were giving birth - flexing and contorting to accommodate the contours of its enormous offspring - with the magnitude and speed of the new arrival nearly rupturing its trans-dimensional birth canal.
        For a moment, Peter had forgotten the Sylybin - but they had not forgotten him. He felt an icy touch, which quickly became a stinging gash across his chest, as he swerved to keep Lily out of a wraith's bony grasp.
        "Gotta go, Trev!" he yelled, booting Trevor to get his attention. Without any hands to defend themselves, they wouldn't have a prayer of keeping the Sylybin at bay.
        But Trev's eyes were fixed on the incoming giant. It ripped out of the gateway, before plopping its stubby end on to the ground. The rest of it had been so long and sinuous, that he was surprised at the abrupt finish to the gargantuan creature.
        Its efforts at the portal didn't even faze it. The thing just kept on coming. Jeez, Trevor thought. All that effort to come through, yet it didn't even slow that monster down -
        The ramifications of it didn't hit him till a moment later, when he saw it barrelling toward them - shoving rocks and black crystals, spires of stone and cadaverous wraiths, ahead of it - moving with the slightly jerky motion of a time lapse film - and covering the distance nearly as fast as the sped-up version. Trevor took a panicky look around for Peter, and saw him fending off the attentions of several persistent Sylybin.
        "Pete!" Trevor yelled. He looked back at the wave of debris, and realised that there'd never be time to explain. Instead, he tossed Mari across one shoulder, screamed, "Incoming!", and dove for the portal, grabbing Peter's leg as he went - and sending all five of them flipping into the swirling lights of the trans-dimensional linkage.
*
        What they didn't count on, was that the Sylybin would follow. That the prizes would be so great, and the chances of victory so much better in the world to which they were going, that the Sylybin no longer held them in fear.
        Peter came out of the lightstream on his knees - doing his best to keep Katy and Lily from tumbling out of his arms. Even as he sought his balance, a steadying leg, with a luminescence that found an answering brightness in his eyes, stopped him from falling on to his face. "Symmerley!" Peter greeted the esquior happily.
        Peter looked at Thyme, whose aura was nearly as blue as Lily's. He heard Trevor ask, "What's with him?" Then the roar of the gate sounded again.
        "Trev!" he yelled. "Watch out!" Five of the darkly solid, tissue-dripping creatures had emerged from the light stream. There was no doubt that the Sylybin were more frightening - and certainly more threatening - in this world, than the one they'd left. And they sure look a helluva lot bigger "in the flesh" Peter thought. He plopped Lily next to Thyme, and flung Katy face-down across Symmerley's back. Then he grabbed on to the esquior's coat - fingers clinging to the mane and coat, as Symmerley danced backwards in distress.
        Suddenly, they were off the ground, and Peter's feet dangled, as he fought to pull himself up behind Katy. But, there was no way he could do it without dislodging either Katy or the non-responsive fairies. So, sweating, Peter concentrated on just hanging on.
        The wind was buffeting them, jolting them in bumpy judders, even as Symmerley fought to hold them steady. The esquior circled, trying to find a spot in this rocky place where he could set down - where his wings wouldn't be impaled on tree limbs, and where Sylybin wouldn't be waiting to claim him or his friends.
        The Sylybin were well aware which esquior bore fairies on its back, and ignored Zylon's frantic efforts to distract. They focused on Symmerley, as Peter's dangling legs, and the proximity of two fairy lights, lured them forward. The Sylybin reached bony fingers upward, brushing Peter's foot with a chilt, but slicing touch, that made him curl himself inward and upward as much as he could. In desperation, Symmerley drifted out over the heights, terrified all the while that he was about to drop Peter into the Shimmer's throat.
        Peter felt himself slipping, as a handful of esquior hair came away in his hand. His one-handed dangle from Symmerley's shiny mane left him hanging askew - and every beat of esquior wings flapped across his face and chest.
        He fought to keep esquior hair and dander out of his mouth and nose, but the wing action seemed to force the dusty air up into his nostrils till Peter could barely breathe. I'm allergic to esquior dandruff, he realised. His eyes started to itch and swell, and his nostrils revolted with a never-ending sneezing, that made him feel like he was blowing his head off.
        He knew Trevor was yelling at him, and he got the words, "- okay?" that drifted into his ears between sneezes. He ignored it, saving what was left of his breath for supplying his sneezing rushes.
        Peter slipped some more, on a particularly strong beat of Symmerley's wing, as the wind came up under them. With the gust came the airborne taint of the Shimmer's breath, and Peter realised how close he was to letting go. The fingers gripping Symmerley's mane were already numb, and he didn't know how much longer he could hold on.
        He took small breaths through his mouth to try to stop the incessant sneezing, and tried to think - all the while ignoring how his nose goo was now dripping down his face. Something about his troubled breathing triggered a memory - not too long before - when an esquior leg had tugged him out of a mass of stinking yassels. It was a lot easier to hang on to an esquior's bent leg, that a small handful of mane. I only hope Symmerley doesn't have any objection to this, he thought.
        He timed himself to match the downward movement of the esquior's wingbeat - and swung himself inward to wrap his knees around one of Symmerley's. The winged horse - guessing what he was about - tightened his muscles to hold the limb firmly in place.
        The tugging action had been too much for the chunk of hair that Peter had held for so long. Now, as his weight yanked against it on the inward swing, it ripped.
        As Peter flopped over, he concentrated on keeping his knees bent, to catch himself as he went. Knowing that esquior legs were delicate compared to the rest of their bodies, he prayed that Symmerley would be able to withstand the sudden thrust.
        The esquior dipped, screamed a complaint, and fluttered wildly to compensate for the weight shift - but took up the burden. Peter hung briefly upside down, before deciding he could do his sneezing better right side up. He pulled himself up, to cling with both arms firmly around the esquior's leg. "Thank you, Symmerley!" he yelled, well aware that the only real distance between him and the rocks below, lay in the strong muscles of, and even stronger friendship with, a certain shimmery white trans-dimensional comrade.
*
        The Sylybin were not yet ready to yield. Although deprived of an easy victory, they sensed - as do many creatures - which prey will be more susceptible to the hunt, and the two blue-cast fairies now fell into this category - as did the healer. So seldom had the cadaverous figures been thwarted in the hunt, especially in this world, that the idea of failure remained foreign to them. The Sylybin wanted the fairies; they wanted the healer; and they would readily feast and pick the bones of the colour-wielder. Therefore, it would happen. Their only concession to failure was the manner in which they now blocked the portal with their heavy forms, refusing to allow these others to leave. Their solid bulk in this dimension made them a formidable obstacle, and Trevor's gaze flickered from them to Peter, and back again.
        Symmerley could feel that Peter was beginning to lose his grip once more. Eyes warily watching the Sylybin, the esquior drifted rapidly beyond the cadaverous hunters, to light briefly upon the soil, where Peter could scramble aboard. Peter pulled himself up, settled Katy and fairies once more, then yelled, "Ready!" In an undervoice, he added, "Thanks."
        But Symmerley wasn't listening. The dreaded Sylybin, taking advantage of the esquior's brief contact with the soil, were almost upon them, and the first was reaching for his wing. Symmerley shied backwards in terror, nearly tumbling his passengers to the ground as he fought to get away.
        Zylon came in low, at Trevor's request, and ran thudding hooves across the Sylybin's extended arm. "Tickle-tickle!" Trevor yelled. "Want some more, you skull-faced corpse?!" But when the eyeless holes turned upwards, to stare sightlessly into Trevor's face, even he was daunted. "You don't have to take it so hard," he muttered.
        Peter felt the first onslaught of the Sylybin's greatest weapon - their attack upon the senses. He knew it was already touching Symmerley, for the esquior's terror was swiftly changing to despair. Katy stirred, and Peter knew that the Sylybin attack was touching her, even in the depths of unconsciousness. The thought made him furious. "It's time to go home," he said determinedly, and it was only when Symmerley flinched that Peter realised he'd spoken aloud. "No, Symmerley," he reassured him. "Sylybin first - then we go through."
        Peter rubbed a gentle hand across the bloodied crystals on Katy's back, unwillingly visualising once again the nightmare scene of the scavenging Sylybin masses. As he did so, his fists clenched, and anger displaced the fear in his brain: the fear the Sylybin had instilled, with their visions of his own body, lying lifeless and dismembered.
        Peter was so engrossed in his inner turmoil, that he didn't notice how Thyme's limpness had slowly drifted sideways, with each beat of the esquior's wings. It was only when Symmerley screamed, that Peter jerked to alertness - only to see Thyme tumbling to the ground below. Panicking, Peter coaxed the big esquior back towards the ground. As they neared where Thyme lay, Peter swung his legs over, dangled, then dropped from Symmerley's back. "I thought we just did this," Peter mumbled, as - scooping up the tumbled fairy - he was confronted by the Sylybin once more.
        Some instinct of self-preservation must have stirred Thyme from the depths, for he began to squirm and kick, his squawks drawing the Sylybin at an even faster rate. Peter, sensing something at his back, twisted round, taking a step sideways as he did. Overhead, Trevor's yelled, "What the hell are you doing, Pete?", beat into his brain, but he knew it wasn't the words, but the fear and anger in Trevor's voice that were reverberating inside him. Trev didn't see Thyme fall, Peter realised. He must think I'm down here for fun and games.
        Just then, the roar of the gate announced another arrival. Peter pictured another dozen Sylybin, coming in to munch on him. "Don't they ever give up?" Peter whispered in exasperated terror, even as he backed away.
        The crackling of the portal drew his eyes - the hugeness of the new arrival making the daunting Sylybin appear like children's toys. A terrified voice spoke raspily from the direction of his hands, and it took him a moment to realise it was Thyme. "You asked if they ever give up, Peter Trevick," the fairy said solemnly. "I would say the answer is 'no'."
*
        Paul Gatley sat on the side of Sharon Rafferty's bed. He was supposed to have been working this morning, but Jack Quilby had passed him in the hall, taken a long look - and ordered him off-duty.
        Everyone, of course, wanted to know what had happened to Sharon, and Paul had been at a loss to explain. Too upset to prevaricate when they'd flown in, he'd now had ample time to try to come up with some excuse that their friends would buy, but he didn't feel he was any closer than he'd been a few hours ago. Fatigue and stress had taken their toll. I'm beginning to understand how hard it was for Mari to come up with ordinary excuses to explain away the extraordinary. He gave a small smile. Fortunately, after the weird things that had happened during the last few months, the staff here wasn't too inclined to pursue unanswered - or unanswerable - questions.
        What he didn't know, was how worried his friends were about him. He'd come in - after an obviously sleepless night - with his nerves and temper frayed. He'd hovered while Sharon's bandages had been unwrapped - openly upset, until they'd found her injuries to be non-life-threatening.
        "Paul." His eyes flicked to Sharon's face, to find her looking up at him.
        He wondered if his smile gave him away. "I missed you," he said.
        "There was a dragon, Paul -" Her voice was groggy, but the terror in her eyes made him cringe.
        "Don't think about it, Sharon," he pleaded. He had this fear that dwelling on it might somehow make the injuries manifest themselves again.
        "If you only knew - what Mari went through -" she said.
        "Mari?"
        "In the dragon's mouth. It burned her, Paul. I could feel it."
        Paul was momentarily speechless. He thought about how he'd talked to Mari - how the mere thought of her being unscathed, while Sharon played victim, had made him furious.
        "Is Mari okay?" Sharon asked him.
        Damn it, Sharon! Paul thought. I don't know! I was so worried about you, that I didn't take the time to look. He forced a smile, and told her, "Never better."
        Sharon smiled sleepily, accepting his answer at face value. "Thanks for bringing me home, Paul," she said politely, as her eyes drifted closed.
        He realised that she'd been only half awake. "Any time," he told her. He leaned over, his lips gently brushing hers.
        Afterwards, he sat there - guilt and nerves playing havoc with his peace of mind. Is Mari okay? he wondered. I didn't even look at Katy, he realised belatedly. I guess I just assumed that Mari would heal her, and anyone else who needed it. I conveniently forgot that Mari - for some reason or other - can't heal any one right now.
        He thought about how gravely Sharon had been injured, and wondered if the others had suffered similar damage. Trevor and Peter had sounded all right, but he'd heard them crack jokes at death's door, and he wouldn't put it past them to be stupidly brave. Paul remembered how distracted and unhappy Mari had been.
        They thought Katy had a concussion. Who'd said it? Edwin? Paul remembered hearing someone say it. I also remember ignoring it, Paul thought unhappily - because I knew Katy's recuperative powers gave her a lot better chance than Sharon had.
        Paul leaned back on the bed, enjoying the feel of being nestled next to Sharon, even though she wasn't aware of it. He closed his eyes, trying to picture the events of the night before without the flavour of his panic to confuse them. The picture, when it came, wasn't a pretty one. I'd better go out there, he decided with a sigh.
        Some time later, someone covered him with a blanket, and he stirred, the thought surfacing: I have to go -
        Go where? His brain didn't have time to answer before he drifted into an exhausted sleep once more.
        When he awoke, hours later, it was to find his brain had answered the question while he slept. One memory came through clearly: that of the charred rubble that had once been Peter's house. Paul's eyes shot open as he suddenly realised - not only might they be injured, with no healing crystal to help them - but they had nowhere to go.
*
        As the big, dark object came pouring out of the inter-dimensional portal, Trevor stared. In his mind, the gate wasn't giving birth - it was defecating a behemoth-sized BM. And the damned Sylybin don't even notice! Trevor couldn't believe it.
        The Sylybin - drawn by the proximity of their prey - were relentless. Peter, his nerves stretched tight, ejected a stream of ectoplasm on to the nearest ghoul. His actions slowed the creature for a few moments, but his efforts had nowhere near the impact on these solid forms as they'd had on the Sylybin in their own world. Peter decided slowing one wouldn't do a whole lot of good, if you were facing five. He turned, and began to run. If he could get far enough ahead; if he could find a clear spot for Symmerley to pick them up; if -
        Remember, Peter, he told himself. They move slowly in this dimension. Thinking he'd put a goodly distance between himself and his pursuers, Peter turned - to find a mouldy ugly right at his back. It towered over him; dwarfing him.
        Peter grabbed a log and started beating on it - remembering a time when hefted rocks had blown holes in a Sylybin's hide. This Sylybin just stood there and took it, and Peter wondered if he was merely awaiting his brethren before exacting revenge. But, then Peter remembered the secret of the Sylybin's success with such as he: it was in their marvellous ability to repair themselves. The more I damage this thing, Peter thought, the better the chance that it can somehow entangle me in its repairs - mending me right into the fabric of its being. Peter dropped his stick and began to run once more.
        Trevor hoped that with Thyme safely out of his hands, Peter wouldn't hold his present attraction for the death-stalkers. Urging Zylon to come in low, Trevor yelled, "You're clear! Toss him to me!"
        Thyme had been clutching Peter's shoulder, his hands forming a death-grip on Peter's hair. When Trevor yelled, Peter tore the fairy free - only realising the cruelty of his gesture as a wave of bereft terror swept his way. Thyme, flung in a tumbling toss to the heavens, thought he was going to fumble into the Sylybin's icy grasp.
        Trevor watched as Thyme's own jerky attempts to right his wings made him drift into the Sylybin's path. "Damn it, Thyme!" he bellowed. "Hold still!" Trevor leaned over, his arms clawing the air as he tried to grab the fairy's wriggling body.
        Peter saw what was going to happen - what was already in motion. As Thyme plummeted toward the ground once more, Peter dove in his direction. Don't think about it, Peter! he told himself, trying to shut out memories of cold, dank despair - of death and morbidity within the gel-like consistency of Sylybin tissues. Whatever happened, he couldn't let Thyme go through that again. Somehow, this day, in the minutes Thyme had waited for Lily, some well of his strength had been tapped - and his small friend was too vulnerable to the Sylybin's vision. For Thyme, any contact with the Sylybin would spell certain death.
        Trevor couldn't sit by either, while these dark ghouls laid slashing fingers on Thyme's small person. Urging Zylon into a dive, he was determined to catch the fairy before he could hit the ground. Zylon, screaming all the while, tucked in his wings and dropped like a stone. Trevor yelled along with him, hoping it would have some impression on these soulless cadavers. "Keep your bloody hands off him!" he screeched at the top of his lungs. Clinging by one hand to the esquior's mane, Trev leaned over, hoping to snatch the fairy in mid-fall.
        "Gotcha!" Trevor yelled triumphantly.
        Peter heard it. He looked up, just as Zylon opened his wings, to stabilise his downward plummet. In the same moment, the Sylybin who'd been closest to the fairy did the unexpected - he grasped Trevor by the leg, and yanked him off his mount - raking the esquior's side as he did so. Zylon, screaming in pain, lurched to the side, just as Peter stood up. Peter never saw him coming: eyes on Trevor, and the ghoul who threatened him, Peter jumped - just as Zylon lurched. The two collided, and Peter rammed against the rock-encrusted dirt, rolled over twice, and ended with a thud against Trevor's back. He heard Trevor's, "Oof!" as he hit.
        Zylon veered, caught his balance, and lifted skyward - doing his best to keep Mari out of reach. He continued to scream his dismay - wondering how much damage he'd done to Peter when he'd slammed against him.
        Peter reached out a hand and picked up a limp Thyme, from where he'd rolled out of Trevor's arms. "You alive, Trev?" Peter asked, but his friend didn't answer. Times were bad when Trev was too far gone to crack a joke.
        Peter warily eyed the Sylybin. They were everywhere now - all around them - but Peter didn't realise until now how very good they were at hunting their unwary prey. Something in the gloating sensations they emitted - a glowering of smug satisfaction - told him they'd skilfully manoeuvred the entire thing.
        The Sylybin surrounded them, closing off the light - a near-impossible feat in this bright world, but somehow they were doing it. "Trev!" he yelled, as he flung a handful of hard crystals up at their empty eye sockets. Peter wasn't ready to give up. If he could just rouse Trev, then they might find a way to join forces once more. "Trev!" he screamed, shaking him. But Trevor didn't even grunt.
        Peter rose to a crouch, then sprang with a flash, ramming one of the Sylybin with his shoulder. "Umph-h!" he grunted, as he made contact. The Sylybin weigh a helluva lot more in this dimension than they do in their own, he realised painfully. He continued to push against it until he realised that was just what the Sylybin wanted him to do. Suddenly afraid that prolonged contact would allow the Sylybin to entrap him, he dropped to all fours, dangled Thyme from his mouth, and crawled between the dangling strips of rotting meat, that passed for Sylybin legs. If I can only lure them away from Trev, he thought.
        Thyme's aura was nearly indiscernible against the brighter green-blue of the daybright skies. Senseless and defenceless, Peter knew there would be no help from his direction. Peter placed him firmly against his chest. If only he could fly! Peter thought desperately. His eyes scoured the heavens - hoping that someone might be able to help them, but not even the esquiors were in sight now. Peter realised that they must have gone for help - but by the time it gets here, there may be no one left to save.
        What would happen if I were to leave? Take Thyme and run for our lives? Would the Sylybin follow me - the one trying to get away - the one with the fairy - and leave Trevor alone? Peter hesitated, his feet poised to run - knowing that, after his little collision with Zylon, running might not get him very far.
        But when he turned, he saw that his efforts with the fairy had done nothing to lure the Sylybin from Trevor's side. Instead, they'd used the time to spreadeagle Trevor's limp form across the ground - using it to taunt Peter by laying him out as they prepared to feed. They know! Peter realised, his eyes meeting the black hollows in a Sylybin face. They sense the bond between us - and they know that if I leave, it won't be because I'm abandoning him to his fate.
        Peter had a glimpse then, of the Sylybin soul. Or, what passed for it. With a sharpened vision - perhaps owing to that momentary contact - Peter saw the motive force behind Sylybin logic. He suddenly recognised that the objective approach that he'd forced into his work - and tried to incorporate into his life - was far from detached. Now, he was seeing true objectivity - the kind that selected an end, and implacably saw it through.
        No pity, no empathy with their prey, no tangled loyalties to get in their way. As a selective advantage for a hunting species, it seemed