I have a message from another time...
 
                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents
 
                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                   - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 5 -

                           First Movement:
                              Ash Knight
 
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                              Anne Cross
 
                (c) 2005 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
 

                      MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2410
                       771 EAST CHRISTIE AVENUE
                        NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI

        Anne Cross awoke on the first Monday of February vacation -
the Avalon County public school system's winter break - and lay under
the covers, spending several long, blissful minutes savoring the fact
that she still had a whole seven days without homework.  Seven more
days without classes.  Not that school was a bad thing - this semester
was the first time since she'd been twelve that she'd been able to go
to a 'normal' school.  And since Harkness Street High School wasn't
anything at all like the cram school she'd gone to on Orron IV, and
the Psi Corps hadn't spoiled anything yet, she loved every minute of it.
        Well, except for the pop quiz in math that Professor
Reinthaler had sprung on them Friday morning, when Anne hadn't done
her homework.  That hadn't been so much fun.  And she was pretty sure
she hadn't got more than six of the ten questions right, so she was
probably going to have to explain it to Miki...
        Oh well, I'll burn that test paper when I get it back, she
thought cheerfully, and went in search of breakfast and to find out
what Kaitlyn's plans for the afternoon were, when she got back from
her morning class.
        Since Saionji had vanished off on whatever he was doing
shortly after New Year's, and Kaitlyn's Dad's students had gone back
to learning from him, Anne presently had the unique and somewhat
painful distinction of being her sensei's only student, and Kaitlyn
had couched her decision to allow Anne to attend Harkness in the
requirement that she earn the right to stay there by continuing to
improve in the dojo.
        However, Kaitlyn had a morning class and another one right
after lunch at New Avalon University, over in Salutown, and it was her
habit on such days to stay on campus.  With Juri working and Miki
still on Tomodachi, that left Anne alone in the house.  Well, alone
except for the majordomo, anyway.
        Six months ago, Anne doubted she'd have been able to handle
this particular facet of the new housekeeping she and Kate had set up
in New Avalon.  She could handle moving back into a city - compared to
the planetary sprawl on Orron IV, the City in the Sphere was
practically a little town with a well, and it had so much more spirit
and character than anyplace in the Corporate Sector could dream of
that living there dredged up no bad memories.
        The three-story townhouse Kaitlyn had found in the city's
extra-quirky Claremont district suited the two quite well, both in its
own right and in terms of access to the rest of the city.  It had
plenty of room for guests, the flat roof made an excellent practice
space, and the inside was every bit as homey and comfortable as the
house on Wildwood Road, albeit in a completely different style.  It
even had a decent little back yard, with a cherry tree (albeit not one
as impressive as the one out back of 1140 Wildwood), room to host a
modest-sized barbecue party, a place for a hammock, and a surprising
amount of sun for a city yard.
        The house came with a droid majordomo, though, and that had
been one of the defining factors of life in the privileged classes on
Orron IV.  Household majordomo droids in the Corporate Sector were
ubiquitous appliances and treated as such; they never had names, only
coded manufacturer's designations, and they were programmed to do
their duties with as little interaction as possible with the home's
human inmates.  They had no personalities, no interests, and no
compassion.  They were, in short, not very much fun for a child to be
stuck at home alone with for long periods of time, which had happened
quite a lot to Anne in her younger days.  When she learned that the
townhouse in New Avalon had one, she'd wondered with some nervousness
how she would take to having one around again.
        She needn't have worried.  The majordomo that came with 771
East Christie was as unlike the cold, uncaring mechanical boss of her
childhood home on Orron IV as the house itself was unlike the bland
plastic company flat that childhood home had been.  For one thing, he
had a name.
        "Morning, Fritz," she said cheerfully as she reached the
bottom of the stairs.
        Fritz - more correctly F-3PZ, a Cybot Galactica 3P-series
protocol droid - paused in vacuuming the hall carpet and turned.
        "Ah!  Good morning, Miss Anne," the droid said in a pleasant
voice with a slight German accent.  "Miss Kaitlyn left a note for you
on the refrigerator.  She expects to be home about three."
        "OK, thanks," Anne said, and went on to the kitchen to collect
the note.  She found it was a list of three kata with a detailed list
of where in them she was getting unacceptably sloppy, as well as a less
formal request to see if she could figure out what was the matter with
the stuck window in the south bedroom.
        Anne chatted with Fritz about the year's prospects for the
Knights - spring training in two weeks! - while the droid made her a
breakfast of johnnycakes and bacon.  After breakfast, she went back
upstairs and dressed in clothes that would handle either a workout or
some minor home repairs, leaving Fritz to finish the vacuuming.

        Several hours later, Anne lowered her bokuto, Tonerikoken -
she had named it over Christmas after a discussion with Liza Shustal
about the importance of Named weaponry - and considered that her
morning had been well spent.  With a combination of telekinesis and
the heat of her swearing, she had successfully dislodged the stuck
window, which had been painted shut by some misguided previous owner,
without breaking the glass, after which she'd scraped off the
misapplied paint and touched it up with some fresh semi-gloss.  Then
she had virtuously gone to the roof and worked through the first of
the kata she was having difficulty with, and if she hadn't gotten it
perfect yet, well, at least she was pretty sure she was better at it
than she'd been.
        She was contemplating going in to see if Fritz and had started
lunch yet when the faint scent of grilled cheese sandwiches reached
her from the kitchen vent.  Anne grinned and slipped Tonerikoken back
into the cord she used to carry it.
        "My timing's good," she said cheerfully, and turned to leave
the roof.
        She had just reached the first landing when there was a
screaming distortion of light and the walls of the stairwell fisheyed
around her, bending in to grab at her head, then bulging outwards as
if some giant blast of air had exploded where she was standing and was
pushing them out.
        The next instant, everything was normal, and she was staring
out over a white stone balustrade, surrounded by nothing but the
gentle whisper of wind.
        Understandably, she was a little disoriented.
        She stepped back from the railing, turned, and looked around
her.  She seemed to be on a large balcony, jutting out from about
three-quarters of the way up a high, narrow stone tower with a clock
at the top.  Below, spread out like a postcard, was a cluster of
buildings with terra-cotta roofs and lots of archways.  Beyond that
was a white stone plaza with a long, shallow stairway leading to what
looked like a walled forest.
        Something about it looked familiar, but Anne couldn't place
it.  She had the feeling she'd seen it before, but -when- was eluding
her.  It was a strange feeling to have.  She raised a hand to shade
her eyes and peered toward the forest.
        Did I dream I was here? she wondered.  Or have I been here and
just don't quite remember it...
        "Hey!" a voice cried behind her, breaking her concentration.
"Hey, you!"
        She turned, blinking into the shadow of the tower which fell
across her at the sun's current height, and saw only a shadowy figure
of a woman approaching at a brisk trot.
        "Oh, it's you!" said the woman with definite relief in her
voice.  "Thank God, I thought - hey!  Wait!  You aren't you, you're
somebody else!"
        Anne stepped further into the shade, her eyes adjusting, and
said, "That's kind of existential, don't you think?"
        Now she could more clearly see the woman who'd emerged from
the tower to accost her: she was about ten years older than Anne, a
pointy-chinned young woman with thick wavy ash-blond hair that flowed
around her shoulders, picking up green highlights from her
double-breasted jacket.  Her indignant green eyes were a few shades
darker than the highlights in her hair, which made for an interesting
effect.
        She put her hands on her hips and demanded, "Who are you, how
did you get up here, and why are you wearing that uniform?"
        Anne blinked at her.  "Uniform, what uni - " Then she glanced
down at herself and realized the woman meant Utena's unbuttoned jacket
and the red cargo pants.  "Oh."
        "I asked you a question," the woman reminded her.
        "Actually, you asked me three," Anne replied blandly.  She
went back to the railing and looked down at the buildings.  "My name's
Anne, but I can't answer your second question until you tell me where
'here' is.  I'm not even sure what planet I'm on."
        "You're not on any planet," the woman replied.  "You're in
Cephiro.  This is the campus of Tenjou Academy."
        Anne blinked, turned around, and felt the pieces of
familiarity click into place.  She hadn't climbed the belltower the
previous summer when they'd stopped here on the tour, but now the
perspective made sense.  Then she turned back to the woman.  "You must
be Kanae Ohtori, then.  Must be a bit weird running a school for
somebody else that used to be named after your family."
        "Well, we didn't do a - "  Kanae skidded to a verbal halt.
Comprehension dawned on her face.  "You're a friend of Prince Tenjou's
from Midgard, aren't you."
        Smiling, Anne squared herself and bowed.  "My name is Anne
Cross.  I'm a novice samurai of the Asagiri Katsujinkenryuu, second
student of Master Kaitlyn Hutchins - Utena's best friend.  I've known
her - both of them, actually - for a little over a year now, and I
visited with the Art of Noise's tour last summer, but...  Do -you-
have any idea how I got here?  A minute ago I was on my way to lunch."
        "No, but this can't be good," Kanae answered her, a frown
creasing her smooth forehead.  "Where's the Pillar?  Or Utena and
Anthy?  Or the Rune Knights?"
        "Utena and Anthy are still on Tomodachi - probably at lunch
too, at this hour.  I'm not sure where Corwin is at the moment - he's
been busy lately with something.  I think the Rune Knights are all
still in New Avalon, but I could be wrong.  Why?"
        Kanae looked around, went to the edge of the balcony and
looked up and down, as though checking the area for something; then
she drew a deep breath and shrilled,
        "MASTER CLEF!"
        There was no appreciable response.
        "Now I'm -really- worried," Kanae said, turning to glare
accusingly at Anne.  "Master Clef has never been missing when I needed
to find him."
        "I was in the Forest," came a voice from the doorway.  "Even I
can't cover that distance -instantly-."
        Anne and Kanae turned to see the diminuitive form of Clef,
the Master Mage of Cephiro, standing in the doorway to the tower.
He'd looked better; his robes were rumpled, soiled and torn, and there
was a bloody mark on the left side of his face.  He leaned heavily on
his beaked staff, his calm face drawn.
        Kanae looked stricken.  "Master Clef, what in the world's
happened to you?" she asked as she and Anne both rushed to the mage's
aid.
        "There are... demons... in the Forest," Clef replied, drawing
himself up to indicate he needed no help.  "I was trying, and failing,
to get rid of them.  They are too strong, and with something striving
to cut the Tenth World away from the rest of Creation, my strength
wanes."  He looked Anne up and down.  "You must be the one the
Summoning brought. I had hoped for at least one of the established
Knights, if not one or more of the Trinity... but you are all I have."
        "Well," Anne replied with a confidence she didn't entirely
feel, "maybe I'll be enough.  Give me the short version - it sounds
like time is running out."
        Clef blinked.  "Aren't you going to get angry and demand to be
sent home?"
        "Um, no, not especially... but what would happen if I did?"
        "Nothing.  I cannot spare the energy.  And if you take no
action, Cephiro will fall into the abyss, the Trinity will most likely
die, and whoever is causing this will have won a victory against us
all."
        "Forget -that-, the Trinity have all saved my life at least
once each, and they're all good friends of mine.  Give me the short
version and let's get busy."
        "Very well," Clef replied, delight touching his face despite
his obvious pain, dread, and fatigue.  "Someone has poisoned the
guardian trees, weakening the defenses that lead to the dueling
platform and the castle in the roots of the World-Tree.  If they gain
access to the platform, they can wreak all manner of havoc and cast
Cephiro into the void.  
        "If the Pillar were here, or the Prince, they could stop
this... erosion in a moment, but... "  He shrugged.  "I failed to
summon them. You will have to do.  Go to the Forest of Secrets, climb
the steps to the dueling platform, and from there, you should be able
to see what they are doing and stop them.  Miss Ohtori - you and I
must remain here to help guard the World-Engine from attack in
case... "  He paused, looking at Anne, and Anne filled the rest of the
sentence in.
        "In case I fail.  Yeah."
        Clef nodded wearily.  "My strength is nearly spent."
        Anne checked the cord across her back that she used to keep
Tonerikoken with her; the bokuto was (comfortingly) still there.  Then
she remembered something Fuu had mentioned once when she'd told the
story of how they had become Rune Knights.  "Do I get anything else to
work with, or...?"
        Clef shook his head.  "If you have any sorcerous potential, I
haven't the strength to awaken it now."  He gave a wan smile.  "I'm
afraid you'll have to take what you brought with you, except for
this."  He handed her a small object taken from an inside pocket of
his robes.  "You'll need it to enter the Forest."
        Anne looked at the item he'd given her; it was a silver ring,
a wide band with a pink rose signet - very familiar-looking.  She'd
seen the same symbol a thousand times in the bottoms of Utena Tenjou's
teacups, and on the identical ring she and many of her friends wore.
It hadn't been long ago at all, in fact, that Kaitlyn had told her she
would soon be ready for her own.
        "A Duelist's ring," she mused.  She felt a completely
inappropriate grin (given the situation) spreading across her face as
she slipped the ring onto her left ring finger.  The signet flickered,
then changed color, deepening to a rich amber.
        Clef raised an eyebrow.  "Hmm."  Then he seemed to reach some
conclusion, as he shook his head, straightened and looked her in the
eyes.
        "Now go - time is short, and you seem to understand, unlike
some others I've had to brief over the years, the need for urgency."
        "Right, I'm gone," said Anne, and with a "nice to meet you,
Kanae" tossed back over her shoulder, she dashed into the tower, found
the elevator, and started down.
        Clef sat heavily down at the little table out on the balcony,
sighed, and looked up at Kanae.
        "I hope she's enough," he said.  "Could I trouble you for an
iced tea or something, Miss Ohtori, while we wait for the elevator to
return?  I'm parched."
        Kanae stood at the railing for a few moments, watching the
black speck of Anne's uniform jacket moving swiftly across the plaza
toward the stairs to the Forest, then turned around.
        "Oh, uh... sure," she said.


            /*  Jack Wall  "Exile Trailer"  _Myst III_  */

        Anne stood in front of the great door to the Forest of
Secrets, panting slightly from her headlong dash across the campus and
up the shorter flight of stairs, and eyed the door.
        "Now, how did sempai do this?" she muttered, looking over the
elaborately carved door for any sign of a socket or such-like that the
ring might fit into as a key, but found nothing.
        "Well," she muttered to herself, glancing down at the ring and
then setting her right hand to the door, "Master Clef said this would
let me in..."  She gave the handle a tug.  It yielded not at all.  She
tugged again, with both hands this time, and something cold and wet
splashed her fingers.  With a wordless exclamation, she yanked her
hand back and shook the water from it.
        Underneath her, something ancient and heavy moved with a
tremendous grating CLUNK, and water began gushing from ducts set high
in the walls along the walkway, pouring into the gutters to either
side and curtaining the doorway.  Stone scraped on stone; she had the
impression of more ancient mechanisms moving, changing the shape of
things, hidden behind the water.
        Then it was gone, churgling away into the drainage system
under the walkway, and the wall and door had become the open archway
topped with an intricately carved stone rose that she remembered from
last summer.
        She paused and offered a silent prayer to the gods and to her
teacher - please don't let me screw this up!  Then she loosened
Tonerikoken from its bindings and slipped through the door as quietly
as she knew how, looking for the tremendous flight of stairs -up- that
she had climbed with Saionji during her previous visit.
        It wasn't there, at least not that she could see.  It was dark
in the Forest, much darker than it should have been given the
brightness of the sunlight outside, and she had a hard time seeing at
first.  As her eyes adjusted to the lower light, she started to make
out the shapes of individual trees... but there was something...
-wrong- about them.  She stepped closer to one of the nearby ones,
peering more closely at it through the gloom, and then stepped back
with a gasp of shock and disgust.
        The tree looked like it had once been a fir, but that was
before some horrible thing had taken hold of it and twisted it.  It
was hideously misshapen now, drooping and gnarled, almost denuded of
needles.  It looked almost more animal than vegetable, like a knotted,
cramped muscle jutting up from the ground.  Anne fought down the urge
to be violently sick and turned away, resolving not to look more
closely at any of the other trees she encountered in here.
        She walked slowly, softly, deeper into the diseased forest,
feeling her guts churn in sympathy with the tortured trees.  She
wasn't sure what she was looking for, only following some silent
instinct as she delved deeper into the woods.  Suddenly, she heard a
voice - not words, just a voice, indistinct in the distance.  She
pressed on, following the sound, one hand on the grip of her bokuto.
        There were -two- voices, she realized as she got closer, both
men's.  One was a little deeper than the other, which was... familiar?
She felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
        "... this supposed to help us find the stairs?" the familiar
one observed sardonically.
        Anne paused, ducking behind a large rock.  She thought they
were nearby, perhaps less than ten feet now, though noises in the
forest carried strangely.  Still, it didn't seem that they'd heard her
coming.
        "The trees hide the stairway from us," the unfamiliar voice
replied calmly.  "This -is- the Forest of Secrets, after all.  The
trees only show the way to those who are supposed to be here."  A
pause, then the voice went on with an ironic tone that put Anne in
mind of a wry grin,
        "That wouldn't be us anymore, Saionji."
        Oh -fuck-.
        "It's interesting that trees can divine intent," said her
sempai's voice, and she heard the crunching of leaves underfoot as
they continued to walk along.  "But even as sick as our little present
has made them, it'll take these trees forever to actually -die-.  And
the Mage escaped us - he's going to call for help."
        "With luck," said the other voice, "they'll lose their power
some time before actually dying, and well before that little runt can
bring in anyone who can handle us."
        That's as good an opening line as any, Anne thought.
        She stepped around the rock, hand on bokuto, and said with an
authority she didn't quite feel, "Hold it!"
        Two figures turned to look at her.  Her eyes were now quite
well-adjusted to the gloom of the Forest, and she could see them well.
One of them -was- Saionji, and she saw an expression of shock and
dismay flicker across his face before his expression closed down into
what she'd dubbed inscrutable-psycho mode.  The other was another
young man, perhaps five years older than Anne's own age of fourteen,
tall and redheaded, with very long, straight hair.  He was carrying
something large and blocky in his hands; Saionji's hands were empty.
        Both of them were wearing a kind of black uniform that made
Anne think of Jedi Knights for a moment, and both of them wore
lightsabers at their belts.  She realized with a shock that Saionji
had cut his hair - what was left was slicked back in a sleek, military
sort of cut.  The redhead's long hair was loose, maybe in an attempt
to cover the garish red marks on his face.
        Anne knew other people with facial markings - Corwin Ravenhair,
who had his because he was a god, and Anthy Tenjou, who was a sort of
cousin to the gods, came to mind.  These were different from Corwin's
clean, regular, deep blue brands or Anthy's small forehead pip - they
were bright, livid slashes of red, slanting together in the middle of
his forehead like the exaggerated false eyebrows of painted-face
players, and double scarlet triangles on each cheekbone.
        According to Corwin, those were the marks of demons, or of the
damned.  Anne drew her bokuto.
        "I don't suppose," she said, keeping her voice even, "I could
convince you to just give up and go back wherever you came from."
        She carefully avoided looking at Saionji; whoever this other
guy was, Saionji had to have a reason for what he was doing.
        The redhead smiled.  He must have been handsome once, and
probably still could be, even with those marks on his face.  Clearly
he thought he still was, as he replied in a silky voice,
        "Well, well, what have we here?  Did Clef actually manage to
summon one of his Rune Knights?  I don't recognize you from last time,
baby.  But then, you would have been too young to be in on that,
wouldn't you?  I keep forgetting how long ago it was."
        Anne gave him a cool look as his words connected the last
links of memory for her.  "Hmm.  Tall, broad-shouldered, redheaded,
handsome in a slimy sort of way.  Calls girls 'baby.'  You must be
Touga."
        His smile widened a little, and his eyes smoldered.  The
effect was utterly wasted on Anne.
        "I'm afraid," he replied smoothly, "I haven't had the
pleasure."
        Anne looked him up and down and replied, "Mm.  You don't look
it.  You aren't going to, either, at least not from me."  She smiled
coldly and went on, "-Live- guys who think they're pretty don't appeal
to me, let alone dead ones."
        Touga frowned.  "Hm," he said.  "I see.  So it's to be that
way?  Very well."  His eyes focused on something behind Anne.  She
resisted the urge to turn and look as he smiled, slyly rather than
seductively this time.
        "Saionji, kill her," said Touga.  "I'm off to destroy the
World-Tree."
        With that, he sprinted past Anne and disappeared behind a
tree.  Anne whirled and saw, through the twisted trunks of a group
behind her, his target - the gleaming white column of the stairway to
the sky, just shivering into view.  It had been back near the entrance
after all - but the trees, confused by their death agonies, had hidden
it from she who was supposed to be there as they now revealed it to
all.
        She spun back to stare at Saionji.  "Are you going to let him
-do- that?" she demanded, aghast.  "Sempai - "
        He drew his lightsaber, ignited it with flick of a finger, and
leveled it at her.
        "Defend yourself, Juniper," he ordered, and launched himself
into an attack.
        Anne stared at him in shock, only realizing at the last
instant that he wasn't pulling his blow.  She dove out of the way,
felt the lightsaber whip past her head and sever an errant strand of
hair that had escaped her braid.  She came to her feet, and he turned
and swatted her bokuto out of her startled hands with an almost
contemptuous blow.
        Saionji tsked softly as she scrambled to her feet and pulled
the bokuto back to her hands with her TK.
        "You're not using anything like your full ability against me,
Juniper.  I know you're better than that."
        She stared at him with an expression of horror.  "Sempai... "
she whispered.  "You can't really mean to just let that... that -demon- 
go kill Anthy, Utena, and Corwin?"
        He smiled sardonically.  "I suppose that depends on whether or
not you stop waiting for me to get out of your way and actually put
some thought into what you're doing instead."  He raised his
lightsaber to a very deliberate-looking block position, the sleeve
slid back on his arm, and Anne noted his left wrist was bare.
        Wait.
        His left wrist was bare?

        [ "Juniper, I have to go away for a little while.  I need you
to keep this for me.  Don't open it, just keep it safe until I come
back to claim it from you."
        "Um... sure.  What's in it?"
        "Nothing bad, but something I need someone -else- to keep safe
for a little while."
        "I'll keep it safe for you, sempai." ]

 /*  Savatage  "Complaint in the System"  _The Wake of Magellan_  */

        His -Lens- is in there! she realized with shock, dodging out
of the way of another sizzling lightsaber blow that was close enough
to leave a smoking slash in the front of Utena's jacket.  That means
his mind isn't shielded - I can -scan- him!
        Anne dropped her shields and, summoning every ounce of
training Carmela Sunderland, Devlin Carter, and Jean Grey had helped
her with, reached for his mind.
        She got a wash of concern from his entirely unfamiliar
consciousness - she'd never actually touched it before - overlaid with
a feeling of frantic haste and a mostly-suppressed note of panic, well
mixed through with frustration.
        Does he -want- me to beat him?  Anne frowned, then clenched
her teeth together and brought her bokuto up to parry the lightsaber.
She'd seen Corwin parry Saionji's lightsaber with Stick the couple of
times they had sparred in the dojo, and Tonerikoken was made of the
same wood.  Belatedly, she hoped that was all there was to it.  She'd
feel awfully silly if there were some other enchantment involved - but
only for about a second...
        His lightsaber fetched up against the blade with a harsh
fizzle of sparks, and his eyes lit for a moment.  She got a warm flash
of approval through her touch on his mind.  The nasty suspicious knot
she'd had in the pit of her stomach released a bit.
        I -did- read him right.  Anne caught her lower lip between her
teeth and followed up on her block by disengaging and then swinging
for his legs, aiming to knock him down.
        He dodged away.  "Ah-ah, Juniper, it's not going to be -that-
easy."
        Anne met his eyes, felt the desperation behind his bantering
tone.  She bit down on her lip, drawing blood, and did the one thing
that she wanted -least- in the world at that moment: she let out a
wordless yell of frustration, and lunged forward to engage Saionji in
a real, potentially deadly duel.
        His saber stung the air, clashed with her bokuto, and made an
awful screeching noise.  She jumped back, disengaging as he tried to
overpower her with his superior strength; on the way out, he tried a
strike that he'd disarmed her with in the dojo more than once.
        She'd learned the counter to it since he'd left on whatever
this mission was.  "Nng!" she gasped, shifted her grip on the bokuto,
rolled the wooden sword over his plasma beam (extracting another
shriek from the saber as she did so) and dodged out of the way.  She
felt the saber catch for the briefest of instants on something, and
then felt a cool draft on her left side.
        He must've caught Utena's jacket again, she thought
distractedly, never taking her eyes off him.
        "You've improved," he observed dispassionatly, fencing with
her with a flurry of small strikes that she dodged rather than
parrying.
        "Sensei... only has one... person to beat on," Anne gasped,
then came up around the last of the small strikes and swung at his
shoulder, aiming for the joint in hopes of getting him to drop the
sword.
        He whipped his saber round and parried, and Anne silently
cursed the speed at which those things could be manipulated.  He gave
her an evil little smile (behind it she could feel his frustration) as
he added, "But you're still too worried about actually hurting -me-."
        "'Cause I -don't- want to!" she gasped, just barely jumping
away in time as the saber neatly carved the air around her midsection
and left another torn gash in the jacket; this time, there was a
moment of freezing cold and then the bloom of a burn on her skin.
        "Then you will lose."  Saionji's voice was glacial.  "Just
like a samurai against the ocean waves.  And so will everyone else."
        Anne dodged back from another another sizzling blow, and
watched as Saionji shifted his stance slightly and brought his
lightsaber up into an almost classic pose to being a duel with.  His
mind radiated anticipation and hope (and fear and frustration), and
hers kicked into high gear.
        Rakagato and the Seven Waves, she thought.  That's the third
kata I ever - AH!
        "Point taken," she gasped, and lunged forward into the opening
move of the kata.  His aura blasted approval at her even as he caught
her blade on his and counter-attacked back with the 'overpowering'
force of an incoming wave.  Anne ducked under much of it, crouching
down and blocking over her head, until his saber shifted to the
position she knew was coming; she surged upright, knocking it away,
and dodged behind him.
        Kaitlyn had taught her this kata early on in her training,
because it was good practice for a novice trying to stay alive and not
caring whether it looked pretty.  But she hadn't really gotten it
until she'd practiced it in the surf on the beach at the Jezebel
resort with Saionji.  The point was to learn how to dodge under the
attacks your opponent was throwing at you, and then to come up after
the worst of them have gone by, letting them flow past you rather than
parrying.  It was a good kata for someone who didn't necessarily have
a whole lot of upper arm strength - and compared to Saionji, Anne
still didn't.
        She flowed around his attacks as she could, remembering the
feel of the water buoying her up on the beach, blocking when she
couldn't dodge according to the pattern of the kata, and she let her
body take over.  This, she didn't have to think about - this she knew.
She knew how it was going to end, too, and that was where she was
going to have to alter the pattern.
        Then, she was there and his final strike slammed down above
her, and she surged upward, bashing it off to her left side and
leaving him open (she felt his mind clench in anticipation of pain)
and her bokuto flashed toward his neck to behead the last wave -
        She adjusted the whipping path of her sword upward eight
inches.  The blow caught her sempai on the hardest part of his skull
with nowhere near the full force of her arms behind it.  With just
enough force, she hoped, that she would only knock him unconscious,
and not shatter his skull.
        As the wooden blade hit, she was nearly knocked over by the
blast of pain emanating from him; she was as wide open, empathically,
as she'd been when she first discovered her peculiar gift, and she
wondered if she was going to black out too.
        Then Saionji toppled; Anne felt a thin trickle of approval
from him, overlaying the pain, before his consciousness faded to the
soft humming of life without awareness.  She stood there, panting, for
a few moments as all the excess panic that had been pounding at her
slowly drained away.
        Then she knelt, put two fingers to his throat, and found his
pulse.  It was fast, but steady and strong.  "Oh thank you Gods," Anne
murmured, and with careful fingers she touched the goose egg she'd
just given him.  She couldn't feel any cracks in his skull.
        "I'm glad you've got a hard head, sempai," she informed her
unconscious friend.  Concern for him warred with her sense of
responsibility.  "And I hope it's just a concussion, because you'd
beat the shit out of me if I stayed here to take care of you instead
of dealing with Touga," she muttered, snatched up her bokuto and ran
to the foot of the staircase, looked up at the huge number of stairs.
        He's got to be almost to the top by now.  She tilted her head
and shoulders back and looked up at the staircase.  No way to climb
fast enough to overtake him... no time to wait for the elevator... 
        But...
        She gathered herself, focused her will, and leaped.
Telekinesis and a lifelong habit of escape-acrobatics combined to
throw her up three levels, to land at the edge of the spiral.  She
remained there only long enough to gather for another jump.  In twenty
seconds of furious exertion, she had reached the last curve, at which
point she took to the steps, ran the last 270 degrees at a dead
sprint, and barrelled through the archway onto the dueling platform
yelling Touga's name at the top of her lungs.
        He was kneeling in the center of the platform, having set down
the thing he was carrying directly on the huge rose seal inset in the
floor.
        "Touga, you are -so- dead," she snarled, all her pent up rage
at having had to knock Saionji unconscious fueling her charge across
the floor towards him.  He froze, then his head snapped up, eyes wide
with surprise.
        "You!" he blurted.  "Saionji - ?"
        "He's done," said Anne, "and you're -next-."  She pointed the
bokuto straight at his nose, the tip bare inches from his face.
        Touga looked her up and down, noting the burned scrapes, the
tears in her uniform, and the wooden bokuto in her hands, and smirked.
        "Release your foolish quest," Touga said, trying his charm one
last time.  "You can't save this world.  Leave Cephiro to its fate,
don't be consumed by it."
        "And let my friends die?  I don't think so.  I've got some
karma backlogged here, and I'm about to pay some of it off."
        "You're unarmed," he said, putting a hand to the grip of his
lightsaber.  "Saionji still has his flaws with a lightsaber; I have no
such weaknesses."
        Anne shifted her grip on Tonerikoken.  "I don't think so," she
repeated, and swung the bokuto back in preparation to strike.
        "You stupid girl!" he exclaimed.  "You are courting your own
death!  What is a wooden practice sword to a Knight of the Black Rose?"
        "What the hell do you care anyway?" Anne snarled through her
angry grin.  She snapped the bokuto forward in a hissing slice, only
to have him gesture at her negligently.  What felt like a fist of
solid air crashed into her solar plexus, driving her backwards several
feet before she toppled and fell.
        As she got to her feet, swearing in all the various languages
she'd learned during her impromptu underworld tour of the Outer Rim,
Touga scowled at her.  Then, he smiled.
        "You're too late regardless," Touga said.  With the snap-HISS
that was characteristic of a lightsaber, he ignited his weapon, swung
the plasma beam disdainfully, and sliced the pyramid in half.
        The two halves fell apart with a clatter on the floor of the
dueling platform and angry red lightning burst out of the top, arcing
up to blast across the minarets of the castle hanging above the
platform.  For a moment, there was silence, and then with a crack of
thunder, the inverted towers began to fall, shedding bits down onto
the heads of the two people below.
        Anne backpedaled away from the explosion and hastily erected a
TK shield over her head, just in time, as a particularly large...
branch? clunked off it and clattered to the ground.  As she looked up,
she saw the ghostly form of a huge, wingless dragon, outlined in red
lightning, churning amidst the spires of the Castle in the Sky.  She
tore her gaze away to stare at Touga in horror.
        "You... "
        "Now," he said, smiling smugly, "it's time for you to die."
        Anne gathered her wits and her wrath, pulled herself together.
Narrowing her eyes, she brought her bokuto back into ready position,
and as she did, she heard Kaitlyn-sensei's words on her lips:
        "Bring it."

 /*  Manowar  "Black Wind, Fire, and Steel"  _Fighting the World_  */

        Touga darted forward, his lightsaber flashing forward in a
lunge reminiscent of a fencer's thrust.  Anne silently thanked Miki
and flowed out of the way of the plasma blade, whipping her bokuto
around in a slice for Touga's unproteced side.
        He snapped his saber back in a backhanded cut, faster than she
was expecting, and caught the wooden blade on his own.  The plasma
blade let out an electric scream as the force of her blow drove it
into Touga's side and he gasped in pain and shock.
        Anne smiled nastily and took the opportunity to smash her left
fist into his bewildered expression, and she felt bone grind under her
hand before he disengaged and pulled back a few steps.  She had the
satisfaction of seeing a blood-dark bruise begin to spread around his
left eye.
        "So your wooden sword can't be cut," he said thickly, leveling
the lightsaber at her.
        "Point for you," Anne growled softly, "two points for me."
        A root from the castle - wait, that's right, the Castle's the
roots of the World-Tree! - smacked into her shoulder, and Touga
smirked as she yelped.
        "Two points for me.  -You- cannot block the branches and fight
at the same time."  He charged again, and Anne parried frantically as
she saw another tree branch swoop from behind him and head straight
for her face.
        Dodging and weaving, she felt the lightsaber nip her on the
shoulder and leave a burning track of pain behind it before she
dropped to her knees and rolled sideways, beyond its reach.  As she
did so, she dropped her shields again; empathy was a poor substitute
for precognition in a fight, but it was better than nothing and it had
helped her against Saionji.  She felt a wave of hatred, laced faintly
with madness, reaching out from his mind toward her.
        Rather than wait for him to grab more branches to throw at
her, she surged back to her feet with a yell, took one lunging step
toward him, and their weapons clashed together before he jerked back,
tried a cut for her side which she parried; she counterthrust, sliding
the bokuto along the lightsaber - it made a TERRIBLE noise - and
lunged for his liver.  He blocked, and came down in an overhand cut
for her head, and then both of them jerked apart and another root, a
good nine feet long, crashed down between them like a falling tree.
        She felt another wave of hatred was over her, for her, for the
uniform she wore, for the fact that she wouldn't just lie down and let
him win, for the fact that she was (barely) holding her own.
        "You can't win," he growled as he deflected another branch to
the ground just beyond her.
        "Bite me!" she snarled back.
        "If you give up now, I might make things easier for you," he
said as he leapt over the root and brought his saber down in an
overhand cut that she caught on her own weapon, perilously close to
her hands.  She struggled against his weight for a moment, then surged
upward and brought her knee into his chest, driving the wind out of
his lungs.
        He recovered almost instantly, but it bought her enough time
to make her own attack, trying to hit the hilt of the lightsaber in
hopes of breaking it.  "Not interested," she growled as he parried,
gasping and glaring.
        Another blow from that unseen force that he commanded knocked
her backward, skidding across the pavement, giving him enough time to
catch his breath.
        Then he smirked.  "What a pity," he mused, and his gaze
flicking to something behind her gave her -just- enough warning to
roll with the knotted, stringy root that smashed into her back.  She
barely avoided impaling herself on his readied lightsaber, but she
took the fall hard and Tonerikoken skittered out of her hands and
across the stones of the dueling floor.
        He walked over and leveled the lightsaber at her throat as she
tried to get up.
        "You're beaten, baby.  There's no way you can compete with me."
        "Sure there is," she gasped.  Narrowing her eyes, she
telekinetically yanked Tonerikoken back into her hands, rolled over
and swatted the lightsaber away, earning another burn on the
collarbone as his eyes widened in amazement and he reacted picoseconds
too late.  He tried to lunge forward fast enough to impale her and
failed.
        "Sheer cussedness has outlasted you before!" she taunted.
        That brought another surge of rage out of him, and his eyes
went manic with hatred for a moment as he roared wordlessly, and
slashed his lightsaber at where she'd been instants before, leaving
gouges and scars in the dueling floor.  She jumped backward, covering
about ten feet, landed, and set herself against the charge she could
almost see in his mind.
        He dashed forward, locked blades with her, and -pushed-.  Anne
felt every muscle in her arms scream as she did her best to hold against
him.  His height gave him the high ground as he bore down on her, and her 
heels skidded backwards over the stones.
        "This is over now," Touga sneered through the locked blades,
his eyes lit from within by an insane glee.  "You can't match me
strength for strength.  I'll take your blade, your body, your will,
and then, when you finally beg me for it, I'll take your life, baby."
        "-Never- call me 'baby'," Anne snarled, her eyes flashing with
their own scarlet fire.
        Suddenly Touga's face was in flames.  Howling with unexpected
anguish, he reeled, unlinking their weapons and staggering back.
        Anne regained her balance, set her feet, and thrust her left
hand out, palm open.  TK slammed into him like a speeding brick wall,
catapulting him back.  His lightsaber spiraled away, clattering across
the platform before fetching up hilt-first in one of the crenelations.
He stumbled back against another one, barely caught himself before he
began to fall.  The fire had already gone out, and it hadn't really
done him all that much harm; it just gave her the distraction and the
instant she'd need.  He stared at her with wide, furious eyes,
shockingly white against the blackness of his scorched face.
        Anne gave him no more time to recover; with a full-throated
cry of "HYAKKEN - NO - ARASHI!" she launched herself at him like a
sprinter from starting blocks.
        The Storm of a Hundred Blades broke whatever concentration he
might have mustered for himself.  A dull wooden bokuto ordinarily does
not cut anything, but the power of Anne's concentration wreathed
Tonerikoken in flames and gave it an edge, and Touga found himself cut
to scorched ribbons in a little less than the time it took him to
inhale to scream.
        And then it was over, and Anne was standing in front of him
with her bokuto swung back in the preparatory position for an iaijitsu
dueling cut.
        "Sayonara, jackass," she snarled, then slammed the wooden
blade across his torso.  The blow bit deeply into his side before she
jerked the bokuto out and slammed him backwards over the crenelation,
nearly cut in twain.
        He screamed his rage and hatred as he fell, and she watched
impassively as the mists swallowed him and snuffed out his voice.
Only then did she turn away to look up at the red-lightning wyrm
ravaging the Castle.
        There is an eagle on the topmost branch of the World-Tree, and
a dragon that gnaws at its roots, she thought.  A squirrel runs
between them carrying rumors and abuse, for the eagle is a guardian
and the dragon is a destroyer.  The dragon cannot be slain, but with
it there are a host of wyrms that are its spawn, so what's the
dragon's name... ?  Ah.
        Nobody ever tells you you have to deal with a dragon that's
legendary in its destructive powers -after- you beat the bad guy, she
thought grimly.  Gunnr, please help me remember the right words for
this challenge!
        >Spawn of Nidhoggr, stand forth and do battle!< she yelled as
loud as she could, issuing the formal challenge that she had learned
from Gunnr, that were the opening words in a ritual duel between two
immortal beings.  -Anne- wasn't an immortal being, but the wyrm
ravaging the Castle certainly was, and it didn't seem terribly
interested in leaving it's current employment...
        The wyrm turned away from the Castle, peering down at her.
There was a long moment, and then it confirmed that Anne had, in fact,
gotten the words right as it loosed its grip on the spires and dove at
her, trailing sparks and the roaring sound of thunder.
        Anne swallowed.  Gods give me strength, she prayed, gripping
her bokuto with suddenly sweaty hands.

         /*  Yoko Kanno  "Dance of Curse"  _Over the Sky_  */

        The dragon belched lightning at her as dove, and she dodged a
blast that singed the area she'd been standing in.  Then it was
swooping by and coiling up for another dive.
        I never have a shotgun when I need one! Anne raged silently as
she waited for it to come back down.  Crap, I'm going to have to hit
it as it goes by.  The timing on this is going to be -
        Her train of thought rapidly shifted tracks as the wyrm
finished banking and dove at her again, spewing another gout of
lightning at her as it came.  She waited, then launched herself
upwards, powering her leap kinetically, brought her bokuto slicing
down through its neck with all her weight as it flowed beneath her
like a snake of smoke and lightning.  The ghostly wyrm shrieked in
pain; the noise was like feedback in a guitar amp, and Anne misjudged
her landing distance as the awful noise brought tears to her eyes.
        Her right ankle let out a cracking noise, the sort that joints
really shouldn't make, and shooting pain surged up her leg, making her
gasp and struggle not to drop her weapon to clutch at the point of
pain.  When she was done concentrating on that, she tried to stand
again, to get into stance, but her ankle collapsed beneath her.
Kneeling, she looked up through teary eyes as the roaring wyrm
finished banking midair and turned, coming at her like an oncoming
train.
        Anne shut her eyes and took a deep breath.  There is no
future.  There is no past.  There is only this moment, my opponent,
the blade in my hands, and the fire in my heart.
        She opened her eyes and waited, bokuto poised.
        The wyrm belched smoke and fury at her, and lightning exploded
around her.  Her heart spasmed, her arms jerked as the electrical
onslaught grounded itself out through her flesh and bone to the floor
of the dueling arena.  The acrid smell of singed hair inflicted itself
upon her nostrils.
        Then the smell of ozone hit her, overwhelmed the smell of
burning flesh.  She blinked once, her eyes going to burning, furious
red as she ducked her shoulder, rolled, snapped the blazing
Tonerikoken out to the left and caught the wyrm at the corner of its
gaping maw.
        The burning bokuto tore a gash along the entire length of its
body as the serpent flowed by, shrieking in pain, and lightning poured
out of the cut and electrified the whole area.
        Anne held her pose as it finished its pass, surged skyward,
gave a final scream, and then exploded altogether, raining a few more
bits of the Castle down upon her head.
        She stared out at the edge of the dueling arena, feeling sweat
dripping down her nose and her heart quivering slightly in her chest as
the aftereffects of being struck by lightning made her muscles twitch.
        I think I would like to lie down now, she thought weakly,
then lowered her quenched bokuto and crumpled slowly to the cool
flagstones of the arena floor.  Her burns ached for a second, but the
world was starting to go grey and distant, so she didn't really
notice.
        Wow, she thought weakly, as the feeling of distance began to
swallow her.  I guess I won.
        Then she heard a startled voice say something she couldn't
quite make out, and the world went away entirely.

                              ELSEWHERE

        Saionji awoke to cool hands on his forehead, a throbbing
headache centered just above his left ear, and a distinct ringing in
his ears.  He groaned, and the hands shifted to his shoulders and held
him down.
        "Don't move, Saionji," said a soft voice, and he opened his
eyes.  Mia Ausa's face swam into view in a double refraction of
unconnected vision.  "You have a concussion and a cracked skull.  Who
hit you?  The Rose Knight?"
        "Juniper," he groaned.  Muzzily, he realized that if Mia was
with him, he was probably back in Oriphos.  That meant he had to guard
his words... he wished he could think clearly.
        Mia blinked, and then said in a sardonic, unsympathetic tone
of voice, "You got hit by a shrub?"  Her face - what he could make out
of it around the rainbows haloing her - looked disgusted.  The noise
in his ears altered slightly.  Was somebody else in the room?  He
couldn't pick out anything clearly.  It was hard to think.
        "No," he mumbled, "Kaitlyn's student.  Did Touga - "
        "Oh, -her-," Mia said.  Then she snorted derisively and shook
her head.  "Touga didn't do any better against her than you did.
Worse, in fact - I think Nanami got sent to scrape him off the ground
and put the burned bits someplace he could regenerate.  You just have
a bruised brain."  He heard her smirk.  "What's it feel like to
encounter something that your fancy sword can't cut?"
        "If you fix my head," he rasped, "I'll tell you."
        Mia eyed him with an expression he was pretty sure was
disgust, and then she sighed.
        "I suppose I'd better.  Lord Akio's going to want to talk to
you.  Just remember you owe me, Saionji.  And I will collect."
        I'll remember, Mia, he thought silently as he heard her move
around the room, and then the ringing in his ears got louder.  When he
could hear again, she was standing over him.
        "Open your mouth," she said, sliding one arm under his
shoulders to help him sit up a little.  His stomach roiled, and he had
to concentrate on not giving in to the nausea for a moment.  Finally,
he let her pour whatever it was down his throat.
        It tasted like a potion he'd had several times.  Though she
was a talented sorceress and alchemist, Mia couldn't make this type
herself - so now he owed her a healing too, along with everything
else.  His memory didn't feel particularly whole either, but he
remembered what he owed her.

                      TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2410

        When Juniper woke up, the first thought that crossed her mind
was, I should feel like a truck hit me... and I don't.
        Cautiously, she opened her eyes, sat up, and looked around.
        She was in an unfamiliar bed, with what looked like a bearskin
for a comforter, in a completely unfamiliar room.  The curtains were
drawn across the room's single window - she could just make out
daylight through them - and two doors.  One stood open, and she could
see a bathroom beyond it.  The other was closed.
        Pulling the covers back, she carefully ran her fingers over her 
right ankle; it was slightly stiff, with a few faded bruises over the 
bones.  Cautiously, she put the foot she was sure she'd broken down on the 
ground, and tested putting weight on it.
        When it didn't send shrieking orders to her brain that what she 
was doing was a bad idea, she made a bee-line for the bathroom.
        As she attended to her morning ablutions, she began to wonder
exactly where she was, who had tended her, and what was going to
happen next.  Half an hour later, with clean hair and clean teeth and
feeling considerably more optimistic if no less bemused, she emerged
from the bathroom swathed in a couple of towels.
        "Good morning, Juni-chan," Kaitlyn said, turning away from the
window where the curtains had been pulled back.  "Feel better?"
        Juniper blinked several times as she tried to pull her
scattered thoughts together.  Kaitlyn's here.  That means, wherever I
am, somebody knew who I was.
        Hastily, she bowed.  "Um, good morning, sensei... yes.  Um."
        Kaitlyn nodded at the room's sole chair.  "Clothes.  Then,
report."
        "Ah... "  Anne finished pulling herself out of her mental fog.
I guess questions wait until after I answer sensei's, she thought
firmly, discarded her towel, and sorted through the unfamiliar black
clothing.  It was definitely tailored for someone with hips, but it
certainly wasn't hers, and something about it seemed familiar.  She
couldn't quite place it.
        When she'd finished belting the tunic on, she sat down on the
bed and began teasing tangles out of her wet hair.  While carefully
unpicking the knots with her fingers, she gave Kaitlyn as thorough a
synopsis of the previous day's events as she could, starting with
being summoned from the brownstone.
        For the first part of it, her sensei remained largely
impassive, but when Juniper recounted Touga and Saionji's conversation
before she had stepped in to break it up, Kaitlyn's eyes narrowed.
Anne described the duel with Saionji, mentioned that he hadn't been
wearing his Lens but left out that she knew where it was, and did her
best to remain true to the rather surreal conversation she'd had with
him throughout.
        When she finished, Kaitlyn nodded and said, "Good," but didn't
elucidate further.
        Anne went on to recount the confrontation with Touga, the
unleashing of the spectral dragon upon the Castle, and the subsequent
duel and defeat of the erstwhile President of the Student Council.
Then she waited while Kaitlyn digested the fact that her younger
apprentice was claiming to have used the Hyakken no Arashi in combat.
        "What is it about Cephiro and my apprentices?" Kaitlyn mused.
"That's where Kyouichi-kun first used it too."  She shook her head.
"Well done.  What did you do about the dragon?"
        "Well, Gunnr told me how to initiate a formal duel in Asgard,
so I tried that.  It worked - " (here Anne rubbed at her scalp gently;
she'd lost a lot of frizzy hair in the shower) " - and that's where I
got most of my beating - it kept spitting lightning at me, and since I
didn't have my pistol, I couldn't just -shoot- it.  You didn't bring
that with you, did you?" she asked hopefully.
        Kaitlyn smiled and shook her head.  "I'll send someone to get
it.  Go on."
        "Um..."  Anne digested this, then mentally shrugged.  "I did a
jump-attack against it as it came down for another pass, landed badly,
and broke my ankle.  Or thought I did.  I couldn't stand up, anyway.
So I set and waited for it to come down - it blasted me again - and I
caught it in the corner of the mouth and tore its side open.
        "Then it exploded, and about then I decided it was probably
about the right time to take a nap.  I guess that's when Master Clef
found me - or was it Kanae?"
        Her sensei smiled again, a little enigmatically, and said,
"No.  Balder Goldenlight and Frey Lightwalker found you.  They are
probably going to ask you the same questions I am.  Frey wasn't sure
what to make of you, but Balder recognized your bokuto, so he sent
someone to get Anthy.  I came instead."
        Anne stared at her teacher, utterly without words.
        Kaitlyn chuckled softly and said, "Pull yourself together,
Juni-chan.  You didn't think anything could make that much noise in
the roots of the World-Tree and not get noticed, did you?"
        Mutely, Anne shook her head, then nodded, then put her face in
her hands and took a couple of deep, slow breaths.  When she finally
got the charging train wreck of her thoughts under control, she said,
        "I... hadn't really thought about it."
        "That's all right, you didn't have much time to.  I expect the
Valkyrie have told Balder you're awake, though, so we should get some
breakfast before Frey comes and demands to know what happened."
        Anne was still trying to work through the muddle of having
been found by a couple of Gods on the dueling platform, but she
recognized the general good sense that was being proposed to her.
        "Talking to the Gods on an empty stomach...is probably a bad
idea, yeah."  Then she frowned, realizing Frey had been named; Frey,
who had arranged for the emergency last summer that recalled Gunnr -
she looked around.  "Where did they put my bokuto?"
        That made Kaitlyn nod approvingly.  "Good instincts,
Juni-chan.  I don't know.  But I suspect they'll be quick to give it
back after you tell them what happened.  You've done them a service."
        Juniper narrowed her eyes at that, and was about to reply when
Corwin poked his head around the door.  "Aeryn said you were awake -
want breakfast?"
        Kaitlyn nodded.  "I'd just suggested it," she said.  She dug
around in the closet for a few seconds and came up with a couple of
fur-lined jackets, one of which she handed to Anne; then, gesturing
for the girl to precede her, she shepherded her student out of the
building and out into the city beyond the window.
        The weather was chilly but not bone-achingly cold, and though
there was snow along the edges of some of the roofs, it had been
cleared from the streets.  These were paved in blue-black brick and
had curbs of gold-shot marble.  They held relatively few cars; most of
the traffic was on foot, on the wide sidewalks flanking the broad
boulevards.  And in that traffic were represented a number of
different races, many of them human-looking to Anne's eyes, and some
of them not.
        During her two years on the run, Anne had been exposed to huge
numbers of non-human races, many of them with an axe to grind and a
chip on their shoulder about humans.  She'd seen people dressed in all
different kinds of clothing, buildings of the prefab variety or the
ones that were constructed over the course of generations and that
evolved into something completely different from what they'd
originally been.
        She'd never been anyplace that -felt- like this, however.
Most of the people on the street radiated a sense of good cheer that
she could almost taste.  They seemed to come from all walks of life,
from any point in history that should could think of, and yet they
passed each other without a second glance, aside from the occasional
nod of greeting.  The courtesy even extended beyond racial boundaries,
and nobody seemed to give it a second thought.
        It was astonishing enough that she almost forgot that Kaitlyn
had said she'd been found unconscious by two deities.  Almost.
        But between that revelation, the weirdly courteous way people
were behaving, and the ongoing deja vu that kept assaulting her,
Corwin had to steer her through the crowds on what amounted to
autopilot.  Kaitlyn said nothing, just took in the sights with a
private smile that grew a little wider every time she looked at her
bemused apprentice.
        They arrived at the base of a rather tall tower, with an
amusing wooden placard of a round plate with a stack of pancakes on it
hanging over the entrance, and Corwin shepherded his sister and her
apprentice inside.
        The hostess waiting just inside gave Corwin a cheery smile.
(She was wearing what looked like a French peasant's outfit from a
storybook, Anne noted distractedly.)
        "Good morning, Lord Corwin," she said.  "We haven't seen you
in a while.  Been enjoying your breakfasts elsewhere?"
        "What can I say, Elise," he answered cheerfully.  "I'll be a
married man soon - I don't get out as much as I used to.  Hey, is
there a table on the balcony free?  This is Anne's first trip to the
Golden City."
        The girl dimpled at Corwin and said, "For you?  Of course."
        She led them up several flights of stairs to an open-air
balcony with several tables on it.  Despite being open to the sky, the
balcony wasn't cold, something Anne wasn't in a frame of mind to give
really deep consideration just now.  The table closest to the golden
railing at the balcony's edge didn't have anybody sitting at it, just
a selection of syrupy plates and dirty silverware that their hostess
cleared off quickly.
        She put the menus down on the table, dimpled at Corwin again,
and said, "Katriana will be up to take your order in a moment, my lord."
        As she was saying this, Anne walked, half-aware that she was
doing so, to the railing and stared out at a view of a spectacularly
beautiful city.
        The feeling of deja vu got stronger as she stared out; it was
not New Avalon, though the buildings reached for the cerulean sky in a
similar vaulting, soaring manner.  They were mostly of a different
style, and the city before her was older - IMMENSELY older - than New
Avalon.  She could feel that looking at it, with its golden and silver
spires and its sea of lower, blue-tile-roofed buildings surrounding
the bases of the towers.  It almost felt as if New Avalon was an echo
of this city - an imperfect copy.
        The building in the center of all this was a vast and gleaming
edifice that seemed to have been cast in a single gigantic piece out
of gold, part fairy-tale castle, part Art Deco skyscraper, with a
brilliant beam of pure white light arrowing up into the sky from its
tallest spire.
        Anne leaned against the rail, so overwhelmed by the view that
she didn't even notice it appeared to be made of wrought gold, her
eyes wide.  Suddenly, a movement caught her eye; a shape, dark green
against the brilliant blue of the sky, arced past that beam of light,
circling around it with an almost whimsical air before winging over
and going on its way uptown.  Now that she noticed it, Anne realized
that there were several flying objects going this way and that above
the city.  A couple were dirigibles, but the others... Anne drew in a
breath as she realized what they were.

         /*  Yoko Kanno  "Kaze ga Fuku Hi"  _Lovers Only_  */

        It was a city out of time, with echoes of a million storybook
places, and it had dragons plying the skies above it.
        The shadow of a fluffy white cloud crawled across the rooftops
below, and as it passed away from one long, low building, a blaze of
yellow-white light dazzled her.  The hall, whatever it was, had a roof
made of gold.
        That was the last piece, and as it clicked into place, Anne
realized with a flash of insight -why- she knew this city.
        After looking at the city until she thought her brain would
burst if she tried to dredge one more detail out of her long-dusty
memories and compare it with what lay before her, Anne turned to
Corwin and Kaitlyn with the wonder still written large on her face.
They were sitting back in the wrought iron chairs of the little cafe
table, with several plates of pancakes set out in front of them.  Both
of them were smiling.
        "Like it?" Corwin asked.
        "It's incredible," she breathed.  "I never thought... "  She
paused, collecting her thoughts, then stepped nearer so that what she
had to say next would only be for his ears.  "As a little girl I
-dreamed- of this city, but I never thought it was real."
        Corwin's smile deepened, taking on an air of satisfaction, as
if she'd just told him something that confirmed a suspicion he'd had.
        "That's a phenomenon that's gotten rarer and rarer over the
last few centuries," he told her.  "As Midgard gets more and more
technological, and in many ways less and less spiritual, the number of
children who dream of this place dwindles... but they never quite stop
coming.  All the true children of magic dream of this city, Anne."
        "But I'm not dreaming this time," she said, and Corwin shook
his head, grinning.  "Where -are- we?" Anne asked, but in her heart,
she already knew the answer - had known it since Corwin had smiled
knowingly at her wonder.
        "Heaven," Corwin replied, gesturing grandly to the vista
before them.  "Welcome to Asgard!"
        "The pancakes are going cold," Kaitlyn observed cheerfully.
        That broke the mood, and Anne laughed for the first time that
morning and sat down to have breakfast.  They weren't quite as good as
Utena's blueberry pancakes, but as she finished off her plate of them,
she decided that they would definitely do.

                           OHTORI INSTITUTE
                               ORIPHOS

        Touga Kiryuu, late Student Council President of Ohtori Academy
and an exceedingly minor figure in the infernal circles of Muspelheim,
was having a very bad day.  Since his translation from damned soul to
minor demon, having his fleshly form killed outside the Pit wasn't
exactly a season-ending injury, but it was painful all the same, and
the manner in which it had happened this time had been humiliating.
Especially when he came to to see Nanami sitting watch over him with a
book and that infuriating little sardonic smile of hers.  She'd asked
him if he'd enjoyed being street pizza, and had he found any cute
girls to seduce while he'd been back in Cephiro?
        He'd been annoyed when he woke up.  That simple little phrase
had sent him straight into the "boiling with rage" category; the only
satisfaction he'd had yet today was the frantic way the younger
students were getting out of his way as he strode down a black marble
corridor, turned a corner, and slammed a tall pair of double doors
open on his way into the room beyond.
        That room proved to be an office, its high, vaulted ceiling
invisible in the gloom above, with peaked stained glass windows
providing a pleasant view of the courtyard of the new Ohtori Institute.
Bookshelves lined the walls, except for the place along one side where
a giant map of Cephiro hung in a heavy carved-wood frame.  In front of
the windows bulked the squat shape of a wide, heavy black desk, behind
which was the high back of a leather chair, its occupant having turned
to look out the windows.
        "You failed," said a matter-of-fact voice from that chair.
        "No thanks to -you-," Touga snarled.  "You told me the Trinity
was otherwise occupied.  You told me that they wouldn't be able to
thwart me."
        The chair swiveled slowly around, and Akio Ohtori regarded
Touga with a calmly disdainful look.
        "And they didn't," he said dismissively.
        "You told me the Platform would be undefended if I could
penetrate the Forest," Touga went on angrily.  Behind him, Nanami
trotted into the room, having had to run to catch up to her brother's
furious strides.
        "Indeed?" asked Akio with a tone of very mild interest.
        Touga slammed his hand down on the desk and roared, "-Again-
you lied to me!"
        Akio looked up at his angry underling, hooded his eyes, and
murmured, "Again you believed me.  Which of us does that make the
fool?"
        Touga stared down at him, face almost flushed enough to blend
away his scarlet marks, and could not reply.  After a moment, Akio
sighed as if bored.
        "I can see there I will get nothing useful out of you today
either - not even information.  Nanami," he added to the blonde.
"Your brother is in a temper.  Find someone for him to work it off
with."
        Nanami looked equally bored.  "With pleasure, Lord Akio," she
said in a truly perfunctory tone of voice, and, taking Touga's arm,
pulled him insistently from the room.
        Akio watched them go, then smiled softly to himself, and
turned back to regard the courtyard again.  He hadn't truly expected
the attack on the Castle to work; it was another feint, to see what
resources the Rose Knight and her followers could bring to bear, and
to set them off balance again.  This time it had brought a new player
to light.
        Good.  He would have to learn about this girl.  He got up from
his desk and went in search of Kyouichi Saionji.

                                ASGARD

        After breakfast, Kaitlyn headed back to Midgard to tell Utena
and Anthy what had happened, and Corwin left Anne in a conference room
while he went to make some calls.  While he was out, Anne's
subconscious managed to get herself worked into a state of nervous
anticipation.  Thoughts of who she was going to meet combined with the
knowledge of where she was combined to play havoc on her muddled
teenaged self-consciousness and the general feelings of inadequacy
that occasionally cropped up when she found herself compared to Utena,
Kaitlyn or any number of other female heroes she'd met from time to
time.
        Corwin returned briefly to ask if she wanted a cup of coffee;
he gave her a sympathetic smile when she declined, knowing the
caffeine would just make her jumpier than ever.  As he left, she
folded herself up cross-legged on one of the conference room chairs
and started concentrating on her breathing.
        The meditation exercises that had been her first introduction
to the Katsujinkenryuu were old friends by now, and helped her put in
perspective the weirdnesses of the past 24 hours.  When a hand touched
her arm and she opened her eyes, she didn't feel like she was about to
vibrate to pieces anymore.
        "You OK?" Corwin asked.
        Anne nodded mutely and looked across the table to see two men,
one with pointy ears and a serious mein to his expression, and the
other with burnished blond hair and an air about him that made the
part of her that had fallen in love with the forest behind 1140
Wildwood Road purr contentedly.  Slung across the back of the blond
man's chair was Tonerikoken.
        "Well, Miss Cross," said the man with pointy ears.  "I'm Frey
Lightwalker.  One of my duties is the defense of Asgard against the
forces of the Pit.  Given where we found you and who you associate
with," he glanced at Corwin and gave him a little half-nod, "it seems
unlikely that you were responsible for the destruction we discovered
yesterday in the roots of the World-Tree.  In fact, Corwin suspects
that you're part of the reason the damage was as localized as it was."
        "I'm here because -my- duties include the defense of the
World-Tree," the other said.  He paused, then smiled at her, and Anne
felt a little knot of tension unclench between her shoulders.  "We
haven't been introduced - I'm Balder Goldenlight, Anne.  Please tell
us what happened to you yesterday," he asked.  Then he added with a
smile, "And for the sake of Frey's duties, don't leave anything out."
        Anne nodded soberly, nibbled on her lip, and began with her 
arrival on the Tenjou Academy belltower.

        "... and it exploded.  And my adrenaline crashed," she
finished, "and I decided that it was probably about the right time to
lie down."  She fidgeted with the end of her braid.  "I remember
hearing somebody say -something- just before I fell over, though."
        Balder smiled cheerfully.  "Arriving on the scene just as you
fell over was rather startling," he agreed.  "We were expecting to
arrive in the middle of a fight, not -after- it, given the amount of
noise that was coming up through the roots."
        "The svartelves didn't even object to us coming through," Frey
added, sounding darkly amused.  "They're one of the few groups in
Creation who -don't- like you, Balder, and all they said was 'Be our
guest' when we told them we were coming through."
        "Dark elves don't much care for the light of the Sun," Balder
agreed.  "Well, now we know what happened.  The question is, how did
that demon manage to empower one of the spawn of Nidhoggr sufficiently
to allow it to do so much damage to the roots of the World-Tree in so
short a time?"
        "So, it normally wouldn't be able to cause that much havoc?"
Anne asked, certain enough now that nobody was angry at her to
actually ask questions.
        Balder shook his head.  "One of the signs of the Ragnarok - in
addition to my death," (here he looked rueful) " - is Nidhoggr finally
chewing through the roots of the Tree and killing it.  But while its
spawn do some small amount of damage to the Tree, their destruction
manifests as a more dispersed form of entropy.  Mold and rot, or
smaller parasites that chew on the roots."
        "All the stuff that any normal gardener would spray for," Anne
said, then blinked.  "Is that what the myths mean when they say the
Norns sprinkle the water from the Well on the tree?  They're spraying
for bugs?"
        Balder looked amused.  "That's an interpretation that I hadn't
heard before," he said, grinning.  "I will have to tell Belldandy that
one, I suspect it will amuse her."
        "But somehow, that demon found a way to make that particular
Spawn nearly as powerful as Nidhoggr itself," Frey said grimly.  "That
is not good."
        Corwin shook his head.  "Touga's not smart enough to pull
something like that off on his own," he said.  "One will get you ten
that Akio Ohtori is really behind this.  You know he was raised by
Surtur as a demon, and he was a fairly potent mage before his death.
Between his connection with Cephiro and the fact that he's now highly
ranked in Muspelheim, he's probably got the access he needs to the
records of all the demons' encounters with Nidhoggr -and- the magical
knowledge he needs to make its spawn just as deadly as the primal
wyrm."
        "Unfortunately, my agents in the Pit haven't been able to tell
me much about what Ohtori's doing."  Frey's expression was sour with
disgust.  "He's vanished from the demonic social scene, so to speak,
since he took the worst of his clash with the Midgard-Knight.  We
assume he's secluded himself in one of the farther reaches; I haven't
been able to get anyone into his demesne.  The only real information I
have comes from you and your father, Corwin, and that's weeks old at
this point.  It's not enough to plan a defense with."
        Anne nibbled on her lip.  "Corwin?  Have you asked Master Clef
if he found Saionji in the Forest?"
        "No such luck," Corwin said, shaking his head.  "While you
were sleeping, I asked Clef to tell me what he -did- know, and there
wasn't anything foreign left in the Forest of Secrets once you'd dealt
with the wyrm.  There wasn't even a trace of the spell that made the
trees sick.  So either he got up and left under his own power, or
something from the Pit came and retrieved him."
        "Then, if Saionji... is down there with Touga," she said
slowly, "when he gets out, he may know what they're doing."
        There was a pause, and then Frey said dubiously, "Do you think
we can trust him?"
        Anne nodded without hesitation, feeling heartened by the 'we'
in Frey's statement.  "He left me that opening deliberately.  He
didn't want to win - he wanted me to stop Touga.  But he couldn't just
let me by.  I could feel his frustration every time I missed an
opening.  Whatever he's doing down there, it's -not- actually helping
Akio."
        Corwin sighed.  "I wish he'd told -someone- what the hell he
was trying to do."
        "Ah, that answers that question, then," Frey sighed.  "So
nobody knows when - or really if - he's planning on coming out."
        "Not unless he told Kaitlyn," Corwin said.  "Wakaba's been
grousing about him not being around since just after New Year's."
        Anne shook her head.  "Sensei wasn't too pleased to hear where
he'd gone when I told her this morning."
        "We can't afford to wait for him, then."  Frey sat back,
apparently thinking.  "Corwin, if you can think of anyone you want to
help analyze the container Touga opened on the platform, let me know.
I'm going to put together a team to go over that and look through the
records in the Library to see if there are any clues there.  And I'll
step up my efforts to get someone into Ohtori's organization."
        Corwin nodded. "I'll think about it and get back to you."
        "In the meantime, it sounds like I'm going to have to revive
the Order of the Ash Knight," Balder said, sounding more bemused than
anything else.
        "I haven't heard of that one," Corwin said.
        Balder chuckled.  "Not surprising, given that the World-Engine
has superseded much of what the World-Tree once stood for.  The Ash
Knights are defenders of the World-Tree, rather than of the Engine
itself.  Rather more mystical than is common in Asgard today.  Your
mother's a member."
        "Mom's a member of everything."  Corwin rolled his eyes.
        "No doubt," Frey said, sounding like a man who wanted badly to
get out of a meeting and on with his life.  "Corwin, you'll secure the
access to your dueling platform?  I'd like to avoid a repeat
performance - next time, your mage may not be able to get competent
help so quickly."
        "I'll see to it," Corwin agreed.  "I'm not sure -how-, but
I'll figure something out."
        Frey looked back at Anne.  "Thank you for your prompt action,
Miss Cross."  He pushed the notes he'd taken together in front of him,
flipped the folder closed.  "You stopped cold what could have
otherwise been a very demoralizing situation for Asgard, and have
thwarted the agents of Muspelheim."  He paused, looked at Balder and
Corwin, and an odd sort of half-smile played across his face.  "I'm
sure Corwin can think of a more appropriate reward than I can - so I
will leave you with my thanks and will make the best use I can of what
you've told me."
        With that rather odd statement, he left the room, and left
Anne looking puzzled.  Corwin took one look at her face and smothered
a laugh.
        "... that -is- the guy who yanked you and Gunnr back here last
summer, isn't it?" she asked finally.
        "He's gotten better since then," Corwin said, still sounding 
amused.  
        Balder smiled.  "He's not used to having to say 'Thank you' to
mortals, Anne," he said, shifting his weight and taking Tonerikoken
off the back of the chair he was in.  "I suspect he thinks that his
-needing- to say thank you is an indication that he's done his job
poorly."
        "I... guess I can see that," Anne said pensively.
        "You, however, have earned the right to carry a weapon of
Yggdrasil," Balder said, offering the bokuto out to her with both
hands.  "Though it may have been a gift, you've more than repaid the
trust in your potential.  I'm glad that Lady Anthy asked me for this
last summer."
        Anne blushed, feeling both pleased and slightly embarrassed at
the same time, but she reclaimed her bokuto and slung it back in its
accustomed place over her shoulder.
        Corwin saw her shoulders relax after a moment and grinned.
"Feel better?"
        She gave him a crooked smile.  "I...yeah.  I don't much like
being unarmed anymore."
        "Mm," he agreed.  "I can see that.  If you'll excuse us,
Balder, Kaitlyn did ask me to see that something got done about that
particular problem."
        The sun god smiled and gestured to the door, as Anne blinked
at Corwin.
        "Um, what... ?"
        "C'mon," Corwin said with a conspiratorial grin.
        "So what is -with- him anyway?" Anne asked once they were
outside.  "First thing he's a total freak and hauls you home, and now
he's thanking me for fighting off demons and isn't even looking down
his nose at me.  Is it just 'cause I'm not dating you or something?"
        Corwin gave a slightly dark chuckle.  "It's a little more
complicated than that, but you're closer than you probably think."
        Anne looked mildly confused.  "I was dating Gunnr, though.
Should I be offended for her or not?"
        "Hnh?  Oh.  No, I doubt that even crossed his mind," Corwin
said.  "You guys were just caught in the middle.  That whole thing
with the recall was aimed at a very specific target by someone with an
axe to grind; what I didn't realize at the time was that that someone
wasn't actually Frey."
        That just made Anne more confused.
        "Ooo... kay," she said after a few moments.  "I take it you
were the target, at least - have I mentioned I really, really hate
politics?  Politics are evil."
        "This was only political in the loosest sense, and no,
actually, I wasn't the target.  At least not the main one."  Corwin
ran a hand over his disordered black hair, then sighed.  "Maybe I
should start over.  See, Frey did call for the alert - that's his
prerogative, as god of security - but it wasn't his idea.  It was his
sister's."
        "OK, that would be... Freyja, right?  I don't know much about
her, except she's supposed to be in charge of the Warriors' Hall with
Odin."
        "She is, yeah.  Her ceremonial title is Queen of the Vanir,
though that doesn't mean a lot nowadays.  She's also goddess of
medicine, in charge of medical affairs in the capital.  It's her power
that raises the dead and heals the wounded of Valhalla after each day's
fighting."  He paused, thinking over how to say what came next.  "I've
known her all my life, and she's generally a decent, compassionate
person, but she's got... problems."
        "Dare I ask what -kind- of problems?"
        "How familiar are you with Norse mythology?  They didn't get
everything right, but it's as good a starting point as any."
        Anne considered this.  "Um... I've been studying some of it,
but I've been taking it with a -really- healthy grain of salt.  If
nothing else, your Mom and Aunt Bell kind of, well... don't exactly
match the stories.  At least not that I've seen."
        "They have... dimensions you haven't seen.  But you're right,
there's a lot of stuff that's wrong."  Corwin chuckled.  "I mean, it'd
take a pretty warped imagination to take Aunt Urd for a crone.  But
anyway... one of the places Freyja turns up is the story of an, um...
unpleasant incident involving a necklace."
        "I think I remember a little bit of that - she saw it and
wanted it and then traded it for... something?  Or it got stolen?  I
couldn't find any really good sources on Norse Mythology on a quick
search of the library - just kids stuff that had the details taken out
of it so I didn't study it too hard."
        "Mm.  Suppose it's not surprising that it got edited.  The
usual version is that she came upon four Nidavellim - underdwarves -
working on a necklace one day, was overcome by wanton greed, and
bought it from them for the price of a night with each of them."
        Anne blinked.  "... oh.  Yeah, that would definitely, um...
that's a pretty astonishing load of greed there.  Didn't she realize
how painful that was likely to be?"
        Corwin shook his head, looking grim.  "I said that's the usual
version.  What the usual version leaves out is that those four dwarves
didn't just -happen- to be there, they were waiting for her, and the
necklace was bewitched by a svartelven wizard.  The whole thing was a
setup."
        Anne's face darkened.  "Oh, that's not good.  She must have
some -awful- post-traumatic stress problems.  Was there anybody in
Asgard to help her get over it, or has she been walking wounded ever
since?"
        "She tried to keep it a secret, but Loki found out about it
and told her husband, Odur - only he left out the same part the sagas
leave out.  Odur couldn't take it.  He resigned his post as god of the
sun and left town the very next day.  Nobody's seen him since.  Freyja
spent a long time looking for him, but eventually she gave up and came
home.  Most people don't know why Odur left her, only that it has
something to do with the necklace she always wears."
        "Gah," Anne said.  "She should've told him - keeping stuff
secret like that -always- comes back to bite you on the ass
later.  Better to get it out in the open and done with.  But what has
this got to do with her asking Frey to haul you back to Asgard?"
        "Well... see, when Odur left her, Freyja was still convinced
that she had, incomprehensible as it was, agreed to pay the dwarves'
price for their necklace.  She didn't find out about what had really
happened until some time later, when Odin learned it and told her."
He shrugged.  "Grand-dad was probably trying to help, but all it
really did by that point, with all the damage done, was convert some
of her self-loathing into a complete and irrational hatred of
svartelves.  All svartelves."
        Anne gave him a look of dawning horror.  "Anthy.  She was
trying to hurt -Anthy-?  Gods... I hope nobody ever tells Utena that
one."
        "Well, not -just- that," Corwin said.  "See, it started when
she learned about... you know, Anthy and me, last June.  She thought
that by calling me back to Asgard and sealing the borders, she would
hurt Anthy and everyone who associates with her - everyone who doesn't
hate her as much as Freyja does - but... in a weird way, Freyja also
thought she was helping me."
        "Because you were falling under some evil svartelven witch's
spell?  I suppose, if I put myself in an awful racist mindset, I could
see the logic in it.  I guess."  Anne shook herself.  "Damn."
        Corwin rubbed at the back of his neck.  "Something like that.
She thought she could save me from making her 'mistakes'.  Mind you, I
didn't know any of that until November."
        "How did you find out?" Anne asked.
        "She told me," Corwin replied with a shrug.  "When Utena and
Anthy got into that jam on the Klingon homeworld, I pressed Frey to
reduce the alert and let me go help them.  He refused.  We had...
words."
        Anne chuckled darkly.  "I'll bet."
        "Afterward, I went home to figure out some way of sneaking
out, since he wasn't going to -let- me go, and Freyja stopped by.  It
was... weird."
        Anne gave him a curious look.  "How weird?"

/--
        Corwin considered not answering the door - how could a person
be expected to do any decent scheming with company calling? - but
manners and curiosity won out.  It might be Frey coming to announce
that he'd reconsidered, though Corwin tended to doubt it.
        That was, indeed, not the case, though he hadn't been too far
wrong in guessing -who- it might be, anyway.  The caller revealed when
he opened his apartment door was Freyja Lightwalker.  As always, she
looked calm and restrained, her long platinum-blonde hair drawn back
just so, the intricate golden filigree of her famous necklace,
Brisingamen, nestled just below the hollow of her throat.
        Corwin, slightly surprised to see her there, mustered a
cordial nod.  "Lady Freyja."
        Freyja stepped inside, forcing him to step back to avoid being
collided with, and shut the door behind her.  Her eyes were as cool as
the rest of her, but there was a hint of a spark behind them as she
said,
        "You were quite harsh with my brother today.  I don't
appreciate people treating him that way."
        Corwin gave her an irritated look.  "Well, -I- don't
appreciate him interfering with my -life- just to advance whatever
paranoid agenda he has.  There's no need for a damn Class A alert in
Asgard.  It's ridiculous.  He's doing it to pin me here - just to
spite me for opening Cephiro."
        Freyja smiled slightly.  "You really believe that, don't you?"
she said.
        "Do you have a more plausible explanation?" Corwin shot back.
"That song-and-dance routine he keeps giving the rest of the Aesir
Council about securing Asgard's borders during the crisis in Midgard
is bull, and everybody knows it.  They just don't want to embarrass
him publicly by calling him on it.  You're his sister - what the
hell's his problem?  I never would have believed that he could be so
-petty-."
        She shook her head.  "He's not," she said.  "Truth be known,
he doesn't believe in the reasons he puts forward for the alert
either."  She took a step closer.  "He never has."
        "Well then what the hell - " Corwin began, and Freyja leaned
close to him, surprising him enough that he didn't finish the
question.
        "He did it as a favor to me," Freyja said quietly, and then,
to Corwin's considerable shock, she kissed him.
        So startled was he, in fact, that he made no appreciable
response for several busy seconds.  Not until he felt a draft and
realized she had unbuttoned his shirt while working on him did he snap
out of his shocked reverie, put up a hand - 
        - and shove her away, a little more roughly than he really
needed to.
        "Hold it, HOLD it," he said.  He wiped his mouth on the back
of a sleeve, shook his head, and then demanded, "What the -hell-,
Freyja."
        "I would have thought that was obvious," Freyja replied.  Her
eyes were smoldering now, but there was something in their light that
made Corwin uneasy.  This whole -situation- made him uneasy.  He
regarded her skeptically.
        "You've never given Indication One that you've been interested
in me my entire life - and Grand-dad knows, some of the other ladies
around here have never been bashful about it - and all of a sudden
you're stopping by for a snog?"
        She took another step toward him.  "Is that so hard to
believe?  Half the women in Asgard and Vanaheim would trade much for
the opportunity."
        Corwin snorted.  "Half the women in Asgard and Vanaheim aren't
members of the Aesir Council," he said sardonically.  Then, sobering a
bit, he added, "Besides, I'm... not interested."
        "Why not?" Freyja asked.  "Why are you so determined to return
to Midgard, Corwin?  You've nothing to go back to, not really."
        Corwin scowled.  Freyja gave a mirthless chuckle.  "You think
I don't know?  -Everyone- knows.  Many of us would help you mend your
broken heart if you only gave us a chance - but instead you insist on
always returning to she who broke it."
        Corwin folded his arms.  "That's my business," he said.
        Freyja's eyes flashed more openly now.  "Damn you, boy - why
does it have to be -them-?  You could have any of the Valkyrie.  Hell,
you could have -all- the Valkyrie.  Two for each day of the week and
three on Saturday and Sunday."
        Corwin wanted to laugh at her phrasing, but he couldn't.  The
whole situation was too... -weird-.
        It didn't get any less so when Freyja started unfastening her
tunic and added in a lower, softer voice, "You could even have -me-."
        He took a step toward her then, reached for her - and, to her
obvious dismay, refastened the shoulder tab she'd opened.
        "I think you should leave," he said.
        Freyja glared at him for a second, then stepped back and shook
her head.
        "Fine," she said.  "I tried the carrot, now the stick.
Corwin, I will -not- permit you to carry on your... -dalliance-...
with the witch.  Bad enough you've gotten a child on her."
        Corwin's face went still, his eyes very cold.
        "... -That's- what this is about?" he said when he could trust
himself to speak.  "You disrupted the lives of -thousands- over -that-?
It's not even your -concern-."
        "It is my concern!" Freyja snapped.  "I won't have one of the
Aesir lowering himself in such a manner.  Better for you to consort
with -mortals- than carry on with a black-elf witch and her thrall."
        "Speak... -carefully-, Freyja," said Corwin slowly, his voice
low.  "My patience is not infinite."
        (Wow, some part of him thought.  When I get pissed off in
Asgard, I talk like Amanda Dessler.)
        Freyja smiled, the venomous fury erased from her visage in an
instant and replaced with the sunny friendliness of a gentle goddess.
        "It's very simple, young Ravenhair," she said.  "Forsake the
witch - swear you'll never speak to her again - or I'll see to it that
you never leave the Golden City.  Agree to these terms and you'll at
least see your mortal family again... "  Her smile became warmer, more
intimate.  "... and we've already spoken briefly of the other rewards
that might be yours.  What say you, Enginewatcher?"
        Corwin's brand flickered, glowing from within with the force
of his restrained anger.
        "Get out," he said, his voice hoarse.
        Freyja's smile vanished.  "Why must you be so stubborn?" she
said.  "Just like your mother.  It's a simple thing I ask of you.
She's not even really your lover, and her consort never can be.  One
would think you might have learned to live with that by now."
        Corwin didn't rise to the bait a second time.  He almost did,
but then something in her eyes caught his attention and distracted him
from his own fury.
        "Why?" he asked.
        Freyja blinked.  "What?"
        "Why are you doing this?" Corwin asked.  "What did Anthy ever
do to you?"
        Freyja's expression was pure scorn.  "She's a night-elf.  They
don't belong here.  They can't be trusted."  Leaning toward him, her
eyes intense, she hissed, "-Decent people do not consort with them.-"
        Corwin looked back at her, his anger mostly replaced by an
uncomprehending compassion.
        "... what happened to you?" he asked softly.
        Freyja looked rattled.  "Nothing," she said, too hastily.
        Corwin's expression made it clear he didn't believe her.
        "'Nothing' doesn't leave attitudes like that behind."
        "Don't presume to look into -me-, machine lord," Freyja said
coldly.  "I'm not one of your clockwork contraptions, to be mulled
over and adjusted.  Swear what I require and you may go."
        Corwin shook his head.  "Never."
        "Then you will never leave the city," Freyja said flatly.
        The young Aes cracked a tiny, dark smile.
        "Try and stop me."
        Freyja narrowed her eyes.
        "If you insist."

        Frey walked purposefully down the corridor of Corwin's
apartment building, intent on discussing the afternoon's events
further with the younger god.  Perhaps now that they'd both had time
to cool off a little bit, they could talk the matter over reasonably.
        He meant to knock, but the door was ajar, and his blow swung
it open to reveal Corwin and, of all people, Freyja in his kitchen,
looking for all the world like they were squaring off for battle.
        "Freyja!  What are you -doing-?!" Frey demanded.
        Freyja turned, saw him, and said in an entreating tone, "Tell
him, my brother!  Tell him he'll never leave Asgard if he doesn't do
as I say."
        The God of Security blinked, entirely baffled.  "... What?!"
        Without taking his eyes off Freyja, Corwin said, "Frey, you'd
better get your sister home before someone gets hurt.  I don't know
what's the matter with her, but she shouldn't be roaming around
loose."
        Frey scowled.  "Mind your tongue, youngster.  I'll be back to
discuss this with you."  Then, approaching his sister, he put a hand
on her shoulder and said in a gentler voice, "Come, Freyja.  You need
rest."
        "No!" Freyja protested, her voice becoming shrill.  "He has to
promise!  He has to swear - "
        A moment later the two were gone, vanishing in a ripple of
silvery light.
        Corwin stood where he was for a moment, then let Stick
disappear and slumped with the release of tension.
        "... beer," he said after a few moments, then turned to his
fridge and rummaged within it.

        Frey returned a few minutes later, looking subdued and
embarrassed, and found Corwin on his living room sofa.
        "I'm... sorry you had to see that," he said.  "May I sit?"
        Corwin waved him to the corner armchair, then surprised him by
sliding a bottle of Newcastle Brown across the coffee table to him
once he was seated.
        "What's her problem?" he asked.
        Frey hesitated.  "It's... personal," he said.
        "Frey," Corwin said, fixing him with a level gaze, "I just
learned that she had you recall everyone and seal the borders of
Asgard specifically to -mess with my life-."  With quiet vehemence, he
added, "I think I deserve to know what the fucking -motivation- was."
        Frey regarded the young Aes for a few moments, then took a
pull of his beer, sighed heavily, and sat back in the chair.
        "All right," he said.  "I'll tell you."
        So he did.
        Corwin absorbed the information silently, thoughtfully.  He
knew parts of it already - they were common lore - but the details he
hadn't known changed the entire picture.
        "That's terrible," he said.  "I'm sorry for her - but it
doesn't excuse her behavior.  Or yours.  You've blatantly misused your
authority, Frey.  Surely you see that."
        Frey released another heavy sigh.
        "I do," he admitted.  "But... for my sister's peace of mind...
I thought it would be a passing fancy.  I misjudged the depth of her
hatred."
        Corwin regarded him, not unsympathetically, for a few moments.
        Then he said, "Now what?"
        Frey regarded the edge of the coffee table glumly for a
moment, took another drink, and then met Corwin's eyes.
        "Now I must ask of you a favor."
        Corwin's expression replied, "I'm listening."
        "I can reverse the alert; at this point there seems little
reason not to... but I ask you to give me time.  If what I've done is
exposed, I'll be relieved of my place on the Council.  I don't ask for
myself," he added, holding up a hand, "but because my responsibilities
would fall on Heimdall's shoulders, and he already carries burden
enough."
        "That still might be better than leaving you in charge, if
you're so easily convinced to abuse your power," Corwin observed.
        Frey looked mildly, but only mildly, offended.  "I am a
faithful steward, Corwin.  You know that's true.  What I've done was
wrong, yes, but - I made an error of judgment for love of my sister.
Surely that's something a man like you can relate to."
        Corwin disliked his presumption, but had to acknowledge that
he was right.
        "How much time?" he asked.
        "First I'll need to calm Freyja down, make her see that it's
for the best, that the charade can't be continued indefinitely," Frey
said.  "I think your own remarks made her see that what she did, what
she had me do for her, was wrong - that's why she became so angry.
It'll take me some time, but I think I can make her peaceful again.
After that, I'll need to coordinate the lifting of the alert so that
it doesn't appear as if I'm simply dropping the matter without cause.
After all the defense of the measure I've done to the rest of the
Council, that would seem... strange."
        Corwin nodded pensively.  "How much -time-?" he repeated.
        "I think I can have everything arranged so that you can return
home in time for the New Year," Frey said.
        Corwin came out of his seat.  "The -New Year-?!  Frey, people
I love are in danger -right now-."
        "I know," Frey said, "but the law is the law.  Even if I were
to drop the whole matter right now, it would take several days for all
the mechanisms of a Class A alert to unwind themselves.  Such is the
way the Aesir Council has structured the law."
        "Then I'll - " Corwin began, but Frey cut him off.
        "As an Aes," he said in a slow, thoughtful voice, "your first
duty is to the Council... but as a -man-, your first duty is to your
family."  Frey shook his head.  "I won't be the one to force any man
to make such a choice.  I'll let you go.  I'll even compound my crimes
and -help- you go... but it will have to be discreet."
--/

        Anne looked completely dumbfounded.
        "... Frey -let- you... he -helped- you... "  Then she put
everything together and her eyes lit up.  "-You- were the guy Sgt.
Barlow saw?!  The one who took apart the engine thingy and winked at
her??"
        Corwin smiled.  "A little judicious scrying showed that Utena
and Anthy had everything pretty well under control planetside, and
there was too much chance I'd be recognized there, so Frey dropped me
into the Hammer's engine room.  Wouldn't have been my first choice,
but it kept me out of the spotlight, and we figured Janice wouldn't
mind some help with the technical part."  He laughed.  "And not having
to haul the big Klingon guy."
        While Anne was trying to digest that, the two of them came to
a low building that looked rather like a warehouse, if warehouses had
been made of stone and black iron.  A brass sign above the door read,
in nice bold copperplate letters, "RAVENHAIR LABS".  Anne blinked and
looked around; while she'd been absorbed in Corwin's narrative, they'd
walked to a completely different section of the city, and she no
longer had any idea where in Asgard she was.
        Corwin produced a key, opened the door, and waved Anne inside.
        There, she found a lot of unidentifiable technical clutter
scattered around on a dozen benches, a car under a tarp, and Skuld in
a lab coat.
        "Welcome," said Skuld, smiling.  "Kaitlyn tells me you're
ready for your journeyman's blade."
        Anne blinked in surprise; Corwin grinned at her.  She'd been
so busy being blown away by Asgard and everything in it that she'd
forgotten entirely that the Hyakken no Arashi had qualified her for
that honor.
        "That... that's right," she said.
        Skuld nodded, looking more serious than Anne was accustomed to
seeing her - almost like she had when she'd given Juri Arisugawa and
Shiori Takatsuki their Tests of Light the previous summer.  Anne
couldn't help but feel faint trepidation as the Goddess of Technology
walked in a slow circle around her, giving her a deep, searching look
as she did so.
        When she finished her circuit, Skuld thought for a moment,
then smiled and said to Corwin, "Ironbridge."
        Corwin returned the smile.  "I thought you might say that."
        Skuld turned the smile to Anne as well, which made her feel a
bit better, and then went to a small refrigerator on one of the
workbenches and rummaged inside it for a moment.  Corwin crossed to
stand next to her, and they had a murmured conversation before Corwin
slipped something into his pocket and came back to Anne.
        "All right, we'll see you back here this evening, then."
Skuld smiled and showed them out.
        Anne, now feeling puzzled enough to be able to concentrate,
had no trouble following Corwin to their next destination.  She had
enough mental bandwidth to be fascinated by the Asgard subway system,
which featured the prettiest, cleanest stations she'd ever seen and
trains which glided almost silently, their wheels not quite touching
the rails.  This carried them for several minutes; when they emerged,
Anne checked the station map and saw that they were on the outskirts
of the city now.
        They came out of the station - and into another tunnel.  For a
second, Anne thought this was more of the station; then she realized
that it was their destination - it was a neighborhood, an underground
section of the city!  People went here and there in the tunnels the
way people on the surface would walk along the streets, except most of
the people down here were kind of short and broad.
        Noticing the look on Anne's face, Corwin grinned.  "This is
Dwarventown," he confirmed.  "Mostly immigrants from the mountains of
Alfheim - craftsmen, mainly.  Some mountain elves, too, like Gunnr.
They're the only breed of elves who really -like- dwarves."
        Corwin led the way down the broad central tunnel and into a
side tunnel, exchanging greetings with dwarves and broad-shouldered
mountain elves as he went - he was fairly well-known in town, even
down here - until finally they arrived at a shopfront hewn right out
of the living rock of the mountain they were under.  In they went,
Corwin in the lead, and Anne had her first look at a dwarven
weaponsmith's shop.
        It was a stone room about the size of the dojo back home, with
a vault ceiling about the same height.  It had a number of benches and
tables in it, mostly along the walls, but its dominant feature was the
forge in the center.  Anne wondered, as she looked at it, where the
chimney vented to.
        All around the room, hanging on pegs driven into the walls and
arranged on a few of the tables, were weapons.  Most of them were
medieval - swords of all shapes and sizes, knives and daggers, great
broad-bitted axes, ornately decorated warhammers, pole arms whose
names Anne couldn't remember, or at least couldn't attach to any
individual configuration.  There were some more modern weapons
scattered among them, too.  Most were sporting shotguns, ranging from
plain and simple to exquisitely engraved, and there was one that
looked for all the world like a modern sniper's rifle.
        Standing behind the table that faced the door, honing the
blade of a long spike-handled axe on a jarringly incongruous electric
grinding wheel, was a dwarf in the classical sense - a man a bit less
than four feet tall but fully as wide as a normal adult, and a burly
normal adult at that.  Corwin was a reasonably husky man, with
considerable breadth of shoulder, but he seemed as slim as Miki Kaoru
next to the barrel-shaped solidity of the shop's dwarven proprietor.
        "Well," said the dwarf in a gruff voice.  "Young Master
Ravenhair.  What brings ye to Dannen Ironbridge's this fine day?"  He
turned his keen black eyes on Anne and smiled slightly behind his
intricately plaited, belt-length grey beard.  "A new recruit o' yer
mother's?"
        "Not quite," Corwin replied with a smile.  "Though after
yesterday I wouldn't be surprised.  This is Anne Cross; she's a
student of my sister's, and she needs her journeyman's blade."
        "Ahhh," said Ironbridge with a knowing nod.  "Well, bring her
in then, and let's have a look at her."
        Corwin ushered Anne around the table and into the middle of
the open space behind it.  Ironbridge put the axe down next to the
grinder, switched the grinder off, and then stumped around the girl in
a slow circle, looking her over much the same way that Skuld had.
Then he lifted one of her hands so that she was holding her arm
straight out, horizontally, from her shoulder; turned the hand over
and measured the length of her fingers; took a long, careful look into
her right eye; and then, most puzzlingly, lifted one of her feet,
pulled off her shoe, and measured her instep and toes.  He did all
this in a thoughtful silence, his lined and hairy face screwed up in a
look of dour concentration.
        When he straightened after putting her shoe back on her,
though, he cracked a smile almost undetectable behind his beard and
winked one eye at her, then turned to the bench behind him, which was
littered with tools.
        "Right, then," he said.  "If you'll be so kind as t'work the
bellows, lass, we'll get started."

                                ORIPHOS

        Saionji snarled and launched himself at Shuten, clashing with
the younger man's kusari-gama.  The young warlord staggered backwards,
his armored boots scraping against the stone floor and his red hair
flaring like fire under his antique Japanese warlord's helmet as
Saionji pressed his attack.  The crowd around them roared approval or
shouted suggestions.
        "Shuten, are you a man or a boy?" Naaza taunted, watching with
his unblinking snake's eyes as the red-headed youth struggled to hold
off Saionji's lightsaber.
        "C'mon, Master, show him that weapon of his is an antique!"
Anakin Skywalker screamed, still smarting from his last drubbing at
Shuten's hands.  "Show him up!"
        "You're a disgrace to the Masho!" Anubishu roared, and Shuten
flicked a nervous glance sideways - Anubishu had a habit of charging
into practice duels he thought were being done badly and thumping on
both duelists.  But the oldest Masho still had his jackal-crested
helmet tucked under his arm and his no-dachi slung across his back; he
was only using his scowling expression to goad his young comrade - so
far.
        Saionji took advantage of Shuten's distraction to clip him
under the chin, where the warlord's helmet offered no protection, with
the hilt of his lightsaber.  Shuten's mystic armor was fully capable
of stopping a lightsaber's blade, a fact that he relied on to keep his
skin intact more than he really should.  And anyway, Saionji wanted
him to lose his temper.
        Shuten's teeth clapped together with a sound like two hands
slapping, and he yelped, spat blood, and then glared and parried
Saionji's cut at his heart.  "You'll pay for that," he snarled, and
leapt backwards, landing with another scrape of armor against stone.
Saionji felt the trembling in the Force that meant that Shuten was
about to lose what was left of his control, and the Masho let fly with
the weighted chain anchored at the hilt of his kusari.
        Saionji dodged out of the way easily, the Force showing him
where the chain was going to be before it got there, and waited,
feeling the invisible fury building itself into a very familiar
manifestation around the boy.  When Shuten lost his temper, he became
utterly predictable, and Saionji had picked a fight with him both to
work off his nerves and to regain some of the teaching-honor he felt
he'd betrayed attacking Juniper at all.  As soon as Shuten let go...
        There.
        The power crested.  Shuten opened his mouth and had time
enough to get out, "Red Li - " before Saionji covered the distance
between them in a single leap and silenced him with a fist to the
mouth.  Almost as an afterthought, he disarmed Shuten with a single
sweep of his lightsaber perilously near the young man's fingers, then
kicked the already-unbalanced warlord high in the chest.
        Shuten fell back on his ass, and Saionji stood over him,
shaking a fist that was bleeding slightly where he'd cut it on the
boy's helmet as his other hand returned his lightsaber to his belt.
        "You're dangerously predictable, Shuten Douji," he informed
the glaring redhead in a bored tone.  "If you always fight the same
way, you're going to get yourself killed."
        The boy tore off his helmet and threw it at Saionji, prompting
a burst of laughter from Anakin.
        "So, is that why you got pasted by that girl?" Rajura called
mockingly from where he was leaning against the wall next to the water
cooler.
        Saionji turned slowly to look at the white-headed Masho, who
was said to have deliberately blinded one eye so that he could always
see through his own illusions, and frowned thoughtfully.  Rajura, of
all the warlords of Kaneko, was the most subtle - and where the truth
was concerned, the most dangerous.
        "No," he said slowly, and accepted a towel from Anakin, who
smirkingly kicked Shuten's helmet back at him.  "I lost to her because
she fought better than I'd expected."
        "And how did you expect her to fight?" drawled a quiet,
persuasive voice, and Saionji felt his gut clench.  He'd known this
was coming, and the fight with Shuten hadn't been engaging enough to
really work off the nervousness.  If Rajura and the illusions he spun
were dangerously subtle, then this man...
        The warlords of the Black Rose Order all came to something
like attention as the slim, dark form of their master, Akio Ohtori,
sauntered into the dojo.  Even Shuten got up and tucked his helmet 
under his arm, holding his quarrel with Anakin for later.  Lord Akio
commanded the respect and deference of all.
        All, that is, but Saionji, who went on scrubbing at his
short-cropped hair with the towel before he answered, "Rough around
the edges - and weak."
        Akio smiled, apparently not caring about his long-time
acquaintance's lack of superficial respect.  "Care to explain,
Saionji?" he asked mildly.  "Touga is currently fuming that his
legendary charm failed to move her - " (this brought a round of
chuckles from the men gathered around, who all generally had fairly
low esteem for Touga's 'charm') " - and hasn't told me anything
useful.  But you - you know her."
        Saionji shrugged, and went to the cooler to get a drink and
try to buy some time to think.  "-Knew- her, maybe - but not any more.
She was a talented novice - but just a novice - when I left."  He took
a drink, swallowed, then decided to extrapolate from some of the
things he'd seen in Juniper's early career.  "Using some of her
abilities left her weak and vulnerable, and she got physically sick
from one of them more than once that I saw.  She seems to have gotten
over that problem."
        "And you were expecting... what?" Akio asked.  "What you saw?"
        "I expected her not to want to kill me," Saionji said.  He
rubbed the side of his head.  "Obviously, she -didn't- kill me - but I
don't know if that was a mistake on her part, or just physical
weakness.  She was undernourished for a long time.  I didn't expect
she'd show any mercy to Touga, though."  Saionji's already grim face
darkened a bit more as he added, "She has a low tolerance for
rapists."
        "Would she be... amenable to an offer to join the Black Rose?"
Akio asked.  "Either from you or from me?"
        "No," Saionji said instantly, shaking his head.  "She idolizes 
Tenjou, and... " he trailed off.
        "And?" Akio prompted.
        "And she's just like her, really."  Saionji imagined Akio
trying to recruit Juni and smiled his small, private smile.  "But
she's still only a journeywoman, and she'll go where - where her
master tells her to, so she probably won't be a further threat until
you're ready to move, my Lord."
        "Do you think you could get her out of the way, Saionji?"
        Saionji shook his head, concealing his inner sadness as best
he could.  "She knows I'm not her friend or ally anymore.  The next
time I face her, I doubt she'll pull any blows she aims at me."

                                ASGARD

        You should have realized, Anne chided herself, that this
process would involve hard labor at some stage along the way.  That's
the way things work in Katsujinkenryuu.
        Still, it wasn't -horribly- hard work, pumping the forge's
bellows; just repetitive.  Months of hard training with Kaitlyn and
Saionji, home improvement projects with Utena, and gardening with
Anthy, coupled with the Rose Knight's home cooking, had changed the
wiry but underfed runaway kid to a sturdy, powerful young woman, and
once she found the best rhythm for it, she could've worked the bellows
all day.
        She watched, fascinated, from her station next to the forge as
Ironbridge worked.  First the dwarf selected bits of metal bar-stock
from a rack of dozens of little cubbyholes along the far wall,
weighing them judiciously in his hands before piling them on his
bench.  Then he added the bars, one by one, carefully watching an
hourglass, to a crucible.  Within two hours, the clay pot contained a
burbling stew of molten metal.
        At this point, Ironbridge turned to Corwin and said, "D'ye
have it, lad?"
        Corwin smiled, reached into his pocket, and handed the dwarf a
small object.  He held it up to the light between thumb and
forefinger, and Anne saw that it was a small glass capsule, a vial,
full of some dark-red liquid that caught the light and gleamed.
        Ironbridge grunted with satisfaction, snapped the lid off the
vial with his thick thumbnail, and poured its contents into the
crucible.  Instead of simply whiffing to vapor on contact with the
bubbling surface, as Anne would have expected, the scarlet liquid
plunged into the molten metal with a searing sound, tracing black,
swirling lines in the orange glow as it mixed into the alloy.
        Nodding, Ironbridge let it swirl for a few minutes, then took
up the crucible with tongs and poured its contents into a bar mold.
        "Right," he said.  "Time for lunch."
        Lunch was a simple but hearty meal of cold roast meat, cheese,
small beer, and savory black bread, eaten there in the workshop.  Anne
was a bit dubious about the beer, but it appeared to be the only thing
Ironbridge had to drink, and neither he nor Corwin seemed to pay any
mind, so she drank it and found, somewhat to her surprise, that it
wasn't bad.  Not the kind of thing she'd go seeking out, but not bad,
all the same.
        By the time they were finished, the alloy bar had cooled
enough to be workable, so Juniper returned to her station at the
bellows, Ironbridge took the bar up in one heavy-gloved hand, and the
actual forging process began.
        Once again Anne watched in fascination, her body working
pretty much on autopilot, while Ironbridge heated, hammered, folded,
heated, hammered, folded the bar of alloy.  He did this seven times,
then started working the metal into its proper shape.  The dark
streaks remained in the metal when it cooled, and the folding process
had compounded them back on themselves; as the blade began to take
shape, they rippled lengthwise along it, almost like a moire pattern,
black against the base grey.
        As the dwarf worked, Anne noticed that he wasn't shaping the
other end of the blade into a tang, as she would have expected;
instead, he seemed to be working it into an actual grip shape.  A
one-piece metal sword?  That struck Anne as rather odd, but she kept
silent.  After all, she wasn't the master weaponsmith here, was she?
        Almost before she knew it (though it had really been several
hours), what had started as a flat bar of metal had become a
recognizable katana.  His look of concentration unchanging, Ironbridge
put the finishing touches on the tip, then covered the blade in clay
and returned it to the fire.
        Noting Anne's puzzled look, the dwarf smiled and spoke for the
first time since lunch, saying, "Tempering.  The clay's thinner at the
edge; that makes the edge harder than the rest of the blade."
        Anne nodded, understanding.  Kaitlyn-sensei had told her of
the combination before, explaining the distinct line to be found on
good swords like her zatoichi; the edge of the blade was hardened to
take the keenest honing possible, while the rest remained softer, like
a spring.  This gave the blade the best balance of strength and
sharpness - but she'd never said -how- they were made that way, and
Anne had never asked.
        Ironbridge watched the baking clay until some cue - its color,
perhaps, or brightness - told him the time was right; then he removed
it from the fire, turned, and plunged it into a trough of an
oily-looking liquid which stood next to the anvil.
        Instantly there came the sound of shattering crockery,
underlaid by a great sizzling whoosh, and a cloud of purple steam
obscured the dwarf for a moment.  A smell like burning fish filled the
air for a few moments, and Anne coughed until the fumes were drawn up
the furnace chimney and out of the shop.
        "What was -that-?" she asked.
        "Wyvern's blood," Ironbridge replied.  "Just the thing for
quenching this special alloy o' mine."  He smiled, his big square
teeth flashing through his beard.  "It do stink a bit," he allowed;
then he held up the completed blade, free of its clay covering, and
Anne gasped.  It gleamed in the light of the forge, the grey of its
base metal catching the orange firelight more than the black streaks.
        "It's beautiful," she murmured.
        Ironbridge nodded in satisfaction.  "I'm glad ye like it,
lass."  He paused for a moment, then added, "Ye can stop pumping now."
        Anne stopped, feeling a bit silly as the muscles in her arms
twitched slightly at the cessation of motion, but the dwarf merely went to
another of his tables, placed the sword on it, and bundled it in heavy
grey fabric, then strapped it before turning and handing it to Corwin.
        "There y'are, young master, wi' my compliments to yer august
mother," said he.  Then he turned to Anne and smiled.  "I hope it
serves ye well, lass."
        Anne didn't quite know what to say, so she fell back on dojo
habits and bowed.  "Thank you, Master Smith."
        "'Twas my pleasure," the dwarf assured her as he showed them
out.  "'Tis what I do.  Come again, now."
        "There," said Anne to Corwin as they walked back toward the
subway station, "is a man who enjoys his calling."
        Corwin smiled.  "Dannen's one of the best," he said.  "He's
made several blades for us - one of Vigdis Brightblade's favorites,
her hand-and-a-half, is an Ironbridge, and he made all the Valkyrie
dress sabers."
        "Now what?"
        "Now we take it back to Mom for the finishing touches."
        "Oh."  They walked in silence for a few minutes; then, while
they waited on the subway platform for the train to arrive, Anne
asked, "So - when are you moving to Tomodachi, anyway?"
        Corwin grinned.  "Soon as you and Kate get the rest of your
books out of my room," he said.
        Anne laughed.  "I'll hold you to that, you know."
        "Fine by me," Corwin said.  His grin softened into a warmer
sort of smile, and he added in a slightly wry voice, "If I'd known
this would happen, though, I wouldn't have signed a two-year lease on
an apartment in Nekomikoka."  Then he laughed.  "What the hell, it's
only gold."
        "OK," said Anne, smiling.  "When I get back, we'll get it done
for you."
        Corwin chuckled; the train arrived; they headed back downtown,
leaving Dwarventown behind them.
        "Can we go back down there sometime, when I have more time to
look around?" she asked Corwin.  "Or... "  She looked faintly troubled
as a thought occurred to her.  "Or is this visit a one-time thing?"
        Corwin gave her a mildly confused look, then realized what she
was getting at and smiled.  "Oh, no, heck, no.  We can come back any
time you want, as long as we can both line up the free time for it.
Don't worry about -that-.  You've proven yourself to Asgard, even Frey
won't give you a hard time unless there's something -serious- going
on."
        Relieved, Anne returned the smile, then went back to her own
thoughts until they got to Skuld's workshop.
        Skuld received the blade with a smile, made appreciative
sounds about Ironbridge's workmanship, and then informed the two that
she wouldn't be requiring their services and they might as well run
along until tomorrow afternoon.
        Presented with the unexpected free time, Anne did the only
sensible thing, which was try to see everything there was to see in
the Golden City in a single evening.
        This, of course, was impossible, but the effort, combined with
the work she'd put in at Ironbridge's, did mean that she slept very
well indeed when she and Corwin finally made their way back to his
little apartment on the Street of the Eternal Heroes to crash.

                                ORIPHOS

        Mia Ausa squinted at the small crucible atop her lab bench,
then checked the open tome off to her right.  Protected by viriglass,
the book was still spotted with age and difficult to read in places -
her lab bench showed the marks of previous, failed experiments with
this particular passage.
        Satisfied that she had done everything as correctly as she
could, given the illegibility of the book, she began murmuring softly
under her breath.  Silver light gathered around her fingers, then
slowly sank into the gently bubbling liquid as she extended her hand
over the container.  Finishing her incantation, she held her breath
and waited to see if it was going to work this time - or whether she
was going to have to snatch her hand back out of the way of exploding,
ensorcelled mercury -again-.
        The difficulty with this particular formula was that it would
only work for the creator - and it required a physical proximity that
was quite dangerous, given the tendency of the alchemical mixture to
explode.
        "Still trying to recreate a fantasy," a snide voice observed
behind her, and Mia spun, her hand going to the side of her Anla'shok
robes for her pike.  Not that it would do her much good, given that
she knew perfectly well who was standing behind her, but...
        Roger Tremayne, lately going by the Sith name Darth Venger,
smiled pleasantly and stepped into the lab.  "Good evening, Mia," he
said.
        She forced herself to smile, though she knew it was more of a
grimace.  Thus far, he hadn't pushed her to the point of snapping, but
she knew he was trying to.  "Good evening, Lord Venger.  I'm afraid
you're a little late to learn anything today - the interesting part
just finished.  I was about to conclude my studies for the night."
        His pleasant smile altered to one of pleased malevolence.
"Then you won't mind if we talk for a few minutes - I'd like to
discuss your methods in depth, and of course, I wouldn't -dream- of
interrupting you while you're actually doing something."
        Mia felt cold inside.  In an out-and-out fight with Venger,
she'd lose and she knew it.  And she had no idea where Saionji was -
he was the one person in the Order she knew the Sith Lord wouldn't
dare pick a fight with.  Still, she kept her fear from her face as
best she could.
        If Venger picked up on it - and he probably did, fear being
one of the specialties, so to speak, of the Sith - he didn't let it be
known.  Instead he just smiled silently for a few seconds, until she
closed the book and nodded for him to go on.  When he spoke again, his
voice was lower and less mocking.
        "You're wasting your time, you know," he said.  "Savants for
ten thousand years have tried to develop means of making ordinary
weapons stand up to lightsabers.  The only ones to succeed were the
weaponmasters of Mandalor.  One still finds examples of their art
from time to time, but their methods died with their civilization,
millennia ago."
        Mia cast him a sidelong look.  "What examples?"
        "Ah, I thought that might pique your interest," Venger said.
"I've learned much about you since our last encounter, you know.  Your
hunger for knowledge is quite legendary in some circles.  It doesn't
surprise me to find that you know of Mandalor already."
        "Get to the point, Lord Venger," she said, keeping her voice
as cold as possible.
        "The point is this, my dear," Venger replied.  "It so happens
that I have such a weapon in my collection."
        Mia looked interested, but not eager.  "And?"
        "And I might be willing to let you have it... although," he
added with a dark little smile, "if you accept my offer you won't long
-need- it."
        "I beg your pardon?" Mia asked.
        "Don't be dense," Venger said, "it doesn't suit you.  I'm
asking you to join forces with me, Mia Ausa.  Become my apprentice.
Follow the way of the Sith in full, not just the watered-down sampling
Ohtori teaches as part of all this Black Rose foolishness."
        "This Black Rose foolishness will remake the universe," Mia
said archly, but Venger only snorted.
        "-A- universe, perhaps, but not one you and I care about," he
said.  "Ohtori's lust for revenge is all well and good, but what does
it serve either of us to aid him in the long term?  Certainly it
advances us now to work with him, adapt his techniques to our own, and
incidentally help him further his cause of vengeance against Cephiro's
Trinity, but after that, why hang around and serve as part of his
petty praetorian guard?  We have our -own- worlds to 'revolutionize'."
        "If Lord Akio knew you were so tenuously committed to his
cause, he might not be charitable," Mia observed.
        Venger laughed.  "If he doesn't already know I intend to leave
his retinue when remaining no longer suits my purposes, he's a fool.
Ours is a marriage of convenience, my dear.  I provide intelligence on
possible converts to his cause - people my own order has watched over
the years, but who have proven unsuitable for the true rigors of the
Sith for one reason or another - and insight into the Dark Side of the
Force; he provides a stable base from which to build my own strength.
Once both of us have achieved our short-term aims, we'll part ways,
and do so amicably enough, in all probability."
        "And what do I stand to gain by switching my flag from him to
you?" Mia wanted to know.
        "Everything you truly want," Venger replied.
        Mia hesitated, momentarily alarmed by the idea that he might
-know- what she truly wanted.  He took the hesitation for temptation
and smiled.
        "I see I've touched a nerve at last," he said.  "You begin to
understand now, yes?  The true Sith is always looking to the -next-
conquest, Mia.  Once Ohtori has achieved his goals, then what?  The
next logical step for you is to take the vengeance for which -you-
burn.  I can make that possible.  Ohtori cannot."
        Mia narrowed her eyes.  "You mean... "
        "You know very well what I mean," Venger told her.  Leaning
slightly toward her, a faint spark of life shining in his flat, cold
eyes, he said, "As a Lord of the Sith, you would find it almost
-trivially- easy to return to Minbar and show the Grey Council the
price of their arrogance.  You could crush them and their petty
bickering, seize control of your people's destiny, and lead them into
a new golden age."  His eyes bored into hers as he added in a low,
almost inaudible voice,
        "You could be greater than Valen himself."
        Mia's pulse quickened.  She forced herself to look calm,
pulled her gaze from Venger's with a semblance of cool detachment, and
said, "I will... consider what you've said."
        She was mildly surprised when Venger seized her shoulder,
making her look at him again, and said, "Why delay the