Her hands folded, her hair falling in cascades around her
shoulders, her eyes squeezed closed, she prayed.
        Please...please, save me from this doom I have brought on
myself.  Please don't let my single selfish act destroy everything
I've ever cared about.  Please don't let it all come to an end...
        Please...
        Corwin reached towards the shadowed figure, but his hand
passed clean through, and then the cracks appeared in the sphere all
around him, and he stared up as the swords started to come pouring in.
        Emerald eyes opened, shining in the shadows, fixed on him.
        Please...


                I have a message from another time...

                       Dragon Mage Enterprises
                         in association with
                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                   - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 2 -

                           Fifth Movement:
                 Knights of the Tenth World Part Two:
                         Pawns to Promotion

                             Anne Cross
                        Benjamin D. Hutchins

                (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited

        When Corwin came to, it came in stages.  First he became aware
that he was not cold.  Then it occurred to him that he was not wet.
Third came the awareness that he did not hurt.  Fourth he realized
that all was quiet; though he could still hear the howling wind, it
was muted, at a distance, its threat taken away.
        Then, as an admittedly tangential thought, he decided that he
was really getting tired of the swords dream.
        He cracked his eyes open and looked around.
        A face was looking down at him: wide, concerned green eyes
behind biggish eyeglasses, good skin, nice cheekbones, all framed with
a shoulder-length fall of honey-gold hair that curled in a bit at the
bottom.  Not a bad face at all.  Quite lovely, actually.  Corwin
enjoyed looking at beautiful things, especially after the kind of day
he'd had, so the sight of this particular one made him smile.  She was
even familiar-looking, but he wasn't really quite conscious yet, so
that fact momentarily eluded him.
        "I didn't know angels wore glasses," he said.
        "Oh!" the face's owner said, her cheeks pinkening a little.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Corwin, but I'm no angel," she said after a moment's
consternation.  "Don't you recognize me?"
        Corwin sat slowly up and rubbed at the back of his head,
stretching and feeling his back cracking with some satisfaction.
"What a disappointment," he remarked, his awakening mind still running
on its own private little track.  "I was sure I'd died and gone back
to Valhalla."
        The blonde girl blinked at him, but did not reply - only
looked worried.  Corwin took the opportunity to get a better look at
her.  She was about Corwin's own age, maybe thirteen or fourteen
(assuming she was human), and dressed about as oddly as Corwin could
recall having seen a girl of that age: low white leather boots, a
short pleated green skirt, and a metal cuirass and single pauldron
over what appeared for all the world to be a matching green blazer.
If Corwin hadn't known better, he could have sworn she was wearing her
armor over a -school uniform-.
        Then, as he at last came fully awake, it hit him that he knew
-which- school uniform, and furthermore, he knew her face.
        "Oh," he said, feeling rather stupid.  "Hi, Fuu.  What the
hell are -you- doing here?"
        "I was just about to ask you the same thing.  Are you sure
you're all right?  You gave me quite a scare, not recognizing me."
        "I recognized you," Corwin said.  "I just couldn't remember
that I did, for a second.  Probably that clunk on the head I took.
What -hit- me?"
        Fuu looked embarrassed.  "Um, that would have been Miss
Uum'y."
        "Miss Umi?" Corwin repeated.
        "Yes, one of my traveling companions.  She looked outside to
see what was making all the noise, and opened the door somewhat
more...  er, energetically than was strictly necessary."
        Corwin frowned and reached up to touch the cut on his
forehead, only to find it gone.  This reminded him that he was not, in
fact, in pain, which was kind of odd.
        But that could wait, he decided as a fresh wave of exhaustion
rolled over him.  Something was nagging at him - he had a powerful
sensation that he was forgetting something important - but as he
struggled to bring it to mind, it just got hazier and hazier, until
sleep overtook him again.
        Fuu Hououji sat back on her heels and regarded him
thoughtfully.  She was still extremely surprised to see him here, of
all places.  She was still getting used to the idea that -she- was
here; besides which, Corwin's appearance after the -last- unexpected
encounter was giving recent events a curiously connected flavor that
worried at Fuu's analytical mind.  She shuffled the pieces of
information together, then mentally dealt them out like a tarot deck
and considered them.
        Fact: Kyouichi Saionji, a classmate of Corwin's sister
Kaitlyn, was here in Cephiro.  Fuu didn't know what he was doing here,
and he had warned her not to recognize him, so she had no particular
opportunity to find out.  But he was here, anyway, and seemed to know
his way around.
        Fact: Saionji was from the same world as Kaitlyn's roommate
Utena Tenjou, a young woman to whom Corwin was very close, and several
other students at the Deedlit Satori Mandeville Memorial Institute.
They all claimed to be from an Outer Rim settlement destroyed by
raiders two years previously, where, until the colony's fall, they
attended a preparatory school called Ohtori Academy.
        Fact: There was an Ohtori Academy in Cephiro.  Fuu had seen
it on a railway timetable in Vaaria.
        Supposition: Saionji, Utena, and the others were Cephirean.
The story about the Outer Rim was a fiction invented to avoid the
awkwardness of explaining their extradimensional origins.
        Questions: How did Saionji get back?  Why did he not want Fuu
to let on that she knew him?
        Supposition: Someone here was observing him, or he thought
they might be, and he didn't want them to know that he had been to
another world.
        Probability that this was in some way related to the
still-nebulous task which the Rune Knights had come to Cephiro to
perform: Pretty high, Fuu suspected.
        Question: What was -Corwin- doing here?
        Hypothesis: None so far.
        She sat down in seiza and sighed.  If there was one thing that
could outright annoy the usually temperate Fuu Hououji, it was trying
to work with insufficient data.  She regarded Corwin again, wondering
if he would be able to fill in any of the gaps when he woke.  He
certainly didn't -look- like he would be very informative.
        But then, it had to be admitted that Corwin wasn't looking his
best.  He was many days unshaven; his thick black hair, still wet from
the melted snow and ice, was unkempt and starting to look a little
shaggy.  He was wearing rugged traveling clothes of no particular
distinction: a tunic of a rough, dull brown material over a blue denim
shirt, blue jeans, hiking boots.  He'd had on a multisectional Mycean
hunter's cloak over that.
        When Fuu and her companions had dragged him inside, they'd put
the boots near the door, and the cloak was now draped on a hook
nearby, dripping on the floor.  His battered, almost shapeless outback
hat had fallen from his head when he'd been knocked down by the door,
but they'd found it near him and brought it inside as well.  He'd had
a beat-up brown leather pack slung over one shoulder, and a heavy
wooden staff lay near his outstretched hand.  Both of those had been
brought in as well, and lay near the end of the bed.
        Fuu watched him sleep for a few moments, but his sleep was
uneasy.  He tossed his head a couple of times, muttering, as something
swam up to him in a dream that he hadn't been able to think of while
conscious.  Suddenly he sat bolt upright, making her jump a little,
and looked around, eyes wide with alarm.
        "Nall!" he blurted.  "If I'm not dead, where's Nall?"
        Fuu blinked, raising her fingertips to her mouth in dismay.
"Mr. Nall is -with- you?  When we found you, you were alone."
        "Oh, -no-," said Corwin, his voice filled with dread.
        "Try not to worry," Fuu said, trying to sound as soothing as
possible, for her own benefit as well as Corwin's.  "My friends are
out looking around, to see if there are any more monsters lurking
outside... maybe they've found him."
        "In this weather they'd never see him," Corwin replied, his
tone becoming more worried.  He grabbed a boot and started shoving his
foot into it, realized it was the wrong one, and switched.  "How long
have I been here?"
        "Um... about an hour."  Fuu stood up, readying herself to go
with him and look.  Nall was her friend too; the three of them had all
been lab partners together (along with Buttercup Utonium, whose
superhuman powers, Fuu reflected, would have been useful on this
little junket) for the last two school years.  If he were out there in
that storm somewhere...
        "Slag!" snarled Corwin.  He got to his feet, hunting for his
other boot; then he paused, bent over, with a thoughtful look on his
face.  He raised a hand and felt around his chest, then suddenly
yanked his tunic off over his head, unbuttoned the top two buttons of
his denim shirt, plunged in a hand, and hauled out a dead cat.
        Or at least, that's what Nall looked like: a bedraggled little
lump of white fur with black feet and a gold ruff, all streaked with
red cooling to brown, limp in Corwin's hands.  Fuu gasped audibily at
the sight of the little creature (who always claimed smugly that he
was a dragon) brought to such straits.
        Stricken, Corwin dropped back to the floor on his knees.  "Oh,
no, no," he murmured, gently laying the inert creature on the floor
and bending over it.  "C'mon, Nall, buddy, don't check out on me
-now-... "
        Fuu knelt down opposite Corwin, concern written across her
face, and gently touched Nall's blood-matted fur.  He was a mess,
disheveled and dirty, but of more immediate note were the injuries.
There was a bloody cut on his head and another on his side, one of his
little legs looked broken, and his tail was oddly angled.  He was cool
to the touch, but still breathing, slowly.
        The tone of Corwin's voice left Fuu little doubt that he was
cursing, though she couldn't recognize the language, as he rummaged
again through his pack.  She touched Nall's head, smoothing back the
matted fur from the cut.  He winced languorously, still comatose, at
her touch.  Fuu made a worried tsking sound, then sat back on her
heels.
        "I think I can help him," she told Corwin.  "You were also
quite badly injured, but I was able to heal your wounds.  I should be
able to help Mr. Nall the same way."
        Corwin looked at her, the sudden intensity in his eyes
startling her a little.  He didn't bother asking how she, who had
always been an ordinary (if brilliant) girl in his experience,
proposed to do such a thing.  He spoke only two words in a hard,
percussive tone of voice:
        "Do it."
        Fuu nodded, closed her eyes, and concentrated.
        A gentle wind suddenly swirled around the three of them,
ruffling fur, hair and clothes, and the green gemstones that studded
Fuu's armor glowed gently as she closed her eyes, spread her hands
over the limp form of Nall, and murmured under her breath.  Corwin's
eyebrows rose.  As a citizen of Asgard, he could quite readily
identify what she was doing as sorcery, and sorcery of a high order,
at that.  The spell she was pronouncing was one he himself knew of,
but couldn't cast.
        As she finished the incantation, the wind picked up, tugging
at Corwin's half-buttoned shirt and Fuu's hair, and then the little
cyclone collapsed around Nall, enveloping him briefly in a swirling
green mist.
        Then it subsided, and he lay still as before - but the blood
was gone, the cuts were healed, the broken bits were now aligned
correctly, and his breathing was much stronger and more regular.
        Fuu settled a bit where she sat and gave a relieved sigh.  "I
wasn't sure that would work on him," she said.  "He'll sleep for a
while, but it looks like he'll be all right.  I healed your injuries
the same way.  I hope you don't mind."
        Corwin smiled, scooped the creature up in his big hands, and
deposited him on the end of the nearby bed, where he curled up into a
more natural sleeping position with a satisfied little purring noise.
        "Mind?" he said with a grin.  "O amazing girl!  Where in the
galaxy did you learn that trick?  I could kiss you."
        Fuu looked like she didn't quite know what to make of that
pronouncement, and leaned hesitantly back a little.  "Anyway," Corwin
said, getting to his feet, utterly unaware of the discomfiture he'd
visited on the poor girl, "what in the world are you doing here?
Shouldn't you be in New Avalon finishing up freshman year without us?"
        He looked her curious costume over more closely and shook his
head, then started looking for his things.  "And in that weird armor,
too," he remarked.  He reached out suddenly and rapped smartly upon
her breastplate with a knuckle, then looked thoughtful.  "Is that
mithril?" he wondered, more to himself than to her; then he shook his
head.  "Lousy coverage, though.  You don't actually expect it to
-protect- you from anything, do you?"
        "Um... excuse me, but you shouldn't move around so much.  You
were seriously injured.  You really ought to rest."
        "I'd love to," Corwin admitted, picking up his bag, "but I'm
afraid I haven't got a lot of time.  As soon as Nall wakes up, we'll
get out of your hair."
        He stopped then, as though just noticing his surroundings, and
whistled.  They were in a circular room about forty feet in diameter,
its one continuous wall arching up to a peaked dome as though they
were inside a giant egg.  From the peak of the dome hung a chandelier,
its bulbs turned low.  Round portholes set around the wall showed
nothing but flickering darkness as snow blew past them in the night.
Almost half of the room was taken up by the bed he'd put Nall on,
which he now realized was a -giant- bed with three sets of pillows
arranged along its carved headboard; the rest of the place was a
pleasant little sitting room, complete with a dinner table and chairs,
a group of armchairs, and a nice rug, on which he had been lying until
a few minutes ago with one of the pillows from the bed under his head.
        "Nice place," he remarked.  "When you go camping, you don't
mess around.  You said 'companions'.  How many of you are there?"
        "Three," she said.  "Are you really sure you have to leave?
The weather is still very bad.  Miss Uum'y and Miss Hikaru went out to
make sure there were no more monsters lurking about, but they should
be back soon, and then we'll have dinner.  You're... you're welcome to
join us."
        Corwin paused in the process of lacing up the one boot he'd
managed to put on before and considered that.  As if to punctuate the
reasons why he shouldn't be so hasty to go, the door, not far from
him, swung open to admit a howling blast of frosty air and a flurry of
snow.  Two girls, a redhead and one with long light blue hair, and a
large snowball hurried inside.  The blue-haired girl wrestled the door
shut, cutting out the shrieking gale, and then leaned her back against
it and let out a sigh of relief.
        The tiny redhead stomped snow off her knee-high boots and said
cheerfully, "Hi, Fuu!  No more monsters out there that -we- could
find.  Maybe they all froze!  WOW it's cold out!"  She brushed melting
snow off her hair and caught sight of Corwin standing not far away,
with one of his boots on and a puzzled look on his face.
        "Oh, hi!" she said.  "I see our guest is awake," she added to
Fuu.  "Does he remember who he is?"
        "Hikaru," the blue-haired girl said testily as she took off
thick knit mittens, "that much is obvious.  He's an -idiot-."  She
forcefully tugged off a watch cap to punctuate the statement, and the
long, pointed ears of a Hyelian sprang out from their confinement.
"Who -else- would be wandering around out there in this weather?"
        "We just were," Hikaru pointed out.
        "I rest my case!" the Hyelian girl said exasperatedly as she
shrugged out of her parka and hung it on a hook next to the door.
        The large snowball bounced once, twice, then shook itself
violently, scattering snow in all directions.  This did little to
reduce its resemblance to a large snowball, but did reveal that it
was, in fact, some kind of animal.  At the very least, it seemed to
have a face of sorts, and pointed, fuzzy ears.  It struck Corwin as
the sort of thing you'd get if you crossed a rabbit with a
basketball.
        "Ack!" cried the blue-haired girl as the snow spray caught
her.  "MOKONA!!"
        "Puu!" declared the rabbitball.  It seemed to draw some
satisfaction from that, for it repeated the declaration several times,
hopping around on vestigial feet and gleefully chanting its single
syllable as it eluded the Hyelian girl's best attempts to capture it,
until finally she gave up and subsided into muted grumbling.
        Corwin let this byplay run its course, then took off the one
boot he'd put on, stood up, collected his ruffled dignity the best he
could, and bowed.  "Corwin Ravenhair, at your service, dear ladies... "
He looked down at the rabbitball, which had come to rest next to his
right foot, and added, "... and yours too, whatever you are."
        "Puu!" the creature announced, and jumped up into Corwin's
arms.  "Puu-puu pupupu puuuuu!"
        "Um, sure," Corwin replied, petting it absently.  "Whatever
you say, Chief."
        "Hi!" bubbled the redhead.  "I'm Hikaru Shidou!  I'm in the
ninth grade at Rich Parker Memorial High School in New Avalon, in the
Zeta Cygni Dyson Sphere!  That's Mokona."
        The Hyelian girl rolled her eyes and muttered, "Next you'll
tell him your star sign and blood type."  Then, turning her attention
to Corwin, she said, "My name is Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky; I'm pleased to meet
you."  She didn't seem as if she were, particularly, but at least she
was polite about it.
        "Umi Ryuuzaki?" Corwin replied.  "That's an odd name for a
Hyelian." 
        She sighed with an air of tested patience.  "No: Uum'y
R'yuu-z'ky."
        "That's what I said," Corwin said, puzzled.
        "No it isn't," Uum'y replied testily, "but you may as well
just go on calling me Umi, everybody -else- does.  Savages," she added
under her breath.  "Fuu, before Hikaru dragged me out the door, did I
hear you say you knew who he was?"
        Fuu nodded.  "Once I got the blood cleaned off his face, it
was obvious.  Mr. Corwin is a classmate of mine.  We're both in
Division 9C, Mr. Fujisawa's homeroom, and have most of our classes
together.  We're even lab partners in Physical Science."
        Umi goggled at her.  "WHAAAAT?!"  She turned to Corwin.  "How
did you get here?  More importantly, how are you getting back?  Take
me with you!  Let's go back right now!"
        "Umi!" Hikaru cried, shocked.  "How can you say that?  You
know we can't go home until we've completed our mission!  We have to
become Rune Knights and save Cephiro!"
        "Don't tell me what to do!" Umi barked, scowling at Hikaru.
"Maybe you believed that nutty little guy, but I didn't.  I want to go
home."
        "Nutty little guy?" Corwin wondered.
        Umi made a disgusted gesture and walked away.  "This whole
thing is insane," she said.  She plopped into an annoyed sitting slump
on the edge of the bed, pulled off one of her high boots, and dumped
water out of it.  Given how high up those boots went, Corwin shivered
a little at the thought of the drift she must have stepped in.  "Look,
can you get me home or not?  I have a very important fencing tournament 
coming up."
        Corwin spread his hands.  "I'd love to help you out, but I'm
stuck here too.  I've got a job to do, and my ride isn't picking me up
until I'm done with it."
        Umi scowled.  "Perfect.  Well, it looks like Fuu's managed to
patch up your wounds, so if you can't make yourself useful, then you
might as well move along.  Nice meeting you and all that."
        Hikaru stared at her.  "Umi!  You can't expect him to go back
out into -that-!"
        Umi glowered back at the little redhead.  "Why not?  It didn't
seem to bother you any.  You didn't even put on a coat!"
        "That's different," Hikaru insisted.  "I'm Kumbari, this kind
of weather is nothing for me.  Corwin's only human, he'll freeze in
that storm.  Sending him out there... it would be -murder-!"
        "I - " Corwin started.
        "I must agree with Miss Hikaru," said Fuu, not contentious but
still firm.  "Mr. Corwin's injuries are healed, but he is still weak.
He should not be made to travel right away, especially under
conditions such as these."
        "Look, I don't want to cause a - " Corwin started.
        Umi scowled.  "Well, it's not proper for him to be here,
unsupervised, with the three of us.  What if he's some kind of
-pervert- or something?"
        "Hey, now wait just a - " Corwin started.
        "Miss Uum'y, that's simply not fair," said Fuu, a touch of
admonitory scorn in her voice now.  "Mr. Corwin is my friend and
classmate."  Ticking off points on her fingers, she went on rather
primly, "He is the secretary of our class division at Fritz Koopman
Memorial High School and is well-known as a conscientious and kind
person.  His father is a pillar of the community.  His brother is our
class vice-president and co-captain of the Kendo Club (which made it
to the tri-sector finals this year, but was eliminated by the
MegaTokyo Central team on a -very- controversial point by MegaTokyo
captain Kyodai).  To harbor such suspicions against him without any
grounds for them is irrational, not to mention a little bit cruel!"
        "Well, excuse me!" replied Umi, as soon as she'd recovered
from Fuu's somewhat elliptical discourse.  "How should I know he was
some kind of a saint?  I've never heard of him before."
        "Ladies - " Corwin started.
        "You could have asked Fuu," Hikaru declared.  "She -said- he
goes to her school.  I say he stays, at least until the storm is
over."
        "Why don't I just - " Corwin started.
        "Puu!" Mokona declared, wriggling free from Corwin to hop
agitatedly about the room.  "Puu pupuu PUU puu, puu!"
        "You keep out of this, Mokona!" barked Umi.
        "HEY!" Corwin shouted.
        Everybody (except Nall) jumped, startled by his sudden bellow,
and looked at him.  He let them hold that pose while he put on his
boots, then elaborated a little.
        "I don't want to cause a fight," he said, shouldering his
pack.  "If Umi wants me to go, I'll go.  I'm feeling better now that
I'm not bleeding anymore.  I'll be fine."
        "No, Mr. Corwin," said Fuu.  "I have already invited you to
stay for dinner.  It would be unforgivably rude of me to go back on
that invitation now."  She shifted her green gaze to Umi and said in a
tone that did not invite debate, "All right?"
        Umi looked petulant for a moment, then said grudgingly, "All
right."  She drained her other boot, then put them both back on and
added, "But if he can't behave himself, I expect -you- to handle it.
You're the one who invited him."
        Corwin turned to Fuu.  "Look, thanks for the invitation, but
for the sake of you and your companions' peace, maybe I'd better just
move along."
        "I won't hear of it," she replied flatly.  Her back was up
now, and she wasn't going to have him running off after she'd fought
for him to be allowed to stay.  "You need to eat something, at least,
before you go back out into that storm."
        Corwin knew when he was cornered, so he smiled graciously.
"It shall be as you say, my angel," he said, sketching out a courtly
bow.  Fuu's cheeks went a little pink as she turned away from him and
set about setting the table.  Umi rolled her eyes.
        Corwin, sensing that ignoring her would be the safest course
of action for all concerned, did that thing, going over to one of the
portholes and gazing thoughtfully into the whirling darkness beyond
it.  After a few moments, Umi - Umi? - announced that the table was
ready, and he turned and took a seat, eyes widening in appreciation.
        The table was not only set, it was loaded, almost groaning
under the weight of a spread like Corwin hadn't seen since... well,
OK, since the last time he'd been over to his Aunt Belldandy's for
dinner.  He wondered where all the food had -come- from; he hadn't
noticed any kitchen facilities or anything.
        Deciding there was no sense in arguing with good fortune, he
briefly bowed his head, gave thanks to his ancestors, waited for the
girls to start, then dug in.
        They ate in silence for a few minutes; then Hikaru looked
across the table at him and said, "So you're from New Avalon too,
huh?"
        "Yup," said Corwin.  "Well, part of the time, anyway.  My
father lives there, I go to school there, but Mom lives on Tomodachi."
        "Oh.  They split up?" she said, looking sad.
        "Nah," said Corwin.  "They were never really together in any
formal sense.  They're great friends, but their lives don't overlap
much.  It's kind of hard to explain."
        "Sounds it.  What are you doing here?"
        "I... "  He paused, considering his words carefully.  There
was really no proscription against just blurting out, "I'm a god, or
at least I'm bucking for the job," but a) she probably wouldn't
believe him and b) Umi definitely wouldn't, and he didn't want to
start another problem.  "My mother's people have some legends about
this place," he finally said.  "I'm here as kind of a rite of
passage.  I'm supposed to figure out what's gone wrong around here,
and whether it's going to screw up anything -outside- of this place."
        "Oh, I see," said Hikaru.  "We were summoned here to save the
world.  Maybe we should work together!"
        Umi put a palm to her forehead.  "Hikaru... "
        "Well, that's what Master Mage Clef said," Hikaru went on
doggedly.  "He said we had been summoned from the mortal world to
Cephiro by Princess Emeraude, the Pillar of Cephiro, because the world
is facing great danger.  We're supposed to gather up magic weapons and
Rune Gods and things in order to become the legendary Rune Knights and
save the world."  She thumped the table with a fist, her eyes sparkling, 
and said, "And that's just what we're gonna do!"
        Umi concentrated as hard as she could on winding spaghetti
onto her fork, muttering darkly.
        Corwin, who had heard of the Pillar and Master Mage, but not
any of this "Rune Knights" legend - neither in his official briefings,
nor in any of the stories of Cephiro he'd heard from the friends of
his who were born here - looked puzzled, then filed it away for later.
Whatever the case, it was obvious that Hikaru herself believed it
wholeheartedly, so there was no point in questioning her on it.
        Her enthusiasm, like her energy, was palpable.  She reminded
Corwin of his half-brother Leonard's mother; Kei Morgan wore her own
red hair in much the same way, a shaggy wolf cut with a long, thick
braid trailing from the nape of her neck, and carried herself with a
lot of the same unhesitating confidence.  There was nothing hesitant
or tentative about Hikaru Shidou.
        She had big dark red eyes fringed with impossibly heavy
lashes, and big cream-furred humanized-Salusian primary ears jutting
from her mop of scarlet hair, and everything else about her was tiny,
trim and athletic.  The detail work on her armor was mostly red too;
so was the school uniform underneath, except for her black skirt,
which had only a narrow red stripe around it.
        Corwin found himself quite liking her.
        "Well, I wish you luck," he said, grinning.  "In fact, I wish
I could stick around and help you out, but... "
        "You'd only be in our way," Umi declared.
        "You're -awfully- cranky today, Umi," Hikaru observed.
        "Who wouldn't be, trapped in this small room by this filthy
weather?" asked Umi peevishly.
        "I'm not," Hikaru replied cheerily.  "Neither is Fuu.  Or
Corwin.  It looks like it's just you."
        Umi looked at the redhead, then down at her plate, and heaved
a large sigh.  Rude as she was being to him, Corwin had to admit she
had good reason to be upset.  After all, it sounded as though the
three of them had been yanked willy-nilly out of normal lives and
dumped unceremoniously on the most messed-up planet in the universe,
right smack in the middle of a major planetary crisis.
        Corwin kept silent and looked her over, thinking.  She was
indeed Hyelian, of the same effective age as her two companions, which
would make her something like eighty Standard years old, for the elves
of Hyeruul are a very long-lived people.  She was well-scrubbed and
well-nourished, trim and slender as are almost all of her race, with
long, well-tended sea-blue hair, eyes to match, and long, delicately
pointed, highly mobile ears.  Under her blue-trimmed silvery-white
armor she wore the uniform of one of New Avalon's most exclusive
girls' schools, Fontainebleu Academy ("Le Chateau Snootee", according
to many in Corwin's circle, most of whom had little patience for the
place or its students).
        A child of privilege, then, accustomed to the leisurely and
undemanding pace of a Hyelian childhood.  Probably an only child,
since almost all Hyelian children are.  The lifespan of its people
keeps the nuclear families of Hyeruul small, the extended families
large and close-knit - but since expatriates are rare, that extended
family was probably still back on Hyeruul.  Corwin could only think,
off the top of his head, of two Hyelian expats: one was Mayl Popp'fl,
the other Tom Dani's-Husband (or so Corwin thought of him, to keep
from having to try and remember his surname), and they were both
certified weirdos if ever there were a certification standard.  Umi's
parents must be similarly odd, by Hyelian standards, to have moved to
a place like New Avalon, far from the pastoral calm of Hyeruul.
        With all that established in his mind, Corwin no longer felt
irritation at her hostility toward him - he realized suddenly that it
was a mask for the huge disappointment he must embody for her.  A
stranger to this world himself, someone verifiably from the world, the
-city-, that she knew and longed to return to, and he couldn't help
her.  He must seem the very pinnacle of uselessness to her.
        ... Well, OK, maybe the thought still gave him -some-
irritation.
        She realized then that he was looking at her, blinked, and
reddened slightly, her ears flicking back like an annoyed horse's.
        "What are -you- staring at?" she demanded.
        "Sorry," Corwin replied, returning his attention to his food.
"I was lost in thought."
        "I'll -bet-," Umi muttered.  What an irritating fellow!  If
she hadn't wanted the snowstorm to stop with all her heart -before-,
she certainly did now, so she could be rid of him.  Fuu seemed to like
him, but then he was a schoolmate of hers and apparently some kind of
leader, so that kind of thing was to be expected.  Hikaru seemed to
like him, but then Hikaru had no common sense, so she liked everybody.
Mokona seemed to like him, but then Mokona was a creature without, so
far as Umi had yet been able to determine, any sort of value
whatsoever, so who -cared- what it thought of him?
        "Anyway, isn't it awfully -convenient- that you should be
related to someone who once explored this planet, when no one back in
the Known Galaxy seems to have ever heard of it?  As stories go,
that's pretty weak."
        Before Corwin could reply, a high-pitched, somewhat blurry
voice addressed Umi from the bed.
        "Lady," it piped, "I've got a headache out of all proportion
to my cute little skull, and your voice is at -exactly- the wrong
pitch.  So couldja do me a big favor and -shut up-?"
        Umi flushed and looked around.  "What?!  Who said that?"
        Corwin dropped his forehead into his palm.
        "-I- did," the voice replied indignantly, and everyone but
Corwin turned to look toward the bed.
        Corwin's cat was awake, sitting up in a sort of sphinx
position and looking at Umi with an expression very much like a human
scowl.  Umi blinked at him, astonished.
        "Awww!" said Hikaru.  She jumped up, sat on the end of the
bed, and scooped the creature into her arms, scratching him on the
head.  "Aren't you the cutest thing?  Where did you come from,
kittycat?"
        "That's sort of a long story," Nall replied, unsuccessfully
trying to move his head out of range, "and wouldja knock it off?  I
said I've got a headache!"
        Hikaru didn't seem at all fazed by the fact that the cat had
just answered her rhetorical question; she just hugged him a little
tighter and admonished him, "If you'd stop moving around you'd feel
better."
        "All right, all right," Nall grumbled, subsiding and letting
himself be petted.  After a few moments he stretched, settling in a
bit better, and made a low purring sound.  "I guess this isn't so bad
after all," he allowed.
        "Did that animal just tell me to shut up?" Umi demanded.
        "Yeah," he said sleepily, "I did.  Your voice.  It grates."
        Umi rounded on Corwin.  "Is that -your- incredibly rude
talking cat?"
        "Um... well, yes and no," said Corwin.  "His name is Nall.
He's not a cat, and he's not really 'mine', since he's a sentient
lifeform... but I'll grant you he is incredibly rude.  After the day
we've had, though, I'd say he has a right to be a little cranky."
        "Yeah," Nall added, a slightly dreamy tone stealing into his
voice.  "Although... I gotta say... my day's... improving.  The only
thing... that could make it better... is... "  With this he seemed to
reawaken fully, his ears pricking up as he raised his head from the
crook of Hikaru's elbow to look around at the table.  "Food," he
finished with a pointy-fanged grin.
        "Help yourself," said Hikaru, "we've got plenty."  Getting
into the spirit of things with a smile, Fuu started setting a place at
the end of the table and portioning food onto a plate.
        "Ha-ha!" said Nall triumphantly.  He coiled himself, suddenly
all action, and sprang from Hikaru's arms toward the table.  It was a
good ten feet, and she didn't think he'd be able to make it... 
        ... until, at the apogee of his leap, he unfurled wings from
his back, and with a single wingbeat, cleared the distance easily.
        "Wow!" Hikaru declared.  "A -flying- cat!"
        "Since you were so nice to me," Nall declared as he alighted
at the end of the table, "I'll let that one slide, honey - but I'm not
a cat."
        "Oh?  Well, what are you, then?"
        Nall drew himself up grandly and declared, "I, my dear, am a
Great Alfheim Cat Dragon."
        Umi snickered nastily.  "'Great' in comparison to -what-?"
        Nall scowled at her.  "Cut me some slack, I'm only 14.  Could
you talk this well when you were 14, long-ears?"
        Umi blushed furiously and turned away with an irritated sniff.
The rest of the meal passed in a somewhat uncomfortable silence.  When
they had finished, Corwin pushed back his chair, got to his feet, and
bowed, one hand across his middle, the other folded behind his back.
        "I thank you, good ladies, for your help and hospitality this
day," he said.  "I fear we can impose upon you no longer."
        "Oh, no!" said Hikaru.  "Are you really going back out in
-that-?"
        "Yeah, what -she- said," Nall protested.  "I like storms and
all, but there's such a thing as too much."
        Corwin looked out one of the portholes.  "It looks like the
snow's letting up some," he lied, picked up his bag, and slung it
over one shoulder.  Then he found his hat, picked up his staff, and
went to the door.  "Good luck with your quest, girls.  When you get
back to New Avalon, look me up - I hope we all make it back."
        "Are you sure you have to go, Mr. Corwin?" asked Fuu,
concerned.  "I don't think the weather has improved as much as you
seem to believe... "
        He nodded.  "My real problem was the beating I took from... 
well, whatever those were... before the storm started.  Anyhow, like I
said - good luck!  Maybe I'll see you around again.  C'mon, Nall,
let's go."
        For a moment, Nall looked as though he might put up a fight
over it, but he saw something in Corwin's eyes and acquiesced,
permitting himself to be stuffed back into the relative protection of
Corwin's overshirt and tunic.  Once he was sure his partner was
secure, Corwin opened the door, wincing into the howling wind, and
struggled outside, then turned around, waved, and forced the door
shut.
        "OK," said Nall from inside his shirt, "I came quietly - now
you want to explain why we had to leave?"
        "You're the one's been complaining that I need to stay
focused," Corwin replied testily.  "I get caught up in their quest, I
lose track of my own, and then where are we?"
        Nall sighed.  "Couldn't you have stayed the night and then
stayed focused in the -morning-?"  Corwin didn't answer.  After a few
seconds, the dragon sighed again and said, "OK, fine.  Wake me up when
we freeze to death."
        Silent, Corwin turned and trudged away into the storm.

        Once the storm passed, the Knights emerged from their egg and
continued onwards toward Shalhara.  Even before the sun came out, the
snow melted and the mercury climbed rapidly to warm, late-spring
temperatures, all of which the Knights accepted as normal in this
extremely strange place where they found themselves.
        The sun came out mid-morning, and the rest of the day was
clear and sunny as the three would-be Rune Knights made their way
westward, through an area of sandy spaces, bluffs and sandstone cliffs
that would have reminded them of Arizona, had any of them known what
Arizona was.
        The events of the previous several days had been sobering
ones, and the Knights did not make much conversation as they walked,
each absorbed with her private thoughts.  
        Umi wondered bleakly if she would ever see her home again, or
if she were doomed to spend the rest of her life in this
incomprehensible wilderness.
        Hikaru missed her brothers and her dog, and wondered off and
on about the fate of the dark-haired stranger and his talking cat who
had vanished into the storm that very strange night.  
        Fuu found herself frustratingly unable to direct her thoughts
to productive matters.  Instead she kept dwelling on a single unuseful
thought: Corwin's appearance had reminded her of the even more
mysterious appearance of Mr. Saionji.
        Why was Saionji here?  How had he come to be here?  And why
didn't he want Fuu to show that she knew him already?  It was all most
puzzling.  He seemed to be looking over his shoulder, metaphorically
speaking, and Fuu couldn't help but feel a sense of ominous foreboding
thinking of his presence.  Not for her sake; in all the times she'd
met him, here and back home, he was never anything but kind and
courteous, and after all he -was- Corwin's elder sister's student in
the family kenjutsu form.
        No, the worry Fuu felt was on -his- account, she realized.
There was an air of danger hanging over his head, and Fuu couldn't
shake the feeling that it was all tied to the reason she and the other
Knights were here.  There was something else going on, something
hidden just below the surface, and Fuu Hououji did not like feeling
that she didn't know what was really going on.  It preoccupied her,
and since Kyouichi Saionji carried with him an almost palpable air of
the overarching mystery, -he- therefore preoccupied her.
        However, the sight of a cluster of houses with low growing
vegetable gardens around them forced her to put her preoccupations
away.  Umi stopped too, and Hikaru squared her shoulders.
        "Maybe we should go around," Umi suggested.
        Fuu nibbled on her lip while Hikaru stared at the village.
"Is that a shrine in there?" she said finally, bouncing up on her toes
to try and get a better look.
        Fuu squinted through her glasses, and nodded.  "It would seem
so," she said finally.  "Miss Uum'y, I know the townsfolk seem to be
somewhat nervous in our presence, but perhaps it would be wise to ask
at this shrine to make certain we are heading in the correct direction."
        Umi sighed.  "Oh, all right, let's get this over with," she
said, and they all headed for the village, Umi trudging, Fuu walking,
and Hikaru skipping slightly nervously, Mokona bouncing at her heels.
        They headed for the shrine.  Some of the townsfolk watched
them nervously from their vegetable gardens, not saying anything.  Umi
could -not- get her ears to stop twitching; being stared at so warily
made her feel like there was something perched on her shoulders making
faces at everybody, and she -hated- it.
        Fuu put on her politest face, but she was no more comfortable
inwardly than Umi.  The fact that the townsfolk regarded them with
such wary caution seemed to indicate that many things were not right
in Cephiro, but she didn't have enough information to figure out where
things had started going wrong.
        Hikaru was determined not to feel ashamed or nervous about
what she was supposed to be doing.  She was going to save their world!
The least they could do was look supportive.  They didn't actually
have to -do- anything, but it would be nice if they didn't give her
the Evil Eye.
        She bounded up the flagstone path to the shrine... and skidded
to a halt.  Draped artistically over the three stone steps that led
into the little shrine was a woman with long white hair, dressed in a
black catsuit and thigh-high boots.  She was reading something that
looked like a paperback novel, and set at her side was a staff with a
white-purple crystal orb in it.
        She looked up at Hikaru with bored violet eyes, and Hikaru
suddenly noticed that the woman wore gems - and a Lens - like their
own.  "Oh... ah... um... " she began, not at all sure how to deal with
the first person she'd met besides Master Smith Presea and Master Mage
Clef who obviously wielded magic.  The woman sighed.
        "Yes, what is it?  I've had enough fruit juice to drink, and
your sweets are quite dull really.  Unless you have something useful
to tell me, I've been interrupted by you villagers enough this
morning."
        "But - " Hikaru began, but the woman had already turned back
to her book.
        "Run along now, there's a good little girl," she said in a
bored tone of voice, "and leave those of us who make sure the world's
safe for people like you alone."
        Hikaru stared at her, ears drooping and an unhappy expression
growing on her face, and from behind her, she heard Umi say acidly,
"Apparently, people who make the world safe are old hags or midgets
with no fashion sense, and I'm -glad- I'm not one of them.  C'mon,
Hikaru, her head's so swelled it'd take a spear a mile long to get it
down to a size where she could say anything -useful-."
        Hikaru started to turn away from the white-haired woman,
greatful look on her face for Umi standing up for her.  "Yeah, you're
ri - OW!" she yelped, as a long fingered hand came down on her
shoulder, pressing in hard enough to -hurt-.
        "-No one- speaks to me that way!" the woman hissed, using
Hikaru as an anchor to stand up with.  She collected her orb on the
way up, and pointed it at Umi, who was glaring right back while Hikaru
grabbed for the woman's wrist.
        "Let -GO-!" Hikaru yelled, digging her fingers into the
tendons she could feel and prying the clawlike hand off her shoulder.
The minute she was free, she backed away warily, her right hand
hovering open to grab for her sword if she needed it.
        Fuu had her hand on Umi's shoulder, to stop her from pushing
forward.  "Are you all right, Miss Hikaru?" she asked.
        "I'm fine," Hikaru answered, not taking her eyes off the
woman, who was looking between the three girls with a frowning
expression, as if considering something.
        "Yeah, well, no old hag tells me I'm an ignorant peasant
either," Umi snapped, sounding like she was about ready to spit.
        That apparently tipped the balance, because the woman raised
her orb.  "Face the wrath of Alcyione, mage of Cold, -girl-," she
cried scornfully, and pointed the orb at Umi.  >ICE DAGGER!<
        Hikaru was ready for such an attack, but Umi wasn't.  Held by
Fuu, who had been trying to keep her from charging forward and
slapping the woman, she couldn't dodge fast enough.
        So Hikaru dove into the path of the icy missile, shouting,
"Run, get out of range - "  She choked off as the entire left side of
her body became a burning, icy cold.  She couldn't seem to breathe.
        Umi stared in horror as Hikaru choked on her words, landing on
her hands and knees almost in slow motion, and then opened her mouth
and vomited blood on the ground.  Then the elf stared up at the woman
with the icy-colored hair, wordlessly drew her sword, and charged.
        Fuu also charged, but it was mostly to see if she could pry
the icy shard out of Hikaru's side so that she could work her healing
spell on the Salusian - who was still trying to get up, even though it
was clear she was in such pain she couldn't see straight.
        "Gotta... help... " she wheezed as Fuu tried to get the icy
shard, slick with blood, to come out.
        "Lie still!" Fuu ordered, finding her grip tharted by Hikaru's
persistant desire to get up and help Umi.  She heard Umi scream as
something hit her, and then the sound of the sorceress shrieking as
Umi apparently scored a hit.
        Then, there was a flash of green and white in the edge of
Fuu's vision, and a roar of, "-WHAT- do you think you're -DOING!?-"
        Fuu looked up to see the white-and-green figure of Kyuoichi
Saionji having pinned Alcyione to the wall of the shrine.  Saionji was
unarmed - well, unless you counted that stick he'd been carrying last
time, which some of those boars would certainly agree was a weapon -
but that didn't seem to bother him as he held the woman against the
shrine wall with one ramrod-straight arm and used the other to hold
her staff at bay with the stick.  She was ranting furiously, berating
him for stopping her, demanding Umi's head on a spike, while Umi had
drawn back uncertainly and was standing protectively betweeen the Ice
Mage and Fuu and Hikaru.
        "You were ordered to -protect- them, you stupid fool, not
nearly kill them!" Saionji roared, his eyes blazing.  He glanced over
his shoulder, then back at the sorceress.  "If you've left the Knight
of the Flame too badly wounded to carry on, Lord Akio will have your
-head-!"
        That got the witch's attention; she paused in her ranting,
her eyes contracting to pinpoints of fear, then shrilled, "No, no!"
        Saionji looked back over his shoulder again, his face grim.
"Get her out of here," he ordered, locking gazes with Fuu.  "Now!"
        "Miss Uum'y, help me!" Fuu gasped, trying to slide her hands
under Hikaru's shoulders and lift.
        "But... " Umi hesitated.
        "Go!" Saionji roared, as Alcyione's voice spiraled up into
something like the beginnings of a curse.
        Umi snarled something under her breath, dismissed her sword,
and picked up the other end of Hikaru.
        As they hustled out of the village, they saw that there wasn't
a single townsman to be seen anywhere.

        Corwin was feeling distinctly out of sorts when he reached
Shalhara in late morning.  He wasn't ill; his training in Jotunheim
had given him plenty of practice surviving the miserable cold that
sometimes blew out of Niflheim.  Thanks to that, he had passed the
remainder of the night without freezing, Nall's sarcastic comments
aside - but it hadn't been -comfortable- by any stretch of the
imagination.  Breakfast had also eluded him, as he had found himself
-completely- unable to stomach the trail rations in his satchel.
        What was really weighing on him were more cerebral concerns.
What little information Fuu and her two companions had been able to
give him about their 'mission' here in Cephiro filled him with unease.
The thought nagged at him that he had been too hasty to separate
himself from their company; but the thought -also- nagged at him that
their presence represented a threat to his own mission.  Aside from
all that, he was worried about them.  Fuu was his friend, and aside
from her skill at archery, she hadn't much background to recommend her
as a mystic questor as far as he had ever been able to determine.
        What little of his mind wasn't taken up with -those- concerns
was battered by the thought that Nall had been right all along - he
should have brought Utena with him instead of the little dragon.  But
how was he supposed to know that he'd be sent to Cephiro?  The place
had been terra incognita in Asgard for centuries, and suddenly they're
sending an investigator as a Trial - not something he thought he could
reasonably have been expected to predict.  Nall had been good about
not mentioning it again, but Corwin was berating himself enough to
make up for that.
        Utena.  He had a promise to keep to her, and now he was in the
very world where he'd have to be in order to keep it - and his
obligation to the Council prevented him from trying, at least at
first.  It chafed at him to be inactive, to be a passive observer in
this obviously troubled land.  Nothing he saw here looked promising
from an Asgardian standpoint, and what would he do if he submitted his
final report and, on its basis, Frey successfully lobbied for the
destruction of Cephiro?  He'd never be able to face the girl he loved
again with that on his conscience.  But could he lie to the Council?
Or did another solution wait, just outside his field of view?
        All this went around and around in his head, flavored by
wholly irrelevant tangents like the occasional reminiscence of the new
and improved Vigdis Brightblade, as she had appeared to him just
before he left on his Trial.  That thought always annoyed him when it
came around again, because it was so irrelevant to everything that he
was trying to do here, and yet it kept recurring.  It was like having
a song stuck in his head.
        So the rapidly rising temperatures and threatenings of a
bright, sunshiny day were making him even more grumpy by the time he
stumped into the main marketplace of Shalhara.
        Nall, who knew better than to try and say -anything- to his
friend while he was in this sort of mood, was simply riding along
quietly, occasionally getting off to walk or stretch his wings.
        Thus it was that he wasn't expecting to be snatched out of the
air by a dark hand that deftly seized him by the scruff of the neck.
He let out an indignant squawk, and Corwin spun just in time to see
his friend being carried down a shadowed alley by a figure swathed
entirely in dark purple robes.
        "Hey!" he yelled, and charged down the alley after the figure.
        It always seemed to be just ahead of him, no matter how many
corners he turned, and he was getting winded when he finally rounded
the last corner and found himself in a shadowed nook at the edge of
town, looking out over the desert.
        Nall was sitting on a table, looking upwards at the thing that
was causing the shadow - it looked to be a floating island.  The
figure was sitting behind the table, still swathed from head to foot
in those purple robes, but when Corwin angrily met its eyes, he found
himself unable to say anything.
        Green eyes... why do I know these eyes?
        The figure itself was hidden, its face veiled, but Corwin was
sure the eyes were those of a woman.  As he realized this, she spoke
in a soft, husky voice.
        "They will need your help.  If you leave them now, they will
find their victory to be nothing but ashes and death."
        Corwin swallowed.  "It's not what I'm here for," he answered a
bit lamely.  "They can take care of themselves."
        The woman didn't react, didn't even seem to have heard him,
because she continued, "But if you help them, then those ashes may
have in them the seed of the rose that is to come."
        Corwin slammed his hand down.  "I can't do that yet!" he
shouted.  "And if I get involved in this, I'm going to be doing it
backwards!"
        Green eyes bored into blue.  "Your own victory will be ashes
too, if you do not follow the truth you are running from."
        "I've had enough of prophecies," he growled, and reached up.
Seizing the edge of the veil that covered the figure's face, he tore
downwards.
        Fabric unraveled until all he held was a square of dark
purple in his hands, and there was nothing there.  No one inside the
robes that he had been staring at, no eyes, no face, no hands.
        Nall turned around, and looked up at Corwin.  "She said we'd
find them up there, Corwin," he said, pointing with his nose to the
floating island.  Then, with a wry, slightly shaken little grin, he
added, "Now you get to think of a way to get your butt up there.
After we figure out how to get breakfast."
        Corwin stared at the violet fabric in his hands, then clenched
them into fists and took a deep breath.  He let it out slowly, and
then said, very slowly, as if he were biting the words off, "Nall, I
need ten minutes to myself."
        "Well, as it happens, there's a big desert out there," the
dragon answered, pointing with his nose again.  "Just don't take too
long."
        Corwin half nodded, and then went out into the desert to find
a cactus that needed to be taught a lesson.

        Their altercation with the ice sorceress had cost the Rune
Knights a half day's traveling, for though Fuu had been able to heal
Hikaru's wound, the effort involved had left her too weak to travel.
It was by far the hardest bit of healing she'd ever had to do, much
more difficult than even the patch-up job on Mr. Corwin, whose wounds
had been nasty-looking but not too severe.  Hikaru's had been worse -
potentially mortal, Fuu thought, though she tried not to think about
it too hard.  After a blow like that, even intrepid Hikaru wasn't
feeling particularly like spending the rest of the day tramping the
dusty roads of the scrublands either; so they'd gotten what they felt
was a reasonably safe distance from the village and camped for the
rest of the day.
        Now they were making good time again, restored by a good
night's sleep and the peculiar resilience of the 'tweenage girl (only
Fuu, after all, was technically a teenager).  Hikaru was as chipper as
ever, her brush with mortality completely blotted out by her natural
optimism, and she chattered cheerily to Mokona as the three of them
crossed the ever-thinning scrublands toward the Great Desert of
Shalhara.    Even Umi looked pleased and relieved, walking along not
far from Hikaru with an unusual spring in her stride.
        Fuu came along a little behind, smiling her quiet, satisfied
smile, though behind it, her mind was worrying furiously at the
ever-more-confusing knot of Mr. Saionji's role on all this.  Who, she
wondered, was this "Lord Akio" person he had mentioned to the
sorceress who had tried to kill them?  What did he know of their
mission, that he would send people to support the Rune Knights?  And
why did Saionji work for him?  Curiouser and curiouser... 
        She was preoccupied enough by these thoughts that she didn't
really notice it was coming they left the scrublands behind them and
suddenly, dramatically entered the Great Desert as if crossing a line
on a map.  As they entered the desert itself, Mokona's occasional
comments of "puu" became -much- more enthusiastic.  As they walked
along the hard track to the city of Shalhara, shimmering like a mirage
on the distant horizon, the creature began wriggling so hard that
Hikaru had to let go of it.
        It began hopping up and down, practically shouting, "Puu!
Puu!  Puupuupuupuu!!" and looking upwards.
        All three Knights looked up, and Hikaru let out a soft whistle.
"So -this- is where those floating islands we saw were!"
        "Mad, absolutely mad," Umi muttered, but her heart didn't seem
to be in it.
        When Fuu didn't say anything, they both looked away from the
island and at her.  Her eyes were closed, but she was facing upward.
        Then she slowly opened her eyes, and the other two Knights
gasped; her pupils were gone - not just contracted down to points,
GONE - and her irises had acquired a soft, subtle iridescence.  Her
hands opened at her sides, and she murmured something softly, under
her breath.
        And then she began to float upwards, wreathed in a faint
shimmer of the softest green.
        "Hey!  Wait!" Hikaru yelped, and made a lunge for her friend,
only to be stopped by Mokona.
        "Puu!" it exclaimed, shaking its rabbity ears in an emphatic
No.
        "But...Mokona, we can't just let her go up there -alone-!"
Hikaru protested.  "What if something bad happens?"
        "PuUUuuu... " the rabbitball considered.
        "Please, Mokona?" Hikaru entreated, while Umi stood off to one
side, her arms folded as she considered the futility of Hikaru's
pleading.
        "Puu!" Mokona seemed to decide, and then focused its eyes on a
patch of sand a short distance away.  Red light played over the sand
from the gem on its forehead, and then a huge bowl with wings appeared
on the sand.
        "All -RIGHT-!" Hikaru yelled, and ran for the bowl.
        Umi threw her hands up in the air and followed.
        The bowl began flapping its wings, and then rose into the
air.  The view over the desert was spectacular, but even Umi only
spared a glance for it; they were all looking up at the tiny speck
that was Fuu.
        As they rose higher, they began to catch up to her, and then
the bowl slid forward onto a flat paved area in front of a huge pair
of double doors.  Crystal spires rose out of the top of the island,
catching the sunlight and reflecting it off into rainbows all around
them, and the paving stones were white.  The doors were gold and green
and white, and Fuu was in the act of floating up to them.
        Hikaru glanced at Mokona.  "We're not supposed to touch her?"
she asked tentatively.
        "Puu!" Mokona agreed, nodding vigorously.
        "OK... " Hikaru said tentatively, and hopped out of the bowl
to have a look around.
        Then the doors opened, and Fuu floated across the threshold.
Suddenly, there was a soft chiming noise, as if wind chimes everywhere
were chorusing in a breeze.  It got louder and louder the further in
she went, and then in a swirl of light, they couldn't see her anymore.
        Every hair on the back of Umi's neck stood up, and her ears
twitched nervously.  "It feels like there's a storm coming," she
muttered, and then glared at Hikaru when the other girl turned to look
at her in amazement.
        Hikaru made a batting gesture, and nodded.  "Like a big
thunderstorm," she agreed.  
        "Maybe we should go inside?" Umi asked, making no move
whatsoever towards the towering edifice.
        "I dunno," Hikaru answered dubiously.  "Mokona didn't seem to
want us to go in there - "
        She cut off abruptly as Umi let out a shrill, pained scream.
The Hyelian pitched forward onto her knees, then to her hands and
knees, and Hikaru saw the shard of ice piercing the back of her armor.
        Then she heard the mocking laughter, and Alcyione hove into
view, mounted on a glittering frost-colored winged unicorn.  Its eyes
were amethyst purple and shimmered like a mirage.  The laughing Ice
Mage raised her orb.
        "That is for her insulting words earlier," she said, gesturing
at Umi.  "But you... I will have your heart, fire-girl," she snarled,
her face contorting for an instant, "for destroying my Lord Akio's
love for me.  And then I will bring it to him, and he will smile upon
me again!"
        White light flashed from her orb, struck the ground near Umi's
head, and Hikaru swallowed.  Two huge wolves, enormous beasts with
bristly, ice-coated fur, began stalking toward them.
        Hikaru drew her sword from her Lens in a swift burning flash,
then raised her free hand.
        >Fire Arrow!< she screamed, and flung her hand forward.  The
burning shafts sprang into being and launched themselves at Alcyione.
        >Ice Dagger!< Alcyione countered, and the icy shards, smaller
than the one that had embedded itself in Umi but just as razor sharp,
screamed toward Hikaru.

        "Oh, no sir," said the tenth sky captain Corwin had talked to
that morning.  "You don't want to go to -that- island."
        Corwin was getting tired of people telling him what he did and
did not want.
        "No," he said, "-you- don't want to go to that island.  In
fact, -nobody- here wants to go to that island, which makes it all the
more interesting to me.  You don't want to go?  All right, fine."  He
reached into his satchel, rummaged around, and then came out with a
large, gleaming gemstone in his hand.  "This is worth twenty pounds of
gold.  Sell me a boat and I'll fly up there myself."
        "I couldn't do that," the captain said, folding his arms.
Corwin felt quite convinced that he -could-, but that, for whatever
reason - perhaps the simple perversity of the rural mind - he
-wouldn't-.
        Corwin didn't have a lot of patience to spare today.
        The Shalharan sky captain, not having much experience with
Midgardian weaponry, had never seen a Mauser C/96 before, but he knew
a gun when somebody pointed one at him.
        He remarked to himself, as he walked slowly away from the spot
where one of his dinghies had been docked, that it was the first time
he had ever heard of anybody -giving- someone money at gunpoint.

        Fuu walked forward, dimly conscious of the sound of windchimes
echoing off the walls and into her ears.  The vaulted ceiling seemed
immensely far away, the doors an eternity behind her.  Only the circle
of floating crystals in the great hall before her, the brilliant light
coming from the larger crystal in the center, had any meaning to her now.
        She crossed between two of the six crystals; the chiming
got louder, more insistant.  A wind began to howl, circling around the
perimeter of the circle, and she put her hands against the glowing
central crystal.
        >Greetings, Rune Knight,< a voice blew into her mind.
        I know this voice, Fuu thought distractedly, and looked down
as the stones she stood on began to glow.  Lines of light connected
the floating crystals, creating a six-pointed star that contained both
her and a glowing point of light.
        Fuu backed slightly away from the light, her hand going to her
Lens and covering it, then drawing the Heart of the Storm from it.
        With both hands closed lightly around her sword, she regarded
the glowing crystal.
        >Show me that you are she who is meant to bear me,< the voice
rustled, like feathers in the wind.  >Unseal my strength and set it
free.<
        Fuu stared into the light, then transferred her sword to her
left hand.  Raising her right hand over her head, she chanted, >Tumult
of sound, rising of the clouds, green-black of the sky.  Harness my
strength and heed my call: EMERALD TORNADO!<
        As she finished, she brought her hand down over the point of
light, her palm toward the floor beneath.  The air surged out of the
stone, screaming its delight as much as the maelstrom outside the
crystals, and Fuu leapt.
        At the apex of her jump, she wrapped her hands around her
sword again, and then she descended with a screaming of wings and a
roar of green power, striking the glowing center crystal and cleaving
it in two with her blade.
        The crystal shattered, light flooded the chamber, and Fuu
landed, kneeling, with her blade stretched out before her.
        The sigil on the floor blazed to life, and she had just an
instant to make out the sign of the Phoenix before the winds wrapped
around her, lifted her upright, and set her gently on her feet again.
        They cleared, and a pair of wings that had contained both her
and the maelstrom drew back from her.  Fuu Hououji stared up into the
raptorial face of a great, green Phoenix.
        >I am Windam,< the voice declared.  >And I am Unbound by my
Rune Knight.<
        Fuu stared, then lapsed into her native tongue, murmuring
reverently, "Freaky-deak word, -Capital- G!"  (Roughly, "My, you're a
big one, aren't you?")
        >Thus will you bear me until the time comes that I reveal my
battle form,< he answered her, and the wings drew back, then closed
around her again.  She felt both warmth and coolness in an instant...
        And then he was gone, as was the ring of crystals and the
wind, and she could hear the sounds of battle outside.
        With the green strength still pounding in her veins, her armor
feeling as if it were both harder and lighter, she spun on her heel
and raced back the way she had come.

        Navigating the little flying sailboat turned out to be
trickier than it looked.  Corwin and Nall reached the edge not of the
Temple Island but of its nearest neighbor, perhaps fifty yards
distant, just in time to see Hikaru take an ice dagger to the shoulder
and go skidding back across the paved courtyard in front of Windam's
Temple.
        Nall let out a furious yowl and took to his wings as Alcyione
raised her orb and began whispering words in her cold, clipped Norse.
Corwin considered trying to follow him, but he'd barely managed to
moor the boat -here- without wrecking it, and he didn't really feel
like pressing his luck.  He started riffling through the ancient
sorceries in his mind.  He thought he might know an airwalking spell
that could get him this last little distance, if he could just
remember how it went.
        The wolves, seeing easy meat, slunk towards Umi, their ears
pressed flat to their heads, making them look more weasel-like.
        Corwin heard the furious screaming song of an enraged dragon
just before Nall came down on the wolves like a ton of glacial ice:
<< NOBODY!  MISUSES!  MY ELEMENT! >>  The Draconic scream of rage
nearly shattered everyone's eardrums and erased whatever Corwin had
been trying to think of clear from his mind, and then went on, << By
my right as Lord of the Winter Skies, I banish you from my sight! >>
        For an instant, as Hikaru staggered to her feet and looked
impressed, the shadow of a huge, sinous white-scaled being occupied a
good portion of the courtyard, coiled protectively around the prone
blue-haired girl.  Then the wolves gave howls of terrified recognition
and plunged over the edge of the island, vanishing midair in puffs of
frost before they hit the ground.
        Alcyione herself nearly fled after them, but then the demented
look in her eyes seemed to indicate that whatever self-preservation
instinct she'd once had, it was rapidly sublimating into madness.  She
stared, stunned, as the vision faded, and she was faced with a
spitting, furious cat hovering between her and the two Rune Knights.
Then, with a snarl of primal rage, she raised her orb and opened her
mouth to chant.
        The orb shattered.  The echoing clap of thunder that followed
a gunshot echoed across the space between the two islands.
        Alcyione's head jerked around to stare across the distance as
Corwin leveled his antique Mauser at her, aimed, and pulled the
trigger again.  She jerked, and blood began to seep down the front of
her catsuit.
        "No... " she whispered, and raised her empty-socketed staff
again, trying to muster her concentration.
        Winging her in the shoulder having failed to stop her,
Corwin's next shot punctured a lung, but he still could make out the
sharp, crystalline quality of the Norse as she turned and made as if
to fling one last spell at Hikaru.  >ICE - <
        Corwin didn't hesitate further.  Gritting his teeth, he let
fly twice more.  One shot hit her low in the side, one in the throat,
cutting off her incantation with an awful noise.  Alcyione fell
instantly, twitching, to the ground, her prematurely white hair mixing
with the blood of her ruined body on the paving stones of the
courtyard.
        Fuu Hououji slammed through the shimmering curtain of light at
just that moment and looked around frantically, her huge sword ready
in her hands.  Hikaru Shidou dropped to her knees, staring at her
fallen enemy, and chose that moment to pass out.

        Fuu took in the situation with a glance; once she'd assured
herself that Hikaru, at least, was not dying, she turned her
attention to Umi, who looked very pale.
        Nall walked over, sniffed at the fallen ice mage, gave the
cat-shaped equivalent of a shrug, and then came back to sniff at Umi's
hair as Fuu knelt next to her.
        "She gonna be OK, Fuu?" he asked, apparently more worried
about the elf than the enemy lying in her own blood on the platform.
        Fuu wasn't paying attention to the little dragon; she put a
hand gently on the front of Umi's breastplate, and Nall watched in
amazement as the elf's armor shimmered and reshaped itself, acquiring
a second set of pauldrons, upper arm guards, and in general a more
protective shape.
        >Healing Wind,< Fuu murmured, and green light spread from her
fingers to envelope Umi in its embrace, lifting her from the stones
for an instant and then setting her gently back down.
        "What--!" Umi let out with a gasp, sitting up right all at
once and drawing her rapier from her Lens in a flash.
        "It's over, Miss Uum'y," Fuu said, composedly.  "I must see to
Miss Hikaru now."  And she got to her feet and moved to Hikaru.
        Nall and Umi watched in amazement as Hikaru's armor underwent
a similar alteration, and the dragon realized that Fuu's armor already
had altered itself; it had been that same new shape from the time she
emerged from the Temple.
        The winds enveloped Hikaru, and then set her down, whole
again.  She came charging over to scoop up Nall and scruffle him
between the ears.  "That was so cool, what language was that?  What
did you say to those wolves?  And how'd you look so big?  You totally
saved our bacon there, thanks!"
        Umi stared at Nall, then over her shoulder at the fallen Ice
Mage.  "Um, Hikaru, quick reality check here - what HAPPENED?!"
        Fuu followed Hikaru at a more sedate pace, but nodded at Umi's
question.  "I admit to some curiosity myself," she pointed out.
        Hikaru's pigtail swung excitedly behind her and her primary
ears twitched in time with her recital as she bounced up and down and
explained: 
        "Well, that Ice Witch skewered you, and I didn't have time to
get Fuu so I used Fire Arrow on her, but she was totally out of her
mind, and then Nall showed up and got about a hundred times bigger
than he is now and shouted something at the Ice Wolves that were about
to take a big chunk out of your face, Umi, and they threw themselves
over the edge, and then somebody -shot- her and she fell over and Fuu
came out in neat new armor and I kinda figured it was OK to kinda pass
out then and now you're OK and you have neat armor too!"
        "Um, helloooo," came the cry, and all four of them looked over
to see Corwin waving his arms.  "Are you guys OK?" he shouted through
the bullhorn of his cupped hands.
        Umi glanced down at the unmoving shape of Alcyione and turned
a little green, but all she said was, "Uh, well, doesn't look like she's
going to hurt us again anytime soon," while Hikaru shouted,
        "You rock!  -THANK YOU-!"
        "Somebody want to bring him over here?" Nall asked wryly,
scrambling out of Hikaru's arms to perch on her shoulder.
        "Oh, how silly of me," Fuu said, and held up one hand.  Green
light flashed across the intervening distance, and a swirl of winds
wrapped around Corwin and swiftly transported him to the flagstones of
Windam's Temple.
        As Corwin landed, he looked over the three Knights, then
glanced at Alcyione and nodded.  "Glad to see she didn't do anything
-permanent-," he said, and gave Umi a crooked smile.  "Sorry, I got
here a little late."
        Umi blushed faintly, and tried to scowl.  "Well, better late
than never, I guess," she began, but Hikaru suddenly gave a little
gasp and moan.
        The others turned to see her kneeling next to Alcyione.
"Dau'kar," she whispered; then she pinned Corwin with her horrified,
angry gaze.  "You... she's -dead-!  I mean, actually, really DEAD!"
        Corwin looked again, then nodded.  His face held no
satisfaction, but it didn't have much in the way of remorse either.
        "That's what these things do," he said quietly, drawing his
sidearm.  Then, seating himself on the ground, he pumped the remaining
rounds from the mostly-spent magazine, then set about replenishing it
with deft, quick movements of his hands.
        Hikaru gazed down at him, her face a mask of dismay.  "Why did
you do that?" she demanded.
        Corwin paused, then looked up at her.
        "She was trying to kill you," he said.  "For all I knew, she
already -had- killed Umi."
        "But you could have -warned- her!" Hikaru insisted.  "Told her
to stop, only wounded her, done -something-.  Once you kill somebody,
that's... that's forever!"
        "Usually," Corwin replied.  "Anyway, I -did- wound her first.
She didn't stop.  She was crazy, I think.  She knew I'd kill her if
she kept trying to cast that spell.  She kept trying to cast the
spell.  I killed her."  He shoved the fresh charge into the Mauser,
pulled the charging clip back out, closed the bolt, made sure the
safety was set, and holstered the weapon, then stood up and brushed
dust from his pants.
        "Listen," he said to Hikaru, who was standing there
dumbfounded by his bald-faced declaration.  "I didn't -want- to kill
her, OK?  I take no joy in it.  But I had a choice to make.  In that
moment, I had her life in my hands, and I had yours, and I could only
keep one.  I had to choose who lived and who died."  He folded his
arms and gave her a steady, calm, rather sad look.  "That's what it
means to be a Chooser of the Slain."
        Hikaru stared at him, her lingering indignation and amazement
slowly melting into something more like awe.  He held her eyes with
his for a moment, then turned and walked away - away from the girl who
had accused him, and from the still, silent corpse of the first person
he'd ever killed.
        Hikaru watched him go for a few moments, then said haltingly,
"W... wait a minute."  She hesitated, then trotted after him.  "I'm
sorry, I didn't understand... "
        Corwin stared over the edge of the island, down at the dunes
of Shalhara spreading out below them, and said nothing.
        Hikaru swallowed.  "I guess... I guess I didn't think it
through.  It's so much like a story... I mean, I knew we were going to
have to fight, we got weapons and everything.  But...I didn't think
we'd have to kill anybody."  
        She gave him a brief, hopeful smile as he turned to look at
her.  "Kumbarlyn's more of a dueling thing, I sometimes forget it
evolved from killing people.  It's not... " she looked back at
Alcyione's cooling form.  "It's not like the practice hall, is it."
        Corwin shook his head, and finally put a hand on her
shoulder.  "No," he answered, his voice breaking a bit.  "Not really."
        She took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly.  She
looked up at him.  "Will you spar with me, then?" she asked.  "So that
I can get good enough that next time, nobody will have to pick one
life over another?  Every chance I can practice, maybe it means
somebody won't die next time."
        Corwin managed a smile.  "As soon as we get down, sure."

        They got down in the same giant flying bowl that had carried
the Rune Knights to the island in the first place.  Mokona burbled his
pleasure the whole way down, Fuu recounted as much as she understood
of what had happened in the Temple, and then the bowl settled to the
ground and dissolved gently, leaving the Knights and Corwin standing
on the dunes.
        "OK, Mokona!" Hikaru declared enthusiastically.  "Camping
time!"
        Mokona planted his big rabbity feet, declaimed, "Puuuuuuuu!"
and red light flashed from the gem on his forehead.  The beam played
over the sands before them, and the egg-shaped dwelling that Corwin
had earlier clobbered himself on sprang into being.
        Umi flipped her hair over her shoulder, and -Looked- at
Hikaru, who linked her hands behind her back and said, "Whaaaaat?  -I'm-
going to be outside sparring."
        "Good!" Umi declared, and then turned the Look on Mokona.
"And I guess there'd -better- be fish in there this time."
        "Puu!" declared Mokona, unconcerned.
        Umi gave him a skeptical look, but went up the side of the
egg.
        Corwin and Nall looked at each other, and Nall licked his
lips.  "Mmmmm," Nall said, and bunched himself for launch from
Corwin's shoulder.
        "It would perhaps be advisable to leave Miss Uum'y alone," Fuu
said, putting a gentle hand on Nall's back.
        "Yeah," Hikaru put in.  "She gets awfully fussy about the
kitchen while she's cooking."
        "The egg doesn't have a kitchen," Corwin protested.
        "It does right now," Hikaru replied with a shrug.
        Nall sighed.  "OK... then you can skritch my ears, Fuu, since
Hikaru's gonna be busy."
        Fuu smiled her gentle little smile and obligingly skritched,
while Corwin drew Stick, Hikaru drew her sword, and they went at it.
        After a few minutes of this, Nall remarked between purrs,
"That's a pretty impressive sword she's got."
        Fuu nodded, sitting down with Nall in her lap to watch.  "Our
swords have changed since Master Smith Presea gave them to us - just
as she told us they would.  Mine has grown longer, Miss Hikaru's has
gained the ornamentation on the hilt that you see, and Miss Uum'y's
has acquired a wing in place of the original guard over her hand.  Our
armor has also become more substantial.  I will be interested to see
what shape it finally chooses when we are invested as full Rune
Knights."
        Nall was purring so hard by the time she finished that he
was beyond bothering to answer.
        Approximately half an hour later, just when Corwin was
starting to get slightly winded (although Hikaru's energy, like that
of some other fighting girls he could name, seemed boundless), Umi
stuck her head out of the egg and said, "All right, you can come in
now."
        Nall shook off his lethargy with an amazing speed and beat
even Hikaru through the door, to find that a place had been set for
him at the table, and a -whole salmon-, neatly filleted, was waiting
at his place.  There were various other dishes at the places, and in
the center, a -huge- bundt cake, smelling faintly of sherry and more
strongly of nutmeg.
        Corwin and Nall hadn't realized the last time they had been
fed that they were eating Umi's cooking, and within a few bites they
had both slowed down to appreciate it.
        Umi, who knew a compliment to her cooking when she saw one and
who knew a pair of chow-hounds when she saw them, didn't say anything,
but smiled a little smile and continued eating without any comment at
all.

        Immediately after dinner, Nall took off with the salmon he had
been too full to eat between his paws while Mokona and Hikaru did the
dishes.  He flew to the far side of the sand dune from their tent-egg,
and there settled down.  After Corwin made sure that Hikaru didn't want
to keep sparring on a full stomach (thank Zarquon), he went in search
of his friend.
        He found the dragon curled up, with about half the salmon
eaten, rumbling softly to himself in dragon song.
        "Are you OK?" Corwin asked, hunkering down next to the
somewhat flattened Nall.  The little white dragon looked up into his
friend's face, and for a moment, Corwin saw naked and bewildered
confusion in Nall's face.
        Then the dragon jumped to Corwin's shoulder and butted his
friend with his head.  "Yeah, I'm fine.  I was just a little tired.
Damn, she can cook - that cake just about filled me up after dinner,
and that salmon... mwah!"
        He paused, then switched back to the previous thread of the
conversation and continued, "But I was just so damn mad... I mean,
that... thrice-damned n'kranda was using -my element- to hurt that
stupid girl... I mean, she can act like such a pig, but it's not -her-
fault she's here, and to get killed with -my- element for just being
in the way... I lost my temper."
        "I noticed," Corwin said dryly.  "But did you notice what
happened?"
        "Which part?" Nall asked, and then, "Can you pass me the rest
of that salmon, I'm hungry again."
        Corwin obligingly picked up the salmon and held it while Nall
wolfed it down.  "You manifested," he pointed out.  "Great White
Dragon and everything - an aura superimposition, not a full change,
but pretty darn powerful."
        Nall paused between bites, got a thoughtful look on his face,
and then finished the salmon.  Burping softly, he nodded.  "I guess
Frey was right, this place really -does- amplify magical power.
'Cause I shouldn't be able to do that until -after- we finish this
whole ordeal."
        Corwin picked his friend off his shoulder and flopped back on
the sand, staring up at the sky.  "Yeah.  I'd figured."  He paused,
then smiled wryly.  "Thanks, Nall."
        Nall blinked, then cocked his head at Corwin curiously.  "What
for?"
        "For being here and not ragging on me today when we rescued
the girls.  And for -helping-."  He propped himself up on one elbow
and grinned at the little dragon.  "Thank you, O Great Dragon Nall,
for saving Umi Ryuuzaki's bacon."
        Nall grinned.  "Don't mention it, Rocket Boy," he said
teasingly, and then curled up next to his friend in a little hollow in
the sand.
        There was companionable silence for a little while, and then
Nall muttered, "D'you think they'd give us a bed if we asked nicely?"
        "No," Corwin answered.  "But they might give us a blanket.
Anyway, it's a nice night out."
        "Mmm," Nall answered.
        And the two of them fell asleep on the dune.

        The next morning, they were woken by the sun, peeping over the
horizon, and by the realization that during the night, they had both
got sand in their mouths.
        "Ppppthh," Nall declared, spitting.  "I -told- you we
should've asked for a bed."
        "And I told you they wouldn't've given us one."
        "Bleh, well, they'd -better- give us breakfast then," Nall
spat, shaking the sand out of his wing feathers.
        Corwin sat down and poured the collected sand out of his
boots.  "You're sure we should stick with them?" he asked
tentatively.  "And not just for the food?"
        Nall stopped hissing and spitting abruptly, and sat down.
After a little while, he nodded.  "Yeah, I am.  They said the Pillar
summoned them here to 'save Cephiro and become Magic Knights.'  Utena
didn't mention -anything- about that and neither did anybody else, but
I'm guessing they'll lead us straight to whatever the imbalance Hildy
was talking about is.  And since we're supposed to categorize what
effect this'll have on the Nine Worlds, I think we should put in that
the Pillar summoned -outsiders- to save her world."
        Corwin grinned.  "OK.  Just making sure it wasn't -only- your
stomach talking, furball," he agreed.  "Let's go find the girls."
        The sound of an argument came to their ears as soon as they
came in sight of the tent-egg.
        "Ah, the mellifluous tones of Umi in a bad mood," Corwin mused.
        "Good word," Nall answered wearily.  "Maybe we shouldn't stick
around with them, after all."
        "Oh, come on, where's your sense of adventure, dragon?" Corwin
teased as he walked up to the egg.
        "RIGHT!" Umi said, spinning and waving a finger in their
direction.  "You sweet-talked your way out of it last night, but this
time we want some answers, and we want 'em straight."
        "('We'?)" Hikaru mouthed.
        Fuu poked her head out the door of the egg, sighed, and sat
down on the step, looking as if the commotion had woken her up.  She
still wore her green nightdress, and her honey-blonde hair was
mussed; she put on her glasses and blinked tiredly at the obstreperous
Hyelian.
        "When didn't I give you straight answers?" Corwin asked,
puzzled.  "Last night?  Or the first time we met and you made it clear
I wasn't wanted?"
        "Yeah," agreed Nall.  "It's not like he's followed you around
making cryptic remarks for weeks at a time."
        "I don't care!  Everything about this place is weird, and I've
got to get a straight answer out of -something- or I'll go completely
nuts!"  She grabbed a handful of his Mycean cloak, yanked him nose to
nose with her, and growled, "Now you tell me who you really are, and
where you're really from, and what you're really doing here, or...
or... or I'll make you wish you had!"
        Corwin stared back at her across the negligible gap separating
them for a moment, resisted a sudden wild urge to kiss her just to see
what she would do, then threw back his head and guffawed.  "OK, you
win," he said, extricating himself.  "How can I resist such a
compelling ultimatum before breakfast?"
        Nall choked back a giggle.
        Corwin squared himself up, cleared his throat, looked from
girl to girl to poofy white thing to girl, and said as seriously and
formally as he could manage,
        "My name, as I have told you, and as Fuu already knew, is
Corwin Ravenhair.  I am the son of Gryphon, the Midgard-Knight, and
Skuld Ravenhair, Norn of the Future, Goddess of Technology.  I split
my time between my father's place in New Avalon, Mom's house on
Tomodachi, and a small apartment on the Street of the Eternal Heroes
in Asgard, the Golden City of the Gods.  Why I'm here is just like I
told you - to find out what's going wrong in Cephiro, and figure out
if it's going to take Creation with it if it falls completely apart.
If I manage to come back with enough information to make my grandfather 
and the other gods happy, I ascend to full godhood and get a big heap
of gold and a place in the pantheon.  If I blow it, I'll probably die."
        Four pairs of eyes stared back at him in utter silence for
several seconds.
        Then:
        "My, that's impressive," murmured Fuu, only to be drowned out by:
        "Puu!" said Mokona.
        "WOW!" said Hikaru.  "That's awesome!"
        "Hi-KA-ru!!" Umi fumed, barely restraining herself from
bashing the diminuitive Salusian on the top of the head.  "Tryyj'ttat,
you don't BELIEVE him?!  Goddess of Technology!  -Asgard-!
T'ch'nn-k'luongo!"  She threw up her hands.
        Corwin shrugged.  "Hey, it's not my problem if you don't want
to believe me."  
        "I think her problems are everybody's problems," Nall
observed, still amused.
        "ARGH!" Umi exploded, and dove for Nall, who let out a little
squeak and took off, flying away.  Umi charged after him, still
ranting.
        Corwin looked at the other two girls and the fluffy rabbit
thing.
        "Hey," observed Hikaru, picking up Mokona.  "At least she's
not chasing -you- this time."
        "Puu," Mokona answered.
        "What brought this on?" Corwin wondered.  "She was sane enough
last night."
        "Bad dream," Hikaru supplied.
        Corwin blinked, and Fuu expanded, "There is a fencing
tournament Miss Uum'y was planning to compete in taking place in less
than two weeks.  She is quite terrified that she will let her
teammates down and be unable to return home in time for it."
        "Oh," Corwin said, and looked back at Umi, who had ceased
screaming and was trudging back toward them, fuming.  Nall was
hovering erratically, laughing so hard that he was having trouble
staying aloft. 
        I guess that makes sense," Corwin allowed thoughtfully.
        "Ok, fine, since you're -not- going to give me a straight
answer," Umi growled, as soon as she was back in grabbing distance of
Corwin, "then you can at least help us get this -chore- out of the way
as fast as possible.  Right?"
        Corwin smiled gamely at her.
        "Oh GREAT!" Hikaru laughed, and hugged Corwin.  "But do we get
breakfast first?" she added, looking hopefully at Umi.
        Corwin expected another outburst, but instead all they got was
a sigh.  "Oh, sure...fine, whatever.  But the flying cat doesn't get
salmon.  He doesn't deserve it this morning."
        A glance at Nall, who was wobbling midflight because he had
the hiccups, made Corwin smile.  "No, I don't suppose he does," he
said equably.

        After breakfast, Mokona demolished the tent, and then created
by the same means the flying bowl that had carried them down from
Windam's Temple.  The six of them piled into the bowl, Hikaru at the
front with Mokona perched on the rim next to her, and the thing took
off.
        It moved much more quickly than Corwin had expected, and was
certainly more comfortable than walking.  Nall curled up at the back
and cat-napped, while Hikaru explained to her brand-new captive
audience who she was (a Salusian expatriate now living in New Avalon),
how she'd gotten there (her brother ran a Salusian kendo dojo and had
come to New Avalon to get the rank of Master), and how cool this whole
thing was (very).
        Corwin had to admit that even after her shock yesterday, she
was certainly resiliant.  She wasn't letting it get her down.
However, there wasn't room to spar inside the bowl, so the two of them
talked about the various martial arts styles they'd seen, and the
merits of each.
        Umi sat near the front and fumed.
        Fuu stayed out of the conversation, and Corwin wondered idly
why she wasn't contributing - 
        - until her hand was suddenly at her Lens, then drawing back
to her ear the string of a bow she hadn't been holding a moment before.
        (Funny thing, some unattached part of his mind noted, about
the Lenses.  Another one of the weird parallels between Cephiro and
Midgard, he supposed, an artifact of the way the Tenth World was a
sort of warped reflection of Midgard in the mirror of Svartalfheim.)
        The other Knights were on their feet in a flash as Fuu planted
a shot in the eye of a huge black monstrous bird that was diving
toward them.  The bird screamed and went from a dive to a plummet.
        Corwin gaped, but Hikaru and Umi drew their swords and waited,
one on each side of the egg in positions that had obviously been
discussed beforehand.
        Their caution was warranted as the bird, suddenly closer,
huge - the thing had a beak over a foot long - and blind in one eye,
surged upward on Umi's side of the bowl, and darted its head forward
to snap at her.
        Her rapier neatly skewered the thing in its other eye, and
then Hikaru was next to her, smashing her heavier blade down on its
beak, driving it closed and drawing a huge gash in the top of it.
        This time the bird's plummet was a more controlled, keening
spiral, and Hikaru snarled something in Salusian.  Then she glanced at
Corwin.  "Better get your staff out," she told him, and braced herself.
        Beneath them, out of the forest, a black cloud began to boil.
"Nall!" Corwin yelled as he summoned Stick.
        Nall woke up. "Huh?"
        "Battle," Corwin answered grimly.
        Nall didn't bother wasting breath; he sprang to the lip of the
bowl, and dug in his claws.
        Fuu had the time to fire two shots into the black cloud before
she exchanged her bow for her sword, and then they were engulfed by
the mass of birds, black as ravens, with glowing red eyes and fiery
breaths.
        The three swords flashed, Stick swung, and ice fogged the air
around Nall, and the battle was joined.  The girls quickly went back
to back, defending each other, while Corwin whirled around them, Stick
spinning like a blender around him.
        He silently thanked each and every one of his Valkyrie weapons
teachers who had yelled "FASTER!" at him, because he was going at top
speed now and he was -still- feeling impacts of beaks in his shoulders
and back.
        Then, with a rush, the bowl emerged from the cloud, leaving
the birds behind them, and Mokona declared, "Puu!"
        The boat went faster.
        Nall sank to the floor of the boat, panting and looking
wilted.  Corwin put his hand to his face; it came away speckled in
blood.  He let Stick lapse back to immateriality and started hunting
through his pack for his first-aid supplies.
        The girls were all somewhat pecked, but much less than the two
adventurers.  "That wasn't so bad," Hikaru said, smiling.
        "Yeah, right," Umi snarled, but her heart wasn't really in
it.  "OK, I guess we -have- had worse, but it still wasn't any fun."
        "You're telling me," Nall panted, and resumed licking at his
bloody and broken tail.
        Fuu went over to Nall, gently picked him up, and whispered
over him, >Healing Wind.<
        Green light swirled, and the tail straightened itself with an
audible crack, and then Nall let out a sigh of relief.  "Wow, that's
good stuff," he mumbled, and butted her hand with his head to show his
appreciaton.
        Fuu turned to the others, but Corwin and Hikaru each waved her
off.  "Save it for when it's really important," Corwin answered, when
Fuu started to object.  "These'll all heal on their own, it's nothing
serious."
        After a moment, Fuu nodded, and subsided.
        Hikaru and Corwin patched each other up with his medkit; then,
for several hours, there was quiet and tired silence in the bowl.

        Travel with the Rune Knights proved to Corwin that the larger
the group, the more hazards you run into, but the more capably you can
deal with them.  The next day, when they were ambushed just after
setting out, Corwin made it into the triangle of Knights to form a
square, and Nall laired inside the foursome, keeping things from
dropping on them.
        Another monster, a large tentacular... -plant- thing... with
several nasty-looking mouths inside its flowers, was dispatched by
surrounding it and beating it until it withdrew into its floating
island, although the midair islands were few and far between by this
point.
        As the sun was just beginning to touch the horizon of the
ocean before them, Umi stood up, her eyes a glittering flat blue, and
whispered something in her native language that none of the others
understood.
        Mokona directed the bowl-boat above the sea, and Umi moved to
the edge of it.  Then there was a great bubbling below the waves, and
everyone ran to the edge next to her.
        A huge, scaly sea-serpent creature reared up out of the waves,
opened a huge mouth full of jagged teeth, and roared.
        Umi seemed -completely- unaware of it as she hopped lightly up
to the edge of the boat.
        "Now, Leviathan!" they all heard from the shore - well, all
but Umi, anyway.  Corwin glanced over his shoulder and saw a small boy
with brown hair covering his eyes and the glittering green gems of a
mage on his garments.
        The monster gave another roar; then Leviathan heaved itself
further out of the water and surged for the boat.
        Umi launched herself in a perfect dive into the water, and
Hikaru and Fuu and Corwin all drew.  "Abandon ship!" Hikaru yelled, a
laugh sort of stuck somewhere in her throat, as she caught Mokona in
one arm and jumped, cannonball style, into the ocean.  The others
followed suit with more or less elegance just before the Leviathan's
jaws closed around the bowl-boat.
        The sea monster amused itself by ripping the boat apart as the
three remaining occupants swam to shore, Mokona perched atop Hikaru's
head.  Nall hovered above them, casting nervous glances between the
Leviathan and the boy on the shore.
        As soon as they were out of the water, Hikaru and Fuu spun
and began to chant.
        Green light and red fire raced from their hands to strike at
the Leviathan, which howled in pain, while Nall and Corwin advanced on
the boy.
        His huge floppy hat nearly covered the green gem set on its
own band, and his bangs did entirely obscure his eyes, but it was
fairly obvious just from looking at him that he was a powerful mage,
even if he were only still a child.
        He wore the same style of Lens that the three Knights sported
on their left hands.
        As the Leviathan screamed in pain and struck back at the two
Knights on shore with torrents of water and waves thrown up from its
huge flippers, Corwin called Stick to his hand and stepped forward.
"I don't know what you think you're playing at, kid," he said, "but
it's -not- funny."
        The boy glared at him. "Of -course- it's not funny," he said,
in an un-childlike voice.  "I know why they're here, and I -have- to
stop them.  I don't want anyone to get hurt, but if you're going to
help them, well, I don't have any choice."
        "What they're here for?" Corwin asked, blinking.  "They're
here to save Cephiro!"
        That bought an unhappy laugh from the boy, who swung his hand
out and towards the sandy dunes that rose away from the sea.  "Not
really," he answered grimly.  >Summon monster!<
        The dune face only a few dozen yards ahead, to their left,
suddenly exploded in a great outburst of redstone rubble, blowing up a
huge cloud of red-brown dust.
        Corwin blinked, then grabbed for Stick, took a couple of
smooth steps back, and braced himself, waiting.  A moment later what
he was waiting for showed itself, as something that looked rather like
a lobster the size of a Volkswagen minibus lunged out of the hole in
the dune and made for him with a giant pincer.
        "This'd be funny," Nall observed, "if it wasn't so damn
dangerous."
        "Life's like that," Corwin replied philosophically.  "Ask
Utena sometime."

        Umi had never thought of herself as a particularly good
swimmer, but the instant she dove from the edge of the boat into the
water, some instinct that had lain dormant in her mind woke and took
over.
        She hit the water with barely a splash, dimly noting that
there was a sea monster nearby and avoiding its thrashing limbs
beneath the waves.
        When she was thirty feet down, the momentum from her dive and
the sunlight were almost gone, but she swam as if she could see
exactly where she was going.  In the back of her mind, the quiet,
rational part of her that stood apart from everything that was going
on observed idly that she was acting just as weird as the other two
Knights.
        But the call, low and rumbling, that was leading her forward
was much too strong and certain of itself to be even remotely bothered
by the fact that her behavior in heeding it could be considered odd.
        She swam forward and down, finally reaching the dark temple,
with its huge doors in front of her, and then reached forward,
touching one hand to the crack in the doors.
        There was a sound like some huge bell tolling once, a long way
off, and dim, flickering light washed out from her hand to illuminate
the doors in muted pearly tones.
        She had just enough time to see the six-pointed star inscribed
on the surface, and then they swung open.
        Darkness met her gaze for an instant, and then the pillars
that ran the length of the hall each lit up, one after another, with
the same pearly light.  She swam forward, her hair swirling behind her
in the eddies.
        At the end of the hall, six steps led up to a huge mural
painting of a dragon, blue as the sea, with vast wings, a saurian head
and a serpentine neck and tail.  She reached the steps and stopped,
floating a foot or so above the first one, hair in an aurora around
the back of her head.
        >Greetings, Rune Knight.<  The voice was like the sea, sighing
and deep and full of secrets.
        She bowed her head once in reverence; Hyeruul was well
acquainted with dragons, and its people accorded them the respect they
deserved.
        She looked back up with glittering blue eyes.  {Hail, Father
of the Sea,} she answered in her own tongue.
        >Show me that you are she who is meant to bear me,< the voice
boomed, like the waves of a storm.  >Unseal my strength and set it
free.<
        Without hesitation, Umi drew her rapier from her lens,
pointed it at the wall, and began to chant:
        >Birth of life, strength unending, to which all return in the
end, strengthen my arm!  BLADE OF THE WAVE!<
        She brought back her arm, and then lunged forward in a perfect
fencing thrust, no matter that she was floating in the ocean, striking
just below the jaws of the giant dragon.
        Her rapier hit something that was -not- the wall; it felt like
glass.  For an instant, everything was still and then she was through,
and light radiated out in cracks, from the point of her blade,
shattering both the barrier and the mural behind it.
        As the dust flooded the water and blew her backwards, she felt
the force that had called her emerge from the wall, wings and all, and
gazed up into the face of a giant blue Dragon.
        >I am Celes,< he declared, raising his head to trumpet.  >And
I am Unbound by my Rune Knight.<  
        Umi said nothing; for once, there was nothing she felt the
need to say.
        Celes lowered his head, and touched the tip of his snout to
Umi's hand.  >Thus will you bear me until the time comes that I reveal
my battle form,< he declared, and the waves roared around her for an
instant.
        When they cleared, he was gone.  Umi had the distinct feeling
of -need- elsewhere and a new strength surging in her armor.  Not
bothering to dismiss her blade, she pointed upward and felt the Sea
answer her need.  A jet of water surged beneath her, propelling her
towards the surface.

        Corwin jumped straight up in the air; the pincer clapped shut
beneath him with a force that could have cut him in half.  In midair
he whirled the staff and brandished it high, then brought it down as
he fell, driving the full weight of his body behind its metal-shod tip
as it struck the creature's left forelimb just back of the pincer.
There was a wet, splintering crunch, and the staff sank through the
limb, causing the pincer to snap spasmodically before falling limp.
        Corwin landed, feet planted on the thing's claw on either side
of the point of impact, and heaved his weapon out of the monster's
limb as it writhed, its good claw snapping.
        Hikaru and Fuu, who had finally finished with the Leviathan,
arrived in time to see the other pincer lunge at him with unexpected
speed; he turned to meet it, but too late, and for a second it looked
like he was going to be crushed.
        Then Nall dove, shouting something, and the monster's claw was
suddenly encrusted with some glittering crystalline material that
stopped its lunge for an instant.  The next instant, the material had
shattered, freeing the creature to resume its lunge, but the moment of
delay had bought Corwin all the time he needed.
        He took a step back, then sprang into another leap,
backflipping away from the monster to land on a large rock.  Then he
used his landing on that rock as a winding crouch for -another- leap,
this one straight back at the monster, his staff set like a lance for
the charge.
        Sunlight glinted from the metal ferrule at the staff's end,
and for just an instant, Fuu Hououji could have sworn she saw it
change shape, elongating into a wicked, pointed blade.  Then it was
gone from her sight, plunged into the monster's body again, this time
right through the front of the carapace, in between its beady black
stalk-mounted eyes.  It writhed again, but the staff-wielding menace was
in between its "arms" now, inside the arc of its deadly pincers.  It
couldn't reach him, and in a moment that no longer mattered: it gave a
great heave, then collapsed, slain.
        "Damn," Nall observed, hovering over the dead monster.  "What
a shame we don't have a big pot and about 20 pounds of butter."
        Corwin didn't spare the energy for a chuckle; he wrenched his
weapon free and spun, staring down at the boy from atop the fallen
corpse.  "You," he panted, "are -so- asking for it."
        The boy stared up at him insolently, and then held out the
hand with his Lens on it, palm up.  >Warmth from within, companionship
without: Bond of Friendship!< and turned his hand over, so that the
palm faced both Corwin and the others behind him.
        Nall let out a sort of strangled yelp as the six-pointed star
formed around him, and then the yelp transformed into a ghostly roar.
The draconic ghost he had 'worn' while he defended Umi against
Alcyione surged into being around him, and it turned its glowing red
eyes on the boy.
        >Stop them,< the boy commanded.
        The giant head bowed once, and then swung around to face
Corwin, who was staring, stunned.
        The ghostly dragon's jaws gaped, and a blizzard poured out to
envelop them all.

        Umi shot out of the sea like an arrow from Fuu's bow and
took in the situation in one sweeping glance.
        A little boy with heavy bangs was standing on the shore with
Nall - NALL?! - hovering protectively over him.  A ghostly white form
of a huge white dragon surrounded him, and he was snapping at her
friends and Corwin, who were staggering backwards, covered with frost
and obviously chilled near to freezing.
        He drew in a breath and let loose with a gust of chilling air
that put a rime of ice on the shore, and the others stumbled back
further, screaming for him to come to his senses.
        Umi landed gently atop the waves and lost her temper at exactly 
the same instant.  She had been in this place for over a week now,
she'd just started getting used to who was on which side, and this
punk came along and tried to change the rules?  No.  Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky
had had -enough-.
        >Wave of the Ocean, raging fury of the Rune God,< she chanted,
flipping her sword to her left hand and pointing it at the little boy.
A wave, unseen but felt, began to build behind her.  >Cresting power
from leagues away, hear my voice and answer: DRAGON TIDE!<
        She brought her hand forward over her head, and the wave
crested past her, gaining form as it washed her hair past her face and
blew the soft panels of her skirt forward in the gush.
        Nall's ghostly avatar swung its head around and was caught
square between the eyes by the white foam head of the tidal wave that
was also a dragon.  It crashed through the wraith, dissipating it, and
slammed down on top of the boy, dashing him to the sands and
splattering the other Knights and Corwin.  Where it passed the
Knights, their armor melted and flowed, becoming similar in shape to
the Knight of the Sea's own altered armor.
        For a instant, everything was quiet as the waters of the wave
washed back out into the ocean, and then the draconic song split the
air:
        << How... -DARE-... YOU!? >>
        With an earsplitting roar that seemed quite impossible coming
from his little form, a wet and furious Nall launched himself from the
sands, leaping toward the boy.  At the peak of his leap, he -changed-,
assuming truly the shape of the ghost that had surrounded him before.
Huge white wings spread towards the sky; neck, body and tail lengthened 
from the housecat shape into the classic sinuous Western-dragon form.
His face remained catlike, though, as did the taloned paws at the ends
of his mighty legs.  His golden ruff rippled in the wind and ruby eyes
blazed under tufted brows as his snout lengthened and he assumed the
full and true form of a Great Alfheim Cat Dragon.
        Now the size of a small house, Nall slammed down on the beach,
his talons digging into the sand, and roared down at the sorcerer who
had dared bewitch him.  Part of Corwin's mind noted with disappointment 
that the boy's clothes and hair didn't whip in the slipstream of the
dragon's enraged bellow, cartoon-style.  Maybe then they could have
seen his eyes...
        The brown-haired boy stared up at this thing that he had
enraged as Uum'y raced across the waters on light feet and came to
stand next to the dragon, sword pointed at the boy, hair blowing and
tangling with draconic fur.  Her eyes were a flat, furious blue.
        The boy backed up, scrambling to his feet, and flung his hand
out in front of him.  >Summon monster!< he screamed, and a six-pointed
star sketched itself in the air between them.
        From the side facing him sprang a huge griffin, which the boy
seized by the fur and scrambled up onto.  From the other came a winged
serpent with nine heads that coiled protectively between the child
mage and the furious Rune Knight and dragon.
        "Go!" the boy screamed to the griffin, and it fled with a
defiant cry.
        Nall spread his wings to follow, but the heads lunged towards
him the instant he did so, and only Umi's quick blade on their noses
stopped him from having shredded wings.
        With a roar of rage, the dragon tackled the winged hydra, and
the two of them had at it.  Umi scrambled back out of the way, and
the other Knights came up next to her, Corwin trailing after.
        They watched in silence for a moment as Nall finished off the
hydra, trumpeted his triumph to the skies, and then dropped to the
sand, softly growling.
        After a moment, Corwin walked up to him, cautiously, and put
a hand on his flank.  Nall roused enough to growl, and then he saw who
it was.  With a slow precision, he lowered his head back to the ground
wearily.  He breathed quietly in Corwin's direction for a second, and
then rumbled, "You've got good taste in spells, long-ears."
        Umi stared at him, and then slowly smiled.  "I think we're
even now, cat."
        Nall managed a rumbling laugh, though his eyes were visibly
closing.  "I... think we are... " he rumbled.  And then he was asleep.
        Corwin turned away, smiling weakly.  "I think we'd better camp
here," he said, a bit shakily.  "'Cause Nall's about worn out and
right now, he's too big to carry."
        "Camp sounds good," Hikaru said, tentatively.  "Mokona?"
        "Puu," the rabbitball agreed, and made camp.
        While he was doing so, Fuu observed, "When he wakes up, I
shall have to ask him most politely not to devour me."
        This shattered Corwin utterly for some reason, but by the time
Umi finished preparing dinner and let them inside, he had calmed
down enough to even help her set the table.

        That evening, Corwin sat outside, his back propped against
Nall's sleeping bulk, and cleaned his staff of the lobster-thing's
ichor with an old Holiday Inn towel.  As he worked at it, the
egg-tent's door opened and Hikaru Shidou came out, still dressed in
her Parker Memorial uniform but with her armor removed.  She trotted
over and stood watching him work for a moment, not speaking, as if
waiting for permission.
        Slightly amused by this, he gave it: "What's up, Hikaru?"
        "Oh, uh... well, we took a vote," she said, seeming slightly
embarrassed that they'd had to resort to raw democracy, "and we
decided it was OK if you wanted to sleep inside tonight."
        Corwin grinned.  "That's awful nice of you," he said, "but I'm
afraid if I went inside and left the furball out here," he added,
angling his head back at the sleeping dragon, "he'd never let me hear
the end of it."  He sighed.  "Big doof couldn't bother to go back to
his -normal- form before falling asleep, nooooooo... "
        Hikaru plunked down alongside Corwin, leaned back against
Nall, and said with a grin, "Even Umi has to believe he's really a
dragon now.  How'd you end up with a dragon for a traveling companion
anyway?"
        Corwin laughed.  "The answer to that question goes back a
long, long way.  See, most of the Great Dragons live in Alfheim.
They're really minor divinities in their own right, like the Vanir.
It's even possible for people from Alfheim - dragons, elves, even
dwarves - to be made Aesir, though it almost never happens.  Anyway,
the elves and dwarves of Alfheim have always been Asgard's friends,
but until fairly recently, things weren't so cozy with the dragons.
They were suspicious of Asgard's power, and the gods were suspicious
of theirs.  There was even a war, a long time ago, but for the most
part it's just been mutual suspicion and coldness.  For a long time
there was only one dragon in Asgard - one of the Valkyrie - and she
was an outcast among her people for joining us.
        "Well, fifteen years ago, along came the Ragnarok, and the
fact that Asgard permitted outside help from Midgard, of all places,
averted it.  The dragons took notice of that, and sent an ambassador
to the victory celebrations to open warmer relations between Odin's
government and the court of the Dragon King."
        He paused, here, to make sure he still had his audience, but
he needn't have worried about that; Hikaru was paying rapt attention,
her deep red eyes fixed on him, an eager smile on her face.  He
chuckled and continued,
        "A few months later, when it was announced that my mother was
pregnant with me... well, it was never any secret that my father was
the Midgard Knight, and that I'd been conceived on the eve of the
Final Battle.  It was taken as some kind of defiant gesture, life out
of death and all that, but Mom and Dad claim they were just cold and
scared, and did what comes naturally... "  He reddened, realizing the
direction he'd taken (though Hikaru didn't seem to mind - Salusians,
he remembered, tended to have different views of that sort of thing
than most human cultures), and cleared his throat.
        "Uh, anyway, the Dragon King sent an emissary to the Golden
City with a gesture of goodwill: the egg of his brother's firstborn
son.  Nall hatched the day I was born... we've been together ever
since."
        "Wow," said Hikaru.  "That's cool."
        Corwin grinned.  "It's had its moments," he allowed.  "His
being raised alongside me is supposed to be a gesture of our kingdoms'
new solidarity.  Not that we care about it much," he added, patting
the furry slope behind him absently.  "Most of the time we're too busy
having fun.  Still, being a sort of emissary to the dragons has its
advantages.  I'm welcome pretty much anywhere in Alfheim... they've
even taught me some of their sorceries, and their weapons."
        Hikaru looked puzzled.  "Dragons use weapons?"
        "Sure," Corwin said.  He hefted Stick, now clean and gleaming
once more.  "This is a Draconic warstaff - dragon soldiers use them
when they walk among men.  Most dragons like to hide their full
capabilities when they travel."
        "Is that why Nall pretends to be a cat?"
        "Well, no, not really.  That's his hatchling form.  Dragons
don't assume their full form - like this - until maturity.  And even
then, some of them prefer to stay small most of the time; it uses less
energy.  Full-grown dragons sleep most of the time if they stay in
their true forms."
        "Oh.  Will Nall be able to wake up tomorrow if he stays like
this?  Mokona's going to want us to keep moving.  I don't even have my
Rune God yet... and I keep feeling like time is running out."
        Corwin nodded; he knew the feeling.
        "We'll get him up," he said, "one way or another.  If we have
to we'll just get Umi out here to yell at him," he added with a grin,
and Hikaru laughed.
        "I've got a dog," Hikaru observed after a few minutes.  "I
hope he remembers me when I get home from this place," she added,
smiling.
        Corwin grinned, leaned back against Nall with his hands behind
his head, and said, "What kind?"
        "I'm not sure," Hikaru replied.  "He was an orphan stray when
I found him.  He looks like a husky, but my brothers think he's a
wolf.  I don't think there are wolves in Avalon, though."
        "You might be surprised," said Corwin.  "Dad's got a strange
sense of humor sometimes.  His own dog's a lot lower-key, though."
        "Your father has a dog?"
        "Yeah.  What's so weird about that?"
        "Nothing, I guess... it's just kind of strange to think of.
When does he have time to take care of a dog?"
        "Wolfgang's pretty low-maintenance," Corwin observed with a
smile.  "Give him a square meal every day and he's happy."
        "What kind of dog is he?"
        "Beagle."
        "Awww!" said Hikaru, a silly grin spreading across her face.
Then she looked a little puzzled and said, "Wait... a beagle named
'Wolfgang'?"
        "I think he's supposed to be named after Mozart."
        "Oh... "
        Umi stuck her head out of the egg.  "Are you going to stay out
there all night?" she asked, for once sounding honestly curious rather
than irritated.
        "The dragon's too big to bring indoors," Corwin called back.
"I'm gonna stay here and keep him company."
        "Oh."  There was a pause, and then, "Hikaru, are -you- coming
in?"
        "Uh..."  The Salusian girl glanced at Corwin, then grinned a
bit at him and said, "I'll get you a blanket, 'kay?"  She then trotted
back to the egg.
        Corwin snuggled up against the bulk of his best friend and
thought perhaps Kate had the right idea about sharing her bed with
something big and furry.  The big lug certainly cut down on the wind
from that side. 
        He was half asleep when Hikaru tucked the blanket around his
shoulders, but he mumbled his thanks anyway, and then dropped off to
sleep.

        The next morning, he was woken by somebody breathing on his
face.  When he opened his eyes, he found his vision completely filled
with a giant snout.
        "Yah!" he yelled, rolling over and coming to his feet,
adrenaline surging in his veins, before he realized it was just Nall.
-JUST- Nall, yeah RIGHT...
        "See if I bring -you- any breakfast, dragon!" Corwin gasped.
        Nall rumbled laughter deep in his throat, and then said, "So
what's the plan for today?"
        "Well, if you can be bothered to move," Corwin said, still
trying to get over his shock, "I think the plan was to find Hikaru's
Rune God.  But I'm beginning to wonder exactly what's -in- this
Prophecy they're part of, and how much we figure into it, if at all."
        "Mmm, good point," Nall rumbled back.  "Well, if we're going
to be running around today, I think I'm going back to being cat-sized.
While the idea of getting Uum'y to make enough food to feed me while
I'm in this shape sounds -tasty-, it'd probably take too long."
        Corwin grinned.  "Probably."
        Nall shrugged his huge bulk to his feet, then spread his wings
out in the sun for a second.  Then, with a soft phwupt! his bulk
shimmered and contracted inward, to coalesce into the winged-cat shape
in which he'd been hatched.
        Then he landed and had a good scratch behind one of his ears.
When he was done, he looked up at Corwin.  "Y'know," he said
conversationally, "this feels -really- weird.  I have all this
-energy- all of a sudden."
        His voice had changed, Corwin noticed; it wasn't the basso
rumble of his full self, but neither was it the rather comical squeak
he had had through kittenhood.  It sounded almost like the voice of a
man now, incongruous from so small and fuzzy a creature.  Corwin
grinned at the notion of those who had known Nall before this trip
discovering this change when they returned.
        He laughed.  "Let's see if the girls are awake yet, and see
whether you can apply that energy to breakfast."
        It turned out that the girls were already awake and donning
their armor.  When Corwin politely knocked, Hikaru opened the door and
said, "Oh good, you're both awake.  C'mon and eat, we want to get
moving quickly today."
        The table had the remains of breakfast on it, but there were
two places set for Corwin and Nall, each with Belgian waffles and an
assortment of toppings.  As they ate, the Hikaru said, "The first
place we asked directions at said Rayearth's Shrine's at a city called
Hidama, somewhere in the Mountains of Burne, but we're not sure how
far away that is.  Since the boat got toasted by that monster
yesterday, we're probably going to have to walk again."
        Umi sighed.
        Corwin finished his bite and said, "Well, have you thought
about talking to the High Priest?  He might be able to give you a
better idea of what this Prophecy is that you're supposed to be
fulfilling, and if he's got any kind of magic, he might be able to
transport you straight to Rayearth's Shrine."
        "High Priest?" Fuu said.  "I don't believe we knew there was
such a person."
        "Mm," Nall said, swallowing.  "There is."  The Knights blinked
at his new voice, but said nothing as he went on, "He's supposed to be
the Pillar's chief defender - the Pillar's the person who keeps this
world in existence.  But you knew that part," he reminded himself,
shaking his head in exasperation with himself.  It was always so hard
to concentrate during breakfast.
        "That sounds promising," Fuu said, after a moment, and Umi
nodded.  "Miss Hikaru," Fuu continued, "I know it means a bit of a
trip out of our way, but if it will give us a better idea of what we
are meant to be doing, do you think it might be worth it?"
        Hikaru sighed.  "I feel a little left behind," she admitted.
"You guys have your Rune Gods already.  But you've got a point.  And
if we're lucky, it won't be out of our way at all," she concluded,
brightening.  "Let's get there as fast as we can!"
        Corwin and Nall hurriedly finished their breakfasts, though
Nall lamented that waffles that good should -not- have been rushed,
and Mokona struck the tent.  The five of them made their way to Sania
to ask for directions to the High Priest's, and were told that there
was a train leaving for Tenchuu shortly.
        Corwin reported back and found himself met with some small
hesitation on the Knights' part.  "We don't like to travel by train,"
Hikaru said finally.  "The one time we even tried, people kept seeing
us and either pretending we weren't there at all or getting these
frightened looks on their faces and backing away."
        Corwin frowned, and then said, "Well... if you took your armor
off and put it in knapsacks, and pulled your sleeves -over- your
Lenses, you might be a little less obvious.  You're still wearing your
school uniforms under there, I know - " he got a dirty look from Umi
for that one, but continued, " - and I've seen -other- schoolgirls in
uniforms not -that- much different from yours.  There's not much you
can do about the boots, but people might not notice them."
        "No knapsacks," Umi put in.
        "I can get you some," Corwin said.  "-And- I can buy the
tickets, so all we have to do is get on the train together.  This was
my idea, so it's only fair I pay for it, right?" he added, when it
looked like Fuu was going to protest.
        There was a pause, and the Knights exchanged looks.  Mokona
gave a dubious sort of "Puu," but the Knights finally nodded.
        "I guess it's the fastest way," Hikaru said.  "Thanks,
Corwin."

        Half an hour later, they all piled into the high-speed train
for Tenchuu, along with a group of businessmen from Sania, and,
amusingly enough, a school outing that was going to Tenchuu to visit
the museums.  Mixed in with them, and out of their armor, the Knights
-weren't- that obvious, and Corwin noticed that they relaxed almost
immediately when surrounded by other girls.
        The train ride was uneventful; only one person noticed their
gemstones.  He raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything and, after a
moment's thought, appeared to nod to himself before going on his way.
        Umi, of all people, knew how to play poker, and taught them
during the four hour ride with the battered pack of playing cards that
Corwin had in his knapsack.  She and Nall ended up vying for the final
cleaning out of the pot, such as it was, and being the more experienced 
player, she beat him.
        "Cooks and plays poker well.  Where -do- you learn these
things, long-ears?" Nall demanded (which made her turn pink, much to
Corwin and Hikaru's amusement).
        "Hyeruul's is a proud and ancient culture, steeped in timeless
lore and mysteries," she answered him, as soon as she got her blush
under control.
        "Yeah?"
        "Mm-hmm.  But it doesn't hurt that you can't bluff worth a
toeclaw, cat."
        "Yeah, yeah.  Talk is cheap.  Anyway, Tiny Robo could kick
your blue butt."
        "I should hope Fontainebleu Academy's clothiers would use
a more colorfast dye than that," Fuu put in, making everyone laugh.
        After that, they all took turns sleeping with one of them on
watch - except for Mokona, who was deemed too cowardly to be trusted
with such an important duty.  They got to Tenchuu just after the lunch
hour was over, and Corwin bought them sandwiches at the train station's 
cafeteria.
        While the girls ate, Corwin asked around for directions to the
High Priest's Tower, and came back looking perplexed.  "Problems?"
Hikaru asked, finishing her sandwich and looking like she was ready to
get up and help.
        "Not exactly," Corwin said, sitting down and watching with
some amusement while Nall consumed a piece of mozarella the size of
his head.  "I got directions easily enough, but everybody I talked to
said the High Priest doesn't live there anymore.  But nobody could
tell me where he -does- live."
        Fuu hmmed softly, and then shook her head.  "It seems unlikely
that we will learn anything sitting here speculating," she pointed
out.  "Though it might be amusing."
        "Right," Hikaru said, "then, let's go."
        "Coming, furball?" 
        "Right, right," Nall said, swallowing and hopping up on Umi's
shoulder.  "Now, explain to me again how not to look smug?" he asked,
and the group started walking.

        "My God," Corwin whispered as they came out of the forest and
into the clearing where they'd been told the High Priest's Tower had
been.  The desolation that greeted them made it very clear -exactly-
what the people of Tenchuu had meant when they said, "The High Priest
doesn't live there anymore."
        Whoever the High Priest was, he'd had a visitor who hadn't
liked his Tower at all.
        "I... I don't think we're going to find any answers here,
Corwin," Hikaru said, a little shaken, as they walked slowly forward
and looked at the ruins of what had obviously been something beautiful
and filled with grace once.
        There were rose vines tangled over fallen white stones, but
their stems were all twisted in on themselves, as if they had grown
contorted without anyone to look after them.  The courtyard paving
flags were white in places, and solidly blackened in others, as if
something had exploded on them.  Umi knelt and lifted one stone,
finding the sooty explosion pattern radiating out on the flag beneath
it.  Corwin dropped into a catcher's crouch next to one of the rose
vines, cupped a white blossom in his hand, and sniffed at it, a deeply
thoughtful look on his face.
        "This would seem to confirm what we have observed before," Fuu
said, her voice calm, although her expression showed that she was as
shaken as the others.  "Something is very wrong with Cephiro."
        "If the High Priest was supposed to be the Pillar's guardian,"
Nall answered, alighting on a partially demolished garden box and
looking around, "it sure looks like something decided to take him
out."
        "Of course!" Hikaru said, slamming her hand against the stone
she was examining, and incidentally cracking it in two with the force
of her blow.  "We're here to save the world; something must be
threatening the Pillar, and decided to kill her protector -first- to
make it easier."
        Fuu considered this, as Umi continued to poke around
half-heartedly, and Corwin stuck his head through partially demolished
archways in search of a book - or anything -like- a book - that might
give them answers.
        Finally, she said, "That does not explain why it was necessary
to summon -us- from another world, but otherwise, it does make sense."
        "Maybe because there's nobody powerful enough to destroy it in
this world?" Hikaru said hopefully.
        "Maybe because whatever it is can't be harmed by things -of-
this world," Umi said, turning around.
        "'For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth?'" Hikaru asked.
        Umi blinked, but Fuu nodded.  "That would make sense," she
said, and then noting Umi's puzzled expression, she added, "Miss
Hikaru is quoting an old Earth play about a king who may not be slain
by anyone born of a woman."
        Umi opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Corwin's
extremely puzzled: "-What- the... ?" 
        They turned to see him squatting down, almost out of sight, in
between pieces of rubble.  The Rune Knights scrambled over the bits
and pieces to find he was examining an untouched circlet of what
appeared to be still-living roses: one green-purple, one that appeared
to be burning from within, one of what looked to be steel, one that
shifted colors as if there were waves within its petals, one almost
perfectly clear, and one shining white with just the hint of pink at
the edge of its petals.
        Umi whispered, >Rose of the Sea!<
        At the same instant, Fuu murmured, >Rose of the Storm... <
        They stared at each other, and then back down at the circlet.
Nall looked at the two of them and remarked, "That was weird."
        Hikaru hunkered down next to Corwin, and put one hand out to
touch the fiery rose.  As her finger touched it, her hair crackled
briefly, and then she drew away.  "It's got fire in it," she said.
"What're the other three?"
        "I don't know," Corwin said.  "It's sitting here, untouched by
the destruction, and it's some kind of powerful magical artifact.  I
have no idea what it's for."
        "Bring it with you," Nall suggested.  "If it's the only thing
that survived whatever schracked this