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Opal Shares Her Memories

*** The crystal starts with a feeling on intense anxiety starting to fade..
***The scene opens with Opal having just been put into the tomb.
*** However, it is immediately apparent Opal can see perfectly well.
*** At least somehow she has the perception of sight, even with no
*** light whatsoever.

As the tomb sealed shut, Opal started to get her breathing back under control.

Part of her was angry, annoyed, and just a wee bit afraid of what had just occurred with the Hunter.

*** Also, there is the sense of... whispering in the background.

Then again, it had been a most unsettling week, Opal thought to herself.

At least she didn't have to fully act for the last part. It made it more convincing.

She took several more deep breaths, her analytical mind starting to review what had happened in the last few moments.

Simon had been willing to subvert the commands of the Lady and the Hunter.

Lynx had Topaz's hairpiece. Good. Easy to track her later.

Simon had a plantaxy. Opal thought on that one for a while in the not-darkness of the hole she was in. Opal wondered a bit more.

The Hunter? Had a plantaxy? That mauneuver was classic power air. Invoke a memory of complete fear from the subconscious. From the nightmares of their victim. Opal thought some more.

Once Opal had reviewed the experience in her mind, she started to pay attention to the situation she now found herself in.

*** The last anxiety passes, replaced by smugness.

A hole in the ground. Opal allowed herself a smile as she examined it. No darkness for Opal. No lack of sound either, although the sound of Karadon was strange to her. Only in Ceras had she ever even heard a voice like this. But Ceras... was kind. This was nothing like that.

Opal sat up on the stone slab on the ground, and opened her senses to the ground around her...

*** The whispering in the background became louder... a voice...
*** many voices... a vision...

The earth was ancient, abused. Some time long ago, thousands of years ago, there had been a loss. The very stone she sat on had once been the high arch ... between a balcony, where a tall dark haired young man dressed in black had danced with a dark haired women with blue blue eyes. They had been very young - and the stone had known they both ached with love for one another. Yet there was a separation between them deeper than time ...

And the woman had plucked a rose and given it to the man, and in the instant that the rose passed between them, it became silver - a timeless symbol in the moonlight.

And there were other things, other stories. The man again, fighting with another in a library. Here, this little stone, thrust between two larger ones, had a tale to tell of a dark prison cell, a helpless blinded prisoner - matches struck fast in the darkness ... a gnarled face - and the sudden smell of the sea...

Slowly, stone by stone, the tales unfolded. Not legends, not myths of the remote gods. But a real place, that these eternal stones had once formed part of, even though Amber itself was now lost. And in their broken, degraded use, they spoke to Opal.

And amongst the stones of Amber, amongst the gods and goddesses - now human in form - there was one with her face.

*** with that last, Opal pulled away from the voices.

Opal realized she had a lot of thinking to do...

She crossed her legs on the slab under her. Breathed. Then gently sent her mind out through the castle. How many plantaxies were there in this place, and how strong were they?

Opal reached out ...

And felt very little. Whatever plantaxies there were within the Castle were very well shielded. Even her own - it was a muted throb on the extremity of consciousness, like a threatened headache.

So ... no plantaxies.

Except ....

A tiny one - so very close at hand. It too had been shielded - but was now coming alive to her, as though the one holding the shield was losing their grasp...

A tiny plantaxy, buried deep inside the hunk of bread that had been placed in the Tomb with her.

Opal carefully extracted the plantaxy from the bread. An unexpected boon, she thought as she held the plantaxy in her hand.

Maybe... maybe this would be sufficient to pull off the Auburni trick, Opal speculated, her mind beginning to trace through the facets of this tiny plantaxy. Use this plantaxy to shift away out of this space into that black and white world, then attempt to reemerge into this world at the location of her plantaxy. Dangerous, but then she could get the other plantaxies and come back to the cage to free the others....

Opal drank deep from the water, then placed it to her side. She held up the tiny plantaxy to eye level, started to push into it the same way she pushed on the rooftop so long ago in Bogatina.. yesterday.

Through, into the plantaxy, reach to her own, and push through.

Again Opal felt the sense of traveling ...

She felt as though she was lifting into the air ... then ... moving forward .... forward .... faster ... faster ...

She caught her breath.

She was standing on the vast dark plain she had seen before, slightly concave, like the bowl of a huge natural volcano. Beneath her feet was fine black silt that glittered in the light of a huge blank-faced moon. Her breath sounded very loud, even in her own ears.

And this time - she was completely alone ... alone in this vast space ...

Opal swallowed as she looked around. A fragment of the fear the Hunter induced in her came up and she had to take several deep breaths before she could continue.

Opal turned in a direction relative to how she'd been standing. If... where she stood now related to where she would emerge in the other world, she needed to move in that direction to return out to her plantaxy.

If... Opal didn't consider other options for the moment, but focused her mind. She knew approximately how far her plantaxy was relative to the tomb. Opal started to take measured steps in the direction she thought correct. She refused to allow her mind to consider error. She refused to allow her body to feel pain as she walked on her infected foot.

The fineness of the sand made walking difficult, its surface tension almost that of quicksand. Light steps, barely making imprints on the dust. Opal focused her mind on the here and now, her thoughts taking on an almost gem-like precision.

Here. It would have been here. Opal looked around once more at the stark landscape. A part of her mind, her element, demanded she stop and learn this place. What was it? Why was it? She resisted. There were lives at stake. This was not the time.

She stood and focused on her plantaxy, her bond with it. She imagined herself standing next to it. She imagined herself falling through the black sand to appear next to it.

But there was nothing. No matter how hard she concentrated, how intensely she focused on her plantaxy, there was nothing.

Except, perhaps, a sense of being enclosed, smothered. And this feeling grew worse and worse until ...

She opened her eyes - back on the darkling plain. It was as bare and bleak as ever - and there she was trapped ... Unless she went back to the Tomb to be trapped there instead.

Opal shook her head. No good. She couldn't figure out how to punch through. She sighed in defeat. Maybe it was the manacles. She just didn't know.

Opal looked at the sand under her in frustration. Then... She ripped off a piece of her shirt. Then bent down and carefully scooped some of the sand into fabric and tied it closed. At least... she could take some of the sand back with her, analyze it in the darkness of the Tomb.

The small blonde woman then attempted to project herself back into the tomb.

Just as before, there was the sensation of sinking, of falling ... down ... down... down ...

The sudden jolt of coming back to herself.

She was back in the Tomb ...

Only now she could see clearly - without the aid of night vision - and the reason was simple.

The lid of the Tomb was off.

Opal sat there for a moment, trying to adjust her eyes. Then as the situation sank in, she sat very still and listened to the room, trying to hear people or any other noises up above.

It was quiet ... very quiet.

She could hear a faint ... dripping. Several drippings. The hiss and sputter of the wall sconces. And - very faintly, the sound of someone breathing ... very, very faint and uneven - as though every breath might be their last.

Opal pushed the small sachet she'd just made into her shirt. She took the fragment of plantaxy and pushed it in her mouth between her lower lip on the right side and her gum, allowing it to rest in her mouth.

Then she slowly, quietly pulled herself out of the tomb, both looking around the room and looking for the ragged breath.

A scene of total devastation met her eyes. At least twenty guards were dead in the Cavern - most have suffered the most appalling injuries. The dripping she had heard came from wounds that still bled on half a dozen guards sprawled across the top of the Cage. Some looked as though they had been torn apart by a wild animal.

*** A fleeting, somewhat smothered sense of horror.

Of her companions in the cage there was no sign at all.

Except ...

Sprawled across a haybale inside the cage was the recumbrent form of Simon, his body bleeding from half a dozen terrible wounds.

Opal shuddered as she took in the room, her face reflecting horror as she looked around. She took a step towards the cage, then stopped. She then looked around at the bodies on the floor around her, careful to not step in the blood and gore with her bare feet, and tried to find a set of keys for the manacles still on her wrists.

There was a set of keys ... lying on the floor, near the haybale where Simon was spawled, inside the cage.

Quietly, without opening his eyes, he spoke, his voice a low murmur. "You should have left with the rest, Mistress Opal."

***a quick spike of annoyance, not quite suppressed.

"Yes... well, remind me to update my train schedule some time," Opal half quipped as she carefully entered the cage. "I do detest being late."

She slowly approached Simon. "You are badly hurt?" she asked as she looked at his apparently bleeding form lying on the hay bale.

"No," he said with the slightest of sighs, stirring now and looking up at her with dead eyes. "But the Hunter will be along with reinforcements soon, and you may well be should you linger. Here," Simon sat up, collecting the keys and gently taking her shackles in one hand while unlocking them. "How much did you see?"

Opal started slightly when Simon sat up, then swallowed and allowed him to remove the manacles from her wrists. "Of this?" She glanced around the room. "Nothing yet. I haven't..." She shook her head. "I'm not sure I want to."

"I tried to get to the plantaxies," she told Simon as the manacles came off. "But I wasn't able to reach them. I suspect if the rest of the group is leaving a wake of carnage behind them like this they'll never be able to get near them. If I can give you the direction the plantaxy are in, can you get me to them?" Opal asked as she stood there, rubbing her wrists.

He looked at her for a moment, and though he said nothing, his gaze spoke of a tremendous conflict, twisting in his insides like a knife, the faintest of glows sparking in the hollow vaults of his black eyes. Finally, he looked away, with some effort, back down the passageway towards the castle, as if he expected running guards at any moment, the Hunter striding at their head like some avatar of vengeance. But none were coming, at least not yet, and he looked back up at her quietly, making no move to stand from the bale of hay he sat on. She could see now that he was wounded, and badly; cuts and scores covered him, and half his back was darkly sodden from a gaping wound in the shoulder. But he spoke very calmly, his gaze questioning and earnest.

"Mistress Opal," he began, "the Hunter and reinforcements will be here very soon, and if they find you, they will not bother imprisoning you to await execution. The others - and Lynx - left down that way," he nodded towards the barracks, from which only an ominous silence came now, "claiming to follow a dream of Seth's, or somesuch; certainly they appear to believe they have a rescue awaiting them outside the walls." He stopped then, as if his train of thought had been interrupted, and stared up at her again. "What makes you believe I am inclined to assist you to escape anyway?"

Opal turned and walked to the door of the cage. She then paused at looked back at Simon, her body tense. "I have to do this. You don't. Perhaps.. you should find the others and protect them as best you can. That is, if you are inclined to."

Simon's eyes followed her every move, like the eyes of a painting in a haunted house, tracking her eerily as she turned to go. "Were I inclined to go with them, Mistress Opal," he replied dryly, "I would be with them now, instead of here, playing dead. You see, shortly the reinforcements will arrive from that corridor," he pointed towards the castle, "which is, I suspect, the way you need to go. And unless you have a better idea for hiding till they have gone past in pursuit of the rest, in which case I am open to suggestion, then I suggest you make use of Lynx's Plantaxy to hide again until it is safe."

Opal paused and sent her mind through the stones of the surrounding area. Was there just the one exit? Maybe there were secret passages? was it a short tunnel to the castle? Or was it as bleak as Simon said it was, and Opal would almost certainly be cut off or caught if she attempted it?

Opal could see an old and disused passageaway that ran between two walls up through the castle. No staircase - it would literally be like climbing a chimney. And no certainty how close to the plantaxy she would end up.

It was definitely too risky to undertake alone ... was Simon fit enough for it?

*** Opal thought of asking him... But was fairly sure the word 'no' didn't
*** exist in Simon's vocabulary for something like this.

Also the entrance was out in the main corridor, the way the guards would be coming. It started in an old hearth there - which was currently bricked up. She would need to prise the mortar out and bring the bricks down to start to climb - without alerting the guards who would surely be coming ...

Opal turned and looked at the door for a long moment. Then she looked back at Simon, her eyes bright. "There's a long forgotten chimney that starts in the corridor just outside this room, but it's bricked up. If I had a crowbar, we could get through and climb up to the next floor, away from the guards." Opal started to look around for something suitable for brick prying.... like a crowbar used to lift the top of a tomb lid.

"The crowbar they used to open the lid of the Tomb is there," he pointed, rising with an eerie grace to his feet. Lifting a bale of hay, he collected several bloodstained rags that appeared to have served as bandages, wrapping them clumsily around his wounds again; clearly inexpert in such medicine, the bandages would clearly be of little value in helping them heal. "Allow me, Mistress Opal," he added, finishing with the last of the bandages. "I will help you." As he picked up the crowbar, waiting for her to lead the way, he stopped, as if a thought had suddenly occurred to him. "You did not see them escape, you say. Why then ask me, your captor and enemy, to assist you in escaping, or even to assist the rest?"

Opal stood and looked at him for a moment, green eyes to black. Then she looked away and answered "Because her true servants do not allow themselves to regret their own actions, or feel remorse," she said simply.

"That seems - simple enough," he said, but slowly, as if unconvinced.

Opal then turned and walked through to the corridor leading out of the room. Once through the arch, several steps along the walk, was an old, bricked up hearth. Opal stood for a moment looking at the bricks, then turned and held her hand out for the crowbar. "I can sense the weak points in the mortar," she said quietly.

He handed it over without a word, looking down the corridor as if expecting pursuit at any second and awaiting it with a quiet resignation. "In planning their escape, they overwhelmingly insisted that you be included in such plans," he remarked at length, a little hesitantly. "And when free, their first priority was to open the Tomb to let you out."

Opal paused at that, her face showing some distress. Then she shrugged. "I only met Lazarus and Seth a day ago. None of the others before we were presented to The Three." She quickly worked to remove two bricks from the upper third of the bricked up area, pushing them through to the space behind. It was obvious from how she held the crowbar that she was well practiced in its uses.

Then she started to separate the mortar along the top and side seams, using strong, pressing strokes. "Unfortunately, I'm the only one of the prisoners that had any real knowledge of The Three," she continued, her voice just barely carrying over the sound of the mortar removal. "And possibly any real training with a plantaxy."

*** A sense of embarassment overlaid on that last statement, along with an
*** image of Seth. Flaubon never said anything...

Another several strokes and Opal paused. Then she darted back into the room of the cage and returned several seconds later with a belt in her hands. She fed each end of the belt through the two holes created by the two brick she pushed through earlier. Then she stood in front of one of the holes and nodded for Simon to do the same. "I've broken the outer seal. We should be able to carefully pull and ease it out and down. Then we use the belt to pull it up behind us once we're through.

She reached her hands into the first hole, and started to lift the brick plug out of the hearth where it had rested for millennia.

Under their strength, it shifted easily, with a puff of pulverised mortar and rock dust. Carefully, they set it down, the small clatter of rock on rock quiet under normal circumstances, but with the danger of their situation it seemed unbearably loud, enough to bring the Lords of Karadon down on their heads at any second.

The air within the recently-opened hearth was musty and stale, and the blackness within impenetrable, but somehow, though the dimensions were much the same, it seemed less foreboding than the Tomb had. This tiny, dark space, after all, did not represent incarceration and impending doom, but rather the possibility of freedom.

Simon stood from the rock, adjusting the belt around it as he did so and tearing off another part of his increasingly ragged jerkin to mop up a few spilled drops of his blood from the floor, making sure to leave no trail. "You say that you had only met two of them briefly before this, and barely at that. Why do you care, then, what befalls them?"

Opal climbed into the blackness behind the bricks, not seeming the least bit uncomfortable with the darkness. "I've spent my entire life either imprisoned and raised by her watchers, or waiting for her assassins to come for me." Once in the blackness, she took one end of the belt in one hand, and offered the other to Simon to help him in.

"The Three and the Auburnii have spent eons trying to kill each other, and spend a considerable amount of time killing or breeding their offspring to continue their rule and their feud." She looked at Simon. "It has to end. And believe it or not, I think that motley crew from the cage is probably the best shot we have of taking either side down. And hopefully, both." She sighed slightly then. "I for one want to live without looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life."

She grasped her end of the belt in both of her hands. "On three. One, two..."

*** There is no sense of emotion in the crystal here... As if it had been
*** erased from the crystal starting at this point...

The rock shifted before she got to three, twisting in at a strange angle as Simon pulled with one hand on the belt, without any visible effort on his face. The massive rock ground into place much faster than it had come out, blocking out almost all of the light, and Simon pulled again on the belt, ripping it around the rock and into the crawlspace with them with the sound of fraying leather. Such immense strength was incongruous, perhaps, with his slender frame, but that was not surprising or foreboding, in and of itself. What was, however, was the memory of the corpses of the guards, in the Cage, not killed by sword or arrow, but torn apart as if by some wild animal...

In the faint light and close quarters of the dark hole they were in, there nevertheless seemed the slightest of faint red glows, two of them; Simon's eyes. When he spoke, however, his voice was still soft, almost shy, but at this short distance, with such a foreboding physical presence about him, a facade of shyness would never have washed. "Why did you lie to me, Mistress Opal?" he asked in a voice devoid of warmth. "Back there. When you said you would tell me about the Academy."

Opal blinked, looking unerringly into Simon's eyes even in the darkness. "I didn't," she said, leaning back against the wall behind her. "I was going to tell you. I had been working on trying to loosen my chains back in the cage, but I hadn't realized I'd weakened them so much. The deal was genuine. Bad luck for the guards to find the nail at that moment..." Opal chuckled bitterly.

He shook his head, and the red in his gaze dimmed a little, yet still enough to produce a strange tracer effect in the blackness. "It makes no sense. You had weakened your chains, and must have been looking for an opportunity to escape. You would have had no reason to tell me anything, and so I cannot imagine you would have actually done so when you could simply have overwhelmed me in some fashion and escaped. And, most pertinently, when the Hunter offered you a similar deal, you refused to tell him anything. How can you possibly claim that the deal, as you say, was genuine?"

Opal swallowed before answering. "Because... because I thought you might understand," she said very softly. "That if I told you the truth about that place, you might want to help us. Because maybe I thought you might be different from her other messengers. Men that kill..." Opal broke off, looked away, but even in the darkness Simon could see she'd closed her eyes. "Men that kill... young girls who never did anything to deserve their fate. Except spill a glass of wine." Opal's face turned into a mask of pain.

He was silent for a time, considering that, and watching her beautiful face twisted into a pained mockery of its normal character and determination. He studied its every line, its every contour and fold, with a strange intensity that belied the stillness with which he held himself. Part of him wanted to reach out and take that delicate chin in one hand, turning her head, perhaps, so as to better see it in its entirety, to better understand the fascination with which it gripped him. But he did not, and instead let his hands unfurl slowly from their clenched position.

"Is that what happened to Topaz, then?" came the softly spoken question. When she did not reply straight away, Simon's hands closed around her waist, with inexorable gentleness, and Opal found herself lifted deftly to a higher outcropping of rock and metal, one of the many handholds and ledges within the old chimney that would aid their ascent to the next floor.

Simon scraped by her on his way up, climbing with obvious ease despite the pain he must have felt from his wounds. "I will help you find what you need," he murmured as he passed. "But if you imagine me different than the rest of the Lady's servants, know that you are sorely mistaken."

"Simon," Opal said, her voice choking a bit. "If you were the same as the others, I'd be dead by now. I thought... when I first saw Lynx, I thought you were going to kill Lynx in front of me, as an example from the Lady that no one was safe from her fury. I thought that's why she'd been given the hairclip. So I'd have to look at another dead girl with that piece of jewelry in her hair." Opal dropped her head as she held on to the walls of the chimney.

Just above her, he stopped climbing for a moment, and braced against the narrow walls of the chimney, looking down and considering his words for a moment before he spoke. When he finally did, there was a subtle change in his voice, a distinct life and personality that came from the addition of tone and inflection, a marked change from the dead and hollow, slightly singsong voice Simon normally used. "Opal," he began gently, "you say you know the Lords of Karadon better than the rest. Please do not fall into the same traps they do, and will. When I was placed in the Cage, it did not take them ten minutes to confide their plans for escape to me. It is the very reason they are vulnerable to the traitor within their midst now; they are so used to the monstrous face that the servants of the Three present that any difference, any variation is something to be cherished. They have also assumed that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, a proposition that has been proved false time and again."

He looked up then, at the long black stretch of chimney above. "I have hurt Lynx enough without using her to make an example to you, true enough. At least, not in that fashion. The Lady gave her the hairclip as a gift, before taking it back and giving it to me, telling me to let you have it and say I stole it from the Lady, as a means of winning your confidence. I gave it back to Lynx not out of compassion, but so I could remove it from her in front of the prisoners, if you asked about it, and thus make her seem as a sympathetic figure to them, perhaps winning the confidence, albeit indirectly, of more than one of you."

Simon looked back at her with earnest, and there was nothing of the deadness or chill normally present in his gaze. "She understands nothing of what is going on around her, of that I am certain. I could be completely wrong, of course, but I think that if there are any innocents here, it is she. Which is why I asked you not to be cruel to her; I thought you, at least, would understand her position."

"Come," he concluded, looking up again and starting to move. "We have a long climb ahead of us."

Opal sighed, her shoulders sagging slightly as she did. "Thank you for telling me," she spoke without looking up. "When I realized she wasn't there to be killed, I... hated her for having that hairclip. I had this... sudden impulse wanting her to be punished. Not very civilized, I'm afraid."

"But strangely suitable in the Lady's former Chosen, I would think," Simon said non-committally, before continuing to the next handhold.

*** A not quite erased sense of fear...

Opal slipped back down off the perch that Simon had lifted her up to and kneeled down on the dirt. She picked up the two bricks she'd pushed through earlier off the dusty floor and carefully inserted back into the brick wall. "There," she said as she started to climb. "They might not find it even with a thorough search," she told Simon quietly.

"We can hope for such," he commented dryly, climbing somewhat clumsily, yet with such force that he never seemed like falling. "Although you knew it was here without searching at all. Your powers are great, Opal, but you also know who will be searching for us."

Eventually he stopped, bracing his legs against one wall of the chimney and his back against the other, a powerful and stable ledge from which he extended one long hand down to help Opal up. They were a long way up now, and every pebble dislodged bounced and skittered several times on its way down to the floor below. "I believe we are at the next floor," he intoned. "I expect you have some idea as to how to get through to it."

Opal pulled herself up to level with Simon, bracing her back on the side of the chimney. "You should let me tend those wounds once we get out of here," she said as she put her hand on the wall near him. "I do have some medical training..." Opal's voice drifted off as she closed her eyes.

Then she pulled her hand back, shaking her head. "Not here. We have to keep climbing. Much higher. Can you do it?" she asked with some concern in her voice.

There was a distant noise - sound, funnelled up the chimney from below them.

Voices, talking. Urgent, angry.

And then a dog howled.

"It would appear I have little choice," Simon drawled, and for the first time there was a hint of a smile, with real humour touching his eyes. "At least they have chosen to hunt us, rather than the rest. Come," he started up the chimney again, moving faster now. "If you say we must go higher, then we must go higher."

Opal whispered "And here things were going so well for us..." She started to pull herself up the chimney quickly after Simon as she managed to somehow instictively find handholds in the darkness.

As they climbed higher and higher, slow inch by inch (for the chimney was an awkward shake and width), they head a sudden barking - and then a simple sound that was nonethless chilling in the darkness of the chimney, for it was magnified a hundred times ...

The sound of claws scrabbling at stone.

A voice - muffled. And then ... again magnified, the sound of bricks, falling heavily.

"Why," sad a hollow voice at the base of the chimney. "Some of these bricks are loose!"

Then there was a grinding and tearing of stone, as Opal and Simon's hard work was pulled aside and the hearth was opened again. And there was the eeriest sound of all ... for first into the chimney was a great hound - and he sat on his haunches and howled mornfully as he smelt the two who were climbing higher.

A long, deep, belling howl - that might stir a fell of hair.

"What shall we do, my Lord?" came a voice.

A lower voice - the Hunter, too deep for the words to be heard - and then there was sycophantic laughter.

Sounds next - hard to distingush, at the base of the chimney ... but it did not seem as though anyone was starting to climb.

"They will smoke us out, I think," Simon intoned, still climbing. "I hope you know where you want to exit this chimney, for they will be moving to block it even now."

"Smoke..." Opal looked up. "I know there is another floor. I think we will have to break through. Where....? Maybe... the smoke will help us. Where it draws to is where we exit." She continued to climb even as she spoke. "I don't suppose that smoke doesn't affect you?" she asked with a combination of humor and exhaustion in her voice.

Every few feet or so of climbing Opal 'pinged' the earth around her, kind of a earth sonar, to figure out if there was a space on the other side of the wall.

"It is always possible," he replied thoughtfully, as if giving the matter serious consideration. Methodically, he climbed, no trace of exhaustion showing despite his wounds, and he paused from time to time to assist her.

She realised soon enough that Simon's prediction was true, as the sputters and then the crackles told them that a fire and been started. A fire with thick, wet wood - for soon plumes of evil smelling smoke began to billow up the chimney. As it came closer, they could see that it was a dull purple in colour - some drug had obviously been mixed with the wood - and was now lifting towards them ...

Opal paused in her climb to reach out and put her hand flat on the wall, closing her eyes as she did so. "I think... we're close," Opal suddenly coughed several times as she took in the smoke and gas. "Oh..." She suddenly grabbed the wall with both hands, holding on for dear life. "Did Up just change?" she asked confusedly.

*** At this point everyone watching the crystal experiences a violent
*** sense of disorientation and vertigo.

Simon took a deep draught of the smoke and, though he did not cough, made a slight face, scraping at his tongue with his mouth. "If indeed I am unaffected, I suspect now is not the time to experiment. We will break through here," he announced, looking at the bricks directly in front of him. With a sense of purpose, he braced himself against the wall and kicked once, hard, and again, as showers of mortar and cracked brick began to mix with the thick clouds of purple smoke billowing around them, bringing tears to both their eyes. "Not fast enough," he muttered, gritting his teeth and bringing his feet back, before driving himself bodily at the cracked wall.

It gave with a crunching of rock, splintering and spilling out into the room beyond, and Simon fell through awkwardly, clawing to his feet despite the lancing pain that shot through his body. Swiftly, he reached back to haul Opal through as well, kicking some of the rubble back into the smoky chimney as they went.

The room they were in was dusty enough already, and the slight haze of smoke and mortar that had accompanied them was barely noticeable among the drape-covered furniture and dusty lintels. The windows were shuttered and curtained, and a few cobwebs hung here and there, lending to the feel of unused decay that permeated the entire castle of Karadon, most particularly places like this. Simon ripped a cover from a carved wooden stool covering up the hole as best he could, before carefully testing his shoulder. "It is cracked," he said offhandedly, rising to his feet and moving for the door. "Come, we must go."

*** And now the vertigo is getting worse...

Opal fell through to the floor as Simon pulled her in. She scrabbled slightly, as if she was trying to hold on to the floor somehow.

"But... the guards... they're coming from that way... We have to go down the elevator shaft, Flaubon..." Opal pulled herself to her feet and started to stagger back towards the hole they just came through.

*** Massive disorientation... the sense of a major edit here...

At the sound of his name, Flaubon appeared to gasp ... and then pant for air. The blue little flickered ... and then faded.

As they blinked in the normal light of the room again ... they saw that Flaubon was slumped on the floor.

"Flaubon!" Opal fell off her chair and onto the floor next to the collapsed man. She started to pull the ring from his clenched hand. "Seth! Help him!"

The little mutt, Virtue, jumped up on all fours and ran to Flaubon's side. With a whimper, the little dog began to lick at Flaubon's face... doing his best to help.

Tobias, who had watched Opal's production with awe, now stuttered as he rushed forward, setting and upsetting his drink on the way.

"Dear god... I didn't mean for someone to get hurt. What's wrong with him? Was it... your powers?"

Opal shook her head. "I don't know.." she said to Tobias, holding the ring in her hand. "Probably not, although... he always takes my hand when we do this." Opal's eyes didn't leave Seth working on Flaubon.

With the rapid changes of lighting in the room and the general confusion following Flaubon's collapse, it was hard to notice the door closing with a soft click. Simon had left without a word.

Seth was suddenly there, sparing a glance at Flaubon's clenched hand, Opal digging the stone from it, before he opened Flaubon's eyelids with two fingers and looked at the pupils. He followed by checking for a pulse and for breath.

"What is it? Shock? Did he extend himself too far? Get too much into it?" He looked up at the Baronness. "Is there a medical kit around?"

"Stress probably," Opal said as she finally pried the ring from his fingers. "This is hard for him at any time..." Opal looked guilty. "I shouldn't... shouldn't have asked him to do this."

Morgan had watched the memories with an air of detachment, although at one or two points - where Simon had mentioned the ease with which the others confided in him especially - he scoffed softly. If the emotions filtered through the gem awakened any of the same in him, he did not show it.

As the rest watched or moved to help Flaubon, he moved back from the group to a far wall, where he watched silently, showing neither contempt nor compassion. Finally, as the others began to do what they could for Flaubon, he spoke. "An impressive use of talent, I must admit. Not that I would know much about that. But I must ask - given that the information requested was primarily about the thief you met, why go so far back and put him under such a strain?"

Then he shrugged and casually leaned against the wall. "For that matter, given that we have limited time before we're hunted again, should we not be making plans for the future, and how we plan to evade them?"

Opal glared at Morgan from Flaubon's side. "This was about more than 'the thief'. This was about my word, and my being able to account for my movements when separated from rest of you."

"And allow me to point out," Opal continued with some venom, her green eyes flashing, "if you hadn't acted like an out of control bull back at the fountain Flaubon wouldn't have broken ribs right now. And probably wouldn't be lying here on the floor. Work that into your time table." Opal turned back to watch Seth examine Flaubon.

Morgan chuckled grimly. "I see. Because your disguise was good enough to fool us all, his injuries are my fault. That is an interesting take on things, I must say. As for your word, I treat it like I treat any others. As possibly good, until I know otherwise. I will not trust you completely, but I do not distrust you, until you prove yourself forsworn. You have done nothing that I know of to indicate that, so I need no other proof. At present, there are only two in this group who I hold forsworn. While those two are present, I will speak nothing more than generalities, and will trust them no farther than I can throw a charging bull. Further, while those two remain here, I grow very concerned about how quickly we will have until we have no choice but to leave."

Flaubon sat up, shaking his head.

"I'm all right," he said to Seth. "Yes, Virtue ... enough!" He getly but firmly pushed the enthusiastic dog away.

He dragged himself to his feet. "Another drink," he said firmly. "And then we shall continue."

He looked weary - but otherwise unharmed ...

Opal frowned. "I wish you would wait..." she said in a disapproving voice. But she stood up and went to the bar.

Opal glanced over at Morgan as she got Flaubon's drink. "If I had to choose between a rogue and a liar who did me no harm, and an honest warrior who nearly killed me by an honest mistake..." A look from Flaubon, and Opal desisted.

She came over and handed him both the drink and the ring. "Please... you need rest," she whispered. But she sat down and took his hand.

A blue light filled the room...

*** Then the feeling of memory being refocused... disorientation fading...

She was now be able to hear the smothered plantaxy again. It seemed to be over her head - several floors up, perhaps.

And the maid, if there was a maid - may well have gone to get help ....

"Yes... They're..." She looked around for a moment, then up to the ceiling. "They're above us. Almost directly. Perhaps several floors up. We should move fast. Was... there someone here?" Opal looked around puzzledly.

*** Still a bit of disorientation

There was no-one there now and - from all the evidence of cleaning, the room could have been deserted centuries.

And it was cold - deadly cold - but that perhaps was no wonder, for sleet was lashing thickly and wetly against the diamond paned glass. A dark night out there. An evil night, some might call it. And they would be right.

Within the dim light of the room though, there was a dust that seemed to glitter and gleam, and it was this that gave light to the room. A strange light ....

It was Opal who realises first - although the truth occurred to Simon too.

The dust that covered the room was mixed with the shards of a myriad crushed plantaxies - destroyed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ago.

Opal looked around at the dust. "Simon..." She suddenly shivered, the cold penetrating her clothes. Or maybe because of the realization.

Then she suddenly gasped "Ayesha!" She turned to Simon, fear in her eyes. "They must crush plantaxies. The dust has seeped down through the floors over time. But one of our captured ones... had a personality within it. It's last wielder, I think. She'll be destroyed."

Opal turned and walked from the room. She stood for a moment, then turned down the hall. "This way to the stairs."

Opal was quite right - but as they approached the stairs they heard the swish of a skirt and then heavier, metal shod feet.

People were coming down.

They heard voices ...

A woman's ...

" ... guard them well. I tell you, she believes ... an attempt ... yes, yes, I know."

A male voice was rumbling - the words hard to distinguish.

A laugh from the woman. "Indeed. The Hunter loves the chase when he is sure of his quarry ... waiting ... be sure .... The Lady believes ..."

They passed on, moving down.

From the upward direction came the sound of a dry cough.

The stairs, then, were guarded.

Opal pulled back into the shadows of the Hall as the two passed down the stairs.

Once they were past, Opal turned and leaned toward Simon. "Tell me, does the Lady always go veiled?" she asked him quietly.

"Always," he murmured, seeming to shrink a little now, as if the pain was finally getting to him. He gave a little shiver, and the emotionless mask that normally characterised his face was now replaced by something that looked almost lost, like a small boy that could no longer find the way home. "I - I don't feel very well," he added, wrapping his arms around himself.

Opal stepped up to him, looking concerned. "Ok.... I have a plan. And you'll be able to rest for a bit while I put it into motion." She gently took his arm and led him back down the hall to one of the rooms.

"This one, yes..." Opal pushed the door open to the dark dusty room and pulled Simon in after her. "I need to bandage your wounds. Sit," she said, gently pushing him towards the bed and closing the door behind them.

First she searched some of the chests in the room, pulling several moth eaten pieces of fabric out before selecting some less damaged ones, putting them aside.

She went to a table in the room and lifted off a water bowl, used for washing hands and that sort before the invention of modern plumbing. She wiped it off as best she could with her hands, then she forced open the window. Cold air and water blasted into the room as Opal leaned out, rinsed and collected some clean, icy water in the basin. She pulled the window shut, shuddering. "Too cold... But this will do."

*** COLD!!!!! So cold...

Opal moved an 18th century dusty chair up next to the bed where Simon was and placed the basin on it. "This is going to be very cold. I'm sorry. I have no way of heating it up," she said shivering. Using one of the pieces of cloth she pulled out, Opal carefully pulled the ragged bandages off Simon's wounds and started to clean them. The water was shockingly cold, but Opal was very gentle both in removing the bandages and cleaning the wounds.

With his shirt off, he was remarkably thin, and quite pale, like a young man not yet grown into his size and strength, and certainly an image quite at odds with the presence he had exuded when dressed in the finery of Karadon. Blood formed dark red streaks and splotches all over his body, contrasting richly with his pale skin, and not all of it was his. A deep score along the ribs, another thrust for the heart that appeared to have bounced off his sternum, and the deep puncture of the bolt in his shoulder were hard to distinguish against the rest of the smears, legacies of the brutal slayings in and around the Cage, no doubt.

On his other shoulder, a heavy purpling was starting to burgeon under the alabaster of his skin, evidence of the cracking he had suffered breaking through the bricks, and further bruises spotted his ribs and stomach, from the kicks of the other prisoners. Cold, however, was the one thing he did not seem to feel, for he never flinched under the icy water, simply sitting there and staring into the middle distance, his eyes focusing and unfocusing strangely. But the gentleness was clearly appreciated, for even at the touch of her delicate fingers on the most gaping of wounds, he never balked or twitched, but occasionally would even smile slightly, as if happy just to have her there.

*** strong wonder that he could've climbed the chimney at all in his
*** condition.

She took a deep breath, then finished cleaning the rib wound. She brought over another cloth and started to rip off bandages. Carefully, without a word, she bound up each of his wounds with a skill unexpected under those circumstances.

When she finished, she took another rag and wiped her own face clean of the blood and grime of the day. Hands followed. She then sat next to Simon on the bed and started to gently wipe his face clean.

"You know," he said, very softly, "these wounds of mine do feel much better - thank you." Simon closed his eyes tight, and his body started to shudder a little. "But I am still so weak from them - and if we are to get out of here, I must be strong..."

"Simon... wait." She put her hand on his shoulder. "Maybe there's another way." She opened her mouth and stuck her finger in between her lower right lip and her gumline, and pulled out a fragment of a plantaxy. "Simon? I want you to take this and use it; focus on your healing. Can you do that for me? Please?" She held the fragment out to him on the palm of her hand.

With a strange gulping motion, he closed his mouth, opening his eyes and staring hard at her hand. She noted that once again, his eyes were a deep red, but thankfully he still seemed under the semblance of control. "If you say so," he growled, sounding somewhat doubtful, "but this is Plantaxy, and I cannot use it like - like you can..." His voice trailed off, and he stared at her harder, the confusion clearly writ upon his features.

Still watching her intently, he took the Plantaxy shard in one hand, closing his fist around it, and then closing his eyes as well. The rise and fall of his breathing slowed and stopped, his shoulders and chest growing still, and the taut cords that were his muscles also relaxed, resuming their normal shape under his pale skin. With the blood cleaned from his wounds, it was hard to tell if there was any healing at all, but the harsh, vulpine angles of his face seemed to soften, and when Simon opened his eyes at last, they were their familiar dead black.

*** relief...

"Thank you," he said simply, opening his hand to reveal the sparkling shard of Plantaxy. Once more, his voice was its usual dry monotone, devoid of emotion.

Opal swallowed as she carefully picked up the plantaxy fragment from Simon's hand. "Your wounds? Are they... Are you healed?" she asked hesitantly, looking at the bandages on his ribs.

"No," was the calm reply, and he met her gaze evenly, unblinkingly. "But my mind is clearer now, at least. And your kindness is much appreciated. I cannot imagine anyone else doing as much as you have, in your position." He reached for his shirt, trying to find the appropriate holes in the ragged mess for his arms. "You were saying something about your plan to get past the stairs?"

"Yes... but you'll need to find another tunic. Some of these rooms have clothing that still usable. I'm..." Opal looked at the window where the rain was pounding down, "going to impersonate the Lady," she said with a flat voice. "There's enough here for me to work with. You... will play yourself. Most of the palace probably doesn't know you're being hunted with the other prisoners, and, if they do, who's to question if he's seen with the Lady once again. She must know what she's doing, after all. Then we'll go up the stairs, tell the guards to open up the... vault, or whatever it is up there were they've put the plantaxies, and then we take them and calmly walk out again."

Simon gave a curt nod, discarding the ragged and bloodstained jerkin he had worn. "It is a bold plan, Opal," he said quietly, but with a slight note of admiration in his voice, as he walked to the window, opening it and hanging his head out briefly in the freezing rain. He brought it back inside, and the howl of the wind and the patter of rain and sleet on the glass were suddenly muted as he closed the window behind him. Simon's eyes seemed unnaturally bright against his wet, lanky hair and skin, and he shook his head briefly, spraying cold water and the grime of the chimney, the battle and the pursuit out of his hair as best he could before smoothing it back with his fingers and tying it away.

"I imagine that for you to impersonate the Lady is both very easy and yet tremendously difficult," Simon was saying in his quiet manner as he searched through the various trunks in the room, looking for other clothes.

"It is not something I am looking forward to," Opal said with a touch of humor in her voice.

Some clothes he considered, holding them up with a critical eye that was almost comical given their situation. Others, like a ghastly ruffed doublet speckled with sequins, he put away with a faint look of distaste. Eventually he found one, an old military dress jacket with gold braids on black, and a heavy black cloak, slightly moth-eaten, from a rack behind the door. Fastening it around his neck, Simon turned with the barest hint of a flourish, quite transformed from the disheveled wreck that he had been moments ago. "There are many things for you to choose from in the trunks, Lady Opal," he said with a deep bow. "This plan shows courage and inventiveness, and I am most appreciative."

Opal looked Simon over, giving him a thin smile from where she sat on the bed. "This may work..."

***

A short time later Opal emerged from the room. She wore a faded cream lace dress, with a tight fitted corset and full flared skirt that trailed on the floor. The sleeves were tight to past the elbows, then flared and draped over small gloves that came up to her wrists. Over her shoulders was a half cape of dark fur. Her hair was pulled tightly up under a cream colored pill box hat, a pale scarf draped over it covered the upper half of her face. Under the edge of the scarf her lips were red. Blood red. She stood there perfectly still in the doorway.

She tilted her chin up to look at him through the veil. "I think you should speak for us, unless there is a problem. Shall we?"

The resemblance was so striking that he found himself lost for words. Rather, he simply bowed. "And if they know that I am persona non grata, Lady?" he asked. "What then?"

"You are with me. There can be no question to your status," she said in a tone of quiet authority very unlike her normal tone of voice. "Unless the Hunter himself has said I may not enter. Then we will have a problem. If they challenge you, simply wait for me to speak, then proceed. If they challenge me... well," her voice slipped back into Opal's brighter tones, "we'll just have to play it by ear."

She coughed slightly, clearing her throat. Then she calmly, with no apparent hurry or haste, walked down the hallway to the stairs, and started up them.

*** A sense of detachment, as if still drugged.

At the top of the stairs, a group of guards was gathered before a heavy wooden padlocked door.

As Opal moved serenely up the stairs and into vew, they snapped into a position of attention.

"My Lady!" said the young officer in charge. He cast a doubtful look at Simon. "Erm ... do you want ... "

"Open the door for the Lady," Simon began quietly. He kept his eyes low, but his posture was ramrod-straight, betraying none of the weariness he felt.

The officer saluted smartly and signalled to one of the guards, who hurried forwards and fumbled with the padlock. After a few minutes, the door was open - giving access to a darkened room within, furnished like a small study. At the far end was another door.

Opal, looking neither left nor right at the guards, smoothly strode into the now open room and towards the other door. Once there, she paused and waited expectantly.

Smartly, Simon stepped through the study, nodding imperceptibly to the men as he passed. Reaching the other door, he bowed low and held it open for the Lady to pass through.

As soon as Simon had entered the room, the guards bowed respectfully and closed the outer door. Then they heard the outer door being padlocked.

This was clearly the security routine for the plantaxies. The Lady, if she was entitled to enter their sanctum, would have a key - and would signal at the outer door when she wished to leave.

The lock turned a little stiffly - but did turn in her hand, revealing a small room before them, which was bathed in green light.

When they entered, the reason for the luminescence was clear.

In the centre of the room was a circular pillar that seemed to be filled with a luminous green liquid. Suspended in it, twisting and turning and catching the light, were nine large plantaxies, slowly floating in their liquid prison.

Opal stepped into the room. "That liquid... it must be what's shielding the plantaxy. Is there a mechanism to drain it away?" she asked Simon, her eyes fixed on the crystal shards suspended in front of them.

"Apparently not," he said dryly, glancing around the pillar. "Nor would there seem to be an obvious means to open it." He reached back one hand, balling it into a fist. "Apart, well, from the obvious."

Opal started slightly, then also looked around. "I see. But nothing here has been obvious, has it." Opal cleared her throat again, faced the column, and said in a commanding tone. "Drain. Open."

"Ahhh," said a quiet voice. "An optimist."

*** At this point, everyone gets the sensation their heart just tried
*** to jump out of their chest...

Beyond the green pillar, a face came into view. Hideously distorted by the coulmn, the flesh appeared green, and the features twisted and distorted - including the long vulpine smile that showed paler green teeth ...

Opal stepped back with a small gasp. She then swallowed and looked straight at the distorted face through the column. "Optimism has gotten us this far, so there must be something to it," she said with a forced voice. She took another small step back towards Simon. "May I inquire as to your identity?" she asked stiffly.

"Actually, a question I was intending to ask you," said the other. The face distorted horribly - but they realised swiftly that it was because he was moving, walking slowly around the pillar towards them.

"Not the Lady, I suspect, and yet I assume it was you who was able to open the door and not your companion. Interesting. It speaks volumes for her sense of ... control."

He was moving into view now - a tall slender man, with a dark moustache - and dark, piercing eyes. The exact colour was hard to determine in the light from the green pillar - which tinted all their skin a rich green.

The stranger's eyes were fastened on Opal - and he merely glanced at Simon at first. But then his eyes returned to him, as though riveted.

"Well, well, well," he said softly - and his voice was beautiful, mellifluous. "You survived, then. I would have thought the villagers would have brought their torches and pitchforks to your door long ago. But then, it was such a very slow Shadow ... "

"Quite, my Lord," Simon inclined his head, his expression showing customary blankness. "But, somewhat appropriately, you speak of mysteries that have little bearing on our current situation. We are here for those." He indicated the gyrating Plantaxies, their varicoloured light sparkling still in the ubiquitous green glow. "If you do not have a suggestion as to how we might open the cabinet, then I might respectfully suggest that you stand back."

As Simon spoke, Opal stepped yet another step back and came to stand a little bit behind Simon's shoulder. "Simon? Do you know this man?" she asked quietly, with a hint of uncertainty. She didn't take her eyes off the stranger.

"Not at all," was the soft reply, one she barely heard as Simon did not turn to look at her. "But it matters little, as I said, to the situation at hand."

"I'm not so sure, Simon..." Opal quietly said back. "Why should we find someone here who knows you? I don't like this."

The stranger laughed softly. "You're in the Castle of the Rulers of Karadon, disguised as the Lady, having crept by guile into the most secret and guarded cabinet, while there's an uproar shaking the place that could wake Oberon from the dead, and my presence here is worrying you? Believe me, girl, I am the very least of your problems at the moment."

He looked again at Simon, and the smile broadened. "Go ahead and try to smash it, if you wish. Although I'd have hoped for more subtlety in one ... ah well.

"Do any of those pretty plantaxies belong to you?" he added, with a careless glance to where they floated in the green liquid.

"We have a claim to them, yes," Opal replied, glancing up at the floating crystals. "And a reason for being here." She returned her gaze full to other gentleman. "Like us, you're not supposed to be here either. But, unlike us, the guards outside this chamber would think you're the intruder, not us. Why are you here, pray tell? Is it to collect these?" Opal indicated the floating plantaxies with a wave of her hand.

"It does seem a shame to leave them in such barbarous hands," he agreed,walking away from them behind the column once more. "And, unlike you two, I have a plan for removing them with the minimum of disruption and the maximum of later perplexity.

"Pretty lady, how very young you are. Understandably so, of course. Much older - and you would be dead. But not yet old enough to learn not to make threats from a position of weakness. Betray my presence to the guards and ... well, I'll simply be gone. Whereas the pair of you ... "

He laughed softly.

"But I'm willing to make a deal with you," he went on. "Pick out your plantaxies - and you shall have them. I think I can hardly say fairer than that."

Opal started to slowly walk around the pillar counter clockwise. "I agree. Under other circumstances it would be a fair deal. Unfortunately, we are here to recover all of them. You see, their owners are still very much alive, and would like them returned. So you see, I'm afraid I cannot bargain with you... for them. But perhaps... there are other things to bargain with?"

As Opal came around the pillar, she glanced around for an obvious control or lock mechanism. Or even for a plantaxy mechanism similar to a certain time piece she is familiar with...

There was - presumably much to her irritation - no sign of a mechanism at all. And the stranger was now standing quite still and watching her as she approached, with a distinct look of amusement.

"Well," he said, "you do seem to have choices. Either you can point out your own, and have those. Or you could both of you be incredibly noble and self-sacrificing and choose two belonging to others, and have those instead. Or you could stamp your feet and say "Shan't!" and then I shall take the lot. It really makes little odds to me - I simply think it would amuse me to picture the fury of Karadon to see plantaxies in your hands. Of course it would be better if both of you were escapees from Karadon - but I have long since ceased to expect life to be neat and tidy - and I am interested in seeing what you make of a plantaxy." His dark eyes rested for a moment on Simon, and he said, with unexpected gravity, "You might call it a repayment for an ancient injury. Although I'm more inclined to see it as a quixotic gesture."

He spoke more briskly. "Now - make up your minds. Even though I enjoy being the master of daring escapes, I have no wish to linger here. Do you want your plantaxies - or not?"

Opal looked at Simon for a moment, then back to the stranger. Her shoulders slumped slightly in resignation. "Three then. Our two, plus one more. We will need ours to... escape this place." Opal gave the gentleman a nod.

"And the other... A woman bravely gave her life for it, killed by the Hunter helping another. I would have that one as well." Opal lifted her chin slightly. "Please."

Quietly, Simon turned and opened the door leading to the study they had come from. "And what do you think you're doing?" the stranger murmured, his mellifluous voice rich with amusement."

"Calling the guards," came the reply, without even a blink on Simon's face. "It's not that your offer is not acceptable - I'm sure it is very fair, and the presence or absence of Plantaxy makes little difference to myself personally in any case. Nor do I doubt your assertions of power - you are clearly capable of infiltrating the inner sanctum of the Three with far less effort than ourselves." He turned slightly to face the stranger more fully. "But a threat, even one made from an apparent position of weakness, is worth nothing if you do not intend to go through with it. And were you really in such a position of strength, I doubt you would care overmuch whether you lingered at all, o Master of Daring Escapes. Were it simply a matter of you snapping your fingers and the Plantaxies appearing in your hand, then you would have already done so and been gone. Nor would I think you would even bother making us any offer at all, unless it is indeed solely for your own self-gratification and amusement, in which case you are even more wretched and self-righteous than you have thus far appeared. It may well be naive and foolish of me to do so, no doubt an error of my youth, as you might say. But, to be honest, if wisdom means taking the advice of and jerking around on the strings of pompous little windbags like yourself, then I would rather forge my own path."

Simon shrugged, his expression still mild. "In any case, like yourself, I believe that the arrival of the guards will have worse consequences for the other party. You may indeed be able to escape, and well you might, for I suspect the Three will be far more vindictive in their consideration of yourself than us. Certainly even the knowledge that you were able to penetrate this sanctum would mean changes that would prevent you ever doing such again, and certainly not getting these Plantaxies either." He shrugged again. "Call it petty if you like, but I make no pretensions to perfection. Now," he nodded at Opal, "might I respectfully suggest that you swallow a little of your pride and make the lady an offer that she finds acceptable as well. Then we can both profit from this little encounter, perhaps not as much as we might have expected, but some nonetheless, and go on our way. And, with a bit of luck, never see each other again."

The stranger heard him out, still with that faint smile on his face, his eyes narrowing a little as he listened to Simon - but not, it seemed, in anger - merely focusing on what he was saying - although he frowned when Simon spoke of being indifferent to the possession of a plantaxy.

As Simon continued, he leaned forward slightly, resting on hand on the side of the green column. The plantaxies, which had seemed to be floating almost at random within the liquid, began, it seemed, to drift closer to his hand.

"You're not attuned then?" he said abruptly, when Simon finished speaking. "Make sure he does so, girl, as soon as you leave this place. If you must all be wandering around Karadon, I'd sooner it was not at a grave disadvantage.

"As for the rest ... you shall have the three plantaxies - when you tell me all you know about this dead girl. Who was she? Why is she important to you?"

He smiled more broadly. "A little information, for a plantaxy past price. A fair bargain, I think ... "

He looked again at Simon - with the same amusement. "And we shall all go on our way with some profit, I think. But I doubt that your other wish will be gratified. I believe our paths will cross again ... "

"Just as you like," Simon said with equanimity. "Depending, of course, if your offer is acceptable to the lady." He looked askance at Opal, still holding the door open, clearly waiting for her approval. "Don't think I won't make an attempt to stop you should she disagree."

Opal looked at the Plantaxies suspended in the fluid drifting towards the stranger's hand, seemingly not hearing the debate between Simon and the other man. She took a step up to the column and reached out, touching it with her ungloved right hand...

As she touched it she felt ...

Nothing, save a slight throbbing in the thick glass-like barrier of the column.

But even the sense of her own plantaxy was missing - as though it was lost to her entirely, instead of being less than a foot from her hand.

The stranger watched her through the green of the column, his amusement growing, it appeared.

The plantaxies continued to move steadily towards his own hand. Three were already nudging against the perimeter barrier, as though baffled in their eagerness to join him.

"There's a trick to it," the stranger said gravely. "If you were to ask very nicely, I might teach it to you sometime.

"Now ... your ... companion wants to know if you'll accept three plantaxies. And to obtain the third, I want to know about the woman who died. Are we going to come to an arrangement? Or shall we just hand all the plantaxies over to the Rulers to grind into dust?"

Opal frowned as she stared at the plantaxies floating in the fluid. "I cannot..." She withdrew her hand. "It seems the favor is in your court."

She looked at Simon. "I accept his offer. I cannot do else, since he has cut me off from my plantaxy."

"Don't blame me," said the stranger drily. "Apportion blame where it truly belongs. The Rulers. I have simply learned ways to circumvent their wiles. Some of them."

He frowned, as though recalling old injuries.

Opal took her right glove and started to pull it back on. "Her name was Ayesha. I know she was working with others who formed a resistance against the Lords of Karadon. She was killed by some creature of the Hunter's when she went to help a... cousin." She looked up at the dark gentleman. "I understand she was beautiful. And I know she was deeply loved by another. I know she gave her life essence to save another when she was killed. That is all I know, but it is enough for me to try to save her plantaxy."

"Ayesha," he said softly. "Ayesha ... I did not know she was dead." He was silent for a moment, leaning his head forward against the column. "You are right - she was indeed lovely. But ... I understood she worked alone. I did not know she had met others of her kind. Have you met any of them?"

As he was speaking, he was pressing his hand harder against the glass-like barrier, it appeared. Then suddenly, his hand was inside, as was his forearm, alough the rest of him remained outside. He cupped his hand, and the plantaxies cascaded into it through the liquid. Carefully, he closed his finger over the stone - it seemed impossible he could hold them all, and yet he did. Slowly, carefully, he began to draw his hand back.

He paused.

"Have you?" he asked again.

*** Don't mention Flaubon...

Opal looked at him with no expression. "If you mean the blood of Amber, then yes. Today I did. In the Cage. Seven others. And..." Opal indicated Simon with a nod of her head. "Unfortunately the others were forced to leave me behind when they escaped. The gentleman here stayed behind to help me."

She then gave the gentleman an ironic smile. "Oh yes... I also met the Hunter and the Lady. Quite the crowded castle, you might say."

"But I'd never met Ayesha," Opal continued, her expression softening. "I know that she was taking one of the other prisoners to meet others, but they never made it. At least... that's what the other prisoners told me."

"And yourself?" she asked politely, readjusting the scarf to cover her face.

He withdrew his hand the rest of the way. The column suddenly seemed as solid and as impregnable as it had before.

"And myself? No-one was coming to meet me, as far as I can recall - although I'll have to check my desk diary, you know, to be sure. As for the rest ...

"Blood of Amber? Yes, as you say, the problem seems to be finding those who lack it here."

He suddenly lifted his hand and opened it - the plantaxies he had redeemed leapt from his hand and hung together in the air for a moment - almost shaped like a crystalline rainbow - with one reddened area that was Simon's plantaxy.

"Well," he said. "I think I'll leave you to your fate."

He snapped his fingers - and there was a soft thud, as though of something striking the carpet. The crystalline rainbow vanished abruptly.

"Beware the Lord of Shadows," he said.

There was a sudden ripple in the air, as though on the surface of a still pond, and then he was gone.

On the carpeted floor where he had been standing, something glittered.

Three somethings glittered - one a rich red.

Opal slowly walked forward and picked the three plantaxies off the ground by their chains. "Well... not all we came for, but something."

She walked over to Simon. "Somehow... that man managed to smother my connection with my plantaxy. Once he'd done that, I didn't think I could get them out myself." She gave Simon a slight smile. "But you were correct, I think. He wasn't sure what we could do, so he didn't have all the cards." She held out the red plantaxy to him, still holding it by the chain.

Thoughtfully, Simon accepted the glowing red crystal, which gave a faint pulse of acknowledgement at his touch. He stared at it a second before hanging it back around his neck, and the pits of his eyes were strangely unfocused and unfathomable. "I am sorry you could not get them all, Opal," he said at length, very quietly. "Are you now able to leave this castle? Perhaps by the same manner he did?"

Opal drew back slightly, her eyes hidden by the scarf. "....Maybe. Something else new to try. Are... you staying?" she asked hesitantly.

"I cannot do anything like that," he answered wryly, waving one hand at the now-vacant space where the stranger had been. "And I hope for your sake that you can, for I do not like the odds of bluffing our way back through the entire castle." He looked away, his eyes narrowing slightly, as if another thought had occurred to him. "And if - you will not take me, then stay I must." Simon gave a little smile. "Do not feel compelled to take me with you, Opal," he added, looking down at his hands and flexing his fingers distractedly. "I am of little use to you once you have left this place, and you can never be sure of my true allegiance. Your priority must be the most expedient manner of leaving this castle."

Opal was silent for a moment, looking down at Simon's hands. She sighed and looked up. "Let's both put this place behind us," she said quietly. "Or at least," she barely smiled, "let's try."

She took her own plantaxy and pulled the chain over her head, letting the crystal slide under the neck of her dress. The third plantaxy she held in her hand. "This might not work here... I don't know how this room is shielded. We'll try, and if it doesn't work, we'll go back down to where we found our clothes and try from there."

Opal took a deep breath, then slowly, precisely, sang a sequence of tones in the flat air of the chamber.

At first there was nothing ... silence.

Around her neck, the plantaxy throbbed ... once.

And then ....

Both of them felt the sense of travelling ... of rushing forward --- upward ... curiously inward ... at great speed ... getting faster ... faster ...

And then it stopped.

They were standing on the vast dark plain, slightly concave, like the bowl of a huge natural volcano. Beneath their feet was fine black silt that glittered in the light of a huge blank-faced moon. Their breath sounded very loud and ragged in the silence of that place. Overhead was a featureless dark sky - devoid of stars - it was hard to trace where the black of the crater's brim became the navy velvet of the sky. And it was cold ... cold ...

Simon looked around with deliberation, nodding slowly. "Did it work?" was all he asked.

Opal pulled the scarf from her face and looked around, looking very cross. "No..! why here?" she sighed in frustration. She looked at Simon. "This is... I keep... I don't think this is how it is supposed to work." Opal started pacing, looking very agitated. "I was trying a songline... I think, but... I came here when I had the manacles on, back in the Tomb. And those were supposed to prevent songlines from working. And once before that..." She expelled the breath she'd been holding, the coldness of it causing her breath to frost.

She looked around the cold basin. "At least we're alone this time," she said with a touch of apprehension.

He watched her pacing without expression save perhaps the faintest hint of amusement. "If it has not worked as it should, perhaps it is not possible for us to depart in this fashion, Opal. Perhaps we should return to wherever we were. Unless there is a way to move on from wherever we are." He gave a little sigh. "I fear I am of little use to you - I have no such wondrous powers, nor any knowledge of them. It is up to you now."

But even as he was finishing speaking ... suddenly ... something shimmered before them - a similar effect to the rippling they had seen as the stranger vanished in the chamber with the plantaxies. Only this time a figure appeared - in severe black and white - then warming into rich colour as it somehow solidified. An old man it appeared, withered and wrinkled, stooped, with blinded eyes screwed tight against any possible light ...

Then the eyes opened, full and dark - and very familiar to Opal.

Flaubon's eyes - and it was his voice that spoke, with a distinct edge of irritation.

"Marguerite - we're doing our best! Leave us alone, damn it - this place is crawling with the Hunter's men ... "

He trailed off uncertainly - blinking as he looked around the plain - and a note of uncertainty - even fear - entered his voice.

"Who are you?"

The image was beginning to ripple again, as though being hastily pulled back.

"Flaubon? Is that you? It's Opal!" she cried out, pulling the hat off her head. Her hair fell down around her face. "I'm on that plain again. But I'm out of the castle. How do I leave this place!?

"Opal?" There was a note of incredulous hope in his voice. "Opal?"

He looked around vaguely - as though his eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness - and then his face lit up in a very familiar smile. "How did you get here, milady? Where are Seth and Lazarus? It's hellishly dangerous out ... there."

"Yes... I know. I'm not with them. We got separated," Opal raised a hand, anticipating his response. "And they had no control over the circumstances. But..." she smiled at him, "I am very glad to see you."

"And I you - as ever, milady," he returned gravely. "How did you learn how ... ah, never mind. Things are getting difficult - I can bring you through ... but ... "

His eye fell on Simon and he stiffened slightly. "Who's this?"

Opal paused two heartbeats before answering. "This is Simon," she said carefully. "He... was... the Lady's attendant. He helped me and the others escape. And... he has a plantaxy." Her breath came out in little puffs of steam as she spoke. "In fact, he helped me retrieve mine." Opal watched Flaubon carefully as she spoke.

"A plantaxy?" said Flaubon sharply. He looked at Simon again closely - as though gauging something. ""It's hard to tell, in this light," he said at last, almost to himself. Then he gave a little bow. "If you've helped miladi, then I too am in your debt. Only now ... "

His eyes seemed to unfocus - and he faded slightly - but lifted a hand as though to stop them moving towards him. His gaze was fixed elsewhere - as though at a vision only he could see.

"They're here," he said softly. "I see them ... where I am. They're here - and they're under attack."

Opal quickly put the pill box hat back on and started to pile her hair back up under it. "I have Lazarus' plantaxy, as well as my own. I have no weapons. But I was able to impersonate the Lady earlier. What do you want us to do?"

"Be the Lady," he said, gazing at her, with a kind of sickened awe. "Yes ... Do it!"

He glanced at Simon. "You're her attendant? The Lady's? Or rather - you were ... can you make this convincing?"

His first response was a quirked eyebrow, an uncommonly animated expression from Simon, the pallor of his skin stark in this colourless environment. The white against the black of his hair and eyes made him truly appear like the walking dead, and even his voice seemed more sepulchral. "That depends, Master Flaubon," he intoned. "Fooling the prisoners, almost certainly. The Hunter's men - we shall have to see."

Flaubon shot him a swift look - then nodded.

"I'll be there," he said, more to Opal. "Close by. If it gets bad - I'll open the songline and get you out, miladi. I promise you."

"You'll find yourselves in a square ... it's dark - raining ..."

Swiftly, he described the place - ***

- one old blind beggar seemed to have slipped into a trance, for he seemed unaware of the small dirty dog that was worrying urgently at the cuffs of his trousers.

"That's me," said Flaubon, with a wry grin. "You'll ... appear ... near me."

"The others - well - Lazarus and some others - have just appeared at the end of the tunnel - they've come through the grating. There are archers - they'll cut them to ribbons. Only ... I can't see ... Seth."

He was silent for a moment, frowning. Then he shook his head.

"We have to do it now," he said - and suddenly, in the still coldness of the place, whistled a little tune - the conclusion to the one Opal had started ...

And everything changed ...

***

Seth had remained silent throughout the scene, but there was an audible gasp as the conversation played out in the chamber of plantaxy. As the second series of images came to their conclusion, he had the look of a man whose stomach had dropped to his shoes.

"I thought it, too," he said. "I even said as much to Lazarus. But he's attuned it..." He looked at the Baronne. "Who was that man? And...are we right? Is there a chance?" He looked around. "And where's Simon?"

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