CHAPTER 1

 "No! Please don't shoot!" The hospital's data processing

 director groveled in the aisle. "I'll never do it again, I prom-

 ise! Just let me live—" Mrs. Mindley was on her knees,

 begging and sobbing. Minerva had. waited a long time to see

 her like that.

 "Too late, you inconsiderate cow—you've blocked the

 aisle one time too many. Now you die!" The machine gun

 in Minerva's hands jumped and. snarled, and Minerva

 gleefully splattered hits of Mrs. Mindley over the entire

 soup section.

 Minerva Kiakra's lips curled into a tight smile as she imag-

 ined that scene. It- beat reality. Reality was that Mrs-.

 Mindley's shopping cart angled across most of the

 Soup/Sauce/Pasta aisle, allowing no passage, while Mrs-

 Mindley's wide-load rear end blocked the rest. The woman

 bent over the display of Tomato and Rice soup, carefully

 choosing cans—Minerva was unable to determine the

 method the other woman was using to establish can ripe-

 ness, but three out of every tour of the little suckers were

 obviously failing some sort of test.

 The Chicken and Noodle soup was tantalizingly within

 view, and completely out of reach.

 "***Chicken and Noodle soup—6 cans!!!" Dariyl had

 marked on the shopping list.

  

 Minerva stared at the list, and gritted her teeth, and

 waited.

 But patience wasn't going to work. Minerva suspected

 malice in Mrs. Minctle/s glacial slowness. She was going to

 have to be direct. Toughness was what the situation called

 for, she decided.

 She cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Mrs. Mindley, but

 I'm in a huny."

 The woman didn't even look up. She just waved her hand

 in one of those dismissive "wait a minute" gestures that

 meant she'd move when she was damned good and ready,

 and not before.

 Minerva raised her voice a notch. "Mrs. Mindley, I need

 to get past you."

 Her voice sounded contemptible and pleading in her own

 ears. She could imagine how it sounded to Mrs. Mindley—

 and sure enough, the woman continued to ignore her.

 Minerva watched her knuckles whiten on the cart handle.

 "My baby-sitter needs to get home, and she can't leave until

 I get there."

 The other woman glared up at her and, with a vicious

 snort, moved her cart just enough that Minerva could

 squeeze by if she dragged her left shoulder along the shelves

 on the opposite side. Naturally, doing that meant all the

 boxes of macaroni and spaghetti stacked on chose shelves

 toppled to the floor. They rattled loudly behind her, and

 Minerva cringed—but the baby-sitter really was in a hurry,

 and the weather was building toward a North Carolina ic-e

 storm that was going to lock everyone in for a week or bet-

 ter. She was miserably short of time. So, feeling guilty, she

 left the boxes on the floor, and, as she'd expected, she heard

 the old bat snort again.

 "The nerve of some people"

 Minerva's imagination created a fantasy shopping cart for

 her that featured twin-mounted submachine guns on the

 front end and a flamethrower at ankle height, and pleased

 herself by mentally frying Mrs. Mindley to a cinder after

 gunning her down. That would teach the old harridan to

 block the aisle. Or to drop a stack of reports on Minerva's

 MINERVA WAKES             3

 desk and demand that she handle them because they dealt

 with data problems in the Administrative, not Data Process-

 ing, Department.

 Feeling better, Minerva returned to shopping. "Six cans

 of Chicken Noodle, some Chicken and Stars for the kids,

 and some asparagus soup for me ..." she muttered. Then

 she checked the price on the asparagus soup and put it back.

 It was a luxury that would have to wait until another time.

 She'd have Chicken and Stars with the kids.

 She snarled and grumbled her way down the aisles,

 checking off Darryl's special items with an extra dash of

 venom; Darry! was going on his biennial health kick, which

 Minerva knew from experience would last exacdy five days

 and would drive the rest of the family nuts in the process.

 She also knew from experience that it was easier to give in

 to his nonsensical demands than to fight them.

 "Wheat germ. Ri-i-i-i-ight. He's going to sprinkle it on a

 huge serving of ice cream and cl<um ifs a health treat. And

 I'll end up sneaking it into ca-sseniles and homemade cook-

 ies for a year to get rid of it." Nevertheless, she did find

 some wheat germ and tossed it into the cart.

 "Sunflower seeds." She just rolled her eyes and sighed.

 She brushed her bangs out of her fcice and surveyed die

 list critically. Thank God she was almost done. The cart

 would give a junk-food junkie nightmares—it was full of

 whole-wheat crackers and bean sprouts, exotic vegetables

 and strange fruits, and chicken and fish and expensive lean

 ground beef. And this mess, most of which she and the kids-

 would eat after Darryl got bored playing fitness expert, was

 going to cost twice the usual weekly amount.

 She cruised into the cereal aisle in a foul temper.

 ^WHEATIES-IH—BIG BOX!!! the list demanded.

 That was the last other beloved spouse's special items.

 Wheaties, for chrissakes, she thought. Uf^h! Not cucn /

 kke them.

 She marched the entire length of the aisle, looking for

 Wheaties. There weren't any.

 "Oh, damn," she muttered. Darryl would throw a royal

 tantrum. She turned around and looked hack the way .she

 4                      HoUy Lisle

 had come. There, at the very opposite end of the row, on

 the very top shelf, a single box of Wheaties sat in lonely

 splendor.

 She sighed and backtracked, carefully not looking at the

 box. If she looked at it, some other shopper was sure to

 notice the direction of her glance and decide to beat her to

 it. Grocery shopping was a vicious, competitive event even

 in good weather. Right before an ice storm, when "Snow-

 bound Panic" took over. it became truly bloodthirsty.

 However, this time her strategy worked. The box was still

 there when she shoved her cart in front of it and reached up.

 Her reflexes were a little off. It had been an awful day,

 which was segueing into an awful evening. Edgy as she was,

 her reach for the Wheaties was more of a desperate grab.

 The box was hers—until she tumbled it away with one

 clumsy move . . . and saw it grabbed in midair by another

 shopper.

 Like a wild thing, she faced the devious thief, teeth bared,

 warning growl readied in the back of her throat—

 The growl stopped, strangled, halfway to delivery.

 A dragon stared back at her out of serene amber eyes.

 It looks real, Minerva thought. What sort of promotion is

 FoodUon having that uses a dragon? Dragon Days? They're

 going to give some old lady a heart attack with that thing.

 Or me. They may give me a heart attack.

 The vertical slits in the dragon's amber eyes dilated, and

 it cocked its head to one side, staring at her as if it found her

 as peculiar-looking as she found it.

 It had a bony, oversized snout full of curved ivory teeth

 the size of ten-penny nails. Its delicately scaled blue hide

 shimmered with rainbow iridescence. The pale, glossy wings,

 of flesh around its face and down its neck flexed and spread

 with a slow, steady rhythm; its long, thick tail trailed around

 the comer, while two membranous pale blue wing* unfurled

 slightly as she glared at it.

 That's real, she thought with growing wonder- No one

 makes costumes that perfect.

 Other shoppers hurried past. They pushed their carts by

 without paying attention to either the dragon or Mineiva,

 MINERVA WAKES             5

 but Minerva noticed that they detoured around the space

 the dragon occupied and kept their eyes averted.

 There is something standing there. It isn't just a figment

 of my imagination. Could it, perhaps, be a woman—and I'm

 just seeing a dragon?

 That's it I'm hallucinating. I've cracked up. I'm about to

 get into a fight with Mrs. Mindley over Darryl's fucking

 Wheaties, and my mind has turned her into a dragon.

 The dragon clutched the box against its belly scales with

 one wickedly taloned hand and grinned at Minerva, exposing

 even more teeth. It definitely had a Mrs. Mindley-ish smile.

 Then the dragon dropped the box into its own shopping

 cart.

 A vision of Darryl deprived of Wheaties danced in front

 of Minerva's eyes. Darryl's voice, whining, "Is it such a prob-

 lem for you if I ask you to get me a few simple things? Can't

 you even take the time to do a little favor for me, when you

 linow I'm trying to fake care of myself?" droned through her

 memory.

 "NO!" Minerva yelled, willing to face down a woman who

 made her job hell, or even a real dragon, to avoid that selt-

 pitying whine. She grabbed at the cereal box.

 Opalescent blue-green fingers gripped viselike around

 her wrist, and a sub-bass voice rumbled in her ear, "MINE."

 As abruptly as that, she found herself sitting on a bruised

 rump on the cold tile floor, staring up at the dragon's reced-

 ing sapphire-blue back as it strolled casually down the aiiile-

 That. lady, is one hell of a muscular hallucination, she

 told herself.

 The dragon and its shopping cart made two stops. Ifs get-

 ting Pop Tarts and Instant Breakfast, Minerva noted,

 bemused. Then it turned the comer, and disappeared.

 Taking the Wheaties with it.

 "Darryl, there was this dragon in the supermarket today,

 and it snatched the only box of'Wheaties out of my hfind and

 wouldn't give it back," Minerva imagined herself saying.

 Right. Darryl will love that. I could save myself a lot of time

 by going to the Emergency Room and. telling them the saiw

 thing. They could check me into a padded room in a hum/.

 6                        Holly Lisle

 A padded room seemed like a nice idea. It would be a

 quiet room, with people to take care other, round-the-clock

 tranquihzers, no responsibilities, no hassles, no chores. It

 was obviously something she needed, something she'd been

 building up for.

 WeU, fighting with a dragon in the supermarket ewer a

 box of cereal no one in my house likes is definitely stupid.

 And probably crazy. So is sitting in the aisle, waiting to get

 run over by a erased shopper.

 She got up, dusted off the back of her slacks, and began

 shoving the cart toward the dairy section.

 But, delightful as a stay in a sanitarium would probably

 be ... we don't haw the time or the money for me to lose

 my mind this month.

 She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly-

 You're going to have to he okay, Minerva, she told herself.

 fou don't have any choice.

 The checkout lines stretched endlessly. The weather serv-

 ice was calling for four inches of snow and freezing rain hy

 morning. They might be wrong; they were often enough,

 after all. But everyone in town was stocking up on staples,

 just in case. Checkout line camaraderie was high. Neighbors

 and strangers alike chatted about the impending storm,

 about their snow tires or newly bought tire chains, about

 their lads and their kids' sleds that would probably only get

 one use this winter. Minerva submerged herself in the chat-

 ter and felt better.

 Outside, pushing the cart across the parking lot, freezing

 as the wet, cold wind bit through her sid jacket and gabar-

 dine slacks, Minerva managed to put die dragon incident out

 of her mind-

 Jamie is having a spelling test tomorrow—fifty words.

 Did we have fifty words at a time in fourth grad^? J can't

 remember.

 She shoved paper bags into die back of the station wagon,

 wedging them in against each other so they wouldn't tip and

 dump groceries all over the car.

 And work is going to he heU tomorrow. The visit hy Joint

 Commission means a ton of extra paperwork. Cod, hut I

 MINERVA WAKES              7

 hateJCAH visits. I'R have to start on revisions of the organi-

 zation charts and Mr. Asher's presentation for the trustees

 first thing in the morning, or J'U he buried in paper by next

 week.

 She slammed down the hatch, and pulled her keys out of

 her sid jacket. There was a shrill squeal of tires on cold pave-

 ment from across the parking lot, and she glanced over.

 A red sports car. Mazda Miata? Yeah, a Miata. Even own-

 ing one of those things, and red at that, is begging for killer

 insurance premiums—and then to drive the way that idiot is

 driving— She shook her head, bewildered.

 There had been a time in her life when she'd dreamt of

 red sports cars. It was hard to remember what that was like,

 wanting a racy, sexy little convertible two-seater to show off

 in—and to hell with the practicality. Remembering that was

 almost like trying to remember fourth grade. She'd been a

 different person both times.

 She stared at her white LTD wagon with loathing. For

 just a second, she could almost reach into her past to touch

 the Minerva who'd wanted that red two-seater—but reality

 reminded her that a cute little car wouldn't cany her own

 three lads and several of their closest friends, or all die gro-

 ceries, or half the PTA moms. A Mazda Miata was not a

 mommy car.

 Reality reminded Minerva that she was a mommy-

 She backed out of her parking space, wormed her way

 into the solid block of cars trying to get out of the lot, and

 inched forward.

 There was another screech of tires, and the sleek red

 Miata siddded over the grass to the right of the drive, and

 nosed back in, right in front of her.

 She stared at the license plate, which read "FLAMER."

 I'll remember that aU right, she thought.

 The bumper-sticker was even worse- "I V VIRGINS," it

 declared. The most obnoxious thing about the little red car

 was the yellow diamond stuck to the darkly tinted rear win-

 dow, though. That told the world, "Living Legend On

 Board."

 "What an asshole," she muttered.

 8                         Holly Lisle

 As if the little convertible's driver had heard her, the dark-

 tinted window on its driver's side rolled down.

 The blue dragon leaned its head out of the window and

 grinned its cocky grin at her. Then, as the line of traffic

 surged forward, the dragon gunned the engine and roared

 out into the river of cars.

 Minerva floored her own gas peda] and shot after it in

 desperate pursuit.

 Thirty-five miles per hour through here, Minerva, her

 reality-based self growled. A ticket will raise your insurance.

 Goddamned dragon driving a goddamned Masda Miata

 at fifty, and I'm going to catch it and find oitt why! the rest

 of her growled back. Or die trying.

 There were, surprisingly, no police cars in sight. She

 and the dragon made it through the center of town

 without injury, and headed toward suburban streets, and

 her house. The dragon kept to the main highway. Minerva

 stuck to the dragon. The LTD's speedometer crept to the

 eighty-miles-per-hour mark, and then past it. Minerva

 didn't care.

 One street from her house, the dragon slowed enough to

 hang a rubber-burning right- Minerva followed suit, then

 gunned after it, accelerating into the curve and giving die

 car a little extra gas to cut down the fishtailing as she pulled

 the car straight and closed on her target.

 The dragon dove into another right, with Minerva moving

 in fast.

 Then the Miata slowed way down and turned right again

 onto an incredibly overgrown dirt road in the middle of what

 Minerva would have sworn was a vacant lot the last time she

 looked. She stopped. The little sports car's red taillights flick-

 ered down tile tunnel-like gloom. She watched them dim,

 then vanish.

 She started to swing her car onto die side road—the com-

 pulsion to follow that dragon was overwhelming.

 But-

 But the ice cream in the back of the car would melt, and

 Carol needeo her costume started. But the baby-sitter

 needed to get home, and Jamie had a test he would need

 MINERVA WAKES             9

 help studying for. But a storm was coming, and it was time

 for supper, and—

 As if to add emphasis to the real world, the first light

 flakes of snow drifted through the beams of her headlights

 and across her windshield. Feeling that adventure was pass-

 ing her by, she nosed the station wagon onto the dirt road

 and executed a neat three-point turn.

 Home, she told herself. Go home right this minute like the

 responsible adult you are. and no more dragons in Mazdas.

 No matter what it might have meant.

 Minerva had second thoughts the whoie last block and a

 half to home.

 Bamey met her at the door, mil of four-year-old angst.

 They won't let me play," he wailed. "They said I'm a litde

 boy. I'm not. I'm a big boy, and I can play, too!"

 Carol and Jamie looked up from Chutes and Ladders,

 and Jamie said, "Un-UH! Yon can't count and you cheat on

 the chutes!"

 Carol added her own five-year-oid wisdom. "When you

 get bigger, you'll be able to play. Right, Mommy?"

 Seventeen-year-old Louise had her jacket on, and her

 books piled in her backpack, and revulsion in her eyes. "You

 promised you'd get here half an hour ago, Mrs. Kiakra- I'm

 going to be late for my date."

 "Going to be an ice storm tonight, Louise. You might

 have to cancel. But I'm sony I'm late. The supermarket was

 a zoo." She handed Louise her cash, and watched her baby-

 sitter flounce out the door without so much as a "thanks."

 "You ought to be used to zoos," she heard the girl mutter.

 I love you too, dear, Minerva thought.

 The phone rang.

 She ran for it. "Kiakra Demolitions," she said. She usually

 got a kick out of saying that, but this time she just hoped the

 ritual family greeting would fend off whichever siding sales-

 man, encyclopedia vendor, or purveyor of time-share condos

 at Myrtle Beach happened to be calling. But it wasn't a

 member of North Carolina's three great growth industries

 on the line.

 It was Danyl, saying that he was going to be late. Would

 10                       Holly Lifle

 Minerva mind keeping supper in die oven for him, he'd be

 there when he could?

 Miner/a stared at the groceries, sitting in their bags

 silently thawing, at Carol and Jamie squabbling and pouting

 over their game, at Bamey crashing his cars into the base of

 the television set, at Murp sharpening his claws on the table

 leg—and she assured her husband that she wouldn't mind.

 She tried to ignore the strained quality of her voice as she

 said it. She hoped she gave him a headache when she

 slammed the phone down.

 "We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to take

 you live to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Darryl Kiakra, where

 Mrs. Kiakra has just been led from the house, bound in a

 straightjacket.

 "Inside the house is the scene of recent horrible

 slaughter. The bodies of Mr. Dam/I Kiakra; a young

 woman identified as Lwiise Simmons, the Kiakra's

 baby-sitter; and a large orange tahhy have been found.

 chopped into tiny little pieces.

 "Neighbors say that Mrs. Kiakra, who has confessed to

 slicing up her spouse, the hfihy-sitter, and the cat with a

 cheese grater, has always been a fine neighbor. 'She uw>'

 always right friendly. Real (/iriet. Real nice.' says one sw.rce

 who asks not to be identified. Them's the ones you have to

 worry about.'

 "Mrs. Kiakra's children have been located (it a friends

 house, where they say their mother only told them she was

 tired before she sent them off to visit They all three agree

 that 'her eyes were real fimny when she looked, at iw,

 though.'"

 Minerva leaned on the counter and rested her bead in

 her arms. Weird, violent fantasies, and images of dragon*;

 and fighting kids and Dan-yl-the-wonder-spouse and her stu-

 pid job and her boring life all crowded together, and she

 scrunched her eyes closed and wished them all away.

 When she reopened them, hoping for a miracle, nothing

 had changed.

 MINERVA WAKES            11

 She sighed, screamed at the kids to quit fighting, hissed

 at Murp—and began unloading groceries.

 Bamey quit playing with his can* and wandered over. He

 hugged Minerva's leg.

 "Hi," he said.

 "Hi, yourself."

 She stopped what she was doing for a moment and

 picked him up and squeezed him tightly.

 "I love you, Mommy," he told her.

 She sighed, and smiled. "I love you. too, punkin."

 She put him down. He watched her a moment longer, an

 intent expression on his litde race. "I will miss you when

 you're gone," he informed her.

 She nodded, a bit puzzled. Of all her lads, Bamey was the

 one who spent the most time out in left field. He was

 famous for his cryptic remarks. He probably just meant lie

 missed her when she went shopping or somesuch—but she

 wasn't about to ask. Bamey's answers to questions tended to

 be even weirder than his out-of-the-air comments.

 She gave him a tired smile. "Go play, sweetheart, and let

 me get done here."

 He nodded and wandered back out to the living room,

 Darryl Kiakra scrunched lower in the folding chair and

 tried to block out Geoff Forests nasa] voice. Geoff stood at

 the podium in front of the creative development staff,

 exhorting them to greater deeds— Same shit, tiijferent day,

 Darryi thought.

 The girl in the chair in front of him had pretty hair. It was

 long and thick and wavy—glossy chestnut-brown with bright

 red-and-gold highlights that didn't come out of a bottle. He

 imagined what all that hair would feel like, then extended

 his daydream to include the entire girl. She also, he noted,

 had superior legs. She crossed them and uncrossed them

 and wriggled impatiently in her seat in a way that Darryl

 found quite entertaining. Considerably more entertaining

 than me next installment in Geoffs endless series ot point-

 less meetings.

 Everyone stood. A beat behind them, Darryl stood too.

 12

 Holly Lisle

 The stand-up, sit-down crap was part of Geoffs "show-me-

 you*re-with-me" style of management, and Darryl detested

 the whole process. He had, however, learned that if he

 bucked the flow, he got singled out as a purveyor of low

 morale and earned a "non-team player" label.

 'That's great," Geoff said, and granted his thralls a long

 look at his horsy smile. "Now, everyone who thinks we can

 meet the next quarter goals for new accounts—sit back

 down."

 Everyone sat. The girl in front of Dariyl covertly flipped

 the boss the bird.

 Darryl decided he liked her.

 There were a few more "gosh-gee-whiz" questions from

 the kiss-up contingent, and Geoff outlined his idea of rea-

 sonable goals for the next week—Darryl decided the man

 must have been doing drugs to come up with such off-the-

 wall projections. Then the meeting came to an end. Darryl

 thought if he hurried, he might make it home in time to eat

 supper before the food got so dried out it lost ali taste.

 But the girl with the nice legs and the nice hair came up

 to him and smiled. She had a nice smile, too.

 "You're Darryl Kiakra, aren't yon?"

 He nodded.

 "You were on the team that developed the new Hearth-

 Home campaign, weren't you? The one that's up for a

 Cleo?" Her eyes were full of admiration.

 Pretty ei/es, he thought. Bright green. Contact lenses?

 Probably. He smiled- "I was. Junior member of the team,

 but certainly on it. Why do you ask?"

 She looked down at her feet, then back up at him. "I'm

 new. I thought maybe you could tell me how you did it—

 how yon cam&. up with such a terrific campaign." Her voice

 implied that, junior member or not, she knew he WAS the

 idea man—that HearthHome WAS- his success.

 He could go home right then, he thought. Home to

 Minerva, who Ditched about the. kills and her job; who didn't

 look at him with admiration in her eyes anymore, but instead

 with something approaching disgust. He could go home and

 listen to her tell him that he had rt fulfilling, creative job,

 MINERVA WAKES

 13

 while she was being stifled by all her responsibilities—as if

 his sixty-hour weeks that paid for most of the house and most

 of the food and most of everything else were totally divorced

 from responsibility; as if writing commercials for dog food

 and dishwasher detergent and the detestable HearthHome

 cookies was the same as selling his plays would have been.

 Yeah, he could go home, where he was the thirty-one-

 year-old producer of paychecks, the person whose thrillingly

 creative career didn't pay enough to free Minerva from the

 drudgery of her own job. He could listen to her talk about

 painting, and he could see in her face the certainty that if he

 wens a better provider, she would be a professional artist by

 now.

 He could listen to the kids fight, and hear Minerva com-

 plain about how he didn't ever want to talk about their

 relationship. Danyl hated the word "relationship." When

 Minerva used it, it meant fun and spontaneity—and sex—

 were out of the question for the evening. The conversation

 would be about her growth as a person and his not-growth

 as a person and how she wished he would read one damned

 self-improvement book or another and change. After all,

 she'd changed, hadn't she?

 Yes, she has, he thought, and it hasn't been an

 improvement.

 Or he could stay late at work, slap supper, and tell this

 young girl with the bright green eyes what a clever fellow he

 was. Hell, with an ice storm coming, maybe he could play

 his cards really right and spend the whole night with the girl,

 the two of them huddled in his cubicle of an office for

 warmth while the weather raged around them. Maybe they

 could find some creative ways to keep warm.

 He'd never cheated on Minerva. He'd never wanted to

 before. But she wasn't really Minerva anymore, he

 thought—not in the important ways. She wasn't the girl he'd

 married. She was a stranger he didn't understand and didn't

 like very much.

 He gave the gold band on his left hand a momentary

 glance, twisted it nervously with his thumb, and took a deep

 breath.

 14

 Holly Lisle

 "I have a file in my office on HearthHome," he said. "I

 can show you some of our sketches and preliminary work,

 and tell you how we turned those into die final Hearth-

 Home campaign. Would that help?"

 She looked at him, radiating awe and respect. 'Thank

 you, Dan-yl. It really would."

 "Great then." He glanced at her and frowned just a little.

 "By the way, what's your name?"

 Barney listened while Mommy finished singing bedtime

 songs. She tucked in Jamie first, then headed for his bed-

 "Mom!" Jamie yelled. "Don't step on Waterloo!"

 She looked at the hundreds of tiny plastic soldiers litter-

 ing the floor around Jamie's bed. "Waterloo?"

 "I figured out a way for Napoleon to win it—I think,"

 Jamie said. "But I have to finish trying all the stuff

 tomorrow."

 "Waterloo." Mommy sighed, and stepped carenilly

 around the batdefield. "All right. I won't bump anything."

 She sat down on the side of Bamey's bed He smiled at

 her.

 "G'night, punkin. Have sweet dreams."

 He hugged her. She smelled nice, he thought. "Seymour

 got a new fire truck," he told her. Seymour had played with

 his new truck all day at preschool—and hadn't shared. It was

 big and red, and it would have sprayed real water if Mi's.

 Alien had let Seymour fill the tank. But she hadn't. Never-

 theless. Bamey was in love. "Can I have one, too?"

 "You always want what everybody else has—doesn't lie,

 Mom?" Jamie opened his big mouth. Bamey wanted to

 punch him.

 "That's enough, Jamie." Mommy gave his stupid brother

 a hard look, and he shut up. She looked down at Bamey, and

 shook her head, and brushed his hair off his forehead with

 her hand "We'll talk about the truck later, Bamey. Right

 now, it's time to go to sleep."

 "Okay. Will we get to play in die snow tomorrow?"

 She nodded "If there's enough, and it isn't too wet, I'll let

 you go play in it."

 MINERVA WAKES

 15

 Bamey snuggled under the covers, and Mommy banded

 him Brown Bear. He whispered, "Don't forget to tell the

 monsters to go away."

 She sighed. Mommy always sighed. "What have I told

 you about the monsters?"

 He frowned at her. "You said there aren't any monsters."

 Bamey added, "But, Mommy, there are. Under the bed.

 Really."

 She looked under his bed. "Nope. No monsters." She

 tossed him on the forehead, and said, "You only dream them.

 Just remember—you can make a magic sword in your

 dreams and chase the monsters with that." She smiled at

 him. "And once you chase them away, you won't ever be

 afraid of them again."

 Bamey nodded solemnly. All the kids in preschool agreed

 parents were pretty stupid about monsters. But there wasn't

 much he could do about his mother.

 The monsters were another matter.

 She blew him and his butthead brother a kiss, and turned

 out the tight. Bamey heard her walk across the hall to Carol's

 room and start to sing again.

 "Only sissies are scared of monsters." Jamie propped hhn-

 setf on one elbow and looked over at his brother. "You're

 such a sissy."

 Bamey lay in the bed and studied his brother. He could

 feel the monsters waiting in the darkness around them;

 could hear them licking their tips and scratching their itches

 and waiting. Just waiting. Waiting was what monsters were

 best at.

 The feel of monster was worse than usual, Bamey

 decided. Closer, and hungrier. He was going to have to do

 the Turtle Shield. But first he had to take care of his butt-

 head brother.

 That's okay," he told Jamie. "All the monsters are under

 your bed tonight." He rolled over with his back to Ilis

 brother and dug himself deeper beneath the covers.

 "They are not!" Jamie whispered.

 Bamey lay very still and smiled,

 They ARE NOT!" Jamie yelled.

 16 Holly Lisle

 "Jamie! Leave your brother alone and go to sleep!"

 Mommy yelled from Carol's room.

 Bamey's smile grew bigger. He could always get Jamie in

 trouble that way.

 "They are not, poopface!" Jamie whispered again.

 Jamie gave up when Bamey pretended to be asleep. After

 a while, Bamey could hear his brother's steady breathing.

 He waited a few minutes longer—just to make sure. He

 didn't want Jamie to catch him.

 But finally he was sure his- big brother really was asleep.

 Then he sat up and rummaged under his blankets until he

 found all four ufhis Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 He put their weapons in their hands, posed them for

 righting, then set Michelangelo, holding his nunchuks, on

 one side of the head of the bed. He liked Michelangelo

 best.

 "Magic, magic Michelangelo," lie whispered,

 "Keep the monsters all away.

 "Ooola-boola-boola-boo!

 "Cowabung?i!"

 He crept down to the foot of the bed and eased the sai-

 wielding Raphael over the edge to the floor. Bamey made

 magic signs with his fingers at the dark shape and whis-

 pered, "Ooola-boola-boola-boo! Cowabunga!"

 Next came Leonardo, and then Donatello.

 The Turtle Shield was in place. Bamey could almost see

 it glowing in the dark. No ordinary monster would dare cross

 the Turtle Shield. He could still hear the slimy, scaly, awful

 creatures rustling around the room, whispering and laughing

 nasty laughs to each other. He wasn't worried.

 If they got hungry, they could eat his brother.

 Murp padded into the room and jumped on the bed.

 "Mrrrrrp?" he asked.

 Barney moved over so the ("at could have half bis pillow.

 Murp was big enough he would have covered the whole

 thing if Bamey liad been willing to give it up. Bamey wasn't,

 though, and the cat was willing to share.

 The two of them snuggled in together. The monsters

 receded a bit. Monsters- were afraki of cats.

 MINERVA WAKES

 17

 With the cat curled next to his cheek and the Turtles

 keeping watch, Bamey drifted off to sleep.

 Murp woke Bamey up by standing on his chest and star-

 ing into his face. Bamey pushed the cat off him and sat up,

 He could hear the wind howling outside. The storm was

 scary—but he knew that wasn't die reason Murp was growl-

 ing with his fur all sticking out.

 There was something in tile house. Not the usual mon-

 sters. This time it was something even worse.

 He clutched Murp tightly with one hand and with the

 other, pulled the blankets up around the two of them.

 "Jamie," he whispered.

 Jamie didn't move. Mommy always said Jamie slept like a

 rock—and usually that was fine with Bamey, who didn't. But

 not when there was something big and awiul coming to get

 them.

 "Jamie," he whispered louder. He was really, really scared.

 He could hear hissing outside. There were big monsters

 hunting through the storm.

 The thing in the house was too big for the Turtle Shield,

 Bamey thought. But Batman was in the closet. He lived

 there when he wasn't beating had guys. All Bamey had to do

 was get from the bed to the closet without the little mon-

 sters getting him, and he'd be safe.

 He had to save Jamie, too, though—if he could- He whis-

 pered urgently, "Jamie—wake up!" His brother didn't wake

 up. Bamey threw his pillow. It missed and fell onto the floor,

 into monster territory. No chance of getting that back.

 Bamey took a deep breath, reached down, and grabbed

 Michelangelo. He threw the Turtle and hit Jamie squarely

 on the side of the face.

 Jamie grunted and rolled over without waking up.

 Bamey wanted to cry. His brother was a butthead—but

 he was also ha brother. Clutching the cat, he took a deep

 breath, then jumped to the floor and ran to Jamie's bed.

 Bamey climbed onto the mattress as fast as he could and

 tucked his feet under him to keep them out of the reach of

 monsters. "Jamie! Jamie! Wake up! Really bad monsters are

 18                     HoUy Lisle

 in the house!" He shook his brother with the hand that

 wasn't holding the cat. "Come on! We gotta hide in the

 closet. Batman will fight the monsters."

 This time ]amie opened his eyes. "Don't be stupid. I'm

 not gonna hide in the closet. You hide in the closet if you

 want to." He pulled the covers over his head.

 "I'm scared." Bamey held Murp tighter.

 "Nothings going to get you. Go back to sleep."

 Bamey eyed the dark expanse of floor between Jamie's

 bed and the closet. He was going to have to go alone. He

 tightened his grip on Murp. who protested by struggling.

 One. he thought. Two. Three . .

 He ran for the closet, as fast as his legs would go.

 CHAPTER 2

 Everything was darkness, mid, enveloping emptiness. The

 vend was self-aware, hungry, angry-—evil. Jt wanted to

 devour Minerva but something was holding it back.

 She tried to escape, and couldn't. She could think of the

 motions required to run, hut she discovered that no -matter

 how hard she tried, she could not make her hody respond. I

 don't have a body, she realized Tlie monster can't figure out

 how to get at me because I don't have a body. But that's only

 slowing it down. It won't give up until it has completely de-

 stroyed me.

 The malignant intelligence became angrier, and suddenly

 she was surrounded by a terrifying basing that came from

 everywhere and nowhere, and a circle of radiance sur-

 rounded her. She was m the spotlight—and the light gave

 her form. She looked down and found that she once again

 had a body with arms and legs—arms and legs that were

 shackled to something outside of the cage of light.

 Dark, foaming water rushed around her feet and rose

 with supernatural speed- She struggled, but her bonds were

 unbreakable. The water climbed from her knees to her waist

 to her shoulders to her nose and mouth She began to drown

 in the dark and swirling currents. She fought for breath, and

 cried out, and kicked—

 And woke up.

 For a long moment, she could do nothing but clutch the

 19

 20                      Holly Lisle

 covers and shake, suppressing screams. She stared at the

 ceiling, feeling the lingering residue of helpless terror and

 the presence of immense evil. She began counting her

 breaths, exerting effort to slow them down. And gradually,

 the nightmare's grip on her loosened. Minerva's pulse rate

 dropped fractionally.

 It was just another bad dream. Urn, she told herself. Get

 a grip.

 The hissing sound continued, though, challenging Min-

 erva's thin veneer of control. She fought to identify the

 sound—and when she did, felt embarrassed by the silliness

 of her dark terrors.

 That's not/ling but the ice storms—freezing ram on the

 gfass and the roof—

 So she heard the ice storm and incorporated it into her

 dream, creating quite a nasty nightmare out of totally mun-

 dane stuff.

 fiut. ..

 The terror of drowning refused to be subdued by logic.

 With a start, she realized her face was wet. So was her pil-

 low. And the choking sensation was still there.

 She sat up, wiping at her face with the back of her hand.

 Tlie taste of salt tears was at the comer of Her mouth.

 Christ, I've been crying in my sleep again. I am going

 nuts.

 She sagged back onto her pillow and looked over at Dar-

 ryl's side of the bed. He wasn't there. She sat up and rubbed

 at her eyes. He might be downstairs watching late-night TV.

 she thought. Or he might have gotten snowed in at work.

 It was almost a relief to find his side of the bed empty-

 When did I last love him? she wondered. 1 did, once. I

 know ft. I remember thinking the day began with his ftrst

 kiss; thinking the world would end without it. I remember

 when just looking at him made me happy. I remember feel-

 ing warm when he smiled at me. J remember feeling loved.

 'When did all of that change?

 There wasn't any sharp line where she could say, 'This is

 when I quit loving Darryl." She stared at the ceiling some

 more, and thought about it. and decided instead that not

 MINERVA WAKES            21

  

  

 loving him had been the result of a series of disappointments,

 a series of little betrayals and failures. TTiere were all the

 nights he'd wanted to watch football instead of making love;

 all the days when he'd stayed over at work because he was in

 the middle of some exciting project or other rather than

 doing something with her and the Idds; all the times he'd told

 her he'd help her with something, and had then forgotten.

 There were the times when he'd said he didn't want to do a

 load of laundry because he always had trouble with the

 clothes tangling—as if she didn't—or that he didn't want to

 scrub down the shower because she did it better. There was

 the way he let her work to put him through college, then said

 that they couldn't afford for her to finish her education—nut

 with a house and three lads and bills.

 Not loving Darryl wasn't the result of some huge disaster

 in their relationship, she realized. It was the fact that they

 really didn't have much of a relationship—three children

 and eleven years of marriage notwithstanding.

 She held her left hand out in front of her and stared at

 the wedding band on her ring-finger. Even in the dark she

 could make out the intricate interweavings of the pattern.

 The old man at the Renaissance Faire all those years ago

 had insisted those rings would bind the young lovers

 soul-to-soul, "across the worlds and through all

 time"—and Minerva and Darryi, charmed by the fairy

 tale, had bought them.

 And like all fairy tales, that one was just so much bullshit,

 Minerva thought.

 She crawled out from beneath the covers, and her bare

 skin prickled with the chill. She grabbed the bathrobe that

 was draped over the bedpost and wrapped the thick, warm

 terrycioth around her. Then she tiptoed to the window.

 Outside, the streetlight illuminated fdlling flakes of snow

 and the gleam of drops of freezing rain, and within die circle

 of its light, a glittering, surreal world of eerie, alien shapes

 was born—a magical kingdom of diamond-crusted trees and

 glass-frosted houses. She pulled her glasses off die night-

 stand and put them on. The scene became clearer, but lost

 none of its magical quality.

 22

 Holly Lisle

 The world outside was incredibly beautiful. A poem she'd

 written years ago, in the days when she still believed she

 could be an artist, drifted through her memory, and staring

 into the snowstorm, she whispered it.

 "Another world is mine, that none else see,

 Cast from a softer, stranger, sweeter mold,

 Created by some laughing god for me

 Alone—its colors bright, its textures bold,

 Impressionistic sweeps. I look at trees

 Like Renoirs, vivid splashes tossed against

 The towering, thundering, water-color seas

 Of sky. New-washed, chalk-drawn—my world—unfenced,

 Unlined, unsigned, it bears no scars of men.

 Its velvet folk, androgynous, unflawed,

 Move with a boneless grace from home to glen.

 I stand and watch in joyous wonder, awed.

 I need no spacebound ship, no mystic passes

 To reach my world. I just take off my glasses."

 As she recited the last line of her poem, she slipped her

 glasses off and stared at the blurry, fuzzy wonderland outside

 her window one more time, and wished with all her heart that

 the real wortd could be so beautiful, so peaceful—so perfect.

 No school tomorrow, she thought, and put her glasses on

 again with a sigh. All three lads would be home and in her

 hair, fighting with each other, whining to go outside, whining

 to come back inside, bored out of their skulls. If Darryl was

 home, he would prop himself in front of the television and

 watch game shows and ESPN and cable movies all day. He'd

 yeD at the kids to be quiet and to play in their rooms, and

 criticize her for not making them behave. All four of them

 would leave messes, and she would either nag at them ail

 day to clean their messes up, or save a lot of trouble and just

 do it herself.

 She shivered again, this time not entirely from the

 cold.

 Is this what life is supposed to be? Isn't there something

 more? Something important that I'm supposed to do?

 MINERVA WAKES

 23

 All her life, she'd waited for the moment to come to her,

 for a neon sign to light up, for someone to tell her— Now,

 Minerva. Now is the time for you do something wonderful.

 Now is the time/or you to save the world. This is what you

 have to do. But the sign never came, and no one ever told

 her what she should do to save the world.

 That's just real life, I giiess. In real life, married mommies

 don't count for much in the scheme of things. We don't affect

 politics, or history, or art, or religion—we don't change the

 world. We just get •married, haw our children, bring them

 up, watch them leave—then we grow old, and die.

 Minerva rolled the smooth chintz of the curtain between

 her fingers, and watched the snow and ice accumulate on

 the walk beneath her window.

 In the scheme of tilings, she wasn't too badly off. Darryl

 didn't drink, he didn't beat her, he kept a job and paid the

 biggest part of the bills. She was employable, even if she

 didn't like her job very much, she lived in a nice house,

 had decent neighbors, and great kids— Minerva smiled

 when she thought of Bamey and Carol and Jamie. She

 really did have wonderful children, without any

 temporizing. Plenty of women were married to men they

 didn't love anymore. Those women didn't mope around

 with pity-poor-me expressions on their faces, did they?

 Is there something wrong with me for not being happy?

 Cod knows there are plenty of people worse off than I am.

 Why can't I be satisfied, when I have it so good?

 She shrugged. She didn't feel like going back to bed. The

 nightmare, whatever it had been, was still waiting in the

 back other mind. She could feel it.

 The green glow of the alarm clock's digital face read "4:23

 A.M." It reflected in the full-length mirror on the other side

 of the room—and as she watched, the light reflected in the

 mirror changed from green to blue.

 That's odd, I wonder what makes it look like that.

 She glanced at the clock. Its numbers were still green.

 A rifleshot crack from nearby plunged the world into

 darkness. "Aw, shit!" That was the sound of a branch bur-

 dened by too much ice taking out a power line. Great. Now

 24                      Holly Lisle

 she was done with the kids in an ice storm—in the cold and

 the dark. Better and better. She swore again softly and

 stared out the window into total darkness.

 But when she moved, she could see her own shadow on

 Ae wall, outlined in blue. What—? she wondered. She

 turned to look in the mirror again—

 She stared, unable to breathe, pulse racing. The blue

 glow had spread—had grown from a hazy pinpoint to a

 rippling, luminous sheet that filled the mirror. The

 nightmare feeling grabbed Minerva again, and she backed

 away. The glowing blue oval of light broke free from the

 mirror frame and floated over to her, its shape shifting like

 a column of smoke in a breeze. She kept backing until she

 felt the cold window glass behind her; kept pushing even

 then until the bare skin of her neck pressed hard against

 the icy pane. The blue light kept coming. It brushed

 against her skin—cold, oh God, it was cold—and then it

 sizzled and whipped away from her—and shriveled up and

 vanished.

 Released from its spell, she pressed her hand to her

 mouth and muffled her scream.

 Oh Cod, omigod, ohgod-ohgocV.

 What had it been? A ghost? A hallucination? Another

 incident like die dragon in the grocery store? She made her-

 self take a deep breath. She smoothed the heavy teny robe

 beneath her fingers. She walked toward the min-or-

 A muffled crash came from Carols room. Minerva froze.

 Carol shrieked—then something cut her piercing little-girl

 voice off in mid-yell. Minerva heard a soft popping noise.

 "NO!" Minerva yelled-

 Bathrobe flapping, she raced out of the bedroom and

 down the hall toward her daughter's room.

 Danyl lay on the couch in the lounge with Cindy Morris

 spooned against his chest. Her hair fanned out over his left

 arm. Beneath his right hand, he could feel the steady rise

 and fall of her chest as she slept, He could see die two of

 diem, reflected in die mirror on die odier side of tile

 lounge, burnished by die warm glow of the candles die/d

 MINERVA WAKES            25

 found before die electricity went out. He wasn't happy widi

 what he saw.

 The sex had been good—but then, the worst I ever had

 was good, he diought, repeating an old line. It had been

 exciting enough for him; just die fact diat he'd never done

 anydiing like diat before—the fact diat Cindy wasn't Min-

 erva—made die whole experience a forbidden du-ill. And

 Cindy couldn't be much over twenty-one. Her body was

 young and tight and voluptuous in all die right places. She

 didn't have Minerva's experience, or Minerva's entiiusiasm,

 or Minerva's wild imagination; bitt then, he diought, she

 doesn't have Minerva's brains, either. Cindy didn't know

 how to do any of die really neat stuff Minerva liked, and die

 girl acted embarrassed and awkward when he tried to show

 her.

 However, you don't exffect the first time with a stranger

 to be as good as any time with somebody yw've been prac-

 ticing with for eleven years, either, do you?

 You asshole.

 He stared at himself in die mirror across die room. His

 eyes were holes of darker black carved into die shadowed

 planes of his face. He looked guilty as hell.

 He twisted absendy at his wedding band widi his left

 diumb and rolled it around and around. The ring seemed

 heavy on his hand. He imagined it growing bigger widi its

 disapproval. Minerva was at home widi die kids—probably

 in die cold and die dark, without electric. He ought to be

 diere widi her. Instead, he was widi a naked bimbo on a

 cheap Naugahyde couch that was getting colder by die min-

 ute, a long way from home, feeling like a shit—a feeling lie

 had to admit he'd earned.

 Cindy shivered and woke up, and ground her muscular

 litde ass into his groin. "Hey, diere," she murmured. "You

 awake?"

 "Yeah," he said. "I'm awake."

 "Oh, good. Let's get warm again." She slid one other cold

 hands behind her and between his legs, and arched her back

 like a cat so diat her breasts jutted out.

 "Good idea," lie said, and firmly removed her hand from

 26

 Holly Lisle

 between his legs, and pushed her far enough away from

 himself so that he could sit up.

 She sat up and glared at him. "What's the matter with

 you?"

 "I'm cold, and I'm going to get warm." He rummaged

 around on the floor, found his shorts, and pulled them on.

 He found one sock and put that on, too.

 "C'mon—let's screw some more," Cindy said. Her eyes

 seemed even greener in candlelight. Those eyes watched

 him, alert and not anywhere as sweet and innocent at that

 moment as they'd seemed earlier.

 He raised an eyebrow. "Charming invitation," he drawled.

 "But I don't think so. I have to get home."

 "Home?!" She laughed. Her face was the perfect picture

 of disbelief. "You've got to be kidding. There must be two

 feet of snow and ice out mere by now."

 "Yeah, well—" He found his other sock and put it on, and

 located his sweater. He shrugged. "I'll manage. I don't want

 to leave my wife and kids there alone."

 "Your wife\ And your kids!" She narrowed her eyes.

 "What an interesting time to he remembering them."

 "No shit," he muttered. "But you knew I was married- I

 saw you looking at my wedding band." He pulled the

 sweater over his head. His shoes lay by the mirror. He

 walked over to them, caught a glimpse of the blizzard raging

 on the other side of the windows in the hallway, and shiv-

 ered. The shiver was not entirely from the cold.

 He bent down to pick up die shoe, and glanced up into

 the mirror. She was staring at him, her shadow-distorted

 face bearing little resemblance to the girl he'd met—but it

 was dark in the room, he thought. Her eyes followed his

 every move. The green of them seemed to glow in the can-

 dlelight. Her expression was unreadable.

 "Yes. I saw your ring. I thought it was cool—all those

 swirls and stuff. Kind of pretty." Her voice sounded childish

 and sweet—and it didn't match her eyes. Her stare bumed

 into his imagination. It seemed dangerous somehow. "Let

 me see it while you put your shoes on," she said. She smiled.

 There was something compelling about her voice. Darryl

 MINERVA WAKES

 27

  

  

 started to pul] the ring off and show it to her. Then he

 stopped. "I never take it off," he said.

 One shoe was on. He reached for the other.

 "Aw, c'mon. baby. Let me see it."

 The timbre of her voice changed—or was that his imagi-

 nation? She was beginning to frighten him. He watched her

 reflection in the mirror- He would have swom her eyes were

 actually glowing—like car headlights—and not merely

 reflecting the candlelight. It was the weirdest damned trick

 of the light he'd ever seen, and unnerving as heil. He forced

 himself to look away from the mirror and concentrate on

 dressing.

 A nervous sixth sense made him look up.

 The mirror wasn't showing Cindy anymore. She had

 been replaced by a glimmer of brilliant blue. The glimmer

 spread to cover the entire mirror, and he heard Cindy start

 to laugh.

 "We'll have all the time in the world now, babe." she said.

 He turned to look at her, to ask her what she meant by

 that.

 She was stalking out the lobby door.

 Good, he thought. He hoped she'd stay gone.

 Movement in me mirror Oilight his attention. The blue

 glow was still there, but other things were visible as well.

 The things he could see didn't make any sense—they were

 not reflections of the lounge. He was looking through the

 mirror at what seemed to be the mirror in his bedroom back

 home—lit by blue light- The view shifted crazily, and he was

 staring out the window into darkness and snow that iashed

 against the glass. Another dizzy shift, and he could see the

 front of a bathrobe—his bathrobe—as if he were wearing it

 and looking down at it. Bare feet—Minerva's bare feet. Tlie

 floor and the feet dropped away, and he could see the mirror

 again, and something blue coming out of it. A ghost, he

 thought. The shifting, glowing wraith blew toward him—

 Not me, he suddenly realized. Minerva! It's coming after

 Minerva!

 She was backing up—he could tell by the way the room

 shifted, by the way she was looking around for some path of

 28

 Holly Lisle

 escape. And the blue thing was moving forward inexorably.

 It reached out and touched her. and he shouted, "NO!"

 The ghost whipped away from her and seemed to shrivel.

 It pulled in on itself, wrapped its tatters of light into a tiny

 ball—and then it vanished. Minerva's eyes showed him the

 darkened mirror, the pitch-darkness of the room.

 She's safe. His heart pounded in his throat. He could hear

 his blood rushing in his ears.

 This is craziness, he thought, staring at the mirror in the

 lounge. I can't be seeing Minerva attacked by ghosts at

 home. He looked away from the mirror, then looked back.

 All the things he couldn't- possibly be seeing were still right

 there.

 Not good, he thought.

 Then his view jerked crazily again as Minerva spun

 toward the door and started running. She raced out ot their

 dark bedroom and into the puddled light of the hallway. The

 dim glow of the emergency night-lights plugged into the low

 wail sockets bounced around the bottom of the lounge mir-

 ror. The scene in the mirror rolled and swung—it reminded

 him of watching pictures taken by a handheld camera in a

 home movie—hard on the stomach of die observer, and not

 very illuminating. He wished he could hear.

 Minerva slowed, and he got a quick glimpse of her hand

 shoving Carol's door wide open. His daughter's room, also lit

 by the soft yellow glow of an emergency night-light, was

 empty. Carol's blanket was thrown to one side of her bed,

 and her teddy bear was halfway across the room-

 Minerva ran to the bed—through her eyes, he caught die

 sensation of flinging himself to the floor and staring under

 the bed. The space was full of naked Barbies and broken

 crayons and rumpled shirts and pants and socks rolled inside

 out. Minerva's hand shot out and pawed through the mess.

 Then, inexplicably, she stopped and looked around.

 Good, he thought. Minerva heard her. Carol must have

 been down the hall in the bathroom or something.

 But Minerva was up and running again. She flew across

 the hall and burst into Jamie and Bamey's room.

 The tattered blue ghost hovered at the toot of Jamie's

 MINERVA WAKES             29

 bed. It cast long, flickering shadows—shadows that made

 Darryl think, for a moment, that both boys might still be safe

 under the lumpy piles of their covers. But as the light moved

 away from Minerva, the shadow shapes changed, and he

 could see clearly that both boys were gone.

 No, Darryl thought. This can't be real. It isn't real.

 Minerva covered her face with her hands, and for an

 instant Darryl couldn't see anything. But she pulled them

 away again and her head jerked toward the closet. The slat-

 ted closet doors flew open, and Bamey, with M u rp

 incongruously tucked under his arm like a football, exploded

 out of the dark space—running toward Minerva.

 The blue light intercepted the little boy, and swallowed

 him and the cat. Then it shot toward the bedroom window

 and blasted through it, leaving shards of glass in its wake.

 And then the mirror went dark. He stared at it, and the

 only thing that looked back was his own face, shadowed by

 candlelight and twisted with fear.

 That cannot possibly have happened, he told himself. 1'U

 caU home— But he couldn't call home. The office phone

 lines had gone out shortly after the power.

 This is my guilt talking be said. This is my conscience teQ-

 mg me that because I screwed around on my wife, the world

 will now come to an end.

 He stared at the mirror, which stubbornly remained noth-

 ing but a minor. I wish to hell it had shown me the home

 movies before J screwed around on Minerva instead of after.

 Then 1 wouldn't have anything to feel guilty about—and I'd

 be home.

 He had to get home. Once there, once he could

 convince himself that everyone was safe and that

 everything was all right, he would come to terms with his

 conscience. He would never, never, ever, stray again. That

 he was sure of.

 The buzzard outside seemed to be getting worse instead

 of blowing itself out. Cindy had apparently gone, taking

 every trace of her existence with her. He supposed she'd

 gotten in her car and left. She might have gone to whatever

 part of the building she worked in. He didn't care. He didn't

 30

 Holly Lisle

 think she'd be back—but tie wasn't going to wait around to

 find out.

 His ancient Chevy Nova waited in the parking lot. The

 storm had buried it under a thick, hard shell of ice. He

 chipped at the ice with his pocket comb, seeing his hot breath

 puff out in front of him; he swore and wished he'd thought to

 wear a heavier jacket or gloves or a hat. Stinging sleet blew

 down the back of his neck and sandblasted his face.

 Time slipped into high gear around him; his body felt as if

 it had been dunked in icy molasses and strapped all over into

 weights. Faster, faster, lie kept thinking, and every time he

 did, seemed to move slower and slower. The windshield was

 still caked in ice—but he had a clear circle. He would drive

 with the windows down, he decided, so he could see out. Not

 good, but it would have to do. He chipped the ice away from

 the door handle, fought die door open. The inside of the car

 was freezing—but at le<ist he was out of the wind and the

 sleet. He turned the key in the ignition. The motor turned

 over once, sputtered—died. He tried again. Same response.

 "Crank, damn you," he muttered. Tried again. The motor

 whined, caught, rumbled to sullen life. The heater blasted

 frozen air into the interior.

 He backed cautiously and felt bald tires slipping on the

 shield of ice-sheeted snow that coated the parking lot. He

 prayed to a distant and dubious god, to the storm itself, to

 the very idea of home and safety. He prayed that his world

 would still be intact when he got there, and shivered with

 the cold and the fear that a moment of childish lust and

 the desire to get even with Minerva might have destroyed

 everything.

 He eased out of the parking iot, and nearly got himself

 creamed by a bright red Mazda Miata that came out of

 nowhere, headlights off until after it was right on top of him.

 The driver laid on his obnoxious toy hom, skidded around

 the Nova, throwing snow behind his ridiculous little tires,

 and vanished almost immediately down a pitch-dark side

 street.

 The Miata's bumper sticker stuck in Darryl's unhappily

 circling thoughts long after the car itself was out of sight:

 MINERVA WAKES            31

 "I V VIRGINS."

 "Not me, pal," he muttered into the frozen air. "Not me."

 U was a dark and stormy night, he thought with some

 bitterness, and eased his way down the dark, silent, snow-

 shrouded street, crawling—wind-blasted and guilt-ridden—

 toward home.

 The ghost tore through houses and forests, through the

 bitter, angry storm and then beyond it. It dumped Bamey,

 his brother, his sister, and the irate Murp in the exact center

 of a dimly lit room, then dissolved into the floor. Murp slunk

 around the room, hackles raised, growling.

 The three children looked at each other.

 Bamey frowned at Jamie, and said, "I told you so, butt-

 head."

 "I didn't know there were really monsters," Jamie said.

 Carol gave her older brother a disdainful look. "Of course

 there are monsters. That was a really scary one."

 None of the children had any clothes on.

 "Gross." Jamie said, and looked around desperately for

 something to wear.

 Bamey looked, too. On a small nig next to the door,

 someone had laid out three outfits—puUover tunics and

 baggy pants and curly-toed boots . . . and even underwear

 and socks.

 "Somebody knew we were comin'," Jamie said. He

 grabbed the largest set of clothes and started tugging things

 on. "We gotta get out of here. Before they come back."

 Barney nodded, and be^n to dress, too. He fumbled

 with the unfamiliar clothes, not certain how they went on.

 He had no doubt that the house was full of other monsters,

 monsters who would be coming to the room shortly He

 could feel them, somewhere down below, moving around,

 thinking dark, scary monster-thoughts.

 Carol was the first one dressed. She stood and looked sol-

 emnly at her brothers. Then she made the secret sign. "I am

 Carolissia, Queen of Butterfly World."

 Jamie snorted. "We don't have time to play that stupid

 game."

 32

 Holly Lisle

 Bamey glared at his brother. Jamie was getting to be no

 good at adventures. Didn't be know they could do more

 things when they were the Kings and the Queen? Bamey

 stood, and made his own secret sign. "I am Bamissius, King

 of Dinosauria."

 "Oh, grow up, will you?" Jamie turned his back on the

 two of them and crossed his arms over his chest. "Pretend-

 ing to be a stupid king isn't going to get you out of here."

 "King Jamisor does not believe in bis magic powers,"

 Queen Carolissia intoned, her pug nose tipped at a

 haughty angle. "If be does not help us, we will have to

 leave him."

 "King Jamisor did not believe in monsters," King Bamis-

 sius added. "He is a poopyhead."

 Jamie turned around and glared at Bamey. "Real kings

 don't call each other 'poopyhead.'"

 "Poopyhead," Barney said-

 "Skunkhreath."

 "Butt-face."

 Turdmouth."

 Queen Carolissia pointed one regal finger at each of the

 two prospective longs. "Stop it, or I won't tell you the secret

 mission."

 Bamey and Jamie stepped. Can)! was the one who always

 made up the secret mission—they were kings in charge of

 trapping tigers and spying and capturing the enemy, but

 Queen Carotissia was the one who invented the secret plans.

 "Okay." King Bamissius stopped calling names and

 looked at Her Majesty. "What's the plan?"

 "King Jamisor hasn't given the secret sign. Maybe he Is a

 ptetend fang."

 King Jamisor sighed. "Do you really have a plan?"

 The Queen rolled her eyes. "Of course," she said.

 King Jamisor stood, and made the sign. "I am King Jami-

 sor of The Worlds Beyond the Sea."

 All three royals bowed to each other.

 Carol beckoned them all closer. "Lets climb out the win-

 dow if we can," she said. "We can tie the sheets together to

 get down."

 MINERVA WAKES             33

 •••&

 •,fe

 •S--

 Barney was impressed. Queen Carolissia always had really

 good plans.

 The three children tiptoed to the huge window and

 looked out into the night. Murp jumped onto the windowsill

 and looked out with them.

 They were a long way up. People tiny as ants scurried

 around on the ground far below. Bamey backed away from

 Ae window. He wasn't scared of very much—but he didn't

 like heights.

 The Queen's expression became thoughtful as she

 studied the ground far below. "Oooob!" she whispered.

 After an instant, in her royal voice, she said, "I shall think

 of a new plan." She stood, eyes squinched closed, fists

 knotted at her sides.

 "King Jamisor," she said at last, "will spy out the door and

 tell us what he sees."

 Jamisor nodded, and crept to the door. Murp seemed

 to think this was a new sort of game. He prowled beside

 the King. Jamie tried to open the door. "It's locked," he

 said.

 The Queen stamped her foot. "Stupid, stupid,

 stupid!" Right then, King Bamissius thought, the Queen

 didn't look very Queenish. Instead, she looked an awful

 lot like Carol when Mommy wouldn't let her do what

 she wanted.

 King Jamisor took charge. He looked at the younger two,

 and spread his legs and stuck his hands on his hips- "We're

 going to have to build a trap," he .said. "Find stuff we can

 use. I want string, and heavy stuff."

 "Why?" Bamey asked.

 "Going to make an ambush." King Jamisor, also known as

 Secret Agent Jeevns, was tlie master of ambushes. Both

 Bamey and Carol, in their alternate guises as Secret Agents-

 Equator and Renskie, had fallen into his traps.

 King Jamisor pushed one of the heavy, oddly angled

 chairs toward the door.

 Queen Carolissia found a small, heavy stone statue, and

 gave it to her brother. King Bamissius k>cated the curtain coi-d.

 "I found string," he said. "but 1 can't cut it."

 34 Holly Lisle

 The Queen came over to look. "Yes," she said, and

 nodded, "this is excellent string. I shall bite it into

 pieces."

 She pulled the curtain cord down as far as it would go,

 then climbed up onto the windowsill, so she could chew off

 a longer piece.

 "Mom says you're not supposed to chew string and stuff

 with your teeth," Jamie said from the other side of the

 room.

 "You got any scissors?"

 "Nope."

 "Then just shut up." She gave him the killer-sister look,

 and as an afterthought, added, "Buttface."

 King Bamissius watched the other royals squabbling

 among themselves, hut he didn't descend into the fray. He

 had something more important to do.

 He pulled the sheets off the high bed and started twisting

 them. The Queen finished chewing through her string and

 took it to King Jamisor, who set up his booby trap. Then

 Carol came over to Bamey.

 "Watcha doin'?"

 Bamey didn't say anything. He thought it ought to be

 obvious what he was doing.

 Carol, after a moment's thought, began to help him twist

 the cloth.

 "It's ready," King Jamisor announced, and hopped off the

 chair. He pushed the seat back against the wall, then studied

 his handiwork critically, tipping his head at an angle and

 closing one eye.

 "That statue is gonna hurt," Carol remarked.

 Jamie had balanced it precariously on the edge of the

 doorsill. He'd tied one end of the curtain cord around its

 middle and the other to the door latch.

 "It's supposed to hurt."

 Queen Carolissia looked doubtful. "If it hurts too much,

 whoever comes through that door is going to be really mad

 at us."

 "That's what we need these for." King Bamissius dragged

 over the first of his homemade ropes and presented them to

 MINERVA WAKES

 35

 King Jamisor with a bow. To tie them up when we catch

 them," he said.

 "Good work, King Bamissius'!"

 "So when are they going to come up here?" the Queen

 wanted to know.

 Both older children looked at Bamey.

 He knew what they expected. He took a deep breath and

 closed his eyes. His thoughts ranged through the lower

 reaches of their prison, and he sensed the life that inhabited

 the enormous castle. There was not one person awake in die

 place—excepting the three children. But the minds were

 quiet, mil of sad dreams and worries. In all the floors

 beneath them, the monsters slept.

 CHAPTER 3

 Minerva opened her eyes and stared up into darkness.

 She was freezing. Snowtlakes and .sleet pelted her face and

 arms and legs and blew down the open neck of Darryl's terry

 robe. Wind bowled around the room, and papers snapped in

 little gusts and eddies—snow and sleet piled around her.

 But I'm lying on carpet.

 Everything was incredibly dark, and very blurry. Minerva

 sat up, took off her glasses, cleaned them on the inside hem

 of die robe, and put them back on. Everything was still dark,

 but now it was recognizahle-

 I'm m the boys' nwm, she thought.

 Minerva recalled bits and pieces of how she came to be

 there. She didn't like what she recalled.

 I fainted?! She stood up and brushed snowflakes and bits

 of broken glass off the bathrobe. She was disgusted with

 herself. I've newer fainted before in my life.

 Minerva wrapped her amis around herself and shivered

 and tried to remember. There wax the hlw light, and Carol

 screamed, and I ran to her room hut she was gone—ran to

 the boys' room . . . ]amie was gone, hut Barwy came flying

 out of the closet scrwming "Mommym/mi.mi//"—the ghost-

 thing got him.

 Her stomach churned- No. That can't he. Things like that

 don't happen.

 But the window was blown out. Not in. Out.

 37

 38 Holly Lisle

 They're okay They haw to be okay. They're my kids.

 "Jamie?" Minerva yelled. "Barney? Come out! Come

 here, guys! Where are you?"

 She looked for the boys, under the beds, in the closet—

 she called their names but got no answer. Her sons were

 gone. She went into the hall and closed the door behind her.

 She stood and called their names again. Nothing. Checking,

 still not able to believe what she remembered had really

 happened, she went to Carol's room.

 Carol was gone, too.

 She stood at the doorway and listened.

 The house held within itself the deadness of absolute

 abandonment—always before in the middle of the night,

 she'd been able to hear the children breathing, though the

 sound was subtle and not one she thought about. She

 would note subconsciously the rustle of sheets as the kids

 rolled over, the soft thud of Murp's paws hitting the

 carpeted floor or his quiet footsteps padding softly down

 the hall. The normal sounds of an occupied house were

 tiny when present. They roared in their absence with the

 hollowness of eternity.

 This is alt a nightmare, she told herself. It isn't happen-

 ing. It can't be happening. She stepped into Carol's room.

 She looked down at the rumpled blankets of Carol's bed, at

 the indented pillow. She reached down and touched the hoi-

 tow her daughter's head had left, picked the pillow up and

 pressed her face into the hollowed spot and breathed in

 Carol's scent—soap and sunlight and little-girl sweetness.

 Minerva pulled her face from the pillow and felt a tight

 lump burning in the back of her throat—imminent tears.

 "Give them back, dammit!" Minerva screamed into the still-

 ness. The house echoed her shout, then returned to waiting

 silence. The grandfather clock in the greatroom ticked—

 metronome-steady, siirreally loud. Snow and sleet hissed

 against the glass. In the whole house, no one breathed save

 her.

 Alone—a suddenly childless mother. It was too much for

 her.

 She flung herself across Carol's bed and sobbed. Rocking

 MINERVA WAKES            39

 back and forth, freezing, teeth chattering, she cried until her

 ribs ached. "I want my kids back! I want them back, dammit!"

 Her sobs died down to sniffles. She curled into a tight

 ball, staring at the night-light, hiccupping, with her nose

 stuffy and her eyes swollen.

 "It was the dragon," she whispered "The dragon in Food-

 Lion. It wanted me to go after it. If I'd followed it, die kids

 would still be safe."

 Maybe she could still go after it. The dragon had wanted

 her. The light, too, had come after her first, and had only

 swallowed the lads when it couldn't get her. She knew where

 the path was, that overgrown trail the dragon had vanished

 into like a rabbit down a hole. If the dragon wanted her, if

 the light wanted her—even if they were one and the same—

 they could have her. She would go down that path, and by

 so doing, trade herself for her children. She hugged the pil-

 low tighter. The tears came again; their wet heat soaked her

 cheeks.

 My life for their safety. Just let them come back home, you

 bastards, she thought. You can do whatever you want with

 me.

 Nothing changed. The house remained empty and cold.

 The grandfather clock downstairs began to bong—slow,

 steady tolling of the time, a soft and moumfui dirge. One, it

 said. Two. Three. Four. Five

 "Where are you, Darryl? Why weren't you here when I

 needed you?" She glared into the darkness. Why aren't you

 here when I need you now?

 Damn Darryl. She would go out into the night. She would

 face the terrible storm and the dragon and the ghostiy blue

 light and God only knew what else. But she was going to get

 her kids back.

 She went downstairs. In the laundry room, she rum-

 maged through the dryer and pulled out insulated

 underwear and a pair of heavy, quilt-lined corduroy jeans

 and unfolded her bulkiest hand-knit wool sweater from the

 top of the washing machine. She dressed in the dark. In the

 kitchen, she located the flashlight and the biggest kitchen

 knife they owned. She stared for a moment at the phone—

 40 Holly Lisle

 the urge to call Danyl's office or her parents' house or the

 police was almost overwhelming. She wanted just to hear

 someone's voice—to get some small reassurance that she

 was not alone in the world-

 She moved toward the phone-stand—and the hair on her

 arms stood up. The blackness in that comer of the room

 seemed darker than it had any right to be. She imagined she

 could feel something waiting with breath held for her to step

 across an unseen line—she could almost hear ghostly whis-

 pers, beckoning her near.

 She was being stupid. She didn't care. Too much m one

 night, she thought, and did not brave the phone. She took

 the flashlight and the kitchen knife and fled. Minerva wished

 right then that she and Darryl had a gun. But the knife-

 would have to do.

 Parka on, knife in her coat pocket, she stepped out into

 the bitter blackness of early morning. No one was visible

 outside, either. She left the front door unlocked and trudged

 down the stairs. The wind blew like the end of the world—

 intensely cold and miserably wet. The darkness seemed to

 devour her as she stepped carefully away from the house.

 Her boots crunched on the mixed ice and snow, and her

 nose began to run. No sense, she thought, taking the damned

 station wagon for the short distance I'm, going. I'd probably

 just slide it into a ditch, anyway, and I don't think it would

 fit down that path She jingled the keys in her pocket and

 left the hated LTD behind.

 It's only a block and a half, she thought.

 Halfway to the empty lot, she began to wonder if she'd

 made a mistake. She looked up at the sky and shivered. God,

 hut it's dark! she thought. And scary The streetiights would

 have been some help in the near-blizzard—the flashlight

 simply wasn't enough. She watched the little puddie of bob-

 bing light she made, feeling the weight of the storm and the

 night all around her. The eyes of the darkness seemed to

 watch her—she felt their gaze fixed on her back.

 Wretched, wretched storm.

 She trudged through the mess of slush and ice; her boots

 slipped from time to time as they hit spots where die asphalt

 MINERVA WAKES            41

 was uniformly glazed. As long as she could walk on the

 grassy shoulder, the going wasn't quite so bad.

 Gusts of wind buffeted her and shoved her from side to

 side. She slipped once, fell into the ditch, and the knife in

 her pocket jabbed into her hip. Swearing, she pulled the

 point loose- Not deep—sure as hell painjiil, though.

 Wet snow and crystals of ice lashed her cheeks and stung

 her eyes. Her hands inside her knitted mittens felt frozen.

 She jammed the flashlight under her arm and pressed the

 arm tight against her side—her hands had grown too numb

 to hold it.

 There were no cars at all—nobody up, no lights on in the

 houses she passed. Minerva felt like the last living person on

 earth.

 A block and a half Seems like it took forever. There it was,

 though—the empty lot, complete with snow-covered two-

 rut road diving straight into the black heart of an overgrown

 woods.

 These places never look so goddamned ominous in the

 daylight.

 She stamped her feet to warm them; stared down that

 overgrown maw of a tunnel.

 Light from the flashlight illuminated no more than ten

 feet into the gloom. The beam seemed dim to her; she

 smacked the base of the flashlight once with the flat of her

 hand, but it didn't help.

 In the stygian blackness, something terrible waited for

 her. Something straight out of her worst nightmares.

 And that something had her kids.

 "All right!" she said into the wind. "Give diem back to me

 now and I won't come after you."

 The wind whistled and howled. It made voices—but the

 voices said nothing she could understand.

 "Give them back or I'm coming in!" she yelled. "You don't

 want me to come in."

 But the invisible thing that waited evidently did.

 She stepped onto the road. Immediately, the canopy of

 pines and evergreen hollies overhead cut die wind and

 blocked some of tfie snow and sleet. The blanket of snow

 42

 HoUy Lisle

 was smoother where the road lay—a narrow ribbon of white

 between the overarching trees. Even out of the wind, die

 woods wens colder than Viking hell, Minerva thought She

 jammed her mittened hands into the pockets other nylon,

 polyester-stuffed parka, and plodded along with the flash-

 light pressed between her elbow and her waist.

 She paced along her rut, darting her flashlight from right

 to left and back, looking for some sign of the Miata. She

 walked for what she guessed would be the length of the

 empty lot, but the path went onward, and the woods showed

 no evidence of thinning. She walked on, doggedly. She lost

 all sense of time, and the cut on her hip began to throb. Her

 lets grew tired- The woods stretched out on all sides, devoid

 of people or houses.

 How much longer does this road go on? she wondered.

 Stonebridge should he over to my right, and the Loch

 Lomond development should be to my left. There should be

 houses and streets all over the place

 The trees crowded closer. The path became a single nit.

 Then? was no way the Miata could have gone down the

 path—but there was nowhere else it could have gone. The

 impossible had ceased to faze Minerva- She kept stubbornly

 on.

 The cold ate into her, and her lungs burned from the

 freezing air. Ice-covered branches slapped her cheeks, arid

 their bony-fingered assaults stung like hornets. Needles of

 white-hot pain stabbed her fingers and feet.

 Suddenly the burning sensation grew overwhelming. It

 enveloped her body, and she bent over, gasping for breath

 while invisible needles ran through her from all sides. Diz-

 ziness overtook her, and her ears roared, drowning all other

 sounds. She felt suddenly light and disconnected—almost as

 if she would faint again. She collapsed—but could not feel

 herself hit the ground.

 After an instant, though, the pain vanished, and the sense

 of strangeness passed. She stood and took a step.

 Funny, she thought. I'm not at all cold anymore.

 A warm, gende breeze blew past her and caressed her

 skin, and she stared down at her body with horror. Her

 MINERVA WAKES             43

 clothes were gone; she was completely naked. She realized

 at the same moment that her glasses were gone, too; the

 outlines of the trees around her had become blurry and

 indistinct. Her flashlight and her knife were gone. So was

 the snow. The leaves beneath her bare feet crunched.

 Minerva screamed. She dropped to her knees and began

 feeling around for her clothes or her glasses—for anything.

 Rational thought returned in tiny pieces, and she forced

 herself to sit, and breath slowly, and collect herself. Pan-

 icked, she would be useless to her children.

 The air smelled of autumn—the tang of cider-apples

 fermenting on the ground somewhere nearby; tannin;

 earth damp from recent rams; freshly fallen leaves. She

 didn't understand what had happened—but she would

 have to keep a gnp on herself and pretend she did. Feign

 sanity.

 Losing her clothes wasn't as bad as losing her glasses, she

 decided- She had to have those. If she couldn't see, she

 would be helpless.

 Knowing perfectly well she was being illogical—that if

 her clothes had just vanished, the glasses would have, too—

 she still got back on her knees, calmly this time, and started

 digging through the dry leaves. She wmdd find her glasses,

 she decided. She just would.

 She could almost see them half-covered by leaves, could

 almost feel the cold metal frames under her fingertips- They

 were as real in her mind as twenty years of desperately near-

 sighted dependence could make them—and suddenly her

 fingers brushed icy metal and snow-covered glass, and there

 they were, under her hand.

 Better not to ask too many ifuestions, she thought, and

 put them on.

 She stood, and pulled her shoulders back and lifted her

 chin. The dragon, the ghost light—they were playing

 games with her—changing things. She wouldn't let it stop

 her.

 "You can't scare me," she whispered. Then louder, "I said,

 you can't scare me. You have my kids. I want them bacid"

 She started walking again, determination undiminished in

 44 HoUy Lisle

 spite other fear. She noted her hip didn't hurt anymore, and

 she had no cut where the knife had gone in. It didn't matter.

 She didn't care what happened to her, she thought. Only

 finding Jamie and Carol and Bamey mattered-

 She arrived abruptly at a clearing. The sky along the

 horizon wore the first pale flush of coming dawn—there

 was enough light that Mineiva could see she was at the top

 of a huge, dome-shaped hill. Meadowland spread in front

 other, golden grasses bent and rippled like waves in the

 ocean. A string of little moons hung across the waist of the

 world like brightly colored jewels strung on an invisible

 chain.

 The horizon pinked up, and from all around her,

 meadow birds began cheeping and singing. The path

 continued in front of her, along the ridge to the next hill

 over. Huge standing stones circled the top of that liill like

 a heavy crown. She walked toward them, a few tentative

 steps at a time. Nervously, she looked behind herself, and

 got a nasty shock.

 The path behind her was gone.

 So were the woods.

 The sun was coming up when Dariyl pulled into the

 drive. The world glared ice-white and dawn-pink—blinding,

 beautiful, wickedly cold. The walk up to the house was a

 solid sheet of glaring white, marred by two sets of footprints,

 both almost completely filled with snow.

 He got out of the Nova, blowing steam into the frigid air,

 and crunched up the walk.

 The front door was unlocked.

 He swallowed uneasiness. Maybe Minerva is already up,

 he thought, and went in.

 The house was still. He stood in the foyer, holding his

 breath, listening. Maybe the kids are stdl asleep, he told

 himself.

 "Minerva!" he yelled. "I'm home!"

 No answer.

 "Minerva! I'm home! Is everything all right?"

 Still no answer-

 MINERVA WAKES             45

 Darryl closed his eyes. Please, he thought. Please just be

 pissed off at me. Please don't be gone.

 He walked to the stairs and up them. They creaked

 beneath his weight, incredibly loud in the silence. The

 grandfather clock bonged once, and he looked at his watch.

 Six-thirty.

 He thought about calling out to the kids, then decided

 against it. They're stiU asleep, he told himself. If I wake them

 up early, Minerva will kill me. There's no way she'U believe

 I'm freaked out because of something I thought I saw in a

 mirror.

 He reached the top of the stairs, turned, walked slowly

 along the landing. He peeked into Carol's door. Her bed was

 empty.

 He opened the boys' door, and a blast of icy air hit him.

 The window was out—looked to him almost as if it had been

 exploded from the inside. He clenched his fists. Tears

 burned his eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

 Real. he thought. It was aU real. Something got them—

 something took them away—

 He heard a noise coming from his and Minerva's bed-

 room. Someone walking around, sitting on the bed,

 squeaking the bedsprings. Oh Cod, he thought, as relief

 rushed over him, so intense it made him queasy. They're aU

 in our room. Of course. The kids got scared because the

 power went off—because a tree limb or something knocked

 out the window. They're aS. in our room—

 He took a deep breath, and sighed, and laughed softly.

 Panic, why don't you, Darryl?

 "Minerva!" he called, and left the boys' room, and closed

 the door behind him. "Why didn't you answer me?" He

 went down the hall, his stomach still tied in knots from anxi-

 ety, and walked into his bedroom.

 He immediately backed out, slammed the door, and

 stood in me hall for a moment, hyperventilating. / didn't see

 anything, he told himself. Everything is okay, and when I

 walk back in there, Minerva and the kids wul be fine.

 He opened the door just a crack, and peeked in.

 A vivid blue dragon curled up on his bed, eating Wheaties

 46 Holly Lisle

 out of a box and reading a book. It had a can of Budweiser

 clutched in one huge forefoot. The dragon grinned at him.

 "Hi!" it said, in a very deep, gravelly voice. "Want some

 Wheaties? Or a beer?"

 Danyi slammed the door again. He leaned against the

 wall and slid down into a crouch, and rested his face in his

 hands. There is not a dragon in my bedroom, he told him-

 self. There isn't. He said it out loud. "There is not a dragon

 in my bedroom."

 There was the last time I looked," the incredibly deep

 voice rumbled from the other side of the door.

 Danyl pressed his face against his thighs and wrapped his

 arms around his legs. There's a dragon in my bedroom—I

 don't even like having to get rid of mice/

 He took a deep breath and straightened. He was going to

 have to get rid of it. He couldn't leave it in there. What if it

 had hurt Minerva, or the lads? He stood and thought for a

 moment.

 How the hell do you gist a dragon out of your bedroom?

 Darryl suspected this wasn't the sort of thing you coutd

 call Terminex for. He used an old golf club on mice—but

 that wasn't going to work here. First, mice weren't likely to

 turn around and charbroil you when you swung at

 them—and second, the golf club was in the bedroom,

 under the bed.

 I don't have a gun, I don't haw a sword, I don't have a

 suit of armor. Modem man, Darryl decided, was remarkably

 unprepared for fighting dragons.

 The dragon didn't look aU that threatening, really, lie

 thought. It had really sharp teeth, and it was big, but— It

 was sitting in there drinking beer. I mean, unless it turns out

 to be a nasty drunk, nwyhe there won't be a problem.

 He stuck his head in the door again.

 The dragon pulled a handful of Wheaties out of the box,

 tossed them down its huge maw, and chased the cereal with

 a dollop of beer.

 That wife of yours is a major babe," the dragon offered.

 "I love babes."

 Darry! stepped into the room, caution forgotten. He

 MINERVA WAKES             47

 was instantly angry. "How do you know my wife?" he

 demanded.

 "Met her at the grocery store. We were both shopping

 and we, ah, ran into each other. I'll bet she's hot, huh?" The

 mythical beast stared heavenward and sighed gustuy. He

 started to sing.

 "The lovely lady sang so sweet,

 Upon her harp, she PLUCKED.

 The dragon's Ivst grew great and strong^

 His heart thundered and BUCKED.

 When she was through, he took her home,

 And all night long the-e-e-e-ey—

 WE-R-R-R-RRE—

 Anatomically incompatible,

 His wasflyahle, her just SAT-able.

 True love di-i-i-ied. 'cause nothing FIT!

 That's the long—and—SHORT of it!"

 Darryl leaned against the doorframe and tried to talk

 sense to himself- The dragon was a manifestation of his guilt.

 Had to be. His subconscious had to be finding something

 deeply significant in a randy blue—blue?!—mythological

 beast that made lewd remarks about his wife and sang dirty

 ditties.

 "I love that song," the psychological manifestation said.

 ^ts sort of the dragon national anthem." He erupted into

 the second verse.

 "They tried their best to make it work,

 With effort pure and TRUE!

 They used appliances and gels,

 And lathered up with COO!

 Twos all for naught, though—sad to teU.

 They simply couldn't—

 THE-E-E-E-EY—WE-R-R-R-RRE—"

 He launched into the chorus again, and Danyl closed his

 eyes. So let's do a brief comparison here. Is a dragon singing

 48

 Holly Lisle

 mi my bed better or worse than seeing my wife in the mirror

 at work? Sanity-wise, that is?

 The dragon began the third verse.

 "The dragon ceased his striving, but

 Mas, it was too LATE!

 They buried her while he bemoaned

 Thejwkleness of FATE!—"

 Darryl gathered his courage and located his voice. "Excuse

 me," he squeaked to the blue hallucination. "But would you

 please go away?"

 The dragon stopped its racket long enough to stare at

 him. "—Eh? Oh, not right now. I'm singing. I wrote this

 song, you know."

 "Dead not for love but just because

 They could not FOR—

 THE-E-E-E-EY WE-R-R-R-RRE—"

 "1 know you're singing," Darryl interrupted. "I want you

 to stop."

 "I'm almost done. But die bridge is die best part. Here.

 listen."

 "The moral of this sad lament,

 Amid the clench afFATEl

 Make sure the plumbing measures up,

 Before you copuLATE!

 THE-E-E-E-EY WE-R-R-R-RRE—"

 The dragon waggled the spiny lilies over his eye-ridges

 when he sang that last part Darryl found the effect

 disconcerting.

 "Very nice," he interrupted again. His voice was coming

 back stronger. He didn't sound like such a wimp anymore.

 He still felt like a wimp. Oh well, he thought. Can't have

 everything. "Did you eat my wife?" he asked.

 The dragon stopped singing. He cocked his head to one

 MINERVA WAKES            49

 side and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "No,

 unfortunately. She didn't ask me to. Of course, we were in the

 supermarket at the time." He fixed a hopeful gaze on Darryl.

 "Do you think she might?"

 Darryl looked at the dragon with disbelief. "NO! Did you

 eat my children?"

 "I get the feeling we aren't talking about the same thing

 here. Kids aren't my thing—" The dragon huffed and

 pouted. "And I never munch babes. For the record, I am an

 ommvore. Mostly, I require the same sorts of nourishment

 you do—by the way, these Wheaties taste like straw. You

 actually eat this stuff?"

 "No," Darryl said. "I hate Wheaties. So if you didn't eat

 my wife and my kids, what did you do with them?"

 "What did J do with them?! What did I do widi—J didn't

 do anything with them!" The blue riiles around the dragon's

 face stood out like fans—the long, delicate spines quivered.

 The dragon's pupils dilated and contracted rapidly, and he

 puffed out a thin tendril of smoke. "I'm just here to keep

 you company so you won't be alone, bud, and to protect you

 from die Weirds. / wasn't out til] all hours of the morning

 boffing the office bimbo, was I? I'm the good guy in this lit-

 tle morality play."

 "How'd you know about that?" Darryl asked, then

 decided he didn't want to know. "Look," he said, "I didn't

 mean to offend you. You know where they are, though? My

 family, I mean."

 "Sure." The dragon finished the Biidweiser with one long

 gulp and crushed the can into a metal sphere the size of a

 marble. He flicked that across the room into the trash can,

 where it ratded noisily. He grinned- "Two points." He imme-

 diately popped the top on another beer, sipped

 appreciatively, and leaned back on the bed. "Hey, I just had

 a great idea. I have this way-cool car and the afternoon orf.

 And babes just love my wlieels. Let's go cruise chicks."

 "Let's not. I want to find my wife."

 "Find her? She isn't lost. Look—she's right there." The

 dragon pointed at the full-length mirror.

 Dan-yl looked in the mirror. He couldn't see Minerva.

 50

 Holly Lisle

 What he cou]d see was a replica ofStonehenge. fixed up like

 new. Then the view tilted crazily, and he could see what

 seemed to be Minerva's own view other body—stark naked.

 The curves were familiar, and he recognized the mole on

 her right breast.

 The dragon whistled appreciatively. "Ooomph! You got

 some babe there, pal. She could scratch my scales any day."

 Darryl glared, but decided not to comment on the

 dragon's rudeness. "What about my kids, (hen? Where are

 they?"

 The dragon nodded sagely. "You have a problem there, all

 right. The Weirds have them. They intend to use them for

 bait to catch you and the tomato, I imagine."

 Darryl let out his breath in a short whoosh. "And if, ah—

 tfie Weirds?—the Weirds catch us?"

 Then they reduce you to your component atoms and

 destroy the atoms." The dragon slurped his beer, then

 arched an eye-ridge and popped the can into his mouth. He

 crunched vigorously, swallowed once, then sighed. "Hell, I

 didn't know these were so tasty. I would have been eating

 them and tossing the Wheaties."

 Things weren't coming together the way Darryl would

 have liked. Instead of making progressively more sense,

 events seemed to be making progressively less. Not only did

 he have a lecherous, beer-swilling dragon lounging on his

 bed, but the kids were gone and Minerva was back in the

 mirror, and something wanted him dead.

 "Can you take me to Minerva?" he asked the dragon.

 "Nope."

 "Can you help me get my Idds back?"

 "Not right this minute. But I can give you a beer. You look

 like you could use one." The dragon grinned again.

 There were some creatures that should never smile, Darryl

 thought. Dragons fit into that category. Entirely too many

 teeth. He took a deep breath and turned his back on the

 bouncing reflection of the spruced-up Stonehenge. He didn't

 have any idea what to do next. Getting stupendously,

 overwhelming drunk, though, seemed like a promising start.

 "Right," he said. "Give me a beer."

 MINERVA WAKES

 ^   ^   ^

 51

 A thump followed by a loud crash brought all three chil-

 dren awake and off the floor.

 The ambush had worked. Its victim lay sprawled on the

 stone floor, with a thin tricide of blood oozing from the cut

 on her forehead.

 Jamie, Carol, and Bamey grabbed hold of the makeshift

 rope and edged warily up to the fallen figure. Murp skulked

 along just behind them, hackles raised.

 "What is it?" Carol asked.

 Bamey couldn't even imagine. He was certain that the

 creature was one of the monsters he'd sensed. She was a girl

 monster, though—and even with the example of his sister to

 the contrary, he'd never really considered that monsters

 might come in boys and girls.

 Her eyes were closed, her mouth partway open. She had

 long, sharp teeth. Not like Dracula's, he thought. More like

 Murp's—but bigger. Her ears stuck out, curly and furry at the

 edges like the flowers his mother called cockscombs. Her hair

 was land of brushy and stuck up. It was plain old brown, except

 for a black stripe that ran right down the middle. Her hands

 were big, and her fingers had sharp claws at the ends of them.

 Jamie took a walking stick lie found propped up against

 one wall and poked her with it. She didn't move-

 "Maybe she's dead," he said, sounding both scared and a

 little bit hopeful.

 Carol said, "No, she isn't- She's still breathing."

 Jamie studied the fallen monster, then nodded. "Yes, she

 is. You're right. Should we leave her here like this, or should

 we tie her up?"

 "Tie her up," Carol said-

 Barney nodded- "Before she wakes up."

 Jamie nodded again, looking thoughtful. "Yeah. I think so,

 too."

 They took the twisted sheet, pulled her hands behind her,

 wrapped the sheet around both wrists a number of times,

 then tied one huge knot.

 "Feet, too?" Carol had the other sheet ready.

 52 Holly Lisle

 "Feet. too."

 All three of them worked at tying her feet.

 When they were done, Jamie studied the unconscious

 monster, then pulled a huge dagger out of the sheath she

 wore on her belt. He grinned at his brother and sister, and

 raised the knife skyward with both hands. "Heeeee-yah!" he

 whispered, and tucked the knife into his belt.

 Secret Agents Jeevus, Renskie, and Equator did high-

 fives.

 "Now what do we do?" Renskie asked.

 Secret Agent Jeevus crossed his arms over his chest. "We

 have two choices. We can try to escape, or we can fight."

 "Fight?" Carol looked horrified. "We're lads! The/re

 monsters!"

 "Yeah, but if we run, we have to get past the castle

 defenses. If we fight, we might win."

 Equator hooked his thumbs under his tunic into the top

 of his pants. "If we lose, they might eat us."

 Secret Agent Jeevus frowned. "Then we'd better not lose.

 Look." He hunkered down and stared into the eyes of his

 two cohorts. This place is made to be defended—and we

 are in the best location to launch a counterattack. The very

 best place to attack is from behind."

 "We don't have any guns."

 "We don't need them. We're in a castle keep." Jamie

 traced an imaginary diagram on the stone floor with his fin-

 ger. "We're at the top of a hill. If you look out the window,

 you can see the wall of the inner bailey below, and outside

 of that, the wall of the outer bailey. Look out die door, Ren-

 side—but be careftil. Tell me what you see."

 Carol went over and peeked out the door, then closed it

 behind her. She reported back. "Just stairs, sir. They go

 around and around and around—with a big hole in the

 middle."

 "Perfect. If more monsters come after us, we can drop

 stuff on their heads."

 On the floor beside them, their captive groaned softly and

 opened her eyes. She looked up at the three children, her

 expression bewildered. She tned to get up, and discovered

 MINERVA WAKES            53

 her hands and feet tied together. "Wha—?!" The monster

 twisted around, fighting to free herself.

 Jamie grabbed up the walking stick again and brandished

 it over her head- "Don't move or you're a goner," he

 growled. Then he looked at his brother and sister. "The

 President has asked us to inter... um—interrogate this pris-

 oner- Secret Agent Renskie. take your position."

 Carol frowned, her face questioning- Jamie pointed

 behind the monster. Carol nodded. She giared fiercely at the

 creature on the floor and walked around behind it.

 "Don't move." She made her voice as tough as she could.

 Bamey looked at his older brother. "You have to hold the

 secret weapon. Secret Agent Equator," the unflappable

 Jeevus said.

 Bamey picked up the cat, and Jeevus nodded gravely.

 "Very good. Equator."

 Then Jeevus spoke into die air- "Yes, Mr. President," he

 said solemnly. "We'll get her to confess, sir." He saluted, and

 Equator, who was trying to keep the "secret weapon" from

 struggling too much, saluted too.

 Jeevus, still clutching the stick, knelt just out of die mon-

 ster's range and took a deep breath. Then he said, "Give me

 your name, rank, and serial number, monster. The Geneva

 convention prohibits torture, but we will do what we have to

 do to complete our mission."

 "Are you children crazy?" the monster asked.

 "We are not children," Jeevii.s said, and narrowed his eyes

 in an impressively spylike manner. Equator liked the expres-

 sion well enough he tried it out himself. "We have captured

 you. and you will tell us what we want to know."

 "Are you going to untie me?"

 "We make no promises, monster. But if you cooperate,

 we will . . . um . . . we will take that into account."

 Bamey recognized the lines from the cartoon "Dan

 Steed, Kid Detective." After Dan Steed said that, the bad

 guy, wlw'd been holding a kid and her father prisoner

 until they told him where to find the buried treasure, had

 sneered, and said "I'll never tell you nothin', you rotten

 Idd."

 54 Holly Lisle

 But this capdve just sighed. "Right," she said. "My name

 is Ergrawll. My personal identification credit number is 505-

 2-10347-21. I don't have a serial number, so that will just

 have to do. My rank is Childsitter, First Class." She pulled

 her lips back in a ternble smile that showed all of her teeth

 to best advantage. "And as your Childsitter, I have to tell

 you—you're in big trouble."

 Jeevus laughed coldly. "So your name is Ergrawll, is it?

 Hah! A likely story," he sneered.

 Equator thought his big brother's answer that time was

 pretty good, too. He imitated the sneer and the cold laugh,

 and said, "Yeah. A likely stoiy."

 Renskie maintained her fierce silence.

 "Now we want the truth, What is the secret password?

 Where have you hidden the treasure? How many of you are

 there? Who is your leader? Why do you want to take over

 the world?" Jeevus glowered down at the prisoner and

 tapped his foot.

 Dan Steed always tapped his foot.

 'Those are siBy questions—and my head hurts. Unde

 me." The monster glared at Jeevus.

 Jeevus glared back. "Right, then. Renslde—torture the

 prisoner."

 Renskie looked panicked. She shrugged at her older

 brother and spread her arms wide. "How?" she mouthed.

 Jeevus rolled his eyes and sighed. "Do I have to do every-

 thing?" He walked around the downed monster, being

 careful to keep his distance. When he drew even with her

 rump, he lifted his stack.

 Thwack! Jeevus smacked her once with the stick. "What

 is the password?" Thwack! "Where are the secret passages?"

 He lifted the stick a third time, and brought it down with an

 especially vigorous stroke. "Who is your leader, and where is

 he hiding?"

 "Little boy," the monster said, and her eyes glowed

 incredibly green, "I'm about to get angry. You wouldn't like

 me when I'm angry."

 Bamey froze. Those words were straight out of The

 Incredible Hulk. Of course, the Incredible Hulk started out

 MINERVA WAKES            55

 as David Banner—who was a wimp. Secret Agent Equator

 thought hard. After David Banner was a wimp, though, he

 became the Hulk, who was great if he was on your side - - -

 but not too good if he was coming after you.

 Jamie gave the monster another smack on the rear.

 The monster looked really angry.

 Murp, in Bame/s arms, hissed. The monster was not a

 wimp like David Banner. Did that mean she would become

 something worse than the Hulk? He shivered and stared at

 her. Bamey had known some bad feelings in his short life—

 the one he got at that moment made the rest of them seem

 like nothing.

 Tlie monster started to shift and twist—Bamey was pretty

 sure she was going to turn into the Hulk, sort of, but really

 bad. He dropped the cat and picked up the heaviest thing

 he could find that he could pick up—a stone doorstop—and

 dropped it on her head-

 The prisoner's face slammed into the floor, and her eyes

 closed.

 "Shit!" Jamie yelled- "What did you do that for, poop-

 face?! She was gonna talk."

 "She was gonna turn into the Hulk, moron."

 Jamie put his hands on his hips. "Yeah, right. Asshole."

 Carol's mouth dropped open. She stared at Jamie.

 "Awww—I'm telling. Mom is gonna kill you when she finds

 out you said that, Jamie."

 Jamie's cheeks turned red, and he glared at his sister.

 "How's she gonna find out, huh, shrimp? You better not

 tell."

 Bamey was unruffled by his brother's insults. "I told you

 about the ghost, didn't I? If you hid in the closet with Bat-

 man and me, it wouldn't have got you."

 Jamie shut up.

 Barney loved it when Jamie shut up.

 Carol, however, gave Bamey a disbelieving look, then

 turned to Jamie, the former enemy. "He thinks Batman lives

 in your closet?"

 "He thinks a lot of things," Jamie muttered. The older

 boy shrugged. "He was right about the ghost coming for us,

 56 Holly Lisle

 though. And it didn't touch him till after he came out of the

 closet."

 Jamie knelt beside the still form of the monster. "She's

 going to be trouble when she wakes up. We need to lock her

 in here and find someplace else for us."

 Bamey picked up Murp and asked Jamie, "Do you think

 she was really our baby-sitter?"

 Jamie frowned. "Probably not. But if she was, she

 couldn't have been much worse than Louise Simmons."

 All three children lifted first and fourth fingers and

 touched their noses, a gesture Jamie once told them was

 supposed to ward off evil. Moht of the kids in the neighbor-

 hood did it every fame they saw Louise—it made her crazy,

 which was why they did it. Not even Bamey really believed

 that she was going to turn into a witch on her eighteenth

 birthday and eat the neighborhood children. At least, he

 didn't believe it very much.

 "Grab her legs," Jamie said.

 Barney and Carol grabbed the monsters legs and started

 tugging; Jamie pulled on her arms. The stone floor was

 smooth—they slid her away from the door without too much

 difficulty.

 "Get the bedspread."

 The two smaller children dragged it over, and all three of

 them spread it out on the floor, then rolled her up in it like

 a murnmy-

 That ought to slow her down.' Jamie's voice

 changed—suddenly he was Jeevus again, brushing

 imaginary lint off his shirt and plotting the overthrow of

 monsters.

 "Now, men," he told them, "we reconnoiter the lower

 regions of the castle. Keep quiet, keep close to me, and

 watch out for booby traps and ambushes."

 Renskie and Equator lined up behind him. Equator car-

 ried the secret weapon, who had calmed down.

 They skulked out the door onto the landing, A massive

 stone staircase curved around and down—it had no railing

 and the center was a straight drop to the ground. Bamey

 made the mistake of looking, then backed against the wall so

 57

 MINERVA WAKES

 fast he slammed his head on the stone. Jeevus was still

 staring down over the edge.

 "Man—if we only had supplies, we could hold this place

 forever." They closed the door to the tower room, then all

 three of them together dropped the big wooden bar into the

 brackets set in the stone.

 "Onward," Secret Agent Jeevus said, his whisper sound-

 ing small and scared in the dark, echoey tower.

 "Onward." Secret Agent Renslde repeated.

 "Onward," Secret Agent Equator said, and clutched the

 cat tighter-

 CHAPTER 4

 Minerva stared at the string of gemlike moons strung

 across the sly and wrapped her arms around herself. She

 shivered violently, but this time not from cold. Wherever she

 was felt infinitely far from home. Her way back had van-

 ished, and her children were nowhere in sight.

 She walked into the circle of standing stones and brushed

 her fingers over die nearest menhir. The coarse rock felt

 very solid and very real. She braced herself and pushed as

 hard as she could, and the standing stone didn't topple or

 vanish.

 Minerva shoved her glasses up her nose and studied the

 henge. She licked her lips thoughtfully.

 "Okay," she said. Her voice shook, and her hands trem-

 bled. "Okay. Okay. I understand this. The kids vanished into

 another universe." Her rational mind scoffed—Another uni-

 verse. Really, Minerva, don't be ridiculous. But the animal

 brain was not to be denied its truth. "When I followed the

 dragon, I came through after them," she whispered. "It's like

 Alice through die looking glass—but no. Not really She was

 just dreaming."

 "True—and you aren't," said a masculine voice from just

 behind her.

 Minerva jumped and shrieked and turned, pretty much in

 a single action—and the speaker stepped away from the

 menhir mat had hidden him.

 59

 60 Holly Lisle

 Her first sight of him left Minerva speechless—and fran-

 tically aware of her nakedness. She tried to cover herself

 with her hands. She didn't have enough hands. "Oh, God!"

 she wailed, and looked for someplace to hide from the

 stranger—the creature. He—the creature was definitely

 male—was more terruying to her than die dragon had

 been—for where the dragon had been a monster, this . . .

 this thing . . . was somewhat human. Enough to make him

 frightening, she thought. Not enough to make him safe.

 From the tips of his pointed ears to his sharply cloven

 hooves, he was a rich cinnamon-brown. He stood upright on

 two slender goatish legs—broad-shouldered, lean—

 Well-hung, her startled subconscious whispered.

 Lean, she told herself nervously. His features were sharp,

 his point-tipped ears swiveled slightly to follow sounds, his

 four-fingered hands were long and fine-boned and heavy-

 nafled. He wore a knife belt and carried a dufiel bag slung

 over one shoulder and a wooden flute in one hand.

 "Hello, Minerva Kiakra. My name is Talleos," he said.

 "I'm here to help you." He grinned at her—he had broad,

 square teeth, very white, in a smile that curled devilishly.

 Eyebrow arched, he murmured, "I knew I got the better

 end of the deal." His gaze wandered up and down her body

 widi overt appreciation and his voice oozed sexiness.

 Minerva could have died of embarrassment for being

 caught without clothes on. She was furious that die

 creature dared leer at her. But mostly she was frightened.

 This Talleos-creature knew who she was. By name. He'd

 been expecting her arrival—he knew enough about what

 had happened to her diat he knew to wait for her near die

 circle of standing stones. That meant die magic diat

 brought her diere—the magic that stole her children from

 dieir beds in the middle of the night—was no surprise to

 him. Her fear became anger. She stared at him and

 clenclied her hands into fists. "Do you know where my

 kids are?" she asked.

 Talleos nodded. "Of course I do. That's why I'm here."

 Smug bastard. That's why he's here. all right. She flexed

 her knees and watched him; studied his arrogant, amused

 MINERVA WAKES            61

 face and his confident stance. He's so sure of his ransom—or

 whatever his game is!

 Fury gripped her, and something snapped inside Min-

 erva, and she screamed. She went straight for him—straight

 for his eyes with her fingers bent into talons; straight for his

 diroat widi her lips pulled back from her teedi. "Give diem

 back, you sonuvabitch!" she shrieked. "Give me back my

 lads."

 Minerva hit him—hard. The creature tumbled backward

 and Minerva landed on top of him. She gouged at his eyes

 widi her thumbs. She bit at his diroat. He howled and

 grabbed her wrists and managed to pull her hands away

 from his face- His hooves slashed very close to her head—

 connected solidly widi her ribs. Spurred by pain, she kneed

 him in die groin, and he screamed and rolled into a litde

 knot.

 "Give diem back right now!" she screeched. "Right

 now—or I'll kill you! So help me God, I will." She grabbed

 two fistfuls of hair, crawled up. Jammed her knee against his

 du-oat and pressed. She was shaking widi mry. Her voice

 quavered and her heartbeat pounded in her ears. "Right

 now—or I'D break your damn neck."

 "I don't—have diem!" he wheezed. His voice squeaked.

 Tears ran from die comers of his eyes. He lay tucked into a

 fetal position widi his hooves wrapped nearly around his

 ears. He tried to struggle out from under her knee, and she

 tightened her grip and pressed harder.

 "Who does?"

 "Look, I can tell you all of this—" He squirmed, and she

 increased pressure. "But you have to let me go," he gasped.

 "I came to help you."

 "The hell you say."

 "It's—trudi. By all die gods—I swear it." His face turned

 increasingly dusky.

 Truth. Hah! she thought. Terror and adrenaline made her

 crazy. She wanted to hurt him, wanted widi everything in her

 to rip die strange creature to shreds. But if he was telling the

 trudi, and she hurt him, he might not help her. If she killed

 him, of course, he couldn't. If, however, he was lying...

 62 Hoffy Usie

 She gritted her teeth until her jaws ached. If he's lying, TB,

 kill him later. She let go of his hair and eased the pressure

 off his neck.

 Her palms sweated, and she panted. She had the horrible

 urge to burst into tears. Nerves. Or fear. Or shock, she

 thought. Or aS of'the above.

 "I'm going to let you go," she told him. "For your sake,

 you'd better be able to help me."

 He rolled away from her, twisted into a knot, and rocked

 back and forth.

 She wanted answers. "Well—?"

 "Let me die in peace, won't you?" His voice was a hoarse

 croak.

 "No! I have to find my kids!" She could hear the edge of

 hysteria in her words. She didn't care. "Help me now. I have

 to get them back."

 "Get the bag. Stuff in it's for you." He didn't make any

 move to get up—just kept rocldng back and forth.

 She picked up the bully broadcloth bag from where he'd

 dropped it and undid the laces. It was full of clothing. She

 pulled the items out; they were foreign—peasanty-looking

 garb in loud primary colors. Vivid grass-green leather pants;

 cobalt-blue shirt covered with hand-embroidered flowers;

 lemon-yellow vest; purple boots; a scarlet tarn with jaunty

 feathered cockade. She found white linen bloomers and a

 rather coarse camisole that, she supposed, would serve as

 underwear. She also found a utilitarian black leather knife

 belt, complete with sheathed silver knife.

 "What the hell?" she asked him. "Stuff looks like ft- was

 designed by Barbarians of Hollywood, with colors by Cray-

 ola." She wasn't going to look the proverbial gift horse in the

 mouth, though. Hastily, she threw the clothes on.

 He didn't look at her—didn't say anything. He was still

 writhing.

 "You're honestly here to help me?" Dressed, she felt less

 vulnerable. She sat crosslegged, elbows propped on her

 thighs, playing absently with the little silver knife. She

 watched Talleos rolling in die tall grass sucking air like a carp

 on land- She began to feel a little sony for him.

 MINERVA WAKES            63

 "Much to my regret," the creature groaned.

 "I'm sony. I thought you were responsible for kidnapping

 my lads." She tipped her head to one side and stared off into

 space. I don't actually know that he isn't, even yet. "If you

 were responsible for it, I'd kill you," she added, just so there

 wouldn't be any misunderstandings.

 "I figured that out." He sat up with apparent difficulty,

 wincing as he did. "Where'd you leam to fight like that?"

 She shrugged. "1 have a brother."

 He raised an eyebrow—the only part of him that still

 seemed to be working. "Have? Lucky fellow—I'm surprised

 he survived childhood."

 Minerva laughed in spite of herself. 'That's where I

 learned most of it. I also took a self-defense course my fresh-

 man year of coDege, but I never used that. It all came back,

 though, when I thought you were hiding Jamie and Carol

 and Bamey."

 Thus proving the oldest law of survival." He didn't say

 anything else.

 Curious, Minerva asked, "Which is—?"

 "Never screw with the mommy."

 She grinned. She was amazed how calm she was begin-

 ning to feel. She could think clearly again—even plan.

 Clobbering Talleos had proven therapeutic. She felt in con-

 trol of the situation for the moment—though she suspected

 the feeling was illusory.

 "You're a satyr, aren't you?" she asked Talleos. He'd finally

 struggled to his feet and was hobbling around, groaning. He

 was taller and thinner than the statues of satyrs the ancient

 Greeks had carved, and he didn't have horns—but the simi-

 larities were pronounced.

 He gave her a dark look. "Certainly not. I'm a cheymat."

 -What's the difference?"

 He posed, displaying his ... attributes ... to their most

 obvious advantage. The differences are immense."

 She rolled her eyes. "Never mind." Satyrs—ugh! He

 could call himself a cheymat if he wanted to, but he was

 blood kin to those randy party gods, whether he wanted to

 admit the relationship or not. She stood, sheathed the knife,

 64 HoUy Ltsle

 and picked the red tarn off the grass. "What do I have to do

 to get the kids bade?"

 "Your kids are safe for the time being. The person you

 need to be concerned about is you. I'm here to keep the

 Weirds from destroying you."

 And I took you out in one round? Oh, great. How reas-

 suring. She didn't voice her doubts, though.

 "Somebody wants to destroy me?" she asked.

 "You and your husband, actually. The Weirds stole your

 children so you and your husband would go charging after

 them. I suppose they expected you to caB the police on your

 telephone. Very bright of you to stay away from those, by the

 way. The Weirds planted their gate on your home phones. If

 either of you had touched one, you would have both been

 sucked straight into the Conclave chambers, and the Weirds

 would have annihilated you."

 Talleos stopped talking. He cocked an ear in the direction

 of the path, and his head snapped around. He stared down

 the base of the next hiB over, where the path wound around

 out of sight.

 "Shit," he whispered and snatched up the empty duffle

 bag. "Up. Start skipping around the stones," he ordered.

 "And laugh like heB. Act like you're having a wonderful

 time." He put the wood flute to his lips and began to dance

 around the stones as well, piping a wild, alien jig.

 Minerva's fear returned in an overwhelming rush. She

 didn't ask questions. She pasted a phony smile on her face

 and leapt to her feet and began skipping and dancing.

 "Laugh," Talleos whispered tersely as he passed her- He

 glared at her and kept piping.

 Minerva laughed and stamped and whirled- As she came

 around one of the stones, she saw a handful of dark shapes

 on the path at the base of the hill, staring up at her. Her

 stomach knotted in fear. She skipped faster, and laughed

 more merrily, (hough her laughter rang falsely in her own

 ears.

 Taileos circled her again. He muttered, "On the far side

 of the henge, skip straight down over the hill—and giggle.

 Soon as we're out of sight, run like hell."

 MINERVA WAKES             65

 Minerva, still laughing with phony wild abandon, nodded.

 She and Talleos skipped another daisy chain around the

 stones. On the far side, Talleos yelled, "Ho, wench! Let us

 sport us while we may! Ho! Ho! Ho!"

 He bounded in her direction, and she squealed and gig-

 gled loudly and slapped down out of sight. When they

 dropped below the crest of the hill, Talleos passed her,

 springing at a tremendous pace. Those goat legs could move.

 She fled after him.

 They ran through scrubby brush and tall grasses, racing as

 if devils were riding fiery horses in their wake.

 Never know, Minerva thought. Maybe they are.

 They ran until they were gasping for breath. Finally

 Talleos flung himself flat in the tall grass.

 Minerva followed suit. "What—was all—that about?"

 "Later—" he wheezed. "It's—complicated."

 They lay hidden in the field, catching their breath. Min-

 erva thought TaBeos was remarkably out of shape for a

 woodland creature, but she didn't comment on that.

 "We're going to stay here for a while," Talleos whispered.

 "If we don't move, they'll never spot us."

 The dry grass beneath her made her itch, but she was too

 scared even to move enough to scratch. She desperately

 wanted to understand what was happening. She wanted to

 believe there was something she could do to make things

 right. "You started to teB me about the ... urn. Weirds?"

 "Weirds. Most powerful magicians on Eynth."

 "Right. Magicians." She remembered those dark shapes

 at the base of the hiB and shivered. "Why would the ...

 Weirds .. . cross universes or dimensions or whatever to try

 to kill Darryl and me? We aren't anybody special."

 Lying beside her, Taileos nodded vigorously That's why."

 "What?" Minerva frowned, not understanding.

 "You're supposed to be the Weavers of the universes.

 When you and your fianc6 bought your wedding rings, you

 got them from an old guy at a festival, right?"

 Minerva closed her eyes. Events from so long ago, she

 thought. "Ren Faire. Right. He told us this fairy tale about

 the rings being magical—he said they would 'bind us across

 66 Holly Lisle

 the ... universes ... and through ... time .. .' " She ground

 to a stop and stared over at the cheymat. "Oh, God. It wasn't

 a fairy tale, though, was it?"

 "No—it was real.

 "Oh, God," she whispered. "I always thought there was

 something I was supposed to do, you know? I always

 believed my life was supposed to be more than a boring

 nine-to-five job and kids and a house in the suburbs." She

 nodded. "A quest. Saving the universe." She held her hands

 in front of her and stared at the woven gold ring that

 gleamed in the morning sunlight.

 She pursed her Ups and nodded again, sharply. "Yeah.

 That's all right, then. Whatever it is, I can handle it." She

 looked over at Talleos and gave him a brave smile. "This is

 what I've been waiting for. This is what I was bom for."

 Taileos stared at her, disbelief written on his face. "That's

 quite commendable," he said in a faint voice. "Really, I am

 amazed—and quite impressed. Especially considering the

 circumstances."

 She didn't like the sound of his voice when he said that.

 "Circumstances?"

 "Yeah." Talleos took a deep breath. "You see, the old guy

 sold the rings to the wrong two people."

 It hit her like a slap in the face. "The wrong people?"

 Her voice sounded petulant to her own ears. "How can

 that be?"

 Talleos shrugged. "Shit happens." He pufled a long stem

 of grass and shredded it absently. The old guy was in a

 hurry—the Unweaver was after him. You two showed up at

 about the right time, you looked about right—so he gave you

 the rings and ran like hell. Half an hour later the right peo-

 ple showed up at the appointed place—"

 That seems like a sloppy way to determine the fate of the

 universe," Minerva interrupted.

 "We all can potentially live forever. Knowing that, how

 would you feel about your own immediate and eternal

 annihilation?"

 Minerva didn't even have to ponder that. "Not good," she

 said.

 MINERVA WAKES             67

 The idea didn't thrill the old guy, either. And that was

 what would have happened if the Unweaver caught him."

 "How do you know we're die wrong people?"

 The universes are falling apart. You've gotta be."

 "I see," Minerva said. "What about Danyl and me, then?

 Can't we do whatever it was the real Weaver's were supposed

 to have done?"

 Talleos sighed. He rolled over on his side and propped

 himself on one elbow. His right boot tapped out a regular

 pattern on the grass. That's the heart of the matter. You

 aren't cut out for the part. If you were, everyone is pretty

 sure you would have shown some sign of it by now. And as

 far as the Weirds are concerned, the universes can't wait

 any longer to find out. You are a nice lady, I'm sure—and

 damned attractive—but you're ordinary. There is nothing

 special about you—nothing that anyone can see as

 potential. The Weirds of the Conclave want to destroy you

 and your husband so that they can give the rings to

 someone with a chance of repairing the damage. An

 infinite number of universes are at stake. If someone isn't

 found who can keep the Unweaver in check, he'll unravel

 everything back to chaos."

 "So they made a mistake, and they're going to destroy us?

 That's not fair."

 "And life is?"

 Minerva twisted the ring on her finger and stared off into

 space. People were trying to kill her and her husband. They

 had kidnapped her children. She was stuck in some alternate

 world where dragons and cheymats belonged—a world

 where she didn't belong. And it was all for nothing. She

 wasn't anyone special. She really didn't matter. All her secret

 desires and grand dreams of making a difference came

 down, at last, to the simple fact that, whoever it was that the

 universe needed to save it, it wasn't her.

 She pulled the ring off her finger. She held it in the palm

 other hand, offering it to Talleos. Take this," she said. Tell

 me how to get back to my own world, and I'll get the other

 ring from Danyl—you can have that, too. We won't fight

 over this," she told him softly. "No one has to loll us. If we

 68                       Holly Lisle

 aren't good enough, take these, and find someone who is. All

 I want is to get my kids back before I go."

 Talleos took die ring, then carefully placed it back on her

 finger. "I couldn't take it even if I wanted to. The metal ring

 is only an outward symbol of the power you now contain.

 That power is linked to you for eternity and binds your soul

 to your husband's, making the two of you halves of one

 greater being, until time ceases to exist- If you only had

 whatever rare spark of greatness it takes to use that power,

 Minerva, you could create a galaxy with the flick of your fin-

 gers, form planets out of nothing, create life."

 Talleos pulled several grass stalks and twisted them

 together so tightly the crushed stalks stained his fingers.

 His eyebrows lowered. "Only one way exists to separate a

 Weaver from a Weaver's ring—and that is to destroy the

 Weaver. Not to kill—for dying is only moving from one

 plane of existence to another, after all—but to annihilate.

 To take the Weaver's power from you, you would have to

 be Unwoven, and the very matter of your soul destroyed

 so that not even the smallest particle of that matter

 remained."

 "Oh." Minerva clasped her hands in front of her. She

 looked up at Taileos and chewed nervously on the side of

 her lip. "So the situation is thus—" She held up her hand,

 fingers spread. The guys in white hats want Darryl and me

 out of the way because we're the reason the universes are

 falling apart. The guy in the black hat doesn't care, because

 we're no threat to him, but he's the one who's trying to

 destroy everything in the first place—so what he wants, I

 don't want. Darryl and I can't just give the rings to someone

 who can use them—they're stuck to us. And we're not able

 to use them." She ticked the points off on her fingers, then

 stared at her hand with distaste. "Not good. Not good at all.

 I don't see where there's a happy ending in this for me, that's

 for sure."

 She sighed. "So, where do you fit in all of this? If you

 don't want me dead, you must be working with the black

 hats."

 He frowned at her. "Where is it written that there can

 MINERVA WAKES            69

 only be two sides to any issue?" He flopped back in the

 grass. "In rescuing the two of you, my dear, Birkwelch and

 I are merely displaying enlightened self-interest. We don't

 want to see the universe end—not a chance. And we're

 going to do everything we can to teach the two of you to use

 whatever puny talents you possess."

 "Birkwelch?"

 "Big blue dragon. You met him?"

 °0h. Yes. We met. Sonovabitch took my Wheaties." Min-

 erva was surprised at how angry she still was about that.

 "Why are you willing to help us?"

 His eyes widened and he gave her an ingenuous smile.

 "Because we're great guys."

 The warning bell started ringing wildly in her mind. She

 didn't believe that line for a minute. "What happens if we

 fail?" she asked, and studied him with narrowed eyes.

 He arched one eyebrow and shrugged. 'Then we go back

 to the first two options- The good guys win, and you die—or

 the bad guy wins . .. and you die. So you don't have a lot of

 options, huh?"

 He sat up and peeked over the waving grasses, and said

 brightly, "Enough of that. We're all clear—so let's move."

 He took off toward a narrow copse of dark and twisted

 trees at the edge of the field- Afraid to be left behind, she

 jumped up and ran after him.

 The Unweaver stepped out of swirling mists and

 green-lit fog—black-cloaked, tremendously tall, his robe

 billowing around him like the spreading wings of night.

 His face, if he had a face, was hidden within the deep

 recesses of his hood. He spoke, and, his tones were

 unearthly—menacing—sepulchral. "Why have you called

 me forth, puny human?"

 Minerva faced him—short, unimposing, and definitely

 outclassed. Who, me? Call you? Definitely a wrong number,

 fella, she thought.

 But she heard her voice squeaking, "I am the universes'

 champion, and I challenge you to battle."

 "Battle?" he asked. "To the death?"

 70                      Holly Lvsle

 She thought. Honestly, I'd rather play poker for oddly-

 winks—and the winner gets to confine the loser to a reaBy

 huge shopping maH forever.

 But her stupid, big mouth was going on without her. "Not

 to the death. To the utter destruction, to the complete anni-

 hilation, to total abrogation, to nullification, to absolute

 nonexistence throughout eternity—you universe-sucking

 abonmwtion!"

 The universe-sucking abomination started to laugh—a

 wry large, hollow, scary laugh.

 Minerva thought. That's pretty much the way I see it, too.

 She pulled a magic wand out of somewhere, and started

 waving it around and uttering incantations. She looked siSy,

 she thought.

 The Unweaverjust stood and watched her. She got to the

 end of her song-and-dance routine, and wound up with her

 big double whammy, and shot it off at the unnwvingform.

 Nothing happened.

 The Unweaver continued to stand and watch her. His

 laughter crescendoed around her, growing louder and more

 terrible. Then, without doing anything that she could see. he

 promptly stomped her flat.

 Minerva caught up to Talleos, where he stood waiting

 under the first sheltering branches of the littie trees. She

 was breathing hard, and she had a stitch in her left side that

 stabbed and burned with every inhalation.

 "For the record," she told him between gasps, "'the very

 existence of the universes depends upon you—and you're a

 screw-up,'—is not the best thing anybody—ever said to me

 on—a Tuesday morning."

 "For the record, that isn't exactly what I said."

 Minerva gave him a sidelong glance. It's what you—

 meant, isn't it?"

 "Well-^es."

 "Then my comment stands."

 Darryl had been drinking beer with a dragon long

 enough, he decided. He'd heard die whole save-the-worid

 MINERVA WAKES             71

 story, and it was crap. All of it. This dragon was a hallucina-

 tion—had to be. In spite of the fact that he really could see

 it, it just wasn't there. He was a little off the edge—no doubt

 about it. But he'd bet anything that as long as he realized it,

 he wasn't beyond hope. All he had to do was convince his

 subconscious to sober up. Inform the apparition that it isn't

 real. That wiS do it. He stood up and weaved his way toward

 the connecting bathroom. When he reached the door, he

 leaned against it and turned back toward the dragon. He

 pointed a finger and said, "When I get back out here, I want

 you gone."

 He avoided looking in the mirror the whole time he was

 in the bathroom. Think things will be back to normal.

 Believe it. Make yourself believe it.

 The dragon was still on the bed when he went back to the

 bedroom.

 The dragon gave him a hurt look. "Don't you like me?"

 "I don't believe in you. It's bullshit. AJ1 bullshit." Darryl

 slipped the ring off his finger. "There is nothing— nothing—

 special about this ring." He threw it at Birkwelch.

 The braided circle of yellow gold flew across the room,

 smacked him on the nose, bounced off the ceiling, landed

 on the very edge of the mattress, fell onto the floor, and

 finally rolled across the carpet. It came to rest at Danyl's

 feet. He looted down at it lying there. Coincidence. He

 shrugged and turned his attention back to the dragon. "It's—

 just—a—stupid—ring."

 Birkwelch sighed—smoke swirled from his nose and

 mouth, and Darryl thought he might have seen just the

 slightest flicker of flame. "Fine. Ifs all fake. So where are

 your children? Why is your wife in the mirror instead of

 here?"

 "I don't have all the answers," Darryl said. T can't explain

 why I think I'm seeing the things I am. Guilt probably—"

 He ran his fingers back through his hair. "I—don't—know."

 He ground the words out with as much force as he could

 muster. "But I do know there is a sensible explanation some-

 where. In the meantime, I want you gone. As long as you're

 here, I'm going to keep thinking I've lost my mind."

 72                      Holly Lisle

 The wedding band floated up from the floor, hovered for

 a moment in front of his face, then slipped itself back on his

 finger.

 Darryl would have reacted in exactly the same manner

 if a snake had materialized out of thin air and slithered

 into his jockey shorts. He jumped straight up, screamed,

 and immediately began a wild attempt to remove the

 offending item.

 No dice. It was stuck on his finger as if it had been

 welded there. He yelled. He swore. He pled. He tugged at

 the ring until the finger swelled and turned a nasty shade of

 red. He slammed his fist against the doorframe, then howled

 with pain.

 Downstairs, the phone began to ring.

 "Got it," the dragon yelled, and leapt for stairs.

 "It's my phone!" Darryl snarled, and tried to shove him

 out of the way.

 Birkwelch grabbed Darryl by his shirtfront and lifted him

 off the floor. "Yes," the dragon said, suddenly menacing.

 "But I've got it."

 Birkwelch dropped him and ran like hell. Darryl fol-

 lowed. He got to the kitchen half a step behind the

 dragon—fast enough to see the bright blue apparition pick

 up the phone—

 Fast enough to see die explosion that occurred when he

 did. Smoke billowed out all around Birkwelch, and black

 lightning crackled, and the air suddenly reeked of ozone.

 The dragon cocked an eye-ridge at him. The expression

 said, See, asshole. Aren't you glad you didn't get that? He

 smiled and handed the smoking receiver to Darryl. "It's for

 you." he said. The hospital."

 Oh, Cod—she's at work, Darryl thought, and felt sudden

 relief. Other explanations couid come later—

 He let out a deep breath, and shouted into the receiver,

 "Minerva, what are you doing at the hospital? Are the kids

 at the sitters? I've been worried out of my mind—"

 "Mr. Kiakra—(his is Ilene McDougald in the emergency

 room. There's been an accident. We need you to come to the

 hospital."

 MINERVA WAKES             73

 Darryl knew Ilene's voice. She was an ER nurse, and one

 of Minerva's friends. She sounded rushed and frantic.

 "What kind of accident?" he asked.

 "We don't know what happened. The ambulance just

 came in— Please call your family though—" Someone in the

 background yelled for liene to hurry, that they were calling

 a code.

 "It's bad, isn't it?" He could feel that it was from her

 voice, but he wanted confirmation.

 "I don't know—" The voice in the background shouted

 for her again. 'Tve got to run, Darryl. Be careful driving."

 she added. The roads are awful."

 He hung up, feeling suddenly very sober- He stared at the

 telephone, then quickly dialed his folks' number. He passed

 the little information he had on to them, and then to Min-

 erva's family. Then he ran for the door.

 He stopped on the way to grab the station wagon keys—

 the LTD was a heavier vehicle and it had new tires on

 it—but the keys were gone. He didn't know where the spare

 set was. Odd. Minerva always hangs her keys on the board.

 She hadn't though. He took his car.

 One of the boys must have been hurt when the window

 blew out, he thought. Minerva must have called an

 ambulance to come to the house to get them. It had to

 have been pretty bad—she hadn't been able to break away

 to call him— But what could have taken them so long to

 arrive?

 It only registered with Darryl halfway to the hospital that

 the dragon had disappeared after the phone call. So now I'm

 sane again, huh? he thought. Damned good thing. He

 wished he hadn't drunk so much beer. It was the sort of

 thing his father would notice at eight-thirty on a Tuesday

 morning.

 He got to the ER before any of the relatives and ran

 through the automatic doors reserved for ambulances- He

 caught a glimpse of Ilene as she ran from one cubicle into

 another. The ER was packed, and people kept running past

 him. He didn't see anyone else he recognized.

 He stood there in the doorway for a moment, and Ilene

 74 Holly Lisle

 hurried past—her face pale and drawn. Behind her, some-

 one yelled, "Another amp of epi, goddammit—and push it!"

 "I'm going to let you wait in the nurses' lounge." flene

 rested her hand on his arm. "I'll send your famuy in when

 they get here—we'll be with you as soon as we can. We're

 still working on her."

 "Ilene—I need you in here!" the voice yelled. Then—

 "That did nothing! Fuck it! Detibrillate at three-sixty!"

 Ilene pointed to a doorway. "Go in there. I'll be with you

 as soon as I can." Her voice shook slightly—her eyes were

 red-rimmed and bright with unshed tears.

 He nodded, and walked slowly to die door she'd indi-

 cated. He felt queasy and helpless, and lost. The noises of

 the ER—the beeps and rattles and high-pitched whines, the

 shouting voices, the cries of babies in some of the cubicles

 and die groans of adults in others were overwhelming. The

 smells were awful—disinfectant, urine, sweat and feces and

 fear. Patients in blue gowns sat propped in wheelchairs.

 Somewhere, someone was vomiting noisiiy. Out of sight, a

 woman wept—hopeless, grieving sobs.

 Darryl stepped through the door into the nurses' lounge

 and closed it behind him. That door provided an insufficient

 barrier between him and the pain of the rest of the world.

 We're still working on her, Ilene had said. Her... Carol? He

 stared into the nurses' lounge mirror—and saw a woods,

 bounding and bouncing, with a goat-legged man just ahead

 of the runner through whose eyes he saw. Minerva. Ban-

 ning. So I'm stiB, crazy after fill.

 The ER was swamped, nurses and doctors and techni-

 cians thundered past at high speed, shouting arcane

 commands, terrible things were happening. He wanted

 someone to come talk to him—to tell him what was going

 on. But they were still working on her. His little girl. The

 lump in his throat made it hard to swallow. He sat down in

 one of the ugly blue-vinyl-and-stamless-steel chairs and

 stared at the half-eaten Hardee's biscuits that littered the

 round table. Someone had been reading Cosmopolitan,

 someone else a book with a dragon on the cover. He was

 frightened and resdess. He picked up the book, thinking

 MINERVA WAKES             75

 that the dragon didn't look like Birkwelch at all—Slay and

 Rescue, he read. By John Moore. He didn't know the author,

 didn't recognize the book. But he wasn't into that land of

 stuff, anyway. He put the book back down and stood and

 began to pace. Things must have been pretty peaceful thw

 morning, if they had time to read, time to get biscuits. They

 didn't have time to finish them, though, he noted, and the

 sick feeling in his stomach got worse. He twisted the ring on

 his finger.

 Maybe it isn't all that bad, he hoped. A broken arm—

 or—or something. But the nurses didn't have any other

 families waiting apart in the privacy of their lounge. Oh.

 God, Mom—Dad—hurry, hurry, hurry up!

 Minerva's folks opened the door and came in. They both

 looked pale and scared.

 "Brian—Laura—" He nodded to both of them.

 They gave him questioning looks.

 "They're still working on her—Carol, I think. No one has

 even had the time to tell me." He shook his head slowly.

 Laura said, "We passed your parents out in the parking

 lot. They were just pulling in." She stood there, looking at

 the disarray in the lounge. Then she clasped her hands

 together, took a deep, resolute breath, and sat down. His

 father-in-law sat beside her, and rested a hand on her arm.

 His own folks walked in, his mother leaning on his father,

 chattering at an incredible rate—inane stuff. The roads. The

 ice. The cold. So many trees down in the neighborhood.

 So she was scared, too. Normally, his mother was the

 quietest person on earth.

 He hugged her and his father, and told them what he'd

 been told.

 His father sniffed his breath and frowned. 'Why don't

 you know what's going on?" he asked with that hard-eyed

 look Darryl remembered from his childhood.

 Danyl felt the bottom tall out of his stomach—but he

 didn't have to come up with a lie.

 Ilene McDougald walked in, followed by the doctor.

 Mike Frankel, Darryl realized. Mike and Darryl and

 Minerva had gone to school together—they hadn't been

 76 HoUy Usic

 friends really, but acquaintances anyway. Mike had gone

 on to medical school and had come back home to practice.

 Everyone said good things about him. He nodded to

 Darryl, but didn't smile.

 Mike looked around the lounge, found a chair, and sat

 down. Clasped his hands. Unclasped them. Leaned forward,

 resting his elbows on his knees. Took a deep breath, and let

 it out

 Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up! Darryl's insides screamed.

 "I'm sony. I have bad news."

 Well, yes. They knew mat—that was the reason he and

 his relatives had come racing from all over town. How bad;

 who did it involve—those were the things Danyl needed to

 know.

 The doctor said, "Minerva's had an accident."

 Minerva? Darryl's racing thoughts screeched to a halt,

 stricken dumb. Minerva? He hadn't really even considered

 that something might have happened to her- He'd been sure

 she was all right—because of the dungs he'd seen in the

 mirror. Somehow he thought that meant the accident

 couldn't involve her.

 Minerva's mother said, "What kind of accident? Is she

 going to be okay?"

 Mike looked down at his hands, then up and around the

 room at all of them. He looked shaken, Darry! thought. He

 remembered suddenly that Minerva and Mike had dated

 briefly one year. "I don't really know what happened," the

 doctor said. His eyes were unfocused, looking someplace tar

 away from the ER and its horrors. "It doesn't seem to make

 any sense. Some kids were out playing in the snow this

 morning. They went into a wooded lot in the neighborhood,

 saw something bright, and ran over to investigate. They

 found Minerva lying there in the snow and leaves They

 were bright tads—two stayed with her and the other two ran

 for help."

 "How is she?" Minerva's father asked. He was hanging

 onto his wife's hand so hard his knuckles were white.

 Mike Frankel swallowed hard. He pressed his lips

 together. "She didn't make it. I'm very sorry."

 MiNERVA WAKES

 77

 "She's dead?" Dariyl gasped. "Omigod, she can't be!" He

 closed his eyes. His guilt pressed on his chest with an ele-

 phant's weight, so that he almost couldn't breathe. "She can't

 be dead. This has to be some sort of mistake."

 Laura had her face pressed into Brian's chest. She was

 sobbing. His own mother came over and put her arms

 around him. "Oh, Danyl—oh, poor Darryl," she whispered,

 and stroked his hair. "Oh, Danyl. I'm so sony."

 "She's not dead. Mom," he said. The tears streamed down

 his cheeks and ran off the tip of his nose. The hair on the

 back of his neck and on his arms stood up. He couldn't com-

 prehend the possibility of Minerva dead. That very moment,

 he could see through her eyes—she was right there in the

 nurses' mirror, and she was running. "It has to be some sort

 of mistake—it can't be her."

 He shrugged free of his mother and wiped his eyes on the

 back of his sleeve. "I want to go in and see her," he said to

 the doctor.

 Mike nodded. Ilene stood- "We'll both go in with all of

 you," she said.

 "I want to go in by myself first," Everyone looked at him.

 "Alone. Okay?"

 "Danyl, I don't think chat's a good idea." His mother was

 looking at him with womed eyes.

 "Mom, I have to see her first. I have to be sure it's really

 her."

 The rest of them kept their seats. Darry! stood. Ilene

 waited for him, then led him into one of the ER cubicles

 that had a curtain pulled around it.

 It was a rainbow-striped curtain, he noted. Rainbow.

 Symbol of hope. How could anything bad happen behind a

 curtain like that?

 "I'll be nght out here if you want me," Ilene said.

 He went around it, came in at the head of the stretcher.

 The first thing he noticed was a bright splash of purple in

 the wire basket under the stretcher. Gaudy, awful, loud pur-

 ple—the infamous tacky purple parka he'd hated ever since

 the day she'd bought it. He knew that coat, and recognized

 the sweater and the boots that were with it. He looked at the

 78 HoUy Lisle

 still form—the brown hair wet and mussed; the shape of the

 head narrow, familiar; the curved and rounded body under

 the sheet the right shape and size.

 He walked around the stretcher, and for a moment he felt

 a rush of hope. He had been right. That couldn't be Min-

 erva. The woman on die stretcher was too pale, waxy and

 bluish—her face was slack and unfamiliar. She didn't even

 look like Minerva. How could they have thought—?

 He reached out and touched one hand that rested at her

 side on top of the sheet—and stiffened. The body's hand

 didn't feel real; it felt like soft, cold, damp rubber stretched

 over something hard. Minerva's hands were warm and

 strong and lively.

 But the freckles were her freckles. The short, sharp nose

 was her nose. The pale, pale lips were still round and full, their

 shape undeniable, familiar. It was her. She always had looked

 odd to him without her glasses, and her glasses were gone.

 It really was her.

 He brushed her bangs hack off her forehead. Cold, wet,

 rubbery skin—so hard to believe it was the same skin he'd

 touched with such passion for so long. Oh, God, it really was

 her. What was he going to do?

 He reached out and took both of her hands m his own.

 He couldn't see; his eyes were too full of tears. All he could

 do was feel—and the hands belonged to a stranger. He felt

 as if he were going to choke, or stop breathing and die right

 there. He wished he would-

 Her hands feit wrong—wrong in some way other than the

 cold, other than the stiffhess. Something was missing.

 He wiped away his tears and stared at her hands.

 Her ring was gone.

 What? he thought. Minerva never removed her ring. Nei-

 ther did he. The ER people? Did they take it off. maybe put

 it with her glasses?

 "Ilene," he said. His voice came out in a croak. "What did

 you folks do with her glasses and her wedding band?"

 Ilene came in. "She wasn't wearing either of them."

 Darryl froze, and stared at the body on the stretcher. The

 very air in the tiny cubicle seemed to roar in his ears.

 MINERVA WAKES             79

 His mind grabbed onto that fact, swallowed it readily,

 accepted it completely. No glasses—and she was almost

 blind without her glasses. No ring. And Minerva never took

 off her ring.

 He started to laugh, softly at first—but then louder, and

 giddily. "It looks like her," he said. "My God, it looks bke her.

 But it isn't her." He felt dizzy with relief, felt he'd been

 pulled back from the edge of some unfathomable abyss. He

 smiled at the ER nurse. "It really isn't." He smiled so

 broadly his face felt as though it would split. "Oh. it isn't her,

 it isn't her!" Ilene stared at him as though he'd just lost his

 mind. He spread his hand out. "Don't you see? It can't be

 her. She never took her wedding band off. Never."

 He started to laugh again, die relief was so great. Minerva

 was okay—still lost in the mirror, but okay. This body was—

 somebody else.

 "Doctor Frankei!" Ilene called, and backed out of the

 cubicle. "Doctor Frankei! I need you in here stat!"

 And Mike came running, and Ilene came racing back

 with a needle, and a couple of big guys held him still while

 she gave him a shot of something, though he protested when

 they did. They walked him into a private room and put him

 on a stretcher, and his mother and father came and sat in the

 room with him and talked to him. Meaningless gibbensh.

 Silly stuff.

 Minerva dead. Silly. Silly Minerva wasn't dead. She just

 wasn't here.

 After a while, everything went dark, and he slept.

 Secret Agents Jeevus, Renskie, and Equator crept down

 the steep stone stairs to the first landing below the tower.

 These stairs are just what we need," Jeevus whispered.

 They're designed to be easily defended."

 All three children paused on the landing. Agent Jeevus

 lay on his belly and scooted to the very edge of the stairs. He

 looked down for a long time, then scooted back again and

 stood up.

 This is bad, men," he said, and crossed his arms over his

 chest. There are a bunch of them down there. All monsters

 80 Holly Lisle

 like the one we got. It's going to take a lot of ammunition to

 beat them."

 "We don't have any ammunition." Carol crossed her amis,

 too. "I think we should just run away."

 "Heck, I don't even think we can get out of here right

 now. This place is fuM of monsters. We're going to have to

 beat them just to get to die door."

 Bamey said, "I think we should sur—urn, sur— . . . give

 up."

 "Surrender? You want us to surrender! Never!" Jeevus

 whispered. "Only sissies quit." He glared down at Bamey.

 "Well, I want to go home," Bamey said- "Maybe the mon-

 sters will let us go home."

 "Ninny! They'll eat us." Secret Agent Renskie rolled her

 eyes, then glared at her brother.

 "I don't think so." Bamey said. He didn't want to be a

 secret agent anymore. The game was no fun. The stairs

 scared him, the monsters scared him, and he wanted his

 mother and father . . . and breakfast. He was hungry.

 Murp, tired of being held, yowled once, and Jeevus paled,

 "Keep him quiet!" he whispered. "If they find out we're

 here, they'll come up the stairs and eat us—and we haven't

 even had the chance to set our booby traps yet."

 Just like his butthead brother to think anyone couid

 make Murp be quiet, Bamey thought. "Okay. You hold

 him, stupid. Maybe he'll be quiet for you." Bamey held

 out Murp toward Jamie. The cat sensed impending

 freedom and squirmed out of Bamey's hands—then

 darted out of Jamies reach and down the stairs. He

 disappeared from view.

 Jamie stared down the stairs after the vanished Murp.

 "Shiti" he whispered. "You let him get away, you moron! You

 were supposed to take care of him."

 Bamey wanted to cry. He started to go after the cat, but

 his brother grabbed him.

 Jamie looked hke Barney felt. "You can't go after him.

 They might get you." Jamie closed his eyes and rested his

 head against the stone wall. "Oh, boy! I hope they dont eat

 him."

 MINERVA WAKES             81

 Bamey realized his big brother was scared, too. In a

 fanny way. knowing mat made him ieel better.

 Jamie pointed to the huge wooden door that led off the

 landing. "We need to go in there, and see if we can find any

 stuff for weapons. Maybe Murp will come back." He didn't

 sound very sure-

 Carol whispered, "What if someone is in mere?"

 Jamie chewed on his bottom lip and frowned. "That

 would be bad," he said.

 Carol put her hands on her hips. "I guess! So what are we

 going to do?"

 Bamey closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He could

 feel nothing but emptiness from the other side of the door.

 Wherever the monsters in the castle were, they weren't in

 there. He decided if Jamie could be brave when he was

 scared, then Secret Agent Equator could be, too. "We can go

 in there," Secret Agent Equator said, and pushed on the

 door. "It's okay."

 The door didnt budge. He pushed harder. The door was

 realty big and really heavy.

 Jamie and Carol pushed with him. Suddenly, something

 behind the door gave way, and it slid open, screaming on its

 hinges like the ghosts in Bamey's nightmares.

 "Oh, man," Jamie whispered. "They're going to hear us

 for sure."

 Carol stared through the opening, and groaned. "It looks

 like your room," she said.

 Jamie looked over her shoulder, then at her. He gave her

 a puzzled frown. "No, it doesn't."

 "Yes, it does. It's a dump." Carol stepped through the

 doorway, and Jamie and Bamey followed.

 The place was a dump, Bamey decided—but a really

 neat one. Huge trunks sat along one wall, some with the lids

 open to reveal hats and clothes and stacks of paper. Silly-

 looking suits of armor took up one comer of the huge room,

 moldy boots and high-backed saddles and piles of books

 cluttered the floor. Several mop buckets sat just inside me

 door—fall of slimy green water and with the mops propped

 beside them-

 82

 Holly Lisle

 Jamie ran to a huge mound of rusted metal and started

 pulling spiky objects out of it one by one. "Wow! These are

 caltrops," he whispered, and held up one of the small, sharp

 weapons to show Bamey.

 "What's it for?"

 "Annies put them in fields and on roads and stuff so the

 bad guys' horses can step on 'em. But," he gnnned up at

 Bamey, "we can throw 'em down the steps."

 "Wow!" Bamey was impressed. "Doesnt it hurt the

 horses when they step on them, though?"

 Jamie nodded. °I guess so."

 "I don't like that very much "

 Carol wandered over, swathed in ropes of big, gaudy glass

 beads. "No one should hurt horses. I won't use those."

 Jamie sighed with exasperation- "We aren't gonna hurt

 horses. Jeez! We're gonna hurt monsters." He frowned at

 Carol. "Unless you'd rather get eaten. Or chopped up into

 little pieces or something."

 Carol sucked in her bottom lip. "No."

 "Okay, then. I promise we won't use the caltrops on

 horses,"

 "Okay."

 "You need to take those beads off," he said. "They'll slow

 you down if you have to run."

 Now it was Carol's turn to look annoyed. "That isn't what

 the/re for."

 "Oh. no. Of course not. So what are they for?" Janue

 rolled his eyes and muttered, "Girls."

 Bamey felt something moving in the stairwell; sensed

 curiosity and concern. He tapped his brother on the arm.

 "They're coming,"

 Jamie's face went ghost-white. "We can't let them get

 above us," he whispered. "We've got to attack now!"

 He ran for the door, carrying as many caltrops as he

 could, and flung them down the stairs. The clattered and

 bounced. Below, a gruff voice yelled, "Hey, watch it with

 that garbage. You might hurt somebody!"

 Bamey imitated his brother.

 Carol didn't. Instead, she took one of the necklaces, bit

 MINERVA WAKES             83

 die string apart, and stripped the beads off with one hand.

 The round beads rolled and bounded around the stairwell,

 clattering as they fell. Below, the children heard a scream,

 followed by a heavy thud.

 Jamie stared at Carol, amazement dear on his face. "AH

 rig/it!" he yelled, "fes-s-s-s!" He pumped the air with his fist,

 and tossed a few more caltrops.

 "Stop that immediately," the voice yelled. Bamey ran

 back into the supply room and grabbed the first thing he

 could find—a bolt of doth. He dragged it out and shoved it

 to the open center of the stairs, then out into the void. He

 didn't dare watch it fall.

 Jamie and Carol, meanwhile, pushed the fast of the

 trunks out of the storage room. It crashed down the stone

 stairs, making a tremendous racket and scattering debris in

 all directions.

 "Fly up the middle," one of the monsters yelled,

 Bamey grabbed three caltrops and, as soon as he heard

 me beating of wings, threw them into the center of the

 stairwell.

 There was another scream, and a solid thunk- "Great Kar-

 ras! Don't fly! Don't fly!" a monster voice screamed. "Try

 something else."

 The castle below the children grew quiet.

 Jamie, Carol, and Bamey stood on the landing, breathing

 heavily. Jamie mumbled something too softly for Bamey to

 hear. Then he said, They're going to do something eke."

 He turned to Barney. "Can you tell what?"

 Barney held still and listened to the whispery feelings that

 touched his mind. He clenched his fists tightly and sucked

 in his breath. After an instant, he nodded. The/re going to

 fly again in just a second, when they think they can catch us

 by surprise."

 "Do we have any more caltrops?"

 Bamey shook his head from side to side. "I couldn't find

 any more. Maybe we could shove another box down on

 them."

 Jamie nodded. His face grew stem, and he tapped his

 foot. "All right. Agent Renskie, Agent Equator—shove a box

 84 Holly Lisle

 over the side as soon as you can get it there. I have another

 idea."

 Equator and Renslde chose a trunk with lots of little, hard

 things in it, and started shoving that through the maze of

 junk toward the stairwell. Agent Jeevus, meanwhile, dragged

 a chain to the edge of the landing, then a couple of loose

 pieces of armor. Then, both buckets of slimy cleaning water.

 Jamie's weapons didn't make a very impressive pile, Bamey

 thought.

 Bamey suddenly realized he and Carol weren't going to

 get to the edge in time. "They're ready now, Jamie!" he

 yelled.

 Below, Bamey heard the leathery flap of wings.

 "Keep coming, men," Jamie shouted back. "I'll take care

 of 'em! Chain!" he screamed, and shoved it over the edge.

 The chain made a long, slithering rattle as it fell. Below,

 the monsters yelled and shouted instructions. The chain hit

 the ground noisily—then Bamey heard the wings again.

 "Shrapnel!" Jamie screamed, and kicked me pieces of

 armor over the edge.

 Bamey heard thuds and screams from what sounded like

 direct hits. He and Carol were almost out of the room with

 their box. TTley kept pushing. Jamie crouched on the edge,

 hands gripping the edges of the bucket.

 The sounds of flapping wings came up the stairwell for

 the third time, and Jamie shrieked, "Boiling oil!"

 He dumped both buckets, and below, several voices

 screamed. Bamey heard glass breaking.

 "Psych!" Jamie yelled,

 Carol laughed- "Got 'em! Got 'em! Way to go, Jamie!"

 Carol and Bamey maneuvered the trunk onto the land-

 ing, while Jamie did a little victory dance. "Suckers!" he

 shouted down into the stairwell.

 The trunk sat, poised on the lip of the abyss.

 "Don't shove it over yet," Jamie told Carol and Bamey.

 "Save it for the next attack- Get ready—"

 Both Carol and Bamey braced against the trunk, waiting

 for Jamie's signal. We're gonna win, Bamey thought. We're

 gonna beat the monsters.

 MINERVA WAKES

 85

 Below, everything was silent.

 Without warning, big daw-tipped hands lifted Bamey

 into the air from behind. Identical sets picked up Jamie and

 Carol.

 "No!" Jamie yelled. "They flanked us! They flanked us!"

 Bamey shrieked and kicked and tried to bite.

 The monster who'd captured him growled, "That will be

 quite enough of that."

 CHAPTER 5

 Minerva and Talleos kept themselves out of sight. They

 went through the endless meadows crouched over, until

 Minerva's lower back burned with pain. They ducked into

 every available stand of trees. And they ran north—steadily

 north.

 Minerva kept seeing those still forms silhouetted on the

 path—watching her. In her mind's eye, they grew hideous.

 Their cloaks whipped around their legs, their hands twisted

 into talons, and from empty eye-sockets in hideous faces,

 eerie ruby light burned.

 She wished to hell she'd never read Tollaen.

 Talleos' response to her few attempted questions was to

 press a finger to his lips.

 It was a long, exhausting, frightening day.

 At twilight, when Talleos led her into a dark woods, she

 was ready to drop. She was hungry and thirsty, and she

 longed for a place to sleep, or even something soft to sit on

 for just a while. In the gloom, she saw the bulk of darker

 gloom—a building of some sort, squat and dire and silent.

 Talleos motioned her to be still, then crept around it and out

 of her sight. She clenched the hilt of die little silver knife

 that hung at her hip and pressed her back against the biggest

 tree she could find. Whatever came after her, she was going

 to be ready.

 She waited. No sound of Talleos. No sign of him. Thin^

 87

 88

 Holly Lisle

 cracked and crunched around her. Leaves rustled. A night

 bird screeched right behind her and she nearly jumped out

 other skin. The damp night air brushed the hairs at the back

 of her neck, familiar as a lover. She shuddered-

 They're out there, she though. Those things, those Watch-

 ers—they're out there looking for me. Oh, Cod. what if they

 find me?

 She was scared- She wanted to be home, safe, with her

 kids and her husband. She wanted someone to tell her

 everything would be okay.

 Suddenly, cold, bony fingers gripped her shoulder.

 She whipped around toward her attacker, swinging the

 knife up underhanded, putting all her strength into the tip.

 She knew that the wraith or whatever had come to get her

 wouldn't be stopped by such a tiny weapon—

 Tatleos shrieked and leapt back before the knife con-

 nected. "Gods on hot rocks, Minerva!" he yelped. "What are

 you trying to do—kill me?"

 Minerva was shaking. Her heart pounded in her throat,

 and her puke roared in her ears. "Why the hell did you

 sneak up on me?" she snarled. "You damn near gave me a

 heart attack."

 "Yeah? WeB, you just returned the favor," Talleos mut-

 tered- ^ was checking out the house to make sure we didn't

 have any unwanted company. We don't—" He glared at her.

 "Unless I decide you're unwanted company. If you think you

 can refrain from skewering me, I'll let you go inside."

 "You mean we get to rest now?" Minerva whispered- "Oh,

 how wonderful."

 She followed the cheymat along the tiny flagstone path to

 his house. It was a big cabin built of rough, hand-hewn logs,

 chinked with what looked like a mixture of moss and day—

 the windows were small and covered with oilskin.

 Primxtwe, Minerva thought. But I don't care. If I have to

 sleep on ammal skins tonight and kill my breakfast in the

 morning, that wB, be just fine. At least I'U get to sleep and

 eat.

 Talleos ushered her through the door and closed it

 behind him. Then he switched on the light.

 MINERVA WAKES

 89

 "What?" She stared around the entryway in shock. Foyer,

 she thought, and rubbed her eyes to make sure she was see-

 ing it right Straight out of the pages of House Beautiful.

 Featured in Bobin Leach's "Ufestyles of the Well-Hooved

 and Famous."

 The walls were creamy white plaster, the hardwood floor

 gleamed warm honey-gold. The electric lights were taste-

 fully set in hand-hammered brass sconces—they filled the

 entayway with cozy yellow light. The big, thick throw rugs

 looked like Aubusson to her.

 "Hungry?" Talleos asked.

 "Ah—or—"

 "C'mon," the cheymat said. "Let's- get something to eat.

 He trotted off to her right, through a bookshelf-walled sit-

 ting room, a charming breakfast nook, and then into a

 kitchen her mother, God's gift to cooking, would gladly have

 killed for.

 "Wow," Minerva whispered.

 "You like?" Talleos grinned, looking tremendously

 pleased. "1 got a really good architect." He trotted to a pol-

 ished oak door and pulled it open. A light flicked on inside.

 Architect? What kind of wild woodland creature hires an

 architect? she wondered. And then .she saw where the wild

 woodland creature was leading her. "Wow!" she murmured.

 "A walk-in refrigerator! Neat!"

 "Nice, huh?" the cheymat asked. "The other door is the

 freezer. I have a huge pantry, too. I'm so far from the main

 drag out here, it's a pain in the ass to go shopping. Besides,

 the groupies make it almost impossible for me to shop. So I

 stock up about six months at a time."

 'This isn't quite what I expected," Minerva remarked.

 Talleos came out of the fridge, arms loaded with sandwich

 fixings and canned beer. He lacked the door closed with one

 hoof. "Yeah. I could tell. The outside of the house has to

 meet standards set by the Winterkinn Woods Property

 Association. They determine acceptable styles, window cov-

 erings, stuff like that. We have to keep aB our power lines

 buried. No external antennas—lots of rules. Inside, we can

 do whatever we want."

 90

 Holly Lisle

 "Property Association? That sounds so—suburban."

 "Nah. Warse than the suburbs. This is a hot tourist spot"

 Talleos started slathering knifefiils of green stuff out of a jar

 onto one slab of bread. He grinned at her. "Fix yourself a

 sandwich. The stuff in the bright red pack is imitation kal-

 debeast—low salt, low fat The sausage is Summer Cheride.

 The really dark meat is roast fowks—top grade."

 Minerva looked at the packages—they looked like stand-

 aid grocery-store fare from home until she picked one up.

 Then she discovered she couldn't read a word on the pack-

 age. The alphabet was swoopy and loaded with curlicues and

 little stars and dots. She rubbed her eyes, hoping that would

 bring things into focus. It didn't.

 "—and the beer is Tothfi Premium Dark Lager," he con-

 tinued. She realized she'd missed part of what he'd said.

 "Huudegelf Tothfi, the local brewer, makes it. It goes great

 with the shoodlaf cheese." The cheese he pointed to was a

 pale powder-blue through and through.

 "ShoocSaf cheese," Minerva whispered. She picked up a

 blunt-tipped knife and began loading things onto a slice of

 bread. "What does this stuff taste like, anyway?" she asked,

 piling on slices of the meat he'd identified as "imitation

 kaldebeast."

 Talleos winked at her. "Chicken. Everything foreign tastes

 like chicken, doesn't it? Never mind—you'll like it. Trust

 me."

 They took their sandwiches, some bright yellow fruits he

 identified as bose, and their beer, and went into the book-

 lined sitting room. Talleos took a seat on the couch and

 patted the space next to him. Minerva sat in die chair fur-

 thest across die room.

 "You said something about tourists—" She took a bite of

 the sandwich. It tested nothing like chicken, but was still

 gpod-

 "Oh, yes. Tourists. The curse of my existence. The

 Winteridnn National Heritage Preserve runs from south of

 Hallyehenge—where you came through today—to north

 of the Green Mountains. It's sort of a reservation for us

 magical types—the few dragons and cheymats and nillries

 MINERVA WAKES            91

 and whatnot who managed to survive the Magic Drought

 all got corralled over here about—oh—seventy-five, eighty

 years ago. The government paid each qualified individual

 a stipend to stay in the Preserve, so that the rest of Eyrith's

 population could come point their fingers at us and say

 "Golly, Thubert, a real cheymat. Just imagine, there used

 to be millions of those randy suckers."

 He pinched his nose when he imitated the tounst, and

 made his eyes round and his jaw slack.

 Minerva, who was swallowing a gulp of lager, laughed at

 the effect and got beer up her nose. She coughed and sput-

 tered, and her eyes watered. "Must be a neckuva stipend,"

 she finally managed to say.

 "Why would you say that? Oh—the house?"

 She nodded. "Pretty nice for government issue."

 "Nah. I made a killing in the stock market."

 Minerva closed her eyes and nibbed the bridge of her

 nose with her fingers, fust imofyne what it was like when

 there were mfflions of them, she thought. But maybe he's

 exaggerating. Hoping for the best, she asked if there really

 had been millions.

 Talleos cocked an eyebrow and sipped his beer. "Not of

 me personally. The universe has never been that lucky."

 "Hah!"

 He shrugged. "All right. Once we were common. Well,

 not common. We've always been spectacular. But plentiful.

 Before my time, of course. But cheymat history does speak

 of how easy it once was to get laid on Jolfing night."

 "Jolfing night?"

 The spiritual equivalent of your Friday."

 "Oh." The bose was delicious—just a little sour, with a

 great citrusy bite. Minerva leaned back in the chair, resting

 her head against the soft, deep cushioning. Right at that

 moment, it was hard to believe anything was wrong in the

 universe. The rich, bitter lager spread its glow through her

 veins, and her full day of hard exercise mixed with the soft

 crackling of die fire in the fireplace made her sleepy.

 But there were things wrong. Her lads—she would have

 given anything to know that diey were safe. And the people

 92

 Holly Lisle

 who were out to get her. And those dark shapes at the bot-

 tom of the hill—

 Talleos was sipping his lager, eyes closed.

 She had to know. "Those things watching us this morn-

 ing—what were they? Ring Wraiths?"

 Talleos gasped and beer foam sprayed out his mouth and

 nose.

 She smiled slowly. Revenge, even unintended revenge,

 was a wonderful thing.

 When he got his breath back, he looked at her incredu-

 lously. "Ring Wraiths? Karras! What do you think this is—a

 set from Lord Of The Rings?" He shook his head, disbelief

 apparent.

 Minerva took a big bite of the sandwich and shrugged.

 "Okay," she said through a mouthful of the stuff that didn't

 taste like chicken. "So they weren't Ring Wraiths. What were

 they? They suns put die fear of God in you."

 "Worse than Ring Wraiths." Talleos propped his hooves

 on his coffee table and stretched out. "They were tourists. If

 we hadn't done that dance and then run like hell, they would

 have been after me for my autograph. They won't interrupt

 a performance> but they would have wanted pictures—they

 would have asked me a whole lot of stupid questions about

 how I thought the death of magic was going to affect life in

 Eyrith and whether I had any kids." Talleos snarled and bit

 into his sandwich as if he wished it were tourists.

 Minerva looked at the pale meat in hers and frowned.

 She couldn't swear that it wasn't. "Do you have any lads?"

 "Hell," he snarled, "I can't even find a female cheymat-

 Why do you think I'm committing treason and risking my

 life to help you? Because I'm such a great guy? Unh-unh."

 He shook his head. "If the magic doesn't come back, you're

 looking at the last of the cheymats."

 "You're almost extinct?"

 "Yeah, well—" He shrugged and drained his lager. "We all

 have our problems."

 "Darryl—Danyl—wake up."

 Someone was shaking his shoulder. Sounded like his

 MINERVA WAKES

 93

 mother—but his mother hadn't woken him up in years.

 The fuzzy edges of what must have been a nightmare

 clouded his thinking. He opened his eyes. He was in his

 room—the room at Mom and Dad's. His senior picture

 was framed on the wall, his Voice of Democracy plaque

 hung next to it. The curtains were the same gruesome

 green they'd always been.

 He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Something awful had hap-

 pened—or had he dreamed it. His wife—a dream? He

 looked at his left hand. The wedding band was there,

 braided gold that gleamed dully even in the dim light. Not

 a dream.

 "Darryl, who's watching the children?" His mother was

 beside him, face worried. "We checked with the little girl

 who usually babysits for you, but she doesn't have them."

 Oh, Jesus. The kids. He'd seen the blue light swallow

 Bamey—he had to assume it had gotten Jamie and Carol,

 too. Where were they? He didn't know—he couldn't say.

 But if he went home, maybe—

 Or was the vision a sign of insanity? Minerva was dead.

 Gone. What had happened to His lads?

 "I don't know. Mom. I—got snowed in at work last night.

 When I got home this morning, Minerva and the lads were

 gone." He thought a moment. His version of the truth wasn't

 going to go over too well. He came up with a better version.

 "When I got home this morning, the window in the boys'

 room was out. From the storm, I suppose. The power was

 out, the phone lines were down—so I figured she'd taken

 the lads over to her folks' house because it was so cold. Then

 the hospital called and I just wasn't thinking at ail."

 His mother went white. "But Laura called me to see how

 the lads where holding up. She thought they were here."

 There was a long silence. Then his mom whispered,

 "They're missing?"

 Darryl nodded slowly. His thoughts seemed to crawl at a

 snail's pace—some side effect of the shot they'd given him

 at the hospital, he imagined. Mis-Mng. My kids are missing.

 And my wife is dead A lump grew in his throat. He wouldn't

 let himself cry. He wouldn't.

 94

 HoUy Lisle

 He shook his head back and forth as if that would dear

 his muzzy thinking. "I don't know what to do."

 His mother put her hands on her hips. "I do. The police

 have been trying to figure out what happened to Minerva—

 I'll tell them about the children, too." She hurried out of the

 room.

 He nodded. Yes. Of course. The police. Why hadn't he

 thought of that? Probably because he knew his lads weren't

 anywhere the police could go.

 "You know, the yokels in the local constabulary are going

 to find your alibi just fascinating," a sub-bass voice rumbled

 behind him. He jumped and jerked around in the bed. Birk-

 welch leaned against the wall next to Danyl's old school

 desk, grinning.

 "Jesus Christ!" Darryl made shooing motions. "Get out of

 here before somebody sees you."

 The dragon crossed his stocky arms over his chest. He

 chuckled—the sound was almost identical to the garbage

 disposal in Danyl's kitchen sink. They can't see or hear me.

 Only you can. You're wearing the ring, so you can perceive

 alternate realities."

 "And I can't get rid of the ring." Danyl kept his voice

 down and one ear trained on the hallway. It wouldn't do to

 get caught talking to the walls.

 "Nope. But be glad of that. Without the ring, you couldnt

 get Minerva back."

 Darryl felt hope blaze in his chest—and gutter out. "Min-

 erva's dead," he whispered. "Gone. There is no going back

 from that."

 The dragon clucked his tongue. "Well, in a sense, she's

 dead—if you want to look at it that way I certainly wouldn't.

 And in a way, you're correct. There is no going back—but

 there is always moving ahead."

 "In a sense, she's dead?!" In spite of himself, Danyl's

 voice rose, "You can't be dead in a sense. Dead is dead. She's

 dead! She's gone!" His voice dropped again, and he gripped

 the bedspread. "Gone. I'll never get to see her again."

 From down the haD, Danyl's mother called- "Danyl? Is

 everything all right?"

 MINERVA WAKES            95

 No, Mom, he thought. The world caine to an end and

 didn't take me with it. "I'm sony. Mom," he yelled. "I'm hav-

 ing trouble dealing with things right now. I'll be okay."

 The dragon laughed. "And you know so much about life

 and death? You didn't even know there were dragons. Just

 think of all the other things you don't know."

 Danyl scooted to the edge of the bed and stood. The

 room made slow, dizzying spirals around him, then settled

 down and satisfied itself with merely rocking back and forth.

 There are no dragons," he muttered. He turned his back on

 die one that stood in his bedroom. He wasn't going to

 humor figments of his imagination anymore.

 "Oh. Oh, thanks. No dragons. And what am 1—a Canada

 moose?"

 "Canada goose," Danyl corrected. Then he remembered

 he wasn't speaking to the nonexistent monster. He wobbled

 down the hall to the bathroom.

 He looked in the mirror when he was washing his hands.

 He wished he hadn't.

 He didn't see his face. What he did see was that same

 damned goat-man from earlier, with a big glass stein of dark

 beer clutched in one malformed hand, and a plate with a

 half-eaten sandwich propped on his lap. The satyr lounged

 on a couch, talking.

 The view shifted. An identical glass of beer welled up in

 his field of vision, then moved back out of sight. A hand

 reached up to rub the bridge of the nose and removed the

 glasses. Minerva's glasses. The left hand wore a ring—but

 everything was blurry without the glasses. He waited. The

 glasses went back on again, and the view cleared. He caught

 another glimpse of the ring—just a brief one in passing. It

 was identical to his own, on a hand he would have recog-

 nized if he had to pick it from a million others.

 Minerva was still on the other side c»f the mirror. If the

 dragon was teDing the tnith, she was alive somewhere. If the

 dragon was telling the truth, there was a chance he could

 save his kids—and the universe, too, now that he thought

 about it. If, of course, there was no dragon, he was certifi-

 able. Nuttier than a fruitcake. In serious shit.

 96

 Holly Lisle

 Okay, Darryl, d' buddy. Let's look at this logically. You

 can hang onto your sanity, refuse to admit you can see your

 dead wrfe in mirrors and hear dragons talking to you. You

 can be nice and sensible and you can attend your wife's

 funeral, and kiss your kids goodbye forever and that wSl be

 that. Or you can embrace the madness. Pretend the dragon

 and the mirrors and aQ. that shit is real. And maybe—just

 maybe—you can get them hack.

 He gripped the edges of the sink and stared at his wife's

 hands on the other side of the mirror.

 No contest, Ksakra. No contest at all. His mouth started

 to stretch into a grin. He squinched his eyes shut, and the

 grin got bigger. LETS—GO—CRAZY!

 He had to get home. Miracles might be waiting to hap-

 pen, but they weren't going to happen in his parents' house,

 in his old bedroom with the ugly green curtains. God knew,

 they never had before.

 He burst out of the bathroom in high gear. the dragon's

 head snapped up, and his eyes widened-

 "Go get in die car," Danyl told Birkwelch. "I'll be out in

 a minute."

 Birkwelch tipped his head to one side, then smiled his

 alli^itor smile. "Well, all rig/if' Way to go, Darryl!"

 Danyl's parents were sitting in the kitchen, drinking cof-

 fee. His mother jumped out of her seat and hugged him

 before he even got through the door. His dad stood up and

 patted him on the back.

 His mother was still wired. Too much coffee. Dairy!

 decided. In pretty much one big gasp she said,

 Tet-me-get-you-somethmg-to-eat-do-you-feel-like-food-oh-

 we-have-some-leftover-turkey-and-some-tuna-casserole-I've-

 called-the-poUce-and-Stanleys-rtymg-in-trom-Massachusetts-

 to-see-you." She looked at him expectantly, wailing for an

 answer.

 "Mom—Dad—" He looked into those familiar faces, the

 faces of people who loved him. Darryl ran out of words.

 What do I teU them? That I dwi't need comforting

 because she's only gone, not dead, and besides, tf T did need

 comforting, I'd rather he comforted by Birkwelch the

 MINERVA WAKES            97

 socially unacceptable dragon than Stanley my asshole

 brother? That I've got to magically get my dead wife and my

 missing kids back? I don't think so.

 Both parents were looking at him. He took a deep breath.

 "I'm going home. I need to be alone for a while."

 His mother looted into his eyes with that intense mother

 look, then nodded. "Of course, dear. We'll be over to check

 on you—if you need anything, just call."

 Just caS,. The mother mantra. And his dad, walking with

 him out to the car, totally ignoring Birkwelch in the passen-

 ger seat and draped half into the back of the Nova; his dad

 telling him life has meaning, and time heals all wounds, and

 have faith, his kids will show up and they'll be fine, just fine.

 Just caQ. Mom words, because only moms can make

 everything better.

 And later, when he'd been home for a while, he thought

 about calling—but what was he going to say? Mom—the

 police have invaded my house. They're crawling all over the

 place, giving me fishy looks and asking me where I was and

 why do I think Minerva went out in the cold and died. I see

 my dead wife in a mirror, and I'm supposed to save the uni-

 verse. and Mom, I want to go back to being a kid again I

 want to go back to my life before I forgot what mattered,

 before I lost my dreams and became a nobody and screwed

 around on my wtfe—I want to start over.

 He couldn't get those thoughts out of his mind. And when

 the police did go away, with their evidence from the boys'

 room in litde plastic bags and their admonition that he was

 not to leave town, he muttered behind them, "Barring saving

 the world and other miracles, of course, I suppose I'll go

 nuts." He stared in the mirror of the finally empty house, and

 the only thing looking back at him was his own reflection.

 The dragon came up behind him without warning and

 rested a taloned forefoot on his shoulder. "Give her a break,"

 Birkwelch had said- "She has to sleep sometime."

 Bamey could see only darkness out the castle window. He

 was, he suspected, up past his bedtime. He wondered if any

 of the monsters were going to come in and tuck him in and

 98

 Holly Usie

 turn off the light. Carol was already asleep on one of the

 three beds the monsters had given them. Jamie sat on the

 second, morosely replaying their defeat.

 "Up the outside wall and in through a window. I can't

 believe it. They just climbed—and we didn't do any booby

 traps on the window—we didn't mine the floor under-

 neath—nothin'. That's what we did. Nothin*. We were

 stupid!"

 "I thought we did pretty good," Bamey said.

 Jamie flung himself backward and lay staring up at the

 ceiling. "We lost. It doesn't matter how good you do if you

 stiB lose."

 Bamey frowned. "But they didn't want to hurt us."

 "Yeah. And that makes it worse." Jamie propped himself

 up on one elbow. "We should have been able to cream

 them."

 "I'm g^ad we got caught," Bamey said-

 Traitor."

 "I am." He stuck out his lip and frowned at his big

 brother. "Ergrawll was really nice, even though we hit her on

 the head and tied her up. And the food was good."

 "Listen, butthead- The/re all monsters, and they swiped

 us from home."

 Bamey thought about that. "I know. But Mom is here

 now. She'll come get us."

 Jamie sat up and stared at his brother. "Mom's here? You

 mean here, in the castle? Did you see her?"

 "No. Not in die castle. Just. . . here." He dosed his eyes.

 When he thought very hard, he could feel her presence—but

 from far away. "Wherever this place is."

 "Oh, great." Jamie flopped on his back again. "More

 invisible mystery stuff."

 Bamey thought of something interesting. "Ergrawll said

 she and the rest of the monsters would have caught us with

 magic—but they were too tired from bringing us here."

 "I'll bet. Monsters always tell stuff like that to little lads.

 That's cause only little kids are dumb enough to believe

 'em."

 "Nuh-uh!" Bamey swung around and sat on the side of

 MINERVA WAKES            99

 his bed with his feet hanging over the edge. *I didn't believe

 her. So I made her show me. She realty can do magic."

 "What'd she do—pull a penny from your ear?"

 "Nah. That's not real magic. She did real magic."

 "Sure she did."

 "She did. She made me some candy."

 Jamie snorted. "Ill bet. She didnt make me any."

 "It was chocolate. It was so-o-o-o good—"

 "Prove it" Jamie sat up. "Give me some."

 Bamey smiled- "I ate it all."

 "No you didn't. You're just lying."

 "It was really good."

 "Liar! Liar, liar, pants on fire!" Jamie yelled-

 The door to (he room opened, and Ergrawll stalked in.

 That will be enough of that. Why is the light still on? Why

 are you children still awake? I want you to go to sleep right

 now."

 Bamey said, "You didn't tuck us in."

 Jamie said, "Bamey said you gave him some candy. You

 didn't give me any candy, and besides, it was just a trick. You

 can't really do magic, either."

 Ergrawll looked from Jamie to Bamey, then back to

 Jamie again. "Of course I can't do magic. No one can." She

 smiled, then turned her back on them and switched off

 the light. "You'll have to tuck yourselves in tonight. I don't

 tuck in."

 "Can you sing bedtime songs?" Jamie asked.

 "No. I don't do those either."

 "What kind of baby-sitter are you?" Jamie demanded.

 Ergrawll's shape filled the doorway. "A carnivorous one."

 she said. "Go to sleep." Then she closed the door and was

 gone.

 Bamey sat on the edge of the bed in the darkness, grow-

 ing angry. "She lied to us." He stared at the shadowshapes

 of his feet, barely visible in the faint light cast by me tiny

 moons out the window. He kicked his feet and said it again,

 a bit louder.

 Beside him, Jamie whispered soft, meaningless words.

 "Carnivorous," his brother said. That's bad."

 100 Holly Lisle

 Bamey didn't know what "craniferroots" were, and he

 didn't care. "She lied to us," he told his brother.

 Jamie said, "Huh?"

 "Ergrawll lied to us. About the magic. I saw her do it."

 "You always fall for those stupid tricks." His brother's

 voice made run of him.

 "I saw how she did it. She made her hands into a circle,

 and did this funny, twisty thing in her head—" Bamey acted

 out the monster's actions as he talked. "And then she

 thought 'candy,' and tasted it when she thought it ... and

 smelled it, too."

 Bamey stared at the space between his hands, where

 thousands of tiny firefly lights suddenly shimmered and

 twinlded. His heart pounded as he watched. Beside him, he

 heard Jamie gasp. The firefly lights died, and something

 smooth and heavy and cool lay in the palm of his left hand—

 a block of something he just knew was wonderful. He

 tightened his grip around the firefly gift and lay back on the

 pillow. Slowly, he put the comer of the block into his mouth.

 He nibbled the tiniest piece of the comer away.

 It was food chocolate. Better even than the monster's

 chocolate. Bamey smiled into the darkness and waited.

 "What happened?" Jamie finally asked. "What were those

 lights in your hands?"

 Bamey took a bigger bite of the chocolate. "Muffing," he

 said around the mouthful of candy.

 "What do you have in your mouth?" Jamie's voice was

 edged with deep suspicion. "Let me see." He got out of the

 bed and came over to look.

 Bamey shoved as much of the chocolate as would fit into

 his mouth. He wrapped his fingers tightly around what

 remained.

 Jamie started prying his fingers apart. "Share," he hissed.

 "You said there wasn't any magic. So there isn't any

 candy."

 Somewhere in the castle, well away from their room,

 someone screamed—a piercing, anguished scream that went

 on and on, becoming gradually softer and more pleading,

 until at last it gurgled to a horrible stop.

 MINERVA WAKES              101

 Jamie froze at the sound of it, and Bame/s fingers

 dropped the sticky remains of the chocolate to the castle's

 cold stone floor.

 "What was that?" Jamie whispered.

 In the hall, Bamey could now hear die sounds of fight-

 ing—and of dying. He shivered. "You won't believe me."

 "Yes. 1 will."

 "You know the bad things that came after us before."

 "Yeah. I know."

 "Something's comin' after us again—and this one's

 worse."

 Bamey heard his brother suck in his breath. Then Jamie

 said, "You know how you kept the ghost away until you ran

 out of the closet?"

 "Batman kept him away."

 "Okay—yeah, I forgot. Batman. Okay. So—can you get

 Batman to keep this one away?"

 Bamey looked at the darker outline in the darkness that

 was his brother, and shook his head in disbelief. "Batman

 doesn't live here."

 "I know. But couldn't you, like, make a Bat-signal or

 something to call him? Pretty fast?"

 Bamey sat silent, thinking.

 "Isn't there something you can do? Barn? C'mon . . ."

 Jamie sounded scared.

 Bamey hopped down from the bed and felt his way across

 the room to Carol's bed- It was funny there were no mon-

 sters under the beds in the castie. he thought. He decided

 it was because they were all out in the halls, fighting off the

 thing that was coming.

 He hopped onto Carol's bed, and Jamie imitated him.

 Bamey held out his hands and closed his eyes. He found

 what he needed in his imagination—felt the cool plastic, saw

 the bright green, the splashes of orange and red and blue

 ;   and purple. The Turtles. In his minds eye, he saw them big-

 ger—giant-sized, grown-up sized, wielding their weapons.

 Something began to shimmer in front of him. Outside the

 door—right outside the door—there WAS- another of those

 ,J   horrible screams. Something scrabbled on the wood,

 102

 Holly Lisle

 thudded heavily. "No!" it howled-

 take them!"

 ahe howled. "You can't

 The door blew open—splintered. Light rolled into the

 room, hazy and swirling, centered on the monster woman

 who fought to hold back something infinitely worse. The

 light rippled over her, licked along her body greasily, sucked

 her dry and devoured her. She threw a weapon at the horror

 in the haBway—a desperate move—then tell. The light that

 crawled over her flickered brighter, and her body withered,

 and her scream grew fainter and fainter, as if she were falling

 down a deep hole. The silence swallowed her scream. The

 smoky light licked along the stain on the floor where she had

 lain, then guttered out.

 Jamie screamed. Carol woke up, opened her eyes, then

 buried her head under her pillow. Murp, curled up sleeping

 with Carol, woke, and arched his back and hissed.

 Barney shuddered, his summoning of the Turtles forgotten.

 Something stepped into the room—a blast of dank, stink-

 ing, freezing air; the rattle of bones; two gleaming blood-red

 eyes that glowed but threw no light.

 The eyes stared at the spot where Ergrawll had fallen.

 Then slowly, slowly, the shadow of a head turned, and the

 eyes searched out the comer of the room where the children

 crouched, trapped. Barney wished himself invisible, or gone.

 But me eyes found him—found them aD. He felt the

 thing smile, though he could not see it.

 "So here you are," it said. It looked at them. through

 them, and Barney, frightened, cried out. Its voice was soft,

 just a whisper, only the hint of a voice—more terrible for

 being so quiet, "Good. Now you will come with me."

 CHAPTER 6

 A man came to Minerva in her dream, walking along a

 dark and twisting tunnel, and he smiled. The smile seemed,

 in that darkness, bigger than the man.

 He looks like Santa Claus, she thought. I wonder why I

 made him look like that.

 She knew she was dreaming, and that surprised her. She

 decided to see what she could do while she slept. She

 reshaped the rotund, jovial man, stretching him long and

 thin and putting his nose out until it could have put Cyrano

 de Bergerac's to shame. She giggled.

 "Don't do that," the man snapped, and shifted himself

 back into his Santa Claus form. "It isn't dignified."

 She made his ears large, huge, enorrrrrmous—she made

 them flap like Dwmbo's.

 T said don't do that" He changed hvs ears back and sat on

 a rock in the tunnel—except it wasn't a rock in the tunnel. As

 soon as he sat cm it, it became a white-painted cast-iron seat

 in a restaurant, and aU the waiters were cheymats and blue

 dragons. She and Santa Claus were seated in a booth that

 was decorated with a red-and-green checked tahledoth, and

 the food was already on the table. The drinks were vivid blue,

 the vegetables gelatinous and purple. Little roast beasts lay on

 a huge china serving platter, singing. Their voices sounded

 like Alvin and the Chipmunks. When she listened closer, she

 realized the song they were singing was "White Christmas."

 10.3

 104

 HoUy Lisle

 Santa picked up one of the beasts and took a bite out of

 it. It sang louder, its voice becoming a shrill scfueal. Minerva

 stared, fascinated. It kept singing—and even when Santa

 had reduced it to a pile of bones, she could hear its piping

 little voice echoingfrmn the man's belly.

 "Ho/ Ho! Ho!" Santa shouted, and his belly heaved and

 shuddered—and split apart, like a zipper unzipping.

 "Surprise." a soft, hollow voice whispered. "It isn't Christ-

 mas after all." Santa's flesh peeled back like a coat flung to

 the floor, and a creature obscured by the deep folds of a

 cowled cloak pushed Santa's bleached white ribs apart and

 stepped out. From the shadowed depths of the black cowl,

 two red lights flowed like hellflres.

 "Hello, Minerva," the Unweaver said. "Fancy meeting you

 in a place like this."

 Minerva suddenly felt queasy.

 The roast beasts were singing the helium-induced version

 of "Silent Night."

 "What do you want?" she asked. Her voice quavered.

 "I want nothing. In fact, I have several things I don't

 want. Perhaps you can take them off my hands." The

 Unweaver laughed and held out skeletal hands.. Sifting

 astride the carpal bones were her three children, aB. the size

 of mice.

 "Mom," they screamed, in tiny, squeaking voices that

 were almost drowned out by the roast beasts. "Mommy, save

 us!"

 Minerva grabbed for her children. Her hands hit the

 Vnweaver's, and his bones fell apart. Her children toppled to

 the floor of the restaurant.

 The Unweaver jvced her in his burning gaze. "Naughty,

 naughty," he rasped. "Can't have them back now." He put

 his bones back on. caught her children without moving, and

 popped them into his cowl at the place where she guessed his

 mouth would be.

 "No!" Minerva yelled, and reached across the table to

 strangle him. She wanted to rip him to shreds, to tear him

 bone from bone, until she found her children. But no matter

 how far she stretched, he was just beyond her reach. He

 MINERVA WAKES            105

 slipped away from her down a tunnel that suddenly

 appeared in the restaurant, streaming backward like a man

 jwing down a hole. He faced her—not moving, but stiQ

 becoming smaller and smaller—with her children screaming

 from somewhere inside his bones. Then the two red dots of

 his eyes winked out and he was gone.

 "Give me back my kids. you son of a bitch!" she roared.

 "You better not pout, you better not cry, you better not

 shout," sang the roast beasts. 'Tm teUin' you why. Santa

 Clous is coming to town."

 She opened her eyes. Wow.l What a ni^itmare.

 Something smelled wonderful—and from down the hall

 she could hear hooves on hardwood. "He's maldn' a list, and

 checking it twice," a pleasant baritone sang. Apparently

 Talleos was fixing breakfast. She sat up and took a deep

 breatih.

 "It is a stone bitch," she muttered, "when reality is just as

 bizarre as your dreams."

 She got dressed. Talleos had given her another set of

 clothes—again a heavily embroidered long baggy tunic with

 embroidered belt, wrap-type leather pantaloons, and an

 embroidered vest in crayon colors. She was apparently stuck

 with the curly-toed purple boots.

 They can't all dress like this, she thought. But then, they

 didn't all dress like that. At least one of them didn't dress at

 all. She winced and pulled on the loud clothes and the

 awful—but comfortable—purple boots, then went down the

 hall to breakfast.

 He was grilling meat and eggs and big round slices of

 something maroon. "Healths of the day to you," he declared,

 and flipped the eggs in the air with a deft twist of his wrist.

 He crumbled green and red powder onto them, then tossed

 the maroon things. He seemed entirely too cheerful. "Grab

 a plate. Sleep well?"

 "Good morning, I guess. Fine except for the nightmares."

 ;  She grabbed one of the heavy blue stoneware plates and a

 ^  fork—looks Uke soUd silver, she mused—and he piled half of

 t^  his feast onto it for her.

 "^.

 •5k

 106 Holly Lisle

 "Nightmares ... hmmm—" He loaded up his own plate

 and trotted into the breakfast nook. "Sometimes night-

 mares can be very deep and meaningful—interpreted

 correctly, of course." Muted sunlight came through the

 oilskin coverings and burnished everything with its glow.

 She noticed that both his eyes were black where she'd

 tried to take them out with her thumbs, and he had a

 huge bruise on his throat. She decided it would be pru-

 dent not to mention this.

 They sat, and at his urging she told him about her dream.

 When she'd finished, he sat quietly, staring off into space.

 She waited, trying to figure out what he was thinking from

 the expression on his face, and to see if he'd found any rich

 symbolism in her dream.

 Finally he shook his head and looked into her eyes. "You

 ever do drugs?" he asked.

 Caught off guard, she burst out laughing. Tve always had

 nightmares. I figured that was bad enough."

 Teah. Dreams like that—drugs would be redundant."

 He shook his head again, chuckled, and dug into his break-

 fast.

 She stuffed her face with the maroon slabs. They were

 wonderful, whatever they were. Rich and salty and starchy—

 crunchy on me outside, chewy on the inside- The exercise

 from the day before stiB seemed to be affecting her. She was

 starved- "So you don't think the dream had any deep

 significance?"

 "Sure it did. You're worried about your kids. Doesn't take

 a master magician to figure that out."

 Minerva was disappointed. She'd hoped Talleos would

 have some wondrous explanation for the dream—it was odd

 enough it seemed to call for one. And it had, at the time,

 seemed so real.

 That was the end of conversation until they'd both fin-

 ished eating. Then, however, Talleos said, "Speaking of

 master magicians—you have a lot to accomplish today.

 We're going to start your magic lessons."

 They dumped their dishes on the kitchen counter; then

 he led her to a heavy, brass-bound door just off the library.

 MINERVA WAKES            107

 "The workroom," he said, and gave her a courtly,

 half-mocking bow. He opened the door for her, and she

 walked in.

 Her first reaction was "You have to be kidding." The rest

 of the house had been so modem, so normal—that some-

 how she had expected the magic room to be more of the

 same. Pragmatic. Sensible.

 It was anything but.

 Huge, dusty tomes and scrolls and rolls of parchment

 bent the bookcase shelves along the far wall into inverted

 arches. Display cases along both side walk held bottles and

 jars and amphorae and phials, skulls and hides, half-melted

 candles, tiny figurines and nondescript bundles of dead

 plants and other scruny things. She sidled leftward, edging

 cautiously past what she would have described as a stuffed

 devil. She wasn't entirely sure it was stuffed—hence the cau-

 tion. She wanted a closer look at the jars and other

 paraphernalia. Talleos flipped a switch, and the interiors of

 the display cases lit up.

 She turned one cork-stoppered jar so she could see past

 the label. The jar contained thick, gray, meaty thinis floating

 in a pale green solution.

 "Tongue of the fabled flightless guerfowl—used in spells

 relating to speaking or singing." Talleos sounded disgustingly

 enthusiastic when he said that. She peeked back at him. He

 was grinning broadly.

 Minerva wrinkled her nose. She couldn't imagine herself

 enthused about dead bud tongues. But you never know, she

 thought.

 She moved another container and peered through the

 murky, colorless fluid to discover it was chock full of what

 looked like the body parts of small reptiles.

 "Fetal dragon," the cheymat told her. "Already sectioned.

 It's powerful stuff—most spells won't call for more than a leg

 or an eye."

 "Oh, yuck."

 A third held long, thin, looping coils of something smooth

 and pale blue.

 "Oh, that is great stuff," Talleos said, and sighed.

 108 Holly Lisle

 "Oh?" Minerva didn't trust Talieos for an assessment of

 what was great.

 "Absolutely. It's an aphrodesiac. Penis of crested Idnnin—

 a Idrmin's penis grows from thirty to forty feet long. That

 one is a better than average specimen."

 "Oh, gross!" She turned away, and almost ran into a little

 worictable upon which sat an alembic. The glass apparatus

 was full of noxious, gloppy green liquid on one side, and

 something brown covered with a coat of fuzzy mold on the

 other. "Eeeuw!" She looked back at Talieos, who wore a

 sweet smile.

 The center of the room was clear. On the heavy wooden

 floor a circle had been painted with green, red, yellow, blue,

 and black paint The geometric figure painted inside the cir-

 cle had ten points, each of a different color.

 •That's the decagram," Talteos said. "It will be your work

 center."

 "I thought the pentagram was the magical symbol."

 Talieos snorted. "A common but anthropocentric

 misconception. The pentagram became popular because a

 man, with arms and legs spread, could imitate one.

 Hermetic philosophers—who thought the universe circled

 Man Ae way the sun circled the earth—found this

 profound and significant."

 "The sun doesn't circle the earth-'1

 "So true. Nor the universe Man." Talieos dieted across

 the floor, his hooves tapping loudly, He pointed to the deca-

 gram. The unicursal decagram, however, represents each of

 the possible emanations between the world of Knowledge

 and the worid of the Unknowable Infinite."

 Minerva twitched an eyebrnw upward. "How fascinating

 that the Unknowable Infinite is reachable by such an easy

 number as ten."

 Talieos frowned at her. "Even the Unknowable Infinite is

 within the reach of the true seeker. As you will discover."

 He pulled a black robe off a coathook and handed it to

 Minerva. "Wear this. It is fitting garb for a seeker and future

 magus such as yourself,"

 She struggled her way into tlie garment with difficulty.

 MINERVA WAKES            109

 The robe draped down to the floor, the hem crumpled on

 the wood to form several folds of cloth around her feet. The

 sleeves enveloped her hands. They dangled well past her fin-

 gertips. The cowl hung over her face—hot and scratchy and

 uncomfortable- The robe must have been worn by a man

 seven feet tall, she thought.

 "Don't you have one smaller?"

 Talieos gaped at her as though she had suggested profan-

 ing a temple. "Have one smaller? Are you kidding? That is

 the Sacred Robe of Exarp. There aren't two of them."

 The robe was wool—coarsely woven, scratchy, hot, and

 heavy. Minerva felt like she was wearing a bedspread—and not

 a good one, either. "How am I supposed to do magic with this

 on?" How am I supposed to mow with it on? she wondered.

 Talieos sighed. "You have to suffer a lot to do magic. That

 is just the way it works. If you want your lads back, you're

 going to have to wear the robe—unless . . ." He gave her a

 sideways glance and said, "No . . ."

 Minerva hated games, and she had no time for coyness.

 "Unless whaty she snapped.

 "Well, magic done skyclad is even more powerful than

 magic done wearing the mystical Robe of Exarp."

 "Skyclad. Sfa/clad?" Minerva didn't recognize the term,

 but she didn't like the sound of it.

 "Nude." Talieos gave her a hopeful little grin.

 Her instincts were right on the money, she decided. "I'll

 suffer." She rolled the scratchy sleeves up all the way to her

 elbows, then reached down and tucked a portion of the front

 hem under the robe's heavy rope belt. She brushed the cowl

 back with a quick swipe of her hand.

 "There. See? This will do just fine."

 Talleos seemed to have been stricken by a fit of coughing.

 She watched him lean, shoulders heaving, against a rack of

 skulls. He gasped and choked, and his face turned duskier

 than usual.

 "Are you all right?" she asked, concerned. She walked

 toward him, but he waved her off.

 "Fine—" he croaked. "—Water—" and he clattered out

 of the room.

 110                     Hofly Lisle

 When he came back in, he looked much better. "Choked

 on some dust or something," he told her. His color was stiB

 high. "Okay!" He gave her a bright smile. "Lets get to work

 on the magic. Take a seat in the middle of the decagram."

 While Minerva sat on the hard floor, Talleos puBed a

 huge book out of me bookcase, propped it on a carved book-

 stand, flipped to the first page, and began to read.

 "'The beginning of magic is the beginning of the com-

 prehension of the Manifest and the Unmanifest, the

 corporeal and the incorporeal, and the flow of the ions of

 time and not-time through the river of die Eternal Is.

 Within the spin of the single atom, the magus finds con-

 tained all secrets and all miracles of every facet of existence.

 And the harnessing of the powers of that atom is within the

 reach of me dedicated seeker. Above aB, the seeker must

 strive for purity of intention, purity of thought, and purity of

 being.

 "'To attain the purity required of the magus, the seeker

 must reach within and find a personal and internally consis-

 tent meaning for each of the thousand spoken names of

 God. The first of these names is Ke-Seh-Haveh-Kalla, which

 means . . .'"

 Minerva felt her eyes beginning to glaze over. This was

 the way to do magic, was it? Oh, God. Her kids lives—and

 her own—depended on her ability to learn this stuff?

 It felt like chemistry class all over again. She'd hated

 chemistry.

 ""The second name of God is Gur-Gesh-Hegonokrisve-

 domio, which . . .'"

 Dam/I, you stinking pig, she thought, ; hope to heU

 you're as miserable and as scared as lam right now.

 "Gooff, I really don't know what happened. ... No ...

 No—some kids found her while they were out playing. . . .

 No, not my lads; the police are still looking for them..., Not

 yet. The police have tapped the phone lines—there weren't

 any ransom notes that anyone could find. . . . No, I guess

 the/ll be doing the—ah—the au-au-autopsy—... today..."

 MINERVA WAKES            111

 "No ... I'm all right now. . . . Thank you. I appreciate

 that—a leave of absence would help a lot.... I'd—I'd really

 rather not talk anymore right now."

 All morning. The goddamned phone hadn't stopped. Peo-

 ple telling him how sony they were; people telling him he

 was a miserable bastard and the police were going to find

 out what he did; friends of Minerva's who wanted to com-

 miserate with him; friends of his who didn't know what to

 say.

 Minerva was right there in front of him, right on the

 other side of the fucking mirror. He couldn't touch her, he

 couldn't hear her, he couldn't actually see her—except once

 when she looked in a mirror. But, dammit, it was really her.

 Out of his reach.

 He'd made the funeral arrangements. He'd sat on the

 other side of the funeral director's desk and picked out a cas-

 ket and discussed the service. He'd cried. He couldn't help

 it. The funeral director had a mirror behind his desk. The

 whole time Dairy! was discussing the details of the service,

 Minerva was standing behind the man, playing with powders

 and knives and wands and other weird shit- He wanted her

 back. No matter how hard he tried to convince himself oth-

 erwise, he couldn't believe she was coming back.

 "If your face drags any lower, old pa!, we can use it to sole

 your shoes." Birkwelch leaned along the back of the arm-

 chair and hung his head, upside down, in front of Danyl.

 As a sight gag, it probably would have been pretty funny,

 but Darryl wasn't in the mood, "Go 'way," he snarled.

 "No, man. I want to go to McDonalds and get some fish

 sandwiches and fries. They're my favorite."

 "Good. Go."

 The dragon did not get his face out of Darryl's way. "I

 want some company."

 Darryl lost his grip on his calm. "You miserable son of a

 bitch," he yelled. He grabbed Birkwelch around the dragons

 long, muscular neck and tried to strangle him—a feat he

 discovered was about as smart as trying to strangle a boa

 constrictor. One minute he had his hands around the dragon's

 neck; the next, he was lying on the floor on the other side of

 112                   HoUy Lisle

 the room, watching lights going round and round on die

 ceiling, wishing he could remember how to breathe.

 His mother stood over him, an unreadable expression on

 herface-

 "How did you do that?"

 He couldn't quite breathe yet. "Do what. Mom?" he

 wheezed.

 "Jump across the room like that? And who were you yell-

 ing at?"

 Yeah, Darryl. he thought, hmv did you do that? Taken up

 flying, in your spare time. have you? "I don't know what

 you're talking about. Mom," he said. "I just fell down."

 "Uh-HUH." His mom looked, very slowly, from the arm-

 chair fifteen feet away to the place where Darryl lay and

 gave him the Fishy Mother Eye. He knew the look. It was

 the same look she'd given him when he came home at three

 A-M. from the party at Lisa Sherwood's house. It was the

 look (hat meant, "Don't give me that shit, dear. Mothers can

 read minds."

 They could, too, he decided. He and Lisa Sherwood had

 been up to no good, all stories to the contrary aside,

 He just shrugged his shoulders and sat up. "I didn't hear

 you knock."

 She raised an eyebrow. "I didn't knock. I let myself in. I

 wasnt sure whether you would be answering the door today

 or not." Her face said the next time he planned on frolicking

 with Satan's minions, he needed to lock the door.

 He thought that was a fine idea.

 He stood. "Well—ah ... Did you come over for any par-

 ticular reason?"

 She tipped her head to one side. She crossed her arms.

 Birkwelch, standing inches behind her, mimicked her every

 move. "I thought I'd stop over and see how you were hold-

 ing up," she said.

 "I wanted to make sure you weren't drinking yourself

 under die table or hanging yourself from the rafters," Birk-

 welch said in Danyl's mother's voice.

 Birkwelch's imitiation was dead-on. Darryl, afraid he

 might laugh, tried hard not to look at the dragon, and

 MINERVA WAKES            113

 ended up avoiding his mothers eyes, too. "I'm holding

 on," he said.

 His mother glanced over at the armchair again. "You

 might want to hold on tighter," she said.

 Birkwelch stopped his imitation in mid-move and stared

 at the woman. "She's pretty funny, you know?"

 "I know," Darryl said, and as soon as the words were out

 of his mouth, realized he had answered the dragon out loud-

 He could feel the blood running to his feet. We do not speak

 to our hallucinations when our mother is in the house. Do

 we, Darryl? No, we do not.

 "Well, I'm glad," his mother said,

 Dumb luck. She thought he was talking to her. He might

 not be so lucky twice. He took his mother's elbow and

 guided her to the front door. "Mom—I'm really not feeling

 up to company right now." He reached for excuses. "And—I

 need to stay by the phone, in case die police call back with

 news about die kids."

 "So you haven't heard anything?"

 He shook his head. "I'll call you as soon as I do. I

 promise."

 "I really Ulink," she stopped on die steps and looked up

 at him, "you ought to come home with me. The police will

 be able to call you at our house—"

 The kids haven't memorized your phone number."

 She stopped, and pursed her iips, and cocked her head

 to one side. "You're right. As soon as you hear anydiing,

 then."

 "I promise."

 He went back inside and looked at die mirror. He still

 couldn't figure out what Minerva was doing. Whatever it

 was, he wished she wasn't doing it with a naked creature out

 of Greek mydiology who was hung like a bull.

 The dragon came over and stood beside him.

 "Who—and what—is that guy?"

 Talleos. My roommate. He's a cheymat."

 "A cheymat." Darryl got a glimpse of die creature when

 Minverva turned her head. "He looks like one of diose

 Greek diings. Watchacallems. Satyrs."

 114

 Holly Lisle

 The dragon grinned broadly. "If I tell yon a secret, you

 have to promise not to tell."

 Danyl shrugged-

 "He is one of those satyrs. But it pisses him off no end

 that one of his ancestors got around so much—so he says

 Pan was just a myth. He's the last satyr. Who's going to argue

 with him?"

 Darryl frowned. "Pan wasn't a myth?"

 "He was a legend, man. He was inspirational."

 "You knew him?"

 The dragon tipped his head back and sighed soulfully.

 "Oh, yeah. Now there was a guy who knew how to cruise

 chicks."

 The phone rang. Darryl ran for it. It wasn't going to be

 the kids. Knowing what he knew, he didn't think the police

 were going to call with anything useful, either. It was more

 likely his mom, deciding he ought to get Call-Forwarding

 so he could go over and stay with her and dad.

 Nevertheless—

 "Yeah." he said,

 "Darryl. I heard about your wife. How awful." The voice

 was feminine, sweet, sexy—and he couldn't place it.

 "Yes," he agreed-

 "I baked something for you—I'll bring it over," the voice

 said.

 Who is this? Who is it? he wondered. "Urn, I'm not really

 feeling like company—"

 The voice interrupted him- "I understand completely. I'll

 just drop this off and leave. But if you need to talk, you know

 I'll be there to listen. All you have to do is say the word,"

 Rtg/rt. Say the word—anclfiffire out who the heR you are.

 "I appreciate that." He hung up die phone, still not able to

 put a name or a face with the voice.

 The dragon had stretched out in front of the French

 doors and was lolBng on the kitchen floor in the sunshine

 like a cat. "Anything interesting?"

 "Somebody from work bringing over food."

 •That's good."

 "I don't know. Can't quite place the voice." Darryl looked

 MINERVA WAKES            115

 at the beast on his floor. "Don't you have something useful

 to do?"

 Tm doing it."

 "Working on your tan?"

 "Keeping you alive. That useful enough for you?"

 Darryi looked at Birkwelch to see if the dragon was trying

 to be funny. For once, the monster looked like he meant

 what he said. "It will do for a start." He looked around the

 kitchen, then out through the French doors into the side

 yard, overtaken by paranoia. "Urn, should I, um, lay low or

 anything?"

 The dragon snorted Faint blue tendrils of smoke curled

 from his nostrils and circled around the dust motes in the

 sunlight. "Nah. The trouble is coming, but it isn't here yet."

 "How do you know?"

 "Dragons exist in five dimensions simultaneously, while

 humans only exist in four. We're superior. We know things."

 The doorbell rang. "So if you know things, who's on the

 other side of the door?"

 The dragon grinned, and closed his eyes, and started to

 speak. Then he stopped and his smile faded. "That's funny."

 "Don't know, do you?"

 "No. I don't."

 Darryl went to answer the door. "Goddamned cocky

 dragons aren't as brilliant as they'd like to think," he

 muttered.

 He opened the door, saw who was standing on die other

 side holding a bean dish, and slammed it.

 "Internal Revenue Service?" the dragon asked.

 "Cindy Morris."

 The dragon cocked his head and studied Darryl like an

 entymologist with a new bug. "The name is unfamiliar, but

 the guilt certainly speaks volumes. Something about this is

 fascinating. Invite her in."

 Darryl, speechless, nodded. He opened the door again.

 Cindy Morris still stood there, her expression bewildered.

 "Hi, Darryl," she said, and gave him a sweet, puzzled

 smile.

 He couldn't think of anything he really wanted to say to

 116                   Holly Lvde

 her—but the dragon wmted to get a look at her. "Won't you

 come in?"

 Her smile grew. "I brought yon a casserole. There aren't

 too many things I know how to cook, but—" Her voice

 trailed off, and she shrugged.

 Darryl suspected the shrug was supposed to be cute. He

 took the casserole dish, and she followed him into the

 kitchen. The dragon was nowhere to be seen. Interesting

 time to haw to take a leak, Darryl thought- He had no idea

 what to say to Cindy.

 "Urn," he said. "Ah."

 "I know this probably seems awkward," Cindy said.

 Darryl nodded. Awkward was the least of what it seemed.

 "I didn't want you to feel guilty about the other night."

 Darryl stared at her. You have to be kidding, he thought.

 "No, really. I've been in love with you since I started at

 Phelps," she said. "I seduced you. I knew I shouldn't have at

 the time, but—I wanted you. I really came over to apologze

 for taking advantage of you." She smiled at him aj^in.

 She stiff had the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.

 "Urn, Cindy," Darryl finally managed, "I appreciate the

 apology. What happened—it wasn't all your fault. And I

 appreciate you bringing the casserole, and—urn, and every-

 thing—" He stared at his feet. "I don't think we should see

 each other again, though."

 "I wish you wouldn't say that. I know we started out badly,

 but I was hoping we could be friends."

 "I'm sure you were," Birkwelch said. He walked up

 behind Cindy Morris and blew a tongue of name at her.

 She spun around, and her green eyes grew huge. She

 shrieked.

 "She can see you," Darryl said.

 "You bet your ass, she can. Why don't you make a pass at

 me, hey, sweetheart?" the dragon asked the woman.

 Cindy hissed. Her sidn melted and flowed; she became

 an animated Dali painting, stretching and deforming and

 changing into something other—something awful. Her body

 grew dark and leathery, gaunt and twisted- Her arms trans-

 formed into talon-tipped wings, and her face lengthened

 MINERVA WAKES            117

 into a lipless muzzle, both jaws lined with hundreds of

 wicked, needlelike teeth. Only her eyes were the same—still

 wide and glittering, emerald green. She hissed again, and

 started to puff herself up.

 The dragon snapped at her, his jaws only missing crushing

 her head because she darted out of the way.

 The transformed Cindy lunged for the door, knocked it

 open clumsily, and launched herself into the air.

 Through the entire exchange, Darryl had stared, rooted

 to the floor. He couldn't believe what he'd seen. "A-ha-ha-a,"

 he gasped.

 Birkwelch sauntered back into the kitchen. "Don't eat the

 casserole," he said.

 "Okay." Danyl felt like sitting on the floor and gibbering

 for a while. He was willing to he meek. "What was that?"

 The dragon stretched back in front of the French doors

 again. "A Weird. They are bad, ha-a-a-a-ad news. So that was

 your one and only fling, huh?"

 Darryl nodded, and shivered. Goosebumps rose on his

 arms and the hair stood up on die back of his neck. "'Weird'

 seems a pretty mild description," he whispered.

 "No. A Weird. One of the magic-masters of Eyrith ... the

 ones who want you dead. You're lucky, pal." The dragon

 chuckled softly. "If you weren't wearing that ring—or if you

 had taken it off for any reason while she was with you, she

 would have eaten you alive. Knowing her kind, she probably

 would have started with your dick."

 Danyl closed his eyes and ran his hand over his forehead.

 He leaned wealdy against the kitchen counter. The room

 looped and swayed around him, and his heart thudded des-

 perately in his chest. I caild have lived forever without

 knowing that, he thought.

 Bamey woke to find his sister's tcnee in his face, his

 brothers legs over his stomach, and Murp sitting on his chest

 licking his nose. He scratched the cat's head and looked

 around him. There wasn't much to see. All four of them were

 still trapped in the stone room, right where that terrible thing

 that stole them from the monsters had put diem.

 118 Holly Lisle

 The room had no windows, and no doors, and no tights.

 The walls glowed faintly, and by the light of these Bamey

 could see there was nothing in the room except for the chil-

 dren and the pile of filthy rags on which they lay.

 Bamey nibbed the sleep out of his eyes and frowned- He

 wasn't too hungry, but he had to go to the bathroom. Bad.

 He thought about this for a moment and decided it would

 be better if he didn't think about it. Instead, he tried to

 remember what he'd been dreaming. He vaguely remem-

 bered he and his brother and sister had been someplace

 with his mother, only (he—the what? The Unweebil? Some-

 thing like that—wouldn't let them go to her. They'd been in

 sort of a restaurant—but with singing food.

 There were bathrooms in restaurants, Bamey thought.

 He really had to go.

 He made himself a piece of chocolate, watching to see if

 the little firefly things would be there again. They were. He

 thought it was cool that he could see right through the

 chocolate at first, while the firefly lights swirled around—but

 as soon as they started to disappear, he couldn't. He won-

 dered if maybe the lights were tittle tiny people, and they

 made the chocolate. It was all very interesting, and quite dis-

 tracting—until his brother shifted and stuck a knee right

 into his belly.

 Bamey disentangled himself from his brother and sister

 and sat up. He ate the chocolate thoughtfully, then looked

 at the far wall of the room.

 He was pretty sure be could have made the Turtles—if he

 hadn't gotten scared- They were pretty big. Maybe he could

 make a bathroom. He concentrated on it—thought of me

 upstairs bathroom back home, with its big, shiny sink and his

 footstool for washing his hands; with its bathtub big as an

 ocean, that sat up on shiny gold feet with claws on them—

 and its toilet with the wood seat and the bright blue water.

 If there were a door in his prison, it would lead to such a

 bathroom, he decided. The room needed a door anyway. He

 concentrated, and behind a shimmering square of firefly

 lights, me bathroom door from home appeared, fancy glass

 handle and all. It looked, he thought, land of small. He was

 MINERVA WAKES            119

 not in any mood to be critical, though. As long as there was

 a potty on me other side, he would be happy.

 He opened the door and peeked in. Yep. There itwas. He

 grinned. Mommy and Daddy sure would be surprised when

 they saw what he could do. He felt really tired all of a sudden.

 He guessed mage must be hard work, even if it didn't seem

 like it. He decided he would take a nap when he was done.

 That would reaUy surprise his mom. He hated naps.

 His brother and sister were awake when he went back

 out. They sat there, looking all sad and scared, petting Murp.

 His brother looked surprised to see him-

 "Where were you?"

 "Goin" to the potty."

 There wasn't a potty in here last night," Carol said. "I

 looked."

 "I know." Bamey smiled. There's one now."

 Jamie and Carol looked at each other. For a moment, nei-

 ther moved. Then both of them leapt to their feet and ran

 for it—Carol, who'd been sitting closer, arrived first. She

 darted in and slammed the door in Jamie's face. Bamey

 heard the lock click.

 "Oh, no," Jamie groaned. "She'll be in mere forever."

 "You take me longest," Bamey said. "You always take

 books in with you."

 "Well, I don't have any books, so I can't take longer—

 okay?" Jamie turned his back on Bamey and pounded on the

 door. "I gotta go!" he yelled- "Hurry up!"

 "I shoulda' made two," Bamey muttered.

 Jamie, catching his breath in between yells, evidently

 heard him. He turned back and stared at Bamey. "You

 should have done what?"

 "Made two. Bathrooms. Then I wouldn't hafta listen to

 you yell."

 "You made the bathroom." Jamie frowned. "No. I don't

 think so. A little kid like you could not make a bathroom."

 Bamey was terribly sleepy. He didn't want to listen to his

 brother talk anymore. He made two books appear and car-

 ried them over. "Here. Read a book." He held them out, and

 when his brother didn't take them, dropped them at his feet.

 120 Holly Linte

 Then he went back and curled up on the pile of rags and

 closed his eyes.

 In the background, he heard his brother pounding on the

 bathroom door, yelling for Carol to get out of die bath-

 room—that they had an emergency. It sounded just like

 home, Bamey thought.

 The last thing he heard before he fell asleep was Jamie

 squawking, "Hey, these books don't have any words in 'em!

 They just have scribbles."

 Let him make his own books, then, Bamey thought

 Someone was shaking him.

 "Quit!" Bamey muttered, and rolled away from the hands

 on his arms and legs.

 "Wake up."

 He flailed out, locking and hitting. His brother's voice,

 right in his ear, said, "If you don't wake up, I'm going to

 punch your lights out."

 Bamey squinted up at Jamie. "I'm sleepy."

 "We figured how to get out of here," Carol said.

 Bamey sighed and sat up.

 "You really made the bathroom, didn't you?" Jamie asked.

 "Yes."

 Murp yawned.

 Bamey followed suit.

 "Then make us a door that goes out of here."

 Bamey looked from his brother to his sister. They were

 buttheads, he thought—but they were realty smart butt-

 heads. "Yes," he whispered. "I can do that." He walked to

 the nearest wall, and thought a door into it.

 A very nice wood door just like the first one he'd made

 appeared in the stone.

 Behind him, he heard Jamie and Carol gasp.

 "I'll go first," Jamie said. He opened the door. He didn't

 say anything for an instant. Then he said, "There's a hall out

 here."

 Murp brushed past Jamie's legs and ran out of the room.

 Jamie shrugged and followed him. Carol went next, and

 Bamey brought up die rear. He was still terribly sleepy- He

 MINERVA WAKES            121

 wanted somebody to cany him—or better yet, he wanted to

 go back to the rag pile and let his brother and sister come

 back and get him later. He only walked behind them

 because he was afraid they wouldn't

 Murp waited slowly—looking back at Jamie and yowling

 all the time.

 "I'm coming," Jamie said. "We're all following you,

 Murp."

 Murp kept up his chatter.

 A cold wind whistled down the long stone hallway and

 blew past Bamey. He shivered and woke up. "Oh, no!" he

 whispered. He yelled, "Run! Run!"

 The children took off—but in front of their eyes, the walls

 grew together. A stream of gray smoke curled out of the

 floor and grew into a towering wraith in front of them.

 "Going somewhere?" the thing asked in its horrible, whis-

 pery voice."

 "Go away, Unweebil," Bamey yelled. "We're going

 home."

 "Yes. And I must say, I find it very impressive you got this

 far. I suppose I shall have to make a stronger cage for you."

 He raised his smoky arms upward, and Carol shouted,

 "You're evil."

 The creature lowered its arms and chuckled. "No. Not at

 all. Being evil is much too much work—especially when all

 of existence will wind down on its own. It's quite enough

 that I'm not good."

 Then smoke billowed around the children, and Bamey

 coughed, and choked, and his eyes watered. When it

 cleared, Carol, Jamie, and Bamey were trapped on the

 inside of a giant, murky green ball. Murp was gone.

 "He's evil," Carol repeated. "I hope he doesn't hurt

 Murp."

 "Murp will be all right," Jamie said. "Us, too. We'll get out

 of here and go home. Bamey can do some magic—"

 Bamey settled onto the rounded floor of the ball. It was

 soft and yielding. He lay back and closed his eyes. He would

 rescue all of them—he had no doubt about it. But he would

 do it later.

 CHAPTER 7

 Talleos. I need a break." Minerva couldn't sit and listen

 to the cheymat drone on anymore. She stood and stretched,

 trying to get the kinks out. Sitting on die hardwood floor was

 killing her back—and her rear end, she suspected, would

 never be die same.

 Talleos looked scandalized. "But you haven't started into

 the background for the subclasses of classes of spells based

 on the first and simplest name of God yet—you should at

 least get that far on your first day."

 "My eyes are glazing over." She spread her feet apart

 and reached down to touch her toes, then pressed the

 palms of her hands flat against the floor. Minerva heard

 her vertebrae pop as she did. When she bobbed up, she

 told the cheymat, "Look, there has to be some other way

 to leam this stuff. I don't do well listening to

 lectures—never have—and having somebody read to me

 puts me to sleep. I'm a hands-on person."

 "Hands on." The cheymat stared up and to his right, and

 his face became thoughtful. "Hands ... on." He looked back

 at her and propped his elbows on his book and his chin in

 his cupped hands. "Yes. That we can do. Sex magic is rela-

 tively simple to leam and doesn't require the complex

 ingredients you appear to find so distasteful- And you don't

 have to memorize complicated spells or rules. Besides—it

 happens to be my specialty."

 123

 124 Holly Lisle

 "I'm not surprised."

 Talleos flashed a smug little grin. "Well, if it's going to be

 sex magic, I need to bring in the quilts."

 "Don't bother. It isn't."

 Minerva wondered if she could loll him and stil] save her

 children. Probably not. She paced over to one of the display

 cases, pretending the cheymat had ceased to exist. She'd

 spotted some creamy sheets ofvelium on one of the shelves.

 She picked them up, then located a small case filled with

 charcoal sticks, some chalky crayons, and a few sharpened

 pencils lacking erasers. She took the case, too.

 "Minerva, you're going to have to be flexible about things

 if you want your lads back," Talieos said, then noticed what

 she had in her hands. "What are you going to do with

 those?" His voice sounded suddenly nervous.

 "I'm going to go sit outside in the fresh air and take some

 notes. I assume all the books are written in some script I

 can't read?"

 "Absolutely. So there's no way you can take notes without

 my help."

 Minerva took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. There

 certainly is. I can write down what I remember, and then I

 can think about all this a bit."

 The cheymat cast a covert glance up at a crystal sphere

 perched atop one of the bookcases. The sphere glowed with

 a soft, pale pink-white light. Minerva was surprised she

 hadn't noticed it before. She was pretty sure the entire room

 had been dark the first time she'd walked in—she should

 have seen something that glowed. Then Talleos frowned.

 and quickly turned back to her. "Why don't you Just stay in

 here and I'll go over the material again with you—and you

 can take all the notes you like."

 "I need to get out of this house for a while," Minerva

 snaried at him.

 He assumed an air of indifference. "Fine. Ignore my

 help. Go take notes outside with the tourists if you want. It's

 your children that are missing, and I'm die only one who can

 help you get diem back." He crossed his arms over his chest

 and glared at her. "Don't let the tourists take your holo,

 MINERVA WAKES

 125

 though, or—mind what I say—your presence here will get

 back to the Weirds. And if they find out you're here, you're

 doomed." He smiled again, then, tighdipped—as if that idea

 appealed to him. "Just a thought."

 She clenched her teeth. "I'll keep it in mind."

 Minerva stomped through die house and out the front

 door, walking as fast as she could without actually breaking

 into a run. She wanted to get as far away from the cheymat as

 she could, before she did or said something stupid, and he

 refused to help her. Still—Sex magic, my ass, she thought,

 furious. He's just trying to take advantage of me because I'm

 desperate to get my kids back. And he's making up all the rest

 of this because J won't bump and grind with him.

 At least, she hoped diat was die case.

 The cheymafs house was surrounded by old-growth

 forest. Even in daylight, it was an eerie place. Huge, gnaried

 trees brooded beside the rustic log cabin, making way in

 spots for a narrow beam of sunlight to break dirough. One of

 the forest giants had fallen nearby. There, late afternoon

 sunlight streamed to die ground and illuminated the

 understory plants. Small conifers and frail-looidng deciduous

 trees took advantage of die rare opportunity and grew with

 urgent profusion. The ground bloomed with a caipet of

 autumn flowers. Vines clambered up die trunks of die trees

 nearby, racing for die sun. Minerva knew die plants that

 reached die upper story first would crowd out the rest and

 kill them. Hard to diink of such a pretty place being die site

 oflife-and-death struggle.

 She walked over to the faBen tree, picked up a stick, and

 smacked it on die tmnk a few times. The she ran the stick

 under the trunk along the part of the tree where she

 intended to sit. She flushed out a little shiny blue birdlike

 creature, but no snakes. For Minerva, the snakes were the

 big diing. She knew intellectually diat they weren't slimy—

 but they looked slimy—and diey made her skin crawl. She

 didn't know if tilis world had snakes, but she didn't want to

 discover it did by sitting on one.

 She perched on die rough trunk and looked around her.

 No tourists anywhere that she could see. Pine. So most

 126                   Holly Lisfc

 likely Talleos was exaggerating the problem. She couldnt

 imagine tourists coming to such an out-of-the-way place,

 anyhow. She spread out a piece of the vellum, and one of the

 pencils, and started to take notes.

 It seemed a shame to waste the smooth, creamy vellum

 on anything as dreary as notes. The material cried out for

 calligraphy, or an egg tempera illumination, or even a sketch

 of the woods. Not scrawled notes on the position in which

 one had to hold one's hands when invoking the first name of

 God.

 Could all of that complicated rigmarole be necessary?

 And if it was, how could anyone have expected her to come

 across it herself? It wasn't the sort of thing that just sprang

 to mind fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus.

 She wrote, Maffc Using The First Name Of Cod.

 She stared at the white sheet for a moment, then under-

 lined her header-

 Number 1—The first name of God is ...

 What was me first name of God? She couldn't remember.

 Something long and complicated—

 She doodled along the edge of the paper, trying to think

 of it Oh, wefl—on to the next point.

 Ritual for wwoking the name of God.

 She could remember a bit more of that one. Something

 about Face in the first direction, which is east. and deanse

 the first direction—

 And then, she recafled. there had been some phrase in a

 foreign language, that had to be said exactly right—she

 couldn't remember it at all.

 And after that, hadn't Talleos said something about doing

 a separate ritual for each of the four directions?

 She doodled some more. She sketched one of the little

 flowers in front of her, filling in the delicate curves of the

 five petals with tight strokes from a chalky, rust-colored

 crayon. She did an overlay of pink, then smudged the petals

 with her finger to try to match the texture. The vellum made

 a perfect surface; and under her steady hand, the flower

 seemed to burst into life on the page. Delighted, she laid

 down the background lines of the rest of die plant with

 MINERVA WAKES            127

 nearly invisible pencil strokes, and sketched in some of the

 fallen leaves that formed its foreground. She didn't have any

 green with her—just the pink and the rust and a few other

 shades of browns and black- She chose a limited-palette

 approach. She'd always liked the feet of the world seen

 through a filtered lens—and to her, the limited palette cre-

 ated that effect.

 The sunshine beat down on her shoulders, a delicious hot

 contrast to the cool breeze. The air smelled rich and pun-

 gent, redolent of rotting wood and leaves and fertile, dark,

 damp earth. She breathed deeply, and let the wind rustling

 through the forest canopy and the distant sounds of running

 water soothe her.

 As the sketch progressed, she felt herself recapturing

 some of her self-confidence. Drawing had always done that

 for her. Her area of expertise, she thought, and grinned- The

 cheymat and his attempts to lure her into sex magic seemed

 less threatening at that moment. He was aione—the last of

 his land, unless he should somehow find another cheymat.

 She tried to imagine being the last human—and decided if

 she found herself in such an awful predicament, she might

 be just as pushy and obnoxious and desperate as he was.

 Not that she had any intention of doing what he hoped

 she would. She was willing to be understanding. And she

 would go a long way out of piiy—but not that far.

 Minerva kept drawing; and while she sketched, she con-

 sidered what she knew of the nature of magic. Magic wasn't

 impossible. That she was in this bizarre situation was proof

 of that. Since it was possible, she would leam to use it. She

 would find a way to understand the forces she needed to

 control—if moving galaxies was what she had to do to save

 her children and get back home, then she would learn how

 to move galaxies. Wth a grin, Minerva reflected that she'd

 always believed she could do anything she put her mind

 to—the time had come to put her faith to the test. But no

 more letting Talleos upset her—no letting him get her goat,

 she thought, and giggled. She decided she'd use the "get her

 goat" line on him. That ought to annoy him.

 The drawing seemed to take on form and design without

 128 Holly Lisle

 conscious effort on her part. For her, artwork had always

 been like that—a sort of communion between her and her

 materials; a joint effort to bring forth out of wood pulp and

 ground pigments and wax a new entity; an object able to

 convey an emotion, or a concept—or a sense of passion.

 Minerva noted a space in the background of her picture

 that seemed to cry out for more detail. She studied the shad-

 ows and shapes already there, then sketched in a cat peering

 from beneath the vines—and wistfully, she made the cat into

 Murp. Broad-faced, round-eyed, and orange tabby-striped,

 with a white blaze down his nose, white bib and white feet,

 Bame/s cat grew out of her memory until he stared back at

 her from the page.

 She got a lump in her throat, and closed her eyes, and

 gripped the crayon so hard it snapped in her hand. She

 could see that horrible blue light again, and Bamey with

 Murp tucked under his arm, running toward her—toward

 what he thought was safety. 1 should have been able to save

 him, she thought. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. A mom

 should be able to save her children, damnut. The universe

 shouldn't give you kids and then take them away. She

 dropped the crayon fragments and her drawing and sobbed,

 burying her face in her hands.

 "Mrm-m-p?"

 A furry head shoved against the back of her arm and

 rubbed along her back. Her eyes flew open. A cat. she

 thought, while her heart raced- Jesus Christ, what a weird

 coincidence.

 "MrrmTrp?"

 She turned around, and when she saw the cat on the log,

 began to shiver. Bizarre coincidence. It was a big orange

 beast with white markings—and bright yellow eyes . . .

 .. . just like Murp.

 Can't be. Murp vanished with Bamey.

 She reached out a trembling hand and scratched the cat

 under the chin. He butted his head against her hand and

 closed his eyes and purred like a chainsaw.

 "Murp?" she whispered. The cat chirruped.

 Cautiously, because Murp loved to be poked up and

 MINERVA WAKES            129

 cradled—but plenty of cats took offense at that sort of han-

 dling—she picked the cat up. He flung his head back into

 the crook other arm and sprawled, all four legs sticking up

 in the air, and the volume of his purring doubled.

 Jesus Christ. She was shaking so badly she was afraid she

 might drop him. She rolled him against her chest so she

 could get a good look at his left hind leg. It couldn't be

 Murp. But Minerva would be able to tell easily enough.

 Murp had a white stripe that ran completely across his left

 flank high up—sort of a racing stnpe.

 So did this cat.

 "Murp!"

 "Row-w-w-wr." Murp always spoke when spoken to.

 She sat on the log, scratching the cat's belly, snuggling

 him as close as she could. The questions raced through her

 mind. Where had he come from? How? How?

 She looked at the drawing, lying on the ground at her

 feet—the drawing of Murp. Perhaps it was not a coinci-

 dence, after all- Still holding Murp close to her chest, she

 walked to the bit of underbrush where she had drawn the

 cat. Perhaps she could see pawprints—if Murp had walked

 through that precise spot, she would write off chance occur-

 rence completely.

 But there were only more leaves under the vines. Not

 pawprints—no conclusive proof.

 And then she thought—If I drew the kids, would they

 come here?

 She ran back to the fallen tree, the cat still cradled in her

 arms, and put him down to pick up the art supplies. "Oh,

 Murp," she whispered, "could it be this simple?"

 She sketched—closing her eyes from time to time to

 bring each little face before her. It was so hard, so very, very

 difficult, to get the features fixed in her mind—for she never

 saw her children as faces with fixed features, as having noses

 of a particular length, or eyes with the eyelid creased at a

 specific angle, with the shadows falling just so over soft,

 smooth, freckled skin. She thought of them as movement, as

 voices, as personalities; fragile as sunbeams, transient as

 hope, always changing. How could she draw that?

 130 Holly Lisle

 But she drove herself to remember the exact line of each

 jaw, the precise curve of each mouth—and she could hear

 their voices in her memory as she worked, and remember

 their hands in hers, slight and fragile.

 "Mommy? ..." a voice whispered into the gentle breeze,

 so faint Minerva first believed she'd imagined it.

 "Bamey?" she answered. Her voice caught in the lump in

 her throat. "Bamey, where are you?" She looked around her

 wildly.

 'The bad man has us," Carol said- "He won't let us go,

 Mommy." Her words were no louder than the rustling of

 leaves.

 Then Minerva made out three faint shapes—ghosts

 standing in front of her in the clearing—and she fought to

 hold in a scream. Bamey and Carol and Jamie stood only

 inches away, insubstantial as shadows. She reached out a

 hand to touch them, willing them to her with all her heart.

 "Come get us, Mommy," Bamey whispered.

 "Please, Mom. Please don't let this guy have us," Jamie

 pleaded.

 T'U be there as fast as I can," Minerva said, and then the

 children were gone as if they'd been erased, and something

 dark and towering replaced them.

 "So you are here," the huge shadow said. Its voice encom-

 passed the horrors of her nightmares and made them all

 real- "How convenient."

 Then it, too, vanished. Minerva became aware that beside

 her, Murp hissed, the fur on his back and tail standing

 straight out, his ears pressed flat against his skull.

 The Unweaver

 She reached out and stroked the cat. "We're going to get

 them back, Murp," she said. Her voice trembled- "We're

 going to stop him. too. I'll figure out how this all works."

 Darryl finished replacing the window in the boys' room

 and looked out across his backyard at die last scattered col-

 ors of sunset. Birkwelch sat on Jamie's bed, picking up and

 putting down toys He was uncharacteristically quiet-

 "I'm tired. I'll paint it later," Darryl said, and leaned

 MINERVA WAKES            131

 against the wall. "After I get Minerva and the kids back. I

 just wanted to get the hole fixed so the room would be ready

 for them."

 The dragon stretched out on the bed and started running

 a toy truck up and down his scaled belly. Things might not

 work out that way, Darryl, old pal."

 "I'll get her back." Darryl tightened his grip on the putty

 knife. "She'll learn whatever she needs to know. You'd be

 surprised at how talented she is. She's a wonderful arnst, and

 she's smart—"

 The dragon put down the truck and picked up a G.I. Joe.

 "She's going up against the Unweaver. And you aren't doing

 anything to help her. She may not survive—and if she

 doesn't, you won't and your kids won't."

 Darryl said, "What am I supposed to be doing to help

 her? What can I do from here?"

 The dragon sat up again. "Where you are doesn't matter.

 The two of you are linked by the rings. You want to know

 what you can do? I'll tell you. You can believe in Minerva—

 and just as important, you can believe in yourself. What

 matters in this fight is your faith in the value of life, your

 conviction, your ability to cany on. You are fighting the mas-

 ter of chaos and discord and despair. You fight him with

 courage and determination, and by setting goals and winning

 through to them, no matter what the cost."

 Be a Boy Scout, save aB, of space and time, Darryl

 thought That sounds very nonspecific. Can't I do magic,

 too?"

 The dragon didn't meet his eyes. There are complica-

 tions. In life, you get to set your own goals. Your problem is

 you gave up on them when things got too hard." The dragon

 licked at his teeth with his forked tongue and blew a gentle

 puff of smoke into the cold room. "You didn't want them

 enough. You didn't care enough. And even that wouldn't

 have mattered—most people flush their dreams down the

 toilet when reality sets in. Except you and Minerva had the

 rin^. When the two of you got disillusioned and gave up

 hope, bits and pieces of the Universes gave up with you—

 and the Unweaver got his edge- You sold your dreams for

 132 HoUy Lide

 easy jobs you didn't care about. For a bigger house sooner.

 For safety. You sold your dreams far too cheaply."

 "You're telling me time and space depended on whether

 I became a successful playwright? On whether Minerva sold

 her paintings? The survival of the Universes depended on

 two kids' ability to make their pie-in-the-sky daydreams

 come true?"

 Bilkwelch stared at him and said nothing.

 "That's a stupid way to run things."

 "Not when it works." Birkwelch put down the toy

 soldier and picked up a stuffed rabbit. He looked at Danyl

 and said softly, "If you want something—and believe in

 what you want—you can overcome every obstacle. You can

 do anything."

 Darryi was surprised. Birkweich, at that moment, was not

 his usual loutish self. He seemed to really believe irf what he

 was saying- "Uke getting my wife and lads back?" Darryi

 asked.

 "That is what you now desire most of all? Your dreams

 have changed," the dragon murmured, almost to himself.

 "Ah, well."

 Downstairs, someone knocked—a firm, authoritative

 knock. Danyi headed for the stairs.

 "You dont want to get that," Birkwelch said-

 "It can't be Cindy again."

 The Weird? No. Not so soon." The dragon watched him,

 eyes narrowed. "Worse than her, I'd guess."

 Worse than Cindy, the cheap thrill from hell? He peeked

 out the window at the top of the stairs. He could see the

 landing below, stained yellow by the porch lamp. Two police

 officers stood in the puddle of light, one of them studying

 die line of footprints Birkweich had left in the snow.

 Danyl glared at the dragon. "So much for portents and

 mysteries," he snapped. He shouted, "Be right there," and

 ran down the stairs two at a time.

 Believe and want. and the Weavers' rings will make it

 real, he thought. Fine. I believe the police found the kids,

 and all three of them are all right, and will be home soon. 1

 believe this whole disaster with Minerva was a mistake, and

 MINERVA WAKES            133

 something will work out. ami there won't be any funeral

 tomorrow.

 He threw the door open and stood panting. "Have you

 found them? Won't you come in?"

 The police officers came in. Their faces were solemn.

 The older officer said, "I'm Lieutenant Sandow This is

 Sergeant Tomay. He asked to come along."

 It's going to be okay, Danyl thought. I believe. I believe.

 I can make it okay if I only believe.

 "Please have a seat, Mr. Kiakra," Lt. P. Sandow said-

 The other man nodded. They waited until Danyl walked

 into the living room and sat in the big wing-backed chair.

 The news is bad. A couple on the other side of town

 found your children," Sandow nibbed the thumb of one

 hand against the index finger of the other. He looked miser-

 able, Danyl thought. "When they arrived home from their

 vacation in Florida, they discovered a window in the top

 floor of their house had been blown in, but in exactly the

 same manner as yours was blown out."

 Sandow stared off into the distance. Tomay studied his

 shoes.

 Danyl gripped the arms of the chair. His heart thudded-

 7 believe they're safe. J believe they're alive. They're going to

 be coming home any time now. "Where are my Idds?" he

 asked.

 "We found all three of them with a cat in the upstairs

 room." Sandow took a deep breath. Danyl could see the

 man swallow hard, could see the brightness of welling tears

 in his eyes. "None of them survived, sir," the officer said

 softly.

 Danyl froze in the chair. No, he thought. No. If I believe

 hard enough, they'll be fine.

 That can't be," he said- "They have to be alive."

 Tomay, who hadn't said anything until then, spoke. "I

 understand what you're feeling. I lost my little girl last year

 to cancer. When the doctor told me she was gone, I knew

 he had to be wrong. She was so young, and so brave—and

 I knew that she was going to get better. But she didn't. That's

 why I asked to come along to get you. I thought maybe it

 134 Holly Lisle

 would help if you had someone with you who knew what it

 was like to lose a child."

 Darryl's throat ached, and his eyes and nose burned. He

 couldn't breathe. "How can they all be gone? My wife, my

 lads—the/re all I have. They can't be dead. I have to have

 something left. I have to." He gripped the arms of the chair

 so hard his fingers went numb. This is a dream."

 "I wish it were," Tomay said-

 Sandow said, "We do need you to come to the hospital

 and identify them. I'm terribly sony. I wish there were some

 other way—"

 "I want to see them," Danyl said. The/re my children.

 Goddammit, I want to see them. I want to say goodbye."

 Tears ran down his cheeks. "Let me get my coat." He

 stopped in front of the coat closet. "I don't know that I can

 drive myself," he said.

 "No, sir." Tomay went to the front door. "We wouldn't ask

 you to. We'll drive you there, and bring you back. Would you

 like to call your family before we leave?"

 The family. Her parents. My parents. Oh. God, what am

 I going to tell them?

 "No. I can't talk to them yet. Let's just go."

 No one talked on the ride to the hospital. The officers

 didn't take him to the emergency room. This time the nurs-

 ing supervisor met them at the back door of the hospital and

 led them all to the morgue.

 Darryl dragged through the horror that followed as if

 someone else had control of his body The calm other person

 answered questions and gave information, and all the while,

 the real Darryl inside wept and screamed and raged, and his

 heart shredded into ribbons. He could comprehend only

 pieces of the whole picture—the rows of aluminium refrig-

 erators, the coldness of the room, and his children, slid out

 on flat aluminium trays and shown to him one by one. He

 felt himself fading inside, felt a part of himself dying—and

 when the three men walked away from the hospital to get

 into the police car, Danyl knew he'd left every bit of himself

 that mattered behind. The shreds of him that remained had

 no value, to himself or anyone else.

 MINERVA WAKES            135

 "You need to call your parents," Tomay said. "Have them

 stay with you tonight. I remember those first few days. You

 shouldn't be alone."

 They went into the house with him. Danyl wanted them

 to leave. He had no intention of calling his parents. They

 would only try to stop him. He had decided on the way

 home that he knew what he had to do. It was the only solu-

 tion, really.

 But the officers weren't taking any chances. Sandcw fixed

 him a cup of coffee. Tomay called his parents' house when

 he refused to do it and asked them to come over. Both

 waited until the older Kiakras arrived, gave them the news,

 and directed them to Danyl, who sat unmoving in his wing-

 back chair.

 Jtist like busybody smaU-town cops, he thought, to keep a

 •man from lolling himself. But his parents wouldn't be baby-

 sitting him forever.

 He went into the bathroom. His father followed him to

 the door. Tm going to take a leak," he told his dad, and his

 dad just nodded.

 That policeman told me what he went through. So I'm

 going to wait right here and break the door down if you

 aren't out of there in three minutes."

 Darryl looked at his father's ashen, tearstained face-

 Tine, Dad. I'll be out in three minutes."

 He looked into the medicine cabinet when he was

 done—just a quick survey. But it was empty. No good.

 Minerva was in the mirror. Vou're dead. he told her

 silently- You are dead. Cone. They're going to bury you

 tomorrow, and the kids in a couple of days. And I'm coming

 with you. I'm not staying here by myself. I tried hope and

 faith and wiU. and they were all so much buHshft. So that's

 it. I quit.

 She couldn't hear him, even if he talked to her out loud.

 He couldn't touch her. She wasn't real. She was just a pic-

 ture. He'd lost the real Minerva, and his kids, and his life,

 the moment he decided to walk away from what he knew

 was right. And not all the hope and faith and will and dreams

 in the world could make that kind of wrong right.

 136 Holly Lisle

 He came out of the bathroom and found his dad getting

 ready to kick the door down. "I forgot to synchronize my

 watch, Dad," Danyl snapped. He walked past his father, into

 the living room. His mother sat there, crying and carrying

 on. Dany) couldn't speak to her. He couldn't look at her, or

 at his father. He walked past them into the Idtchen to get

 himself a beer, then stomped up the stairs, past the kids'

 rooms and into his own. He lay down on his bed, sipped his

 beer, and stared at the ceiling.

 His father followed him into the room.

 "I'm going to sleep, Dad."

 His father nodded. That isn't a bad idea. I'm going to sit

 here and keep you company."

 "No!" Darryl clenched his fists. He wanted to scream. "I

 want to be alone."

 His father sat in the chair next to the nightstand. "And I

 don't want to lose my son."

 "Dad—" Danyl felt himself losing control. °I can't sleep

 with you staring at me. And I have to get some steep."

 Something of his desperation got through to his father.

 The older Kiakra stood, and took a pillow from Danyt's bed,

 and walked to the doorway "Leave it open. I intend to sleep

 in the hall."

 "Great," Danyi muttered. But that was better than having

 his father standing watch over him.

 No sooner had his father moved out of sight than Birk-

 welch materialized- "It isn't over, Darryl," he said. "You

 haven't lost yet."

 Darryl raised his head off the pillow and looked at the

 dragon in disbelief. He kept his voice low. "It's over, Mary

 Poppins. I'm just waiting for my parents to get out of my

 house so I can get the rope and hang myself from the bal-

 cony without interruption."

 "You can't kill yourself," the dragon said.

 "Why? Because the universe is counting on me?"

 "Yes."

 "Well, screw the universe." Danyi put his beer on the

 nightstand and turned his back to the dragon. "If the universe

 wanted my help, it shouldn't have lolled my wife and lads."

 MINERVA WAKES            137

 "You can still get diem back." The dragon moved around

 die bed to stand in front of Danyl again.

 "Go screw yourself, dragon. I've listened to your stories

 long enough. I'm not listening anymore. This is the end-

 Game over. Find somebody else—or bettor yet, just let the

 whole universe go up in a puff of smoke."

 "Let everybody cease to exist—husbands and wives and

 children, grandparents, newbom babies? All of them, Dar-

 ryl? When you could save them all, and your own family.

 too?"

 Danyl turned and glared at Birkwelch, then chugged the

 rest of his beer. Silently he lay back and closed his eyes and

 crossed his arms over his chest.

 He wouldn't digniiy the dragon's wheedling with an

 answer.

 Bamey glowered at his brother. "I don't want lasagna. I

 want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I will make a

 peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

 "That's stupid You can have anything you want.

 Anything."

 "Yes. And I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

 "I want pizza." Carol said. "With pepperoni and black

 olives."

 "Okay," Barney said, "How many slices?"

 Two. No—diree. And Cheeiwine."

 Bamey made them for her. He didn't get tired making

 food. Food was just little stuff, he thought. Badirooms were

 much bigger. He was going to have to see about one ofmose

 pretty soon, too. But first, dinner-

 For himself, he created a tall glass of very chocolatey

 chocolate milk, the way his modier would not let him have

 it—so much chocolate there was still a layer of syrup down

 at the bottom when he was done. Then a peanut butter and

 jelly sandwich—smooth peanut butter, so much grape jelly it

 squished out the sides when he picked it up, and white

 bread. The right way to make one, he thought-

 He took a bite of it and closed his eyes. It was perfect.

 "What about me?" Jamie said-

 138 Holly Lisle

 "You are mean and bossy," Bamey answered.

 "What are you going to make for me? I'm hungry, too."

 Jamie might have been hungry, but he'd also yelled at

 Bamey for creating the door so it opened where the

 Unweaver could get them. And Jamie had called him

 "stupid."

 Jamie stunk like a skunk.

 "I want lasagna," Jamie said. "And a banana split with

 three kinds of ice cream and hot fudge sauce and whipped

 cream. And nuts."

 Bamey nibbled his perfect sandwich, and sipped his per-

 fect chocolate milk, and thought of appropriate foods for a

 stinly person. He considered that boiled cabbage stuff his

 mom made. It was pretty disgusting—land of gray and slimy.

 It looked like the sort of thing that would glop out of the

 bowl when you weren't looking and come after you.

 Or maybe liver. liver would be good for a fink—it was

 fink food.

 Then he thought of the perfect food. He'd never

 actually tasted them, but he'd seen them on a pizza his dad

 had eaten. They smelted terrible and they were gray and

 slimy like boiled cabbage, but they still had heads. Stinky

 fish. Yes. A big plateful of little stinky fish would be

 perfect.

 He materialized them on the squishy floor of their cage,

 right in front of Jamie, then took another bite of his sand-

 wich, and washed it down with his lovely milk.

 "Hey!" Jamie yelled. This isn't lasagna. This is—

 eeuwww! This is anchovies."

 "Yes. Stinky fish."

 "I don't want anchovies—"

 "You have been mean to me. Mean and rotten and

 stinky—so that's what you get." He took the next to last bite

 of the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and consid-

 ered what would make a lovely desert. Vanilla ice cream, he

 thought. Yes. That would be lovely. Perhaps with potato

 chips on top.

 Jamie's face got red, and he started to yell. Then he

 stopped. He looked at Bamey with a serious expression. He

 MINERVA WAKES            139

 studied die pile of dead fish in front of him, and watched

 Bamey eat his last bite of sandwich.

 Bamey smiled with his mouth open, displaying chewed

 food.

 "Oh, gross," Carol said, and turned away.

 Jamie didn't say anything. He just sat there, looking from

 Bamey to the anchovies.

 He took a deep breath. He let it out

 Bamey waited.

 Jamie squinched up his eyes like his stomach hurt. "I'm

 sony I was mean to you, and I'm sony I yelled at you."

 Bamey kept waiting. He'd learned from his big brother

 never to accept the first apology, or the first "uncle."

 Jamie sat there for a long moment, eyeing the anchovies.

 He sighed again. "And I won't yell at you anymore."

 Bamey nodded and crossed his arms over his chest,

 Jamie's mouth opened to protest. He closed it again and

 looked at the anchovies. "Okay. What else?"

 "You won't call me names—"

 "I won't caD you names—"

 "And you'll make my bed—"

 "Make your bed!" He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll make

 your bed."

 Bamey smiled, serene and content. "And you'll let me

 play with your soldiers."

 "No!" Jamie yelled. "No! I won't."

 "Stinky fish," Bamey said. He saw Jamie swallow. His big

 brother closed his eyes and chewed his lower Up.

 "Okay. You can play with my soldiers. As long as you dont

 break 'em."

 Bamey made the anchovies go away. "What do you

 want?"

 "Lasagna."

 He made the lasagna, and his own ice cream treat, and

 leaned against the upcurving cage wall to eat it. He felt

 deeply and wonderfully happy.

 "We need to get out of here," Carol said.

 Jamie wasn't talking. He ate his food in gloomy silence.

 Served him right, Bamey thought.

 140 Holly Lisle

 The Unweebil's monsters are right outside of here,"

 Bamey said. "If I make a door, they'll come in and eat us."

 "You're sure they're out there?" Carol asked.

 "Yes." He nibbled on the ice cream. The potato chips were

 very nice, too—and his mother couldn't yell at him for

 putting them on top. "I can, um, hear them. They're hungry."

 "Bet you could give them the anchovies," Jamie muttered.

 Bamey considered that. Anchovies were probably the sort

 of thing monsters liked. Well, monsters and fathers. He con-

 centrated, and made a big pile of them where he sensed the

 monsters waiting. He made the dead fish as smelly and slimy

 as he could. Then he closed his eyes and listened.

 He sensed the monsters' tremendous delight Yep. It fig-

 ured. "They do like stinky fish," he said.

 Then you can make them so much anchovies, they won't

 eat us when we go out," Carol said.

 Bamey thought that idea was unsound. He figured mon-

 sters would rather eat nice juicy little kids than stinky fish

 any day.

 "Mommy and Murp are coming to get us," Bamey said.

 "She told us she would."

 "What if the Unweaver eats us first? Or kills us, and cuts

 our heads off and chops us into little tiny pieces?" Carol

 asked.

 "Boy, you're cheerful," Jamie said. "But you're right. We

 should get out of here. You know what would be cool?" he

 continued. "I read this story where there was a house with

 doors that opened to all these different places. Like, one

 door opened in the mountains, and one opened at the

 beach, and one opened on a whole 'nother planet. It would

 be cool if you could make a door that took us home."

 Bamey thought about that, and concentrated on it. No

 matter how hard he squeezed his eyes closed, and how hard

 he thought about home. he could not make the magic in his

 head reach out to touch home. He tried nearer—tried to

 reach his mother. She was too far. too, though he could feel

 her coming. "No," he said at last. "I can't take us home. It's

 too far."

 Jamie looked disappointed. Too bad. I want to go home."

 MINERVA WAKES            141

 Carol nodded. "Me, too. But I want out of here, too. Tm

 afraid of the Unweaver,"

 "I can vision the door, though. I can take us toward

 Mommy."

 "How far?"

 "Pretty far."

 "What about the Unweaver?" Jamie asked. "What's he

 doing?"

 Bamey reached out with his thoughts and felt around for

 the Unweebil's nasty, icky mind. He found it, and cautiously

 touched it.

 The Unweebil's mind was lonely, and full of ugliness and

 hate. It was also concentrating on something besides chil-

 dren—something far away.

 Bamey pulled back. "He's busy right now. He's paying

 tension to something else."

 "Attention," Carol corrected.

 That's what I said."

 Jamie frowned at Carol. "If he's not watching us, we

 should go now."

 "Okay." Bamey thought for a moment. "I will vision a

 door, and the other side of the door will be far away."

 "How far?" Jamie wanted to know.

 "I don't know." Bamey shrugged. "Far. Then I will vision

 locking all the doors here, so the Unweebil can't get out.

 And then I will vision a monster to eat the Unweebil."

 Jamie said. That's pretty good. But I think you should

 make armies to flank the Unweaver on both sides, and cut

 off his supply tenes, and have a siege."

 Bamey glared at his brother. Easy for him to say—Jamie

 couldn't do any magic. "You can vision that. I'U vision the

 monster."

 Jamie shut up.

 Bamey thought of one other thing he needed. He closed

 his eyes and saw a bright red, shiny wagon—a special wagon.

 It had a blanket and a fluffy pillow inside, and guns that

 stuck out from the side like the guns on his Turtle car. These

 guns, though, shot sleep darts. So if I shoot them, the bod

 guys wiU sleep for twelve orfcnir hours or years.

 142 Holly Lisle

 The wagon appeared in front of him, built out of nothing

 by the tiny firefly lights-

 "What's that for?" Carol asked.

 "Because magic makes me sleepy. After I make the door,

 you guys can pull me."

 Bamey closed his eyes again for just an instant, to fix the

 special door in his mind. Then he looked at the squishy,

 curved wall of his cage and started the little magic fireflies

 to work on the door to someplace else.

 CHAPTER 8

 Murp was perfectly willing to be smuggled into Minerva's

 room inside her baggy peasant blouse—but then, Murp had

 always been amenable to weird and un-catlike games. Thank

 God, she thought If die cat were any less mellow, the task

 would have been impossible.

 Minerva didn't know why she felt it so important to sneak

 the animal past the cheymat. Probably paranoia, she

 thought. No doubt he would be delighted to discover she'd

 learned to use her magic.

 Nevertheless, she didn't want to deal with his reactions at

 the moment, positive or otherwise.

 She heard die cheymat banging around in the kitchen as

 soon as she entered the house. The smell of somediing won-

 derful filled the air. She trotted straight to her room,

 dumped Murp and the art supplies, and went out, carefully

 closing the door behind her. Then she went looking for her

 host.

 Talleos' face, when he turned from the stove to greet her,

 displayed wariness for the briefest of instants—wariness cov-

 ered over almost immediateiy by charm and a sort of

 amused superiority.

 "You took your sweet time getting back. Those woods

 aren't safe at night, you know." He arched an eyebrow.

 "Wouldn't want anything happening to my prize pupil. So—

 how did the note-taking go?" be asked.

 143

 144

 Holly Ltsle

 "Awful," she said with blunt honesty "I couldn't remem-

 ber a thing you said." She smiled at him. "I'm sony I lost my

 temper with you. I did feel better, though, once I got out of

 the house for a while." There. Not a single lie in the whole

 spiel.

 She caught just a glimpse of smugness in his smile before

 he turned away. "Magic can be a frustrating study—so com-

 plicated and fill! of rules and formulas." He speared the

 meat on the grill and flipped it deftly, then sprinkled bright

 red powder over it. "Anything interesting happen while you

 were out there?"

 He asked offhandedly—but Minerva's nerves jangled.

 "No," she lied, and smiled with the same easy cheerful-

 ness Talleos displayed. "I didn't even see any tourists." She

 didn't understand why she was lying. If she told him she'd

 found her magic, maybe he could help her understand its

 use, or direct her in plotting against the Unweaver—after

 her dream, she felt sure it was the Unweaver who had her

 tdds.

 But something would not let her say.

 "It isn't the tourists you see that you usually have to worry

 about. Oh, well." He shrugged, and smiled over his shoulder

 at her. "No matter. I didn't think the note-taking idea was

 very good anyway. You're just going to have to work with me,

 the way you did today. The master/apprentice relationship is

 the only one that really works with magic."

 Minerva nodded, and kept her big news to herself. "How

 long do you think it will take before I'll be able to rescue my

 lads?"

 The cheymat sighed, and tossed a few vegetable slices

 onto the grill, where they sizried noisily. "Mineiva, I under-

 stand your worry for your children—but in order to help

 them, you are going to have to focus on something else. If

 you're constantly worrying about them, how will you be able

 to achieve the level of concentration magic requires?"

 Minerva shook her head slowly and let herself look dis-

 tressed. Play along with him. Find out what his goals are,

 she told herself. "I don't know." She held out her hands,

 palms up. "I suppose you're right—so what do you suggest?"

 MINERVA WAKES

 145

 He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he filled a plate

 and handed it to her. "We can talk better sitting down." he

 suggested. But once they were seated, he seemed more

 interested in eating than in talking.

 Minerva let the subject drop until they'd both finished,

 then brought it up again.

 "I hate to distress you, Minerva," the cheymat said. His

 expression became grave. "But from what I saw today, you

 have very little potential for magic at all. The Weirds might

 have been right in wanting to replace you with someone

 more talented. I won't let them now—I'm committed to

 helping you—besides, I like you. But I'm afraid this whole

 business is going to take a long time. It could be months—

 perhaps even years—before you're at a point where you will

 be able to take on the Unweaver."

 Minerva made what she hoped was a chastened face,

 while inside she boiled. She hid her anger, and asked, "How

 can you tell? What do you look for?"

 Talleos leaned back on his chair and laced his fingers

 behind his head. "Magic is an art," he said. 'The ability to

 remember long, complex formulas and the sequence of

 body movements that go with them generally indicate one's

 predisposition to the craft. You couldn't even remember the

 first name of God—and that's the shortest and simplest of

 them."

 "But you said none of that was necessary for sex magic. So

 why is it necessary at all? If magic is an art, why cant it be

 art? I'm an artist."

 He frowned—then his face brightened again. "Ah. I see.

 I was unintentionally misleading. The only reason you

 wouldn't need to memorize the formulas and other details

 necessary would be because your partner, in this case me,

 would already know them." His smile became conde-

 scending. "And as for magic being art—how silly. That's just

 like saying music could be science, or mathematics could be

 botany."

 "Of course," she said. That makes sense."

 He smiled. That's just the way these things work." He

 shrugged gracefully. "We can really make some progress if

 146 Holly Lisle

 you want to take that route. Of course," he arched an

 eyebrow, "1 can understand your reasons for choosing not

 to."

 Minerva pressed her hands in her lap and tried to look

 humble and penitent. "Let me think about all of this," she

 said. "I can't wait months or years to see my kids again." She

 closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm going to go rest

 in my room. I'll see you tomorrow morning, okay?"

 He nodded. °I don't see any problem with that"

 Minerva went over to the stove and scooped a second

 helping from the pan onto her plate. She filled her glass with

 tap water. "Good night, then."

 He watched her, eyes narrowed. "If you're stril hungry,

 you can stay out here and keep me company."

 "I'd rather not," she answered. "At least not until I've had

 a chance to think about things. I'll just take this into my

 room and eat it there. And then I'm going to sleep. I'm

 exhausted- It's been a long, awful day—and it sounds like

 there are going to be a lot more long, awful days."

 Talleos stood, and walked toward her. "What is the mat-

 ter, Minerva?"

 Her eyes went round and she stared at him, this time

 with genuine disbelief. "You've got to be kidding." When he

 had the temerity to look puzzled, she said, "You figure it

 out." Then she hurried away before he could think of a rea-

 son to stop her.

 In her room, she fed Murp the leftovers, then opened her

 window and lifted the oilskin so that he could go out when

 he needed to. The window was big enough for her to get

 through if need be, she noticed. A bit high, but—

 She watched Murp inhaling his food and wondered how

 long it had been since he'd last eaten. She wondered if her

 kids had been with him, and if they were also hungry and

 uncared-for.

 And she wondered why Talleos had lied to her. How did

 it benefit him that she not leam magic? Why pretend that

 he wanted her to leam? Was he really working for the

 Unweaver? That seemed likely—in which case everything

 he'd told her had been a lie. Her children were alive,

 MINERVA WAKES            147

 though. She believed that—she'd seen them. And she would

 figure out how to get to them.

 She retrieved the vellum and drawing implements, and

 tried to decide what she needed and how to go about getting

 it. She stili wasn't entirely sure how the magic worked—but

 drawing what she wanted seemed integral to the process.

 She couldn't just draw her children and get them back,

 though. The Unweaver had blocked that.

 She wondered if she could draw Darryl from memory—

 then wondered if she wanted to. She missed him. She

 wished he had been with her when the nightmare started.

 But he hadn't been, and she wasn't sure she could forgive

 him for that.

 Besides, the idea of making a mistake worried her. She sat

 in the chair by the fireplace, her feet propped up on the

 hearth, trying to think of something to draw.

 The sound of a slamming door woke her, and she realized

 she was still sitting by the fireplace, and that the fire had

 almost gone out.

 "Talleos," a voice rumbled. "We need to talk."

 Minerva heard the clatter of hooves on the hardwood

 floor, moving at high speed. Then she heard the cheymat

 whisper, "What do you think you're doing here?"

 Tve got a problem."

 "We've afl got problems, pal. But if you don't get out of

 here, you might wake her up, and she'd hear you. And right

 now, everything is going just right."

 "The hell you say," the stranger's voice growled. "The

 police found the kids' bodies today, her funeral is

 tomorow—and he is about this far from offing himself.

 And wouldn't that be a hell of a mess?"

 "Good gods, Birkwelch, how could you let tiling get so out

 of hand?" The cheymat's whisper sounded desperate. "Come

 on in here if you have to talk. And keep your voice down."

 Minerva held her breath, listening for more—but the

 only sounds wens the cheymat and—Birkwelch . . . the

 dragpn?—walking through the house, and another door

 opening and shutting,

 They went into the magic room, she thought. With the

 148 HoUy Lisle

 doors between her and the two of them closed, she could

 hear nothing.

 So Talleos was hiding something. And the dragon was in on

 it—and it sounded litre things were not going too weB for

 Darryi, either. But what funeral was (he dragon talking about?

 She crept out the door and down the hall, noiseless. Her

 heart raced and her palms grew damp, but her mouth was

 desert-dry. She peeked around the end of the hall into the

 living room. Everything was dark. She slipped through the

 room, hugging die walls and staying in the deep shadows,

 and then went on through the foyer and into the library. The

 library fireplace threw darting shadows onto the books and

 made the room look uncomfortably alive. They'd closed the

 magic room door. She got right up to it, terrified she might

 be found out, and pressed her ear against smooth, cool

 wood. Still she could hear only the deep rumbling notes of

 the dragon's voice and nothing at all of Talleos.

 She laid a finger along the doorframe and rolled it for-

 ward a millimeter at a time, pressing, hoping against all hope

 the latch had not caught. But it had.

 She could have screamed with exasperation. Instead, she

 thought, How could magic help me?

 She hurried back to her room, much less careful than

 she had been on her way out, closed the door behind her,

 and wedged a chair under the knob. Then she got out her

 paper.

 She thought fast. If she drew the cheymat, perhaps she

 would be able to hear what he was saying, or perhaps he

 would appear in her room. Then the game would be up. If

 she drew the dragon, the same things might happen. Of

 course, she could do all that and have nothing at all occur.

 She wished she had a better idea of what she was doing.

 But all she really wanted was to hear what they said—

 preferably without getting caught listening. I need a big ear,

 she thought. It seemed a bit stupid, but she drew one, then

 sketched it behind the )ar of dragon bits on the shelf in the

 magic room.

 Sudden conversation surrounded her—she felt as if she

 were right in the middle of it.

 MINERVA WAKES            149

 "—but you could screw up the whole show, here, Birk-

 welch," Talleos was saying. "She's bought it all—dammit, I

 even have her about ready to believe that crap about sex

 magic. She'll do anything if she thinks it will help her rescue

 her kids."

 You miserable shit, she thought. I should have hwwn.

 "So I don't suppose you've told her that old Darryl is

 going to be burying her body tomorrow, or the bodies other

 kids in a couple of days?"

 Bun/ing my body—the kids' bodies? But I'm alive—and

 they . . . well, they have to be alive, too. I saw them—they

 have to be.

 "Hell, no, I haven't told her- She doesn't know how it

 works, and I don't want her to know. They're a lot stronger

 than we thought they'd be, you know. Look at the charge she

 put on that crystal. I sat her in the decagram and kept her

 concentrating for only a couple of hours—if I can keep her

 sitting in the middle of the decagram for another month or

 two, I'U be able to drain enough magic off her to make

 myself a few female cheymats. Then I'll be able to breed.

 There will be cheymats again—"

 "What about her mate, and her young? You have it easy

 here, Talleos. You don't have to watch her suffering, because

 she doesn't know what's happening. But her husband's been

 watching her in mirrors. He knows she's here, but he still

 believes she's dead-1 think Danyl would have killed himself

 tonight, except that I slipped nagral in his drink—it's the

 only way I dared come here."

 "He can see her in mirrors?" The cheymat sounded wor-

 ried. Then he sighed. "Oh, weD—as long as she doesn't find

 out. Just handle things. Once I've got my cheymats—and a

 couple of female dragons for you, too—we'll let them go.

 We'll tell them how the magic really works, and they can get

 their kids back and go do something else."

 She could hear the dragon snort. "You think the

 Unweaver is going to sit and wait after you've drained her

 dry? He's afraid to touch her children now—but if you drain

 her power off, you don't think he'll destroy them?"

 "Human's aren't extinct," the cheymat snapped. "We are.

 150 Holly Lisle

 You are. Magic almost is—and it's the fault of these two peo-

 ple you feel so benevolent towards. Why should I feel guilty

 for saving my own kind?"

 "They're not bad people. I still think if we taught them

 what they needed to know, then asked them, they would

 help us."

 The cheymat made a growling noise, low in his throat.

 TU help myself."

 That works both ways, Minerva thought. She raced

 around the room, throwing clothes into the duffel bag and

 looking for things she might need. She put all the pencils

 into the bag, and the vellum. She only had four plain sheets.

 She wished she'd taken more out of the magic room when

 she'd had the chance. Too late—she'd just have to draw

 small.

 She had no idea what to do to locate her children. But

 now at least she knew what not to do.

 She turned out the light and climbed out the window.

 It was only when she was on the other side that she

 remembered Murp. She hadn't seen him—and she didn't

 dare go back in.

 A furry form brushed against her leg. "Mrmrrrrp?" it

 chirruped.

 She reached down and scratched Murp's chin. "Hi, guy,"

 she whispered. "Let's get out of here while we still can."

 They set off through the woods. Above the trees, a neck-

 lace of moons beamed softly, casting faint shadows.

 "Wake up," someone whispered in his ear. "C'mon, wake

 up already. We need to get busy."

 Darryl rose through layers of sleep, muay-headed and

 muddled. "Dad?" he said, and realized his father had never

 sounded like dial Darryl sat up slowly, and the room spun

 and dipped around him. The great god of headaches ham-

 mered through his skull with railroad-spike vehemence; he

 licked his lips and found them dry. In his mouth, foul and

 furry things grew.

 "Your mom is asleep downstairs on the couch. Your dad

 is on the landing. I supped them something to, ah, help

 MINERVA WAKES

 151

 them sleep. They should stay asleep—as long as we're-

 quiet." The dragon sat on the side of the bed and it sagged

 under his weight.

 "Oh. S'you." Darryl closed his eyes and fell back onto his

 pillow. "G'way."

 "I lied to you," the dragon whispered. There is some-

 thing you can do to save your wife and your kids. Besides

 hoping and thinking good thoughts, I mean."

 "Ri-i-i-i-ight. Lied t'me before, but now you're tellin' me

 truth." Darryl pressed his hands against his forehead. He

 wasn't going to have to kill himself, he thought. He was

 going to die any minute.

 "Headache?" Birkwelch asked.

 "Plague, more likely." Darryl tried rolling over and press-

 ing his head against the cool pillow on the other side of the

 bed. It didnt help.

 That's because I gave you some of the same stuff I gave

 your mom and dad-1 had to go someplace, and I didnt want

 you laBing yourself before I got back."

 Darryl rolled back and squinted at the dragon. "You gave

 me this headache? Lovely. Deciding, no doubt, that it would

 make me doubly sure to loll myself once you got back."

 The dragon grinned at him. "Bitch, bitch, bitch. I did you

 a favor, man. Now I'm going to do you another."

 "Oh, lucky me."

 The dragon held out a glass. "Drink this."

 "Decided to finish poisoning me? Let's hope you did it

 right this time." Darryl took the glass and got the liquid

 down in one swallow—which proved to be nothing more

 than good tactics on his part. It was unutterably vile. "Ha!

 Yeggh! Shit! What is that stuff? Jesus Chri—" And then the

 headache went away. It didn't fade, it didn't weaken. It just

 went.

 "Better?" Birkwelch looked insufferably pleased with

 himself.

 Darryl sat all the way up and swung his legs off the bed.

 "For the moment. Before it comes back, why don't you tell

 me the new hes you've thought up. Since you've apparendy

 decided you didn't like the old ones."

 152 Holly Lisle

 The dragon's eyerilles flattened, and a tmy reddish light

 glowed from his nostrils. "I don't have to put up with that

 attitude from you, pal. I can leave your wife and kids stuck

 on the other side." His huge yellow eyes narrowed. "And

 without me, I don't think you'll figure out how to reach

 them."

 Darryl crossed his arms over his chest. "The way I see

 it—pal—if you didn't need me, you would have been long

 gone. So cut the bullshit."

 Birkwelch opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it.

 Then he sighed- "Let's be honest We both need each other.

 What I told you about the extinction of dragons was true.

 What I told you about magic and how it works was not." The

 dragon stopped and stared thoughtfully into space.

 Danyl told him, "Go on. I'm listening."

 "Real magic is extremely simple—but very hard to do

 well. When you pursue your dreams, your magic is positive.

 When you turn your back on them, your magic is negative."

 Danyl snorted, and sang,"... So just follow that star, no

 matter how hopeless, no matter how far."

 "That cynicism is bad juju, bud. Real black magic," the

 dragon snapped. "Lose it. If you had only pursued your

 dreams, if you had lived by your principles—if you hadn't

 stopped caring—we would never have had this mess. This is

 the thing you must remember—Weavers weave. They never

 unweave."

 The dragon blew a cloud of noxious smoke into Danyl's

 face. Danyl coughed-

 "I haven't done so badly with my life!"

 "You've done temHy\ The results suck." The dragon

 poked him in (he chest with one huge taion.

 Dany] was willing to admit his life wasn't turning out

 quite the way he'd hoped. He wasn't sure he was willing to

 take the blame for everyone else's problems. "Great. My

 fault. I didn't see anybody running along behind me. telling

 me I had to change jobs or the world would fall apart."

 The dragon rolled his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

 "Nobody told me ..." he mimidred in a falsetto voice- The

 universe doesn't work mat way. Personal responsibility. You

 MINERVA WAKES

 153

 want your life to turn out good, you gotta make it turn out

 good. You don't work for what you want, you won't get it"

 "So why are you telling me now?" Danyl leaned toward

 the dragon, frowning.

 "Because sometimes—just sometimes, pal—the universe

 gives you a second chanee."

 Danyl clasped his hands together and stared down at

 them. Second chances, personal turning points, and starting

 over—starting from the bottom again. It would be easier to

 die, he thought, than to keep trying. Easier to give up than

 to go on. Why is tt. he wondered, that the easy choices are

 always the wrong ones? He had no doubt that dying would

 be the wrong choice. Somehow, he had faith in the

 dragon—somehow he believed there was still hope. In spite

 of the lies, in spite of die pain, in spite of everything, he still

 wanted to believe.

 He turned and faced Birkwelch. "There really is a way to

 get my family back?"

 "Yes."

 "What do I need to do?"

 The dragon shrugged—or came ax close to shrugging as

 its sloping shoulders and narrow, scale-plated chest would

 allow. "You're the one with the dreams. You tell me."

 "My dreams." Danyt sighed and stared off into space. "I

 wanted to be a playwright. Broadway—maybe Europe. My

 name in lights ..." He rubbed his chin, ieeling the stubble

 with the back of his hand. "So that really was my destiny and

 I blew it, huh?"

 The dragon sighed. "Who can say?"

 "Well, that was my dream. To be a famous playwright.

 You said before that I was supposed to be a famous—"

 The dragon stood up and stretched, '^ou said that. I

 didn't say anything. I just let you assume. The magic comes

 from pursuing your dreams. Pursuing Nobody said a damn

 thing about succeeding."

 Danyl stood, too. "You mean I might not make it as a

 playwright?"

 "Yep."

 "Yep?! Yep?! Is that all you have to say?"

 154 Holly Lisle

 The dragon j^ive him a hard look. 'The magic is in the

 journey. Not the destination. You don't get guarantees."

 It was four in the morning. Minerva's funeral would be at

 one that afternoon. Darryl wondered what people would say

 if they saw him rummaging through the junk piled in

 Minerva's art room, looking for his old Selectric

 typewriter—once upon a time the best machine money

 could buy, and a Christmas gift years ago from Minerva. He

 wondered if they would think him cold and heartless, or

 merely crazy, to be thinking about writing at a time Hke dial

 He set the typewriter up in the art room. Then Birkwefch

 went slinking through the house, looking for typing paper.

 There wasn't any. The dragon finally ran out of the house

 and came back a few minutes later with a packet of die

 cheap flimsy stuff the convenience store had in stock. It

 wasn't twenty-pound bond—but Darryl wasn't typing sub-

 mission copy, either.

 He pulled up a chair, turned the machine on, and rolled

 the paper around the platen. The he glanced up at the

 dragon, who leaned against the doorframe, smoldng.

 He nodded toward the billows of smoke. "Do you mind?"

 The dragon winced. "Can't help it. Indigestion. From

 nerves, I guess."

 "Oh. Wonderful. You smell like a steel mill."

 "Probably afl the cans in my diet lately." The dragon left

 the room, stiB belching smoke, and came back carrying the

 bedroom mirror. "You might need this." He placed it so

 Darryl could see through Minerva's eyes, then closed the

 door to keep from waking his folks up.

 It was dark in her world, too. She walked through a for-

 est—huge, twisted trees leaned over her, their branches

 reaching for her. She seemed to be in a hurry. The satyr was

 nowhere to be seen. Every once in a while Minerva bent and

 touched something near the ground—Dany] strained to see

 what she was doing. FinaDy he realized she was petting a cat.

 That looks litre our cat," he said-

 Birkwelch belched out an especially large cloud of sul-

 phurous smoke, and coughed "Probably is," he said. "Eyrith

 doesn't have cats."

 MINERVA WAKES

 155

 "But the cat was with the kids—the police found it. It was

 dead." He watched a bit longer and felt some of the pain

 recede from his soul. "If the cat's alive, surely the lads are,

 too."

 "I told you they were."

 "I didn't believe you." Darryl tore his attention away from

 the mirror and back to the typewriter humming quietly on

 Minerva's sewing table. He rested his fingers lightly on the

 home row—felt the keys smooth and cool beneath the pads

 of his fingertip. Once he'd had words that seemed to wait

 in those fingers, that would pour forth when he had a chance

 to put them down. Once—long ago. But no words waited to

 spill out as he sat in the art room, with the dragon breathing

 awful fumes over his shoulder.

 "Write something," the dragon said.

 "Write what? I don't know what to write anymore."

 "Well . . ." The dragon sat on the thick forest-green car-

 pet, so that his head was only a little higher than Danyl's.

 Absently, he scratched at the back of his neck with one hind

 leg, then fidgeted to reposition his tail. His wings opened

 partially, and Birkweich shook them and settled them neatly

 across his spine. "Hmmmm. There are really two ways to go

 about this. The rig/it way, of course, is just to write the sto-

 ries that are important to you. That's the slow way, but the

 magic is safe when done chat way."

 Darryl nodded. "The other way—?"

 "is much riskier. You write the things you want to happen.

 No story. Just scenes, the way you want them to occur." The

 dragon sighed directly at him, and Darryl put his pajama

 sleeve to his nose and mouth.

 Dragonbreath. Morning breath is a rose garden by

 comparison.

 That actually seems safer to me. More likely to get me

 what I want."

 The dragon leered derisively at Darryl. "It only seems

 safer because you don't know what you're doing." The

 dragon laughed. "Direct meddling is always the shortcut to

 hell. On the other foot, I don't think you have time to do

 things right."

 156 Hotly Lisle

 Darryl cracked his knuckles and looked at the blank sheet

 of paper. "So—how do I do them wrong?"

 "Write what you want to happen—but- don't get too far

 ahead of what is going on right now. You need to give your-

 self some space for damage control. And whatever you do,

 don't create any huge logic leaps."

 "Damage control? I don't know what you mean."

 "Let's just hope you don't find out."

 Barney stepped through the door and out of the dimness

 of the cage into the darkness of true night. He locked the

 door behind him, then sent it back where it came from, and

 did the last bits of magic that trapped die Unweebil inside

 his castle and set a monster loose inside it to find and eat the

 fiend.

 Bamey had landed them on a rocky road—a darker strip

 of darkness that went straight on—seemingly toward noth-

 ing.

 Jaime was a shadow in front of him, Carol a smaller one

 beside him. The stars were out, but they were dingy and dim

 and muddy-looking; the wind that blew against his cheeks

 was hot and mil of sand.

 He had no good idea of what he wanted to travel

 toward—but what he was fleeing was clear in his mind. He

 felt its terrible weight at his back; could see, in his mind's

 eye, its sharp-clawed fingers reaching out for him. He didn't

 want to turn around, but something compelled him.

 A wall of clouds rose along the far horizon, stretching

 from the ground into the heavens, glowing with ugly, dirty

 yellow light. Lightning ripped from cloud to cloud and

 stabbed out toward him—reaching. It was reaching. Grow-

 ing. Spreading. He could feel the hatred that came from the

 place, and he could sense what that wall of cloud meant, and

 what it did. It destroyed and devoured—it took things that

 were something and made them nothing. As he watched, a

 bulge grew in the wall, and the mass of clouds churned and

 heaved—and lurched forward.

 Beside him, Jamie whispered, "Oh, man!"

 "The bad place," Barney said.

 MINERVA WAKES

 157

 "No joke. We need to keep moving," Jamie said. "We can

 use the darkness as cover and sleep during the day. That's

 what fugitives do."

 Bamey said, "I got to sleep now."

 "That's okay. You get in the wagon. Carol and I will take

 turns pulling you."

 Carol said, "I wish he could make us a car"

 "You don't know how to drive," Bamey muttered, and

 climbed into the wagon. "And Mommy said Jamie drives his

 bike so bad, he won't get to drive a car till he's thirty."

 "Hah! That's what she thinks. Six years, man—just six

 years, and I'll be sixteen. Then I'll get my hcense. and look

 out world! Vrroooomt! Scpieek! Scrreeeech! Blam! Powie!"

 "I'm not maldn' a car," Bamey said.

 Carol's voice was thoughtful. "That's prob'ly a good idea."

 Barne/s first indication that something was wrong came

 when he heard his brother whisper, "Quick! Off the road

 and hide!"

 The wagon rumbled and bounced, and he hit his head on

 the metal rim. I'll never let that hutthead eat anything hrtt

 stinky jvsh again, he thought, but his brother started shaking

 him.

 "Wake up," Jamie whispered. "There's something out

 there. It was following us, but now it's stopped."

 Bamey did wake up then. Jamie sounded really scared.

 He started to sit up, but Jamie said, "Keep down! Listen!"

 Bamey rolled out of the wagon and lay down in tall, dead,

 crunchy grass—and he listened. Out there in the darkness,

 something ... slurped. He shivered, and goosebumps made

 all the hair on his arms srand up. He heard nothing at all for

 a long, tense moment, except for the hot, dry wind that blew

 through the darkness. Then he heard the same sound again,

 but from a different direction. Definitely a slurp.

 He decided there were not many things a little Idd hated

 as much as things that went slurp in the dark.

 Jamie's and Carol's fear surrounded him like A blanket—

 and his own heart raced in tandem with theirs. Their terror

 nearly overwhelmed him; he couldn't think, he couldn't

 158

 Holly Lisle

 hear, he couldn't sense anything except the two of them

 hunkered down next to him, shivering.

 He wished they would stop being so scared—wished it

 hard- To his surprise, their fear was almost completely

 washed sway. The little bit left didn't affect him.

 He closed his eyes tight and reached out for the slurping

 things; he tried to hear them thinking. He could sense them,

 but not well. Their minds were bluny and confused—and

 sort of washed out, he thought.

 But the things weren't bad. They weren't scary. They just

 felt kind of... lost.

 Bamey stood up.

 "Are you nuts?" Jamie hissed.

 "No." Bamey climbed up the grade, onto the road, and

 stood waiting. He heard a slurp, and a squish, and looked in

 the direction of the sound. He could make out the outline

 of a lumpy form that oozed from the berm onto the road.

 He walked toward it, and it stopped.

 "Here," he said in his cat-calling voice. "Come here.

 Here, monster, monster, monster."

 Behind him, he heard Carol start to cry. Just dumb, he

 thought. Anybody could feel that these things weren't bad

 like the Unweebil.

 The thing on the road was afraid of him, but vaguely

 curious, too. It oozed toward him—squish, slurp, squish,

 slurp. He heard others like it crawling onto the road behind

 him, and saw that one which had climbed up from die side

 had gotten very dose.

 They were all afraid.

 And they wanted something—but he wasn't sure what.

 The first one reached him. He touched it—it was warm,

 but as slimy and sticky as it had sounded coming toward

 him. Kind of like a worm, he thought

 Bamey liked worms a lot,

 The worm-monster brushed agaiiirf him. It smelled

 yucky—but everything smelled yucky since the Unweebil

 stole him and Jamie and Carol from the green-eyed monsters.

 "Hi, little monster-monster," he said. It wasn't really

 litde—it was shorter than he was, but lots and lots wider. He

 MINERVA WAKES            159

 wanted it to like him, though. He patted the top of it, since

 it didn't have a head, and got sticl<y stuff all over his hands.

 "I won't hurt you," he told the worm-monster. "I'll call you

 Wormy."

 Wormy had many relatives. Bamey patted them all, and

 named them—Slimy and Squishy, Icky, Yucky, Stinky, and

 Booger. Booger was the littlest, so Bamey liked him best.

 The monsters liked having names. They liked it when he

 patted them and talked to them, too. Bamey could feel the

 beginnings of happiness in them. He still couldn't figure out

 what they wanted, though.

 Jamie yelled at him from his hiding place. "Barney, if

 those monsters eat you, I'm gonna tell Mom it was all your

 fault. I'U tell her you were playing with them."

 "No you won't," Bamey yelled back. 'Til turn you into a

 frog. These are nice monsters." He patted Booger again and

 said, "Don't you have homes, little monsters? Is that why

 you're so sad?"

 Home. The word stirred something in them, and one by

 one they began slurping down the road, away from him, and

 away from the lurking mass of the Unweebil's kingdom.

 Their wants became clearer to Bamey—they wanted him to

 follow them.

 "Come on," he called to his brother and sister. "They're

 going to take us to their home."

 "I'm not going with monsters," Jamie yelled.

 "Me either," Carol added. "I'm afraid of them."

 "Then I'll leave you behind," Bamey told them. "And you

 can make your own food." He marched after the monsters.

 What poopyheads, he thought. Scared of nice monsters.

 Behind him, he heard the wagon start rattling, and the

 sounds of Jamie and Carol climbing the berm and following.

 Uh-huh, he thought. Even if he was the littlest, he could boss

 them now, because he could do magic and they couldn't. Just

 thinking about it made him smile. He liked magic.

 He walked behind the worm-monsters, and Carol and

 Jamie walked behind him—they were mad at him. He could

 tell they were talking about him and calling him names. It

 was all right, though, because if they were mean to him, all

 160 Holly Lisle

 they were going to get to eat was stinky fish and boiled

 cabbage.

 They didnt have to go very far before the worm-monsters

 slurped off the road and into a stand of dead trees. Bamey

 followed—then stopped, shocked. The monsters had taken

 him to their home—but it wasn't a monster home. It was a

 people home. It was falling down a little, and even in the

 dark he could tell it wasn't very nice. He had not expected

 a people house.

 Jamie and Carol stopped beside him.

 "Why did they come here?" Jamie wanted to know.

 "I don't know. They were thinking of home. They don't

 think very well—all die pictures in their heads are fuzzy."

 "You think they live here?"

 Barney shrugged. "I don't know."

 Carol said, "Ask them. And if they do, see if we can sleep

 in die house. I'm tired-"

 The monsters didn't scare Bamey, and neither did the

 house—but there was something about both of them

 together he found very frightening. He stood, thinking.

 "Monsters, do you live in the house?" he asked them. They

 didn't know or understand "Can we go in?" he asked. Again,

 he could only feel confusion from them.

 He walked to the house and up the stairs and opened the

 door. Finally, he felt something from them. They were

 happy he was going in. They didn't seem to want to go in

 themselves.

 "I guess it's okay if we go in," he told Jamie and Carol.

 They like it."

 The children found a bed already made and climbed in.

 None of them talked about the house or asked each other any

 questions. Bamey felt something terribly sad about the place.

 lying between his brother and sister after both of them

 fell asleep, he thought about being mean to them. It was fun

 to make them do what he wanted, and fun to scare them—

 but he thought maybe he wouldn't do it anymore. At least

 not for a while. The sadness of the house made him glad he

 wasn't alone. He snuggled deeper under the covers, and

 finally fell asleep.

 CHAPTER 9

 Minerva pulled the cloak dosed in the front and shifted

 the weight of the duffel bag so it rested higher against her

 hip. Murp trotted along at her side, yowling and hitching as

 he usually did when forced to exert himself. She'd carried

 him for a while, but fifteen pounds of cat—certainly a lot of

 cat—was just too much to carry.

 She was glad he didn't show any inclination to wander off.

 The forest seemed to close in as she walked. Dark shapes

 loomed in front of her, then melted away as she moved

 nearer. She'd found a two-track path leading from Talleos'

 house. She had, of course, kept as far away from the path

 that she could. She expected pursuit. No sense, though,

 making her pursuer's job easy.

 °I wish forests weren't such ominous places at night," she

 told Murp at one point. He chirped—neither agreement nor

 disagreement, simply acknowledgement that she was there

 and speaking to him. Minerva imagined that forests didn't

 worry Murp much—and unlike her, he could see well in tile

 dark.

 She had no idea how long they'd been walking. However

 long it had been, she couldn't tell any difference in the ter-

 rain. It was all trees covering gently rolling hills—with

 enough roots to trip her, enough holes in the ground left

 from rotted stumps for her to fall in, enough creaks and

 161

 162 Holly Lisle

 squawks and wavering, tenuous howls to scare the bejeezus

 out of her.

 At her side, Murp hissed suddenly, then growled low in

 his throat. Minerva froze. She could hear, over the rustling

 of leaves and the steady scraping music of night insects, a

 ponderous, leathery flapping. It came from somewhere

 behind her and off to her left. A triad of slow wmgbeats, a

 near-silent glide, another triad, another short glide—moving

 closer.

 Murp flattened himself on a log, ears plastered against his

 skull, hackles raised. Minerva shivered, an atavistic fear of

 being prey fresh and new in her belly.

 Flap . . . flap . . . flap . . . hiss-s-s-s-s-s.

 Whatever it was, it was flying nearer, low. Just over the

 treetops. It sounded so—so huge. Minerva wanted to run—

 though surely she didn't need to run. Surely whatever the

 thing was, it wasn't after her.

 Or had Tatleos already discovered her missing? Had the

 dragon—Birkwelch—decided to fly after her? The thing

 that flapped nearer sounded big enough to be a dragon.

 Bun, panic urged. Stay, some primitive instinct

 demanded. Instinct overruled. She stood unmoving—even

 unbreathing—beneath the arching branches of a giant tree,

 her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the litde silver knife.

 The creature flapped directly overhead, occluding much of

 the sky, looking big as a jumbo jet. Then it soared on past,

 and Minerva thought, Oh, good. Jt wasn't looking for me

 after all.

 But it turned. Angled back around. She could see the

 emerald glow of its eyes far overhead. She'd never seen eyes

 that truly glowed before. She heard the .steady flap of its

 wings—heard its softly muttered curse, heard it say, "She's

 here—I can feel her," in a voice that chilled Minerva to the

 bone. It was nothing she had seen before, no mostly-friendly

 dragon come to drag her back to Talleos' home, as she had

 thought.

 No. In this world, where even her allies were against her,

 this thing was hunting tor her—and it was truly her enemy

 She could not doubt that.

 MINERVA WAKES

 163

 Flap . . . flap . . . flap . . . hiss-s-s-s-s-s.

 It flew past her, a bit to one side, canting into the breeze.

 She could see it as a darker shape against the night sky. It

 would come around again, Minerva knew. It would narrow

 its field of search, and it would find her. She did not want to

 know what it would do when it caught her.

 She could not run away. The thing flew—it would out-

 strip whatever pace she set, and cut her off. And if she ran,

 she would betray her position. It would catch her all the

 faster.

 At that moment, a gust of chill breeze blew past and rat-

 tled the leaves—and threw the flying monster off course.

 Minerva saw that giant, terrifying form slip sideways, lose

 altitude, and fight to regain it.

 I need more wind. A hard wind Maybe a tornado—or a

 hurricane. M very least, a fyle. She wished she knew how

 well the monster saw in the dark. She was going to have to

 by for her paper and pencils—

 She waited until it came around again—until she knew it

 was behind her—and hoped the tree blocked her from its

 line of sight. Then she made a fast grab for the art supplies.

 She waited motionless, with dry mouth and weak legs as it

 flapped right overhead.

 While she shivered there, she tried to think of a drawing

 that would convey wind, but only where she wanted it. And

 she tried to figure out how she could draw with any accuracy

 in die dark. She decided to sketch a cloud with a face, its

 cheeks puffed out and straight lines representing wind blow-

 ing before it. She figured she could do that in the dark well

 enough—a few curves, a winged scratch to represent the

 creature hunting her.

 Whether ft would work or not—what factors might make

 her drawing, and her magic—succeed or fail, she didn't know.

 She had never gotten time to experiment. While she was being

 hunted did not seem to her a particularly good time to start.

 The creature narrowed its circle, flapped behind her

 again.

 She would onfy have one chance to get this right One

 lousy chance.

 164 Holly Lisle

 The instant the flying nightmare was even with her posi-

 tion, heading behind her, she started her sketch. She spread

 one sheet of die vellum on her leg—so white it seemed to

 glow in the darkness—and scrawled her little glyphlike

 drawing, guessing at the shapes and drawing mosdy by feel.

 She added every hope and prayer she could muster.

 Flap . . . flap . . . flap .. . hiss-s-s-s-s-s—

 The thing, directly above her, shrieked—a high-pitched

 nails-on-blackboard scream of triumph. There you are!" it

 howled, and banked into a tight curve, and angled down.

 The wind hit it at that moment—a wailing banshee gale

 that came out of nowhere and ripped branches off the tops

 of the trees over Minerva's head. The creature tumbled

 through the sky, end over end, up and out of sight in the

 blink of an eye. Minerva could track its progress by die noise

 of the storm which followed ft.

 When even the sounds of the instant gale finally receded,

 she dropped to her knees, shaking and nearly in tears. Murp

 crept over to her and butted his head into her stomach. She

 cuddled the cat, and shivered. "It isn't fair," she whispered.

 "I didn't ask for any of this. I wanted a normal life."

 Well, no, that wasn't precisely true. She'd had a norma]

 life, and she'd been bored out of her mind with that

 She'd wanted adventure—she really had. She'd wanted to

 matter in the scheme of dungs. She'd wanted to be someone

 of importance. She simply hadn't considered what it would

 mean to her life if she got what she wanted.

 Now she had what she'd drought she wanted. And she

 was stuck widi it.

 "Murp," she said to die cat, "people can be really stupid

 sometimes."

 Murp gave his usual reply, and flopped over so she could

 rub his belly. She did, dien tugged a few times on his tail.

 "Come on. We need to keep moving, at least until daylight.

 Then we can find a hole to sleep in for the day. We'll go

 cross-country, maybe steal a horse—I wish I knew how to

 find die Unweaver. Talleos said he was here somewhere."

 She sighed- "Or do you suppose diat was another of his

 lies?"

 MINERVA WAKES

 165

 She stood and shouldered the duffel bag. Murp took off

 in pretty much die direction diey'd been going before. Min-

 erva followed. She didn't have any better ideas.

 / miss Dam/I, she diought. She wondered how he was

 and what he was doing. Birkwelch had said somedung about

 him being able to see through her eyes by looking in mir-

 rors. She wondered if there were some way to bring him to

 her; she didn't dunk the woods would be so frightening with

 him along.

 They'd gone camping back in the days when the two of

 diem still had fun together. Not regularly, but often enough

 that they could put their tent up in the dark. The/d hiked

 into out-of-the-way places, set up camp, and vanished from

 die face of the earth on more dian one weekend, to emerge

 tired, scratched up, and blissfully happy a couple of days

 later.

 It's been years since we did anything like that. She and

 Darryl had taken Jamie camping when he was a baby, but

 die idea of taking two toddlers, once Carol came along, was

 more work dian eidier of diem could envision. And they'd

 started to get busier. Started to "need" diat bigger house in

 that better neighborhood.

 We gave up a lot for that house and that neighborhood.

 We gave up our time with each other—we had to haw more

 money to feed our social standing. We turned out backs on

 the things that really mattered—and we didn't even notice

 we were doing it.

 She  remembered  something—somediing  ugly,

 something she'd pushed out of her mind long ago. She

 remembered looking at bigger houses with Darryl, back

 when the two of them just barely had a couple of dimes to

 rub togedier, back when there were three of them and

 Carol was on the way. Darryl had just moved to a

 part-time job at the ad agency. A reai job—so diey could

 qualify for a mortgage—but regular part-time so be could

 write, too. They were looking at cheap, ugly "older homes"

 and "handyman specials"—and Minerva, tired and

 angry—and jealous of a friend who'd just bought a

 wonderful new house—snapped diat if Darryl would just

 166 Holly Lisle

 live in the real world and support his family the way he

 ought to, they could afford a decent place to iive.

 Dairy! didn't say anything, she remembered- He looked

 a bit hurt, but he didn't say a word. And he kept on writing

 for a few more months. They stayed in their apartment—

 Minerva couldn't find a house she liked that they could

 afford, and he said he couldn't, either. Then a full-time

 position opened up at the agency, and Danyl took it.

 That was the end of his writing, though Minerva had not

 realized it until right then. Carol came along, and between

 moving into a nice, new house in a nice, middle-class neigh-

 borhood and a lot of bills they hadn't anticipated, she and

 Darryl had found their time tied up in separate directions.

 Her painting had followed Darryl's writing into the

 abyss—though she still always thought of herself as an

 artist. She thought of herself as an artist/mommy/over-

 worked-administrative-secretary/genius-waitmg-to-be-set-

 free, she realized. A sort of martyr.

 She cringed- Hard to imagine Darryl enjoying living with

 such a paragon of virtue. He never complained much. He

 did, however, stay gone a lot.

 Minerva could have waited forever for that revelation.

 She'd liked the situation better when she was sure Darryl

 was at fault, and she was the wronged party. She was going

 to owe her husband an apology—if she ever saw him again.

 Depression and exhaustion weighed her down. Guilt sat

 heavily on her shoulders, too—and fear and anger and lone-

 liness came along for the nde. She had to sleep. She hadn't

 slept in so very, very long.

 With Murp tagging along beside her, she searched

 through the darkness for someplace to hole up and rest.

 Darryl's dad was stilt asleep. His mother was gone—no

 telling what she was doing. He kept his voice down. "I just

 want to know if that Weird who was after her could have

 been Cindy." Danyl had been arguing with Birkwelch ever

 since the mirror went dark, and he didn't think he was mak-

 ing much progress.

 "And I've said I don't know. There aren't all that many

 MINERVA WAKES

 167

 Weirds. Even so, I don't think it's likely the one would be

 chasing both of you—but I could be wrong. In any case,

 they'll be out in force trying to find her, I suspect."

 "Why her? They know where I am."

 Birkwelch had his back to Darryl. The dragon foraged

 through the fridge, not bothering to pull his nose out to

 answer questions. Darryt guessed from the vigor of the

 dragon's search he must be scrounging for beer. "Because—"

 Thump! Thunk! Ratde! "—she's in their world. Their

 power—" Thump, crash, wham! "Dammit, who drank the

 last beer?!"

 "Keep it down. Dad's still asleep. And you did."

 The dragon slammed the refrigerator door shut and

 turned to glare at him. "You sure?"

 "Yes. Now you were saying . . . She's in their worid and

 their power—"

 "Oh, yeah. Their power is concentrated over there. They

 have allies. And they know the countryside. They can all

 shapeshift, you know. Makes it easy for them to get

 around—and for them to blend in."

 Danyl remembered his meetings with Cindy, and shiv-

 ered. They can iook like anythmg?'

 The dragon's alligator grin spread wide. "Scary thought,

 isnt it? Well, they have some limits. They don't seem to imi-

 tate inanimate objects very well. And their appearances have

 to match their actual sizes fairly closely."

 Danyl thought about that an instant. "So the cat with

 Minerva isn't a disguised Weird?"

 "Not a chance." The dragon walked to the panby and

 started digging through it. "A Weird can't make itself that

 smaB. Besides, the eyes aren't right."

 They aD have those green eyes?"

 The dragon shoved things around on the shelves and

 turned to Danyl with a disgusted snort. "You people don't

 have any Pop-Tarts or Twinkles or anything. Everything

 you've got in here has fiber—and vitamins—and shit like

 that."

 "I was trying to lose weight. The eyes, Birkwelch."

 "Yes. They aD have green eyes. But they can hide them

 168 HoUy Lisle

 behind sunglasses when they're dealing with anyone who

 knows what to look for."

 "That seem's obvious."

 "Nah. Eyrith's a pretty sunny place sometimes. Lots of

 the inhabitants wear sunglasses." He grinned again. "I do

 every once in a while."

 Darryl closed his eyes and tried to keep from imagining

 the dragon wearing sunglasses. "The mind boggles."

 "Let's go to Hardee's or McDonald's or someplace and get

 some high-fat, high-cholesterol food with flavor."

 Darryl shook his head "The funeral is today, and I don't

 want to go out. I want to watch the mirror so I can see when

 Minerva wakes up again."

 The dragon propped his foreleg on the kitchen counter

 and drummed his talons on the imitation wood-grain sur-

 face. "She went through a lot last night. She probably won't

 wake up until after the funeral's over. You might as well eat

 breakfast." The dragon held out his other foreleg and jingled

 die keys to his Miata. Danyl realized he had no idea where

 the dragon was hiding the car. "I'll drive."

 "No, thanks. I'm going to get some writing done, I think."

 The dragon's yellow eyes went wide, and Danyl fancied

 the bright blue hide went a few shades toward the pastel.

 "On second thought, I think I'll wait around. I can get some-

 thing to eat after the funeral."

 "What?!" Danyl felt like hitting the dragon with a fiying

 pan. "Don't you trust me?"

 "No." The dragon skinned his muzzle back to expose

 sharp teeth. "I don't." Birkwelch looked agitated. His

 wings partially unfurled, and his rilles stuck straight out

 around his face. Danyl thought this made him look like a

 giant periwinkle.

 "I'm just going to write her heading in the right direction

 to find our kids—the fastest way possible. What could go

 wrong with that?"

 The dragon shuddered. "I don't know. Something."

 Danyl wasn't going to let himself be deterred. He'd been

 stuck with passive watching too long—he refused to feel

 trapped and helpless anymore. He ran up the stalls to

 MINERVA WAKES            169

 Mineiva's sewing room. First he checked me mirror, but

 obviously Minerva was still asleep. All he could see in it was

 himself. I'll make (/tings easier on her when she wakes up.

 he decided. He sat down in front of the Selectric and typed:

 Minerva woke with warm sunlight on her

 face, and the cat curled up beside her. She

 felt well-rested, and good. Things were go-

 ing to be all right—somehow she knew this.

 Darryl loved her. She was sure of that.

 She hiked, going in the direction she

 instinctively knew was right. The cat stayed

 with her. The two of them came upon a road,

 and a friendly native offered her a ride in

 his truck. He was going in the direction she

 needed to travel, and she knew without doubt

 that he would not hurt her. She accepted the

 ride.

 Darryl looked at that passage. It didn't seem like much—

 the writing was stiff and dull. But this wasn't an attempt to

 be the next Neil Simon or Tennessee Williams. This was an

 attempt to save his wife and kids. The dragon said to keep

 it simple. And Danyl had seen the magical wind blow the

 Weird heaven only knew where. The magic worked.

 One thing was missing, he noted- He read over the text

 again, just making sure, then added a final line.

 Murp went along for the ride.

 The doorbell rang. He ran down the stairs, and unlocked

 and opened the door. His mother, brother, and sister-in-law

 waited on the other side.

 "Morning," he said. "Um-m-m-m-m ... I'm not really

 ready for company."

 His mom didn't seem to have heard a word he said. She

 charged through the door and hugged him, then stepped

 back to look at him. "You have such dark circles under your

 eyes, sweetheart," she said She stroked his face once, then

 stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "You don't look

 170 Holly Lisle

 like you slept a bit. I really think you would sleep better at

 our house."

 Stan's wife, Paula, was staring at him. "You look awful,"

 she said. "Your eyes are all baggy and bloodshot, and your

 skin is just so waxy."

 Thanks, Paula, he thought. You're stiU the sweetheart I

 always remembered. "I woke up pretty early this morning,"

 he said.

 Stan said, "I hope you and Minerva had the sense to put

 wills together. If you didn't have a will, the state will take

 half of everything you have- You could end up losing this

 house if you didn't. And did you remember to get

 everything out of your safe deposit box before the people

 at the bank found out she was dead? Otherwise, all your

 assets are going to end up frozen and the government will

 dean you out."

 1 had other things on my mind, Stan. But I'll manage."

 "You can't afford to get sentimental at a time like this," his

 brother said. "You have to keep your head on straight... you

 have to be cold and efficient. I would be if Paula died."

 "So would I," Danyl muttered, and walked away.

 "Let me fix you something nice for breakfast. I'm sure

 you haven't eaten right this morning," his mom called- °I

 took one of your father's suits to the cleaners for you—they

 did it overnight for me and came in this morning just so I

 could pick it up." He could hear rattling sounds from his

 kitchen. "Don't you think that was thoughtful of them?"

 "Yes, Mom," he agreed.

 Stan and Paula had cruised out into the greatroom. His

 dad came down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen,

 holding his head.

 "Give him some of this," Birkwelch said, and handed

 Danyl a one-ounce medicine cup filled to the brim with

 something green.

 Danyl remembered his own headache, and handed his

 father the cup. "For the headache," he said. "Drink it fast—

 ifs awful."

 His father gulped it down, made a pained face—then

 suddenly smiled. That's great stuff. What is it?"

 MINERVA WAKES            171

 "Peabod/s Headache Elixer," Birkwelch said- "From my

 world."

 Danyl gave him the name, then said, "It's an off brand,

 Kind of hard to find."

 "Thanks." His father looked ten years older than he had

 a week ago. This business would loll him if Darryl couldn't

 make everything all right again.

 He wanted to tell them, She's stSt dive. The kids are still

 alive. I'm going to bring them back. But he couldn't. There

 was absolutely nothing he could say that would help. He

 couldn't even tell them he believed things would get better.

 How could he say that to parents who thought they'd lost

 their daughter-in-law and their only grandchildren?

 Minerva's parents must be even worse off than mine. They

 didn't lose an in-law. They lost their only daughter. And

 Keith, Minerva's brother, had to be devastated- He and Min-

 erva had always been close.

 I'll make it up to all of you, Danyl promised silently. 1'U

 jmd a way, and I'll bring them back. I won't screw up this

 time.

 He ate die breakfast his mother fixed. He understood she

 needed to do something for him—and there was so little she

 could do. He wore the suit they'd brought over. He iet them

 drive him to the church when it was time. They needed to

 feel they were helping him, and after doing the magic and

 seeing there was something he could do to change things, he

 was stronger. He wasn't helpless anymore. He could allow

 them to feel needed.

 He felt strong up until the moment he walked into the

 church and saw her there—lying in that damned casket with

 her eyes closed, and her hair soft and perfect, and her

 cheeks pink. He hadn't seen her since the emergency

 room—and in the ER, she'd looked like a stranger.

 She didn't look like a stranger anymore.

 He felt the shock of recognition slam into his belly—nau-

 sea and loss and anger at being abandoned. She was gone,

 the lads were gone, and he was alone. How could she do

 that to him?

 At his side, the dragon said softly, "Steady, Darryl. This is

 172 Holly Lisle

 the show for the family. It isn't the real thing, and don't you

 forget it."

 Danyl inclined his head slightly—enough for the dragon

 to see and no more. Minerva was not the body in the casket.

 She wasn't

 He sat in the pew, forcing himself to remain detached,

 while the organ played, and the minister spoke, and

 various friends got up and talked about what a wonderful

 person Minerva had been. He did not let himself think of

 what was happening in front of him. Instead, he twisted

 his wedding band and thought about what he would write

 next—how he could phrase the words that would bring his

 family back.

 In the limousine on the way to the interment, he rode

 alone. The dragon was, mercifully, absent. Both his family

 and Minerva's were in other vehicles. His brother and sister-

 in-law had offered to ride with him, but he'd quickly

 refused. Minerva's brother hadn't yet spoken to him.

 At the grave site, he noticed that people seemed to split

 their attention between the casket and him. From time to

 time, he would catch someone glancing at him. The expres-

 sions were—educational. He saw pity, curiosity, and

 suspicion. The last from a number of the women who'd

 worked with Minerva-

 They think I killed them, he realized.

 The thought made him sick. He wasn't perfect. He'd

 screwed up his life all by himself. But he'd loved his family:

 all of them. He would have done anything to be on the other

 side of the mirror with them. He would have gven anything

 to go back to the moment- he decided it was more important

 to stay at work feeding his ego than to go home.

 He refused to be led away when the minister finished the

 rites. He sat, watching two strangers winching the metal box

 that contained his wife's body down into the ground.

 He cried in spite of himself—cried in complete silence,

 with his arms wrapped tightly across his chest and tears

 burning furrows in his cheeks. She's alive, he told himself.

 That isn't her

 He only wished he really believed himself.

 MINERVA WAKES

 173

 His in-laws' house, when he got there, was already foil of

 people. Minerva's mother spread trays of food on the

 kitchen table and along the counter. Neighbors came in a

 steady stream, carrying dishes covered with tinfoil or pots

 full of flowers. They hugged Mrs. Wilson, his parents, each

 other. They eyed him warily

 Minerva's father sat on the couch, trying to hold himself

 together in front of all the strangers. Minerva's brother's kid

 sat next to him, stolid and gloomy, kicking the couch rhyth-

 mically with his left foot. Minerva's brother watched Danyl,

 his face cold and distrustful. Along the far wall of the dining

 room next to the fireplace, the nurses and ward secretaries

 and office personnel who'd known Minerva gathered, eating

 off paper plates and discussing the latest hospital disasters;

 they fell silent as he moved in their direction, and watched

 him pass—still silent.

 Then one of the ward secretaries, a large black woman

 named Margaret, broke from the group and came over and

 hugged him. "This is not the end for her, Danyl," she said.

 "You've got to believe she's on the other side now. She'll be

 all right—and you'll see her again some day"

 Danyl nodded solemnly. "I know I will, Margaret. I

 couldn't live if I didn't believe that." He hugged the woman,

 and she returned to the circle of hospital employees.

 He walked on. Behind him, he heard one of the women

 say, "I can't believe you talked to him, Margaret. I still say

 he murdered aB of them."

 Margaret said, "You can't judge people by appearances,

 and you can't decide about them by what you hear every-

 body eke say. The good Lord will judge that man. It isn't

 your place."

 He kept walking. He didn't want to hear more.

 People patted him on the back. They said things, but

 nothing they said registered. He moved in a daze, speaking

 without knowing quite what he said. But he couldn't really

 hear them. The noise around him became like the rush of

 die ocean's waves—steady, pulsing white noise. He walked

 away from all of it. He needed to be alone.

 He went into the bathroom and stared in die mirror.

 174 Holly Lisle

 Once again, he could see the world through Minerva's eyes.

 He pressed his face against the glass.

 "I love you, Minerva," he whispered.

 Bamey climbed out of bed and peeked out a dirty win-

 dow of the house. The sun was up and there were no clouds

 in the sky—but everything outside looked dull and hazy any-

 way- All the trees in the front yard were dead, the grass was

 brown and ugly; Bamey couldnt see anything alive outside

 the window—except the worm-monsters.

 They crowded around the steps, waiting. They were a lot

 uglier in the daylight than they had been in the dark. He

 wrinkled his nose; the worm-monsters were a gross gray-

 pink, and their tops gleamed with an oily sheen. Their

 bottom halves weren't shiny—they had pebbles and bib of

 grass and dead leaves stuck all over. In their blobby shapes

 he saw dark spots which he guessed might be eyes. The big-

 gest one had a few mangy patches of red hair sticking out of

 its back. But they looked to Bamey about as solid as Jello—

 and not nearly as pretty.

 He felt sony for them. He thought he wouldn't like to be

 a worm-monster.

 "What are you doing?" Jamie asked.

 Bamey turned away from the window and looked at his

 brother. Jamie sat up in the bed, rubbing at his eye with a

 knuckle.

 "Just looking," Bamey said.

 They stui out there?"

 "Yep." Bamey turned back to the window and watched

 the worm-monsters some more.

 Jamie climbed out of the bed and walked around the

 room. He looked into the tall wardrobe, then walked into

 the main room, and found the bathroom. When he came

 back, he was staring into the center of a little clear ball.

 "Look at this," he said, and handed the ball to Bamey.

 Carol rolled over. "Let me see, too."

 Bamey looked into it, and stared, fascinated- It was a liv-

 ing scene—a house, and a family of funny-looking people.

 They were running back and forth, tossing a white ball with

 MINERVA WAKES

 175

 a string on it to each other. The place in the picture was

 pretty—Aere were lots of Bowers and the grass was green

 and die trees had lots of tiny leaves on them that trembled

 in the breeze.

 And even though the people were funny-looking, Bamey

 still thought they looked happy—they looked like a nice

 family. A mom, a dad, lots of kids. There were nine people

 in the scene.

 The ball they played with was right next to that," Jamie

 said- "I wonder why they left."

 The scene finished playing, and the inside of the glass ball

 went dark for the briefest of instants. Then the moving pic-

 ture began again.

 Bamey handed the ball to Carol and sat on the floor,

 thinking. The Unweebil had ruined this place—he could

 feel it. The same magic that built the towering clouds they

 were running away from also left the stink in the air here,

 and killed the trees, and wore out the ground.

 Had it scared the people away?

 Bamey got up and went outside, out with the worm-

 monsters. He looked at them, and felt their sadness, and

 their confusion—and he felt their hope. They didn't know

 what they were, or who they were, but they saw some-

 thing when they looked at him that triggered memories.

 He looked at the awful blobs. There were only six of

 them. He wondered, with a sick feeling in his stomach, why

 there weren't nine. He sat on the bottom step and rested his

 hand on the slimy skin of the monster nearest him.

 "You're people," he told it. "You have to 'member you're

 people. You forgot—hut now you gotta 'member." He closed

 his eyes and pictured the scene he'd watched in the little

 ball, and he imprinted that clear, bright scene in the muddy

 mind of the worm-monster. "You're in there, aren't you?

 You're one of those people."

 He felt its confusion, and then its sudden shock of recog-

 nition. Then he felt its shame, and its despair.

 "Don't feel bad," he told it. "It's not your fault. The

 Unweebil did tills—but he won't hurt you anymore. You

 remember who you are now, don't you?"

 176 Holly Lisle

 Yes, it thought. I'm. people. I remember

 "Good. Now you gotta find all the rest and make diem

 know they're people, too. We gotta go or the Unweebil will

 get us. But you do that, okay?" Bamey concentrated on a lit-

 tle, tiny mage that would fix his order in the mind of the

 worm-monster. It would remember, and it would make the

 other worm-monsters remember, too.

 He looked at it, surprised. He could see tiny changes in

 it as he sat there watchmg—its skin became drier; it made

 itself stretch tall instead of wide. It had a long way to go

 before it became people again, he thought. He hoped it

 found the rest of the family.

 He went back inside. / hope the rest of my family fmds

 me, he thought.

 They spent all morning walking Bamey was hot and

 tired, and he wanted to make his brother and sister pull him

 in the wagon—but they were hot and tired, too. The chil-

 dren kept running across more beat-up houses, and more

 worm-monster people. Bamey felt sad around the worm-

 monsters. He wanted to make them all better, but he

 couldnt. Instead, he kept reminding them they were people

 and doing the little magic that would keep them from for-

 getting. Even that little magic was tinng him, though, and

 the heat and the dust and the smell—and worse yet, the/eef

 of the Unweebil's magic all around him—were getting to be

 too much for him.

 They trudged along the road. Jamie worried while he

 walked. "This isnt good strategy, walkin' along the road in

 the daylight like this. We should have stayed in the house all

 day."

 "He would'a found us if we stayed there." Carol fidgeted

 with the tassled belt of her shirt.

 "He's lookin' for us now," Bamey said. "He has been for

 a while—but I didn't want to say nothin.'"

 "Anything," Carol corrected. "Didn't want to say any-

 thing."

 "Me either," Bamey agreed.

 His sister looked at him, her face puzzled- Then she

 MINERVA WAKES

 177

 decided it wasn't worth arguing about. She hooked her

 thumbs into her belt and plodded on.

 The road curved to me right. Brush on either side

 blocked Bamey's view, but he sensed a change in the air

 ahead. He walked slower, nervous, trying to decide whether

 the difference was good or bad.

 All three of them reached the point m the road where

 they could see beyond the curve.

 "Hey, look!" Jamie yelled. "There's another road!"

 It was a good change, Bamey realized—a very good

 change. He broke into a run, and his brother and sister came

 racing after him.

 He felt the difference aD over—as if he'd been on the

 inside of a bubble and had just broken through its skin to the

 outside. One instant, the weight of the Unweebus magic sat

 on his shoulders, and in the next, it was gone.

 The grass is green," Carol whispered.

 "It smells so good here," Jamie said-

 Everything in front of Bamey was pretty. The leaves on

 the trees were red and yellow, the sun was bright, the sly

 was blue. He could see animals around—birds and bugs and

 furry things.

 When he looked back they way they'd come, everything

 was murky—hidden by a yellow haze. He wanted to get as

 far away from that place as he could.

 'Well," Jamie said, "we can go straight, or right, or left. So

 which way is it going to be?"

 Jamie and Carol both looked at Bamey, Baraey stared

 past them as three huge monsters flew into view over the

 treetops. Their giant win^ flapped slowly, and their long,

 pointy heads swung from side to side.

 "Monsters!" he yelled, and ran for the cover of the nearest

 trees. Jamie and Carol looked where he pointed, then scat-

 tered in opposite directions.

 "No," one of the flying monsters screeched. "We've come

 to help you! We've been trying to find you since the

 Unweaver stole you from us!"

 Bamey stopped- Now that he thought about it, the mon-

 sters did feel familiar—and not threatening. He turned

 178 Holly Lisle

 around, just in time to see the three of them land and

 change into the ugiy, big-eared people he knew from the

 first casde. Watching them change was pretty gross, he

 thought. They were awfully ugly, and seeing them sort of

 melt from one thing to another didn't make them any pret-

 tier. But he was happy to see them. They could take care of

 him and Jamie and Carol until his mommy came to get

 them. Taking care of everybody made him tired.

 "Hi," Bamey said. "You gonna take us back to the castle

 and give us something to eat?"

 The tall monster nodded solemnly "Yes—we've been

 searching for you since the Unweaver kidnapped you—but

 we haven't found any sign of you at all, until suddenly you

 just appeared out of nowhere Where were you^"

 Bamey pointed down the road they'd just left. "Up that

 road."

 The green-eyed monster looked puzzled, "Road?"

 Jamie rolled his eyes- The road. The road. Right there."

 AH three monsters exchanged glances. Then they looked

 at the children. "You can all see a road there?"

 "Of course," Carol said. "It's right there."

 "For you, perhaps," the monster said. "Not for us. It may

 be that you must have a special kind of magic to see that

 road."

 "I did some magic," Bamey said. "That's how we got away

 from the Unweebil." All the monsters looked at him,

 astonished. Bamey was tired, but not so tired he couldn't

 show off a little. "See—like this." He created a tiny piece of

 chocolate, and handed it to the monster closest to him, who

 sniffed it cautiously, then took a bite

 "Wonderful," the monster said, and shook his head.

 "Amazing. So small, and already a true Weaver. I wonder

 where we can find a partner for you, little one. You would

 solve our problems once the—other troubles—have

 passed."

 A soft cackle behind Bamey sent Ins heart racing.

 "Ob, do tell the little beast what you mean by 'other trou-

 bles,' Weird," the whispery voice said.

 The monster grabbed Bamey and started backing away.

 MINERVA WAKES

 179

 "Save the children," he told the other two monsters.

 Bamey wriggled around in the monster's arms until he

 could see the Unweebil. In the bright dayhght. the Unwee-

 bil was nothing but a red-eyed shadow that crept across the

 green grass—but he left a trail of withered brown where he

 moved.

 "Save the children," the Unweebil hissed. "Very sweet of

 you. Why don't you tell them you intend to murder their

 parents? See if they'll cling to you then."

 "Liar!" Jamie yelled. "You're lying!" His face grew red. He

 glared at the Unweebil and tears streamed down his cheeks.

 Once again, Bamey could feel his fear.

 "liar, liar!" Carol screamed. "You're die one who wants to

 hurt us!"

 The Unweebil was telling the truth, though, Bamey real-

 ized. He could feel it. The monsters wanted to help him and

 Carol and Jamie, but they wanted to loll Mommy and

 Daddy. Bamey didn't understand—and he didn't want to.

 Nobody who wanted to hurt his parents was his friend. He

 bit the monster who held him—bit hard. The monster

 yelled, and held him with the other arm.

 "Don't do that!" the monster shouted. "Let us save you.

 You can be angry later—but let us save you now!"

 The monster was shifting, becoming the bird-shaped

 thing it had been when it found them. The other two mon-

 sters were doing the same.

 The Unweebil just laughed at them. "Forget all this," he

 whispered. "Forget who you are, forget what you want. Just

 forget. Its very easy."

 Bamey thought of the people along die road who had for-

 gotten they were people—how sad and lost they were. He

 thought of these monsters, who were trying to save him

 from the Unweebil, becoming like them. He could keep

 them from forgetting. He knew the magic—it was only a lit-

 tle mage. And they wouldn't forget

 But these monsters wanted to kill his parents. They

 wanted to—and he couldn't say the words that would save

 them.

 He just couldn't.

 180 Holly Lisle

 We can get away from the Unweehil again, he thought.

 We did before.

 The monsters forgot. Their hands dropped to their sides,

 and their faces became blank and confused. Jamie and Carol

 and Barney slid to the ground.

 The Unweebil chuckled again. 'Very good, little Bamey.

 So nice to have you on my side. Standing by and doing noth-

 ing is always the best solution to a problem, I think"

 Jamie and Carol started to run, but Bamey stood his

 ground.

 1 can get away from you any time I want. I'm not afraid

 of you," he said-

 "You should be," the Unweebil whispered- He didn't

 move. He didn't have to. He swallowed Jamie and Carol and

 Bamey without even trying—then Bamey heard a terrible

 sucking, tearing noise, and felt the awful weight of the

 Unweebil's dirty magic surrounding him, and everything

 went dark.

 When it brightened a^din, he and his brother and sister

 were in the Unweebil's stinking castle.

 "The monster and die door locks were very unpleasant,"

 the Unweebil told them. "You made me very angry when

 you did your little tricks and caused me a bit of difficulty."

 Bamey was lying on cold stone, looking up. The Unweebii's

 red eyes stared down at him. "Not a lot," the Unweebil

 added, "but enough. I will have to make sure you don't

 escape again."

 "Hah!" Jamie snarled. "You think you're tough. You're

 nothin'. You can't make us stay if we don't want to."

 "You think not?"

 One second Bamey was on the floor—the very next

 instant, he hung upside down in the air in front of the

 Unweebil's glowing eyes. He tried to get away, tried all the

 different magics he could think of, but die Unweebil undid

 everything he did.

 "Let me tell you how I will keep you here," he said. "In

 just a moment, I am going to hurt Bamey. This will be a

 little lesson for all of you—every time you do something I

 don't want you to do, I will hurt Bamey some more.

 MINERVA WAKES

 181

 Understand," he hissed, "it doesn't matter which of you

 makes me angry—Bamey is the one I will hurt And I will

 hurt him more, and more, and more, until there is nothing

 left of him to hurt."

 Bamey kicked at the Unweebil, and squirmed around to

 see his brother and sister. Jamie's face twisted with rage.

 "That's not fair," he shouted. "You can't hurt somebody who

 didn't do anything!"

 "Yes, I can," the Unweebil whispered. "And, yes, I will. I

 don't care about being fair. All I care about is getting what I

 want."

 And then he hurt Bamey.

 CHAPTER 10

 Minerva fiew over a bleak and featureless landscape, soar-

 ing like a bird. The world below her i, as so demid of detail

 she could not decide if she was five hundred feet above the

 ground, or only five. The gray plain spread to eternity, it

 seemed. Perhaps beyond. No breeze brushed past her, nor

 did the faintest whisper of sound reach her ears. She knew

 she was looking for something, but she could not remember

 what.

 A twinkling light appeared below her—but no more had

 she seen the light and marked its location than the unending

 grayness snuffed it out. She dove toward the place where she

 thought it had been, spiraling downward.

 Then she was upright, and without quite knowing how

 she came to be there she was inside a dingy, ftlthy stone

 building. She walked down a twisting passage, and on both

 sides of her were hundreds of doors. She knew she had to

 choose one. She didn't know why, only that she did. None of

 the doors meant anything to her.

 She was very frightened.

 In all that time she had heard no sound, but suddenly.

 the world filled with a slow, horrible pulsing. The noise

 did not come from any one place—instead, it came from

 all around her. And with the pulsing, she could see color

 for the first time. There were red footprints on the stone

 floor in front of her. She wanted to reach down to touch

 183

 184 Holly Lisle

 them; somehow, she understood, they were important,

 They were why she was . . . wherever she was She tried to

 mow her hand, to touch the little red footprints with one

 finger, but her body would not respond.

 She did not understand, and she became even more

 frightened. She followed the footprints, and became aware

 that she was not actuaBy walking. She was gliding forward.

 floating an inch or two abow the ground.

 The footprints turned toward one of the huge doors to her

 right, and vanished. Inside that door, she thought The mys-

 tery is there. Minerva put her hand out and the huge

 doorknob turned into a lion's head with sharp fangs that

 tried to bite her. She knew this was the door she'd been look-

 ing for—that the secret she was keeping from herself was

 closed behind the massive barrier it made Terrified, she

 gripped the lion's jaws with both hands, and twisted, and the

 door slowly glided open.

 Her children stood on the other side, their arms reaching

 for her. She ran to them, and put her arms around them

 They were so thin—almost wraithlike, and they were silent.

 She could feel the tears that rolled down their faces, though.

 She held them as dose to her as she could; she wanted so

 much to tell them everything would be aS, right. But like

 them, she was mute.

 The pulsing sound grew louder. It throbbed in her ears

 and shook the walls—and abruptly she realized that some-

 one was behind her. Clutching her children to her, she

 turned.

 A tall specter of a man stood in the doorway, wrapped in

 a deep-cowled cloak. She could see through him—he was

 nothing but mist. He flowed toward her, and said, "You haw

 found them, but you cannot have them until you have beaten

 me" His voice, hollow and far, far away, blew like an ice

 storm around her and froze her heart. And though Minerva

 dung to her children, they became rmst, like the man. and

 drifted out of her reach. Invisible weights pinned her in

 place, so that she could not move to go after them.

 Mute, unable to cry out, she watched them leave.

 Something began to scrape her nose off.

 MINERVA WAKES

 185

 -. •

 • i

 j|

 I   I

 i   i,

 Minerva opened her eyes. Muip stood on her chest and

 licked her nose. Sunlight filtered through the canopy of

 leaves overhead; as Ae breeze blew the leaves, light flick-

 ered across her eyelids.

 Another dream.

 She rubbed the cat. "God, I'm glad you're here," she told

 him. "After nightmares like that one, I want to fling myself

 off a cliff." She sat, shivering in the warm puddle of sunlight,

 waiting for the nasty residue of the nightmare to leave her.

 Murp shoved his head against her face and purred.

 The horrible emptiness lifted slowly, and she began to

 feel better.

 "Breakfast would be a real plus," she told the cat. She

 wished she had dared sneak to the kitchen to steal some

 food. All me running and adventuring the night before had

 given her an incredible appetite. She eyed Murp. "I read

 somewhere that cooked cat tastes lousy. Suppose raw cat

 would be any better?"

 "Mrrrmrp," Murp said.

 "Never mind. Maybe we can swipe an apple pie off some-

 body's windowsill—or something."

 Her intuition insisted she wanted to walk east, into the

 rising sun. She decided she was going to trust intuition about

 as far as she could walk on water. She needed magic.

 She pulled out the same sheet of vellum she'd scribbled

 on the night before, and a pencil, and sketched a compass—

 a nice durable metal-looking one. Instead of drawing out the

 four compass directions, though, she noted only one—and

 that not truly a direction. "MY KIDS," she wrote; closed her

 eyes; concentrated until the paper abruptly became heavy.

 A metal compass—her design—lay on top of the paper.

 "Shit," she whispered, impressed. The appearance of the cat,

 the transmission of sound that permitted her eavesdropping

 on Talleos, the wind that blew the airborne hunter away

 from her—all of those could have been coincidental. Not too

 likely that they were, she knew, but the possibility had

 existed. This latest occurrence could be nothing but the real

 thing, though. Mage.

 Wow, she thought, staring at the compass. I did that.

 186 Hotly Lisle

 She carefully lined up the arrow with die mark she'd used

 to indicate the location of her kids.

 Straight east.

 '"Well, then ..." she whispered. "East it is. Might be more

 to intuition than I thought."

 She looted at her small supply of vellum, and then at

 Murp, sitting patiently by her side, waiting with the air of

 one who knows his god is about to drop something tasty at

 his feet. Her own stomach growled-

 "I don't have much of this stuff," she said, eyeing the

 creamy parchment, "but breakfast is the most important

 meal of the day."

 Murp waited in silence, apparently thinking that state-

 ment too obvious to require comment

 She looked at the vellum again. "I'll just draw small,"

 She sketched a bowl full of Tender Vitdes, Murp's favor-

 ites, and an entire box of granola for herself. And a glass of

 orange juice. Then, as an afterthought, she drew a tube of

 toothpaste and a toothbrush—the angled kind.

 She closed her eyes and concentrated—thinking big.

 Murp yowled- Minerva looked up, saw what she had done,

 and winced.

 The bowl of cat food stood tall as a trashcan, and about

 twice as wide. Each Tender Vitde was the size of a large

 mouse. She'd made enough food there to feed a band of

 Bengal tigers. She picked Murp up and dumped him in the

 middle. After a moment of what looked like shock, he chir-

 ruped delightedly and burrowed into the food, then rolled

 on ft, and then began to bat at the Tender Vitdes and to nib-

 ble at various of the huge bits.

 Her own box of granola would have made her a nice tent

 the night before. She glanced from that to the tube of tooth-

 paste and the toothbrush, and shook her head. She wasnt

 sure she could tip the granola box—and even if she could,

 she doubted she'd be able to open rt. She had a hard enough

 time opening the normal ones. She could have gone swim-

 ming in the glass of OJ.

 Maybe she could reuse the same drawing, but concen-

 trate on making the stuff the right size, not just bigger. She

 MINERVA WAKES

 187

 closed her eyes, concentrated, and opened them to see that

 nothing had happened- She took out the pencil and traced

 over die drawings, then repeated her previous steps.

 This time, she got what she wanted, more or less. Things

 were still a bit off-size—the toothbrush was uncomfortably

 large, but would work, while die toodipaste was of the

 jumbo commune size. However, she had enough granoia to

 last a while, and die OJ, she discovered to her delight, was

 freshly squeezed and delicious.

 She and Murp finished their meals, she brushed her

 teedi—A bit too much mint in the toothpaste, she thought

 as her eyes watered and her moudi burned—and dien they

 took off.

 The two of them kept up a steady pace. They stopped

 once to drink out of a stream, and several times while Min-

 erva double-checked her directions, dien kept moving

 eastward.

 Minerva guessed the time to be a bit shy of noon when

 she became aware of an intermittent hissing over die hill in

 front of her. She climbed die slope, wondering at die cause,

 and made sure she stayed well under die cover of die trees.

 When she crested die ridge, she was delighted to see a road,

 paved with blacktop (or somediing very like it), bisecting die

 ground in front of her. On diat road, an occasional round-

 comered and flared-finned six-wheeled vehicle gaudy as a

 Puerto Rican bus zipped past. These vehicles made no noise

 except for die sound of dieir tires on die road and the gust-

 ing breezes diey left in dieir wakes.

 At first she was startled. She hadn't expected automotive

 technology—she'd expected horses. "I should have known

 better," she told die cat.

 I wonder, she thought, if I dare hitch a ride. I don't imag-

 ine the general population wiU be up in arms looking for

 me—I'd. thank my presence here would be a secret. She sat

 in the tall weeds diat ran from die hilltop down to die road

 and watched die traffic. Except, naturally, the road runs

 north and south, and I want to go east. She double-checked

 her compass again, just to be sure.

 That's odd. I thought I wanted to go east. The needle

 188 Holly Lisle

 seemed to have changed directions. She tapped it once, to

 see if it might be stuck. The needle swung freely, then

 reoriented itself—north by northeast, exactly paralleling the

 direction of the road.

 Goosebumps rose on her arms as she looked from the

 needle down to the passing vehicles below. How—how

 very .. . convenient.

 She'd wanted to find the fastest way to her kids. Perhaps

 die compass was showing her the fastest way—first straight

 to the road, then in somebody's vehicle heading north.

 She would give hitchhiking a try. She put her hand on

 the hilt of her knife, just to make sure it was there. The

 very idea of taking a ride with a stranger scared her to

 death—but she wanted to get to her kids. For them, she'd

 take her chances. She needed to make sure, though, that

 the cat wouldn't get lost. "Murp," she said, "I don't

 imagine this will be your favorite game. Just stay put,

 though—okay?" She unzipped her duffel, picked up the

 cat, and dropped him inside. To her surprise, he curled

 into a ball on her spare set of clothes and after one giant

 yawn, fell asleep. "So maybe I was wrong," she remarked.

 "You don't look too put out." She zipped the duffel until

 the opening was too small for the cat to get out, but plenty

 large enough for him to get air. Then she stood and

 clambered down the steep shoulder to the pavement.

 The compass needle swung around and began pointing

 south-southwest. Minerva stared at it, then swore and

 smacked the compass once with the fiat of her hand. The

 needle spun crazily, then returned to its south-southwest ori-

 entation. "Dammit," she muttered. "This thing doesn't work

 after all. If that's the case, I don't have any idea which way

 to go. I might have been walking in the wrong direction all

 morning."

 One of the gaudy local vehicles approached from the

 south. It was a truck of sorts, with a teardrop-shaped cab and

 a hinged cart on the back. Exotic livestock hung their curly-

 homed heads over the sides and cheeped. Minerva,

 suddenly suspicious, watched her compass. It followed the

 truck as if the point were attached to the vehicle by string.

 MINERVA WAKES

 189

 So thus is my ride, huh? Fastestway to my kids Oh,weB....

 She stuck out a thumb, and the driver slowed and pulled

 off to die side.

 "Need a ride?" the driver leaned out the window and

 yelled back at her.

 "Desperately." She ran to the vehicle, then slowed as she

 got near enough to make out details.

 The driver was a man—more or less. His face was weath-

 ered and browned; corners of eyes deeply creased; hair

 white and thin and wispy over his head. But his ears fanned

 out from either side of his skull in delicate, leaflike folds, and

 the tip of his bulbous nose curled over his mustache to touch

 his broad upper lip. His clothes matched hers—but they

 were faded and patched, and the cloth at elbows and wrists

 was thin and frayed.

 Minerva took a deep breath, walked around to die pas-

 senger side of the vehicle, and got in. Compass says this is

 the ride I'm supposed to take.

 The driver pulled a lever and stepped on a pedal, and the

 truck rolled forward soundlessly. He gripped a sort of ski-

 pole arrangement in either hand—Minerva thought the

 absence of a steering wheel made the interior of tile cab

 look bizarre. She admired the embroidered seat-covers and

 the beadwork decorations.

 "Yer one of them critters from the magical reservation,

 ain't yer?" the old man asked her.

 Minerva winced. The old man, when he spoke, sounded

 exactly like Talleos' imitation of a tourist. "In a way, I sup-

 pose so."

 "Yup—I figgered. None of you folks look right, /know. I

 seen you suckers on the houyvision bunch a times. My favert

 is that old-tuney show, MagBWars." He grinned as he said it,

 so that his lips rolled back to his gums. Minerva caught an

 unnerving glimpse of his teeth. She noted with some dis-

 comfiture that his canines were almost an inch long. This is

 the way the compass said to travel, she reminded herself.

 My ride.

 The old man suddenly turned and scrutinized her, though,

 and said, °I don' recollect ever havin' seen yer likes afore."

 190 HoUy Lisle

 Minerva had the line for this one ready, thanks to the

 cheymat. "We're nearly extinct," she lied. "Very rare."

 "Huh." The old man turned away from her, and she was

 surprised how relieved she was that those vivid green eyes

 were looking at something else. The comers of his mouth

 curled up in a smile, and he said, "I reckon that's it"

 They rode in silence for a while. Minerva cast die occa-

 sional covert look at her compass, but it continued to line up

 exactly with the direction in which they moved. She setded

 back, determined to enjoy the ride.

 The old man said, "So where yer heading for, you?"

 "Don't know precisely," she told him. "I'm looking for

 something."

 "Then, what yer looldn' for?"

 Minerva shrugged. "I don't know that, yet, either. I guess

 I'H know it when I see it."

 The old man scratched behind his ear, and Minerva was

 surprised at how big his hands were, and how sharp the

 claws that tipped them. Uneasiness setded around her like

 a cloak. It was all very well to think that die compass led

 her to dus man, but she couldn't help but wish he looked

 less the part of die aging werewolf. She felt too much like

 Red Riding Hood for her own comfort. What big eyes you

 have, she thought. And big ears, and sharp daws, and big

 teeth...

 He grinned over at her. Pace on, it was not a delightful

 grin. Not charming. Somewhat less than utterly pleasing.

 She'd seen the likes on pictures of hyenas. "We'll be in

 Weezfield in just a few minutes," he said. "You see whatcher

 lookin' for there, you let me know. I stop for yer. Iffin not,

 I'm going all the way to Weirds' Hold today Gotta drop off

 my kaldebeasts widi die buyer up diat way. Yer welcome to

 come along. I don't often get any company deliverin' stock.

 Not even critters such as yerself."

 Minerva smiled—a strained smile, but die best she could

 manage at die moment. "Thank you. I do appreciate that."

 She took a deep breath. Tm not actually a—ah, critter. My

 name's Min—er, Jean." She felt the sudden compulsion to

 keep some things secret.

 MINERVA WAKES

 191

 "Minnerjean. Huh! Well, I'm Lorcus." The old man

 shrugged. That's a right pretty name for a critter. But all you

 folks is so danged touchy about bein' called cntters. What

 you want to be called dien, Minnerjean?"

 "People?"

 "People. It figgers. You and danged dragons and topers

 and kaldebeasts, too, more'n likely—everybody wants to be

 people. Well, Minnerjean, yer can't be born a critter and

 then rum people. You got to be born people." His smile

 when he looked at her that time was touched widi conde-

 scension. "But there ain't notiiing wrong widi bein' a critter,

 honey. You just got to know your place is all."

 Minerva bit her tongue. She would have loved to slap die

 old farmer down—but she didn't know the rules in dlis

 world, didn't know die place of women in general, or of

 female "critters" in particular. So she said nodimg, and

 stewed.

 They came into a village—evidendy Weezfield, diough

 she could not read the sign planted askew on the hillock

 before die village proper. The place was quaint, with single-

 story plaster houses painted in every conceivable pastel hue.

 Each house had a blue tile roof, and a bright red basket-

 weave fence about two feet high around the tiny yard. The

 houses were close togetiier, with dirt paths beaten into die

 blue-gray earth between them.

 The open market square in die center of town was

 busy—the inhabitants herded flocks of—well, of somediing.

 Minerva didn't have die foggiest idea what sorts of flocks

 diose were. Girls chased after waddling four-legged duck-

 iike beasts, while the curly-homed creatures Lorcus had

 earber identified as kaldebeasts stood in the middle of die

 road, staring stupidly at hairy jade-green beasts which

 hopped past, kangaroo-like, on their hind legs

 She took an instant to check her direction on her com-

 pass, and shouted, "Oh, stop! Stop!"

 The old man hit his brake, and Minerva nearly went

 through die windshield. "What's the matter, Minnerjean?"

 Minerva puiled her duffel bag onto her lap, preparatory

 to jumping out of die truck. "I have to go that way," she said,

 192 Holly Usie

 and pointed to a cobbled road that twisted through the mar-

 ketplace and off to the right.

 "Well, that's the way I'm going, too. If yefll just be

 patient—" He grinned straight at her again, and she tried to

 reconcile his cheery demeanor and friendliness with all

 those teeth. And daws. Mustn't forget the claws- "We'll get

 past the herds and the flocks soon enough. That's Old Stone-

 man's Road. Goes to Weirds' Hold. Bit of a ride, but I'm

 goin' that way. Yer sure welcome."

 There didn't seem to be any reason to insist on walking.

 The man made her nervous, but not nervous in die way she

 would have equated with, for example, being around known

 sex offenders. There was nothing slimy about him. She came

 to the conclusion her anxiety was simply caused by being

 faced with someone so different. He probably feels nervous

 around me, too. She sighed. 'Thanks. If you're sure you

 don't mind, then, I'll stick with you."

 The cobblestone part of the road only lasted to the end

 of the town. Then it became flat cut paving stones laid out

 in a single raised lane. The shoulders widened at regular

 intervals to allow the larger vehicles to pass each other. Old

 Stoneman's Road, she discovered, was much more lightly

 traveled than the road she and Lorcas had just left. Her

 uneasy feeling got worse. Lorcas had grown silent as the vil-

 lage fell away behind them, and she didn't feel up to keeping

 a conversation going.

 The terrain, which had been a steeply hilled and heavily

 farmed piedmont, became flatter, and the farms farther

 apart. Rolling meadows gave way to large marshy areas, and

 the road became a causeway for long stretches. She stared

 out at the countryside that flashed past her, at fens and

 bracken thickets and boggy lakes.

 They rode over streams, and then two foir-si2ed rivers,

 and Minerva was glad she hadn't tried to walk. On foot, she

 would have made an easy target, if any of the flying thin^

 still hunted her. In the truck, she hoped such creatures

 would have a more difficult time tracking her. But still her

 disquiet grew.

 As the ground below the causeway started to rise again,

 MINERVA WAKES            193

 the old man turned to her. Thoughtfully, he said, "Seems to

 me someone don't know where she's goin' but in as much of

 a huny to get there as you are must be running away from

 something. That wouldn't be the case, would it?"

 Minerva shook her head. "I'm running to something—I

 just don't know what yet. Really."

 He tipped his head slowly to one side and rotated his ears

 up and a bit forward. His eyes narrowed. "Wouldn't be run-

 ning toward the Veil of Illusion, would you?"

 Minerva was nonplussed. The what?"

 He shrugged and smiled- "No, I guess not then." He

 seemed ready to drop the subject.

 Minerva gathered up her courage. "What is the Veil of

 Illusion? If you don't mind?"

 "No fit place for anyone—not even critters." And that was

 all Lorcus would say about it.

 Minerva dropped the subject. They were coming into

 another village—more of a hamlet, really. A few shabby

 houses lined the road on both sides, and tiny, scruffy fields

 spread out behind diem. She was having a hard time recon-

 ciling the cheymat's wealth and technological sophistication

 with the apparent poverty and backwardness of diese other

 parts of Eyrith.

 On earth, there are places this out of touch, she thought,

 but not so dose to civilization. And dien she reconsidered.

 Living in a middle-class neighborhood for most of her life,

 how did she know what die lives of die people around her

 were like? She saw the poverty and the squalor here because

 it was new to her eyes, and she hadn't yet learned to look

 past it.

 She thought, if she made it back to her own world, she

 would pay more attention to odier people. Maybe—if she

 really were a Weaver—she could do some good diere.

 "Old Stoneman," die farmer said, widi a nod of his head

 back to die rapidly receding village- He Uien fell back to

 silence.

 The duffel at Minerva's feet shifted—Murp had evidendy

 awakened. She yawned and stretched, hoping to cover any

 noises die cat might make, but die farmer was not misled-

 194 HoUy Lisle

 "What yer got in the bag?" he asked.

 "Clothes and my lunch," she lied.

 "Thought I smelled something fine in there—live meat, I

 reckoned, but didn't think yer the type to eat yer's live. 'S

 how I like mine, too." He gave the bag a wistful glance, and

 smiled hopefully at her. "Yer wouldn't like t'share, would

 yer? I've a bit of cheese and I'd planned t' loll one of the

 beasts in the back, mayhaps, if they didn't have something I

 liked in Weirds' Hold, but I've never smelled die likes of

 that."

 Minerva tried not to let her dismay show. "Ah—" she said,

 and stared at the bag at her feet, which was now wriggling

 vigorously and would at any moment, she suspected, let out

 with an indignant yowl or two. "Urn—" She gave the farmer

 an apologetic smile. "Really not even enough there for one,

 and I'd Just brought this one along as a snack. If I'd known

 ahead of time, I could have grabbed another one, but. . ."

 Her voice trailed off into silence, and she gave him a help-

 less shrug.

 His disappointment was evident. "Oh. Yes, I reckon the

 beast would have to be small to fit in there. Perhaps if you

 could tell me where you got it. . . ?"

 Minerva brushed her hair out of her face and said, "Of

 course. I caught this one in the—ah—" What cUd TaUeos call

 the placed Oh. yes. "In the Preserve."

 Lorcus stared at her hand. Rather, she noted, he stared at

 her ring. And suddenly he smiled in a way she did not like

 at all. His attention snapped back to the road, and he said,

 "Then that would possibly be a magical creature, hmmm?

 I'd not want to eat that, anyway. Hard on the stomach, some

 of those."

 "I imagine so," Minerva said, and edged farther toward the

 passenger door. The truck was moving awfully fast. The old

 man had decided to make some time, she could tell. Where

 before he had pulled onto the first shoulder he came to

 whenever another vehicle approached, now he just kept on

 driving, counting on the other drivers to make way for him.

 Finally, she dared to say, "You seem in an awfully big

 hurry."

 MINERVA WAKES            195

 "Gettin' late," he replied, "and I'm gettin' hungry."

 That was as much about that topic as Minerva cared to

 hear.

 "Minnerjean," the old man said, "we're not far out of

 Weirds' Hold, Whyn't you let me buy yer a nice dinner 'fore

 you head on?" He smiled at her, keeping his teeth mostly

 hidden. "You've been fine company—and I'd like to treat

 you." He frowned a bit, and his huge ears flipped back. "They

 don't have real fresh meat in the big city—you'n have to eat

 Idued-and-cooked. But it hain't bad. I've had it a time or two."

 Minerva hated to appear rude—and as long as she didn't

 have to eat a live animal, or watch the old man eat one, she

 thought she could tolerate his company a while longer. He

 wasn't so terrible. He simply made her nervous. She smiled

 back at him. "Why, thank you, Lorcus. That's very kind of

 you."

 His smile grew wider, so that she could see the fangs

 again. "Not a 'tall," he said. "Not a 'tall."

 By the time Darryl got home from the family ^thering

 after the funeral, it was close to four PM., and he was

 exhausted. His mom and dad, refusing to be denied, were

 going to stop by in less than an hour. That didn't give him

 much time to write. He pushed open his front door and

 plodded toward the stairs.

 The voice from the living room stopped him.

 "I wish I could watch things in the mirror when you

 weren't here," Birkwelch called, "I read what you wrote

 while I was waiting for you, and I think you've created a rec-

 ipe for disaster—but I couldn't see what was going on.

 There's no telling what might have happened to her by now."

 "She's fine." Darryl started back toward the stairs again. "I

 only caught about two glimpses of her in mirrors the whole

 time I was at her folks' house. Those are people who don't

 believe in mirrors."

 The dragon snickered- "Having now seen her mother, I

 can guess why."

 Darryl laughed in spite of himself. "Minerva takes after

 her father."

 196 Holly Lisle

 That hawk-nosed weasel? I don't think she was his off-

 spring, either. Minerva was a foundling is my guess,"

 Birkwelch said, and followed Danyl up the stairs.

 "Anyway, she was looking out the window of a bus or car

 or something—riding along at a pretty good chp. So you

 didn't need to worry."

 Danyl noted the sudden silence behind him. He looked

 down die steps and saw the dragon standing halfway up,

 staring at him with a horrified expression. "Riding?" the

 dragon finally squeaked. "Sacred Karras protect us aU!" The

 huge beast charged up the stairs at a speed Danyl found

 hard to believe, and dragged him down the hall and into the

 art room before he'd had a chance to realize it had

 happened.

 The two of them studied the image in the mirror. The

 scenery whipped past. Danyl caught glimpses of verdant

 flatiand, a built-up stone road, Minerva's feet and the duffel

 bag, and then a dizzying blur as she snapped from looking

 out the window to looking at the driver.

 Danyl got a good look at the profile of the creature who

 was driving his way across the Eyrith countryside. He had

 huge, curly-edged ears, a flat, wrinkled face, and white lion's

 mane of hair. Darryl turned to Birkwelch.

 "What is that thing?"

 That's one of Eyrith's Highlanders—looks like a typical

 farmer taking his beasts to market." Birkwelch sighed and

 tapped the glass with one talon. "You might have been lucky

 this time. The Weirds will be using every means at their dis-

 posal to find Minerva—they will have sensed her presence

 in Eyrith the second she left the magic-shielded zone

 around Talleos' cabin. But the Highlanders don't go in much

 for anything die Weirds want."

 Birkwelch glared at Danyl and added, "Even so, let me

 make a suggestion. Never write for the 'fastest' anything.

 Write for me 'safest'—or there's no telling what sort of

 trouble you'll write everybody into."

 Danyl looked at the ugly farmer uneasily. Every time the

 man opened his mouth, two sets of long yellowed fangs

 glinted in his mouth. Minerva glanced from the man's face

 MINERVA WAKES

 197

 to his hands, and Danyl saw sharp claws instead of finger-

 nails tipping his fingers. "I can't believe she accepted a ride

 from something like that," he finally muttered- "I wouldn't

 have."

 If she'd stayed on the road, the Weirds would have had

 an easy time catching her."

 Birkwelch suddenly sucked in a breath and stared at the

 mirror. Minerva and the fanner were coming into a town,

 and Minerva's glance moved from indecipherable signs to

 some attractive wattle-and-daub houses, and then to a huge

 dark stone fortress that stood off in the distance on a giant

 artificial mound.

 "What?" Danyl asked when the dragon didn't say

 anything.

 They're going right into Weirds' Hold." The dragon

 appeared to be unable to believe what he was seeing.

 Danyl studied the bouncing view of the approaching

 town and shrugged. "So?"

 Those walls on the mound . . ." The dragon pointed to

 the fortress again.

 ^ see them."

 That is Weirds' Hold."

 Danyl glowered at the dragon and growled, "So ... what?

 Get to the point!"

 Think, man, think! Nobody would call a place Weirds'

 Hold unless it had Weirds in it, would they? Weirds' Hoid is

 the Weirds' keep. That bastard farmer is taking her right to

 them."

 Danyl leaned heavily against the sewing table that acted

 as his desk. This could just be coincidence."

 The dragon scratched between his scales and looked at

 Eyrith in the mirror. The fanner parked his vehicle in front

 of a large windowless building on a back street. "Could be."

 The dragon looked at the sign, and shook his head. "Don't

 think it is, though. That's the Sacred Brethren Waystation.

 The Weirds run it."

 They're going to get her?"

 Minerva grabbed her duffel, got out of the vehicle, and

 walked around to the old fanner's side- Danyl got his first

 198 Holly Lisle

 look at the man's face from die front. The farmer's eyes were

 the same vivid, glowing emerald Cind/s had been.

 The dragon saw those eyes, too. "They've already got her,"

 he said.

 Bamey's feet still bled a little. They hurt so bad where the

 Unweebil had cut them that Bamey didn't want to move

 ever again. He curied in a ball on the mattress he'd made for

 himself, and faced the stone wall of the cage.

 Jamie patted him on the back, "You can make it all better,

 Bamey. Don't let that stinking Unweaver make you quit. You

 can get better."

 "Mommy didn't save us," Bamey said. "She was right

 here—and she didn't save us."

 "That was a dream," Carol said. "It wasn't real. You know

 that."

 "We were afl there. You saw her, too."

 "Well," Jamie said, "yeah—we saw her . . . but she wasn't

 really here. I mean, all that stuff was just a dream."

 "She can't beat him," Bamey whispered. "She can't. We're

 gonna be stuck here with the Unweebil forever, and we're

 gonna die."

 Bamey lay curled on the little mattress, staring at his

 hands. They looked thinner, he thought, and paler. He

 almost imagined he could see through them.

 The Unweebil was going to win, and that was going to be

 the end of everything.

 CHAPTER 11

 As Minerva stepped into the restaurant, the feeling of

 vague disquiet that had grown in her over the two hours of

 riding became full-fledged panic. She could see nothing

 ominous or out of place about the restaurant; it was clean

 and well lit and pleasantly decorated in a sort of faux-rustic

 fashion. The chandelier was made of old pikes, with electric

 lights in the shape of burning candles affixed to the weapon

 points. The tile floors and tabletops gleamed, and the wait-

 resses, in outfits that made Minerva's seem drab by

 comparison, were neat and cheerful. The two sturdy young

 women—creatures of the same species as Lorcas—wel-

 comed Minerva and the farmer, seated them at a table, and

 brought water and a dark red wine. all the while keeping

 their curiosity politely in check.

 And still, she worried. "Wheres the. ah—the ladies'

 room?" She lifted her duftel onto her lap.

 "The privacy rooms?" The farmer pointed toward the

 back, toward two doors, marked with swirls and circles and

 little hatches.

 Minerva winced, and said, "I can't read what they say.

 Which one is for women?"

 The old farmer laughed and pointed to the one on the

 ri^it.

 Minerva thanked him and quickly excused herself-

 Once on the other side of the restroom door, she locked

 199

 200 Holly Lisle

 it, and knelt, and peered under the door. She could see a

 thin sliver of the dining room, including the farmer's boots,

 and the waitress's boots right next to hini-

 I'm being paranoid, she thought. She's just taking his

 order. Even so, Minerva brought out her paper and a pencil.

 Murp popped out of the bag, too, and stretched and

 yawned. Then he sat next to her, and watched while she

 drew a tiny ear, and concentrated on hearing.

 °. . . three eggs, and the chorgin, and stab kaldebeast.

 Rare. No—I get kaldebeast ever' day. I think I'd like the

 morlu. Cut me a piece about two-three fingers thick . . ."

 Minerva quit listening. That was certainly silly of me. He

 is just ordering. She went to the bathroom, and let Murp use

 the trash basket as a litter box. When they were both

 through, she popped him back in her duffel and washed her

 hands. Murp seemed less thrilled about taking up residence

 in the duffel the second time, but she bribed him by sketch-

 ing some Tender Vitdes and Pounce cat treats, and tossing

 them in with him.

 When she got out, the waitress hurried over to the table,

 smiling. The fanner was gone.

 Take your order?"

 "I don't know what I'd like- What do you recommend?"

 The waitress listed a few things, and Minerva picked from

 names she thought she recognized. Then she asked, "Where

 did Lorcas go?"

 The girl gave her a vacant grin and shrugged. "Don't

 rightly know," she said, "but he ordered a meal would choke

 a grewij. He'll be back any time."

 Minerva grinned. More paranoia, she decided.

 Her meal and Lorcas' arrived—huge platefiils of

 sizzling meat and dark vegetables in thick sauces—and an

 instant later. Lorcas returned as well. He hurried in from

 outside, looking rather flustered, but he smiled when he

 saw her. "Had to water the beasts in the truck, and then I

 thought I ought to call the mate and tell her I got here all

 of one piece."

 Minerva grinned. She wished she could call her husband

 and tell him she was safe and on her way to find the

 MINERVA WAKES

 201

 children. "No problem," she said. "I just figured if you didn't

 hurry back, I'd finish my meal and eat yours."

 Lorcas eyed her heaped plate with some doubt, then

 laughed. "I woulda' paid to see that."

 They dug into their food. Thank you," Minerva told him

 between bites. Thanks for the ride, and for the meal, and

 everything. You've been very kind."

 The farmer smiled over at her, his green eyes almost

 glowing. "My pleasure." His voice sounded oddly hollow.

 For an instant she fancied his features shifted—they seemed

 almost to run and blur—but when she rubbed her eyes and

 looked at him a^in, nothing of the kind recurred.

 I don't feel tired, she thought. Must be a trick of the light.

 The lighting in here does seem a tittle bizarre.

 And indeed, as she thought that, the lighting in the res-

 taurant briefly dimmed to brown, then came back up again.

 Lorcas cocked his head to one side and his ears swiveled.

 "Reckon I'll go check on the animals. Right back."

 Minerva nodded and continued eating. No sooner was

 Lorcas outside, though, than she rethought his actions.

 Damn, but I wish this place had a window, she said.

 And at that moment, pale glowing black letters ghosted in

 a transparent stream across her plate. They looked like

 they'd been typed—Courier typeface—complete with a typo

 that the invisible typist struck out and retyped.

 Minerva, (they said) get sy* out of there

 while you can. The old roan was a plant, and

 the restaurant is a trap. I love you. Darryi

 She looked around, trying to appear casual. The wait-

 resses were watching her. She smiled, and picked up her

 bag, and walked back to the women's restroom. No sense

 tipping them off, just in case they were in on things.

 How did Dam/I get that message to me? she wondered.

 She hid in the restroom, scared stiff- Minerva locked the

 door—though if anyone really wanted her, the door was thin

 and the lock flimsy. A good kick would open it. What could

 she do to get herself out of trouble?

 202 Holly Lisle

 She got out her vellum. She had two completely clean

 sheets left. Not much ammunition.

 First things first. She drew a heavy oak beam set through

 two massive metal rings to bar the door. This time, she con-

 centrated on the image and kept her eyes open, watching

 the door to make sure the magic worked.

 She saw a shadow form along (he place where the beam

 would be, and famt sparkling shimmers of light—the sort of

 effect she would have imagined pixies dancing in a fairy ring

 would create. The light coalesced into a solid, rainbow-col-

 ored glow, then flickered out.

 Oh! Magfc is just like sex, she thought. It works better

 with your eyes open.

 She heard a commotion out in the dining room. The

 restaurant's front door slammed, and heavy-booted teet

 marched in. Deep, threatening voices shouted, "Where is

 she? You were supposed to keep her here!"

 One of the waitresses yelled back, "She went in then?! We

 didn't let her get away! She's trapped!"

 The next instant, the door rattled from a vicious lack.

 "Come out now and we won't hurt you!" the voice from

 the other side of the door demanded.

 7 bet. Just hU me. disintegrate me, and turn me into dust

 motes.

 "Eat shit and die, scum-sucking maggot!" Minerva yelled

 back. It was sort of cliche, but she'd always wanted to say

 (hat. She'd just never had the chance before.

 The restroom had no window, no other doors, and solid

 walls. Minerva tried scraping her way through what she had

 hoped would be dried mud. But the walls, under a thin wat-

 tie-and-daub coating, were solid stone masonry. The

 building, which had looked primitive and not terribly dura-

 ble, was in fact a disguised fort.

 The door shuddered with repeated locks. Her huge

 beam, its bolts sunk into solid stone, would hold against

 almost anything. But the door itself wasn't very sturdy. The

 instant one of her pursuers took an ax to it, he'd be through.

 She thought desperately, then drew a bolt running vertically

 through the door into the floor below and the huge lintel

 MINERVA WAKES

 203

 above. As an afterthought, she sketched what she imagined

 as two-inch-thick metal cladding to line the back of the door.

 It shimmered into existence.

 The next kick, when it came, was muffled, but the swear-

 ing wasn't. Hope he broke his leg, Minerva thought. The

 door wouldn't hold forever, she thought with some amuse-

 ment, but it would give her a little time.

 What she was going to do with that time was another

 matter entirely.

 Danyl had found a way to communicate with her. She

 wondered if she could communicate back. Minerva recalled

 the dragon Birkwelch saying something about Danyl watch-

 ing things through her eyes—seeing everything she saw in

 die minor back home. If that were the case, Danyl would

 be able to read notes she wrote to him, if she just looked at

 them. And whatever trick he had discovered for writing to

 her, perhaps he could perform again.

 She wrote, Dam/I, can you read this^

 After an instant, glowing print appeared m the air in front

 other.

 Yes.

 How do I get out of here? she scribbled.

 The machine characters scrolled through the air. Dragon

 says draw a door.

 She stared at the solution for an instant. "Shit," she mut-

 tered. "Of course." Behind her, the things that were after

 her began to batter the door with something heavier than

 their boots. A relied tree, she guessed. Or maybe the old

 man's truck. They wanted her pretty badly.

 She wondered what was on the other side of the wall—

 and wished she had some weapon besides the little silver

 knife. What she knew about the functiomngs and operations

 of weapons, however, she could stuff into the point of a bul-

 let with room left over.

 And then Minerva remembered Mrs. Mrndley that day at

 FoodLion—the day the whole mess started. She remem-

 bered wishing her grocery cart had sported front-mounted

 machine guns and a flamethrower, so she could blow the

 wicked witch of Data Processing away. And Minerva smiled.

 204 HoUy Lisle

 "Yeah. That's what I need- The shopping cart from hell.

 But motorized."

 With the rattling and clanging and shouting behind her,

 and the first tendrils of smoke curling under the door, it was

 hard to concentrate, but she forced herself. She needed to

 get the design right. She settled on a wide-tread

 four-wheeled vehicle with large tires. She hurried the

 artwork, and the thing came out looking like a demented

 moon rover. Live wvth it, she thought She drew her best

 guess for a flamethrower mounted on a swivel stand on the

 left side of the dash, and a few lines suggesting a machine gun

 on the right. Big seat with harness seatbeits, rollbar over the

 top, glass bubble half-shell cover designed to give her

 two-hundred degrees of field of fire. Then the operating

 details—steering wheel, ignition key, accelerator pedal,

 brake, and speedometer with the top speed—actually the

 only speed—marked at one hundred miles per hour.

 Detroit would laugh itself sick.

 The hinges on the door behind her gave with a sickening

 crack. Minerva stared at her sketch and concentrated. Metal

 screeched against stone, and the smoke grew thicker and

 more acrid. And Murp yowled in terror. In the midst of the

 turmoil, the light other magic coalesced slowly. She control-

 led the size and shape of her evolving vehicle, and watched

 with pleasure as it became solid beneath her hands.

 Now the door out of here.

 She belted herself into the buggy with the duffel strapped

 around her waist, pressed her foot on the brake, then turned

 the key which grew out of the ignition. Shit, she thought,

 noticing an omission in her vehicle's design. Forgot a gear

 shift. Bet it doesn't do reverse. The motor made no noise,

 but she could feel it vibrate and pull against the brake. Good

 enough. She spread the vellum on her knee, and with char-

 coal drew a long, smooth arch. She focused on the wall she

 hoped led out of the building entirely and concentrated on

 making it go away.

 It did.

 Water sprayed out of the hole in the wall—gushing out of

 plumbing no longer connected to anything. Voices on the

 MINERVA WAKES

 205

 other side of the wall shouted. Minerva couldn't tell what

 was out there. Oh, well.

 She took her foot off the brake and pressed the

 accelerator, and the buggy launched itself from the

 restroom into the great unknown like a thoroughbred

 from a starting gate. Her drawing flew from her lap and

 fluttered behind her. People welled up in front of her and

 dove to either side, screaming. A flock of winged

 nightmares—toothy man-sized horrors—flapped into the

 air at the sight of her and flew her way. She'd come out on

 a cobblestoned street, a busy one, full of late-aftemoon

 shoppers carrying home their treasures, and farmers with

 their beasts and their carts nearly empty of produce, and

 an entire herd of small children, perched safely out of the

 way, who shouted and laughed as she rocketed by.

 The buggy was still accelerating. She lifted her foot from

 die accelerator pedal, but the infernal thing seemed to have

 a mind of its own. It bounded down the street, caroming off

 the uneven road surface. The grips of both the flamethrower

 and the machine gun swung and bucked. The machine gun

 butt hit her in the face so hard she saw stars. She didn't dare

 take her hands off the wheel to see if it had done any dam-

 age, but from the pain and the feeling of wet warmth on her

 right cheek, she was pretty sure it had opened the side of

 her face.

 Bad design, she thought. Fucking awful design.

 She pushed on the brake and slowed. Immediately one of

 the huge winged things passed her, wheeled around, and

 dove. She hit the brake harder, grabbed the flamethrower

 grip with her left hand, and pulled the trigger.

 This turned out to be a tactical error. Flame shot out and

 roasted the diving monster—but it also washed back at her.

 She jerked her hand away from that weapon and gunned the

 buggy again. The falling monster hit the glass dome over her

 head with a solid thud and slid off behind her.

 One chum. She tried to be enthusiastic about her first kill,

 but a quick look over her shoulder showed there were

 entirely too many where that came from.

 All she could smeH was singed hair and blood. She felt

 206 Holly Lisle

 like she had the worst sunburn of her life, and if what she

 knew of burns was correct, that pain was only going to get

 worse. She needed to look at the compass to see which way

 she had to go, and she couldnt slow down enough to pull it

 out other bag. The damned buggy had two speeds; stop and

 one-hundred miles-per-hour.

 On the other hand, she thought, brightening a litde. I'm

 not stuck in the bathroom anymore, and now I don't have to

 walk.

 "She shouldn't have a flamethrower or a machine gun,'

 Birkwelch said.

 Danyl ignored the dragon. "AH right!" he screamed.

 "Good save, Minerva! Way to go." He typed furiously:

 Miraculously, Minerva didn't run over

 anyone. She got out of town without crash-

 ing, and raced toward the place where her

 children were being held hostage.

 "Does she always drive like that?" Biricwelch interrupted.

 Danyl looked closer at the mirror. For the briefest of

 instants at a time, he would get a glimpse of the speedome-

 ter, The needle looked like it was glued at one hundred. He

 thought about it for an instant, then nodded and laughed.

 "Yeah. Usually worse."

 "Eeep!" The dragon rubbed his long muzzle thoughtfully.

 "She was driving a station wagon and nearly ran me down—

 guess I should have known." He watched a little longer. "I

 wish she'd look behind her. I'd like to know how many of the

 Weirds are keeping up with her."

 "You don't think she lost them?"

 "Not a chance." The dragon sighed- "Their magic doesn't

 compare to hers while she's wearing a Ring, but flying is one

 of their specialties. She won't evade them just by driving

 fast."

 Darryl felt confident. He'd figured out the trick of mak-

 ing messages appear in the air. He'd gotten her safely away

 from the disguised Weird who'd caught her. And she was out

 MINERVA WAKES

 207

 of the town and hadn't flattened a single pedestrian. He was

 getting the hang of magic.

 "So what does she need? What could get nd of flyine

 Weirds?"                                         6

 The dragon gave him a sidelong glance and said, "Well, I

 could, if I were there. But I'm not"

 "Can you get there?"

 "Not in time. I'd have to go through the gate—which

 would dump me at the Hallyebenge, and that is a couple

 hours from where she is, flying fast."

 Danyl nodded. "I see." He studied his typewritten page,

 with its cryptic descriptions of the events he'd made happen

 in Eyrith, and nibbled on the skin on the inside of his lower

 T lip. "Yeah. Birkwelch—do dragons come in flocks—orwhat?"

 "Only during orgies."

 Danyl gave the blue dragon a nasty glare—and the beast

 grinned-

 "The term for large groups of dragons is a thunder. A

 thunder of dragons." Birkwelch sighed and said wistfully,

 ^ There haven't been enough dragons to make up a decent

 thunder in more than a century."

 "A thunder." Danyl nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. Thanks."

 Danyl began typing again.

 -;•    Out of nowhere, a thunder of dragons

 V  darkened the sky. They pimnmeted into the

 center of the Weirds, and drove them from

 the air. The Weirds fled into the woods, and

 the dragons hunted them down to devour theni-

 He looked up at the mirror, eager to see his next miracle

 take place. Immediately the fact occurred to him that it took

 a hell of a lot of dragons to darken a sky. A whole hell of a

 lot. He hadn't seen so many flying things since he watched

 Hitchcock's The Birds.

 A second fact followed right behind that first one Birk-

 welch had fainted. At least Danyl assumed he had only

 fainted. He was sprawled out beside and behind Danyl, his

 eyes partly open and rolled back so only the whites were

 208 Holly Lisle

 showing. The dragon's mouth gaped, and his tongue lolled

 out to one side.

 Birkwelch looked disgusting, Danyl decided.

 He checked the mirror. Minerva had come to a complete

 halt. She was firing the flamethrower with one hand and the

 machine gun with the other. She was shooting indiscrimi-

 nately, he noted—and hitting more of his dragons than she

 was the Weirds he'd sent the dragons to get rid of. Then he

 saw why. One of the dragons came in at her—low, fast, and

 from the side. Minerva caught the movement out of the cor-

 ner of her eye, and turned in time to lay down a steady

 pattern of machine gun fire. The big beast went down,

 crashing into the side of her buggy. Then he saw the world

 lurch, as Minerva turned to face another monster that had

 attacked from the other side.

 "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" Darryl yelled, and ran back

 to the typewriter. He sat down and wrote—

 The dragons quit attacking Minerva and

 concentrated exclusively on the Weirds. They

 did not bother the little buggy as it drove

 off to safety.

 "mat ought to fix it," he muttered.

 He watched the mirror. Minerva was in the middle of a

 flame duel. A dragon on her left belched huge gouts of

 fire at her. One on her right was keeping low and just out

 of range of her machine gun. Others hovered in front. . .

 waiting. The Weirds were nowhere around, but that

 seemed less comforting than it would have seconds

 earBer.

 "So leave her alone already!" he yelled. "Leave her alone,

 dammit!"

 His hands pounded the keyboard.

 The dragons are her

 not hurt Minerva. They

 dragons who eat Weirds

 Minerva'''

 friends. They will

 are good, friendly

 but will not touch

 MINERVA WAKES            209

 "That won't work." Birkwelch had come around, and was

 staring over his shoulder. "Dragons are like people. We're

 creatures of free will. You can set us up to fit into a scenario,

 but once the scenario is set, you cannot change the natures

 of dragons on a whim." The dragon shook his head slowly.

 "You've established your characters. You created man-eaters

 there. They arent going to turn all nice and cozy for you

 after they've done your dirty work."

 Dairy! stared at the dragon, and his mouth fell open. "You

 mean I'm stuck with them like that? I can't fix them?" He

 stared at (he mirror in horror. Minerva was fighting for her

 life on the other side of it, and she looked like she was los-

 ing. "I thought I could do anything."

 "Everything has rules. You can do anything, as long as you

 work within the rules."

 Darryl wrapped his arms around himself and looked

 through his wife's eyes at the steady stream of oncoming

 horrors.

 "What can I do?"

 Beside him, the dragon sighed. "I dont know. Maybe she

 knows."

 Darryl rested his fingers on the keyboard- Don't fuck it up

 this time, he told himself. Minerva couldn't survive too many

 more of his mistakes. He had another idea. This one, at

 least, seemed harmless. He took a deep breath, then

 typed—

 Darryl spoke to Minerva, and for the

 first time his voice carried to her, and

 when she spoke to him, he could hear her.

 "Minerva?" Darryl said softly. He became aware that he

 could hear a thread of conversation in the back of his mind.

 It went, "... goddamned sonovabitching luck to get run

 over by dragons how the hell am I going to get myself out

 of this one; I can't even take the time to draw anything.. ."

 That was Minerva. Evidently she was talking too loud to

 hear him. He yelled, "Minerva! Listen! Just tell me what you

 need, and I'll do it."

 210 Hotly Lisle

 The steady stream of profanity died, cut off in mid-verb.

 "Danyl?"

 "Yes, baby- It's me. What do you need?"

 Minerva had her answer ready. "I need to get rid of these

 dragons."

 "I know that," he shouted. 'T. can see that. But what do

 you need to get rid of the dragons?"

 "It would be nice if they could just disappear the way they

 appeared. The machine gun and the flamethrower seem to

 have an unlimited supply of ammo, but they're both getting

 too hot to handle."

 "Can I make the dragons disappear?" Danyl asked Birk-

 welch.

 "You can." Birkwelch looked grim. "That's Unweaving—

 and every time you do it, you hand the Unweaver some of

 your magic. But I don't see any other alternative this time.

 Just promise to replace them when you can—maybe that

 will repair the Unweaving."

 "Fine," Danyl said. "Someday I'll make you some more

 dragons."

 He typed—

 As abruptly as they'd arrived, the drag-

 ons vanished.

 This time his magic worked. The dragons melted away

 without a trace. He could tell Minerva had dropped into the

 seat of her buggy.

 "Are you okay?" he asked her.

 "I've been better- I've got some bad bums, and I'm cut

 up. And I'm tired." She sounded damn near dead.

 "The Weirds are gone. With any luck, you won't have any

 more of those to bother you. But watch for the green eyes,

 okay? That's your tip-off." Danyl couldn't help but be happy.

 The two of them could talk to each other again. He'd missed

 her—missed her touch and her presence and her warmth,

 but hearing her made her seem not so far away. It was easier

 to believe she really was alive somewhere when she talked

 to him.

 MINERVA WAKES

 211

 "The Weirds—the big flying things ... and the fanner

 too?"

 "Yes. They can change shapes—look like anything they

 want The/re the ones who want us dead."

 "Figures." Minerva opened her duffel bag. Danyl could

 see her pulling Murp out of it and stroking the cat. "It's

 going to be okay now," she crooned. "We're going to get the

 kids."

 Danyl noticed Minerva's vision becoming bluny in spite

 of her glasses. He saw a slight edge of gray around her field

 of vision.

 She's about tofamt. he thought. "Minerva," he shouted,

 lie down. I'm going to send you a first aid Idt and some

 Gatorade. Drink as much of it as you can and keep your feet

 up."

 Minerva lay her head on the back of die seat and stared

 up at the darkening-sky. "Okey-doke," she agreed.

 Minerva never said "Okey-doke."

 A gallon of Gatorade and an incredibly

 complete first aid kit that contained a

 handy field guide to first aid appeared on

 the floorboard of the buggy next to Minerva.

 Minerva looked down, and saw die rucksack in the floor-

 board. "Thanks, Danyl," she said.

 1 love you, baby," he told her.

 Danyl heard an ambulance siren screaming up the street.

 "I love you, too," Minerva told him. It felt good to hear her

 say that—

 Boy, that ambulance is loud, he thought. It sounds like it's

 rig/rf outside the house. "Min—I'D talk to you later. Find

 someplace safe, and get some rest." He heard her muffled

 reply as he headed for the door.

 He opened it

 His mother stood on the odier side.

 Danyl yelped, and said, "Mom!"

 The ambulance was outside his house. The siren quit

 howling. The ambulance doors slammed- Oh. Cod, he

 212 Holly Lisle

 thought, something's happened to Dad. His mothefs face

 was ash-gray, and she wrung her hands. She looked like she's

 been dancing with the dead. "Mom ... is Dad okay?"

 Downstairs, he heard people talking—voices he didn't

 recognize. His mother nodded vigorously, but didn't say

 anything.

 She watched him as though she thought he might sud-

 denly sprout wings and Hy; it was only when he realized she

 was worried for—or about—him that it occurred to him she

 might have overheard him in the art room.

 "Mom," he said, trying hard to sound calm, "when did

 you get here?"

 She gnawed on her bottom lip and frowned. "About ten

 or fifteen minutes ago," she admitted.

 Best case, ten minutes. What had he said and done in the

 last ten minutes? He'd shouted at his dead wife. He'd talked

 to an invisible dragon. He'd typed lots of oddball stuff on the

 typewriter that, if taken seriously by anyone, would certainly

 seem to indicate he was nuts. Not good. Not at all good. He

 took a deep breath. Smiled.

 "Mom," he said, "there are a lot of things going on you're

 going to have to trust me about. It will all make sense soon,"

 he promised. I hope, he added silently.

 His mother pressed her hand to her cheek. She looked

 ready to cry. "Oh, sweetheart, you've been under so much

 pressure—"

 "He's upstairs right now," Danyl heard his father say. The

 tread of heavy feet echoed in the entryway, and two burly

 EMTs came around the comer of the stairwell.

 Thanks, Dad. Danyl looked down at them, they looked

 up at him—the whole scene reminded him of a shootout at

 high noon. Any second one of them was going to say, "Are

 you going to come quietly or do we have to shoot you?"—

 Danyl could feel it coming. His mom said, "Darryl, we

 called the ambulance. These nice men are here to help you."

 Birkwelch peeked out the art room door. "Nice men?

 Now she's talking baby talk, no less," the dragon said. "If I

 were you, I'd pretend to be sane."

 Pretend? I am sane. I hope. Danyl wanted to tell the

 MINERVA WAKES            213

 damned dragon off, or at least give him a dirty look—but he

 didn't dare. All those people were watching.

 "Mr. Kiakra," one of the EMTs said, "we really think you

 ought to come to the hospital with us. The doctor can help

 you, and you will feel better"

 "I don't need a doctor," Darryl said, backing up. "I feel

 just fine already—all things considered."

 His mother stage-whispered, "Danyl, you were talking to

 Minerva. And saying things about making dragons disap-

 pear—° She seemed to don resolution before his eyes. Her

 hands went to her hips and her voice grew firm and sure. "I

 want you to go to the hospital and let them check you out.

 Maybe the doctor can give you a prescription that will help

 you. Everybody needs help sometimes, and we all under-

 stand how terrible all of this has been."

 Then her eyes filled with tears. He hated it when she

 cried. "Danyl," she whispered, "I've lost my grandchildren

 and my daughter-in-law. I don't want to lose my son, too.

 Please ... for me ..."

 Danyl knew when he was beat.

 "I'll go," he told her. "For you. But I'm not crazy. Mom.

 I'm really not."

 He walked down the stairs to meet the two EMTs and

 said he could drive himself. They told him that was all right,

 and they were sure he could, but since they'd come all the

 way out and had to go to die hospital anyway, there wasnt

 any need. They were giving him the kid-gloves treatment,

 but he didn't protest. Protesting your sanity to people

 who've already decided you're nuts, he thought, is a sure

 way to convince them you're nuts.

 Birkwelch rode with him to the hospital, sitting primly in

 the shotgun seat of the ambulance, leaning around the cor-

 ner from time to time to make faces at the driver. Danyl

 pretended not to notice.

 "I don't know where we'll get food now," Jamie

 complained.

 Carol shook Bamey again. "He won't even move. Jamie,

 I'm really scared."

 214 HoUy Lisle

 Bamey listened to her, but he didn't respond. He

 wished she would go away. He wished everything would

 go away.

 "The Unweaver isn't going to give us food or water,"

 Jamie said. "He wants us to starve."

 "Bamey doesn't care anymore."

 "I care." Bamey could hear Jamie pacing back and forth

 in the tiny cell. "The monsters—didn't they say something

 about how they couldn't see the road because you had to

 have the right kind of magic to see it?"

 "Well, yeah," Carol agreed. "But they musta' been wrong,

 'cause we could see it."

 "What if they were right, though? Would that mean we

 could do magic, too?"

 Bamey began to take a slight interest in the proceedings.

 Could they do magic? he wondered. No—they just hoped

 theycould-

 "How did he do it—do you know?" Jamie asked.

 They couldn't do magic. Only he could. He'd show them.

 Bamey sat up. At first, he felt weak and floaty, almost like

 his body was mostly air. As he sat, though, he began to feel

 more solid—and as he felt more solid, his feet started hurt-

 ing again.

 He whimpered from the pain.

 "He's awake!" Carol said, and ran over and hugged him.

 "No mushy stuff," Bamey growled—but he was secretly

 pleased with the attention.

 "Okay" Jamie sat down and looked at the cut places on

 Barne/s feet. Those are getting kind of bad, Bamey," he

 said. "If you know how to make them better, you ought to

 do it."

 Bamey smiled a little smile. "I know how to do magic."

 Then do it. Don't leave your feet like that."

 Bamey nodded. His big brother made sense, he thought.

 He stared at his feet. They were all red and swollen, and the

 bottoms were all slashed up, and had yellow stuff running

 out of mem. He felt a little sick. He tried to do something

 to make them okay—but the more he tried, the more he

 couldn't do anything.

 MINERVA WAKES

 215

 He sat back, feeling maybe he ought to just curl up in the

 comer again.

 "Can't you fix them?" Carol asked.

 "No."

 "Why not?"

 Bamey yelled, "I don't know! Okay? I don't know!" He

 started to ciy.

 His brother sat down on the mattress beside him. "Can

 you do other magic?"

 Bamey sniffled. "I... I don't know."

 Try something," Carol whispered. "Try some chocolate.

 That would be nice."

 Chocolate, Bamey thought. Even through the haze of

 pain, with his feet throbbing and burning and hurting so

 bad, he could dunk chocolate. The taste, the smell, the

 feel—Bamey could make chocolate real. He held out his

 hand, and the candy shimmered to life in his palm.

 "Here," he said, and handed it to Carol. "You can have it."

 Jamie grinned broadly. "See? You can do it. You really

 can. So do some magic, and make your feet better."

 "I—I cant"

 Jaroie snorted with frustration. Tell me how you make

 chocolate. What makes the magic work? 'Cause if it works

 for chocolate, it will work for your feet, too."

 Bamey didn't want to be stubborn, but he couldn't seem

 to help it. "It won't."

 "Bar-r-r-ney . . . this is important."

 Bamey tried to figure it out. "I can think about (he choco-

 late," he said- "Even when it isn't here, I know just what it's

 lilre. So I can make it. But I guess—I guess my feet hurt so

 bad I dont remember what they felt like when they didn't.

 So I can't fix them."

 That's magic?" Jamie sounded disappointed, almost like

 that wasnt good enough.

 "You cant do it"

 "Maybe I can. I was trying to remember magic spells, like

 liocus-pocus,' but those didn't work." Jamie frowned. "I'd

 Bke a hot dog, I think." He sat cross-legged on me mattress

 beside Bamey, and squinched his face all up, and knotted his

 216 Holly Lisle

 fists into tight little balls. "Hotdog," he muttered. "Hotdog.

 I want a hotdog."

 Bamey watched him with interest. He didn't think he

 looked anywhere near so silly when he did magic.

 No hotdogs appeared.

 Barney grinned. "You have to smell it cooking—and you

 have to taste how it tastes when you bite it. You have to feel

 the hot in your mouth. You have to vision biting it so much

 you think you already have it—"

 Jamie yelped, and spit something brown and round out of

 his mouth. Too kot\" he yelped, and sat there panting with

 his tongue hanging out like a dog's.

 Bamey laughed. "You got to vision it in your hand, dum-

 myhead—not your mouth." And then he realized his big,

 poophead brother had done magic, and he grew quiet It

 wasn't fair—after all, he was die litdest. He needed magic.

 Jamie didn't

 "Let me practice," Jamie said, and sat on the bed for a

 while, making ice cream and chocolate and cake and icy cold

 cans of Coca Cola that turned out to be impossible to open

 because Jamie had never paid very close attention to how

 those pop-tops woiked-

 And then Jamie bent over and looked at Bame/s feet. "I

 know what they're supposed to look like," he said. "Maybe I

 can fix 'em." He stared, and his face grew thoughtful, and

 suddenly Barney felt warm, wonderful tingling where before

 there had only been pain.

 Jamie stopped after a minute. "I'm tired," he said. "Do

 they feel better?"

 "Lots." Barney bent his leg to look at the sole of one foot.

 It had interesting scars on it—but the red and die bleeding

 and the gross yellow stuff were all gone.

 Tm gonna quit, then," Jamie said. "I need a nap."

 In the far comer of the room, Carol suddenly shrieked. "I

 did it!" A butterfly, bright orange and purple, like nothing

 Bamey had ever seen before, fluttered around her head.

 Bamey eyed her. disgusted. She could do magic, too? It

 just wasn't fair

 Nothing was fair, he thought darkly.

 MINERVA WAKES

 217

 "You know what I want more than anything in the

 world?" Carol whispered.

 "You want to go home," Bamey growled.

 "niat we could have, I mean."

 "No. What do you want?"

 "You know the crystal ball in The Wimrd ofOz? The one

 Dorothy sees Aunt Em in?"

 Bamey nodded.

 "I want one of those. So we can see Mommy"

 Bamey was still grouchy. 'Then make one I'm not going

 to."

 She glared at him. "Stinky boy" she said "If I have to

 make it by myself, I won't let you look in it"

 Barney wanted to see Mommy, too. He sighed, and got

 carefully to his feet, and gently stepped on them. They

 worked okay, he thought. Suddenly he was a little bit glad

 Jamie could do magic. And Caroi, too, he decided- He

 guessed he could be generous—and besides, Carol had the

 good idea about the crystal ball.

 Bamey and Carol sat beside each other "We should hold

 hands," Carol said.

 Bamey shrugged "Okay "

 "We have to both tell this so it will work I think it's a big

 bail—"

 "—big as a basketball—"

 "—okay—and the glass is real green an' shiny—"

 —and all you have to do to make it work is look in it and

 say what you want to see—"

 "—and it's on a pretty stand, so it won't roll, or break—"

 There it is!" Bamey whispered. "There it comes!"

 Carol dropped his hand and hugged herself. "Oh, yes!

 Isn't it beautiful?"

 The magic crystal ball grew in front ofthem, shimmering

 into existence beneath the busy glow of the tiny firefly lights.

 And when the firefly lights vanished, it glowed anyway—

 beautiful, beautiful.

 Bamey and Carol looked from the halt to each other.

 "You first," Carol said.

 'That's okay. I've done lots of magic. You can go first."

 218

 Holly Lisle

 Carol smiled. "Okay," she whispered, "I want to see

 Mommy."

 The inside of the ball grew brighter and brighter. Then a

 picture grew in the middle of the green fire, and some of the

 brightness died down so die two of them could stand to

 look.

 Bamey could see her. Mommy. She was coming for

 them—and she had guns.

 "All right. Mommy*" he said under his breath. "Get 'em."

 CHAPTER 12

 Minerva dreamed of her children, and her husband, and

 her home; of her liie before it fell apart, or more correctly

 was ripped apart—but when she woke, nothing remained of

 the dream but the tattered ghosts of voices crying, "Mommy,

 come get us."

 Minerva uncurled from her place on the seat of her

 buggy and stretched. Her entire body ached. The burned

 places on her sidn were little islands of tembie pain in a sea

 of duller hurts. Her right cheek felt hot and swollen—she

 had discovered an antiseptic cream in Darryi's emergency kit

 and used that, but it didn't seem to have helped much.

 I must have passed out after I applied the goop, she

 thought. She wondered how long she'd been out.

 Her clothes were damp, the faintest of lights pinked the

 'horizon in front other. She had been, she thought, traveling

 east. Which would make that faint light sunrise . . . and that

 would mean she had survived a night sleepmg in the open.

 Lucky. Getting underway as soon as possible seemed a pru-

 dent idea- Luck had a nasty way of running out when

 counted on.

 Murp, of course, wasn't in the bag anymore.

 "Murp," she called softly. She heard no catlike sounds. If

 Murp were around and safe, she should have no difficulty

 bringing him to her. The cat was fond of his stomach and

 had formed an almost spiritual attachment to Tender Vitdes.

 219

 220 Holly Lisle

 The sound of one of those payer wrappers tearing ought to

 bring him on the run.

 She magicked up a couple packets of the cat food, and

 while she was at it, a sizzling hot plate of steak and eggs for

 herself, and some classy silverware to eat it with. Might as

 weU live a little, she couldn't keep herself from thinking. No

 telling, how much longer I'U haw the opportunity.

 A bathtub would have been her next creation—she felt

 scrungy and disreputable. She suspected she smeUed. But

 the idea of submerging her burned skin in water made her

 stomach twist into knots; and, too, the faster she got under-

 way, the sooner she'd reach the children.

 Murp appeared at her side before she'd even torn the

 first wrapper. He leapt onto the seat of the buggy next to her

 and studied her steak with a gnntet eye. She opened the cat

 food and waved the paper packet under his nose, but he

 remained unswayed. Murp had apparently decided after

 what he'd been through, he deserved to live a little, too.

 Minerva scratched him between the ears and conjured

 him up a nice little steak—raw—and sliced it into tiny

 pieces. He gave her a grateful look before he inhaled the

 meat, and she feit gratified-

 She decided to plan ahead a bit. No one was on the road

 near her—she could detect no signs of danger. She had no

 intention of making another roaring-across-the-country-out-

 of-control joyride. The previous day's sketch of her vehicle

 was long gone, of course. She sketched another on her final

 sheet of vellum, and added an automatic gearshift that

 included reverse and additional markings on the speedome-

 ter, in ten-mile-per-hour increments. "No sense making that

 same mistake twice." She also added a dash mount for the

 compass, so she could see where she was going and where

 she needed to be at the same time. The improved buggy

 appeared behind the first.

 "Let's get a move on," she told the cat. In front other the

 sky had pinked up, and the scars on the earth around her

 were becoming visible. She stared at the black, burned

 gashes and torn ground that formed a perimeter around her

 buggy, and shivered. "We made a mess last night, cat. We are

 MINERVA WAKES

 221

 damned lucky to still be here." Murp looked up at her,

 round-eyed and unconcerned, and mrrrped. Cod, I'm glad

 the cat's here. If I didn't haoe him, I wouldn't have anyone

 at all to talk to—

 That wasn't quite right anymore, though, was it? Hadn't

 Darryl found some way of speaking with her? She seemed

 to remember that, although the memories might have been

 false, created by her distress and her wish that such a thing

 were possible.

 "Darryl? Are you there?" she asked. She got no response.

 She took a deep breath, and said loudly, "Darryl, if you can

 hear me, say something!"

 "Sh-h-h-h-h-h!" She heard him plainly She nodded

 thoughtfully. He was there—but this was evidently not a

 good time. She considered for a moment that he did not

 have her luxury of being alone in the wilderness—some lux-

 ury. Hah! Nevertheless, she could talk to him anytime,

 whereas she could see he would have to watch his moments.

 "Talk to me when you get the chance then," she said. And

 added as a wistful afterthought, "I wish you were here."

 He didn't reply.

 She started the buggy and followed the arrow back out to

 the main road, then east and south. She kept the buggy at

 about sixty miles per hour, and within a half hour was at a

 crossroads of sorts. The road she was on continued steadily

 southeast, its tarmac gleaming in the bright sunshine.

 Another road crossed it, an overgrown cobblestone-paved

 track that ran southwest and northeast. To the southwest it

 didn't look too bad—not kept up, but there was nothing

 about it that worried Minerva. To the northeast, the road

 vanished into weeds and a copse of mangled trees, and the

 sky above the track hung low and glowering, shimmering

 with heatwaves and crackling with energy. Thunderheads

 piled on top of each other, their bellies full and dark and

 angry.

 The compass pointed northeast. Minerva drove tenta-

 tively past the intersection, and the needle whipped

 backwards, almost with angry emphasis, to point at the road

 she was trying to leave behind.

 222 Holly Lisle

 Of course. It can never be the nice white house with the

 •picket fence, can tt^ It always haf to be the castle ruins on

 the hill with the booming door knocker and things in the

 dungeon

 She turned back, reluctance dragging at her gut, and

 steered the buggy onto the track. She crossed a line there;

 no sooner had the back tires left the main road that she felt

 as if she'd walked open-eyed through an enormous spider-

 web. Beside her, Murp arched his back and hissed and spat

 at nothing. Minerva whimpered quietly in the back of her

 throat and rested one hand on the grip of the flamethrower.

 She drove carefully, but as fast as she dared. She felt

 eyes watching her from the close overgrowth on either

 side of the road- From time to time as she came around a

 curve, she would catch sight of something shambling

 across the track ahead of her. Brush cracked around her,

 shadows lurked—and the spiderwebby feel of the air

 became thicker and more pronounced the further into the

 wasteland she penetrated.

 The trees shrank, and became warped and hideous;

 tumored, gray-leaved. Bare patches of ground appeared—

 not rich dark earth, but hardscrabble, bleachhone white.

 Something had sucked the life out of this land and left its

 wraiths sobbing in the air. Minerva drove by an abandoned

 cottage, its hipped roof swaybacked, its windows empty and

 dark; shadows clung to the house like Spanish mass. A bit

 further on she passed another just like it, and then a clump

 of them all together; dead places, full of palpable ghosts

 even in daylight. Her skin crawled. She constantly felt

 unseen things that touched her, licked <if her skin with

 damp, slippery tongues, poked and pinched with invisible

 fingers.

 The needle on her compass pointed onward—into worse.

 Bamey and Carol and Jamie were somewhere ahead—and

 though she yearned with her whole heart to retreat, to find

 someplace safe to hide, there was no one else who could do

 what had to be done. Courage isn't feeling brave, she

 thought. It's going on when you're scared shitless. She kept

 going.

 MINERVA WAKES

 223

 Murp growled suddenly, stiffened on the seat beside her,

 and all his mr stood straight out. Then he streaked down to

 the floor of the buggy and squeezed himself into the duffel

 bag. This did not seem a cheerful omen to Minerva. She

 sensed nothing different in the air around her—the place

 was increasingly awful, but seemed to be growing worse at

 a steady pace, without anything that would suddenly spook

 the cat. Still, cats sensed things. She kept driving, trying to

 look over her shoulder and to both sides at the same time,

 goosing the acclerator at every straight stretch.

 A low, shuddering wail reached out of the ghastly trees to

 her right and tore straight through her, into her bones. She

 had never heard a sound like it—and hoped she never

 would again. She wished for engine noise or road noise—

 anything to cover it. It went on and on, then died in an awful

 gurgling sob. That wail seemed to be a signal. From the

 dying lands to either side other, shambling two-legged mon-

 sters from a demented artist's post-holocaust nightmare

 dragged themselves forth. They stared at her, glared at her,

 while their hands reached out in threat or supplication, and

 their ragged, sloppy mouths emitted nerve-scraping keening

 wails.

 Oh, no! Her heart pounded up into her throat. There

 seemed to be hundreds of them moving onto the narrow,

 weed-choked road. He finger twitched on the trigger of the

 flamethrower, but stopped. Dead, dry grass and weeds sur-

 rounded her. The flamethrower might clear those hideous

 shambling things out of her way, but would give her an

 obstacle that was potentially worse.

 She reached for the machine gun—and a sight caught her

 eye that left her stunned. One of the things held a bundle

 in its arm—a baby. Its other hand held the hand of a smaller

 creature. Mother and children. She took her hand from the

 weapon, and yelled, "Get out of the way!" She slowed just a

 bit, and the things cleared passage for her, though they still

 reached out to touch the buggy as it passed and left smears

 of themselves on the glass.

 What happened to the people who had once lived in

 those desolate houses? Where they killed? Unwoven? Or

 224 Holly Lisle

 were they the creatures who stood by the road, awaiting

 hope and salvation from any source?

 "I'm going after the Unweaver!" she yelled- "I'm going to

 make things right!"

 The gurgling wails and the hideous keening rose in pitch

 and volume. Minerva felt sick.

 The nightmare creatures fell behind her, as did the last

 signs of life. She entered onto a sere and inclement plain

 where nothing grew, and the air, oppressive before, became

 parched and sand-laden. The road ran on, a cobblestone rib-

 bon between two seas of dried mudflats; gray earth touched

 gray sky along a ribbon of billowing, seething black that ran

 from one edge of the horizon to the other- Minerva had

 never seen anyplace in her life she wanted to go less. But the

 compass pointed on, so she went on.

 Then the voices started.

 "Mommy," Carol whispered, "the crazy man says he'll

 hurt us if you come here."

 "Mommy, Mommy. Mommy! I'm so scared! Come get

 me!" Bamey wailed, then screamed—in terror or pain, Min-

 erva couldn't tell.

 "Mom, this guy says you gave us to him because you

 didn't want us anymore. He's lying, isn't he?" Jamie sounded

 weary, and hopeless.

 Her children, her babies—that bastard was trying to

 destroy her by hurting them. But he could see her coming,

 knew where she was every second—and he could hurt them,

 she suspected. She was afraid die threat wasn't an empty

 one.

 She stopped the buggy, turned it off, and stared ahead of

 her. What could she do? She would have paid good money

 for an easy answer.

 Murp poked his head out of the duffel and yowled. He

 looked around him and sniffed the air, and his ears plastered

 themselves flat against his skull. He retreated to the inner

 world of the bag again. Minerva could feel for him. She

 wished she could retreat to a nice safe cocoon and still do

 what had to be done. She wished she could be invisible, or

 two places at once—

 MINERVA WAKES

 225

 An idea occurred to her. "Danyl," she said softly, "I need

 help."

 Danyl didn't answer. He could still be m an awkward spot

 and not able to talk, she reasoned. Maybe if I just teU him

 what I need, and let him know J need it fast, he can get to

 someplace private.

 If the Unweaver could hear her whispered requests, she

 was doomed. Of course, if she couldn't get through to Darryl,

 she was probably doomed anyway—and the kids, too.

 Sitting in a parked buggy at the edge of a desert, with a

 hellish storm brewing, Minerva outlined her plan to an

 absent husband she only hoped could hear her.

 Danyl heard her. all right. Her timing sucked. From what

 he could tell, there didn't seem to he much she could do

 about that, though.

 Dr. Folchek settled back into his seat, and scratched

 something on his notepad- "I see. So you were merely

 writing fiction, and reading the bits of it out loud to

 yourself. You did not hear voices speaking to you? That's

 what you're saying?"

 That's what I'm saying. Look, Doctor. I was at my wife's

 funeral yesterday. I know the score- We don't have to keep

 dancing around this, while you act like I'm telling you deeply

 significant stuff."

 "But you are telling me 'deeply significant stuff,' Danyl.

 Do you realize in the hour we've talked, you have used all

 sorts of vague euphemisms relating to your wife and chil-

 dren, but not once have you come out and said the word

 'dead'? Your guilt over not having been at home during this

 tragedy is evident, as is your denial that they are all, in fact,

 gone." The scrawny little bastard smiled slightly, and said,

 "There, You even have me doing it. I said 'gone' when I

 meant to say 'dead." Folchek steepled his fingers and

 sighed. "Your reponses evidence poor coping mechanisms,

 some neurotic tendencies, and grave instability. You are

 aware of the world around you, but you are not, for the

 moment, living in it." He picked up his pen and tapped it on

 the pad. "I'll point out to you, since you don't seem to realize

 226 Holly Lisle

 it—that writing fiction starring your dead wife is not an

 appropriate response to day-of-the-funeral stress. It smacks

 of denial."

 "Dr. Folchek, you'll pardon me for saying so, but you are

 full of shit." Darryl crossed his arms over his chest. There

 is no 'appropriate' thing to do on the day of your wife's

 funeral. Now, I have to go take a leak. You mind?"

 "Denial and hostility . . ." He shook his head sadly. "Of

 course you may use the restroom, Danyl. Please, be my

 guest. The door is nght behind you."

 Danyl wished the door were down the hall somewhere,

 but he could hardly ask for a restroom farther from the

 office. Maybe the doctor would have a nice, noisy ventilation

 fan. Darryl snagged a pencil from the top of a file cabinet on

 his way in, but Dr. Folchek caught him.

 "Please leave the pencils out here, Danyl." The man's

 voice chased after him. "If you wish to write something, you

 are welcome to write it out here."

 Darryl put the pencil back on the cabinet and swore

 vehemently under his breath. He went into the bathroom,

 flipped on the light, and looked for the doorlock. There

 wasn't one. There wasn't a ventilation fan, either. He'd

 have to keep it quiet. Of course, without a pencil, his plan

 to write down the things Minerva needed to happen and

 flush the evidence once he'd written it was, well, down the

 toilet.

 Darryl sat on the commode and looked around the bath-

 room. There was nothing—nothing—in there he could use

 to write ... or scratch in wood ... or smear on the floor.

 There was a mirror, placed by someone who apparently

 enjoyed watching himself crap Danyl wondered if the

 shrink himself couldn't have stood a bit of therapy. Still, it

 was the first one he'd seen since the day before, when the

 EMTs brought him to the hospital, and his parents and the

 ER doctor insisted he stay at least until the shrink could

 do his evaluation. He'd shared a ward with a real wacko,

 and the room had not contained anything potentially

 dangerous.

 Danyi looked through Minerva's eyes at the grnn terrain

 MINERVA WAKES            227

 she faced, and at that boiling wall of cloud. "Minerva," he

 whispered, as softly as he could, "sweetheart—I'm here.

 Give me a minute to figure out how to do this, and I'U have

 you ready to go."

 He could tell she started at the sound of his voice—his

 view of the worid in front of her Jumped, then steadied

 again. And her voice reached him, calm and practical. Til be

 right here."

 Danyl scrutinized the bathroom. A sink in a cheap wood

 cabinet, recessed fluorescent ceiling lighting with a bolted-

 down wire mesh over it, the toilet, a standard

 medical-facility hand-soap dispenser, an industrial toilet

 paper dispenser. The ugly mirror.

 He needed to think fast. He could fake constipation if

 necessary, but even that would only buy him a short time.

 He looked at the soap dispenser again. He could hear

 Folchek rummaging around in the other room. Good—keep

 the little bastard busy, he thought. He stood and got a good

 glop of soap on his finger, and with it, began to write on the

 mirror the things Minerva said she needed.

 Minerva, her belongings and the cat became invis-

 ible—except to her husband—at the exact instant a

 double of each of these appeared. The double took the

 armed buggy, turned around, and retreated back the

 way Minerva had come. Meanwhile, Minerva, with her

 cat, her supplies, and a flying carpet that appeared in

 front of her. and which was also invisible, continued

 toward the children.

 He waited a moment and watched the mirror. A tacky

 Persian rug with seatbelts appeared in his field of vision.

 "You got everything you need, Min?" he asked finally.

 The scene in the mirror bounced wildly. He caught

 glimpses of Minerva in the weird peasant clothes he'd

 seen earlier, sitting in the hell-buggy she'd made, while

 her hands attached to a different body picked up the

 duffel, petted the cat, and strapped everything onto the

 rug. The sensation of viewing two of her was too

 228 HoUy Lisle

 uncomfortable to be believed. But when she glanced at

 herself, he looked wistfully. Even burned and filthy and

 ragged, she was beautiful and wonderful, and he missed

 the hell out of her.

 "Okay," she told him. "The kid's voices are staying around

 the buggy. I suppose that means the Unweaver can't see me.

 I wish I knew that for sure. It's the sort of dung I would

 rather be very sure of." Her voice wobbled slightly, and she

 said, "Can't you come with me? I wish you were here- I'm

 so scared."

 "I'm scared, too," he told her. "The dragon said the only

 gate is the one you came through, and I could go through it,

 but I'd end up the same place you started out"

 "The Stonehenge place?"

 "Yes."

 He heard her sigh across worlds. "No good, then. You can

 probably help me more where you are."

 "I know," he said. "At least, I can if I can get back home."

 She paused, as if dunking over the implications of that.

 "What do you mean, if you can get home?"

 "I'm in a bit of trouble over here. But I think I can con-

 vince the twit who's trying to lock me up that I'm sane."

 The bathroom door opened. "I'd say your chances of that

 were fairly slim, actually, Danyl."

 Danyl jerked around, and met Dr. Folchek's eyes. "This

 isn't what it looks like ..." he started-

 Dr. Folchek smiled a benign smile and nodded politely.

 "It never is. The mirror is two-way, you see. I apologize for

 the invasion of privacy, but I once had a iad kill himself in

 my bathroom. I've taken special precautions to make sure it

 never happened again."

 Dr. Folchek shook his head sadly. "I confess you came very

 close to convincing me you were sane. Stressed, but sane.

 Your sort of psychotic break is frightening, though, Danyl. To

 be able to keep your personal demons under such control in

 public, and to give in to them so totally in private—"

 "You don't understand. I'm just as sane as you are."

 "Oh, I'm certain to you everything seems that way. Neu-

 rotics worry constantly about how crazy they are; psychotics

 MiNERVA WAKES

 229

 don't. They are always certain they're sane. But Darryl, you

 must understand that talking to your dead wife and attempt-

 ing this sort of—er, magical—yes. magical communication

 with her through writing proves you have suffered a break

 with the real world. Please understand that a high percent-

 age of people who suffer traumatically induced psychotic

 breaks recover eventually. And, God knows, the trauma

 you've suffered is enough to induce . . ."

 Darryl tuned him out. Behind him stood Birkwelch, "So

 much for making 'em believe you were normal, eh?°

 "Yep," Darryl said.

 "Yep?" Dr. Folchek stopped in mid-harangue and stared

 at Danyl. "Yep, what?"

 "Let's have some fun. Wiggle your fingers at him," Birk-

 welch suggested- "Something magical-looking."

 Darryl grinned, and made a few mystic passes with his

 hands, and uttered a couple of nonsense syllables. "Hod ka-

 hooda, nokooda noo," he intoned—and just for fun, crossed

 his eyes.

 The dragon slowly lifted the doctor off the floor. The doc-

 tor began to shout, and then to scream. "Do a circle,"

 Birkwelch said next.

 Darryl slowly traced a circle in the air with his finger, and

 Birkwelch turned the doctor upside down.

 Danyl made shooing motions with lus hands, and Birk-

 welch backed the inverted doctor out into the main office.

 They have this all on tape, you know," Birkwelch said.

 "No shit?" Darryl grinned. 'That ought to be good for

 another psychotic break or two."

 "Danyl," the doctor said, "you must realize that these

 paranormal abilities are an outgrowth of your psychotic

 break from reality, and terribly dangerous. Please let me

 help you."

 Darryl ignored him. He glared at the dragon, who had

 deposited the screaming doctor, still upside down, into his

 office chair. "Where the hell were you?"

 "Waiting back at the house for you. I did chink you would

 be able to convince these yo-yo's you were sane without help

 from me—probably a lot better than you could with my

 230 Holly Lisle

 help." The dragon snorted a thin puff of smoke into die

 doctor's face, and the man began to cough. "Obviously I had

 too much faith in you."

 "Fuck off," Danyl said, then grinned. "You can only con-

 vince them you're sane if they want to believe it. This turkey

 didn't." He looked toward the office door. "I imagine all hell

 is breaking loose out there. How do you propose we get out

 of here?"

 "In the time-honored manner." The dragon pointed to

 the doctor's closet, and Danyl walked over and pulled out a

 set of scrubs.

 "Wear those," the dragon suggested.

 Danyl laughed. "Sure. Why not?" He quickly stripped off

 his patient gown and put on the scrubs. Birkwelch held the

 doctor's feet; Danyl removed his sneakers while the man

 struggled and screamed. Danyl put them on. "Shit," he said.

 "Minerva has feet this size." He let his heels hang out the

 back- "Car?"

 "I brought mine."

 "That mean you're driving?"

 "I don't intend to let you drive my car."

 The office door flew open, and several men dressed like

 Darryl ran in. They stopped when they saw the doctor

 upside down in his chair.

 "I found him like that," Danyl said. "Babbling about fly-

 ing. You got him?"

 The doctor was screaming, "Stop him! Stop him!"

 One of the orderiies nodded and started over to help Fol-

 chek, but the other stared at him suspiciously. "And who the

 hell are you?"

 Danyl, primed by years of Minerva's hospital stories,

 sighed. "New radiologist. Wily Hill. I need to get back to

 work." He nodded to both men, and eased out the door.

 "He's a patient," Polchek screeched.

 Danyi and the dragon darted into the fire escape, and

 once hidden in the closed stairway, ran like hell.

 "Be glad," the dragon said, "they didn't stick you on the

 locked ward. I would have had to take out a wall, and that

 would have been very hard to explain."

 MINERVA WAKES            231

 Danyl concentrated on running. He didn't bother

 answering.

 They'd made it from the fifth floor down to the second

 when Danyl heard sirens.

 "Ambulance?" he asked Birkwelch.

 "Police." The dragon sounded certain.

 Danyl wished there were some sort of window in the

 stairwell. He wanted to look out into the parking lot and see

 where the police cars were stopping. "Maybe they're going

 to the Emergency Room," he suggested. "Minerva says the

 police end up in the ER a lot."

 "That's on the other side of the building from here."

 "Don't suppose they're after us, do you?" Danyl said,

 though he figured they probably were.

 "Nope." The dragon's voice was cheerful, and he glanced

 back at Danyi and grinned. "Not after us at all."

 "Well, good."

 "After you. They can't see me."

 "I hate dragons," Danyl muttered-

 They hit the bottom landing and charged into the hall.

 Two police officers stood there, waiting. As Danyl careened

 into view, they both pulled weapons and aimed them at him.

 "He went that way!" Danyl yelled, and pointed down the

 haU.

 "Don't even try it," the police officer said. "You're going

 to have to go back upstairs with us. If you go without any

 trouble, we won't have to put handcuffs on you."

 "Birkwelch!" Darryl looked past the police officers to the

 dragon, who shrugged his wings.

 "I can't stop bullets for you, pal- You'd better go with

 them for now." His face rilles nicked up and down. "I'll see

 if I can't figure out a way to spring you."

 Danyl felt bitterness in his heart. "Oh, thanks," he

 snarled back at the dragon, as the policemen led him to the

 elevator. Thanks just tons."

 Bamey, Jamie, and Carol sat around the crystal ball and

 watched Mommy coming to rescue them.

 "She looks like Sigoumey Weaver in Alien," jamie said.

 232 Holly Lisle

 "She looks like Rambo," Bamey added. Then he thought

 about that a second- "Except pretty," he added.

 They cheered her on. Bamey yelled and screamed as

 she'd passed the worm-monsters—who were looking pretty

 good, he thought. Jamie raised his fists in the air—his victory

 sign. Carol hugged herself and laughed and shouted.

 Mommy was coming. This time, she was going to get

 them.

 In the middle of the picture, a shadow suddenly twisted

 like smoke. It crowded out the picture of Mommy—and it

 looked at them with glowing red eyes.

 It started to laugh.

 "She won't be coming, children. She isn't strong

 enough—and she isn't brave enough." The Unweaver kept

 laughing. "And besides, you're going to tell her to go back."

 "No, we aren't," Jamie said.

 "Yes, you are. Would you like to hear?"

 The children froze. Suddenly, they heard Carol's voice.

 "Mommy, the crasy man says he'll hurt us if you come

 here."

 That wasn't me, Mommy," Carol yelled, but Bamey

 knew it didn't matter. The Unweebil wouldn't let her hear

 the real kid voices. Unless . . .

 Bamey did a magic, and yelled, "Mommy. Mommy,

 Mommy! I'm so scared! Come get me!" but the Unweebii

 shot fire out of the crystal and burned him, and he

 screamed.

 "No more of that," the Unweebil said. "I'll say what I

 want said, thank you very much."

 Then Jamie's voice started without him.

 "Mom, this guy says you gave us to him because you

 didn't want us anymore. He's lying, isn't he?"

 "I never said that!" Jamie shrieked.

 "Mommy," Bamey's voice begged, "go back. Or he's

 gonna kiU its. You gotta go back."

 "No, Mommy. Don't listen to the Unweebil," Bamey

 begged. "Please, please, please don't listen."

 Their voices went on and on without them, saying things

 they would never have said.

 MINERVA WAKES            233

 Bamey, Carol, and Jamie sat and watched m silence.

 Their mother parked her buggy on the road and waited. She

 listened, and from time to time, her mouth moved, but she

 didn't really say anything out loud—except to Murp.

 And then, as all three of them looked on, she turned

 around and drove back the way she'd come.

 They screamed and pleaded and begged and made every

 promise they could think of—but finally Carol couldn't

 stand it anymore. She stared at the crystal ball and

 screamed, "Break! Break!"

 Barney joined in the chant with her. Then Jamie did, too.

 "Break!" they all screamed at the crystal ball. "Break!

 Break! Break!"

 The glass shattered, and the picture of their mother's

 retreating back vanished m the shards of broken glass.

 "I hate you. Mommy," Barney whispered.

 Carol bit her lip. "I hate you, too."

 "I will never forgive you, and I will never love you again,"

 Jamie said.

 All around him, Barney could hear the Unweebij's soft,

 snakey laugh. It didn't matter anymore, he thought. Nothing

 mattered.

 He started to cry, and threw himself down on the mat-

 tress. Jamie and Carol did the same

 "We're never gonna get out of here now," Jamie said

 between sobs. "Never. Never, ever, ever. We're gonna die

 here."

 "I know," Barney said.

 CHAPTER 13

 The flying carpet had lifted off the ground the instant

 Minerva uttered the word "go" and tore off toward the

 Unweaver's domain. The carpet had seemed simple

 enough—in fact, nothing she'd thought of could have

 seemed simpler. Sit on a flying rug and go where you want

 to go.

 In practice, flying a carpet turned out to be rife with

 unexpected problems.

 The carpet wriggled and swayed beneath her. Minerva

 hadn't felt so green since the time she went sailing with

 friends and found out she was, in fact, the type of person

 who got sick while sailing in small vessels—even in very, very

 calm seas. She hadn't thought she would be; she had always

 believed people who got seasick were sissies or hysterics.

 She'd assumed that she, who had been a tomboy as a child

 and who still wasn't afraid of much of anything, would take

 to the sea like a fish.

 Camels, ships of the desert, had more business in the

 ocean than she.

 Sailing the high seas, though, was a pleasure jaunt com-

 pared to this ordeal. Minerva fought to keep the carpet level.

 She leaned forward, trying to hold the front straight to keep

 it from shimmying in the wind; but she overbalanced, and

 she and die carpet and everything on it went into a forward

 roll that left her flying wliile hanging upside down. She was

 235

 236 Holly Lisle

 strapped on—thank heavens for safety belts and the com-

 mon sense to wear them She gripped her glasses with one

 hand and watched the ground rushing under her, very far

 away. Even m her nightmares, she'd never experienced any-

 thing like this.

 Help! she thought. She would have welcomed rescue

 from the Unweaver. Barring that, she would have welcomed

 a single glimmering of inspiration.

 Kayaks, she suddenly thought. People who ride in kayaks

 go upside down.

 Minerva swung her upper body from side to side in a

 move she hoped approximated a kayak roll. She wanted with

 all her heart and soul to be upright again. After dangling far

 too long swinging back and forth like the clapper of a bell, she

 built up enough speed to flip upright—and enough speed,

 unfortunately, to go right on over and down the other side.

 She managedto stay calm, kept rolling, and swung up again.

 She flung out her arms and stopped her roll while she was

 still upright that time, but the left edge of the rug curled

 under when she did. The carpet side-slipped in a maneuver

 guaranteed to thrill a fighter pilot.

 "A-a-a-yyyygh!" Minerva swore, yanked frantically at the

 carpet side, and nearly flung her hands over her face as the

 flying rug skimmed the top of the mud flats before gaming

 altitude again. Slowly it came back under control. When she

 was fairly certain she wasn't going to die in the next instant,

 she cautiously inched her hands forward along the edges of

 the rug until she held the comers, then spread them as

 straight and tight as she could. The carpet wallowed like a

 pig, but did not roll or dive or thp over again.

 Minerva became aware ofMurp protesting bitterly in the

 tongue of cats from inside the strapped-down duffel bag—

 and of a steady stream of profanity which issued from her

 own mouth, as well.

 "... gave me the idea I'd rather have a goddamn flying

 carpet than a nice four-wheel drive, anyway?" she snarled

 into the breeze. 'The shithead who invented the idea of fly-

 ing carpets spent too much time smoldng dope from a

 hookah! Sumbitches are unstable! They^ip!"

 MINERVA WAKES            237

 Murp, inside the duffel bag, yowled plaintive agreement

 every time the damned carpet hit an air pocket and bucked.

 Minerva would have thrown up if she could have done it

 without tipping herself over.

 The sun beat down with merciless intensity. The wind

 whipping past her could have been heated in an oven. Her

 mourn was parched and full of sand, her eyes gritty. Dust

 caked on her skin, clogging the creases. Dust turned her

 clothing gray.

 Ahead, the Unweaver's domain loomed. AH sunlight died

 at that border; the Unweaver's wall was oily, creeping smoke

 held back by an invisible membrane. Minerva tried to sup-

 press a shudder. The compass pointed straight into the

 center of that greasy, hellish maelstrom—she gripped her

 compass like a lifeline and thought of her lads.

 "I—can—do—this," she said through clenched teeth. "I

 can. I will."

 She wished Darryl were with her. It was odd—she felt

 closer to him at that moment, though he was a universe

 away, than she had in years. Knowing he cared helped.

 Knowing a lot of the distance between them the past few

 years had been her fault helped, too. She could remember

 why she had once loved him—and finally she began to think

 she still did. There ore a few facts in life a woman reaUy

 needs to be sure of, she thought. One is that she loves her

 husband. That isn't always as easy to know as it ought to be.

 The other is that he still honestly lows her—and that can be

 even harder

 The flying carpet was nearly to the smoke-walled domain

 of the Unweaver when it began to lose altitude. Thunder-

 heads piled higher as she approached; lightning flashed

 between the towering clouds. A quiet moan of dismay

 escaped Minerva. Then the carpet pitched through the

 smoke wall and tumbled to the ground.

 Minerva unstrapped the duffel bag and let Murp out first.

 Then she released herself from the carpet belts, and stood,

 and rummaged through the duffel for something to tie over

 her face. The air in the Unweaver's demesne—well, wasn't.

 The place stank of sulphur and rotting fish and unwashed

 238 Holly L.isle

 bodies in a crowded room. She couldn't see much. The

 dense gray haze and the clouds overhead blocked out most

 of the light.

 She felt a sudden blaze of hatred for Taileos. He would

 have left her children trapped in this place, while he got

 whatever it was he was after—no matter how long it took.

 Trapped in this stinking darkness, this hot hell—

 For an instant, her anguished longing for her children

 nearly overwhelmed her. She could feel their cheeks, soft as

 rose petals, pressed against her face, their arms wrapped

 around her neck as they hugged her good-night. She could

 feel their hands, soft and fragile and tiny, ela-sped in her own.

 She could feel their weight in her arms and on her hip, the

 weight of a procession of babies grown bigger, who stili

 wanted to be picked up and held and kissed "to make it bet-

 ter"—her children. Hers. For whom she would move

 heaven and earth.

 For whom she was going to have to.

 So be it.

 The magic animating the "ying carpet had failed within

 the borders of the Unweaver's domain. That had been

 Darryl's magic—but the fact that it ceased working was a

 mystery that needed to be solved before she dared go on.

 Did no magic work within this place? Was there

 something about just the flying spell that didn't work?

 Or—had something happened to Darryl?

 She rummaged through her duffel bag again, this time

 looking for vellum and pencils. She was almost out. She

 frowned. Somehow, she had forgotten she was so near the

 end of her supply.

 Now what?

 Minerva considered, then got out the last scrap of vellum

 and the last pencil. In an unused space, she sketched a good

 paint box and a thick sketchpad, all the while concentrating

 on supplies—like the energy source in her armored buggy—

 that could not be depleted. She watched as a closed paintbox

 and a luminous sketchpad shimmered into existence before

 her like fireflies in formation.

 So magic works. 1 can't think of any way to test specific

 MINERVA WAKES

 239

 problems with the carpet. I guess that means I need to

 figure out a way to see if something has happened to

 Darryl.

 She sat in the the hot, stinking darkness and

 considered. He's managed to see what I've been doing, she

 finally decided. Perhaps I can use a magic mirror to check

 on him. She could draw herself a little hand minor,

 something portable.

 She opened the paintbox—and a rainbow streamed out,

 washing against die ugliness around her like a tide of hope.

 Tmkerbell and all her friends in party getup couldn't have

 been more beautiful, nor could they have appeared at a bet-

 ter time- She peered down into the surprising depths of the

 little paint box. and found several good mohair brushes and

 pots of light in every possible color.

 Bewildered, she pulled out one of the little glass pots and

 unscrewed the lid. Ruby light, rich and deep as the heart of

 good red wine held up to sunlight, bright as the soul of a

 gemstone, glowed in the pot. A radiant overflow spilled up

 and out, and streaked the greasy gray air around her with

 one thin line of pure loveliness. She took up a mohair brush,

 and dipped it into the center of the glowing stuff, and lifted

 it out. The bristles, coated in light, shimmered and flashed

 like living things. Minerva waved the tip of the brush

 through the air once, fascinated, and the brush left a solid

 trail of fire hanging in the air. Mesmerized, she formed an-

 other line, and then another, fashioning them into a mirror

 of light. She covered the red pot, and opened one ot silver—

 and filled the center of her mirror with glimmering fairy

 dust.

 The mirror, completed, hung before her in the air, too

 beautiful to be believed. Minerva reached out a trembling

 finger to touch it, and it slipped into her band, radiantly

 warm. She stared into glowing surface, and first she saw a

 ghost of her own reflection; but that fell away in an instant

 to reveal a dark scar on the surface of a planet, then the

 whole of the planet spinning in space, then all of space . . .

 and then, with terrifying speed, another planet, a continent,

 a building, and a man.

 240 Holly Lisle

 Darryl. Lying tied, straight-Jacketed, seemingly uncon-

 scious, with policemen and orderlies and a shrink she knew

 and despised standing over him.

 "Son of a bitch," she muttered.

 He hadn't been able to come to her. There was no gate

 near where she was. She looked from the box of paints to

 the reflection other husband, held prisoner. If he were with

 her, he could help her save the kids. She didn't think he

 would be able to help her, or himself, straightjacketed in the

 psych ward of die hospital.

 A gate between the universes; she'd traveled on such a

 thing coming to Eyrith. It hadn't seemed like much at the

 time. Could she make a gate?

 She took out the biggest paintpot, full of white light. In

 the air she painted a circle that began above her head and

 stretched to her feet, as wide as her arms would stretch to

 either side. She completed the perimeter, then spiraled the

 iine inward, seeing herself at one end of the coil of light and

 Darryl at the other. With a sucking sound, the murk cleared

 from her tunnel. The darkness was held back by the glowing

 spiral, and the tunnel terminated in a bright light on the

 other end.

 She stuffed the drawing pad into the duffel bag and slung

 both duffel and paintbox over her right shoulder. Then, still

 armed with her paintbrush and her container of white light,

 she stepped into the tunnel "C'mon, Murp," she said.

 The cat mrrrped, and trotted at her heels.

 She walked, until it seemed she was making no progress.

 Then she began to trot. The far end of the tunnel, still

 bright, seemed no nearer. She ran. Murp, hitching heartily,

 fell behind. She stopped and looked back, he ran to catch

 up, and when she turned again, she was at the other end.

 Afagtc, she thought. Arrrgh?

 She did a quick bit of magic to make sure she would be

 visible to the people in the room. Then she stepped out of

 the tunnel, and the blue dragon who'd been standing by the

 door saw her first. "Well, goddamn," he said, and gifted her

 with a crocodile grin. "Nice timing."

 "Hi," she answered, and pushed a policeman out of her

 MINERVA WAKES            241

 way to get to her husband. "Darryl," she said, "can you hear

 f\/f

 mef

 "Ma'am," the police officer said, "how did you get in

 here? You aren't supposed to be in here."

 The shrink puffed up and said to the orderlies, "Get her

 out—right now." Then he looked at her more closely, and

 grew pale.

 Minerva pointed a finger at the doctor. "Look, asshole,"

 she snarled. "You know damn well he's my husband. I've

 come to get him."

 "His wife is dead," Dr. Folchek said. His voice wavered.

 The police looked from Darryl to Folchek to Minerva,

 faces showing bewilderment.

 "Scary thought, isn't it?" Minerva grinned at them, and

 shook Darryl. "Babe, wake up," she said.

 One of the policemen tried to grab her, but his hands

 went right through her. His scream cut into the air, high-

 pitched and wavering. It ended abruptly when he fainted

 and collapsed to the floor.

 "Anyone else want to try?" Minerva was in a bit of a Clint

 Eastwood mood. She wanted to urge them to make her day.

 She wanted to wreak havoc. The simple tact other presence,

 though, would probably be enough for that.

 "She's a hallucination," Folchek said, at the same moment

 Darryl sat up out of his body and looked around the room.

 "Minerva," he yelled, and flung his arms around her.

 He felt warm and wonderful. She hugged him close, try-

 ing not to look too hard at the other Danyl, the one who lay

 on the table, not breatliing, beginning to turn a waxy, ashy

 gray. "Babe," she said, "we've got to get moving. We've got

 to get the kids."

 Folcbek twitched, staring between the dying Danyl on

 the table and the living one that walked toward the tunnel

 of light with his wife. "No," the man said. 'This is a form of

 mass hypnosis. A hysteria-induced hallucination. None of

 you are seeing what you think you see."

 "Wait up," Birkwelch said. "I can see I don't need to hang

 around here anymore."

 Minerva laughed, and all of them ran tor the tunnel.

 242 Holly Lisle

 "No!" Minerva heard Folchek wail as they passed into the

 suspended link between the Universes. "No! Call a code, for

 godsakes! Quick! He isn't breathing!"

 She didn't look back. She couldn't. Danyl was with

 her—the part of him that she could bring was right beside

 her,.. alive and breathing and real. What had just happened

 in the universe she left behind, she wasn't ready to think

 about.

 Not yet.

 The hot wind gusted and spiraled around Darryl, Min-

 erva, Birkwelch, and the cat.

 "Can it possibly all be like this?" Darryls feet dragged; the

 clothes Minerva had magicked up for him clung to his sidn.

 He plodded unthinkingly. The ground shifted and bubbled

 under him, while in front of him landmarks appeared and

 disappeared with terrible regularity.

 "No," Birkwelch said. The dragon favored Darryl with a

 slit-eyed grimace. "It's bound to get worse."

 Thanks, dragon." Minerva, a few steps ahead, didn't

 bother turning around. Darryl could tell by the set of her

 shoulders she was pissed off—probably because of Birk-

 welch's big mouth, but not necessarily. He slogged faster and

 caught up with her.

 He kissed her, "Babe, something's wrong. Anything I can

 fix?"

 She turned a tired, sweaty face to him and pushed her

 slipping glasses up her nose. 'There has to be a faster way

 to fmd him than this. Has to be. We're wearing ourselves

 out before we even get where we're going. How the hell

 can we win our kids back if we're too tired to fight him?"

 She looked away, and her shoulders sagged. "But I guess

 I'm too tired to think. I haven't come up with anything

 that could work."

 Danyl pulled her against him and stared past her, into the

 endless fog-shrouded gloom. While he watched, a hulking

 rock plinth heaved itself up out of the quaggy ground a few

 feet away, towered upward unbl its top vanished, stories

 above him, in the gray haze, then sank into the ground again.

 MINERVA WAKES

 243

 Nothing of it remained. It earned out the entire cycle in

 utter silence.

 "She's right," Birkwelch said softly "Wandering around in

 his murk like this, you're playing hi.s game. You might wan-

 der forever without finding him, following your little

 compass the way you are."

 Mmerva pushed herself away from Darryls chest and

 looked at the dragon, surprise evident on her face "How can

 that be?"

 Birkwelch sat cautiously on the shifting ground and blew

 a short, blue-white blast of fire into the air Even he looked

 tired and cranky and disgusted, Darryl noticed. "I don't

 imagine the Unweaver's home, or fortress, or whatever he-

 occupies, has any fixed location within this place- I suspect

 his place is wandering around in this goddamned soup, and

 we're chasing after it." The dragon sprawled on his belly in

 a graceless flop, and snorted.

 "Why didn't you say something, if that's what you

 thought?" Minerva snapped.

 "Lady, I figured if you could have done something about

 it, you would have. And you just said you couldn't think of

 anything to do—so my hitching would have been pretty

 pointless, wouldn't it?" The dragon closed his eyes, and

 dozed.

 Darryl noted with alarm that the insf--mt the dragun

 drifted off to sleep, his color bleached from blue to gray, and

 he began to sink into the muck.

 "Birkwelch!" he and Minerva yelled at the same time.

 The dragon's eyes flew open, and lie heaved himself

 upright. Some of his color came back. The tips of his wings

 and the tip of his tail looked hazy for an instant, then solidi-

 fied. His head snapped from side to side, looking for danger.

 When he didn't see anything, he stared at Darryl. "I wanted

 to take a nap. Just a little nap. Couldn't let me have a few

 minutes of peace, could you?"

 He glared at the two of them.

 "Look at yourself," Darryl whispered. "You nearly

 disappeared."

 The dragon stretched out one taioned foreleg and gaped

 244 HoUy Lisle

 in horror at the gunmetal gray color it had become. "Shit!"

 he whispered. "This place started to unweave me." The

 dragon shivered violently and stared into the gloom around

 him with horrified eyes.

 Darryl said, "I might have an idea of how to get ourselves

 to the Unweaver's door. Minerva, you have a pencil and

 paper in that paintbox?"

 "I have some paper." She pulled out the sketchpad she'd

 created for herself before she discovered her paints worked

 on air. "And a pencil or two in the duffel, I think."

 She shuffled through the contents of the duffel bag and

 came up with the required pencil.

 Darryl held the sketchpad in his hands, noting the ordi-

 nariness of the rust-red Bienfang cover and the

 extraordinary glow that emanated from the edges of the pa-

 per beneath it Radioactive art pad, he thought, and gingerly

 opened the cover.

 White light streamed off the first blank page and

 burned a tunnel upward through the gloom. "Wow!"

 Darryl flipped the cover shut as fast as he could, afraid

 something in that murk might notice. "What the hell kind

 of paper is that?"

 "Urn—" Minerva managed half a grin. "Haven't the faint-

 est. I wanted something that wouldn't run out. I would

 assume that's it."

 Darryl crossed his ankles and dropped to the ground; he

 rested <he tablet on one thigh, and began to write.

 Out— he scratched, but though he pressed ham on the

 surface of the paper, no letters appeared. He traced the

 shapes of the letters again, and swore. 'This pencil doesn't

 write."

 Minerva and Birkwelch pointed at the air in front of

 them. Glowing letters burned there with the same

 brilliant, cool white as the "paper" on which they had been

 written.

 Out Out, Darryl read

 "Damned spot?" Minerva asked.

 "Er—no. Not what I was going to say."

 "Thought not," the dragon muttered-

 MINERVA WAKES

 245

 "Well, I guess it does work after all." Darry] put pencO to

 paper again, and wrote:

 Out of the mist, born from the formless ground, a road

 arose. It was carved of a single piece of stone, raised high

 above the murk—beautiful, indestructible, and unsink-

 able. It glowed with a radiance that burned away the

 sullen fogs and unending gloom. And it led straight to

 the Unweaver in his lair.

 "Yes!" Minerva said.

 Birkwelch, too, seemed impressed. "Nice piece of rock,

 fella. I wouldn't have thought you had anything that pretty

 in your imagination."

 The road was raised like an ancient Roman aqueduct,

 delicate arches holding up a span of stone strung over them like

 glowingwhite ribbon. "Really," the dragon continued, "I don't

 think I've ever seen such a pretty piece of engineering work."

 "Thanks," Darryl said. He was pretty impressed, too.

 "Only two problems that I see," Birkwelch added. "First,

 you didn't make any way to get up there."

 Danyl sighed "Yeah. I'll have to fix that. What was the

 second problem?"

 "The Unweaver knows for sure now that at least one of

 you is here."

 Danyl and Minerva exchanged glances. 'That's very bad,

 isn't it?" Minerva asked.

 Birkwelch said, "You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

 I hate dragons, Darryl thought.

 He focused on his paper, and wrote another line;

 A ramp curved up from the ground at Darryl'sfeet to

 the road high overhead.

 Darryl pictured the curving beauty of die white stone

 ramp; the elegant, simple bellied sweep of upreaching path.

 His words burned themselves into the sly; his thoughts

 transformed to solid form: the ramp, seamless and perfect,

 lay before him.

 246 Holly Lisle

 The dragon, with a sly grin, spread his win^ and flew up

 to Ae road above. From overhead, he called down, "Hurry

 up already."

 Minerva turned to Darryl. "Gets on your nerves a bit,

 doesn't he?"

 "You haven't even heard him sing. Of course, it would be

 worse if there were hundreds just like him."

 Minvera frowned. "I was meaning to talk to you about

 that—"

 "Later." Danyl sprinted up the ramp. The last thing he

 felt like hearing about was the Great Dragon Fiasco, and his

 failure to be a brilliant magician.

 The day brightened, and Darryl's mood lifted. The bridge

 shed enough light to banish the gloom around it, but the

 fogs and clouds were blowing away, too.

 The dragon cocked an eye heavenward and said, "So

 much for our cover."

 "Shut up, Birkwelch." Mmerva reached the top of the

 ramp and looked down the road in both directions. She

 smiled suddenly. "Hey, look! A city." She pointed to her right

 and consulted her compass. "Yesss! That's the way!"

 It wasn't far. The place looked to Darryl like an exercise

 in ugly—a city that had not so much survived floods, fam-

 ines, and fires as one which had gone down beneath their

 weight.. . while still retaining upright walls.

 "What a dump," the dragon muttered.

 Darryl found himself agreeing.

 At his side, Minerva whispered, "Oh, no!"

 "What?" He looked at her with alarm.

 "Murp's gone."

 Darryl tried not to snap at Minerva. "Maybe the cat will

 show up. But Murp is the least of our worries nght now."

 Minerva started toward the city, hurrying, Darryl sus-

 pected, so he couldn't see her cry. "I know that," she said,

 "but it seems like a bad omen."

 "It isn't like you could eat the damned thing," Birkwelch

 said. "Cats taste worse than Wheaties."

 "Shut up, Birkwelch," Darryl said, and hurried after his

 wife.

 MINERVA WAKES

 -^    ^    ^

 247

 Bamey saw his mother and father coming for him in his

 dream. They were with a dragon, and with Murp.

 But this time, Bamey knew better. His parents weren't

 ever coming for him. They didn't really want him.

 So he turned his back on the dream, and drifted into the

 darker gray places of sleep, where nothing bothered him at

 all- And finally, in his dream, a voice offered him rest, and

 peace. The voice offered him an escape from all the hurt.

 He listened to the voice, and let go of himself completely.

 He joined with the nothingness, and forgot the pain.

 CHAPTCR 14

 Minerva stepped off the bright, shining road into the

 battle-broken ruins of the Unweaver's city. She wished the

 cat were with her, conversely, she wished the dragon

 weren't. She discovered herself incapable of appreciating

 witty remarks made while walking into the jaws of death.

 She would have preferred the dragon to act as afraid as she

 felt, but barring that, she would have found silence accept-

 able. Instead—

 "Ho, puny godling! We three mortals have come to beard

 you in your lair!" the dragon beUowed. "Come out, puling

 fiend, and show your scabby visage!"

 "Shut up, shut up. SHUT UP!" Darryl hissed.

 The dragon turned to Darryl in apparent surprise. "He

 knows we're here. The least we can do is go into this mas-

 sacre looking like heroes." Birkwelch appealed to Minerva.

 "Look, if we're going to be stripped atom from atom and fed

 into the bonfires of eternity, I at least want it said that we

 went with a bit of style. Don't you?"

 "No!" Minerva and Darryl said together.

 The dragon gave each of them a hurt look and retreated

 into silence.

 Darryl turned to Minerva. "Which way?"

 She held the compass in her hand. It pointed down a

 twisting alley filled with rubble and overshadowed by shat-

 tered, tilted walls. "That way" She frowned. Right at the

 249

 250 Holly Lisle

 point where the alley twisted, she could have sworn she saw

 something move. Its shadow smeared across one whole wall,

 grotesque and undefinable. She glanced at Birkweich. "If

 what you said before still stands, how are we supposed to

 protect ourselves?"

 "Think happy thoughts?" The dragon acted like he'd seen

 that hulking shadow lurking in the alley, too. He puffed a

 flame experimentally, then sighed. "I don't know. I'm not a

 Weaver. I do know that it's harder to create than destroy,

 which is why there are so many destroyers and so few crea-

 tors." The dragon moved into the street, in the direction

 Minerva had indicated. "I'll do what I can to protect you."

 Minerva and Darryl followed. The stink of filth and sul-

 phur was worse in the rums, the air closer and damper and

 hotter. The ground rumbled intermittently, and Minerva

 became aware of a grinding sound, very low—she could not

 pinpoint its location. Sometimes it seemed nearby, some-

 times it came from a point far away. The sound made her

 uneasy—there was about it something of the giant's rhyme

 in the Beanstalk fairy tale: "I'll grind your bones to make my

 bread."

 The alley twisted hard to the left and split into a T. Min-

 erva consulted the compass. "Right," she said. The right road

 was narrower than the left. The bombed-out buildings over-

 hung it further. It figured.

 The three of them moved warily onto the new road.

 Something keened, off in the distance—a shrill, heartrend-

 ing, animal cry of anguish.

 "Ugh!" Darryl whispered, "I could have done without

 that."

 Shapes and shadows moved near the corners. Minerva

 pointed to them, and Danyl nodded.

 Birkwelch's ears swiveled, and he stopped. "Listen," he

 said.

 The grinding sound grew louder and moved closer. Min-

 erva shivered in spite of the heat and checked the compass

 again. The three of them reached the next intersection; a Y.

 Minerva checked the compass. It wavered back and forth

 between the two possible roads, spun once in a complete

 MINERVA WAKES

 251

 circle, then settled into place, pointing to the left branch.

 Minerva frowned—she hadn't seen any sort of uncertainty in

 the compass's directions before.

 Then the grinding grew louder, and this time it seemed

 to come from the place the tno had just left. Birkweich

 bounced from one hind leg to another, and the tip of his tail

 whipped back and forth like an angry cat's. "Can't you do

 that any faster?" he asked.

 Minerva pointed down the dark, narrow, twisting left

 alley. The rumbling began up ahead—horrible crushing

 stone-on-stone noise. They seemed to be heading straight

 into it—but the arrow on Minerva's kid-compass was

 unwavering.

 Then, from the air around them. Jamie yelled, "Mom!

 Mommy! Daddy! Go back! Please go back! Don't let him

 hurt us!" The child-voice echoed and re-echoed through die

 twisting ruins, punctuated at the end by a scream that left

 Minerva's heart in her throat. She broke out in a cold sweat.

 Beside her, Darryl went ghost-white.

 Carol shrieked, "Mommy, DaddyS No! If you come here,

 the Unweaver will kill us"

 "Don't hurt me, monster! Don't—!" Bamey's cry dis-

 solved into a bubbling, wordless howl.

 Birkweich snarled and all of them began to run. They

 came to another intersection. "Which way?"

 The grinding and die rumbling was all around them, con-

 stantly growing louder—Minerva had to yell to be heard

 over the steady, subterranean roar. The needle's still spin-

 ning," she shouted, "Wait a second!"

 The needle twirled around, while the roar grew thunder-

 ous and the ground beneath her feet began to shudder.

 From the gutted windows of the broken buildings around

 them, Minerva saw eyes looking down at her, glowing dully

 in the shadows. Then the needle settled on a direction—

 back the way the trio had just come.

 Minerva's head snapped up, and she spun around and

 stared back the way they'd just come. The alley deformed

 before her eyes, the buildings shifting and moving closer.

 The noise—

 252 Holly Lisle

 "Oh, Godi Run!!" she yelled, and charged toward the

 place the/d left. The buildings sud together faster the closer

 she got to the escape, the alley grew narrower, and suddenly

 she saw the end pinch off before her eyes.

 "Retreat!" Birkwelch shouted, and darted back. Minerva

 and Darryl followed, racing as fast as they could, while the

 rest of the alley crushed together behind them.

 The four-way intersection became a courtyard before

 their eyes, the alleys wiped out of existence by the moving

 bank of solid, blank walls. And when the last of the alleys

 closed off, the buildings advanced toward Minerva, Darryl,

 and the dragon, slowly but steadily. As the ruins advanced,

 they also grew taller, so that the gutted windows towered

 high out of reach before any of the trio had a chance to use

 them as a means of escape.

 Minerva looked up. "Another magic carpet?" she yelled to

 Danyl. The two of them, she thought, were the only ones

 who really had to worry. Birkwelch could fly.

 Darryl nodded.

 Minerva opened her paintbox, grabbed a brush and light-

 paint—and the buildings arced toward each other over her

 head, grew into a solid ceiling, and swallowed the light.

 The grinding stopped. In the unexpected silence, Min-

 erva could hear her own harsh breathing and that of her

 companions.

 "Trapped!" Darryl shouted. "We need a tank!"

 "No!" Birkwelch yelled. 'T. already told you—no destruc-

 tion! Everything you unweave makes him stronger."

 Minerva painted a sphere of light that hung in the air

 between them, driving out the darkness and casting weird

 shadows on the walls behind them. 'Turn the other cheek,

 then?" she asked-

 Too passive." The dragon leaned near enough that she

 could smell his breath—even in the stink of the city, this was

 unfortunate. "It is not enough that you refrain from unweav-

 ing; you must also weave. 'He who does no evil, but neither

 does good, is stall evil by default.'"

 "Who said that—Buddha?" Darryl asked.

 Birkwelch wrinkled his mu2zle and snorted. The Worm

 MINERVA WAKES             253

 Kiffauher. Draconic philosopher. It's from a long parable

 about the munching of babes and woofers and the aquisition

 of treasures great and smaH—but I figured the parable was

 probably a species thing." The dragon's toothy grin only

 emphasized the direness of the situation. "I skipped to the

 moral at the end."

 "Good." Minerva stared into the glowing light-paints in

 her box. "So we have to create our way out of here?"

 Her question was punctuated by a soft plop.

 Minerva pushed the light-sphere upward—it floated

 toward the ceiling and threw its light into (he farthest cor-

 ners of the unnatural cavern. In the last pool of shadow,

 something moved.

 "Yes," Birkwelch said, stepping toward the hulking

 shadow. "And now would be a good time."

 The shadow-shape welled up and oozed moisdy toward

 the dragon, making long, sucking, slurping sounds as it pro-

 gressed. It was not large, but what it lacked in size, it made

 up for in gruesomeness. The dragon shot a blast of flame

 toward it, but did not touch it. It retreated, bubbling and

 wailing.

 There was another plop, from the other side of the cav-

 ern. The rainbow paints glowed softly. Minerva clutched the

 first pot she touched. Darryl leaned over and tossed her.

 She kissed him as hard as she could, and when she pulled

 back, brushed tears from her face with a backhanded swipe.

 "In case it's good-bye," she whispered.

 He had a pencil in one hand, the paper pad in the other.

 "I won't let it be good-bye," he promised. "Not again. Never

 again."

 Minerva heard a third squishing plop. All three of the

 creatures oozed toward her and Danyl. They had dagger-

 lined maws and horrible eyes. They advanced, and the

 dragon laid down lines of flame on the earth in front of

 them, galloping in circles around the cavern, racing from

 one monstrosity to the next, renewing each line of fire as it

 flickered out. "You're running out of time," Birkwelch bel-

 lowed. "I can't keep this up forever."

 Minerva dipped the brush into the paint—she'd come up

 254 Holly Lisle

 with green. Green, she thought. Green as meadows, green as

 fields, green as forests. She flung up a horizontal line in the

 air, undulant, a rolling hill. "Wde-open meadow," she yelled

 to Darryl.

 He pressed his back to hers and began to write. She read

 his words in the glowing air around her while she painted:

 The field was peaceful. Short grass ruffled in waves at

 Minerva's feet. Three gentle horses cropped the grass,

 while a cool breeze blew past, and—

 The writing stopped unfolding in front of her. Minerva,

 madly brushing in hints of blue sky and wispy white clouds,

 said, °—and on the front porch of the house on the hill..."

 "Yes," Danyl said.

 —on the front porch of the house on the hiS. the

 Unweaver sat, smiling politely; drinking lemonade.

 7 HATE LEMONADE!" an unfamiliar voice shrieked.

 The closed-in labyrinthine ruins were gone. The oozing

 monsters were transformed into miniature ponies that nib-

 bled at the lovely green meadow grass and plucked the

 rainbow-hued flowers, tails flicking lazily. On the front porch

 of a lovely white antebellum mansion, a plump little man sat,

 lemonade glass in his hand—at least for an instant. Then the

 lemonade glass deformed into a thing of leprous ugliness,

 and the paint on the house began to peel. Layers of the

 plump little man stripped themselves away into a cloud of

 dark smoke that formed over his head—skin and flesh,

 sinew and bone feeding into the wraith; man devolving into

 fog.

 The ponies lifted their heads and laid their ears back.

 They, too, began to shift and change—not so much to

 become something else as to melt away into less than they

 had been before.

 "Don't let him spoil it!" Minerva yelled at Danyl. She

 kept painting—retouching the house and the little horses to

 keep them firmly grounded in reality, adding fences and an

 MINERVA WAKES            255

 orange tabby cat on one fencepost—and then painting in the

 Unweaver—painting a woman, a grandmother—kindly,

 sweetfaced, the sort of woman who would yearn to dandle

 her daughter's babies on her knee, who would bake bread.

 Darryl's followed Minerva's lead. His words glowed in the

 air.

 The Unweaver, who had loved nothing, believed nothr-

 ing, embraced nothing, in that moment became

 something—became human, learned to care—and in

 that becoming, embraced and affirmed life.

 Nice, Minerva thought. Nice touch, Dam/I. Conquer by

 creation, leave something good in the place of all the evd and

 destruction.

 Minerva looked up at die woman—for indeed it was a

 woman who stood on the veranda of that plantation house.

 The tired Weaver walked up die hill toward her and reached

 out her band to touch her—to touch the creature who had

 once been the Unweaver, and who was redeemed-

 The woman watched Minerva's hand come toward her,

 and her mouth opened, as if she were about to say some-

 thing—

 But die moudi kept opening, and opening, and the flesh

 of die face peeled back and fell away, and a scream—rage,

 or terror, or pain—rent die air. Then die Unweaver ripped

 itself to shreds before Minerva's eyes, almost beneath her

 fingers, and the last remnants—two burning glowing sockets

 diat might have been eyes, suspended in a cioud of gray

 haze—sucked down into a crack between die floorboards of

 the veranda and were gone.

 "Er, nice try," Birkwelch said. He'd Just finished reading

 Darryl's words, which were fading quickly into notiiingness-

 "Nice concept, anyway." He flipped the rilles of his face

 backward and sighed. "But poindess. You cannot change die

 essential nature of the Unweaver. He's a primal force."

 "In odier words—'a valiant effort, but to no avail,'" Darryl

 muttered, and kicked the bottom step of die veranda.

 "Don't take it so hard," the dragon said, and patted Darryl

 256 Holly Lisle

 on the back. "You've got him on the run- You've probably

 chased him out of this universe entirely."

 "He's probably hiding under the floorboards of the house,

 plotting revenge," Minerva said.

 The dragon looked around him. Minerva saw him

 studying the big white house, the rolling hiiis, the

 manicured pastures, the horses, and the lovely picket

 fences. Birkwelch shook his head vehemently. "Not his

 kind of place. Hanging around now would drive him nuts.

 He tried to tear your Weaving down, and failed. I don't

 think he's here anymore."

 "Great. Wonderful." Minerva studied the house and

 frowned. "I don't care whether he's still here or not. I just

 want to find the kids."

 Birkwelch stood on the veranda. "About the lads—they

 could be in anything," the dragon said. "They could be any-

 thing. Everything that was here before is still here—but its

 all been transformed. Since none of the little dears have

 come bounding out the door yet, I'm assuming there might

 be a problem."

 Darryl gripped the porch rail- He and Minvera had

 crossed universes to get their lads back. They'd beaten the

 Unweaver. They couldnt have come all that way, done all

 the things they had done—conquered entropy personified,

 for crissakes—to lose at the last minute.

 "In the house somewhere, then?" Minerva looked worn

 and scared to Darryl. Her eyes were huge and shadowed,

 her skin pale.

 "Let's go," Darryl said, and walked up the steps and onto

 the porch. He didn't want to wait any longer—didn't want to

 talk about finding the kids, or talk about- possible problems,

 or talk about anything- He just wanted to get in, get them,

 and get the hell out. The idea of home seemed dearer to

 him than it ever had.

 He swung the door open and walked in. And stopped.

 What had been a Southern plantation on the outside . . .

 well, wasn't on the inside. The walls were stone, pale gray.

 The front door opened into a hallway, with doors on either

 MINERVA WAKES            257

 side. The hallway inside the house extended much farther

 than the walls outside the house.

 "I've been here before," Minerva whispered.

 Birkwelch and Darryl looked at her with, Darryl sus-

 pected, nearly identical expressions of disbelief.

 "In a nightmare," she added. 'There were bloody

 footprints on the floor, and a dour with a lion's head—it

 was all very vivid." She closed tier eyes. "Also, I was

 flying," she said.

 Darryl was willing to give consideration to the concept

 that Minerva's dreams might have some validity. He never

 had before— But, he thought, just living from day to day

 can give you reason to reconsider the po.whihty of most

 anything

 They walked down the hall, opening each stone door. All

 the doors opened easily, but all the rooms were empty. "If

 this place looks the same as it did in my dream, does that

 mean we didn't succeed in defeating the; Unweaver after

 all?" Minerva asked.

 Birkwelch dismissed that out of hand "You be>it him, fair

 and square. Rearranged him, completely overturned his own

 private hideaway— No, babe. The Unweaver Is history

 around here."

 Danyi said, "Now all we have to do is keep in mind the

 fact that dragons are basically full of shit." He stepped ahead

 of Birkwelch, and smiled just a bit as he heard the dragon

 protest.

 "I saved your ass from the Cindy-monsi-er, pal. It wouldn't

 hurt you to remember that."

 Minerva turned to him, curious. "The Cindy-monster?"

 Darryl, who had managed to forget, due to the press of

 events, the precise details of bis culpability and moral fail-

 ings, remembered them again in sudden, horrifyingly vivid

 detail.

 "Ah, yes," he said, stni^lini; for detachment, "ail, the

 Cindy-monster was one of the Weirds, tike the one.s who

 went after you. Green-eyed mongers . . ." He should have

 found a better way to phrase that, he decided.

 Minerva gave him a penetrating look, and he thought lie

 258 Holly Lisle

 would be certain to kill the dragon at his earliest opportu-

 nity. But at that moment, they came to a place where the

 long hall crossed another long hall—and at the intersection,

 they found small, red footprints running along the floor to

 the left.

 Minerva spotted the footprints and took off in a flat-out

 run. Danyl galloped after her, with the dragon bringing up

 the rear.

 Minerva skidded to a stop at the point where the foot-

 steps turned and led beneath a closed door. "We're coming,

 idds," she shouted. Danyl heard no response from the Idds.

 but all the doors were solid stone. He imagined they were

 fairly soundproof.

 Minerva stopped. She pointed to the lion's-head door-

 knob and said, "Watch that. It came to life in the dream and

 nearly bit my hand off." She removed her vest and wrapped

 it around the doorknob—but no amazing transformation

 took place. The doorknob stayed a doorknob. Darryt

 grabbed it, turned it, and shoved the door open; Minerva

 brushed past him yelling, "We're here—"

 The room, like all the other rooms, was empty. Well, not

 precisely empty. Dairy! noted the child's bloody footprints

 going across the floor to a thin blanket laid out on the

 stone—and the meager remains of several meals. He

 reached down and touched one of the footprints—the blood

 was dry. The prints were very small. Probably Bamey's, he

 thought, feeling rage build inside himself. And we let that

 bastard get away—we should have annihilated him, no mat-

 ter what the fucking dragon said.

 "They were here," Minerva whispered- They were.

 Where are they now?"

 "Not likely he took them with him," the dragon said, °I

 don't think he was in good enough shape to do anything

 requiring that much effort."

 Minerva was on her knees, tracing one of the tiny foot-

 prints with a finger. "We don't even know that they're still

 alive."

 The dragon looked from Darryl to Minerva, then back to

 Darryl. Darryl saw his expression grow more and more

 MINERVA WAKES            259

 exasperated. "Well, you're Weavers, dammit. Weave your-

 selves a way to find out."

 Minerva looked up at Darryl, but stayed on the floor. "I

 have the compass, but that turned out not to be very

 reliable."

 "I have an idea." Darryl took the pad and pencil and got

 ready to write.

 "1 do hope you've thought this out fairly well," Birkwelch

 said. "More carefully than your evil dragon fiasco, in any

 case."

 "Shut up. Birkwelch," Darryl and Minerva said in

 tandem.

 Darryl wrote:

 One moment, Dam/I, Minerva, and the dragon Birh-

 welch were standing in an empty room of the

 Unweaver's lair. The next instant, they were magically

 transported to their children, who were safe and healthy

 and happy to see them.

 The last glowing letter scrawled itself into the air a few

 inches in front of one of the room's blank stone walls. Then,

 as the three comrades-in-anns looked at each other, the

 room dissolved into a swirling, shimmering rainbow of light.

 Darryl hung, suspended in weightless, timeless nothingness

 for what could have been a second or an eternity—and then

 the world reformed itself, thi?; time in vivid emerald greens

 and sunset oranges.

 The three of them were standing out in the pasture again.

 "No," Minerva wailed. "It didn't work."

 The horses looked up at them, ears flicked forward in

 curiosity. The orange tabby cat leapt down from the fence in

 one fluid movement and launched himself onto the back of

 the smallest horse. He yawned and settled himself into a

 crouch on the horse's rump.

 "Mrrrrp?" he asked.

 The grass was sweet, and the creature perched on his

 back was companionable. The creatures who stood around

 260

 Holly Lisle

 him making so much noise were very familiar. Their pres-

 ence was somehow reassunng. The little horse did not know

 why. It wan't important. He enjoyed the warmth of the sun,

 and the pasture, and the quiet.

 The little horse couldn't seem to remember many pleas-

 ant things from before. It remembered fear and pain-

 But that was over. Gone.

 And the horse, being a horse, did not let itself be both-

 ered by the past.

 CHAPTER 15

 The three miniature horses trotted up to Minerva and

 Darryl, whickering- No, Minerva thought, remembering

 how she and Darryl had created those horses—had changed

 them from malformed nightmares into something better—

 —Remembering how close she had come to destroying

 the monsters—

 Not monsters. Her children. The Unweaver, that misbe-

 gotten fiend, had twisted her children—made them into

 monsters. His idea of a joke, no doubt.

 The sky and the earth seemed to spin—Minerva felt faint.

 She sat on the grass, and rested her head in her hands, and

 shivered. The litdest horse walked behind her and nuzzled

 her on the neck, and she started to cry.

 She let herself—let the fear and the tension flow out of

 her. Just bawled, until she ran out of tears. It was what she

 needed right then. When she'd cried herself out, she

 brushed the hair away from her face and looked up.

 "When we were in the Unweaver's trap, he sent the kids

 to us, counting on us not knowing them—and destroying

 them," she said "That would have been the ultimate irony,

 wouldn't it? The Weavers unweave their own children."

 Darryl knelt between the other two horses, an arm

 around each of their necks, a look of mingled shock and hor-

 ror on his face. "They were running toward us ... Nut

 attacking us—running toward us. Wanting our help We

 261

 262 Holly Lisle

 would have killed them," he said, "if it hadn't been for the

 dragon."

 Birkwelch smiled a broad alligator smile and flopped back

 in die grass. "No flowers, no parades, no ticker tape—noth-

 ing like that," the dragon said, "Just throw food and women."

 "Shut up, Birkwelch," Minerva said. "Let us be gratenil to

 you. Let us say thanks without you making a big joke out of

 it." She managed to stand again, though she still felt sick and

 weak. "We owe you."

 "And I'll make sure you pay." The dragon looked up at

 her, and his grin stretched wider. "Darryl's already promised

 to make a whole harem of girl-dragons for me."

 Minerva glared at Birkwelch, and he sighed.

 "Look, I appreciate your gratitude, but I only did what I

 came along to do. All this mushy stuff makes me

 uncomfortable."

 Itjiff^res. Dragons aren't the mushy sort. She gave the

 dragon a hug around the neck and dropped the subject.

 Darryl had sat on the ground, pad and pencil in hand. He

 wrote:

 AS. three children were returned from horse-form to

 their human forms, healthy-and whole and uninjured.

 Minerva watched millions of tiny lights spring to life

 around and through the horses. The lights glowed brighter,

 compressed tighter, and squeezed and twisted her children

 from horse-shapes into child-shapes. And then Bamey and

 Carol and Jamie stood in front other—naked and emaciated

 and filthy, but smiling.

 "Mom—"

 "Daddy!—"

 "Who's the dragon?—"

 "You saved us!—"

 "1 missed you!—"

 It took a while to get everything sorted out, to get hugs

 and losses, to get the kids clothed—to discover her night-

 mares had actually happened.

 Birkwelch, still sprawled in the grass looking pleased with

 MINERVA WAKES            263

 himself, said, "Dreams are the secret battlefield of the soul.

 And they're real—the big dreams are anyway. For every bat-

 tle you fight in your dreams and win, you gain something

 you didn't have before. And every battle you lose, you lose

 for real."

 The children curled up against her and Darryl, uninter-

 ested in dreams or magic. They wanted only hugs and kisses;

 the simple reassurances of their parents' touch.

 Minerva needed reassurance, too, but hers could only

 come from knowing.

 "Where did the bloody footprints come from?" she asked.

 Bamey, who had flatly refused to put shoes or socks on,

 looked down at his feet. 'The Unweebil cut my teet," he

 said, "because I ran away with Murp once. He made me

 walk on them. He was mad."

 His feet were healed—but she could see the scars. Hor-

 rible scars.

 "He said you didn't love us," Carol added, "but you kept

 coming to see us, so we knew he was lying—and that made

 him even madder. He was really afraid of you."

 "But then you turned around and went back," Jamie said.

 "And the Unweaver made us forget," he added.

 "I didn't, though," she told them. "I never went back. I

 never stopped coming for you."

 Minerva took it all in. She had her kids back. She had her

 husband back, in a way she hadn't had him for years. Her life

 had meaning again. All that was left was going home.

 But that could wait. Night was falling on Eyrith, and the

 day had been long, and terrible, and exhausting, and had

 come at the end of a chain of long, terrible, exhausting days.

 With her family safe around her, she wanted to sleep.

 Darryl created a house for them in the middle of the pas-

 ture—no one wanted to sleep in the mansion. Darryl wrote

 the house into being complete with a fully stocked refrigera-

 tor, three bathtubs with endless hot water, and one huge bed

 for the whole family to sleep in. There would be a time for

 separate beds, he'd said, but the time hadn't come yet.

 The dragon settled in with beer and television, the kids

 ate, bathed, and crawled into bed, and after a good long soak

 264 HoUy Lisle

 in the tub, Minerva followed them. Darryl curled up next to

 her on the bed, and the two of them hugged and spooned

 together, too weary to talk.

 Minerva was asleep almost the instant her head setded

 onto the pillow.

 She walked through the darkness, painting light—fffting

 the universe with luminous/lowers, emerald cliffs, rainbow-

 bedecked waterfalls. She created an Eden, in which beautijul

 beasts of every imaginable type cavorted, and her children

 laughed and ran and played.

 She walked through that wonderland, knowing it was of

 her own making. She felt wonderful—magical—godlike—

 She waved her hand, and in the distance, a shimmering

 alabaster city grew out of the rolling hills. Nearer, she cre-

 ated hummingbirds that flitted, gemlike, in the cool, radiant

 morning.

 All this is my handiwork, she thought. I can do anything.

 But then she noticed her alabaster city was graying and

 crumbling. Trees browned. The waterfall dried up, and the

 earth grew parched and sandy One of the hummingbirds

 died in midair and toppled at her feet. Before her eyes. it

 decomposed. A mushroom grew out of the body, and

 stretched taller and wider, becoming huge—the mushroom

 towered over her. It split from bottom, to top. and the doak-

 garbed Unweaver stepped out of it.

 "I am the canker at the heart of the world," he said.

 "There is nothing you can create that I cannot destroy. Even

 time, your greatest enemy, is on my side."

 "You are nothing." She rested her hand on the hilt of the

 silver dagger in her belt, and laughed. "You don't frighten

 me. I beat you."

 "You don't frighten me," the Unweaver mimicked,

 falsetto. "Give you a magic ring, and you can save the

 universe." He laughed. His laughter was hollow, and

 horrible, and ringing. "You win a minor skirmish—but

 only with the help of your husband and a dragon, and as a

 result you think yourself master of the universe. Very well,

 little master of the universe—can you fight me alone and

 win? I am immortal. Entropy cannot be destroyed. But

 MINERVA WAKES            265

 you are mortal, and someday must lose." His hood feU

 back, and Minerva saw there was nothing beneath it but

 two glowing eyes. "The universe will wind itself down to

 nothing, and I will be triumphant—now or later . . . with

 you or without you. You cannot win this war—yet because

 of someone else's error, you are destined to fight it."

 The Unweaver laughed. Tuny creature of flesh, whether

 you die tomorrow ortoday is all the same to me. You wiU stiS

 die, and all your works wSi come at last to nothing."

 Minerva would have argued the point with him, but what

 he said was true. In her heart, in her soul, in her bones, she

 could feel its truth, no matter how much she tried to deny it.

 Death would some day meet her and win.

 In the short run, her fight with the Unweaver was brave

 and glorious: her victories bright to behold. But in the eter-

 nal measure, her fight would only last a moment, no matter

 how long that moment might be—and the outcome was pre-

 ordained. She and her world and her universe would all

 wind down to chaos.

 She stared at the ring on her hand—the Weaver's ring. Its

 perfection mocked her. Who am I? she wondered. Who do I

 think I am, to confront the eternal and triumph? I failed as

 an artist—I gave up. Quit. I was chosen as a Weaver by mis-

 take. I'm no hero. I'm nobody special at all. If my lads hadn't

 been kidnapped, I wouldn't even have fought.

 She sank to her knees, while the Unweaver towered over

 her. How silly, to think one person could really matter in the

 scheme of things. One person—one average, normal,

 nobody of a person—can't really make a difference. The uni-

 verse is too vast, and eternity too incomprehensible, and

 people too unimportant.

 But a small mice in the back of her mind screamed. So

 WHAT! In spite of everything, you won, dammit! If it was a

 little victory, so what? You won it. You saved your kids, you

 rescued your husband, you saved the universe. So what if

 you were the wrong person, and nobody special. You cared,

 and you fought, and goddammit, you won anyway! Everyone

 was against you, no one believed in you, and you still won!

 Minerva looked up into the face of the Unweaver, and

 266 Holly Lisle

 suddenly smiled. "That's right," she whispered, and her smile

 grew broader. "I did win. I won now... today .. this fight."

 She stood and walked toward the Unweaver, gripping the

 knife, and this time there was no uncertainty in her. "7 won

 this time. I won because I cared. Because I loved. So what if

 I didn't fight you alone? Love and caring make allies People

 who care never have to fight alone for long."

 She drew the kmfe and her smile grew fierce.

 The Unweaver backed up a step. his cloak swirling

 around him. He seemed to Minerva to shrink the tiniest bit.

 Minerva took another step forward. "And if I can't fight

 you forever... so what? When I fall, when I can't fight you

 anymore, someone else wilt be standing behind me to take

 my place. Maybe that someone won't be anyone special,

 either. But it won't matter.

 "Don't you see that?" she asked. "It won't matter, because

 the person who comes behind me will care, too

 "You can't even lay daim to the end of the universe. Chaos

 may Just curl itself into a baU of fire at the end of time, and

 fling out a new universe, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes.

 Life wiS be born anew, and love will be waiting for it. And

 you wiU be as lonely and loveless and empty then as you are

 now."

 The Unweaver shriveled under Minerva's attack. He col-

 lapsed in on himself, and his fear and his emptiness radiated

 from him in waves.

 Minerva looked from him to the silver blade in her hand,

 and was surprised to feel a sudden rush of pity for the crea-

 ture. To embrace nothingness, to choose emptiness, to desire

 grief and despair, to face an eternity in which nothing good

 could ever happen—

 She threw the knife away from her. It soared in a high

 arc, frittering in the sunlight, and vanished over the edge of

 thediff.

 Minerva could suddenly see it all—her place in the uni-

 verse, Darryl's . . the Unweaver's "You're a part of the

 creative process," she whispered. "Without you, there would

 be no ashes for the phoenix to rise from."

 The Unweaver shrieked. "No! Not so! I am the antithesis

 MINERVA WAKES            267

 of creation!! I destroy! I destro-o-o-oy!" His smoky form

 ripped itseifto shreds, and vamshed.

 And Minerva woke.

 "It was real," she whispered, and sat up.

 Beside her, Darryl was rubbing sleep from his eyes. "I

 had a dream about the Unweaver," he began.

 She interrupted him. "It wasn't a dream, Danyl. It was

 real. We fought him again, and we won again.

 "As long as we care," she said, staring at her three chil-

 dren, who slept in the bed beside her, "and as long as we

 never give up, I don't think we can lose."

 They stood at the top of a gently rolling hill—Darryl,

 Minerva, the blue dragon Birkwelch, three small children.

 The land which fell away beneath their feet had been baked

 mudflats only moments before. The inhabitants of the beau-

 tiful little cottages, people who were almost, but not quite,

 human, had been nothing so lovely or so fine when Minerva

 had first crossed their path.

 "It's back the way it was before the Unweaver came?"

 Danyl asked.

 "Maybe even better." Birkwelch shielded his eyes and

 stared almost into the sun. A shadow passed over it, and as

 he studied that shadow, his face lit up. "There's one now."

 "There should be a lot," Minerva said.

 Thanks for bringing them back," Birkwelch said. "And

 the satyrs—er, cheymats—too. I know Talleos would thank

 you if he were here."

 "Probably not" Minerva snapped the words out; Darryl

 noted surprising depths of bitterness in her voice. "Thank

 you' didn't seem to be the sort of thing that would occur to

 him."

 "He was always awfully self-centered," Birkwelch agreed.

 Then the dragon stiffened and pointed toward the newly

 green horizon. "Shit, shit, shit," he snarled. "Weirds."

 Darryl looked where the dragon pointed and froze, his

 heart pounding. Five winged forms alternately flapped and

 soared toward the hill. Danyl wondered if the Weird who

 had also been Cindy would be among them—or if she had

 268 Holly Lisle

 died trying to save his kids from the Unweaver, or in Min-

 erva's firefight. He could imagine recriminations, anger, or

 even further disaster as the fallout of the Weirds' arrival—

 but he could not think of anything good that could come of

 a meeting with them. So he waited, pad and pencil in hand,

 trying to think of magic he could do quickly that would con-

 trol them without destroying them, should the need arise.

 The Weirds circled slowly and landed one by one; and

 one by one they transformed—melting from huge, ugly fly-

 ing monstrosities to the quasi-human creatures which were

 native to Eyrith.

 None of them looked like Cindy, though they all had the

 same glowing green eyes.

 When the last of them finished their transformation, the

 first, a brawny man, stepped forward and dropped to one

 knee, and hung his head. Behind him, the other four Weirds

 followed his lead.

 "We beg your forgiveness, Weavers," the man said, "for

 betraying you, for stealing your children, for plotting against

 you, and for failing to guide you. We made errors, and com-

 pounded the errors by betraying the principle that should

 have guided us—never unweave, never destroy."

 Darryl took a moment to make the transition from

 expecting disaster to figuring out something gracious to say.

 He would have loved roasting the sons of bitches who kid-

 napped his lads and trashed his life, but the Weirds were

 right. "Never unweave, never destroy" was a good rule. He

 wouldn't have had his kids without it-

 "You are forgiven," he said. He thought of adding some-

 thing sort of flowery and formal, but decided against it. He

 was stretching the truth as it was.

 Minerva evidently thought so. too. She looked at him out

 of the corners of her eyes and arched an eyebrow in disbe-

 lief. Then she shrugged. "There is no anger between us."

 7 wouldn't bet on that, Darryl thought, eyeing his wife.

 You toasted a bunch oftheir folks. And I fed a bunch more

 to dragons. I'd be willing to bet there d be plenty of anger—

 if they didn't think showing it would get the rest of them

 cooked as Birkwelch's dinner.

 MINERVA WAKES

 269

 "You are truly gracious," the big guy said, and stood. An

 awkward silence followed, until one of the women at his side

 gave him a surrepetitious jab in the ribs with her elbow. He

 dissembled well. turning the tvoof of pain into an almost

 natural-sounding cough. "Because of the hardship we have

 caused you, and the disorder we have wreaked m your life,

 we hereby offer Eyrith as home for you and your family for

 however long you choose to stay here."

 "You are generous and land," Minerva said, "but we have

 other plans." She gsswe them a nice little bow, and in the

 smoothest brush-off Darryl had ever seen from her, she

 added, "Which we really must be attending to now. If you

 will excuse us—"

 The Weirds' relief was so evident it was comical—and

 they were perfectly willing to take a hint. They reformed

 into "fly-ugly" mode, and within an instant were launched

 and winging their way home.

 Birkwelch cocked an eye-ridge and looked from Minerva

 to Darryl. That seems sort of premature. I'd have thought

 you would at least have considered staying here. Eyrith is

 about as much like your homeworld as anyplace you're going

 to find,"

 "We're going home," Darryl said.

 Minerva nodded-

 "Ah, guys," the dragon said, "I hate to be the party-

 pooper, but back home, you folks are dead. Don't you think

 that might make things difficult? Just a little? Eh?"

 "We've already figured that out," Minerva said. "We're

 going to go back in time to die point where all this mess

 started. Only this time, we're going to do things differently."

 "Ah, no—" Birkwelch, shook his head with such vehe-

 mence Darryl almost expected him to dislocate his neck.

 "Why not?" Darryl asked. "We've learned our lesson.

 When we go back, we'll do things the way we should have

 done them the first time."

 The dragon kept swinging his head back and forth. "No,

 you won't. Or rather, no, you didn't. You've learned better

 now. but back then, you made your choices. And the past

 does not come with an eraser. You go back, and all you'u do

 270 Holly Lisle

 is form a loop in time, so that you get to relive this little

 adventure over and over and over."

 Dariyl and Minerva exchanged glances. Darryl said,

 "What do we do, then? I want to go home."

 Minerva sat and stared off into the distance. "We can't

 change the past." She looked up at him and grinned sud-

 denly. "But we ought to be able to play merry hell with the

 present."

 The whole family sat on the grassy hill in Eyrith, getting

 realty to go home. Daddy wrote the story of the way it was

 going to be. Mommy painted the pictures.

 "I think you ought to magic us rich," Jamie said.

 Carol said, "Magic me as the most beautiful, smartest girl

 in the worid."

 Mommy sighed. "You are already smart, and already

 beautiful. And, Carol—if we make you different, how will

 your grandma and grandpa know you?"

 "Could you at least magic me better grades in Language

 Arts?" Jamie asked.

 "We'll see."

 Barney knew what that meant. It meant "No—but I don't

 want to argue anymore." He grinned. Jamie was such a

 butthead sometimes.

 "What about you?" Mommy and Daddy asked him. "Do

 you have any special requests?"

 Bamey could think of a million neat things that he could

 have asked for—but he couldn't think of one that was

 important. "No," he said- "I just want to go home."

 And anyway, he thought, even if Birkwelch says magic

 doesn't work the same back home... Ibetl can still do some

 stuff. He intended to try.

 Minerva pushed the doorbell and listened to the famihar

 ring. She heard footsteps clicking on the flagstones in the

 enhyway. Her mother opened the door.

 "Mom—" Minerva managed to say before her mother

 screamed. It was quite a scream.

 To her credit, Mrs. Wilson didn't faint. She leaned against

 MINERVA WAKES            271

 the doorway, breathing heavuy, and she did turn whiter than

 the paint on the doorframe—but she didn't faint "You're

 dead," she said.

 "No, Mom, I'm not. Darryl isn't, the kids aren't. Every-

 body's fine."

 "You aren't going to believe this," she told her mother, and

 even as she said it, she knew they would bebeve. Danyt had

 written it that way. "We were kidnapped by... um ..." She

 winced, and gave her mother what she hoped was a sheepish

 grin,"... by space aliens." She took a deep breath. "The FBI

 and the CIA are doing everything they can to cover it up."

 They were, too, she thought. She and Danyl had stuck an

 alien theme a mile wide into their story. The whole thing

 was going to wreak havoc with the US defense budget for

 the next few years. She hated that. but. . .

 Her mother hugged her, and cried, and dragged her into

 the house, and laughed, and screamed some more, and

 called her brother and her father and all the neighbors—

 It was worth it. It was worth the confusion, worth the

 deceptions, worth everything she and Darryl had done just

 to see her parents coming back to bfe. She suspected Danyl,

 at his house with his folks at that moment, felt the same way.

 Not until quite a bit later did her dad ask the second big

 question.

 "Minerva," her father asked, "why in heaven's name

 would aliens Iddnap you?"

 Minerva twisted the Weavers ring on her finger, and

 shook her head sadly. "They thought we were somebody

 else," she said.

 Minerva noticed that both she and Darryl had gotten qui-

 eter and quieter as the day progressed. Their story, at least

 temporarily, seemed to be holding. The presence of the CIA

 agent parked in the drive kept the neighbors questions in

 check. Her friends were thrilled to hear from her—after the

 initial shock, at least—and the same went for Darryl's. The

 hospital still had her job open, and GeofT Forest offered

 Darryl his back—with a raise, even.

 With nightfall, she and Darryl settled down at last. The

 272 Holly Lisle

 lads were asleep, the house was quiet, and the two of thein

 sat side by side in the loveseat, stanng into the crackling

 flames that leapt and danced in the fireplace.

 Things were more or less back to normal—and Minerva

 knew they would get more normal as the days went on. She

 believed this—but her pulse pounded in her ears, and she

 felt as if at any instant, she would leap out of the seat, jump

 out other skin—explode.

 "Danyl?" she said. Then she paused, uncertain.

 He looked over at her, and she noticed the crease

 between his eyebrows, and that he'd been biting the skin on

 his lower lip. "You're thinking it too, aren't you?" he asked.

 She sighed. "Probably"

 "We can't stay here." He looked back at the fire.

 He'd said it fust. Thank God, he'd said it first. She

 agreed. "We can't. I can't go back to the hospital. I can't clo

 that anymore." She stared down at her hands, surprised to

 see they were trembling. She realized just the thought of

 trying to be what she'd once been had left her shaking.

 "I told Geoff I'd think about my old job—but I won't."

 He leaned over and looked into her eyes. There are uni-

 verses out there waiting for us. We have things to do."

 "But not here." Minerva grew more certain of that with

 every passing instant. 'They know us here- They won't be

 able to let us be what we have to be"

 "We'll go ... somewhere—maybe travel." Darryl leaned

 back and stared into the flames. "I'll write, you'll paint—"

 He nodded, and the worry lines vanished from his forehead.

 "We'll do what we should have done all along."

 Minerva felt light and full of energy. Yes, she thought-

 She'd been dreaming of this moment all her life. "We can

 visit from time to bme, maybe—now they know we're all

 right—" She closed her eyes and thought out loud. "We'll

 need to call our folks, give them some story—probably

 blame it on the CIA or the FBI—a witness protection pro-

 gram—something like that . . We need to tell the kids—"

 Darryl chuckled. "Bamey will be happy, at least. He was

 pretty upset about not being able to make chocolate out of

 Am air."

 MINERVA WAKES

 273

 Minerva glanced over at him. "So you want to go to one

 ot the magic universes?"

 Danyl arched an eyebrow. 'They're inn."

 "Yeah. They are." She nodded. "And we have to take

 Murp."

 "Yes," Danyl agreed. "Definitely. The little guy deserves

 to come along."

 "We won't need much more than that." Minerva couldn't

 really think of anything they'd need except each other.

 "We have to get past die CIA guy out front."

 "No problem." Minerva smiled and drew an imaginary

 spiral in the air with her finger. "We'll just walk through the

 wall," she said. "That'll drive 'em nuts."

 "When do we leave?" Danyl asked.

 Minerva closed her eyes and thought. They'd wasted so

 much time already- They didn't know how much time they

 had—but they knew it wasn't forever. Tonight," she said.

 Darryl hugged her and grinned. "It'll be an adventure,"

 he whispered.

 She laughed, feeling better the instant the decision was

 made. "In that case, we'd better find Birkwelch."

 THE END