Breaking Form
by KeeperofManyNames and RavenoftheBlack
Status: Public

In slow, immeasurable increments, two eyelids worked their way closed over the weary eyes behind them. Vision narrowed into an unfocused sliver of perception before they closed completely, only to shoot open immediately, bringing the long wooden table back into clarity, with all of its treasured books, tomes and parchments. The old man sitting at that table shivered slightly. It was cold, or perhaps it just felt that way. He looked over at a half-eaten plate of bread and cheese, but seemed to lack the energy to reach over towards it. He stared at the plate for several long moments as his eyes fell out of focus again, and were again forced swiftly open. The old man sighed heavily. He had been many things throughout his long, long life, and to many different people, but right now, Raleris was nothing but tired.

It was night now, or so Raleris assumed. It was always hard to tell in the Infinite Library. Within its ancient walls, he usually judged the passage of night and day by his own internal clock; when he was tired, it was night. But if that were true, it seemed as though nights were coming faster and faster, and lasting so much longer than they had in the past. In his comparative youth, Raleris had never thought a great deal about time. Now, of course, he thought about it often. Too often, he thought dejectedly. Years ago, centuries ago, time was only something that came by occasionally to take his friends from him. Now, it seemed to have its eyes on him. Time was a thief in the vaunted halls of the Lorekeeper’s life, and it was running out.

Raleris brought one ancient hand up to his wrinkled brow and began massaging his forehead with no small degree of pressure. He looked at the books and papers scattered around him on the wooden table and sighed. One parchment resting directly in front of him was the greatest contributor to his fatigue. On it, in Raleris’s own handwriting, was a simple list of names, names he had been gathering for what seemed like far too long now. Some of those names were pure, black ink, others a more faded gray, and some had a single, thick line scratched all the way through them. But there were still so many, and so much to learn about each. The aged librarian had to believe that somewhere on that list, though, was the name of the one he was searching for. He had to believe that one of those names belonged to his successor.

The Lorekeeper leaned back in his chair and felt a sudden surge of weakness and pain, so much so that his ancient body shook. Raleris shut his eyes tight against the attack and used all of his considerable will to stop himself from dulling that pain with magic. It was a difficult impulse to resist, but he knew it would only make matters worse. The Phthisis that was slowly eating away at him was not merely resistant to magic, but actually fed on it, and too much use could cause the illness to flare completely out of control. These attacks were mercifully rare, but their frequency seemed to be growing. It was this more than anything else that made time his enemy. Finally, after several minutes of discomfort, the pain subsided, and Raleris was left to catch his breath.

Raleris wiped a few stray beads of sweat away from his forehead with the base of his palm. The attack reminded him of his purpose, of the mission he had set for himself and one that all too obviously needed to be completed. He took a few moments to look around him, rows and rows of massive bookshelves stretching endlessly in every direction. Even in his condition, they brought a smile to the Lorekeeper. This was the Infinite Library, that wonder of the Multiverse, once under the careful stewardship of Commodore Guff, now under Raleris’s, and soon, hopefully, to pass to another fitting scholar. This was why Raleris needed to succeed before he died. He loved this place too much to leave it to the indifferent hands of fate. He loved the smell of ancient tomes, the sight of countless pages, the slow, rhythmic sound of…

Slow, rhythmic sound? Raleris thought with a start. What slow, rhythmic sound? That was no staple of the Infinite Library, and the Lorekeeper would know. He had spent much of the past few hundred years within this place, and this sound was completely foreign to him. Raleris was momentarily concerned that his failing health was a more pressing and serious issue than even he had thought. It was not entirely unheard of, after all, for the ill to experience auditory hallucinations. But with the passing of the attack, Raleris felt comfortable he was in his right mind. Besides, the sound was growing slowly but steadily louder. Whatever was making it was heading Raleris’s way.

The Lorekeeper was disconcerted, but not truly concerned. The Library had a way of protecting itself from unwanted intruders, and Raleris himself, despite his age and appearance, was far from defenseless. However, there were not a great many people who knew of the Library’s existence, and fewer still that could even guess at its location. Of all of Raleris’s friends and acquaintances over the years, none visited him nearly as often as Kirsh, and an unannounced visit from the aven seemed highly unlikely. Just to be safe, Raleris began to gather his mana in a very controlled and patient manner. Even this simple act was risking reprisal from his Phthisis, but as long as he did so carefully he should be safe from both his sickness, and from whatever approached.

Raleris did not have long to wait. After only a few more moments, a figure emerged from between two rows of books and turned immediately towards the Lorekeeper, without so much as a break in the rhythm of his walking. He was a tall, human man, dressed in a nice suit and draped in a decorative gentleman’s cloak. His face was smooth and handsome, his smirking mouth ringed by a short, trimmed beard that left his cheeks bare. His brimmed hat covered what appeared to be short, dark hair, and he carried an ornate black and silver cane in his right hand. It was the sound of this cane striking the Library floor with a practiced, constant meter that was producing the sound he was hearing. Raleris’s upper lip curled slightly in disgust as he saw his uninvited guest.

“Raiker Venn,” the Lorekeeper said simply.

The man continued until he was only a short distance from the old man. “The very same,” he confirmed with his deep, lyrical voice as he made a show of removing his hat and giving a slight bow. “Raleris, my old friend, how have the centuries treated you?”

Although Raiker made a point of emphasizing the word “old,” it was the word “friend” that left a bitter taste in the Lorekeeper’s mouth. “What are you doing here?”

Raiker pretended to look hurt. “Why, Raleris, is this the hospitality you offer all of your library’s patrons? I have merely come to pay a visit to one of my oldest friends.”

That word again. “The Raiker Venn I remember had no friends beyond Raiker Venn.”

The Gentleman Poet smiled. “And who, I ask you, could hope for a better one?” He stepped up onto the small, raised dais upon which sat Raleris and his reading table. With one smooth motion, he untied and cast off his cloak, allowing it to land over Raleris’s list. Raiker also tossed his hat on the pile. He kept his cane in his hand, however. “Come, Raleris, are you truly not going to offer me a drink?”

The Lorekeeper simply shook his head. “This is a library, not a distillery. How did you even find this place, Raiker?”

The taller man laughed heartily. “Oh, I very likely walked these walls before you did, Raleris. As a matter of fact, I believe Guff has a few of my collections stashed away here somewhere.”

“Undoubtedly,” Raleris conceded bitterly. “Why don’t you just get to whatever it is you want so that I can say ‘no’ and we can get on with our lives?”

“I do not remember you being so barbarically rude, Raleris,” the poet offered, although his wide grin was still plastered on his face. “Perhaps all those centuries have been even less kind to you than it appears.” He paused, meaningfully. “Or perhaps you want to get on with your life because there is so little of it left.”

Raleris winced a bit. He considered it childish to think of life in terms of “fair” and “unfair,” but it was decidedly the latter that Raiker would very likely outlive him. “This is not the first time you and I have sparred like this, Raiker Venn.”

“I remember,” the interloper said with a surprisingly happy nod.

“Good,” Raleris said as he locked eyes with the Poet. “Then you must also remember that we agreed it would probably be best to stay out of one another’s business. I believe, as you put it, that we have a gentleman’s agreement.”

“We did,” Raiker Venn agreed, “and we still do. I have not come here to cause you undue trouble, Raleris. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have come here to offer you a gift.”

The Lorekeeper rolled his eyes. “A gift from you, Raiker Venn? I have seen the sort of gifts you give. Thank you, but I’ll pass if it’s all the same.”

“It is most certainly not ‘all the same,’ Raleris,” Raiker said, his smile dissolving off his face. “I come here with a great gift for you in your time of need, and you refuse it with a sharp tongue and ungrateful heart.”

Raleris scoffed and pushed himself to his feet. “There is no gift you would ever give, Raiker, that doesn’t benefit you more than the recipient.”

Raiker Venn stared at him for a while, until his wide smile returned once again. “Of course, my old friend! But that hardly means that you will not benefit from it, as well.”

“I am no fool, Raiker, and I…”

“Precisely!” Raiker interrupted him. “You are no fool. And do you not agree that it would be foolish to refuse a gift that may get you exactly what you seek only because it would benefit the giver even more so?”

“If that giver were anyone but you, Raiker Venn, I might agree with you,” Raleris said, sitting down once again. “Besides, there’s nothing I want that you can give me.”

“Is that so?” Raiker asked as he looked down at the parchment in his hand. “I think this list of yours says otherwise.”

Raleris looked down at the paper, which he was certain hadn’t been in the Poet’s hand moments ago. He reached out and moved Raiker’s cloak and hat out of the way, and to his surprise, his list of names was gone. He looked back at the other planeswalker, trying to hide his annoyance. “You won’t convince me to help you with stage magician tricks, Raiker. And that list is my business. Taking it violates our agreement.”

Raiker looked it over again and laughed before tossing it back to the Lorekeeper on a gust of air. Raleris caught it awkwardly, wincing inwardly as it crumpled in his too-forceful grip. “I hardly want it, old friend." Raiker stated, smugly. "But there is a name missing from that list, perhaps as close to a perfect replacement as you are likely to get.”

Raleris, for the first time in a long while, was speechless, and for a moment he sat, absent-mindedly smoothing and re-rolling the parchment as though his manipulations of his old list could divine an explanation for this unsettling turn of events. Raiker Venn was not a man to underestimate, but perhaps Raleris had. It seemed impossible that the Poet should know about Raleris’s search, but somehow he did.

Looking down at the old man, Raiker seemed almost to read his mind. “I have, in my travels, encountered one or two of your,” he paused, and indicated toward the parchment, “rejections. I have known about your search for some time now.”

Raleris remained still and for a moment his mind strayed to the crossed off names, wondering what Raiker had--But no, he could not afford such distractions at this moment. It did not do to trade barbs with Raiker Venn, only to let one's guard down. He shook his head at the other man. “And yet, only now have you come with this ‘gift’ of yours?”

Raiker grinned. “Until now, my gift to you was that I stayed away. After all, a storehouse of the wisdom of the Multiverse, cursed to fade from living memory with the death of its only caretaker who could not find a replacement? It sounds like a fittingly tragic subject for one of my poems, does it not?”

Raleris, in spite of himself, felt a slight shiver at the implied threat. Here, in the Infinite Library, he was quite safe, but Raiker Venn was a difficult man to dissuade once he decided on a course of action. Before Raleris could decide on a suitable reply, Raiker continued.

“Besides, this gift to you is a recent development. Do you want to hear about it, or would you prefer to maintain your inhospitable demeanor?”

Raleris rolled his eyes and sighed heavily, but relented. It was likely the quickest way to shut Raiker up, anyway. “Very well, Venn. What is this mysterious gift of yours?”

“’Who’ would be the more appropriate question.” Raiker stopped here, as if waiting for Raleris to ask. When the Lorekeeper didn’t, the Poet continued. “I have learned of a woman, a planeswalker, who would be an ideal candidate to succeed you as the caretaker of this library of yours. She is quick and intelligent, with a love of learning and of knowledge. I believe she would be…” he paused, searching for a word. He grimaced a little as he continued. “Happy here.”

Raleris held up the rolled parchment and gestured with it towards Raiker. “Congratulations, Raiker Venn, you have just described practically everyone on this list.”

Raiker nodded. “Which in and of itself should tell you that she belongs on it. However, she has one more quality that should set her far and above those others. You know better than most that our kind is no longer what we once were.”

“If we were, I wouldn’t need a replacement,” Raleris said flatly.

“And because of this irritating fact, your replacement, whomever that may be, will likely need a replacement themselves, and shortly, at least relative to our lives.”

Raleris said nothing. That was the sort of tragic fact that he tried not to think about, but a man like Raiker Venn would, naturally, point out.

“Well,” Raiker continued, “the woman I describe need not fear that moment for quite some time. She is, you see, crafted of living jadestone.”

Raleris raised one white eyebrow. “A golem?”

But Raiker shook his head with a smirk. “No golem, Raleris. She is one of those catfolk, a dreamwalker, too. But her body is stone, for all intents and purposes. She will age, but no faster than the mountains, and even less noticeably. She is as close to ageless as our kind gets.”

Although Raleris hated to admit it, the proposition did sound intriguing. If she were truly dedicated to knowledge, her inherent longevity could possibly make her an ideal candidate. But Raleris still didn’t trust Raiker Venn.

“And what do you get out of this?”

“I get to know that I have done a good deed for an old, dying friend.”

Raleris looked at Raiker Venn flatly, his head tilted slightly to one side. He held his gaze for several seconds before Raiker spoke again.

“Oh, very well, Raleris! She has been hounding me for months, always on my trail, always only just behind me. She missed me by only a few minutes last time, and it would cause an unpleasantness if we were to meet up again.”

“What does she want with you?”

“I could ponder that question for a thousand hours, and still the answer would elude me.”

Again, Raleris gave him the look.

Raiker Venn narrowed his eyes at the old man. “Raleris, you are impossible. As you wish. We struck a bargain, she and I. An agreement. She is suffering from a bit of buyer’s remorse.”

“I see,” Raleris said with a mocking edge to his voice. “And you hope to avoid a duel with her by diverting her attention to the Library.”

“I do,” Raiker confirmed.

“Is she that powerful, then, that the great, powerful poet Raiker Venn is afraid to fight her? Or has it simply been too long since you’ve dueled a planeswalker?”

Raiker’s eye twitched slightly as he fumed. “You think I avoid her for my own good?”

Raleris laughed loudly and honestly at this. “Raiker, I think everything you do or have ever done is for your own good.”

The Poet took a step closer to the seated Lorekeeper, the knuckles of his right hand turning white as he gripped his cane tighter and tighter. “You do not understand, Raleris, like so many others, you have never understood! The poem is perfect! But the tragedy is negated if she dies! Her life is nothing to me, but it is everything to the poem. If we duel, I may be forced to kill her, destroying her, your possible replacement, and my poem, all in one simple, needless action. Nothing is gained then, only lost. Is that what you want?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Raiker,” Raleris said with a shrug. “So what exactly do you want again?”

Raiker stared into Raleris’s eyes for a few tenuous seconds before turning away. He began pacing back and forth. “You want to throw subtlety to the dragons? Fine. I want you to meet with Jade. Speak with her, spend time with her, judge her as a potential student as you would anyone on your list. Give her a tour of your Library if you wish, I do not care. Just meet with her, that is all I want.”

“I find it hard to believe that’s all,” Raleris said with doubt. “I mean, what if I decide she’s not a good choice? What then?”

“Then at least you will have distracted her long enough to put her off my trail,” Raiker said plainly. “If your humanitarian heart compels you, feel free to warn her of the danger she faces by continuing her pursuit, but that is not part of our deal. Do as you wish, but do it soon.”

“And what if I decide she is in the right, Raiker?” Raleris offered, his own eyes narrowing at his uninvited guest. “What if I decided to help her track you down, and get whatever it is she wants?”

Raiker Venn stopped pacing. Slowly, he moved the cane to his left hand, pushed the button at the base, and pulled the silver sword out, leveling it at Raleris. Both planeswalkers could feel energy surge within the Infinite Library, the very facility itself preparing to respond to the threat should the Poet move any closer.

“That, old friend, would be a violation of a gentlemen’s agreement that you and I made a very long time ago. And in that circumstance, I believe I would be forced to compose a tragic ballad about Raleris the Lorekeeper.”

Raleris allowed a smile to form on his face. “It’s unwise to threaten me in my own Library, you know.”

Raiker Venn’s eyes narrowed so much that Raleris wondered if the Poet could even see. Raiker indicated toward Raleris’s list with his sword. “You will not always be in your library, Raleris. Besides, I do not deal in threats. I deal only in cause and effect.” He held his position for a few short seconds before taking a step back and sliding the blade back into his cane. Raiker took a deep breath before he spoke again. “You lose nothing by meeting with her, Raleris, and you might gain a great deal. What do you say?”

Raleris considered him for a while, stroking his white beard as he played through the scenarios. If it were anyone else, Raleris would have agreed by now, but Raiker Venn was not the sort of man to trust. He was, however, a dangerous enemy to have, which is precisely what had prompted the original agreement so many lifetimes ago. Beyond that, though the Lorekeeper hated to admit it, the Poet’s logic was sound. Although it gave Raiker exactly what he wanted, which Raleris despised doing, it also seemed to be to the benefit of all concerned. Reluctantly, he nodded.

“Very well, Raiker, I’ll meet with this Jade of yours, but I want to make one amendment to our original agreement.”

“And what would that be?”

“From now on, Raiker Venn, ‘business’ is replaced by ‘life.’ Neither one of us interferes in the other’s life from this point forward. I never want to hear you walking these halls again for as long as I live. Deal?”

Raiker seemed to think about the old man’s words for much longer than Raleris had suspected he would. But finally, the Poet nodded. “Deal.”

Raleris nodded. “Very well. Where can I find Jade?”

"Oh," the poet waved his hand dismissively then moved to gather his cloak and hat, "A small, inconsequential island on the continent of Cyrea, on Sertaria--you've heard of the plane, no doubt, and its peculiarities. The mana doesn't agree with me on Cyrea, of course, but there's so much narrative potential that--well, but you're not interested in that, I'm sure. Now what was the name of the island... Syzyvol? Sissyvo? Zyzjvol, I believe. You won't have heard of it."

Raleris simply nodded and gave some sort of vaguely monosyllabic acknowledgement, standing and waiting for Raiker to leave (the poet lingered for a few more moments, glancing around the library, solely to make the old man uncomfortable).

He was somewhat proud that the yawning pit of dread that had opened in his stomach was betrayed not in his eyes, nor his voice, nor his face.

When the other 'Walker had left, however, he hastened to gather his travelling cloak, a small purse of various metals and semiprecious gems, and his old pointed hat. His movements seemed too slow to him, the new anxious energy that was upon him weighed down by the weakness of his limbs. But within the hour, he was ready, and, with less confidence than he felt, he began the trek through the Blind Eternities, hoping that he was not already too late.

The kitten tumbled to and fro in a pile of her young peers, pitched this way and that by the roiling bundle. They tumbled in the warm grass, lit by the sun and dappled with tree shadow. The air sang with the rise and fall of the cicada's call and a soft breeze played through her fur. She bit--though not violently--and pawed--though without malevolent intent or the use of her sharp claws. She moved through the pack and, after countless small struggles, finally found herself locked face to face with the eldest kit of their small pack. They reared up at each other and opened their mouths in silent challenge, and then they were crashing together as one, a knot of twisting energy within the larger bundle.

And then she rolled onto her back and looked into the yawning expanse of a sky so blue it was nearly white, and then her breath caught in her throat as she realized her mistake, and then he drew closer to her, his fur brushing her own, his teeth next to her ear, and then he said:

"Mother is waiting."

All stilled.

She hesitantly nipped at the boy's ear, but the stillness persisted.

Slowly she withdrew, backing away, lifting up on her legs then dropping down again, finally shuddering, lowering herself to the ground, curling into a ball. After a few moments, the kittens resumed their play, but now there was something hollow to the game. They touched the young kitten only reluctantly, resentfully. She uncurled occasionally to swat at them, but they took little notice. Instead the figure that stood watching them drew their attention now. It was a statue, a living statue, crudely carved of jade, and they glanced at it as they played.

Nephractanini watched herself swatting at the others in the pile for a time, but eventually the tumbling kits broke apart and wandered away, leaving only her own small form, alone in the sunny patch of grass. The kitten pawed at herself absent mindedly, picking away at her skin and exposing the bloody green rock underneath. She hissed at the kitten and turned, stalking away along the rough brick road that stretched before her.

The road twisted upwards through the small village and it was not long before she arrived at its highest point: a large building of wood and stone. It was sharply cornered at the meeting of two roads that continued upward through the village, fading in the distance. This sharp edge was blunted, however, by the presence of a stately wooden door. The door opened easily at her touch and she found herself in the foyer of her home.

The stairs at the front of the house were impassible, but there was a small, steep staircase at the back of the building, behind a wooden panel that she had never noticed before. She stood in front of the panel, sizing it up, and then pulled it carefully but firmly from its moorings. The passage behind was full of a warm darkness and scattered books and bits of wood and the stairs narrowed as she ascended, the ceiling dropping down until she was moving through something more like a warm wooden tunnel than a staircase.

Eventually, however, the passage gave way to a high, small room dominated by a raised bare wooden seat surrounded by a trio of shuttered windows through which thin slivers of cool, crisp morning light shone. As Nephractanini entered, her eyes adjusting to the dimness, the other door closed on her mother, leaving Nephractanini alone with...

With what, exactly?

The female (or so Nephractanini assumed based on the bulging chest) had her head lowered into her hands, and the shuddering of her shoulders suggested that she was doing what for her race represented weeping. Her head was strangely elongated rather than round and her pale brown skin was naked, bare of fur, covered only with her simple dress. The hair on her head, in contrast, was long and curly and dark. Her fingers lacked claws; in their place long nails with little scratching power sat at the end of long, bony fingers.

"Human," Nephractanini said hesitantly, "Or... Elf?"

The woman looked up and Nephractanini saw that her pupils were strangely rounded, like a dog's pupils. They looked like the eyes of--

He was behind her.

She did not need to turn, for he came up the stairs behind her and passed around her to the woman sitting on the white sill. He was finely dressed and even his strange human features were a picture of handsomeness, save for the wicked grin that marred them.

He put his arm on the woman's shoulder and drew her close. Quietly she asked, "Will I see my daughter again?" and Nephractanini echoed: "Yes, let her see her daughter again!"

The poet simply laughed. He laughed and laughed, and then bent over the reclining form of the woman on the bed, carefully forcing his cane down, down, into her chest, blood pooling around it and bubbling up from her mouth as it slid into her heart.

And then Nephractanini was flying through the air, her body glinting with sparks of blue and green, her sharp jade claws ripping the figure and it was cloth, cloth, nothing but cloth blowing in the wind.

Raiker Venn was nothing but a bad dream.

But the real Raiker Venn had been here. And so, Nephractanini knelt by the woman, who lay unmoving in the grass, staring at the expanse of the dusk sky, and looked into her strange dog eyes.

"Mother," she said a softly as she could with her gravelly voice, "I need you to tell me about the poet, Raiker Venn."

The world around them dissolved as the two figures became more focused. For the first time, the woman blinked and seemed to truly see Nephractanini. "The cane, it was-"

Nephractanini shushed her gently and tried, awkwardly, to pet her strange hairy head. "He's gone," she murmured, "he's gone."

"Yes," the woman said slowly, "I don't know where he's gone."

Nephractanini sighed. "Then he has left already."

"Perhaps he left the island for Shwolt or Humhabarad," the woman said. "I could follow him, but what would I do?" Tears were filling her eyes and the world was going simultaneously runny and somehow pointed around them.

Nephractanini patted the woman's head again and, exerting a small amount of her power, calmed the world and dulled the pain. "I will go after him for you. I am..." she hesitated, "Think of me as a guardian angel." Wings fluttered awkwardly from her back and she winced slightly at their clumsy bulk. "I've been trying to find him for a long time now, and when I meet him all his crimes will be punished, I promise."

The woman shook her head. "He will never go away, no matter how far you chase him he will always be here."

Jade considered this for a moment, and then her hand glowed with power, power which reached out in tendrils throughout the dream world, constructing a kind of latticework around them through which plants twined. "This will be your safe place in your dreams," she said quietly, her voice tinged with pity. "Here, in your dreams, you will be safe. He cannot come here."

The woman seemed somewhat mollified, but her mind still turned with thoughts of vengeance. "I could climb the old paths and find the changing curse and cast it on him, perhaps. But I'm too old for the jungle. Too old now."

At this, Nephractanini's jade ears pricked upright and the crude jade whorls on her back rose in a rough mockery of rising hair. "The changing curse?" she asked.

"It would be so nice," the woman mused, "so nice to make him ugly like a toad. If I could just..." her arms moved and twisted above her, her hands kneading and tearing at the air, "mash him up a little..."

Nephractanini's tail began to wave back and forth. "What is the changing curse?"

"Terrible, terrible," the woman sighed blissfully, "a plague even he couldn't escape." She rolled her head to the side and looked at Nephractanini. "But the spell is locked away deep in the jungle, and Basmea will be guarding the way."

"Basmea? Who is that? No, wait, where is it?" Nephractanini's tail lashed faster now, her blocky jade fur scraping against itself harshly.

"The old way, into the jungle, toward the mountain where the ruins of the old academy are," the woman yawned, turning away from Nephractanini. "But I'm too old now, too old, and Basmea is so terrible..."

The dream world began to dissolve around Nephractanini as the woman slid into a deeper slumber, and she leapt from the collapsing bounds of the shared dream space--out, out across the vast chaotic expanse that was the collective dreaming state of all those on the island of Zyzjvol capable of dreaming. Here and there she caught echoes of a dark presence that she had come to recognize from her months of hunting the planeswalker Raiker Venn--the shadow he left in the dreams of his victims, the nightmares that reflected the tragedies he wrought in the real world. For the first time in her travels, however, she ignored them. She was in search of--

Ah, there! A vast presence loomed on the horizon of the swirling chaos. Such manifestations, she had learned, were the product of ancient, typically powerful intelligences. This one felt particularly wild and acidic to her, and as she reached out to it she had a sense of a wild animal thrashing at a heavy cage. This was not just a strong dream, but an old one, as if the dreamer had been asleep for a very long time. Nephractanini's body bristled with spikes of jade as her hair stood on end. Was this the dreadful Basmea the victimized mother spoke of?

Then, suddenly, there was another presence, another dream even more vast than the one before her. Nephractanini reeled back at its presence. Something foreign to Zyzjvol had entered the realm of dreams, and it loomed like a thundercloud.

Slowly, Nephractanini reached out towards the roiling consciousness. Her claws extended defensively, and with a swift motion she batted at the dream hanging in the void.

Clockwork hell exploded outward from the dream, and Nephractanini screamed as she was buffeted by the cancerous mass of oil and metal. It seemed to grow all around her, across her, through her, all-consuming and monstrous.

And there, in the center of it all, was Raiker Venn, laughing, staring right at her.

There was only one possibility.

Raiker had sent some horrible agent of destruction after her.

Jade awoke with a start.

Minutes later, the jaded cat walked briskly down the rough dirt path that led deep into the jungles of Zyzjvol. Though the sun had not yet dawned, and most of the island remained sound asleep in dreams, she strode on towards the dark spell that lurked in the heart of the island--the spell that would give her a fighting chance against the enemy that pursued her.

Not long after, Raleris awoke with a groan in the spare room of a house not far away, a house which belonged to a farmer kindly enough to shelter an old, lost monk from the fearful jungle night. The nightmare had taken him by surprise. It had been quite a while since he'd experienced one so vivid... and to dream both of the sickness stalking his own flesh and the malevolent poet stalking the Blind Eternities, merged as one! That really was beyond the pale. He would complain, if there was anyone to complain to.

But there wasn't.

So, the old librarian wiped his hands across his eyes and sat up in the borrowed bed, old bones and artifice creaking as one in protest. He wearily glanced out the slotted shutters, where cool daylight glinted. Rested or not, it was time to rise, find a suitable meal, and head off after his quarry. But first, he needed eyes, eyes in the air and on the ground. So, carefully, he drew mana to himself and in a moment before him stood a troop of small, irate looking faeries, waiting for instruction. Minutes later, they were flitting out through the cool morning air, in search of a jade cat.

For a time the way was smooth and the road was level, trodden by heavy pack animals. As the sun finally dawned and rose sluggishly in the sky, she passed a few of those animals (some sort of oversized, lumbering goat from the look of them) and occasionally their drivers glanced at her stone skin. For the most part, though, they kept their eyes to themselves. After all, many of them were, on the whole, rather strange themselves, of a rich rainbow of species, races, and garbs. People on Zyzjvol were well used to oddities. Cyrea, Jade had come to realize, was an archipelago full of oddities.

As she proceeded into the jungle, however, the going became rough and Jade found herself gingerly stepping around muddy and wet patches where the sun never reached down to dry the persistent moisture of the island. After a time the path forked off, one way leading to the next town over and the other, an overgrown, inhospitable stretch of land that quickly wound into obscurity, leading deeper into the island to where her sense of direction told her the ancient ruins lay.

Pausing here, Jade glanced around briefly and listened for the sounds of any pursuit. Sensing nothing, she quickly doffed her cloak and shirt, stuffing them into her satchel with a sigh of relief. She stretched, wincing at the scraping sound this maneuver produced. Gingerly she inspected her pale green body for signs of damage but it didn't seem as though any of the delicate whorls of fur had been harmed by the movement. It was difficult to damage her newfound body but she frequently found herself making such checks, anyway.

Satisfied, Jade secured her satchel behind her back and, crouching, began loping rapidly down the overgrown pathway, deep into the Zyzjvoli jungle.

The way was not overly rough at first but as she wound her way deeper into the jungle she found herself increasingly forced to leap over or duck under large logs and branches that covered the path. Occasionally old logs lay by the side of the path rotting, signs that the folk of the island on occasion travelled these ancient paths in search of treasures or raw materials at the ruin site. The path had not been cleared for many months, however, and already the jungle threatened to devour it.

Steam rose from the earth as the sun plodded towards its zenith and Jade found her stone body growing increasingly wet, not from sweat (not anymore and never again) but from condensation. It beaded in the whorls and layered spikes of her stony coat, glittering with refracted sunlight as she moved twixt patches of light and shadow. She ran on like this for a time, darting luminous like a hummingbird, but as the sun heaved to the height of its arc she found herself running beside a wide stream. After a few moments, she slowed her gait and moved out from the trees into the sun. Picking her way across the long stony bank that tapered into the shallow end of the stream, she shed her pack slowly, placing it on the shore upon reaching the water. Then, she stripped off her sodden clothes to dry and shook herself with an avalanche-like rumble, a rainbow mist spraying from her.

The clothes she laid neatly to dry on a large stone. Then, she strode out into the water until the current slowed and the water reached her neck. Gazing down into the water, she saw that countless fish, small and large, some rather familiar, but most colorful and strange, swam about her, unafraid of what, to them, seemed merely to be a particularly oddly shaped rock.

Then, on a whim, she ducked her head beneath the water and opened her eyes.

Jade's mouth opened in surprise (and was filled promptly with water). She could see remarkably clearly, and her eyes did not sting from the water. Slowly she reached out a hand toward a nearby fish. It swam up to her and bumped against her fingers. The stone tiger remained motionless then for a time, simply moving her eyes to sweep the aquatic landscape. She felt the jungle around her and the island on which it sat, and the water that flowed through and around it like lifeblood.

And then she felt a very large river fish bump against her.

With a burst of instinctual motion, the fish was in her stone teeth and she was bursting forth from the water in a fountain of spray, wreathed in rainbow. Jade ran her fingers through the fur on her head (somehow it always seemed to become more fluid and pliable when she touched it, though it remained hard as, well, rock when it came into contact with anything else) and shook herself, the fish still in her mouth. She strode--no, say swaggered--toward the beach with her prey. It had been... how long had it been since she had eaten? She cast her eyes around for dry wood on the shore to build a fire for cooking the hefty fish.

Jade was not, unfortunately, looking where she was going as she neared the shore, so she never noticed one particularly round rock, slick with algae, until she found herself slipping upon it. She pitched forward and caught herself with her hands, but she dropped the fish, and landed hard on her knee. Gingerly she got to her hind paws once more and looked down at the fish.

There, in the water, she saw two glints of green.

Two whorls of jade fur had snapped off from her leg.

She knelt and picked them up slowly, and stood for a few moments staring at them, carefully fingering the small flat places on her body where they had broken off. A low growl built in her throat, bursting forth from her in a full roar. She kicked her fish viciously and it sailed off into a tree with a wet thwack. Gripping the bits of her body tightly, she stalked up the beach, roughly pulling her still damp clothes on. She tossed the bits of stone into her pack roughly, and tossed the pack roughly onto her stone back, and then she was running, leaping, catapulting through the jungle at breakneck speed, her jaw clenched tight, a scowl on her face.

So intent was she in her swift and furious passage toward the ruins that held her plotted vengeance that she did not notice two sets of eyes on her. One set belonged to a small, yellow fairy that shook its head in disapproval and fluttered off toward its master. The other belonged to a black grackle that made a croaking, almost laugh-like sound before flapping off after the stone cat.

Neither did she notice when bits of old masonry began to peek through the jungle. She did not notice, in fact, until she found herself directly before the ruins she sought.

And at that moment, as she pulled up short and finally paused in her rampage through the jungle, she heard a softly feminine, but utterly predatory and terrifyingly near, voice, purr, "Oh my, who has come to wake poor Basmea from her sleep?"

Jade looked up at the colossal set of buildings before her. Directly in front of her was a lengthy colonnade. And in the colonnade, blocking the entrance to the ruins, lay a vast form, its dark green scales covered with moss and lichen and verdigris, its eyes a malevolent red, its mouth dripping with saliva that hissed acidically as it hit the old marble.

Before her lay a massive dragon. A dragon that she had just woken from a very long sleep.

And the dragon looked distinctly displeased.

Parts of the ceiling, including glass shards from former skylights, lay scattered around the open expanse. These shards crunched under Raleris's feet as he moved laboriously through the hall. The dark stone, peeking through lichen and moss, glistened in the light that filtered through these gaping holes, and the elderly planeswalker had to carefully pick his way around the patches of dense growth thriving directly beneath these lights. Where the light touched, Raleris's eyes flooded with a riot of color. In the darkness beyond, all was muted, and dark passages yawned off into the building complex.

He paused briefly on his way through the vast gallery. On his left was... yes, on his left was the row of columns and doors that led out into the jungle. Then on his right, was it the fifth or sixth portal coming from the stairs? Sixth, he thought. Sixth on his right was where Destello's quarters lay when he came to this continent from his perpetual occupation on Faskeria, on the other side of the vast, strange plane of Sertaria. Down the hall, on the right, or was it left? It had been a long time. The bright green and red paint that had once graced the portal with whorls of intricate calligraphy had long since pealed away, and he could no longer use it, at he once had, to find his way.

Raleris shook his head and began moving once more. "No more chasing old memories," he chided himself, "You know where to go."

And he did. At the far end of the hall would be the series of locks that led to the Volatile Spellcraft Research Center. He couldn't be sure, of course, that the calligraphic pillars that contained the most dangerous research of the Zyzjvol Research Institute still stood in this chamber, or whether they yet retained their potency after several centuries, but it would not be responsible to simply ignore the possibility. And besides, there was a very dim green glow at that end of the hall, which meant that the first doors were open. Responsible! Hah! Pity no one had been responsible enough to consider more robust protections on the locks than the simple mana flood gates. As though anyone with the raw power capable of entering the chambers was, by nature, worthy of being entrusted with such destructive powers!

As Raleris picked his way forward, he coughed theatrically and called out, "Oh my, how long it has been since someone came to this old place." He peered into the gloom and noted a sudden shifting of shadows in the faint green glow from the chamber. Good. He wished his quarry to know well that he was coming. It wouldn't do to surprise her, particularly if she had already gained access to the spell--or rather, if the spell had gained access to her.

The glow in the distance lightened somewhat, taking on a slightly more cyan hue, and there was a scraping and rumbling. Raleris began picking his way faster, passing the portals and skylights more rapidly now. He periodically coughed as he went, no longer entirely faking his breathlessness. He reached the first lock as the second door finished opening, and gazed across to see a stunning entity: a being that seemed half human, half tiger, carved of living rock, her body covered with intricately chiseled twining patterns of fur, her whole form a dynamo of movement and coiled power. Even when standing still, she seemed as though she had simply been arrested mid-movement by an artist's skilled hand. Her jade flesh and fur was a translucent green shot through with white, and it almost glowed with the omnidirectional blue and green light of the lock chambers. She was somewhat crouched and stared at him warily, clearly ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. One stone lip curled in the beginnings of a snarl.

Raleris struggled to catch his breath. "You may..." he held up a hand and continued to breathe heavily. "You may want to leave that door unopened," he intoned finally.

"Who are you?" the jade figure asked suspiciously. Raleris noted that her hand was already pouring mana into the stone wurm's mouth that graced the front of the final lock, just as she had done at the other two doors.

"I am someone with some experience with this chamber and its contents," Raleris said mildly, taking a seat on a piece of fallen masonry. "My name is Raleris the Lorekeeper, and I've come to warn you that you've been tricked into coming here."

The jade cat looked at him suspiciously but did not make a move to interrupt or attack, so Raleris decided to continue.

"I know something of the man who you seek, and the reasons why you might wish to unleash devastation upon him, but this island is a trap set for you, to trick you into casting the spell that's locked within this chamber. You well know the craftiness of the man known as Raiker Venn, do you not miss..." Raleris hesitated. "I'm sorry, what should I call you?"

"How do you know the name Raiker Venn?" the cat replied, ignoring his question.

"Let's just say I am familiar with him and his particular brand of evil," Raleris said. "I know that he has wronged you, and I know you seek vengeance, but I also know something of his twisting schemes. I'm sorry, I am getting so old, what did you say your name was?"

"Jade," the cat said shortly, "is what humans call me."

Raleris nodded. "Can't think how it slipped my mind."

"Who are you?" Jade said, moving somewhat closer to the chamber door, glancing down at the mana pouring into the open mouth of the wurm.

"As I said, a Lorekeeper. A storyteller, if you will. And I think you'd find it interesting, before you cross that door and gaze upon the spell you came here to find, to hear about the destruction it wrought on this island centuries ago."

At that moment, the wurm's head lit from within and the rest of its coiling body, which was, in fact, the door, began to move, slowly, untangling itself and opening up, revealing the reddish glow of the final chamber through the cracks in its serpentine stone form. Jade glanced at the opening door, and back to Raleris. "I hope it's not a long story," she said. "I don't know how you know of my quarry, but he has sent something terrible after me, I'm sure of it."

Raleris frowned. Something terrible? His faeries hadn't spotted any pursuers. He nodded nevertheless. "I can summarize."

"Several centuries ago, there was a man who came to this world looking for weapons, weapons capable of winning wars... oh, wars in countless places. Wars of Good against Evil, he believed. Some wars fought even on the other side of this world. In fact, the war on this distant continent was not going well, in the sense that it was going nowhere at all. The combatants had been caught in a brutal stalemate for centuries, perhaps millennia, and this man--well, Kithkin, really, but that's not important--wanted a weapon no one else on the continent had.

"So, he came to the scientists of Cyrea, capable of producing spells unlike those of any other world, and he funded their research here on Zyzjvol, though certain of his other friends--but never mind, I'm losing the thread of the story and you are, of course, impatient.

"The most brilliant of the scientists of Zyzjvol was intrigued by two notions: the notion that we might shed our forms as easily as we shed our clothes, and the notion that spells could act with almost a will of their own. She discovered that some spells have an overwhelming vitality to them that demands the user cast them and recast them, and even can spread, virulently, to other minds.

"It was in the fusion of these two notions that Zyzjvol's doom was wrought.

"The Planeswalking Kithkin encouraged this scientist, ignoring all warnings, unheeding the council of his friends, so driven was he by the desire to gain mastery over his enemies. But the scientist was..."

Here Raleris hesitated, and not only to decide what his next words would be, but because he wished to build just a little anticipation. Jade, after all, had started listening closely.

"The scientist was not, I think, evil, but she was disinterested in the consequences of her actions. The longer she worked on the spell, the more obsessed she became. Its beauty, its power, would, in truth, have been almost useless as a weapon for reasons I will explain in a moment, but in itself the spell was captivating. Every day it beat upon her like a living throbbing heartbeat of some beast wishing to come into the world. And finally, one clear morning, she walked out of the facility into the open air, closed her eyes, and cast the spell.

"The only people to escape the effects of the spell were the Kithkin and a fellow Planeswalker. Everyone else, including the scientist, was caught in its effects. The spell spread from person to person, compelling them to cast it, a chain reaction of spellcasting that swept the island in mere moments. Again and again the spell burst forth, and each time it was cast, all were changed, strangely transformed into countless new forms. They changed forms like a socialite might change fine outfits countless times throughout an evening. Many went mad. Many more died in the ensuing chaos and famine that followed. The end of the world had come to Zyzjvol."

Raleris's eyes, which had gone unfocused as he finished his tale, refocused on her. "It is that spell that you seek to unleash."

Jade was still for a few moments. "The Kithkin and his friend, did they escape by Planeswalking, then?"

Raleris shook his head. "No, I'm not sure they could have reacted fast enough before the spell took hold. A planeswalker today, particularly," he said pointedly, "one casting the spell, would almost certainly not be able to 'walk in time, unless they were quite powerful. No, in those days Planeswalkers were able to change their forms at will. A curse like the one you suffer would not have been... meaningful then. But much has changed." He sighed.

The door was, in fact, open now, but Jade stood in the doorway, unmoving. "Then, the spell would be..."

"Quite useless to you as a tool of vengeance, I fear, unless you wish to destroy yourself and countless others in your quest for revenge. I am a fair judge of character and I don't think you are that sort, Jade."

Jade shook her head doubtfully. "I don't understand how you know so much about my circumstances, though."

Raleris rolled his eyes. "Raiker Venn told them to me himself--oh damn." Jade had changed stance so quickly that to Raleris she seemed almost to flicker. Suddenly she was crouched, guarded, eyes wide, backing away into the open chamber.

"It's you," she blurted, "You're the thing he sent after me!"

Raleris smacked the palm of his hand to his forehead. "I'm the pursuer. Oh bloody hell."

"It was your nightmare I saw on the horizon!" She continued backing up warily, jade claws out.

"Listen, Jade, it's not what you think," Raleris said urgently, standing in what he hoped was a nonthreatening way.

"Your dreams were full of metal and oil and Raiker Venn standing in the center of it all!" she hissed accusingly, pointing a claw at him.

Raleris tugged at his beard in agitation, "A nightmare, Jade, only a nightmare! Everyone has nightmares, and I'm old enough to have accumulated much material for nightmares, believe me!"

"You're not a human at all, are you? You're--"

"Yes, a Planeswalker, just like you, and just like him, a very old one at that, but please just--Look out!" Jade had backed into one of the stone tablets that stood in the chamber: the tablet, in fact, the largest and most intricately carved, the tablet that carried the changing curse. It fell to the ground and, momentarily surprised, Jade looked directly into the face of the stone tablet. The calligraphy twisted like a coiling dragon, and in that moment she was transfixed.

Raleris groaned.

One of the more interesting and dangerous properties of the spell tablets developed on the island of Zyzjvol was that they tended to flood the mind with the knowing of the spell. And the changing curse, once lodged in one's mind, wished emphatically to be cast. It glittered temptingly, promising not because of the sense of what it would do in its particulars, but the sense of the doing, the sense of the grand gesture that was casting such an epic spell. By mere virtue of its strangeness and its drama, it begged use.

Raleris spoke quickly and quietly now, taking wary note of the dancing glow of gathering mana on Jade's fingers. "Listen to me, Jade, were I a monster, would I not wish for you to cast that spell? Would I not wish to bring down ruin upon you and the whole of this island?" He took a step forward. A breeze began to stir the ancient dust. "I know the fell power of this spell because I was there at its first casting and I saw the madness it wrought. People went mad, Jade! You know what it is to have your form stripped from you! Imagine suffering that again and again!"

He took another step but stopped as she hissed, "I've seen Venn's games on countless worlds! You think I can't tell a trick when I see one?"

Raleris shrugged unhappily. "I can't deny that you're right about Venn's tricks. Escape one trap and you walk into another. But isn't it possible that making this look like a trick is his trick?"

Jade wavered uncertainly, and Raleris pressed on, stepping a little closer yet again. "I could stop your spell; I could dispel it, or cast a curse of my own upon you before it hit. But I'm not, am I?" He took another step. "Is it so hard to believe," he said slowly, "that I might wish to help you?"

Jade clasped her forearms with her paws, and there was a scraping sound as stone claws met stone skin. "You lied!"

Raleris shook his head. "Not even by omission! I offered my unpleasant association with the poet quite willingly, even if finding myself linked with him makes my skin crawl." There was a flickering in her eyes of magic, now, but there was also a flicker of agonized doubt. "Venn's mind is a twisted, knotted thing, and for his own mad reasons he sent me here to distract you, not to destroy you."

"Or to torture me further!"

"No!" Raleris said sharply, "He sent me here to be destroyed by you, by way of the spell that now sparks across your imagination! That is his devil's game, the torture he had planned for you! A whole land brought to ruin by one mistake! Oh, it would make a fine tragic poem, would it not, Jade?" He spat this last out bitterly, unable to conceal his disgust. Raleris was now nearly right before her, and he had only one trump card left to him, only one way of reaching Jade that Venn had not foreseen, that he could not have known. "But Venn is wrong about you, Jade! I don't think that you would cast a spell like those Venn loves, not on someone who is just like you!"

At this, too swift for Jade to react, Raleris the Lorekeeper opened the front of his robes and cast them to the floor. Jade's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

Stripped to the waist, the old man shivered slightly in the cool damp of the abandoned research facility. His body was not completely fragile, but neither was it strong or unbowed by age. He was not lovely, his skin was wrinkled and spotted, hanging from a body that used to have muscles more thick and less wiry than they now were. But what demanded attention was the side of Raleris's stomach. There was a great gaping rent in the old man's form, and the corruption, black and deadened, that had caused it was visible on his skin, surrounded by staples or piercings of various metals, which the corrosive Phthisis shied away from. But in the cavity that the wasting disease had made...

There, Raleris's body flowed and glistened like water. But it was not water, but crystals, spinning around and across one another in patterns too complex for the eye to readily follow. Raleris's blasted body had been replaced by artifice, but not the dirty artifice of cogs and gears, soot and oil, but the cunning artifice of stonework, his failing organs replaced by delicate carved baubles that did their work by way of magic rather than clockwork.

"You see?" Raleris said softly, "I too have a body of stone. But it is nowhere near as fine as yours, my dear, and it will not save me from the disease that eats away at me. Believe me, Jade, I understand how it feels to have a body that betrays you, a body that torments you even in your nightmares. Perhaps I can help you. Perhaps we might even help each other." A wry grin spread across his face. "And at the very least, I think we would both be better off as we are now than as toads or pigs or whatever else that damn spell might turn us into. I'm not sure how it would react with our existing afflictions. The results could be profoundly unpleasant."

The tiger stood for a few more moments in shock, and then the mana dissipated, fading away. She closed her eyes for a few moments, breathing deeply. Then, she opened them again.

"Yes," she said quietly.

Raleris huffed out a sigh of relief and bent gingerly to retrieve his robe. "Thank goodness. I was not resolved to starting life anew as something amphibious. I imagine it would be hard to turn the pages of my books as a frog."

"Books?" Jade said quizzically, cocking her head slightly and stepping forward toward the old man.

"Oh yes, didn't I mention?" Raleris said cheerfully as he struggled with the sleeves of his robe, "I am not called Lorekeeper for nothing, you know! I am the owner of an Infinite Library!"

Jade cautiously put out her hands to help Raleris and he smiled at her gratefully, "Ah, yes, thank you, you're very kind. Yes, I've been looking for an Apprentice for quite some time now, in fact--"

"An Apprentice?" Jade cut in doubtfully, "I'm not sure..." she shook her head, "What about Raiker Venn?"

Raleris frowned. "Well, you've seen the lengths to which he'll go in order to throw you off his trail. Let me tell you, he did not pit us against one another out of fear that you might kill him." Raleris barked a short, bitter laugh, "Even I would probably be very little threat to him now, ancient as I am. No, he sent us against each other purely to squeeze another poem out of our suffering."

Jade's fists balled. "All the more reason to go after him! He's just going to torment someone else if we don't! Perhaps together we could stop him!"

Raleris shrugged. "Perhaps. But..." He seemed to reach a decision and, adjusting his robes, faced his jade companion. "Listen, if you want to find a way to defeat Raiker Venn, where better to study and plan than in a library, where better to learn than from the countless histories of past battles and conquests? Listen, we'll make a deal--No, wait," he said hastily, when Jade flinched at the word, "Let's make a Scholar's Agreement. Stay with me for a time, be my apprentice, learn the ways of the Infinite Library, and in your spare time you may study all my Library has to offer in spells and tactics. In, oh, two years time, if you prefer to chase after Venn, and you feel ready, then you may leave with my blessing."

"And perhaps your help?" Jade asked, looking into the old man's eyes.

Raleris held her gaze for a moment. He thought of Raiker Venn's poems, each one a record of some small atrocity. He thought of the smirking man, never growing old, an undying evil unleashed upon the Multiverse, while he, Raleris, wasted away with each passing hour. He thought of the gentleman's agreement which, after all, never said anything about encouraging someone else to interfere in the poet's life...

The old scholar frowned. "I am not a warrior by trade," he said slowly, "but perhaps, indeed perhaps."

He found his hand enveloped in a paw of stone. "Then we have an agreement, Raleris the Lorekeeper," Jade said, smiling. "And by the way, my name is Nephractanini."

Raleris silently sounded the syllables out. "NePHRActanini? No, NephractANini?"

Nephractanini opened her eyes slightly in surprise, though she seemed to be attempting to keep her face impassive. "Not... bad. For a human."

"Well, I'll have plenty of time to work on it, now," Raleris said jovially as the two of them turned away from the mana locks and the dangerous spells within, the doors slowly, automatically slithering back into place behind them.

As the two picked their way back across the hall, Jade looked thoughtfully at what apparently was her new teacher. "I must ask," she said after a few moments, "how did you get past the dragon?"

Raleris froze, the bottom dropping out of his stomach. "Dragon?" He turned to stare at Jade. "What dragon?"

There was a roar from outside that vibrated through the whole structure. "Jade cat, jade cat, did you forget our deal? You've been in there long enough to get the spell! Don't think my breath can't reach you in there! I'll melt you where you stand!"

"There's a dragon outside?" Raleris spluttered.

"How did you not know?" Jade shouted, aghast. "She's blocking the whole entrance!"

"I came in through the roof, on a flying carpet!" The two stared at each other as another roar shook the structure, and a blast of green, caustic-looking fire lit up the hall further down.

"Hold on, hold on, how did you get past the dragon?" Raleris asked quickly.

"She said she'd let me through as long as I promised to cast the spell on her when I got out!"

"But that would wreck the whole..." Raleris trailed off as another roar and gout of flame lit the interior. "Do you happen," he breathed, "to know this dragon's name?"

Jade tilted her head quizzically. "Basmea, or Terrible Basmea I suppose... why?"

Raleris wiped a hand across his face and groaned. "Of course it is." With that, and no further explanation, Raleris limped his way toward the stomping and roaring of the enraged dragon. Jade picked her way after cautiously, not eager to discover whether or not her jade body was impervious to Basmea's flames.

"Basmea!" Raleris called. "Basmea, do you hear me? Stop this incessant stomping and bellowing and listen to me for a moment would you?"

The dragon, surprisingly, did cease her stomping and bellowing. A titanic eye in a titanic head peered through the colonnade. "Who's there? Who calls my name? I know I only let one person in here today!"

Raleris sighed. "I came in through the roof Basmea, but that's not important! Listen, you can't just unleash the changing curse on this island a second time! I mean really, don't you ever think these things through?"

"You dare--!" the dragon began, but she paused mid bellow. "Wait, who... who are you? You seem..."

"Familiar? Yes, I should hope so, Basmea," Raleris said curtly. "It's Raleris. Older, as you can see, and much diminished, but Raleris nevertheless."

"Raleris!" Basmea shouted, "I never expected to see your face around here again after the accident! How many centuries has it been?"

"Several, and I would hardly call you casting a devastating spell of mass devastation purely because you were tired of being human an 'accident,' you utterly irresponsible fool!"

By this time, Jade had backed quite a few feet away from Raleris in case the old man provoked another blast of flame, but Basmea simply snorted, foul, swampy smoke billowing from her nostrils. "You don't understaaaand, Raleris, I was just soooo boooored. And I'm even more bored now! I can't change because the limiters on the spell burned it out of my mind after casting it so many times, and I've been stuck as a dragon for centuries now!"

Raleris sighed. "Listen, Basmea, will you let us pass if I promise to turn you into something that isn't a dragon, in a way that won't bring ruin upon this whole island?"

The dragon narrowed its eye at the planeswalker. "Yeeees, I think we could come to an agreement of some sort."

"Excellent," Raleris said wearily. "I think I might have a spell that could do such a thing without overly taxing me." He turned to Jade. "You might find its construction fascinating, now that you've felt the mechanisms of Basmea's great spell. It was always her work, you know. Devilishly clever she is. Anyway, it involves not the drawing of mana, but the temporary revocation of the mana bond. I believe in its original form it tended to send one rocketing off to parts unknown as well but I've done my best to neutralize those effects."

Jade, still keeping somewhat back, simply nodded, though he noted that she was watching him intently now.

Raleris squinted and his eyes turned a very pale, frosty blue. His fingers crackled with energy. He raised a hand, thumb and middle finger together, the light surging between them. And then, he snapped his fingers. There was a sensation almost like a vast indrawn breath and the collected energy drained back away to parts unknown. At that moment, a strange thing happened to Basmea's form. It seemed almost as though the withdrawing energy had taken with it some of the vitality of her form, something of the realism. Now it seemed a creation of fashioned scales and woolen moss, a costume merely rather than a body. Raleris gestured to Jade and the two planeswalkers walked cautiously out through the colonnade, out to where the now strangely unreal form was crumpling downward. What almost appeared to be a hidden seam opened in the fallen form's back, and from it emerged--

"A sheep?" Jade gasped, whirling on Raleris. "You turned her into a sheep?"

Basmea the Terrible laughed a bleating laugh and trotted over to them. "Raleris, this is delightful," she chortled. "I feel so... well, so much less weighty, for one thing."

"Yes, I thought after all that time you might be..." (And here Raleris paused a truly unrespectable length) "dragon around some unwanted weight."

Jade, bemused, stood gaping at them as Raleris laughed heartily and Basmea brayed happily.

"I don't understand," she finally said when they had stopped laughing, "how this is an improvement."

Basmea tossed her head. "I am intrigued by this form, my dear child. It is so different from either of my former states, and it will take time before I've explored it to the fullest." There was a very un-sheeplike gleam in her eye now and she was almost managing a kind of sly grin. "When I do, perhaps I'll tire of it and find some way to take on a new form. I'll go down to the village, perhaps, and, like a magical animal in a children's tale, I'll convince some farmhand that I'm an enchanted princess, and from there... ah, from there who knows what I'll become! It's not the form itself, you see. It's the sensation of shedding the old skin to take on the new."

Raleris suspected that Jade did not see at all, nor, in truth, did he really, but he prodded her in the side and the two of them graced Basmea with humoring nods. "Who knows," he said to her later, "whether she retained any of her draconic powers. I would hate to be burned to death by an angry sheep."

The two left Basmea the Terrible Sheep grazing, in somewhat macabre fashion, on some of the moss that festooned her former body, and stepped out into the jungle then, finally, out of the world itself.

High above, a grackle wheeled and let out a bitter croak, moving towards the coast. After a time, it fluttered down to where a figure sat calmly on a stone, staring out at the sea. It perched on the figure's shoulder and whispered what it had seen into the man's ear.

He sighed.

People just had no consideration for others. Or sense of proper narrative closure.

He looked down mournfully at the paper in his hands, marked in perfect handwriting by the sonnet he had just finished writing. It had taken the same hard work and dedication as his other poems, and was just as precious to him, but now, it was meaningless. Wistfully, he scanned the lines again, proud of his work. They read:

Raiker Venn stood, and shrugged, dislodging his grackle. "Ah well," he mused, "Not every story can have a happy ending, I suppose."

And with that he crumpled up the finished poem, tossed it behind him on the sand, and walked down the shore, cane in hand, grackle flying behind and croaking curses at the nosy seagulls.