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It had been amazing to end up fighting against chaos tainted undead and trolls in order to save the Oreads. It was sobering to come home to a ruined house, the lightwalker's wards broken and the foundation cracked. The Bitter King's Enjarer (I can't keep up with all the different ways that each group spells that word.  It was his personal guard) was swirling in the sky with legions of fu dogs. The City Spirit was fully manifested. I guess there isn't anyway to describe the scene without it seeming or sounding overblown.  The whole town was shrouded with fog, as if a cloud had settled on it, and the neighborhood was blocked off by magic and change.

The baby was gone.

I guess the good side was that we had just missed them--they hadn't been gone long, but the bad side was that we had just missed them. The Kar Manta's Master had attacked, seeking the baby for the same reason those foolish witches had. It had the baby, but not enough time. It had also swept along Tindalasse, the Bitter King's son, who had been in the city. He wasn't with the baby, but the King had his life amulet and was intense and dismayed.

The gate it had fled through was frozen in a re-opened state. The monster could not finish what it intended with the baby without doom and destruction visiting it before it could gain enough from the matter to avoid complete destruction.  On the other hand, there was no way for the Mom and Dad to move fast enough to regain the baby before something terrible happened. There was a terrible deadlock.

Robert-Etienne pulled us aside. You kind of put distance between yourselves and people like my parents when they were intense, but he had something in mind. As for the intense, you could tell that the Bitter King really wanted to say something or talk, but that even he didn't feel like talking. He would step forward, then step back, forward, then back. He put the life amulet down as he arrayed himself for war. I don't even think he noticed, but Indigo had it in her pocket before anyone else saw it except for me.

Anyway, Robert-Etienne pulled everyone aside.

"I can find a way" he said. "There is always another path if you want to walk it with me." He'd never taken the lead much, and this was the calmest I'd seen him. No one was looking at us, and I could tell Indigo and Ducks still hadn't decided how to tell anyone that they had gotten married, so anything was better for them.  Heck, they hadn't even decided how to kiss each other. I tell you, if I get married, I'm going to at least get a kiss out of it.

Anyway, we had the hidden path from Ariel's house to the Oread's mountain top. From there we entered the star path and Robert-Etienne led the way that took us to the shadowlands of Starstrands.  We were in a part of the plane far away from anything we had visited, on a path that would take us to the Kar Manta's Master.

The start was rough. We entered the land on the ancient battlefield where the death realm had its start.  Zombies and corrupted dead were between us and our destination.  We faced zombies and corrupted skirmishers first.  Lancers, bowmen and shieldless warriors. Some of them shot twisted magic instead of arrows, and the lance troops were strange for skirmishers, no wonder they lost.

Then we met them with demon animals, wolves and bears and boars stiffening the skirmishers.  Then shadow warriors and shadow masters and the remnants of undead barbarian warriors with evil undead paladins alongside them.  The overlapping auras filled the air with a miasma. They were backed up by the oblivion fades, an unthinking creature of power (think of undead bones filled with necromatic power and curses).  As the path led us to the highlands, we met burrowers and the occasional vampire and other creature with some thinking capacity rather than mindless hate. We also met angry ghosts, drifting on the wind.

In the highlands the path led us to a foul marshy area, filled with what looked like the trapped effluvia of a generation. It had drained out of the great fortress above us, but had filled the shallow valley it drained into instead of draining further down the hillsides. The best description I can give you is imagine an open air version of the Elven King's sewers from our visit to Paris.  Strange, tangled Mangrove Trees provided us cover (and occasional trouble as some of them were warped and undead in their life). Small swarms of fallen created broken encounters with us.

We had varied who was pacing at point along with Robert-Etienne. We entered the lower sewers as they flowed out of the mountain and it was like battling through sewers we had fought through before. Indigo was sharing point. Suddenly she pulled us back.  The mountain/hill we were working our way up through was a jumble of rock and ruin from other places. All possible paths led us to this one point in the sewer as the passageway to the space above. And there was a mirror. It looked like my Dad's mirror, the one he keeps in the room no one, not even Mom, is allowed in.

"Ah" was all she said for the space of at least five minutes (ok, maybe it was shorter, but it felt like five minutes).  "Ah."

"This part looked familiar, especially the broken marble. That mirror explains it. This is where the Blue Lodge of Thera ended up when it was thrown out of the world by the force of the cataclysm that destroyed Minos."

No wonder this one point was guarded only by a mirror.  The mirror faces whoever looks in it to confront their sins.  It brings things they don't even know to light ("that's the point of it" Indigo said). The Blue Lodge used them to keep those who would strike against evil pure. But the confronting doesn't end until you are either purged or destroyed.  Most people can not face the mirror safely (no wonder Dad keeps his locked and warded away).  I thought it would be neat if politicians had to face the mirror.  "Really.  Do you really want pure justice now?" said Indigo. I suddenly could see it.  What if my skirts were too short or something? What about ... well, you don't need to know about it.

We couldn't see how we were going to get past it. I mean we are "pretty good" kids, but were we ready to be judged? No wonder the Kar Manta's Master had no fear with this as the portal to his sewer. Not that most people would worry about someone trying to sneak into a sewer (the elvish sewers would usually just digest whoever or whatever tried), but he had routed his through a failsafe guardian. Even worse, something that evil was using something that holy this way.

Indigo just smiled.  "He doesn't know it, but if someone who knows the mirrors enters one, it can be closed to prevent casual accidents.  I can face the mirror and you can go on.  I'll give you one of my markers and I can teleport to you when I have passed through he fire." The guys just shrugged, it made sense to them.  I could tell she wasn't sure she would survive, but she was going to sacrifice herself so we could go on to try to rescue the baby. "I've tried to be good since I awoke and found I was alone.  Mother, remember me once again."

I took her mark and hugged her. I'm the only one who caught her tears and I kept her silence with her.

From there we passed through the sewers. They weren't working magically, which was a good thing and a bad thing. We fought our way up into the lower levels of the storage and prisons in the bowels of the fortress, breaking through a wall into a guardroom's privy. We and the guards fought each other and we won, in grim silence.  We had met and fought the silent death, one of several elite units, this one all bound by a geas to say nothing. In their pride they had failed to give the alarm.

You can bet, at this point, that the Seelie Court stunk beyond belief. We, of course, were clean and fresh (in smell, at least). The goo and gunk that went with the smell did not attach to us either (I later learned that it traveled with the smell. No wonder Dad thought they had paid their price about then). The wards that guarded against the sewers were all based on the principle that anything coming out would carry something of the sewers with them. They did not bar us.

We began to work our way upward, freeing prisoners as we found them, sending them to storage places, weapons and other prisoners. We left behind us a great riot of confusion and passed upwards, mostly ignored by those we passed (we were too clean and unmarred to be prisoners and everyone tended to just assume we belonged there).  We had four great fights as we travelled upwards. The rest remained calm.

I called a halt, just as I looked out a window.  We were high.  The path had led us to the great tower's upper level. There wasn't much further to go. Amazingly, at that point Indigo teleported to her mark. She had survived the mirror's fire. She had the look I saw on an angel who visited my Dad.

We all arrayed ourselves, then we burst through the doors at the end of the corridor we were in.

There it was.  Imagine a great tower that's top is a great courtyard with what looks like a normal castle's keep at one end, kind of like a small tower on top of a great tower. In the courtyard was a creature like a great scaly worm. It had twisted vestigial legs and wings sticking out from it and at the top, like a great starfish, it opened up into eight arms and a great beak. At the joint of each starfish-like arm it had a baleful eye.

Above it was a magical shield.  Suspended on the top of a great bloody foul alter was a baby. Surrounding the Kar Manta's Master were its priests, demons and creatures. Two were hooded creatures, in tattered brown robes. Three looked almost like dinosaurs. One was a mummy-like creature with tentacles for a head and branching arms, each with a beak instead of hands, and there were two others for a total of eight (the pillar of flame and the scalely mass are hard to describe and were fearsome to fight). Probably a double score of blood wights were scattered about, four score of emptied wights, their skeletons bare, were also there. The creature had its food ready at hand.

We each let loose with our best prepared magic, the emptied wights exploding into shrapnel, spells and magic flying, and Ariel, behind the lightwall we cast, teleporting to the baby, dropping a decoy and teleporting onward, in a jag of lightning, up the small tower. In the distraction, nothing saw her.

Then it was a fight. Ariel's brother took point, his father's sword, the dragon's gift, powerful against the chaos. Vines suddenly overran the tower top, we drained the wights as fast as their master did. The bodies did not rise again as undead servants, but were consumed.

It was a fearsome battle. The minions fell, one to its master as it struck in rage. No reinforcements came, the war in the depths between fodder, prisoners and the castle's garrison had seen to that. One of the minions was a pillar of flame, throwing off fire and lightning.  I and Parakile took it down. Another was a dark undead, festering chaos without end, Ariel's brother struck it with a blow that destroyed it on every level. The twins held up their end and then it was us and the Master.

At this point I had expected my parents to ride in to the rescue.  Then I realized that they were still waiting for a slip in the magic guard, a sign that the baby was in danger, some cue. Guess I should have left a message or something. So, it was up to us to take down a major chaos demon, down to the void where it belonged.

Then the eyes struck. Nausea and evil, unrelenting temptation. It is hard to describe, but they washed over us and then froze our young were.  He had the least strength against chaos of any of us (compared to "Ducks" who is an antichaos machine). His anger and rage overcame him. I think that the demon would have swallowed him whole except Indigo gave a great leap and caught the beam in herself, breaking its connection to Robert-Etienne.  She is probably the only person immune to it, fresh from the mirror's embrace and the force of the beam dissipated on her and then the magic reflected and broke. Two of the eyes shattered.

Then the fight was in earnest. The demon trying to strike us directly, slay and devour us one at a time, each of us attempting to dance out of the way as our magic, weapons and force struck at it.  It was huge.  Looking back, we were like housecats attacking a bear. I traded places with Ariel and she threw her knife when it struck at her, teleporting out at the last minute. It swallowed the knife and she called the knife from the other end, as it travelled through the demon, poisoning and ripping it as it went. Ducks threw his great spear into the humped ring behind its arm-mouth and it blasted into the creature's brain. Parakile rained axes at it, throwing them, then leaping aside and striking at the same place on the body again and again, fire jumping from him in gouts. Indigo cursed it with force and it was decrepified and dazed. Ariel sent cold into it and I called down fire out of the skies and laid down great walls of flame on it as I took the form of fire and struck it as a part of my own spells. Marie took over with the baby, at the top of the small tower, out of reach of the creature while it fought us, raining down arrows on it.  The lightning that flew out of Jean and Ducks as they struck it was blinding.

All the while the thing struck and rolled and lashed, power flashing out of each eye, each eye a different focus of strength for it.  The paralyzing eye and the charming eye were broken by Indigo's efforts.  Ducks took out the eye of acid.  Ariel's cold and my fire blinded the eye of blades (good thing too, that blade shield that sprang from its scales was terrible on its effect on any of us that tried to close or those that it came near to when it missed).  Marie blinded the eye of fire and the cursing eye.  The three eyes that remained gave it strength, resistance and allowed it to leech life from us.  Parakile's axe blinded the resisting eye and suddenly our magic began to bite it mightily.  Robert-Etienne actually bit out the leeching eye from behind as his claws dug into the creature's head, just behind the ring of arms and he used his fangs to take out the eye.

Then we overwhelmed it and the last eye went out, the magic shield dropping as it did. The castle began to crumble and the alter shattered.  My parents were there, suddenly, in force and we were swept home.

It was then that I realized that Indigo wasn't with us, though I still had her mark, one of a set of six.

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Indigo had left a mark in the bowels of the castle, since she had been tracking Tindalasse's life amulet, even though the baby came first. The mark was left at the last point she had reached before the path to the baby went the other way. When we got to the doors before the Kar Manta's Master, the mark I carried alerted her, so she came to us, but she had unfinished business and did not intend to leave the young elf behind.  When my parents came and swept us all home, she returned to the hunt rather than being swept along with us. You can imagine the chaos she faced in a collapsing fortress with a prison rebellion, the breaches in the wall, unbound ghosts from the master dying above, wild magic loose and everyone trying to grab what things of value they had (or hoped to steal) while fleeing the disruption. Three times she was assaulted by parties who had looted storehouses and were trying to escape the fray, but who saw her as a good target. One group had several red spirit shirts, but the other had a small casket filled with crimson life rubies, each the size of a pigeon's egg or larger. The shirts she picked up for the guys back home, but the rubies she thought would make a good present for the Rukh, who has a fondness for gems. Indigo fought her way through that confusion until she found Tindalasse, slew those who were trying to break in his cell to eat him (oh, I forgot to mention, there were a lot of people trying to eat each other for the possible magical benefit). She found an archway that had not collapsed, but that was cut off, unpacked some salves and used those to restore his health and break his mind out of the drugged fog it was in and then introduced herself.  Then she got ready to use the mark, once she was sure the salves had really cured him (he wouldn't have survived her carrying him home with her magic otherwise).  She spoke the words and the vortex brought them both to the mark I was carrying, right in the ruins of my parent's front yard. Indigo and Tindalasse were both burned, frozen and wounded by traveling between the worlds to a mark, but they had both been healthy enough before the trip to make it worth the risk. My mother almost burned them to a crisp before she recognized them. In fact, from the look she gave my dad, I suspect she tried and he blocked her.  She isn't talking. It was heartwrenching to see the Bitter King's grief break as he realized that his son had not perished and was not lost.  He gave her the blessing of family, reached for a glyph, suddenly checked himself, and gave her one of the glyphs of his faction, not of his family. Then he grabbed his son in his arms, his Enjarer began the helix dance and they swept away as the mist broke into a gentle rain and the sun pushed through. My dad kept Indigo from falling and then I wrapped her in light and healed her together with two of the fu dogs I had been bringing back from the edge. One was hungry, and told me so in the runic fire tongue (!!, I didn't know they could talk!!), so as soon as everyone else was ok I ran out to Albertsons and bought him ten pounds of pork chops. I decided to get him fed and figure out what they normally eat later. About a month later, Dad made a visit to the Bitter King during the Autumn Festival of the Two Kings (the Bitter King and the Joyous King hold court together twice a year. Once for the Autumn Festival in August and once for the Harvest Festival in November. They do not usually celebrate the equinoxes, the new years or the Spring Festivals together. Dad joined the parade of visitors and those paying court, with Mom (notice I'm saying Mom, not mom) and a troop of fu dogs. I got the story from one of them, some of them can talk and one of them has been pretty friendly ever since I started buying him pork chops in ten pound lots. So there is Dad, dressed up, with traditional seasonal gifts. The Joyous King et ux (hey, I learned a little legalese from Ducks as he studied Planet Law School) got harvest gifts, a lesser apple of life and a collection of spices. The apples, even the lesser ones, are rare indeed, and valuable.  But the Bitter King, now that was fun. "My ward sends her godfather these gifts" is how he started. That got the real attention of almost half the court, all of them trying to appear not to be paying attention. Honestly, those elves, mostly they just ignore my parents or act like my mom is a bad smell in the room.  But, they sure notice them. Anyway, dad was making a few statements. First, the Bitter King's blessing was one that obligated him to Indigo as a godparent (assuming her parents were dead, which they were). It was an extravagant gesture of thanks, probably over obligating him to someone he did not know anything about, other than she had shown up at the scene of the disaster with his son draped over her shoulder. On the other hand, once he had made the gesture, the holding back like he did, and giving her the faction glyph, that was kind of a niggling thing, petty, and not worthy of a true king. To add, before one makes free with certain magics, one is supposed to ask permission. Dad was putting all of that in perspective for the Bitter King in a few words, letting him know that Indigo was his ward, that the blessing had been accepted (Dad was well within his rights to reject the Bitter King's blessing as presuming too much) and hiding a gentle chide at the choice of glyph that had been left. But the best part was to come. Mom had eaten a few of the rubies like candy, but they were laid out nicely in the casket (it was about the size of a regular loaf of bread) with a velvet presentation cloth and some raw red gold. As Dad finished what he was saying, Mom opened up the casket and stepped forward. "My wife thought she would make the presentation, after all, she favors you." Now that started some gossip. Which I guess that Dad intended to be started. As did the sight of the rubies.  Dad had taken several out, given one to Indigo and few to others, but there was a casket full of intensely magical and very rare intensely magical rubies, nicely set out. It was probably worth as much as everything else in the hall -- other than the things my parents were carrying with them. The Bitter King could use these to mark his paladins, a group he was just starting to recruit. In return (with a little prodding) the Bitter King gave Dad an indigo spirit shirt to take to Indigo. Some people snorted that though very rare, that was scarcely the right gift to send a godchild in return. But Dad just smiled and said that as a member of the blue lodge, I would be very grateful for the shirt, that there was no better gift. So, Dad had given the Bitter King a very valuable gift (most of the court would have thought the gift from Indigo worth much more than her rescue of Tindalasse -- elves!), restated the issue of "favor" in front of the entire court, let on that he had accepted the Bitter King as a godfather to one of his wards, let everyone know that ward was an assassin by that blue lodge reference (though she wasn't happy, in her style she wanted to keep that a secret), and made what he expected to be the last court appearance he would make in quite some time. As he told the prince of the fu dogs -- in front of the Bitter King, though blocked from the rest of the court, he'd had about enough of elves, especially since none of these people were vassals of his and they weren't especially good company, though the Bitter King showed promise if he stayed on track. A little gentle correction was all he seemed to need, that is what Dad said. The fu dog prince growled softly. The Bitter King's silent response was "You call a gift like that gentle correction?" Dad just smiled. His reply, whispered, was "You would prefer something else? But my wife favors you." (everyone evesdropping caught the last sentence, though the rest was blocked, all anyone knows is that Dad and the King had a conversation about how the King felt he was getting more than he deserved and my Dad's only answer was Mom's favor. The court is apparently in a titter). There are some people who had planned to move against the Bitter King and they've all started to think twice. Even more when Grey sHADOW came to pay his respects to the Bitter King. That ancient gray death has long been a power in the north, one the Basilisk King courted and could not draw in. Grey sHADOW is no fool. He'd heard about Mom's "favor" and this was a great way to stay on her good side. Not to mention it sure got people thinking twice twice, if you know what I mean. From just about nowhere someone everyone they thought of as a weak placeholder for a Bitter King has a strong bodyguard (his paladins each with a blood gem giving them strength), allies, and powers, even Grey sHADOW and Mom. And no legacies, no hidden cess pools, no gross flaws. Everyone thinks he hides his real power, which makes him seem all the more cunning. Not to mention, his son Tindalasse is really cute. Or so "Pork Chop" told me, my favorite of the guardian fu dogs we have around the house some times. Well, when Mom and Dad left for the wars, they left "Pork Chop" at the court, to wait on the Bitter King. They didn't tell any of the elves that they were going or where they were going.  Pork Chop comes to visit me once in a while and tells me stories.  In return, I sneak out to the butcher shop in the Swiss village where the school is and buy him pork chops. I'll have to tell about the Fall festival when three elves came to apologize to the Bitter King for insulting Indigo. They were sure that someone was going to kill them even though Indigo had said they could go, but they thought that maybe the Bitter King could grant them sanctuary against the doom they were sure would come. A paladin or agent of the old Bitter King (the Basilisk) would never have forgiven, no matter what they said. Boy,  their begging for mercy appears to have caused a stir at Court. People had just begun to think that Indigo was just some human kid and just started to discount that whole connection and the whole mention of Mom when those three idiots showed up begging for mercy and shelter from the Bitter King and against Indigo. I'm not sure of the entire story, though it appears that they mistook her for a different kind of dancer and made her an offer and almost got killed for it (That girl needs to learn to dress differently).   The story of her wrath and power appears to have grown in the telling. Green fire and wrath and the curse of an ancient goddess and the Red Bull in rage and, heck, now that I think of it, that does sound just like her in a serious mood. The Bitter King said if she forgave them, so did he. That didn't calm them a bit, until he promised them safe haven from retribution.  That was an easy promise, as I'll bet she had already forgotten about them. As mom says, Indigo just doesn't know how to hold a grudge. But, as a part of promising them haven, he told the story of how we took the Kar Manta's master and how Indigo struck the killing blow and then when everyone went back, how she had gone into the falling fortress, fought the remnants of the bodyguard and rescued his son from beyond the world. The message was clear. She was really tough and she could track people between worlds. He would protect them, but other people needed to think who would protect those who crossed the Bitter King and did not have his promise of haven from his god daughter. Though Ari just laughed when Pork Chop got intense about the story and asked some more about what Tindalasse was wearing and what color his eyes were this week. Man, I wish I'd been the one to rescue him.

I guess all is well that ends well. Which is how this story cycle ends. Well, with our house being rebuilt, the great peril defeated and everyone safe at home. I'll have to describe the parties we threw and the things we won at a later time, but it was well. Except for Indigo and Ducks who had to explain how they had gotten married. Luckily my Dad was able to annul the marriage without ruining the magic (he and mom took it over). Since they hadn't even had time to kiss, it wasn't too bad for them, and now, as Duck's mom puts it, they can date first.

Life amulets are pretty common in old stories.  An item or object that reflects the health of the person it is attached to. They are also useful for seeking that person.  This one was a star ruby set in a bracelet.  It would have looked like just one more item of jewelry if it had not been pulsing. The youth was in danger, but not harmed. Yet.

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