Fan Fiction ❯ Kyouki no Kyanpasu ❯ Episode 6: Where'd I put my Lost Library Card? ( Chapter 6 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The man stood on the edge of the cliff, looking out over the ocean. He was burly, blonde, good-looking in a friendly, broken-nosed way, and there was something vaguely surfer-dudish about him, though his attention was far away on the horizon, not on the waves crashing into the cliff below him.

His focus was total. He was almost vibrating with the chi flowing through his body. To those with eyes that could see, the flames of his energy surrounded him, making his form waver and shimmer as though through a heat mirage. His sensei saw all of these things and more.

The staff blow to the back of his head took Ashley by surprise, and he rubbed one hand over the stinging injury. "Whadja do that for?"

"You pathetic fool." Ruben towered over him like a vengeful god. "I have told you at least seventeen times, clear your mind, Ashley, clear your mind!"

"Aww, Ruben, my mind was so empty I could feel the wind whistling Dixie through my skull!" Ashley shrugged, trying to defuse the angry wizard somehow. "You seemed to be a little more relaxed about this training thing yesterday."

"that was before you became my ace-in-the-hole. If we can't teach you to exert this power you have, whatever it might be, by tomorrow evening, my goose will be well and truly cooked. And yours, too."

The martial artist did a kipup, leaping to his feet in one smooth motion. "You keep mentioning tomorrow night, and I'm getting more and more curious by the moment. Could you at least-"

"No. Tonight is for brutally drawn-out exposition made somewhat less boring with the aid of some illusions and the occasional cheesecake fanservice bit, now is for training. Try it again." Ruben gave a more-in-sorrow-than-anger sigh. "And for the spirits' sakes, try to do it right this time."


CRAZED CAMPUS
EPISODE SIX:
WHERE'D I PUT MY LOST LIBRARY CARD?



Four people sat around the campfire that night, roasting hot dogs in the open flames, the sounds of the wild mountains surrounding them despite the relative nearness of Serenity City. Words just didn't seem right in such a peaceful place, at such a peaceful time.

Ruben was, of course, the one to disrupt that peace. "Ashley and Reiko, I know why you're here. But Devan? Why the heck did you follow me?!"

Wiley smiled enigmatically. "Well, recently, I've become a fan of that comedy section of the newsfax, what's it called, that amusing delusion where humans believe that the impersonal provincial view of the stars from your planet's surface govern their future decisions for the day, week, month, or year?"

"You mean astrology?"

"That's it! Well, my personal thingie told me very specifically to follow a friend and he will reveal amusing secrets that he doesn't want you to know, so here I am." Wiley pulled his dog out of the flames, inserted it into a bread receptacle and set about condimenting it to taste. "So, what did you call us up here for?"

"Because I need help in a Quest, and the door to the Dreamlands only opens tomorrow night-"

"MATTE, Maaaaeeto... hold on just a second!" Reiko sputtered, her emotion overriding the cheap translation spell placed on her earring. "You said NOTHING about another dimension earlier today! I promised myself the last time... urgh... I want to hear all about it BEFORE I get drawn into ANOTHER dimension..."

"C'mon, it's not like we're going to unknown Kadath!" When Reiko's expression didn't relent even at Ruben's jocular tone, the magician sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll give you the background." He rummaged around in his backpack for a moment before pulling out a small pouch. "This will allow me to create the images of times long past in the flames - and, after all, the visual medium is of value in storytelling."

"Good," Wiley muttered, "I won't have to endure so much of your boring exposition without SOMETHING to back it up."

"What was that?" Ruben asked sharply, and Wiley grinned.

"Oh, nothing..."

"Good." Ruben tossed a handful of dust into the flame, and the other three watched in fascination as the fire's tongues began to dance in shades not only of red, but also in blue, green, lavender, black, and white. Then, as the sorcerer spoke, the fire began rippling and forming a picture of a mountainside path with perfect clarity. A younger female Ruben, dressed as a traveler, stood at a split in the path; one direction led upwards, the other wound its way down the mountainside. "Though I received my curse in high school-"

"Don't you mean, that night you got drunk as a lord in high school and put the curse on yourself?" Wiley's sarcastic remark cut through Ruben's words, though his expression was brimming with innocence when Ruben directed a glare at him.

Rather than dignify the question with a response, however, Ruben continued. "Though I received my curse in high school, the story I tell really begins in the depths of China, far from civilization and even farther from here. It begins at a crossroads..."


****


Ruben stood at an unexpected crossroads, completely at a loss as to which way to go. The path forward led along the mountainside, deeper into the mountain range. The leftward path went up the side of the mountain in a spiral. The right path went down the side of the mountain, and from her prospective led to a small village in the valley below.

She squinted at the sign again, as though persistence could translate the squiggles and pictographs into familiar English letters. Not for the first time, Ruben cursed her stupidity in not making sure the translation spell covered both written AND spoken words. "If I ever find that shady spelldealer again, I'll curse him with boils so long that his GRANDCHILDREN will have them."

Well, in a situation as desperate as this, there was only one way to resolve it.

"Eenie, meenie, minie, moe..." Ruben started down the right-hand path, pacing herself to take a decent rest at midmorning.

Only an hour into her hike downward, however, she stopped as a misty valley spread out before her feet, the path dipping downwards into the mist. "Could this be it?" she said out loud, excitement thrumming through her. "The legendary Springs of Transformation? Will I finally be able to get rid of-"

Realism soon reasserted itself, however, and to avoid yet ANOTHER rush into a mysterious valley and yet ANOTHER disappointment, Ruben conjured a brief wind to blow the early morning mist away -- and saw nothing but a small village nestled snugly in that valley, the path she was on leading directly to it.

Ruben sighed and hefted her pack. "Heck, I'm getting a bit low on supplies and I'm so desperate for human company that I'm talking to myself; might as well head onto the village."

Even before entering the village, she noticed many differences between the peasants here and elsewhere in China. She studied the outlying buildings that the farmers lived in; marveling at the almost-modern construction disguised as ancient craft. She admired the well-fed yet trim (nicely fleshed was her exact thought) females, and noted that the men were healthily fed almost as an afterthought amidst all the women. But most of all...

She noticed that these people acted quite different from the peasants in other districts. "None of these people seem afraid that bandits will swoop down and take anything that's not nailed down. It's as though..."

Ruben stopped abruptly. Just before the town proper, there was a cleared field nearly two hundred paces across, and bordering the path that any bandits would have to take in order to raid from the mountains were over thirty heads placed upon spears, and a small mountain of discarded skulls and spears to one side. There was another sign, of course, but she couldn't read it.

Irritated once more at her own stupidity in not checking the spell-dealer's enchantment before buying, Ruben ignored the new sign and continued on, grumbling to herself. It was, perhaps, because of that grumbling that she didn't notice the shout of "LOOK OUT!!"

Ruben did, however, notice the projectile that was soaring towards her head. With reflexes tuned by months spent in the wilds of China, she put a reflection spell in the projectile's path and returned it to its sender. Because she wasn't really thinking about it, she put quite a bit more power into the spell than was needed, sending the - It's a ball, a round black ball, Ruben noted - spinning back at nearly sixty miles an hour toward a girl who, acting on reflexes just as misjudged as Ruben's, leapt to catch it in midair.

The ball collided with a resounding thunk on her forehead, and she collapsed in a heap as Ruben watched, horrified. Spirits! What did I do to that girl! Ruben sprinted over to where the girl's friends were gathered around her. "Make room! Make room! I'm a magician! I'll see if she needs healing!" As she was shouting with the aid of her translation spell, she was also moving into the crowd, helping herself through with the judicious application of elbows and walking staff.

Once she got to the center of the crowd, she kneeled beside the poor victim. After doing a quick magically-aided diagnosis of the girl's physical state, she sighed in relief. "No serious damage. A quick patch and some spit'll fix her right up!"

Ruben got to work healing her. She was surprised at how quickly the girl healed - no doubt Ruben's efforts were helped along by the immense chi power the girl seemed to have. As Ruben cast the spell, however, she became more and more aware of the fact that this girl was, in fact, an extremely nubile young woman. Her knowledge of just how nubile was expanded by the spell she'd chosen to use, one that involved extensive use of pressure points scattered around the body.

After what seemed like a long time, Ruben became aware that the girl was watching her. Ruben stood up, and helped the girl to her feet. "Hello, I'm sorry for hitting you with the ball. My name is..."

She got no further than that as the girl suddenly surged forward and kissed Ruben on the lips. All the girls gathered around the twosome sent up a noisy chatter, but Ruben was only able to catch bits and pieces of it.

"The Kiss of-"

"-does looks really powerful-"

"Well, that WAS a well-cast-"

"-but why not?"

As all this went on, the girl that had decided to kiss Ruben watched, with a slight smirk on her face, as Ruben tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

"Makeway!" The crowd parted as a voice rang out. Ruben watched in amazement as an old woman strode towards her with the aid of a walking staff not dissimilar to Ruben's own.

The old woman stared intently at Ruben, and Ruben stared back. She had almost totally white hair with just a hint of purple that reached down to the ground, wearing plain brown robes, but Ruben saw through the simple clothing. This woman has power... more than mine? No. But still, quite impressive.

The old woman chuckled. "Well, you didn't run away. That's quite impressive. You have a formidable aura, and you're just so cute!" The old woman's voice rose in amusement for a second, then got serious. "Not that my interests run that way, you understand."

For the first time, the girl that Ruben had injured spoke. "What?! For all this time, you've been tricking us, Great-Grandmother? Oh, my heart is broken!" All of the girls laughed at this, but Ruben's voice cut through the giggles like a knife.

"What the hell is going on?!"

****

"Yeah, that's my question too!" The images dancing in the fire froze as Ruben turned his attention to Ashley.

Ruben grinned. "Are you sure you want to know?"

Ashley nodded, and Ruben said, "Well, though you might not know it, there is an ancient, worldwide culture dedicated to the unity between man and woman, or something cheesy like that. Generally speaking, they're mystically very powerful and have used that power to camouflage themselves in a variety of ways, living within societies that don't even suspect their existence. The only historical record - distorted, of course, by sensationalist storytellers looking for a quick buck - is that of the ancient Greek Amazons."

The fireside was silent for a moment. Then, Ashley asked, his words loaded with incredulousity, "AMAZONS?! In China? Like an English bud used to say back home, pull the other one."

"There are tribes of Amazons almost everywhere you go these days. There are three tribes in Europe - didn't you ever wonder where the legend of Valkyries come from? - fifteen in Africa - the Amazons practically run the place, now that all other forms of government have collapsed - two in Russia, one in China, one in Australia, and four in North America." He stopped for a moment, letting his speech soak into his audience.

Reiko, who'd taken a little while to remember anything about the Amazons, raised an eyebrow. "But a group of man hating women? Who cut off their boobs because they got in the way instead of wearing a plate or something?"

"And the Japanese are a bunch of raw fish-eating misogynistic samurai jerks?" Ruben asked back, a half-smile robbing the words of any cruelty. "Well, the men DO prefer to let women run the villages and tribes, having more important things to do, but if a guy wants to be a warrior or an Elder, there's no real discrimination, not for the last thousand years or so. You might get your ass slapped every now and again, but..."

"But... they must have weird customs, you know?"

The magician groaned. “The most important custom to know now about the Chinese and several of the African branches of this ancient culture is that if an outsider warrior defeats one of theirs in combat, honor demands that the defeated warrior give the 'Kiss of Death.' Tales of the horrible fates visited upon poor victims given a 'Kiss of Death' abound in nearby regions amongst the knowledgeable, and have been told for almost countless millennia.

"This is, in reality, a test of character. If the outsider runs away, it's considered a violation of the defeated warrior's honor, and the warrior has no choice but to hunt the outsider to the ends of the earth and kill the coward. And she (or he) will, using every sneaky trick developed over three thousand years of history.

"If the outsider sticks around, despite the terrifying legends whispered in a thousand places, it's considered a vindication of the defeated warrior's honor and skill in selecting potential new members, and the outsider is immediately offered a place in the tribe, as well as a new name." Seeing the dubious looks on his listener's faces, he added, "Oh, I admit, it sounds silly the first half-dozen times, but when you think about it, it makes a great deal of sense.

"They need strong warriors, so why not have a two-fold test for outsiders who might be strong enough to become assets to the tribe? First, if they're strong enough to defeat one of the tribe's warriors, it's obvious that they have combat skills to spare. Next, if they don't run away, even in the face of the 'Kiss of Death,' it shows that they have the spirit looked for in all of their warriors.

"What it meant to me is I lucked into the tribe by pure ignorance." Ruben grinned. "Kinda funny, when you think about it..."

Reiko interrupted again. "What happened when they found out that you're a man?"

"I was getting to that! Well, I decided that revealing I was a man would get me into some very, VERY hot water, so I was determined to stay transformed for as long as possible. However..."

****

Ruben glared at the two women who, when she'd mentioned a desire to wash the travel-dust off of her skin, had clamored to join her.

Although she didn't really mind the girl she'd hit with the ball (whose name, Ruben had been told, was Xiaoyu) being there, Ruben most definitely did resent the presence of the old woman that had been identified as Xiaoyu's great-grandmother. Nubile girls naked? Yes. Women halfway through their second century? Not interested.

The old woman was the first to hop into the tub, leaving her staff beside it. "Ahhhh, just the stuff for ancient, decrepit bones! C'mon in, the water's better than fine!" Her great-granddaughter followed, leaping into the huge tub enthusiastically, and Ruben shrugged and slid in as well.

"So, what brings you to China, foreign de- er, Miss Stryfe?" Xiaoyu asked politely, stretching her arms over her head in a way that left Ruben newly appreciative of the local wonders of nature. Or two of them, at least. There are times when being in this woman's body has unexpected benefits...

It took Ruben a moment to realize that the girl had asked her a question. "Huh? Oh! Yeah. I'm here because, uh...." She shut her mouth just before the truth escaped from it, mentally cudgeling herself for being stupidly distracted instead of cleverly thinking of excuses to be wandering around in China.

Ruben stuttered, "Well, er... I'm here because... I need a cure for a transformation curse that I, umm... put on... someone accidentally, and some research told me of a place in China rich in transformational magic that could well be the final link in my removal of the curse!" She finished fast as soon as she got to a point where the truth was something she didn't have to dance around for her own personal safety.

"Really?" the old woman inquired, looking vaguely interested for the first time. "The only place I know of that does anything like that is-"

More than a year of suffering from the curse had taught Ruben a number of things about it. Sometimes, the transformation back came with utterly no warning whatsoever; sometimes it was preceded by a tingling sensation all over the body; and once in a great while it did something truly odd, like transform her voice back to its male pitch without changing her body back until several minutes later. Much to her chagrin, she'd also learned that the length of time Ruben spent cursed varied, usually in direct proportion to the strength of the spell she'd cast before transforming, but sometimes the length was entirely random as well. In her darker moments, Ruben suspected that some maliciously amused entity was governing the curse's end for maximum humiliation.

This was, much to Ruben's embarrassment, one of the sudden transformations back.

What made it worse was the way that his appreciation of nature's outstanding wonders a few moments before was clearly, annoyingly evident in his male form where it had been near-invisible in his cursed form.

Both of the other women sharing the tub with him looked up at his face, than their gazes traveled down his body, to...

Flushing, Ruben glared at both of them. "Do you two mind?"

"Not even in the slightest!" As the old woman replied, she gave Ruben a shrewd glance. With a chill, Ruben realized that the she'd somehow known all along. Must've been something in my aura.... Why is Xiaoyu grinning?

"HUSBAND!" Suddenly, Xiaoyu leapt for Ruben, and grabbed him in her arms. Abruptly embraced by five and a half feet of slippery, nubile female, Ruben was, ah... overwhelmed. Sensory overload! Sensory overload! General protection fault! Restoring from backups...

After Ruben rebooted several hours later, he found himself in a comfortable bed, with the old woman sitting next to the bed. He groaned, partly in disappointment, but mostly in relief.

"Finally awake, eh?" The old woman chuckled. "Another law that you're going to become very familiar with very shortly is this." The old woman got on her stick and pogoed a bit closer to the bed. "An outsider male that defeats a warrior of the Amazon tribe becomes the husband of that warrior. See you in the morning!" With that, the old woman pogoed away.


****


"Well, what did you do then?" Reiko's tone was accusatory - after all, she'd seen the girl's image in the fire.

"Yeah, now your story has gotten really interesting." Ashley's tone was admiring - after all, he'd seen the girl's image in the fire.

Ruben shrugged. "What could I do? I got up the next morning, intending to argue it out with the old woman. Events, however, conspired against me..."


****


Ruben was pissed. He'd woken up next to a beautiful, nubile young woman. And while he was (like most young men) always dreaming about beautiful girls throwing themselves at him, the reality of it was more than he could handle (also like most young men.) After recovering from the shock, he got dressed and went to the baths.

Then, just when he was relaxing into his bath, one hundred and twenty pounds of naked Amazon jumped in, splashing hot water all over the bath house. Shocked once more, he'd teleported out.

After a brief stint as a woman thanks to that spell, he'd gone looking for the Elder, intent on arguing about this "husband" thing with the shriveled troll. The main reason I don't just head for the nearest hill, he reflected sourly, is that I'm afraid of what they do to men who run away!

He knocked on the Elder's door. A voice rang out from behind it. "Come in. I've been expecting you." Ruben pushed the door open and stepped into a slightly sunken entrance area. The hallway in front of him was lined with what looked like a shrine to ancient memories.

One prominently displayed picture featured a slightly embarrassed-looking Japanese man in a pigtail and a Chinese buttoned red shirt, holding a martial arts trophy. Another was an ancient movie poster, featuring a short-haired woman in a kung-fu stance, a signature scribbled into one corner. Before he could look more closely at any others, the voice spoke again. "I'm in the first room on the right!"

Ruben stepped up into the main hallway and opened the door on the right. And stepped through the pearly gates of Heaven upon earth. Or, at least, his idea of it anyway.

Thousands of books lined the walls, covered the desks, piled on the floor, and cluttered the tables. This wasn't too unusual by his standards (a cluttered and messy library was a happy library to his mind.) What made his salivary glands work uncontrollably was the fact that almost every book in the entire room gave off a magical aura.

The old woman sat behind a desk, watching him drool for a moment. Then, she grinned. "Would you like to check out a book?"


****


"So, I agreed to marry Xiaoyu."

"NaNIIII?!" Reiko was livid.

"Just for some books?" Ashley was shocked.

Wiley kept his silence. Inside, though, he was a bit surprised. So Ruben isn't just a goody-two-shoes? I guess he does have the guts to get things done sometimes.

"Yeah, I did marry her just to get access to that library. If anywhere could tell me where to cure my curse, that was the place. I wanted the cure to my curse, wanted it bad enough to resign myself to the horrible fate of marrying and having sex with a beautiful young woman, joining a worldwide tribe of warriors that would always come to my rescue if I got into trouble, and learning wonderful new spells and techniques."

The only thing that disturbed the silence after his speech was the cicadas.

"Are you done accusing me?" Ruben demanded.

No one answered his question, which was an answer all of itself.

"Good." Ruben resumed his spell, and the flames formed a new scene. "I spent the next three months in sheer happiness, though I didn't realize it until long after the fact. One day, I ran across a book in the library that I'd been searching for..."


****


Elder, I've found it!" The boy's voice carried a clear note of exultation. He was so excited by discovering the book he'd been searching for nearly two months that he almost failed to notice the seemingly heartfelt sigh that the Elder sent towards him.

"So you've found the book that correctly identifies each and every cursed spring, eh? I was hoping that I'd lost it forever." The Elder's tone carried a clear note of resignation and sorrow, mixed in equal portions. It was that tone, more than the content of the words, which caused the hope welling up in Ruben's heart to die slowly.

Holding the precious book in one hand, he walked over to the Elder's desk and placed the other hand on it. Leaning forward, he said, "What do you mean, Elder?" He studied her wrinkled face with suspicion, searching for some trace of... something that might give a clue into her thought processes.

Such information was forthcoming. The Elder stared back steadily into Ruben's eyes. "I was hoping that I'd lost it because I didn't want to tell you you'd never find a cure in that book, or at the springs at all."

"Damn!" Ruben threw the book down on the floor and kicked it in a rare display of rage. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" He managed to wedge the book between his foot and the desk leg, and the resulting toe injury did nothing to improve his mood. "Simply fucking incredible!" His shoulders slumped, and he fell into one of the plush chairs facing the Elder's desk. "I was letting all my hopes ride on this."

"Don't give up so easily, boy." Now there was an amused tone in the Elder's statement that made Ruben look up from the floor (and his wounded toe.) "I didn't say that there wasn't a cure to be found, I said that you wouldn't find a cure at the springs.

"While you've been looking for that book, I've been hunting down every rumor of a certain Dragon. A Dragon that grants a wish to whomever beats it at its own game."

"And what's this Dragon's game?" Ruben leaned forward, twisting a silver ring around his finger eagerly and she told him.


****


"But... that isn't important for this story, so I won't say what that game was." Ruben fell silent for a moment as he stirred the fire, erasing the image of the withered old woman and the disappointed young man.

"Aw, come on. Please tell us?" Ashley stuck a marshmallow on a stick and placed it in the fire, figuring that Ruben's spell wouldn't be using the flames for just long enough to roast a snack.

"I guess I can tell you... that it's a secret, moron!" Ruben used his stick to steal Ashley's marshmallow, but in a lightning-fast motion, the martial artist snatched it back and put it in his mouth. And promptly spit it out again.

"AHHH! HOT!"

Wiley let out an evil chuckle.

"If I may continue?" Ruben asked pointedly.

The others seated around the fire nodded.

"The old woman handed me a fragment of parchment which stated that an ancient Dragon had the power to grant wishes, but that it had not been seen for nearly two thousand years. The parchment also stated that the dragon was extremely fond of games, and had invented and introduced many to man. For the next year and a half, I quested about China, following rumors and fables over two thousand years old, looking for this dragon."

"Is that when you met Jedidiah?" Ashley interrupted.

Ruben shrugged. "Yes, that is where I met him." He leaned forward and poked at the fire idly with the stick. "In fact, we spent a lot of time avoiding him, because he would hit on both of us. Constantly. It got very tiresome, so I summoned a spirit to keep him distracted.

"I spent the energy and time to conjure it because we'd finally found our first lead. It seems that the Dragon in question had moved north to a remote location in Mongolia for some reason. Maybe he just got tired of all the supplicants asking for wishes, so he escaped the only way he could. So we trekked into Mongolia, and found his cavern.

"It was defended as only a Dragon would defend its home: Magical traps, doppelgangers, mystical puzzles, and even a rolling boulder trap, if you can believe it." Ruben grinned again. "Just shows that it was a fan of human culture, if you asked me." The brief moment of levity passed, and Ruben stared into the flames with an expression of deep, deep sorrow etched into his features by the firelight.

"When we got into the cavern, prepared to battle it at its most ancient game, something happened that I'd never have expected from everything that I knew about the Dragon..."


****


Xiaoyu was the first one into the room. She'd elected to lead after her husband had triggered a trap and injured his leg, and he hadn't protested too hard. After all, Amazon combat doctrine said that warriors should be in front of magicians at all times, protecting them as they cast spells; it only made sense. The warriors were both tougher and more expendable than magicians, and Xiaoyu wasn't about to let her precious husband get away with any macho-inspired idiocy like trying to protect her instead of the other, proper way around.

For a moment, she looked at the ring that Ruben had given her, debating whether or not to slip it into a pocket before stepping into the Dragon's chamber, but she decided that it was probably too small of a treasure to bother hiding from the monster.

She was surprised when a 'voice' spoke, directly to her mind, as she stepped out of the tunnel. Greetings! It has been many a century since any supplicants have sought me. Do you seek the wish? Will you play the game?

Xiaoyu didn't reply at first. She could only stare in awe at the simply beautiful beast that was coiled in front of her. The scales were a color that shifted constantly between red and silver, and...

****

Ruben paused the dancing of the flames to regard his audience closely. He said, "Dragons are impossible to describe to anyone that hasn't met one. Words like 'splendor', 'huge', 'beautiful', and 'awesome' are used, and are wholly inadequate." He paused for a moment of deep thought. "The strangest thing is, you aren't afraid when you first see one; instead, they touch something deep inside us that regards them as gods. My pathetic illusion fails to do justice. Nothing can do justice to them... they are among the most precious things in this world... which makes what happened next all the more tragic."

****

Her training, however, had taught her to resist supernatural sensations like those the Dragon was giving out in waves. Xiaoyu recovered her composure quickly, then waved her weapon-free hand in negation. "I'm not the one here to play the game. We came here so my husband could get the wish to cure his curse!"

The Dragon lifted its head from its resting place. Ah, really. Well then, bring him in!

Xiaoyu went back into the tunnel and breathed a sigh of relief to find her husband still there. He was leaning heavily on his staff, waiting for her to tell him if it was safe. A makeshift bandage across his left leg, still soaked with blood, marked where he'd tried and failed to cast a healing spell on himself.

Ruben looked up from the ground at her with an utterly exhausted expression. He has a right to be wrung out, she thought to herself. I've never seen such feats of spellcasting. Of course, I'd only seen the village exhibition and tournaments before leaving home, but...

Xiaoyu leaned in and gave Ruben a quick kiss. "You okay?" She'd been working on her English with her husband ever since she'd started on this trip, but she unfortunately had inherited her Great-Grandmother's lack of skill with languages.

Ruben nodded assent, then grinned wryly and said, "It only hurts when I move. Or breathe." Xiaoyu gave the poor joke all the attention it deserved by sliding one arm underneath his and supporting him. "It safe. Dragon wait for us." She half-carried him into the Dragon's chamber.

The Dragon made an expansive gesture with its forearms.Are you my challenger? Are you ready for my game? It moved its hands to a ready position as Ruben slowly raised his head and looked the Dragon in the eyes.

"Yes. I am ready to challenge you."

They had been prepared for anything, anything but what happened next. The Dragon's eyes suddenly narrowed into dagger-shaped black holes, and it spat, YOU! DESTROYER OF THE KIN!! NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAID WHEN LAST WE MET, I SHALL NOT DIE EASILY!

It raised one mighty claw, and as it whistled through the air towards the paralyzed magician, Xiaoyu knew what she had to do.

A hard shove sent her husband spinning to the ground, but left her with little time to move from the range of that massive, taloned hand. She tried to leap out of the way, but the paw swatted her, pinning her from the neck down to the rock.

Strange... she thought after the paw lifted, noting almost absently that gore dimmed the once-bright scales, It doesn't hurt at all... Xiaoyu's head rolled to one side, and she saw her husband, who had halfway pushed himself up from the cavern's floor. His eyes were wide, and tears were spilling from them as he mouthed a phrase at her, a phrase that she tried to say back, but her face didn't seem to be working at all any more... and the room was growing smaller...

I love you...


****


Ruben's three friends watched as tears dripped from his eyes. "I realized, then, that I loved her.

"Love can change you without you ever noticing it. She'd taught me so much over that wonderful year and a half, and I'd never seen my own feelings for her shifting gradually from lust for her beauty, to liking her vivacious personality and wonderful humor, to loving her wholeheartedly."

His voice cracked. "I'd never, ever thought of her feelings about being forced to marry a total stranger, not once. I wondered if she hated me for..."

Reiko jumped over the fire and gathered him in her arms. "Never doubt her feelings for you. After all, she sacrificed herself for you, didn't she? Did she ever say so much as a harsh word to you?" Then, softly, almost as though reminding herself, she added, "Never doubt another's love for you, or their sacrifices for that love."

Ruben gently hugged her back, then just as gently pushed her away. "I'd better finish at least this part before we turn in. When I heard my wife's last words, I felt something inside me that I'd never felt before. It was like molten steel in my marrow, and... and..." The scene in the flames twisted and distorted, then seemed to explode, sending everyone but Ruben reeling away from the fire before they realized that it was only the illusion dissolving.

"Even now, I still don't know what happened after that. No one living does, which is why I cannot show it to you or to me. My rage engulfed me, and I felt... something...

"I... don't remember much of the days after that. Just flashes, really, that don't make any sense..." He sighed. "But, even if it's a cliché to say it, part of me died that day, when I buried her head in the mountainside.

"One thing the Dragon had said tormented me, the more I thought about it - what had it meant by 'destroyer of the kin'? Why had it said, 'No matter what you said the last time we met' when we'd never met before? It eluded my understanding, and since it was better than thinking about how she... was dead, I focused on it extensively.

"Finally, I decided it was only one of two things: either my father had visited the Dragon and it had mistaken me for him - very unlikely, since dragons have senses far surpassing ours and could never be fooled, no matter how close the kinship - or that it HAD met me, sometime in its past.

"And if it had, then that meant I would find some way of returning to that past. With that thought foremost in my mind, I forged through the wilderness back to the home of my wife's great-grandmother, giving no mercy to any who crossed my way, and tore through her library, looking for some spell, even a hint of a spell, that would let me do that.

"It was an obsession that was slowly destroying me. If I could go into the past, I could challenge the dragon. If I won, I would gain the single wish. If I got the wish, I could bring her back..." Ruben sighed. "The desire to remove my curse seemed petty, even destructive, in light of what it had caused. She'd still be alive today if I only could have accepted it.

"I only found tantalizingly edited hints; entire passages of books that should have contained some reference to what I looked for were blank, in one case over a hundred pages! It was as though any knowledge of it had been unwritten, uncreated. Such was possible; there were legends of ancient spells being so devastating, so insidious, that the only way to deal with them was to remove them from human knowledge.

"That only left one place to look: the Lost Library, where every book that had never been written resided, deep in the depths of the Dreamtime. If it had been unwritten, for whatever reason, it would still be there in the potential of the human mind, and therefore would reside in the Lost Libraries.

"And that, my friends, is where we're going tomorrow, when the Gate opens." Ruben stood up and patted Wiley's shoulder. "Old friend, I'll be counting on you."

"To do what?"

"...As little as possible." Ruben laughed as Wiley directed a rude gesture his way. "Well, see you guys in the morning."


****


"This isn't going to work, is it?" Ashley asked Ruben from the full-lotus position that the sorcerer had shoehorned him into. "You aren't going to be able to teach me, are you?"

Ruben shrugged and said, "Nope, probably not," which was so far down on Ashley's list of expected responses that the martial artist was left gaping, his jaw moving up and down soundlessly.

"Wha-what have we been DOING these last two days, then?!?" Ashley rubbed the back of his head where Ruben's staff had smacked numerous times, his surprise replaced by anger. "If you thought this wasn't going to work, why have you been wasting our time?!"

"To be honest..." Ruben replied sheepishly, "I only figured it out myself about three hours ago. I just didn't want to admit it. I mean, I've got my pride, ya know?"

"So all that we did today was wasted time?"

"No." Now, a grimace spread over the wizard's face. "I can't force you to use the ability like I did the first two times. THAT'S what I've been trying to do, the last few hours - after all, the Gate is opening soon - but whatever you did when trying to rescue Lilah, it closed that door to me. If you're going to use the ability, you're going to have to trigger it yourself."

"What would you need ME for, anyway?" Ashley said disingenuously, pointing to himself. "You're the big bad magician, no? Surely you could handle anything that pops up in this place we're going to?"

"I'll be... busy, and I was hoping that you'd be able to do the fighting. But..." Ruben trailed off, letting that word hang in the air for a moment between them, and then turned away. "C'mon, let's go break camp and get ready."

"Wait..." Ashley said slowly. "If you were counting on me to do this thingie, and I can't, doesn't that mean we're pretty well boned?"

Ruben turned back. "No, I brought along an ace in the hole... but I was hoping that I wouldn't have to use her. If her reputation is true, she's liable to be upset for a good long time, should it come to that..." He jerked his head in the direction of the camp. "It's getting late, and the Gate will wait for no one."


****


"This..." Wiley asked unbelievingly, "is it?"

"Yep," Ruben replied absently, engaged in rummaging through his pouch.

The object in question, Wiley had to admit to himself, was a bit odd. The Gate of which Ruben had spoken so often of was a grayish-brown, roughly-dressed slab of stone standing perhaps a meter taller than anyone in the little group clustered near it, about two meters wide, and maybe half a meter thick. It was strange that the stone was simply standing up in the middle of this otherwise empty mountain valley with nothing else nearby other than a few stunted bushes, but other than that...

Ruben gestured. "Come over here, where you can't see the sides, if you don't believe me." The other three people exchanged glances before doing as the magician said. "Now, step back to where you CAN see the sides..."

Ashley did that first, and stepped backwards in surprise. "Whoa!"

Shrugging, Wiley did so as well, and stood there, gaping. Now, the sides of the slab extended into infinity.... but the valley behind it remained the same size. For a moment, his eyes and brain tried to knot themselves around the concept of both facts being true and equal, and then he just closed his eyes and stepped back. "Fine, that's impressive. Now what?"

"Wait just a moment." Ruben produced a piece of white chalk and wrote "Dreamtime" in uneven letters across the slab at about eye-level, then drew a twisted symbol below that.

"What's the symbol for?" Wiley asked.

"Address point. Otherwise we might end up in Kadath or the Brothers' Home or at the Lake of Hali or... someplace worse." He shuddered. "Though a visit to Celephais or the Fiddler's Green wouldn't be too bad... but I've got business to attend to." He sketched a doorknob and dropped the chalk. "Here we go."

Ruben held his hand in front of the knob, turned it, and immediately changed into a woman - something Wiley noted, because it was odd to see his friend transform without an overblown dramatic magical effect involved. She pulled her hand back, and a portion of the slab followed, revealing a blasted forest of dead, barren trees that clawed for the sky as though begging the heavens for vengeance against that which had destroyed them. Thunder rumbled near-constantly, but the flashes of lightning were few and far between, doing little to illuminate the world they were about to step into.

Without hesitating, Ruben stepped through the now-open Gate, raising her hands over her head and murmuring soft words that somehow carried and echoed audibly, but just below a level at which Wiley was able to distinguish any clear words. A light began to grow between those upraised hands, casting the area near her into sharp relief. Suddenly, it flashed, and Wiley shielded his eyes for a moment.

When he looked back, the ball between Ruben's upraised hands was still too bright to stare at directly. It cast a sharp luminescence in a circle of about 10 feet around Ruben, and then a softer light lit the scenery for perhaps five or six times that. "Come on through," Ruben said, gesturing with her head. "There's nothing, well, not much to be afraid of."


****


Reiko was not a fool.

Well, at least, she didn't like to consider herself a fool.

So why, she thought to herself glumly, prodding aside a clutching branch with her staff, am I here, if I'm so smart?

She knew why Ruben had invited her along; it didn't take a fortuneteller to figure out that. And she did NOT want to do it.... Her hands clenched the staff tighter, wishing she could break it, and break the hold it had over her life, but she couldn't. Reiko had been raised with a sense of duty that was stronger than her personal feelings. "No matter how much it stinks," she muttered to herself.

"What's that?" Ashley asked, looking at Reiko.

Just as she was about to snap out an angry reply, she paused. There was a strange sound, almost like a herd of horses stampeding in the distance, but with a strange chittering intermixed, and it was growing louder and louder...

"Stay close," Ruben stated calmly, still holding the ball over her head. "Don't try to run."

Suddenly, a giant, misshapen spider burst into the wider circle of soft light. Chitinous blades sprouting from its monstrous form clacked and ground against each other as it rushed towards them, a terrible cacophony of vile chitters and clacks screaming from its open mandibles, but it sheered away just before it hit the sharper circle of light that closely surrounded the foursome.

Wiley, who'd raised a pistol, lowered it and nodded in sudden comprehension. "Ah-ha..."

Other spiders emerged, some leaping through the trees above them, some so large they made the first seem practically titchy by comparison, and underneath them all a moving carpet that shadowed the earth they clambered and skittered over, a carpet made from uncountable hordes of living, ordinary-sized spiders, but not a one came within ten feet of Ruben and her ball of light, parting around like the ocean around a rock.

A titanic spider, so huge that each of its feet coming down shook the earth, strode completely over the foursome. One of the spiders, shoved violently off-balance by a larger compatriot, smashed into the borderline, and just as quickly bounced off, keening in agony with a noise that rose even above the stampede's hideous cacophony.

None of them noticed, however, and finally the horde passed, leaving only a single, man-sized spider behind. It chittered angrily and waved its front two legs at the four people. Ashley laughed. "Neener neener neener, you can't get in here!"

Ruben said warningly, "That's not a good-"

Ashley flinched away as the spider spat a gout of ichor towards him, but it splashed and sizzled harmlessly against that border of brighter light. "-Idea," Ruben finished, and the spider scampered around them, its chitter taking on a triumphant note for having frightened someone, at least.

"This is the where nightmares go when they aren't needed." Ruben continued. "I'm shielding us from the worst of the lot, but the minor ones can slip through the border. That's what you guys are here for, to deal with any of that ilk."

Reiko shuddered and asked reluctantly, "Er... will we see any of our own nightmares in here?"

The magician hesitated a moment before she replied, "Probably not. But the border doesn't protect us from our OWN nightmares, either... if we have the bad luck to bump across one of those, we'll have to eliminate it, fast."

What's he hiding? Before Reiko could ask the question, a screech sounded from the left side, and a small group of hunched beings with kindly, grandmotherly faces and long, bladed fingers charged.

"They're going to slip through!" Ruben shouted, and Reiko grinned.

Now THIS is more my kind of thing! Not wanting to lose the initiative, she charged forward, spinning her staff around into a striking position. No fancy magic, no heartfelt telling of the past, no creepy things I can't fight against, just clobbering time!

Noticing that Ashley was in step beside her, she nodded to him and split away just before they reached the group of harridans. With a crackle of displaced ozone, a purple beam surrounded by a rope of lightning dove into the harridans, catching two, and Reiko glanced back long enough to see that the beam had originated with Wiley's pistol. When she turned her attention to the harridans again, she saw that the two had vanished.

She swung the staff towards her chosen foe, who batted it aside, its claws grating along the polished surface. The harridan lunged forward, both hands outstretched and reaching for Reiko's face. She tumbled backwards, placing one hand to break her fall, and slammed the staff into the harridan's side. It screamed as the staff's remaining magic ate into the harridan's form, banishing it back to wherever it came from.

"Hmm," she murmured, "I'm glad that it worked." With her fight won, she turned her attention to Ashley's.

The remaining three harridans had chosen Ashley as the weakest target and attacked. He was doing quite well in proving them wrong, dancing and weaving between them with ease, only occasionally choosing to attack with carefully placed kicks that left the victims too off-balance to respond. Not wanting to leave him unsupported any longer, Reiko rushed in, jabbing her staff into a harridan's back and then whirling away as it screamed to smash another one aside, both of them vanishing moments after.

A second beam from Wiley's gun sought out the final harridan, dispelling its physical form with a subdued flash, and Ashley grinned at Reiko. "Wasn't that fun?" he asked as they strode back towards Ruben and Wiley.

"Well, it wasn't UNfun..."

Ruben smiled, relief evident in her face, after looking them up and down. "Good, you aren't hurt. Shall we continue?"


****


The art of imperfect honesty was one of the first that a magician of any creed mastered. There was no more important ability for a magician to have than being able to give your listeners a truth that was carefully shaped to guide them in the direction necessary, whether the omission be designed to protect them or harm them.

With no false modesty, Ruben knew she was damned good at it. Not as good as her grandfather, of course - few people, alive or dead, could match the way he made the truth dance to his own tune - but she could match him, once in a great while. Today was one of those rare times.

Of course, she didn't know if her delicate foundation-laying was even necessary, but Ruben didn't want to take the chance. She was at once the strongest and yet the most vulnerable of the party...

Her warning-border told of an intrusion into it, and Ruben said, "Watch left, everyone, and keep moving."

Nearly a minute of walking passed before Wiley commented, "I don't see anything, Rube."

"Watch the edges of the trees," Ashley advised. "There's something there, but it's staying mostly hidden... for now."

Wiley said slowly, "You're... right. How'd you see that?"

"A movie that always creeped me out, that's how. Urgh, Predators..." Ashley didn't explain his enigmatic statement, adding, "So, what is it going to do now?"

"I think it's an unformed nightmare," Ruben said. "As long as none of us thinks of anything that frightens us-" She clamped her jaw shut, but unfortunately the stupid, STUPID words still escaped the gates of teeth. Argh! How could I have been so foolish! Now, of course, someone WILL think of-

And sure enough, the unformed nightmare began drawing in upon itself, its transparency vanished as it turned a vile color somewhere between pink and purple, swirling downwards to a focus point somewhere just above the ground.

Ruben's eyes looked over her three companions. Which of them had done it? Which of them had conjured their own darkest fears to life?

It was something that she knew all too much about...

Reiko clasped both hands over her mouth, her staff clattering to the ground. "Bakana..." she gasped out in her native tongue, too shocked to remember English, her eyes wide with terror. "D-dame... yo..."

From the small bank of fog came a high-pitched, squealing sound that set Ruben's teeth on edge, a sickly-sweet noise that churned her stomach with revulsion. "mmrraaAWWwwWWW...."

Wiley blinked. "What the?"

Reiko screamed in abject terror, backing away from the cloud. She tripped over a root on the way and landed squarely on her rear, the scream ending in a startled squeak.

"Ashley, grab her!" Ruben snapped out. "If she runs away, we can't help her!" The martial artist gave her an odd look before placing one hand on Reiko's shoulder. Dropping her staff, Reiko reached for Ashley's arm, but not to push it away; she hugged it close as if it were a lifeline.

"I didn't mean to do it!" she wailed in despair as the amorphous cloud shrank in on itself, writhing and boiling away, to reveal -

An egg.

Ruben lifted an eyebrow skeptically. Oh, to be sure, it was a fairly large egg, and the surface of it was a mottled mixture of pink and purple that matched the fog which had created it, but other than that it didn't exactly seem the stuff of nightmares.

It cracked with a sharp sound that echoed through the seemingly abandoned expanse of the dead forest around them. Ominous green light welled from the crack as the shell split apart, revealing a dark shape inside the egg that twisted and writhed upwards, holding one amorphous limb out as the light of its dreadful birth began to fade.

"Hello, Reiko-chan."

Ruben almost fell over in shock, but at the last minute kept her feet, at her first sight of the monstrous creature that emerged.

It was only two feet tall (perhaps a bit more). Its form was a twisted mockery of humanity, with a head nearly as big as the rest of its body put together. Its large, liquid eyes took up easily half its face, and two sets of ears, one human, one feline, sprouted from the thing's wretched countenance. Small wings unfurled from the nightmare beast's back and beat at the air experimentally.

Its mouth cracked open, revealing needle-sharp canines, and it said, "I'm your destiny, Reiko-chan."

"Iyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!" Reiko screamed, and now she did try to flee, but Ashley put one arm around her waist and lifted her up. She struggled to get free, but the martial artist didn't allow her the leverage to do it effectively.

It bounded towards them, but stopped just short of the border that Ruben maintained between herself and the worst of the nightmares. The beast probed the border with a stubby finger, then smiled and stepped through.

Though she'd been expecting it to do just that, the beast's presence inside her barrier still shook Ruben's focus, threatening her grip on the spell. Her arms quivered, her eyes watered, and with a sudden rush of pain a vein inside her cheek blew from the strain. The taste of copper filled her mouth, and she coughed a gout of blood that stood out as a shocking red against the dismal backdrop of the ground.

Slowly, Ruben took control of the spell back, bending its rigid existence to allow for the monster that had broken into it. The struggle took only moments, but much occurred even in those moments that she was distracted. Wiley was lying on the ground barely within the confines of the border, as though he'd tried to step between the nightmare beast and its target, Reiko. Ashley had interposed himself as the next line of defense, still holding Reiko around the waist with one hand and presenting the other to the beast.

"Stand away!" Ruben croaked, trying to put a decisive snap of firmness in her voice. "Reiko's the only one who can defeat her own nightmare!"

Ashley, however, didn't listen. He dropped Reiko suddenly, but she stood on her legs for only a moment before they failed her, sending her backwards onto her rear once more. Ashley lunged forward, reaching with one hand for the beast as though intending to fling it far away. Quicker than lightning, the beast batted his hand away, then sent a grotesquely tiny fist smashing into the martial artist's face, slamming him with such force that he flew backwards.

A sudden quiet filled the small clearing once more as no one and nothing stood between Reiko and her worst nightmare. She's the only one who can defeat it, Ruben thought to herself, and if she doesn't... it's free to tear us all asunder.

"Fight, dammit!" Ruben gritted out from between her feet, the spell straining once more as the beast's power grew. "Own your fears, Reiko, don't let them own you!"

"But Reiko-chan," the beast murmured softly, "I do own you... from the moment you first touched the Staff, your old life was over... you aren't a true part of your family; they have powers you can never possess... now, the Staff is all you have... you are trapped now, trapped forever by your destiny."

A cruel chuckle came from between the beast's lips. "You know it's true, Reiko-chan. You feel it tugging at you, fight against it as much as you can."

The beast reached out and touched Reiko's upper arm gently. "Come with me..." She turned her face towards Ruben, tears of fear and self-loathing twisting it beyond recognition, and the magician knew that all was lost.

Well, at least I had a good life. She composed herself for death. I really wish I'd've gotten rid of the curse before dying, though...

Salvation came from an unlikely source.

A voice asked, "So what?"

Devan Wiley's rude question broke the tableaux between the beast and Reiko, and he continued. "So what if you're told you've got a destiny? You can still be yourself." He raised himself to a sitting position. "Thinking of it as a trap is wrong. Instead... think of life as a path that you travel along, with destiny just one thing that happens along the way. Does your destiny define you? Does it control you? Does it make you someone else, someone you don't want to be?

"Only if you let it." He stood up, leveling one finger at Reiko accusingly. "Destiny is in EVERYONE'S future, even if it is just a hole in the ground at the end, six foot by three. You may think of destiny as a dead end, closing down your future and locking it into something you can't control, but it isn't.

"I understand how much it hurts, to think of yourself as trapped by what others say are your future, but destiny is just one part of who you are. Admitting it isn't defeat, it's just... truth." Wiley smiled at Reiko.

"And no matter what, you are still yourself."

Reiko stared wide-eyed at Wiley for a moment, still hiccoughing from the terror-filled sobbing that had filled her life just a moment before, then... she laughed. It wasn't a pretty laugh, twisted and almost mournful, but it was a laugh nonetheless. "You're... right."

"But Reiko-chan-"

Reiko backhanded the beast, silencing it. "You don't control me!"

"NNOOOOOOOOOOOwwwwoooooooo!!!!!" The beast writhed and twisted in mortal anguish as it wailed out its death cry. Its essence poured out of its eyes and mouth in a roiling fog reminiscent of the very same cloud that had formed the beast to begin with, hiding its foul mockery of the human shape from their sight.

Ruben breathed a sigh of relief as the beast's distortion faded, removing the strain on her spell. "It's over..."

Then she whirled around at the sudden sensation of being inspected and weighed, holding up the light higher to banish more of the shadows behind them. The feel of unseen eyes faded very slowly, but not before a shiver of fright walked down her spine.

This nightmare been defeated without killing them all, but Ruben knew how lucky they had been. She'd been hoping that nothing this lethal would find them, but now that something had, she also knew that other... things... could scent their weakness and come to find them. She was all too aware of the terrifying things - of the one terrifying thing - that waited out there.

And she feared.


****


Ashley was having fun.

There were moments when the myth of martial arts being solely for improvement of the body, self-defense, and to bring peace to one's soul seemed like so much crap to him. Oh, sure, martial arts WERE for those things, no lie, but... on the most basic level, martial arts were created simply to let you beat the hell out of someone else before they beat the hell out of you.

The only way to see how good you really were wasn't a series of grades and belts, but to go out and smash your fist into someone's face while they tried to do the same. That being considered somewhat rude to do in public to random strangers where he'd been raised, Ashley had gone to as many tournaments and other contests as he could, but... it was never enough. He only felt really alive when he was fighting.

And now... and here... instead of then and there... Ashley could do as much fighting as he wanted to.

Though he'd had a dim awareness of it for some time, this weekend had finally cemented it firmly in his mind: Ashley didn't want to go back home. He liked it here. The future really WAS a better place. He had the nagging feeling that he was breaking a stereotype (wasn't a person who'd been dragged into another dimension or time supposed to want to go back?) but it wasn't a very urgent feeling.

Ashley bashed the latest nightmare aside with a dual strike from the pair of rattan sticks that Ruben had conjured for him, grinning as he gave it a kick for good measure. "Hey, how much longer 'til we get to where we're going?"

"Probably another dee-six plus one random encounters..." Wiley grumped sarcastically, slotting another charge pack into his proton pistol.

"Be quiet, Devan." An unusual note of tension was in Ruben's voice as she scanned the area, her eyes darting around almost frantically.

"Is there something wro-" Ashley's words were cut off as the light that had illuminated their journey vanished, plunging them into a darkness so primeval it raised seemingly ancient racial memories of what waited within it. A reddish tinge suffused Ashley's vision as he strained to see something, ANYTHING, in the depths of the blackness.

No scream, no shriek, no horrid cry of utter, soul-wrenching fear, could have been more filled with terror than Ruben's quiet words. "Not here. Not now."

The darkness faded into a scene that Ashley was familiar with, though it took a moment to recall that he'd just seen it yesterday.

A crushed body lay at his feet, smashed so hard into the stone that the giant hand had left a cracked print around it and so mangled that only Ashley's memory told him which sex it had been.

A female head lay where it had bounced, perhaps five feet away.

And an angry dragon reared in all its silver-crimson glory, its bright, steely paw still dripping with the woman's blood. AND NOW, YOU DIE TOO.

A low, deep, snickering laugh came from behind Ashley, and he turned around to see male Ruben standing there, staring at the ground. "Do you think I care about your posturing? Do you think I care about her?"

The wizard looked up, and Ashley recoiled. His lips were pulled back in a snarl, exposing suddenly sharp teeth. His skin glinted a golden color, shining in the reddish light. But it was his eyes...

At first, Ashley thought that his eyes had no color at all, just a plain, simple white. Then, the wizard moved, and Ashley realized that the holes where his eyes had been contained EVERY color, dancing and clashing with each other in a liquid battle that sent a shiver of nausea down Ashley's spine.

"She was just mortal." Ruben paused for dramatic effect, and laughed again, this time louder and more mockingly, an inhuman echo in his voice. "And so are you."

Blasting forth from his body came a golden shadow, ripping through the rock at his feet in a snaking shape that flashed towards the Dragon. The golden shadow wrapped around the Dragon's form, tearing chunks from the Dragon's flesh just as it had torn the rock.

The roar of pain shook the firmament, and stone rained down from the ceiling. Ashley watched as one came straight down at Ruben's head, but just as he was about to shout in warning, it disintegrated bare feet away from smashing him.

And the wizard was still laughing, his sanity stripped away to reveal raw madness underneath.

But... but... this isn't right! "No!" Ashley shouted, anger mixed with sorrow filling his voice. "It wasn't like this!!"

The stones stopped in mid-air for just a moment at the martial artist's words, the dust dancing as Ruben's laugh cut off -

But then, the stones began to fall again, and Ruben fell to his knees as the Dragon's roar continued, a shattered note in his voice now, as though the laughter had torn daggers through his throat.

"That's right!" Reiko shouted, appearing out of the air next to Ashley. "You loved her! It killed you to watch her die!"

The rocks stopped falling again, this time for longer, and now Ruben looked at the pair standing in front of him.

"Remember these?" Wiley said, appearing again and striding towards Ruben. He held out a hand, and a necklace suddenly dangled from it.

It was a simple, silver chain that nevertheless seemed more real, more alive, than anything else in the cave. The whole world seemed to swing around the chain, and Ruben's eyes watched it with a clear expression of fear... and hope? For the first time, his true eye color rose up through the pearl dance, and his teeth shrunk just a bit.

Two rings craaaacked into existence strung through the necklace, pendulously swinging the chain back and forth. They chimed off each other, and the world shook.

"I get it now, Ruben," Wiley said, in a gentle, friendly way. "And so do you. I saw these rings in the fire yesterday. You gave one to her, or she gave one to you...

"And if you hadn't've loved her, if you had just watched her sacrifice her life without caring about her, you never would have taken her ring."

The rock, the dragon, and even Ruben began to fade away, leaving the same darkness that all this had sprung from in the first place. Ruben was the last to vanish, and he whispered, tears running down his cheek, "Thank you... my friends..."

And the darkness returned.

And it was split by a crash of lightning, revealing the same clearing that they'd been in, before Ruben's light had gone out.

Wiley grumbled, "Sheesh, I just have to do EVERYTHING around here, don't I?" The clearing was illuminated by a soft glow from just above Wiley's shoulders, and Ashley blinked to see the necklace still in the mad scientist's hand.

Wiley, noticing Ashley's stare, let the necklace fall, and it vanished just after leaving his fingers. "It was just my memory, you know, but more importantly it's his." Wiley nodded at the kneeling Ruben, her face in her hands.

Ruben looked up, and Ashley, who'd been expecting a tear-streaked face to match the one that she'd had in the dream, was a bit surprised to see that half her mouth was quirked up in a smile, and her eyes were calm and placid. "Thanks, you guys," she said. "I kind of suspected that nightmare might find me."

Reiko asked, grudging respect in her voice, "So that was why you told us the story yesterday?"

Ruben stood up. "Well, yes. I mean, it wasn't a SURE thing that it would find me, but... you don't get to be as old as I am without making sure that any chance is covered."

"Ruben, you're only twenty-two years old," Wiley stated.

"Exactly," Ruben replied simply, waggling one hand back and forth.

"I could never beat that nightmare on my own, I know that too well; that's why I asked you to come along." For a moment, Ruben looked shamefaced. "I used you, I won't lie, and I'm sorry for that."

Ashley dismissed her words with a wave. "Don't worry about it! I've had lots of fun!"

"Speak for yourself," Wiley grumped again, but relented after a moment. "Oh, fine, you're the closest thing to a friend I have on this planet, and it's not like you WANTED me to come in the first place." He paused. "Though without me, you would have all been screwed."

"What?"

"Well, think about it," Wiley said, counting off on his fingers. "First of all, there was that thing with Reiko and the catboy thing; I was the only one who figured out HOW to help her beat it. Then, I was the guy who realized that if this is a dream, we can make small objects as long as they're in our memory, remembered those rings you have on your desk, put it together with the story you told last night, and saved your ass." He looked over at Ashley. "Now all I need to do is beat the snot out of YOUR worst nightmare, and I'll have an entire set."

Ashley pointed an angry finger at the mad scientist. "Hey, what about YOUR nightmare, huh? When do we get to see that!" He added, "besides, I don't think you could do that much about me being in class without pants, and everyone laughing at me."

"Give you a pair of shorts? Besides, this all comes from the way you let your subconscious control you, instead of the other way around." Devan Wiley shuddered in horror. "Humans and your filthy habits..."

"Besides," Ruben added helpfully, the smile growing a bit further, "everyone has the no-pants-in-class nightmare. It's not a big deal."

Ashley gave her a hopeful look. "You mean everyone has a classmate steal their pants using an elaborate ninjitsu technique and has to spend three hours answering questions asked by them by cruel teachers until their fathers come by with an extra pair? You're all haunted by the same terrible memory, forced to relive it almost every night?"

Nearly thirty seconds of full silence passed by after Ashley's pronunciation, as everyone avoided his eyes.

A discreet cough cut through the quiet, and an eerie voice inquired, "Perhaps we can be of some assistance in providing nightmares slightly less horrifying, but slightly more lethal?"

****

"I don't know," Reiko replied absently to the interloper's voice, "Ashley walking around without pants might not be a nightmare to SOME..."

The other members of the group shifted their gazes from Ashley to Reiko, who blushed slightly. "I'm just saying that... oh, never mind."

"Excuse me?" The voice inquired again. "I AM over here..."

The foursome looked over at the interloper, or rather, the twenty or so interlopers. They had altogether more tentacles than was wholesome, a few too many eyes, and hadn't been shorted on the fang-filled mouths either.

With an air of 'we've seen worse today,' the four travelers looked away.

"So," Ashley asked Ruben, "How much longer?"

"Actually, not too much farther." Ruben pointed upwards. "The back entrance is only about another ten minute's walk..."

"EXCUSE ME?!?!?!" The spokesmonster roared. "We do NOT want to be IGNORED!!!!"

Ruben sighed. "I was kind of hoping that you might accept that after a while... but you must be the Inner Guard."

"Yes," the spokesmonster said again, blood dripping as his tongues sliced through badly designed teeth, "and we'll have some rather sharp words to exchange with the Outer Guard over letting such a ragtag crew of vagabonds through."

"We-e-eell," Ruben said slowly, "it's not as though they had a lot of choice..." He looked over at Ashley. "Er, you wouldn't happen to feel like transforming into your super-form right now? We could really use a bit of help right now."

Ashley considered that for a moment. "No, I really don't think so. Can't you deal with them?"

"That's what the border spell was for, to keep them away. I really don't have the power to take them all in a one-on-many fight, not without staying as a woman for about 20 years." Her mouth twisted. "And I REALLY hate that idea."

"Well, what else should we do?" Reiko said, and saw Ruben staring with a very clear message in her eye. She waved one hand. "Oooohh no, you CAN'T mean that. I won't do it. I can't. I WON'T. I don't know how you found out about it, but you can't make me do it!"

Ruben just kept staring, and behind her the spokesmonster took one step into the clearing.

"Oh, shit." Reiko Tereshkova twirled her staff, springing it out to the full length, plunged it nearly a foot into the ground, and shouted, "BEAUTIFUL LOVE FOR JUSTICE MAGICAL TRANSFORMATION!!"

The staff wrenched out of the earth in a fountain of opalescent light that formed into ribbons around Reiko's body, swirling around her in a way that almost, but not quite, hid the fact that all her clothes had vanished. One of the monsters behind the spokesmonster laughed as it reached for Reiko with a tentacle'd hand. "Damn fool monsters, always waiting until AFTER the sequence is done to attack..."

"NO YOU FOOL!" the spokesmonster roared.

But it was too late for the monster who'd already touched one of the ribbons. Lightning crackled up from the tips of the tentacles up the monster's arm to the thing's three heads, and it convulsed as it was thrown backwards, dissipating into foul mist.

Reiko landed on her feet when the transformation stopped, the only sound gentle clapping as her three companions gave their appreciation of the show. She groaned out loud as she looked down at the stylized seifuku/breastplate combination that barely managed to cover her body, much less protect it. "I can't believe I just did that. AGAIN. Didn't I learn my lesson the last time..?"

Believe it, the staff in her hands, now bedecked in brightly-colored ribbons, sent telepathically, its voice the long-familiar Sean Connery-doing-a-Medieval-lord-accent. Now, thou must say it!

"But I HATE saying THAT..."

THOU'RT the one who didst pull me forth from that stone... The staff gave a sniffling sound. After all that I've done for thee... giving thou the power to fight alongside thee brothers and sisters... letting thee uphold thine family name with honor... thou ungrateful child, the least thee couldst do is... the staff broke into telepathic tears, and the voice of Phait picked up. C'mon, thee KNOWST thou wanna...

Reiko slouched defiantly for a moment, then sighed and straightened up, pointing her staff with one hand at the three nightmares still standing. "I am the - bleccch - Magical Shining Knight of Love (and is there POSSIBLY anything dorkier?) and in the name of my oath to protect the world from those who would tamper with its true course, I shall tear the spleens from your still-living bodies and dance upon your corpses!"

Hey!!! Both voices said at once.

"Awh, c'mon, that's the only part of the damn thing that I get to make up..."

Creating threats like that 'tisn't part of the Shining Magical Knight of Love's curriculum... where didst thou learn it?

"Guess." She took a step towards the nightmare beasts, who all took a step back themselves, realizing that all the terrors they could inflict, all the night-visions of a million horrified humans they'd created, couldn't quite stack up to the crazed grin on this magical girl's face...

Her eye twitched. Once.

That was all it took.

"RUN!!!!!"

Reiko turned away from the fleeing monsters and walked up to Ruben, clenching a fistful of shirt in her free hand. "Now, you'd BETTER be able to reverse this damn transformation, or else I'm going to..."

Wiley lifted an eyebrow. "Now, I don't know much about them, but I thought that magical girls were supposed to be able to de-transform at will?"

She scowled as she shook the staff almost as violently as she was shaking Ruben. "Yes, well, THIS DAMN THING didn't TELL me it was three centuries past the warrantee..." Reiko's face crinkled up, and tears started leaking from her eyes. "If you don't help me, Ruben, I'm... I'm... I'M GONNA BE STUCK LIKE THIS UNTIL..."

"arghle..." Ruben's limp body slumped out of the magical girl's fist and hit the ground as she put her face in both hands, sobbing wildly.

"Until... I do something..." Reiko trailed off.

"Yes?" Ashley asked, patting her on the back sympathetically.

"Unless I do something... un-magical girlish..."

"Like what?" Wiley and Ashley exchanged glances and started quoting ideas at each other. "Maybe shoplift?" "Don't fawn over the mysterious stranger who saves you at every turn?" "Beat up kids for their lunch money?" "Let the demon beasts overwhelm the earth?" "Set fire to a nunnery?" "Don't give silly names to all of your attacks?" "Be in a softcore porno?"

It was only at the last suggestion that Reiko blushed. How could he possibly have gue- She coughed. "Er, yes, something like those."

Ruben opened her eyes wide in surprise, staring up at Reiko. "I... wasn't expecting that..."

Reiko tried to kick the prone wizard, but all her foot met was a puff of smoke. Ruben, who was leaning against a nearby tree, was smiling confidently. "I wasn't making a joke about payment, Reiko Tereshkova.

"As it happens, I've devoted some number of years to the study of breaking transformation curses. It seems that what you're suffering from is much the same problem: you can transform, but have no control over transforming back, thus making it a curse instead of a benefit."

Ruben rubbed her chin thoughtfully, staring up at the sky. "Now, I could never break my own curse, but I'm sure that after some time I could work out how to break YOURS."

Really? Could it be? A spreading sense of hope suffused her. The humiliation... the pain... could I finally live up to my family's name?

Ashley interjected, "Ruben, didn't you tell me you were sure about teaching me to use this stupid power? And you couldn't?"

Ruben gave him a Look. It wasn't a kind Look, a nice Look, or a polite Look. It wasn't even a mean Look, or an angry Look. It was the sort of Look that maiden aunts give to you when you're six years old, get dragged by your mother to her insanely clean house, and then knock over her shelves filled with delicate figurines.

It was a not a pleasant Look.

And Ruben said, "I am sure. I'm always sure. It's just going to take me a while longer to figure out how." Very, very slowly, like ice left in the sun, the Look faded, and Ruben directed a much friendlier, more ordinary look at Reiko. "I know for a fact that I can create a solution to your problem."

The doubt had returned to Reiko's heart, however, and she stated dubiously, "Some of the strongest magicians in Japan were relatives of mine, and they said they didn't have a clue how to do this."

Ruben jerked a thumb confidently towards her chest. "You protect us until we start the return trip, and I'll fix the problem. There's nothing to worry about."

"How much longer?"

"Actually," Ruben considered, "we should be there... right now."

Lightning flashed in time with the thunder, revealing a sheer cliff face that towered above them out of their vision. Set deep into the rock was a plain wooden doorway labeled, "Late Returns."

"When did that get there?"

The wizard looked a bit smug. "Well, I decided to speed things up a bit. Besides, space is a little flexible around here..."

Wiley stomped the ground, shaking it with his anger, and shook a clenched fist at Ruben. "WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU DO THAT SOONER?!?!"

Ruben winced at the roar. "Hey, now, it's only a LITTLE flexible. Besides," she held one hand up open-palmed, put the other right next to it, then clapped them together, "it's more stylish to change our position just enough to make the goal," this time she just held them apart and moved them alongside each other a small amount, "than it is to move us a teensy bit farther along the path."
Wiley nodded wisely, lowering his fist slowly. "Well, I can understand the style of it. Style's the most important thing there is."

With that, Ruben appeared next to the door, opening it with a grand flourish. "After you, of course, after you..."

They all walked in through the door, one at a time. From the darkness and gloom within that door, Reiko was expecting to have to walk through a long, long length of damp cave to get to wherever they were going, probably fighting off another dozen nightmares, maybe even getting lost along the way.

What she wasn't expecting was the gloom to be like a curtain, and on the inside of it a well-lit library that seemed to defy the laws of physics, with bookshelves rising so high that they twisted and bent without ever letting the books fall from them. It was impossible to tell if there was a ceiling, and Reiko's eyes rebelled at the attempt.

"Welcome," Ruben said from behind them, "To the Lost Libraries of the Dreamland, where every book that was never written exists."


****

Boy, Ruben thought to herself, that line IS fun to say!

She waited a few moments for someone to ask the obvious question, but no one did. After waiting for a bit, Ruben gave up waiting and added, a bit impatiently, "Books that were never written, you ask?"

"But we didn't-"

Ruben trampled roughshod over Ashley. "Glad you did!" She lifted one finger in the air in Lecture Mode. "You see-"

"Returns? New members? Need help finding the newest edition of Bestsellers Not Written But Thought About In Subways?"

Ruben slowly lowered the finger and turned to regard the tall, slender... being... in pince-nez glasses who'd interrupted her just as neatly as she'd interrupted Ashley. "Er.... yes. Yes, I have a return." She shuffled in her bag for a moment, then pulled out a small book, handing it to the being, who examined the title after shifting his... its glasses.

Ruben sighed and glanced sidelong at Ashley. Here it comes... he's going to find out that I could have sent him home at any time...

"Ah, Basic and Advanced Time Traveling for the Magus: Using Ages Past for Fun And Profit. Yes, well..." the glasses glinted ominously. "This book is several second-centuries late. I presume you are prepared to pay the late fees?"

"I have 'balance of soul deferred until death' on my library membership as the preferred payment plan."

The being snapped a finger, and a card appeared within it. "This is so. Very well, then, you may leave." He... it... turned away, and vanished within two steps in the shadows of the Library.

Ruben closed her eyes and waited for the shouting to begin.

It didn't take long.

Wiley roared, "THIS WHOLE THING was just to return a LIBRARY BOOK!?!?!"

Reiko screamed, "I'm stuck as the SHINING MAGICAL KNIGHT OF JUSTICE FOR THIS?!?!"

Ruben backed away slowly from the menacing advance of Wiley and Reiko, holding her hands out in front defensively. "C'mon, you guys... it isn't as if the Lost Library has drop boxes on every street corner..."


****

Ruben limped her way painfully over to the edge of the forest. Wiley sighed and shook his head as he watched, and Ashley punched him lightly in the arm. "You probably should have gone easier on Ruben." He didn't reply.

The moment that Ruben put one foot into the forest, a broad pathway appeared. She half-turned and said, apologetically, "The defense is more intent on keeping you out than keeping you in. If we follow this, we'll be back to our home dimension in no time."

She started along it. Reiko, looking almost impossibly miserable in her too-short sailor skirt and beribboned outfit, followed close behind. Ashley and Wiley walked alongside, and curiosity prompted Wiley to ask, "So, tell me, why aren't you angry, too? With that book, he probably could have sent you back any time you wanted."

Ashley looked up at the cloudy sky, and for just one moment, the clouds broke, the sun shining down on the nightmare forest and turning it into a fairieland. "I realized that... here is where I belong, no matter where I came from." He grinned at Wiley. "That's an important thing to know, ya know?"

He dashed up to walk beside Ruben. "Hey."

"Hey." Ruben let that hang between them for a moment, then said almost tentatively, "Are you mad that I didn't send you back when you first got here?"

"Naw. Maybe I would have been a month ago, but..." Ashley held up a slim volume that had a heavily embossed cover. "While they were beating on you, I remembered what you said about that Library having every book ever written, and..."

Ruben read the title aloud. "'Dynamically Using Your Inner Dynamic Super Powers In A Safe And Caring Dynamic Fashion by C. Kent, S. Hawking, Son G., M. Curie, and W. Churchill, ed. by Dr. Banning?'"

"Yep." Ashley flashed a grin.

"Hey, now you're starting to think like a wizard!" Ruben said, looking a bit impressed. "Sure you don't want to redeclare your major from Martial Arts Master to Overpowered Wizardry?"

"Naw..."


AUTHOR'S NOTES

You know, when I first wrote this almost 5 years ago, it was well over half Ranma 1/2 fanfic. In point of fact, I wrote a full-on Ranma 1/2 fanfic called Eight Months In Nerima that took place during the time he went back in time, and... well...

Maybe I'll pick it up again, someday.

*ahem* On to things that need explaining. Discerning fans of Ranma, Neil Gaiman, AND HP Lovecraft will note some... borrowed ideas, but since Gaiman borrowed many of those ideas hisself, and I'm only using the Dreamlands as a backdrop rather than as a significant storyline, I don't feel any particular amount of shame in bumming them as a quick adventure.

Why was Reiko so frightened? Well, Magical Animal Mascot + Magical Girl = Destiny, and boy howdy she doesn't like that idea. Why? Well, perhaps we'll explore the deeper reasons behind that another story...

Anyway, the next chapter moves back to the humorous roots, as I have notes for the next TEN episodes from a long, long time ago... and man, some of these are killer. Uwahaha.


Aaron Bergman