"Players" by Maureen S. O'Brien

Disclaimers: The X-Files belongs to Chris Carter and Ten Thirteen
Productions. Dungeons and Dragons belongs to TSR and Wizards of
the Coast; the cartoon was created by Marvel Animation. "The Mary
Ellen Carter" is by Stan Rogers. The Knights of the Dinner Table
belong to Jolly R. Blackburn and Kenzer and Co. (It's a great comic
about gamers. Hoody hoo!)


Part One: Rolling Your Characters

"Natural 20! Papa needs a brand new Sword of Wounding!"
--- Ringo Langly, "Unusual Suspects", The X-Files.

An amusement park closed for the winter is bleaker than any 
graveyard, Agent Scully thought. The refreshment stands and the 
winding lines by the rollercoasters were empty, lonely, dead.
No problem finding a parking spot or the Taurus. Only spring would 
bring this place back to life.

Sometimes she doubted she would live to see it.

Mulder noticed her shiver. "That wind really has a bite," he 
commented. "Time to bite back. Let's run!"

"Run where?"

"Anywhere they wouldn't let us go if we weren't on a case. Where we'd 
want to go, if we were kids."

"Method in your madness?" She spotted the top of something...
intriguing. "Over there."

Mulder turned. "Hey! The Dungeons and Dragons ride! Let's go!" 

He started loping toward it. Scully refused to fall behind. And soon, 
they had come to the famous mountain facade. Mulder jumped over the 
track and onto the maintenance walk alongside. Scully followed, 
fearing she panted too hard for such a short run. He waited for her, 
worrying.

She felt his eyes on her and looked up. "What?" she asked, annoyed.

"I just wanted to make sure you were taller than that halfling. Can't 
let you on the ride otherwise."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure you're over 18?" She flicked her flashlight 
on and walked toward the ride entrance.

"The Gunmen forged me a birth certificate so I could join the FBI."

"I believe it."

"I've waited five years to hear that! Now we work on 'admitting 
Mulder's right'."

"Not to mention 'doing Scully's will' and 'not ditching her'.

The agents bantered as they walked the tracks, oddly relaxed. Here, 
in this strange place outside the world, they could forget about the 
cancer and the Consortium and put their minds to the task at hand.

Then they heard a moan up ahead.

Mulder and Scully drew their guns and raced up the path. They turned 
a bend and saw a vortex hanging in mid-air. Light poured out like a 
strobe, if a strobe also swirled, emitted different colored flashes,
rapidly changed temperature, and howled like the damned.

Mulder had to shout over the noise. "It's some kind of space-time 
anomaly!"

"It's part of the ride, Mulder! A special effect! We've got to turn 
it off!"

Mulder approached the vortex and gingerly inserted his flashlight into 
the swirl, then pulled it back and showed it to Scully. All but the 
handle had come off; it looked as if something had eaten it.

"Some f/x, huh? Animatronics to die for!"

Then the vortex expanded, and he was gone too.

"Mulder!"

She wanted to rush forward, but the vortex was still growing.  It 
pulled her. "Gravity sink," she thought, and grabbed onto the railing 
by the side of the track.

To no avail. The vortex was still growing. She kept her eyes open. 
She did not fear death, and she owed it to...someone...to observe 
this phenomena to the end.

Then she was gone.

The vortex stopped expanding as abruptly as if someone had yanked on 
its cosmic leash. It began to shrink in upon itself, dwindling and 
dimming, till only a point of light remained, which winked out. Only 
the remnants of a flashlight were left to show where two FBI agents 
had been. Not even the Consortium knew where they had been taken.


Scully landed on her feet. Somehow, she'd managed to hang onto her 
gun through it all. Its weight was a comfort. 

"Greetings, madam. We have been waiting for you."

She whirled in place. The voice belonged to a man who was definitely 
too short to take the ride. He had a cleanshaven, ageless face and 
long white hair that sprung from an almost bald head. He wore a red 
robe and smiled at her beatifically.

"Who's we?" she answered warily.

He gestured grandly behind him, and Scully saw Mulder being helped up 
by a kid in green robes with brown hair. Five others, wearing clothes 
just as outre, were staring at her. Professional stares.

"Behold your companion who was and your companions who are to be!" the
little man said, still smiling. "Ranger. Thief. Barbarian. Wizard. 
Cavalier...and Acrobat. 

"Bard and Paladin, take your place among them. And welcome to the 
Realm of dungeons and dragons!"



Part Two: Read the Rulebook

Power swirled around Scully. If lightning could be taught to dance, 
disciplined and joyous, it would have felt like this. She breathed in 
the ozone it left in its wake.

The power touched her. And suddenly, her navy trenchcoat turned into 
a dark blue tabard, and her tan suit to shining gold-colored mail. 
Underneath,  she could feel her blouse becoming an undertunic and her 
sensible shoes, high soft boots.

Her cross necklace gleamed bright about her throat -- it had grown 
larger and longer, while her faithful Smith & Wesson and holster had 
turned into a dark sword and scabbard. She tested the sword's edge 
with a bit of her hair. It was as sharp as the truth.

Scully turned to Mulder. The last remnants of the power still swirled 
around him. But his trench had become a dark cloak and his suit a 
well-tailored black tunic and breeches, each with silver trim. The 
power fled, leaving him holding a lute. 

The red-robed man looked on in amusement as Scully turned her 
appalled gaze back to herself.

"I don't believe this. A paladin! Who knows how many character 
classes, and I get stuck as the goody-goody!" She sheathed her sword 
with a disgusted hiss. "At least I'm not a cleric."

"Paladins can be fun, too," Mulder argued. "Didn't you read Moon's 
Paksenarrion series?" Then he stopped short. "You're a gamer?"

The green-robed kid interrupted. "You're adults, and you're both 
gamers?"

Scully rolled her eyes, only glad that neither question had included 
the word 'woman'. "You know I was a physics major, Mulder. Think 
about it." She turned to the kid. "And plenty of adults are gamers."

"Where do you live that there's plenty of gamers?"

"Washington DC." 

"Oh."

"Scully." Mulder's voice was low. "These are the first kids to 
disappear. The ones who never came back."

Scully concentrated, trying to call back the faces that Mulder, with 
his eidetic memory, recalled so easily. "You're right. They're a 
little older, but...."

"The ones who never came back?" The kid with the red cloak and 
shield -- Eric was his name, she thought -- sounded torn between 
outrage and disbelief. "I don't like the sound of that. Say it
ain't so, DM!"

Mulder jumped in, quick to reveal a truth that Authority seemed to 
have hidden. "Ten years ago, six children -- you six -- were last 
seen at a certain amusement park. They were never found, despite 
intensive searches of the grounds and surrounding area. Other children 
disappeared briefly at about the same time, but returned afterwards 
with stories of strange dreams and the like. The FBI was called in 
when a ransom note -- which later proved to be a hoax -- was sent to 
your father, Eric. The case remained unsolved. However, the strange 
dreams and some unusual atmospheric phenomena, as well as a sighting 
of some sort of batrachian humanoid in a pond at the park, routed the 
case to the X-Files."

Eric latched on to one thing. "Batrachian? What the heck does that 
mean? It sounds like a disease."

"It means froglike," Scully explained.

One girl -- what's her name? Right. Diana -- was giggling. "Looks 
like somebody saw you as a bogbeast, Eric!"

Scully's fellow redhead, Sheila, jumped in. "I hope they took 
pictures!"

Eric wasn't paying attention. "Ten years? It's been ten yea...."

"What's the X-Files?" The blond kid with the bow -- Hank, Scully 
reminded herself -- cut through the chatter.

"A very small squad in the FBI," Scully explained. "Agent Mulder 
and I...." She stopped. "I'm Agent Dana Scully. You can call me Dana.
Anyway, we are currently its only personnel. We investigate unsolved 
cases with apparently paranormal involvement. Mulder's a psychologist, 
by the way, and I'm a pathologist."

The youngest kid, Bobby, looked up at this. "What's a pathologist?"

The greenrobed kid -- Preston, nicknamed Presto -- leaned over. 
"Remember those Quincy reruns? That's what."

"Neat! Do you get to cut up people? Do you see a lot of gross stuff?" 

Sheila looked embarrassed. "Bobby...."

"Occasionally." Scully had to smile at Bobby's enthusiasm. "If you 
hang around Mulder, you get to see lots of 'gross stuff.' Sewers, 
killer fungi, two or three _supposedly_ alien corpses, the contents 
of his refrigerator...."

Mulder bore this with apparent patience. "She's the skeptic and I'm 
the believer," Mulder said. He turned to take in her paladin outfit. 
"Usually."

Hank cut in again. "And we never got home?" His face turned stern. 
"Dungeonmaster, I think it's time you leveled with us. Are we _ever_ 
getting home?"

The kids turned to look at the little red-robed man. He faced Hank's 
gaze calmly. "You will go home," he promised. "The agents come from 
a time when you have not yet returned. But time is like a stream," 
he said quietly, walking over towards a small creek that ran through 
the meadow. He picked up a rock. "Throw in a rock upstream," he said, 
doing so, "and the ripples will run down." 

The rock plopped into the water, and a tiny wave from its fall 
lapped onto a sandbar. A bird who'd been sitting there flew up, 
squawking. A rabbit with a jewel in its brow startled off the bank
and disappeared into thin air. A diving falcon failed to catch the 
rabbit in its talons, and veered off toward the meadow behind them. 

Scully turned, and saw the falcon climb into the air -- almost in 
the face of a dozing white unicorn filly with an orange mane. The 
surprised unicorn bleated "Meh!" and jumped to her feet.

Leaving two orcs, who had snuck up behind her, with empty arms.

Bobby yelled desperately, "Uni!" and smashed his club on the ground. 
Instantly, it glowed. He smashed it again, and a small ravine opened 
up between the little unicorn and her porcine pursuers.

Hank pantomimed drawing his unstrung bow. Suddenly he held an arrow 
of light nocked on a golden string. He released it, and it sped 
between the orcs. "Leave the unicorn alone!" he commanded.

The orcs looked at each other. Then they ran away.

Uni ran up to Bobby, who hugged her desperately. "You gotta be more 
careful, girl!"

Dungeonmaster smiled as he turned back to the eight. "When you Young 
Ones return, you will return to the time you left. The ripple 
created will be large for your friends and family, but small by the 
time it reaches the Bard and the Paladin."

"Will we remember all this? When will Scully and I return?" Mulder 
asked, clearly not sure what he was hoping to hear. "Could we come 
back to, say, 1973?"

"Yes, you will remember your deeds here. What use otherwise? But you 
two will also return to your own time." The Dungeonmaster was 
definite. "Your sister's disappearance, Bard, was a very large rock 
indeed. Without it, your enemies would have no true opposition, and 
you and the Paladin would never have met. The consequences to that 
would splash across the stars."

Mulder looked stunned. Scully knew she was. But if she'd learned 
anything as a gamer, it was to keep asking questions while answers 
were forthcoming.

"Let me be blunt, sir. If our presence is crucial *there*, why are we
here? This party's been sufficient to your needs until now. Suddenly 
you summon two new party members, one of whom is a doctor, and whose 
character class' skills include healing powers? That leads me to 
believe the next adventure will be more dangerous."

The party went silent. Except for Eric. "More dangerous?" he 
demanded. "Weren't things dangerous enough?"

Dungeonmaster sighed. "Paladin, your reasoning is impeccable. You do 
indeed travel into great danger -- all the greater, perhaps, since 
the magical weapons you and the Young Ones carry will cease to aid 
you, if you use them to kill."

Mulder jumped back into the discussion. "While I am no more eager 
to kill than the next man -- or teenager -- I don't feel 
particularly sanguine about our chances if we have no capability to
cause fatalities and our enemies do."

"Death is not always the best way to rid yourself of enemies, Bard. 
Your lute will teach you that. And should your enemies harm you, 
the Paladin's sword can heal the damage they have done.

"But be wary. For you two will both face your greatest fears and 
your greatest joys before you can return home."

Dungeonmaster stepped over to Bobby and Uni. Uni gave the 
Dungeonmaster a dirty look. The DM gave her an apologetic look and 
presented her with a carrot that somehow was suddenly in his hand. 

"You all have a great journey before you. But beyond the Forest of 
Nightwinds, in the land of the Flaming Plain, the Mirror of Ages 
shows the road to all lands. Venger wants the Mirror for his use. 
But those who control it are far more dangerous than Venger. Be wary 
of both."

"But who are they?" Mulder asked desperately. "What does the Mirror 
of Ages do? What does my lute do, for that matter?" Mulder looked
down at the strange stringed instrument and brandished it at 
Dungeonmaster.

Or he would have, if the little man hadn't vanished while Mulder's 
eyes were on the lute.

"What kind of fortune cookie briefing was that?" Mulder muttered, 
disgusted. 

"That's old DM for ya," Eric declared cheerfully. "We'll find out 
what it all means, but only when it's time."

"And that's only at the last second," Presto chimed in. 

"That's better than most of our cases," Scully said dryly. "Usually, 
we don't find out what's going on at all."

"We'd better get going," Hank said. "We've got a long trip ahead of 
us, and we need to get out of here before those orcs bring Venger 
down on us."

Bobby started calling "Uni! Come on, girl!" Uni finished her carrot, 
meh'd, and trotted back daintily to Bobby's side.

Mulder started to mumble something. 

Scully gave him a look. "No unicorn jokes around kids, Mulder."

"When I was their age, I would have made jokes about it. Didn't you, 
Scully?"

"Well, yes. But now we're supposed to be setting a good example."

"I'm part of the Military-Industrial Entertainment Complex now," he 
argued, lifting his lute. "I have to corrupt young minds. It's in 
my contract."

"Do you even know how to play that thing? Or was that part in the
small print?"

"What's the order of march?" Diana asked up ahead.

"Same as always," said Hank. "Dana, Mulder? Why don't you walk in 
the middle? Tonight we'll start practicing how to use your magic 
weapons to our best advantage, but for now we just need to get out 
of here."

The two agents shrugged and did so. It was strange to be protected 
by kids instead of the other way around. But they were the newbies
here, and the kids the experienced ones.

The group walked off at a brisk pace. Mulder, towering above his 
companions, started trying to tune his new toy and found out it was 
in tune already. Now that's magic! 

He tried a few guitar chords. 

The party soon learned how long it had been since Mulder had touched 
a guitar. Groaning at the noises he made, they passed into the 
distance.

And behind a tree, a creature separated from the shadow of its 
branches. "The Young Ones have two new allies from their world," 
mused Shadowdemon. "Interesting. Should I tell my master now, or 
let him wait?"

What did he owe his master, anyway? 

Shadowdemon only served Venger because he was bound by spells. But 
the wording of those spells allowed Shadowdemon a certain amount of 
leeway in how he obeyed. As long as Venger didn't know that, he 
could turn events to his own liking.

Shadowdemon smiled. "I think I will follow the Young Ones for a 
while. After all, I would not want to give Venger an incomplete 
report."
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Part Three -- Weapons Proficiency

"There's no game here." -- Langly, "Unusual Suspects", The X-Files.


"Personally, I'd like to have a talk with Dungeonmaster over his
choice of accessories for our friendly neighborhood Feds. If I were
in charge...."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "You were, Eric."

"And *you* didn't even bring us a lousy T-shirt," Diana teased.

"Fine. Mock me if you want; I'm big enough to take it. But we have
two experienced professionals join our group, people who've been
trained to face the kind of psychos who get their pictures on the
post office wall. And what do they get? A magic ukulele and a
knife. Me, I was hoping for distance weapons, or something with 
some real power!"

"I dunno, guys," Sheila said thoughtfully. "Dungeonmaster's never
given us anything we didn't end up needing. And most of our weapons 
can do things we didn't know about at first."

"Well, these better. Because so far as I can tell...."



"I know what the lute does. It does nothing."

Presto sighed. "It has to do something, Agent Mulder."

"Don't call me by my title. Why? Why does it have to?"

"Because it's a magic weapon, Mr. Mulder."

"So it's defective! And don't call me Mister. It makes me look
around for my father. Since he's dead that's somewhat disconcerting.
Just call me Mulder."

Presto sighed again, not sure whether the FBI agent was joking. 
"Fine. Mulder. Just because your lute hasn't done anything magical 
*yet* doesn't mean it never will. It just means it doesn't make 
fire, or bring rain, or make a magic shield, or play by itself, 
or...."

"I know the catalog." Mulder sighed. "So far, the only magical
thing this lute's done is stay in tune longer than any guitar
I've ever had. Though I have to admit, an instrument that sounds 
this good doesn't need magic." One hand roamed the frets while
the other strummed. That hand was killing him, but the chords he'd
drilled into it so long ago were coming back.

"Catalog? Hmmm.... That's it! I'll ask my hat to give us a book on 
what magic your lute's got!"

"Can you do that?"

Presto's excitement started to fade. "Um. Sometimes. If I get the
twiddle right. Or if I'm lucky."

"If you want to find out the truth, you have to go down some pretty
improbable paths. Try it. If you fail, we're not any worse off than
before."

"That's what you think," Presto said darkly. "But okay. I'll try."
He took off his hat, gulped nervously, and began to make passes
over it. 

"Hey, magic hat, 
This world is a zoo.
So give me a book
On what this lute can do!"

Mulder sighed. T.S. Eliot this Presto was not.

Presto held his breath, reached in the hat and drew out -- a book. 
"It worked! Hey, it really worked!" 

Presto flipped the book open excitedly and started to read. Or tried 
to. "Oh, no. There's nothing in here but sheet music."

Mulder walked over, took the book, and opened it wide. He looked
puzzled for a moment, then shook his head, amused. "It's all things 
this lute can do. Wanna hear 'Louie Louie'?"



"Maybe it doesn't do anything magical unless there's danger," Hank 
said calmly, looking back and down at her. While coming back from 
weapons practice, he'd seen a buck and brought it down -- with a 
normal arrow from a spare normal bow. That meant fresh meat for 
dinner instead of iron rations.

Scully looked at the buck and felt her old ambivalence toward 
hunting. On the one hand, she had sworn back when she killed a snake 
as a kid that she would never take an innocent life. On the other 
hand, she had never had any problem with cooking meat, cleaning 
fish, or making the game her dad and brothers brought home disappear 
down her throat. Or blowing some bad guy away to defend Mulder or 
herself, if need be.

"Combat is not when I want to be practicing," Scully said grimly. "At 
least this sword's got a nice sharp edge...almost as good as my 
breadknife back at work." The pole was digging into her shoulder. 
Thank goodness they were back at camp.

"Why does an FBI agent need a breadknife at work?" he asked, curious. 
He made a mental note: remember to get out some bread for sopping up 
the venison juice.

"If this is a good place to put the deer, I'll show you."

"Good enough. Preparing game's a messy job, and Uni doesn't like the 
smell. So we usually do it out on the edge of camp."

"Fine." Scully didn't even bother to unbind the deer's legs from the 
pole. "Breadknife is the pathology slang for a 12 to 18 inch 
surgical knife we use for autopsies. Very sharp. Some people get very 
attached to their breadknives: carry them with them at all times, 
never let anyone else use or touch them. One of my instructors was 
buried with his breadknife, in fact." 

"Do I want to know what you use it for?"

She looked at the deer. It really ought to be a scalpel for this 
step, or at least a hunting knife. "Slicing organs, mostly. Like 
slicing bread. Hence the name." Still, the sword was sharp enough. 
"But it has other uses. The primary virtue of a breadknife is that
it produces nice clean cuts." She bent to her work. With one long 
skillful slice, she split the deer all the way down its middle. Then
she began to gut the deer.

Hank looked down at her, as impressed by her matter-of-factness as 
by her skills. "I don't think you need any training with that blade."



"Wow, Dana! That was the best venison ever!" Presto leaned back and
rubbed his stomach. "I'd ask for thirds, but I'm stuffed."

Dana smiled at the compliment. Presto needed to put some meat on
that gangly frame -- no pun intended. "Thank my mother. It's her 
recipe."

Mulder looked up. "So where in DC does she get those pink things?"

"So I made a few substitutions, G-Man. Are you suggesting that my
cooking had something lacking?"

"Would I have had fourths if there were?"

"There they go again," Diana whispered to Sheila. "Am I imagining
things, or do our two FBI agents...."

"Like each other?" Sheila blushed a little. "I don't think it's 
your imagination. I mean, look at the way they look at each other
all the time, and the way Mulder brightened up as soon as he saw
Dana come into camp...." She sighed a little dreamily.

"Sorta like you and Hank?" Diana teased.

"We do not!"

"Oh yes you do. It's really getting obvious. Especially with Hank."

Sheila's face changed in a second. "Do you really think so?"

"I really do." Diana sighed a little as she watched Sheila smile a
little smile. "I wonder if I'll ever meet someone like that. I mean,
someone who knows I'm a girl, but isn't intimidated by me being smart 
and liking a fight."

"Well, they come from the future. Maybe in ten years or so, all the
guys back home will have evolved into Mulders."

Sheila and Diana considered the notion. Then they looked at each
other and simultaneously said, "Naaah!"

"You know, though," Sheila said seriously, "we've been pretty lucky
about that. I mean, Eric and Presto and Hank don't treat us like
we're some kind of frail flowers."

"They'd better not," Diana said darkly. "But you're right. And 
Bobby's knows better -- probably thanks to his big sister!"

"Dungeonmaster sure doesn't treat us any different. But other people
in the Realm seem to be as mixed up about that stuff as people back
home." She paused, then spoke against her will. "Speaking of which, do
you think we might really get home this time?"

"I don't know if I even want to think about it!" Diana answered. 
"We've gotten *this* close so many times...but we've never made it. 
Not to stay."

"Yeah, but we never had new people along before."

"What about the Lost Children, Sheila? And the pilot? And...."

"I know, I know. But what if?"

"I don't know."

Mulder strummed a chord, and they looked up. "Since Scully took care 
of the cooking tonight, I thought I'd sing for my supper," he 
explained to the girls' startled gaze. "You can keep talking. Think 
of me as Muzak."

"Are you kidding?" Eric demanded. "People pay good money to hear a 
Bard. It's not like we can flip a switch and hear music any time we 
want."

"He's right," said Presto. "Believe me, I've tried."

Mulder shrugged, said "It's your ears," and continued to strum. What 
to play, what to play.... A warm feeling spread up his fingers.

And then he knew. Most of the songs he knew were classic rock. This 
was a song Scully's sister Melissa had liked, and played in the 
hospital once while Scully was in a coma. With his eidetic memory, 
he had learned the words instantly and often replayed the song in 
his head.  He checked the chords in the music book Presto'd produced 
from his hat, told them, "This is by a guy named Stan Rogers about
something that really happened," and began.

   "It started last October, in a pouring driving rain.
    The skipper, he'd been drinkin' and the mate, he felt no pain."

The kids looked at each other, not knowing what to think of these
words from their old world. Scully recognized the song as her dead
sister's, and her face betrayed old grief. Mulder continued 
stubbornly. This was the right song. They'd see.

   "Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt a mortal blow
    And the _Mary Ellen Carter_ settled low.
    There was just us five aboard her when she fin'lly went awash.
    We worked like hell to save her and didn't count the cost.
    And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
    That the _Mary Ellen Carter_ would rise again."

He sang them how the owners wrote her off. He sang them a stubborn 
scheme to raise the old ship from the bottom of the ocean. And then 
he sang the chorus.

   "Rise again
    Rise again!
    That her name not be lost from the knowledge of men."

"Sam," Scully thought, and suddenly realized why Mulder liked 
Melissa's favorite folksong. His own sister Samantha, missing since 
1973, had been written off by everyone but him.

   "So the ones who love her best, 
    Who were with her till the end,
    Will make the _Mary Ellen Carter_ rise again."

Mulder strummed a second and caught his breath. The kids were really
getting into the song. Good.

 "All spring now we've been with her on a barge lent by some friends.
  3 dives a day in a hardhat suit -- twice I got the bends...."

He told them the rest: how the ship was fixed underwater, cables
attached, and the ship raised from her watery grave, valuable again. 
And when he sang the chorus again, the kids sang along and Scully
said the words quietly. Her eyes looked wet. Probably remembering 
her sister, thought Mulder.

 "For we couldn't leave her there, you see, to crumble and to scale,"
Mulder explained earnestly. 
 "She'd saved our lives so many times, ridin' through the gale --
  And the laughin' drunken rats left her to her sorry grave!
  They won't be laughin' in another day."

Scully lifted her chin with stubbornness. Someday those lawless men
back home would fall. No one would laugh at the X-Files then.

Mulder saw the same stubbornness in every kid's face. Good. If you
believe there's still a chance to get home, there is.

 "So when you think adversity has dealt the final blow,
  With smilin' bastards laughin' at you everywhere you go,
  Turn to and put out all your strength of heart and lungs and brain
  And like the _Mary Ellen Carter_, rise again."

Together, they swept into the chorus like a conquering army. Then 
Mulder rewarded them with the second chorus.

 "Rise again
  Rise again!
  Though your heart, it be broke, and your life about to end.
  No matter what you've lost,
  Be it a home, 
  a love, 
  a friend --
  Just like the _Mary Ellen Carter_, rise again!"

He played out that chorus again, just for good measure, and they all
sang it like their lives depended on it. And suddenly it wasn't 
Mulder and Scully and the Young Ones sitting around that fire. 

It was Us.


Shadowdemon listened to the Bard's music and watched the humans' 
revel. Pestilent creatures! That Bard and Paladin, insisting that 
one could win out through sheer stubbornness -- what did they know 
about adversity? He scowled. A certain smiling bastard was calling
him to report even now.

==================================================================
Continued in Part 4: Wilderness Encounters

Author's note: Stan Rogers, the famous Canadian folksinger who wrote
"The Mary Ellen Carter", died in an airplane crash at the Cincinnati 
airport - because after he got out, he went back into the wreck twice 
to save others. The second time, he never came out again.

Heroes should sing heroes' songs. 
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 4: Wilderness Encounters

"It's not until you get back out to nature that you realize that
everything is out to get you." -- Dana Scully, "Quagmire"


"So why do they call this place the Forest of Nightwinds?"

An eerie howl ran through the forest, and the trees shuddered and
bent as if hiding. Scully felt warm air gust against her face, and
blinked away the dust and bits of dry leaf that it carried with it.

Eric smirked. "Any other questions?"

Scully almost sighed. Mulder could almost read her mind. Why, she
was asking, am I always surrounded by smart-alecks?

"Actually," she said instead (and more loudly), "I was wondering how 
long this wind keeps up. It'll make it hard to get any sleep. Or hear 
anyone coming while we're out here on watch."

"I don't know," Eric admitted. "We've heard about this forest, and
the wind at night, but we've never actually been through it before. 
If I'd known it got this noisy, I would have gotten some sleep this 
afternoon, while it was still quiet."

"And that's another thing," Scully mused. "Wind is a result of 
temperature differences."

"Hot air rises, cold air falls, all that science class stuff?"

Scully smiled. She'd thought Eric had a better brain than he liked
to admit. "Exactly. And there are places where the wind follows a 
day-night pattern, most notably on the shores of oceans and large
bodies of water."

"Don't tell me...man, you should be talking to Presto; he remembers 
this stuff way better than me...wait, I got it...because things get 
cooler when the sun goes down?"

"The land does. The water stays about the same temperature, and thus
is warmer than the land. So the hot air rises up from the ocean and
over the land, while the cool air from the land blows out underneath,
toward the ocean. And that's what we call a land breeze. Whereas, when 
the sun rises, the land is warmed while the water remains relatively 
cool."

Mulder watched Scully with fascination. Preach it, science lady.

"And the cool air comes off the ocean toward the land..." Eric
ventured.

"And that's a sea breeze."

"And that's why that face-cleaning stuff is called that!"

Scully smiled a little. "Could be." She turned to Mulder. "Do you see
where I'm heading with this?"

Mulder watched Scully with fascination. "Not a clue, except that I 
have a hunch we won't like it."

"Temperature differentials. Dungeonmaster didn't say anything about
a lake around here. But he did mention 'the Flaming Plain'."

Eric gulped. "You're right. He did. 'Beyond the Forest of 
Nightwinds, in the land of the Flaming Plain, the Mirror of Ages 
shows the road to all lands.'"

Mulder grimaced. "And now you're assuming that "Flaming" may not be
just a figure of speech."

Eric gulped again. "You're right, Mulder. I don't like it."



Shadowdemon listened with as much fascination as the Bard to the
Paladin's words. Hot air rises, cool air falls, and that is where 
wind comes from? It explained so much about the behavior of flying 
creatures like birds and pegasi.

Come, Shadowdemon, the voice in his head growled. Report.

Shadowdemon obeyed and made his way back to Venger's side. "The
Young Ones are sleeping," he said. "Except for the Cavalier, and
the new Bard and Paladin. They are on watch."

"That will not help them." He raised his hand, producing a fireball.
"Orcs, attack!"

His voice was repeated by magic all around the clearing. The orcs
surrounding it grunted, unsurprised. Venger was always doing magic 
stuff like that. They didn't worry about how he'd done it; they just 
obeyed and charged in. Meanwhile, Venger announced his presence by
riding up to the edge of the clearing and flinging his fireball at
the Young Ones' camp.



"Get down!"

Mulder and Scully didn't remember obeying; they just found themselves
kissing dirt. Eric stood over them with his shield, deflecting 
fireballs flung by a guy with wings on a flaming-eyed black horse.
Fortunately, the deflected fireballs were tending to fly in the 
direction of the orcs that were attacking from every side, which
somewhat discouraged their advance. Well, except for the orcs
attacking from behind.

"Wake up!" Mulder yelled. 

"We're under attack!" yelled Scully, drawing her sword and rushing
toward the orcs behind them. Okay, so she couldn't stab them, but
she could hit them with the flat and slice their gear away with the
point. Mulder suspected that there was some magic helping out her
pathologist's skill with a blade, since the average autopsy did not
include these Zorro-like moves, but that didn't worry him nearly as
much as the fact that his only weapon was a musical instrument.

Mulder's hand slipped on his lute, and the ugly chord seemed to wake
the others faster than all the yelling. Diana exploded from her 
bedding right into a group of charging orcs, wreaking havoc with her
javelin as she went. Hank's magic arrows swept more orcs off their 
feet, as did Bobby's club. Presto mumbled something sleepily to his 
hat, several orcs were suddenly dressed in clown outfits, and the 
other orcs looked confused and started to beat them up. And Sheila? 
Well, he didn't see her, but the number of orcs who started to trip,
stagger and fall for no good reason were probably evidence that 
she was awake, too.

"Eric," Mulder suggested, "Start backing up. We can regroup with the
others and then get the heck out of this clearing."

"Good plan, G-Man. Now let's see if Venger will cooperate by giving
us a few more fireballs." 

"More fireballs?"

The Cavalier didn't listen. "Hey, skirtboy! Running out of ammo?
Bad aim? Or is your wittle arm getting tired?"

"You dare, Cavalier?" Venger's blue face twisted with rage. "I have
more than enough fireballs for the likes of you!" He plucked a 
fireball out of midair and threw it at Eric's head.

Eric grinned and raised his shield. "Come to Papa!"

The orcs saw what was going on and ducked. And since orcs, contrary
to popular belief, are not totally stupid, they stayed flat on the
ground while the fireballs flashed from Venger to Eric to an ever
larger portion of the treeline -- much of which was now burning. 
Meanwhile, Eric backed up as Mulder behind him directed his 
footsteps and warned him of obstacles.

"Ten feet to the treeline. Everybody else is gone. Time to make a 
run for it," Mulder muttered. Eric turned and ran, preceded by a
Bard in black and followed by Venger's fireballs and frustrated 
curses, none of which hit their mark.

Hank was waiting for them just beyond. "C'mon, guys! The orcs will
be after us soon!"

"Where's Scully?" Mulder asked reflexively.

"About five hundred yards ahead of us. Come on!" 

They ran. 



"Find them, Shadowdemon!"

"Of course," Shadowdemon said smoothly. "But you know where they are
going -- the Flaming Plain. Surely it would be easier to lay an 
ambush there?"

"Yes. Yes. But there are other powers on the Flaming Plain, powers I
do not fully comprehend. The Young Ones must be stopped before they
reach the Mirror of Ages!"


Continued in Part 5: Trial by Fire

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 5: Trial by Fire

"A healer's greatest magic lies in the...willingness to believe.
Imagine a miracle and you're halfway there." 
-- Dana Scully, "Miracle Man"


The Forest of Nightwinds moaned and howled, as it had done for
hundreds of years of nights. But tonight, the eerie noise was 
augmented. A nightmare neighed as it rose through the trees. Its 
rider shouted orders, insults, and curses, while orcs yelled out 
answers to him and threats to each other. A short distance away, the 
rustling of dead leaves and underbrush marked the passage of the 
party that that was being pursued. 

But loudest of all came the crackling of fire.



Another body ran past Bobby. "Eric?"

The Cavalier slowed his run. "Yeah," he panted. "Mulder's...over 
there. Seen Presto?"

"Here," came a weary voice not far behind Bobby. "Hank's up ahead. 
Wish...we...had...horses."

"Try the hat?"

"Yeah. Got a herd of deer."

"Mm, mmm. Barbecue!"

"Ewwwwww," said Presto. "Don't say that around Uni!"

Bobby agreed. "Shut up, Eric!"

"Meh, muhmuh, Merih!" Uni chimed in.

A tall dark form loomed out of the gloom ahead of them. They
skidded to a stop and readied their weapons.

"Save your breath for running," said Mulder. "The fire's flanked us
on that side." He gestured left. "We've got to get out of here."

Hank skidded out of the darkness. "Follow me! I found a path out of
this part of the forest, but we'll have to hurry before the fire 
cuts us off!"

Bobby's legs churned, and he wished desperately for a little more
height. Mulder had dropped behind him and Presto. Keeping an eye on
the slowpoke and the baby, he thought with disgust. Well, I'll keep
up. You'll see.  He raced ahead, and Uni bounded alongside him. In a 
moment, he was out of sight of Presto.

Just then, the nightwinds whipped up the fire and carried a flaming
branch directly into their path. Bobby desperately pushed Uni out of
the way, and the branch landed full on his arm.

Bobby threw the branch off his arm, scarcely able to breathe in its
heat. Gotta be forgewood. Nothing else burned that hot. 

Uni meh'd anxiously. 

"Don't worry, girl. I didn't even feel it!" 

But he couldn't see his arm, and Uni could. It glowed even to her 
dazzled infravision, and she knew something was very wrong. She
meh'd more insistently.

Bobby got up and began to run again, a little more slowly. Presto 
came into sight, and he tried to run faster. But instead, 
everything went dark.



Scully ran grimly through the woods, making her legs continue to
pump despite the pain. The last day had tested her endurance more 
than she intended to reveal to anyone. She had no medicine with her. 
And her head hurt, reminding her that a silent killer waited insided. 
But since it seemed more likely at the moment that orcs or evil 
wizards would be her killer rather than the tumor, she put aside 
her pain and pushed on.

Besides, she'd be damned if she couldn't keep up with a bunch of kids.

Scully heard someone puff a little in front of her, but saw nothing.
Warily, she stopped dead, looking and listening for danger. Suddenly
she saw a hooded purple cloak appear, seeming to hang midair in the
clearing before her.

Yes, they had demonstrated the magic weapons that afternoon. Yes, they
even had gotten in some combat practice. But it was disconcerting to 
see the cloak appear first and then Sheila a moment later, grinning 
like some mutant variant of the Cheshire Cat.

"I think we've lost them, Dana!" the thief announced brightly. She had
to speak rather loudly to be heard over the noise of the forest's
eponymous nightwinds.

Scully came out of cover. "Yes, but I think we've also lost each
other."

Diana and her pole did a midair somersault and landed in the clearing
next to them with a move the Olympic women's gymnastics team could
have used in Atlanta...or rather, Scully reminded herself, in LA and 
Seoul. 

"I'm not lost."

Sheila rolled her eyes at her friend's showmanship. "What took you so
long?"

"I got caught in some crosstown squirrel traffic." Diana's brow 
furrowed. "I hope Venger didn't start a forest fire. That'd be all 
we'd need."

"Did you see Bobby?"

"Presto's got him. Those two should be along any minute," Diana told
her. "Relax."

Sheila sighed. "I know, I know. Bobby's a tough kid and he can take
care of himself. But I can't help worrying. He's the only little
brother I've got."

"Speaking as a little sister to Missy and Bill, and a big sister to
Charlie," Scully began, "I can tell you that it is equally hard to be
the worrier and the worried over. But it doesn't stop when you get
older. You just collect more people to worry and worry about."

"So I should just get used to it?" Sheila said. "That's not very
helpful, Dana...." She paused for a moment. "Hey, did you bump into 
a tree or something?"

"Why? Was my advice that bad?"

"No. Your nose," she said, gesturing at her own. "It's bleeding."

Scully bit back a curse and pinched her nose with one hand as she
fished around in her belongings for a tissue with the other. Her
medicine was back in their BuCar; but she never dared leave behind her
supply of tissues these days, so it at least had come with her to this 
strange world. Grimacing, she managed to block off the flow long 
enough to stop pinching her nose for a second.

"Hey, that's a pretty nasty nosebleed you've got," Diana said,
watching as Scully wound bits of tissue into tiny plugs and stuck 
them up her nose. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," she said, hating their worry, feeling smothered by it. "I
can take care of myself." She turned away from them and stood on 
guard, her hand on the hilt of her sword.

"But Dana...." Diana took a step towards Scully.

Sheila put a warning hand on Diana's arm. "Better let her be."

Diana resisted for a moment, then stopped. "All right," she said. 
"But as soon as Mulder gets here, I'm going to ask him what's wrong."

But a moment later, when the male contingent arrived, she did no such
thing. Because Mulder was carrying Bobby in his arms, and Bobby was 
not moving.

Sheila flew to her brother's side, calling his name. Scully and Diana
followed.

"What happened?" Diana asked, clenching her staff.

"I don't know," Presto said. "Hank and Mulder and I were booking 
out of there; Bobby was way ahead of us. Then we saw Uni standing 
over Bobby. He'd just...collapsed."

Uni meh'd disconsolately.

Scully took off her blue cloak and spread it on the ground. "Lay him 
here, Mulder." He obeyed, and she began to examine Bobby. "Need some
light on this," she announced, and it came unbidden, shining from 
her hands.

"Thanks," she said vaguely. She was too busy observing Bobby's arm
wound to notice that anything strange had happened.

"Third degree burns," she said finally, looking up. She did not
mention his charred skin, and she hoped the kids hadn't noticed the
smell of cooked meat. "Damaged his nerve endings, so at least he 
didn't feel any pain. He probably got hit by a burning branch or the 
edge of one of Venger's fireballs; I'm not really familiar with
magical fire patterns. He needs a hospital with a good burn unit." 
Her hands' glow faded.

Hank held Sheila, but his own eyes were haunted. "This is my fault. I 
should have ordered him away sooner."

"I was the closest to him," Presto was saying morosely. "I should have
noticed that Bobby needed help."

"This is nobody's fault," Mulder said, grasping both boys' shoulders
from behind. "You can't expect to know everything and save everybody 
and always do the right thing."

Scully just looked at him. Mulder, listen to your own advice.

Eric brought up his head. "There must be something we can do! Bobby 
can't just...."

"I am a doctor and a...paladin," Scully said levelly. "And I will do 
what I can."

She was already kneeling by Bobby's side. Inside her head, she was 
praying in the insistent way she had learned in med school. *Don't 
let him die, damn it! Get him to fight! He's only a little 
boy!* But she had learned in med school that God doesn't always answer 
prayers with a yes. 

What am I doing here? she wondered. Her thoughts raced. Conventional
treatment...I don't have the facilities.  Dungeonmaster said things 
would be getting more dangerous...he named me a Paladin. Fighter and 
healer.  But it all depends on belief. 

Do I believe in God this week? And if I do, do I believe in His 
benevolence? Her eyes darkened as she thought of cancer, conspiracies,
and all that she had lost.

Then she thought of the oaths she'd sworn. As an FBI agent, to 
protect the public. As a doctor, to save lives. Her face turned
determined. This was another universe, where the natural laws she
knew had considerably more loopholes. She would do what had to be 
done and worry about the implications later.

*Fine. A truce for now,* she told God. *Till we get these kids back
home safe.* Then she folded her hands and bowed her head.

Mulder watched uneasily. He could deal with psychic surgery, aura 
manipulation, crystals, and unconventional medicine. But religion 
usually gave him the creeps. It was too easy to lose yourself in 
that stuff, or give yourself into the power of someone not worth
trust. Scully doing religious stuff was even creepier. He remembered
that time before, when she'd decided she had a mission from God to 
protect the stigmatic, Kevin Kryder. She'd almost gotten herself
killed over that.

But this time was worse. She wasn't just being a lawful good fighter
with some extras, as he'd expected. She was throwing herself into her
role, turning to her prayers with the same focused concentration she 
usually bent on the view through a microscope. Her eyes closed, and 
her face took on a strange look of peace. Then her hands began to 
glow again. The cross around her neck glowed as well.

Mulder swallowed hard. What are you getting into, Scully?

After a moment, she unfolded her hands, opened her eyes, and drew 
her sword. It did not just glow; it shone as if it were white-hot 
from the forge. She carefully held it above Bobby's arm.

"No!" cried Sheila, horrified. "Don't cut it off!"

But the sword was not moving. The light from the sword was, expanding 
to surround Bobby's arm. Arm and sword grew too bright to look at.
Hank threw his arm over his face, and Sheila had to close her eyes. 
The light grew brighter still, until Mulder could see Scully's form as
a shadow against the sword's light, even through his eyelids.

And then, the light began to die away. Mulder blinked against the
purple and black spots on his retinas. Sheila pulled away from 
Hank and raced forward to her brother, while Scully, her eyes still 
open, sheathed her sword and leaned forward to examine her patient.

"What did you do to Bobby?" Sheila demanded.

"I didn't do it," Scully said. "But the treatment would seem to
be effective." She stood aside and let Sheila see.

Bobby's arm, so deeply burned before, looked good as new.

"All right," said Hank softly. As he pressed forward to get a better 
look, he seemed to stand a little straighter -- as if he had finally
rid himself of some heavy burden of care. 

Bobby opened his eyes. "Hey, guys, what happened?"

All the Young Ones were suddenly swarming around him. Scully let 
them. She walked away a little distance and watched, fingering her
cross necklace. Her face was troubled again.

Uni danced with glee and then leaned gratefully against Scully. Scully 
smiled tiredly and began to stroke the little one. Mulder joined them.

"How did you manage to keep your eyes open through all that light?"
Mulder demanded. 

"What light?"

"The light from the sword, your necklace, your hands...."

"I didn't see any light. I just brought out my magic sword and 
it healed Bobby's arm."

"That's not what we saw."

Her eyes dropped. "That's what I get for negotiating."

"What?"

"Never mind. We'd better get the kids moving. We still have Venger 
and a forest fire after us."



The kids were already on it. 

"We can't keep depending on Dana to save us," Hank was saying. "We
need to do something about the fire."

"Without letting Venger and every orc in the forest know exactly
where we are," Diana pointed out. 

Sheila looked doubtful. "I dunno, guys. The hat's likely to give us
a garden hose."

"See if it'll give you a bunch of smokejumpers," Eric suggested.

Presto looked unhappy. "Geez, I'll see what I can do." He took his
green wizard's hat off and started making passes over it. He was 
particularly careful not to use too much twiddle. But he really
wished he was better at coming up with rhymes.

"Presto change-o, ice and snow,
All this fire has got to go!
As long as it works, even if it's a dumb thing,
C'mon, hat, and give me something!"

Nothing happened. Mulder looked disappointed. Presto looked 
humiliated. 

Eric edged away from Presto. "Uh, Presto? I thought you were being
more specific these days?"

"But I didn't know what to ask for!"

"Who cares? You could've asked for a...a pumper truck. ANything, as
long as you're specific. Because every time you let that hat decide,
it does something weird..." His eyes shifted to the hat. "...like 
starting to smoke!"

"Smoke?!" Presto dropped the hat and ran to a safe distance before 
turning to see more smoke -- no, steam! -- pouring out of the hat. 
And more. And more. Soon, the entire clearing was a high humidity 
zone. Then the steam began to coalesce into distinct clouds. 

Then the clouds spoke. "You called us here, wizard. What is our 
task?"

Mulder stepped forward, his dark hair and cloak dripping but his eyes
gleaming with curiosity. "What are you?"

"We are cloud elementals," they said, their voices as wispy as their
bodies. "What are you? You are not the wizard."

"That's me," Presto said, stepping forward reluctantly. "Hey, can you
guys make rain? Put out fires and stuff?"

"We can."

"Then I'd like you to split up. Some of you can go and put out the
forest fire," he waved in its direction, "and the rest of you 
should stick with us, because we're headed onto the Flaming Plain."

The clouds considered for a moment, then began to move. 



"Just what I always wanted -- my own personal raincloud."

"All together now...." Diana announced.

"Shut up, Eric!" came the chorus. Mulder mouthed along. Scully
elbowed him.

Hank squished back to them. "I scouted the edge of the forest, and 
there's no sign of Venger or the orcs. Assuming the cloud elementals 
can keep us safe on the Flaming Plain, we'll be way ahead of him."

"Then let's get going," Sheila said from underneath an apparently
unmanned cloud. "I hate standing around in the rain. Coming, Bobby?"

Bobby picked up his club with little enthusiasm. "Yeah, yeah."
He started walking, but slowly. Uni nudged him with her nose, trying
to get him to pick up the pace. He ignored her.

Scully and Mulder traded glances.

"Looks like your sword didn't heal all the damage," Mulder said.

"You're the Oxford-trained psychologist," she said quietly. 

"Yeah, but I was trained to deal with serial killers, not kids."
He thought for a moment. "On the other hand, I do have some 
experience with pyrophobia. And being an over-protective brother."

"And partner, and employee, and...."

"Hey, _I'm_ the shrink around here!" Mulder's brow furrowed for a 
moment. Then he lengthened his stride to catch up with Bobby. 
The boy didn't even look up at him until Mulder whispered, "Psst."

Bobby looked up reluctantly. "What?"

"I need you to do something for me."

"What?"

Mulder turned his head to see if anyone was watching. Scully gave him
a worried look, but nobody else saw. Satisfied, he turned back to
Bobby. "Look, I know we're going to be perfectly safe on the Flaming
Plain. But I've got this fear of fire, and sometimes I freeze for a
minute. My partner knows about it, but we decided that in case things
get hairy, somebody else should know, too."

Bobby couldn't believe it. "You're afra...." 

Mulder shushed him. "Yeah, I am. Ever since I was a kid. Really fun,
especially since the guys we investigate love to destroy evidence
with a little arson." Beautiful thing was, it was all true. 

"But you didn't freeze under Venger's fireballs," Bobby pointed out
in a whisper. "Or when you saw the forest fire."

"It's not so bad as long as I don't stop and think about it," he
whispered back. "If I just keep moving and keep my mind on the job,
it keeps me from getting too scared. But just in case, be ready to
give me a yell or a shove, okay?"

"Don't worry. Me and Dana'll keep an eye on you," Bobby said 
reassuringly. "And Uni will too. Right, Uni?"

"Meh!"

"Thanks, Bobby. That's good to hear." Mulder turned to walk back
to Scully. As he did, Uni walked right behind him. Mulder didn't 
hear her unicorn-light footsteps in the rain, and when he turned 
around, he was startled to see her so close. 

"Keeping an eye on me?" he inquired dryly.

"Meh!" she said, with a wink. Then she trotted back to Bobby as
the woods fell away. Beyond, there was a strip of bare rock and
then a vast expanse of smoke and flame. 

"Underground fires," Scully said, sniffing the air. "Coal? Oil? 
Something of that nature. I don't know if water can quench this kind
of flame."

"I don't think it has to," said Hank. "It's not all on fire. If the
cloud elementals can cool down the rocky parts so we can walk on
them, and keep the smoke away, I think maybe we can get through."

"The flaming part of the Flaming Plain is only a few miles thick,"
the cloud elementals said. "We have seen the open space inside. We
can lead you there."

"Then lead on!" said Hank. "We're too visible out here."

The small procession disappeared quickly into the Flaming Plain, the 
cloud elementals lost among the smoke like raindrops in the sea. 



Venger cursed and cursed again. His orcs dodged with practiced 
speed. "You fools have allowed the Young Ones to escape, as well as 
their new allies! Return to my castle! I will have to take steps in 
the matter myself. Shadowdemon!"

"Yes, master?"

"You will accompany me to the Flaming Plain."

------------------------------------------------------------------
Part 6: Wandering Monsters

"I remind myself of a Navajo story. Twin war gods come to 
their father, seeking magic and weapons to eliminate the 
monsters of the world." 
-- letter from Cigarette Smoking Man to Special Agent Jeffrey 
Spender, "The Red and the Black", The X-Files.


Venger rode his nightmare as far above the Flaming Plain's clouds
as possible. All those fireballs and divination spells had drained
him of much of his magic without any practical return. That 
insufferably smug excuse for a Shadowdemon floated next to him,
about as helpful to reconnaissance as the clouds of smoke below.

Somewhere down there, the Young Ones and that new Paladin and Bard
were traveling toward the Mirror of Ages. They had no concept of
its power, just as they had no idea how they were being used by
Dungeonmaster. But they would no doubt be guided steadily toward
their goal, whereas he, who had studied all that was known of the
Mirror -- he, who had sought that talisman for a thousand years --
would be fortunate to find their party's trail, so that he could 
follow them like a toy cart on a string. No doubt it was all part
of Dungeonmaster's plan to humiliate him.

Venger gestured, and a spell of manysight settled over his eyes.
Infravision was useless, for heat was everywhere. Ultravision was
equally so. But a gesture translated his sight to the ancient sort
known as the 'vision of the bat'. Most scholars of magic believed
this name to be the result of scribal error. But he had been told 
once -- by his father, of course -- that bats perceived the shape
of the world by listening to how the cries they made bounced off 
cave walls and the like. Below him, he saw the outlines of animals
moving on the plain: flocks of firebirds, fiery salamanders, and
other heat-loving species. Sooner or later, he would see the Young
Ones. Let them pass the hazards of the way; let them do the work.
At the right moment, he would reveal himself, and the Mirror would 
be his at last. 

Not without a fight -- the ignorant Young Ones carried unimaginable 
power in their hands, and even they had learned to master its more 
physical effects -- and not without the constant annoyance of being 
forced to avoid killing them, since Dungeonmaster had so twisted 
their fates that to kill them would amount to killing himself. 
But they were pathetically easy to command once one had captured a
member of their little band. And _they_ did not know he could not
kill them.

Dungeonmaster liked to keep his players in the dark? He smiled 
cruelly, showing his fangs.  

It had backfired in his own case. Let it do so again.



The group was tired, wet, and coated with a fine sooty grey ash-mud.
Their noses and throats hurt, despite the wet cloths they had tied
over their faces, their eyes were red, and their feet hurt from 
walking on bare rock for most of the day after scant rest the night
before. 

"So we're almost to that open space in the middle of the Flaming
Plain?" asked Presto, his green hat drooping in the rain.

"Yes," said the cloud elemental over his head. "Five more minutes,
at the pace you humans travel."

"And I see something over there. A tower...made out of something 
metal," Hank announced. "Sheila, I think it's time for your cloak to 
do its stuff."

"Earth to Hank. Come in, Fearless Leader," Eric objected. "Having a 
rain cloud following Sheila's every move isn't going to be all that
inconspicuous."

Diana rounded on him. "What are you suggesting, Eric? Sheila can't 
do recon without a cloud elemental protecting her. She'd be fried 
before she could get there and back." 

"It'll blend in with all the smoke," Presto opined. "Probably."

"Probably?" Bobby demanded. "Hey, that's my sister you're talking
about!"

"I know. But we can't just walk up there! Who has enough metal to 
build a tower out of it?" He sighed. "Any of you guys got a better 
idea? Dana? Mulder, you've been pretty quiet."

"No," said Mulder shortly, and Scully shook her head.

"I do," said Sheila. They all turned to look at her. "I'll be 
careful, and I won't walk against the wind. I know that's not a
great plan, but I'm pretty hard to catch." She pulled her hood 
over her face before anyone could argue. She faded from view,
saying only, "I'll be back!"


Sheila shifted a little on her belly, glad for the thickness of her
cloak. She looked down again, trying and failing to shade her
invisible eyes with an invisible hand. A brilliant white light flooded
this one little valley in the middle of the plain -- a valley that was
unnaturally round, as if inscribed with a compass. In the very middle,
away from the strange triangular and circular buildings, stood a metal
tower that half-surrounded a deep hole with holes cut in the sides, 
like an amphitheater. Small figures scurried in and out of the hole, 
but white clothing and strange circular hoods covered any identifying 
marks of their races or professions.

"Who _are_ these guys?" Sheila whispered.

"We do not know," the raincloud above her answered quietly. 

"I'll have to go down there," she said resignedly. "The ground's 
cool enough to walk on, and the smoke's not so thick, so you'd 
better wait here till I come back."

"The wizard told me to obey your voice, so I obey."

"Listen," she said, "we're sorry about that. Presto wouldn't have
deliberately summoned you guys all the way from the elemental 
planes. And we're trying to think of some way to pay you guys back, 
though we don't have much that would be useful to a cloud. If you 
think of something we could do for you in return, we would be 
interested to hear it."

The elemental was silent.

"Um. Okay, then. See you in a while." 

The elemental perceived the mass of water in the human's body 
traveling away. "These Young Ones are strange, even for humans," 
it decided.

Sheila heard, and smiled. Even after all their years in the Realm,
they still thought more like American kids than adventurers. They
didn't rob bodies - yuck! They couldn't accept the divisions of
society by ancestry or guild. They didn't think they were better than
anyone else by virtue of their weaponry, and they tried to help
everyone they could.

Which was why they so often ended up sneaking over a border in dead
of night, she reflected as she searched for a way down into the 
valley. And why, every time they amassed much gold, it usually ended 
up financing some good cause or poor village they met.

Oh, well. Easy come, easy go. And since Dungeonmaster never let them
stay in one place or even one kingdom long enough to begin attracting
followers or building a stronghold, they didn't have much use for 
gold anyway.

One wall of the valley had been worn down by erosion. She picked her 
way down the dry streambed to the valley floor and began casually 
jogging toward the tower, easily avoiding the white-clothed guards 
walking the area's perimeter. Those were pretty strange outfits, she
reflected, trying to think where in the Realm she'd seen something
like them before. 

Well, other than spacesuits and stuff. But nobody in the Realm would
be wearing those, right?

Her pace slowed as she looked into the tower. A crowd of people in 
white were milling around, looking at some sort of maps they'd laid 
out on the floor. She decided it was time to do a little 
eavesdropping. 

"What's our status?"

"Lots of interesting artifacts to study, but no sign of the worldgate 
yet."

Did they mean the Mirror of Ages, that 'shows the path to all lands'? 

"It's got to be here! We were told...."

"And we always do as we're told, don't we, Bronschweig?" 

"We do if we want to get this done and go home."

"We still have our own gate. We can get home any time we want."

"That's not what I meant."

It took a while for her to realize that they were speaking English.
Not Common, which they somehow all spoke and understood. Not Pixie,
which for some reason didn't sound like gibberish to her. No, they 
were really speaking English, like Mulder and Scully did, and they
sounded like they'd come straight from home. 

And they had a way back! She wanted to run up and kiss them.

"Any problems with the neighbors?" that guy Bronschweig continued.

"Not really. We shot a few things that breached the perimeter, but
we're pretty sure they were just animals. The local sentients must 
not be fond of walking around through fire."

"Good. I don't enjoy killing people, even when it's necessary. But we
can't afford to leave any trace of our presence behind."

Sheila carefully made her way back out of the crowd of people,
employing the skills she'd learned from years of adventuring with
the cloak and hurrying through crowded school hallways. So much for 
catching a ride with these guys! 

But it might be useful to find their gate. And some of those white 
suits.



"That legend lore spell you remembered? I don't think it's working."
Presto hunkered down next to Mulder in the mud. "And believe me, I'm 
an expert on spells that don't work."

Mulder censored the first two comments that came to mind.  Presto was
right. The lute was being distinctly uncooperative. He was tiring
himself out before a mission. He didn't really fit the spell 
requirements. It was really hard to play and still shield the lute 
from the rain. And if Bobby and Uni laughed any more, they were 
probably going to rupture something.

"Where's Scully?"

Diana sat down. "She's on watch with Hank, trying to keep him from
worrying about Sheila. Not that it'll work."

Mulder shrugged uncomfortably. He liked being somebody's big brother
again, but being on his best behavior was starting to wear. "She 
knows that. She knows a lot about worrying. Mostly about me."

"She said something like that earlier." Diana's teasing smile 
switched off like a light. "Which reminds me. Dana had a really bad
nosebleed earlier. She...."

Diana didn't get out another word. Mulder yelled, "Scully!" and 
stomped away toward his partner. 

Eric strolled over casually. "So what bit him?" 

"I don't know," Diana answered. "But I think we're about to find out."



"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Talking to Hank and keeping watch," Scully said puzzledly.

"That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"What are you talking about, Mulder?"

"I thought you'd already taken care of it. But you had another one 
of your nosebleeds."

Scully drew herself up. "And?"

"You're a Paladin. Do something about it!"

Hank broke in, reaching up to put his hand on the older man's 
shoulder.  "Calm down, Mulder, and tell us what you're talking 
about."

Mulder turned away. "She knows what I'm talking about."

"But we don't," Hank insisted as the others gathered around. "What's
wrong?"

Mulder stayed silent. 

Scully sighed. "I have a nasopharyngeal tumor. It's inoperable and
growing fast. It also causes nosebleeds."

The Young Ones went silent. Cancer. In their minds, she knew, it was 
another word for death. In her time, that power was reserved for 
other diseases: AIDS, Ebola. But she didn't correct their 
assumptions, for in this case it was probably true.

Bobby was the first to speak up. "But you're a Paladin, Dana. All you
have to do is use your magic sword, and you'll be cured, right?"
His voice wavered a little, and she wondered why he cared so much
after knowing her so short a time.

"Not quite." She gathered herself up, knowing they wouldn't 
understand. "Being a paladin or a cleric isn't like any other 
character class. _You_ get your abilities from yourselves, or your
weapons. I get them from...a higher power."

"Yeah, yeah, God. We got that part," said Eric. "What's the 
problem?"

"I don't mind using that power to help someone else," she said
quietly. "But if I use it on myself, I feel that I'll be making a
promise I'm not ready to make. Worse, I'll be doing it for selfish
reasons."

"Oh, come on!" Presto said unbelievingly. "Get cured first; iron 
out your little differences later."

"Dana's got a point," Hank argued. "Just because you're in dire
trouble doesn't mean you make a deal. Remember what happened when I
took Venger's offer so I could save Bobby."

"Yeah, but we're not talking about dealing with the Devil," Diana
retorted. Suddenly Mulder looked uncomfortable, and Scully wondered
why. "If you need help and somebody offers, you take it and say 
thank you. No matter how much it sticks in your craw."

"Thank you for your concern," Scully said firmly, "but I have to sort
this all out for myself. And I see a raincloud coming this way."

Hank was distracted instantly, but the others continued to give her
the hairy eyeball until Sheila took off her hood. And Mulder was not
distracted at all.

"You can't let yourself die for a principle, Scully."

"Why not?" she snapped, exasperated. "You're always willing to get 
yourself killed for one."

She walked off to hear Sheila's report. For once, she'd gotten the
last word.



"But you wouldn't believe all the people they had there -- half of 
them looked all alike!" Sheila finished her report.

"Clones?" said Scully doubtfully.

"The Consortium. Here." Mulder shook his head. "They're everywhere."

Scully looked wry. "But so are we. It's enough to make a person 
paranoid."

"So you know these guys," Hank said. "What can we expect?"

"Depends on who's running the operation. We've seen them act like
military, corporate security, intelligence, and criminal 
organizations," said Mulder.

"But they'll have guns, and they won't be afraid to use them," Scully
summarized.

"That fits with what Sheila heard from that guy Bronschweig," Hank
mused. "Which means we can't use any of the normal distraction 
techniques to get in."

"I brought back suits for everyone, so if we can get into the valley
and past the guards, we can blend in."

"Are you sure they'll fit?" Eric asked. "I mean, not that I'm short,
but anything that fits Mulder wouldn't fit me. And Bobby? Forget it!"

"They must have some pretty short women around, because a lot of 
the suits were just our size. Even Bobby won't have too much 
trouble."

"What about Uni?"

"She'll have to stay behind this time," said Hank. 

Uni made a disgusted noise.

"Our weapons won't blend in," Eric objected. "Not mine, anyway."

"We can carry them like they're artifacts," Diana said. "Anyway,
if we create enough confusion, nobody will notice if we go in 
bald and painted blue."

Mulder and Scully shared a simultaneous mental image of their boss.

"So what'll we use for a distraction?" asked Presto.

Everyone stared at him.

"Oh, man. I had to go open my mouth."



A world away, Assistant Director Skinner was talking to the one man
in the world he truly hated. "Where are they?"

The man took a long drag off his cigarette. "Can't keep track of 
your agents?"

"Don't play games with me. I spoke with all the parents personally.
They wouldn't talk. Someone had put a scare into them, and that 
wasn't Mulder and Scully because they never got that far. In fact, 
nobody's seen either of them since they passed the amusement park 
gate."

"Perhaps they just lost track of time."

"We had a deal," Skinner rumbled. "My cooperation for Agent Scully's
life. I am very close to declaring that deal off."

"So impatient," he answered, taking another drag. "I'm sure they'll
be back soon."


Part 7: The Mirror of Ages

"....I always felt like such an alien myself, that to be concerned 
with aliens from other planets...that just seemed so...uh...
redundant." 

-- Jose Chung, "Jose Chung's _From Outer Space_", The X-Files.


There was a gate to Earth. Sheila had seen it. The thought thrummed 
through all their minds.


"Don't forget to be specific," said Eric. "Very specific. Don't 
fiddle with the twiddle. And check the whatchamacallit...the poetry 
thing...oh, you know what I mean."

Mulder looked up. "The scansion?"

"That's right, the scansion. And relax. Be confident. No pressure. 
We're only gonna die or not get home if this doesn't work."

"Yeah, right," said Presto. "Any more helpful advice, Eric?"

"Yeah. Don't screw this up, and be ready to run."

"Gee, thanks."

"Don't mention it." Eric clapped Presto on the shoulder before
he turned to go. "Don't worry. You'll do fine."


Sheila was being a little too slow putting on her hazmat suit, 
thought Scully. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"You'll think it's silly."

"Try me. I'm a doctor and an FBI agent, and I've heard just about 
everything. I wouldn't laugh at you."

"It's the suits," Sheila said. "I stole them. And I know it shouldn't
bother me, because we had to have them, but...it's just not right.
They don't belong to us."

Scully thought for a moment. "Actually, they probably do."

"What?"

"These are government-issue hazmat suits," she said quietly. "The
taxpayers paid for these, and the Consortium siphoned off the money
into one of their black budget programs to buy them. Either way, I
think we have a perfect right to use our own property."

Sheila looked doubtful.

"But if it helps, as an FBI agent I believe I have the right to
commandeer these suits for use in a current investigation, and I am
hereby doing so."

Sheila smiled. "Thanks, Dana. I feel much better now." Her smile 
faded. "I just wish I could help Bobby."


"You gotta stay here, Uni," Bobby said determinedly. "Dungeon Master
says you can't go home with us."

Uni meh'd coaxingly. It almost sounded as if she'd said, "Aw, c'mon."

"It's not the kind of place you'd like, girl," Bobby tried to explain.
"There aren't a lot of forests and stuff. Well, except in the national
parks and stuff, and I don't know if you'd like that."

Uni meh'd disdainfully, indicating her present surroundings were not 
exactly paradise for unicorns.

"I know, I know." Bobby sighed. "I wish I'd been able to do more for
you."

She looked up at him, her eyes filling with affection. "Meh!" He had
done more than enough by loving her.

"I don't wanna leave you, either, Uni." He buried his head in the 
little unicorn's neck, hiding his tears in the short orange silk of
her mane. Her sweet breath warmed his back.

If either of them had been a little older, they might have looked for
words to define the love that ran between them, deep and unconditional
as that of a boy and his dog. But they were both intelligent beings,
and they had endured this final parting before.  That only made it 
deeper and sadder.

Mulder turned away and found Scully by his side. "Some journeys have 
to be made alone," she said quietly. "Just like some decisions."

"Then let me know that you've made one," he said just as quietly.
"I...I don't react well to surprises."

The boy released the unicorn, scrubbing his hand over his face, and 
found that all eyes were on him and Uni. "What are you guys looking 
at?" he demanded hostilely.

Sheila said nothing as she walked toward her little brother with his
hazmat suit in her arms. 


Presto was having a final word with the cloud elementals. "If we
don't come back in five hours, then either we've been captured or
we're not coming back. Either way, you're free as soon as you get
Uni across the Flaming Plain. If we do come back within that time, 
you'll be free as soon as all of us get across the Flaming Plain." 
He scuffed his foot. "Are you sure there isn't anything we could do 
to pay you back for all your help?"

"There is nothing," they assured him. "But you have given us a
good tale to tell at home, o wizard Presto."

Presto looked down at Uni as the cloud elementals rose back up into
position. "Why did that tone of voice make me think he thinks it'll
be a funny story?" 

Uni meh'd innocently. She almost kept a unicornish straight face.

Great. 

"Well, that's one job done," said Presto. "Now for the hard part."
He sighed. "It's nothing, he says. No pressure, he says." He took a 
deep breath and took off his hat. "Well, here goes nothing," he 
said under his breath, as he began to make a few passes over the hat.

"Abracazoyz, abracazair!
Smoke up the valley while we are down there!
Pull down the smoke clouds above us like fog,
'Cause otherwise I'm gonna be a dead dog."

Having been given good directions for once, the hat did exactly as 
it was told. The smoke clouds always filling the sky above the 
Flaming Plain sunk obediently into the valley, while the party, 
securely ensconced in their hazmat suits, watched complacently.

Uni started coughing.

"Hey!  Do something about Uni!" Bobby demanded, his voice slightly
muffled by the suit's headgear. 

"All right, all right!" said Presto, coughing a little himself.

"Magical hat, I know this sounds loony,
But make a smoke shield that stays around Uni!"

As he spoke and twiddled, he made sure to visualize what he wanted
as clearly as possible. And what do you know? He actually got it. A 
greyish forcefield appeared around Uni, which seemed to form a barrier
to smoke but not to air. Uni danced forward and back, and the shield 
followed her. Judiciously, she nodded her approval. Presto got in his
hazmat suit, and they were finally ready to go.

"The smoke looks thick enough," Hank said. "Let's move out. Sheila, 
you tell us where to go. Everybody stay close together, or we'll 
lose each other in the smoke. And don't forget to carry the weapons
like they're artifacts we've found."



The plan worked well at first. Maybe too well, Hank thought later. It
may have made them all a little over-confident when they so easily 
snuck past the Consortium guards in the smoke. But they had duly 
observed all the precautions that years of trouble had drilled into
them, and home was calling, easy and close at hand.

Even the tents and huts that the Consortium had erected among the 
strange metal towers of the valley spoke to them, telling a tale of
a more familiar technology than magic in the humblest things: 
trash cans, pop cans, crumpled papers, and a discarded burger bag.

So they walked through the smoke unchallenged, passed down the 
makeshift tent corridors as if they belonged there, until they stood 
before a large dome tent of gleaming white and heard a strange 
whirring from within, and glimpsed a bit of oddly colored light.

"This is it," said Sheila quietly. 

"On three, then," said Hank, and reminded them, "Act normal unless 
they challenge us. One, two, three...." Hank opened the door.

The tent was full of white-suited people with guns in their hands 
and goggles on their faces.

He'd led them into a trap.

Hank closed the door and scrambled out of the way. Seconds later, 
gunfire tore the door apart. By then, the Young Ones were well on
their way down a corridor of tents, and holding their weapons the
way they'd been designed.

"There's more behind us," Diana hissed. "Those goggles?"

"Ultraviolet...." Scully explained.

"We'll do our best to shake them," Hank said. "Stay close!"  He 
abruptly vanished between a couple of tents.  They followed. But all
around them, they could hear more people moving in the smoke. 

More guns spoke, and Eric held up his shield, and then Hank fired 
his bow. The sudden burst of light half-blinded those wearing goggles,
and the group ran while they could, and quietly. But already they 
heard others following and searching. 

Another sudden blast of gunfire. It hit a tower about two hundred 
yards away, but they decided it was time to zigzag down another
alley. Unfortunately, they ran into yet another band of searchers,
only some of whom were wearing goggles. Eric's shield protected them
yet again, but Hank had to wonder how long their luck would last.
He looked uneasily back at Dana. Her sword was out and ready, and
both she and Mulder looked even more expressionless than usual.

Great. Even they were worried. 

"We need a spell, Presto. Something disabling guns would be nice,"
Hank requested.

"I'm working on it," Presto replied. He sounded preoccupied. Hank
didn't argue.

"We're outnumbered," Eric pointed out. "And those goons don't need 
bullets to make our lives unpleasant."

"We can't let our weapons fall into their hands," Scully panted
quietly. 

"We can't let _us_ fall into their hands," Mulder pointed out as 
they trotted through another group of tents. "They'll never let us 
go. Not when we could warning people in the Realm or on Earth about
this foothold of multiversal imperialism."

Then Diana pointed up in the sky. "Something's coming in through the
smoke."

Hank led them into a convenient tower doorway, from which they all
peered anxiously.

"I hope it's the cavalry," puffed Presto under his breath.

"Well, there's good news and bad news," murmured Eric. "Good news is,
it's cavalry all right."

Diana snorted. "Bad news is, the horse has red eyes and big wings."

Bobby started. "Veng--mmph!" 

Sheila's hand went over his mouth. "SHHH!"

"Mmph," he whispered, nodding, and Sheila removed her hand.

It was too late. Venger had heard them and was flying toward them.
They left the doorway and ducked down a covered alley, but they could
hear Venger and the hellhorse flying above. 

And yet the situation did have its advantages. When yet another group
of Consortium fighters commenced fire, Venger disposed of them with
a few lightning bolts. 

"Crispy, extra-crispy or rotisserie?" Mulder asked Scully.

"Just run, Mulder!" 


They came at last to an open space, with no buildings to dodge into
and no alleys to run through, and a great pit before them, surrounded
only by strange sigils in the pavement. Venger rode victoriously over 
their heads, his bolts driving them toward the pit. Defiantly, Hank 
fired his bow, trying to net Venger. 

And suddenly, the pit was filled with a silver light that surged up
to meet them. It rippled, smoothed -- and suddenly they did not see 
the silver light at all, but the stars that shone far above their 
heads, obscured by smoke. 

Venger laughed. "Behold! The Mirror of Ages, which shows the past
of all worlds. I have sought it long and without success. But you 
children, and Dungeon Master, that great fool, have led me to it at 
last, and your weapons have opened it. My thanks.

"And now, it will show me a part of the past I have long desired to
see."

He looked down on the pit from his nightmare's back, and suddenly
the peaceful night sky was replaced by another one, strange and 
beautiful. The veils of a nebula burned close and bright, and so did
countless young stars, so that the night could never be darker than
twilight. There were people gliding through that sky, casually 
soaring on wings much like Venger's own. They also bore a single horn,
and their fangs winked out of faces as blue as his. 

But they all wore peaceful expressions, while Venger's above them grew 
more wrathful every moment.

Suddenly the scene shifted, and that calm world was calm no more. 
Grotesque creatures moved like lightning and slew many of the horned
people. Bright lights shone out of nowhere, capturing others and 
lifting them into strange ships that looked like UFOs. Strange 
insects and birds flew by in clouds, biting and pecking. The horned 
people whom they attacked rose up with completely black, staring 
eyes -- and then attacked their own people as if possessed. 
Shapeshifters took on the appearance of friends, only to turn on the 
few brave defenders. When one of the horned people managed to wound 
one, green blood sprayed out and all the horned people there died 
choking.

"The alien bounty hunters," Mulder breathed.

Venger heard, and his attention snapped away from the horrible 
picture. "You know of them, Bard?"

"I've fought them," he replied. "So has Scully. There seems to be
some kind of slow invasion going on back home. The humans we were
fighting here -- they seem to be helping the aliens, for some 
reason."

No one else said a word. So home wasn't safe either.

"There were traitors on my world as well." Venger pointed to a group
of horned people killing their own. Their eyes were not black, but 
bright with unholy glee or stolid with duty. "Though I guess they 
did not long enjoy the fruits of their labor. If they were allowed 
to survive by the invaders, I doubt a life of slavery was much to 
their liking. Still, I will make sure they pay for their treachery 
when next we meet."

The scene changed again, and a young boy and girl of the horned 
people were running into a building where a vortex of light pulsed
slowly. They pushed through and squirmed under the hordes of others
trying to get into the vortex without success. One horned woman even
pounded her fists on the swirling brightness as if on a wall, and
with about as much success. But when the boy and girl struggled up
to it, it immediately drew them in.

The boy, his face horrified, struggled and tried to resist, tried to
drag the woman with him. His hand passed through hers like mist, and
he was gone. And suddenly the boy and girl stood on the grass of the
Realm, taller than the dark-haired, balding man in red robes who 
greeted them with great relief. They resisted his hug, pounding at 
him with their fists much as the woman had. 

"Is that Dungeonmaster?" asked Presto. "Boy, he looks young!"

"Then," Sheila breathed slowly, "you were the little boy, Venger, 
and the little girl was your sister Karina."

"And Dungeonmaster was my father, before he held the worldgates shut
against all our people. Someday he will pay for that crime."

"The worldgates were sabotaged, but not by me," said a quiet voice.
Dungeonmaster! "I call on the Mirror of Ages to witness it."

And suddenly the scene changed again, and two short red-robed people
were frantically examining strange diagrams in the air that appeared
and disappeared as they gestured and spoke. "Dungeonmaster and 
Zakiyah," Diana breathed. 

Hank couldn't understand more than one word in ten of their jargon,
but Presto started muttering to himself while Eric made excited 
little noises that indicated sudden comprehension. He looked up and
saw Venger looking decidedly taken aback.

"So what happened, guys?"

Presto groaned. "There was a bug in the Realm's software. I think."

"It's a game!" said Eric excitedly. "The whole Realm was terraformed
and stocked with monsters and stuff so that people could play 
adventure games there! People traveled from all different worlds, 
including the horned people's, and some people even paid to live 
here. But then these invaders showed up, and some of the horned 
people tried to run away into the game, and the gates wouldn't let
them in because somebody programmed it not to accept new customers
on D-Day."

The view shifted. One of the horned people casually sketched symbols
in the air. Venger's breath came hard. "Your assistant, Zmfer!"

"See his fate," said Dungeonmaster. 

The horned man approached a horned woman as if for payment. She gave
him some sort of object -- then killed him.

Venger said something incomprehensible.

"Bad language doesn't help," Dungeonmaster said calmly. 

Sheila was appalled. "But...but if nobody could get away, how did 
Venger and Karina make it?"

"Aeh, they'd already been to the Realm a few times with their dad,"
Eric explained airily. "They already had an account."

Hank hesitated to point out the obvious. Bobby did not. 
"Dungeonmaster can't be Venger's dad! He doesn't have wings, or 
horns, or...."

Eric scoffed. "It's just a costume, of course. They always make the 
people working at amusement parks wear some kind of dumb uniforms."

Dungeonmaster's eyes twinkled.

Hank shook his head. "But that means that everything we've gone 
through, all the trouble and danger, was all for nothing! It wasn't
real!"

"Of course it was real, Ranger," Dungeonmaster said gently. "It has
been thousands of years since the invaders came for our people. The
other worlds of advanced technology, fearing to be invaded in turn,
closed down the worldpaths leading here or to our homeworld. The 
gamers who were trapped here mostly chose to stay in their game-
forms. They raised families and died here, and their descendants 
know nothing of their origins, the way a world is designed to allow 
'magic', or even the invaders. But some of us found ways to live on, 
to make worldgates, and even to monitor the rest of the universe."

"Your pupils," Venger interrupted suddenly. "You brought them all
from a world soon to be threatened by invasion."

"Indeed. And I think you will find that all of my pupils came from 
such worlds."

"But why did you never tell me?"

"I tried." The scene changed back to the children attacking their
father. They suddenly slipped from his grasp, and a stricken-looking
Dungeonmaster let them go. "But you would not believe me, and you
already had enough skill between you to hide from me, and to find
He Who Should Not Be Named." He sighed. "And then it was too late. 
How I worried about you and your sister as I grieved for your mother. 
But there was nothing I could do. You had chosen your own path, and
your new name."

"Venger." Mulder tasted the word. "So everything you did was to 
avenge your people."

"To pay for the power to avenge my people," Venger corrected. "How
my new master must have laughed, as he gave me the power to kill
without the power or knowledge to make worldgates! And so it was
all for nothing."

"For nothing? Oh, no," said Dungeonmaster sternly. "It was for hate
and fear. It was to bring others into the same dark place you were
walking, and thus to breed more evil. That is what vengeance is 
always for. Is it not so, Bard?"

Mulder's head jerked up. "Uh...yeah." Geez, how did he know about
Melissa and Scully and all of that?

"See that you remember, then," said Dungeonmaster.

Venger brooded on, his anger now focussed on something else. "I have
been played like a puppet. Well, no more! I will repudiate my master 
and take back my own powers -- as soon as I have returned from 
wreaking havoc on the invaders, of course."  With a thought, the 
Mirror again showed his homeworld on that terrible day.  "For 
indeed, the Mirror of Ages shows the road to all lands." A vortex 
of swirling light formed above the Mirror, and he spurred his 
nightmare into it.

Its hooves refused to pass through.

"What is this?" he demanded.

"You cannot go back," Dungeonmaster told him gently. "It was the
first rule of all worldgates. Time and space are the same. To change
one would change the other, perhaps beyond recognition. And so as we 
wandered from world to world, we were permitted to return as soon as 
we left -- but never sooner.  That was built into all the worldgates 
here."

Venger said something else incomprehensible.

Bobby grinned. "I don't know what he said, but I bet my mom would 
wash his mouth out!"

Dungeonmaster turned back to them. "And now it is time for you to
go home, my pupils." He smiled. "You Young Ones have earned enough
experience points that you now have the right and power to return 
to the Realm whenever you wish. As you leave, the software will 
give you objects which create mini-worldgates. Be sure not to lose 
them."

"I won't!" Eric assured him. "I don't want to spend another few
years in the Realm racking up brownie points for a computer!"

"So what do you want us to do now?" Diana asked. "Organize a 
resistance? We're only kids. Besides, nobody would believe us."

"Perhaps not about the invasion," Dungeonmaster replied.

"You got that right," Mulder muttered.

"And perhaps not about the Realm. But your key will allow you to
bring new players into the Realm...and I believe there are many
people your age who enjoy playing games."

Presto's eyes suddenly began to glow. "I know people who'd jump at
the chance. All the Audiovisual Club guys who're in it to play on 
computers...the guys in Chess Club...."

"Mary Lou wouldn't be interested," Diana mused, "but Katy and Tracy
and Bhairavi would. I wonder if...."

"And then they'll get keys," said Bobby. "And their friends'll get 
keys. And their friends. This could get really big, really fast!"

"But some of those kids are gonna get killed!" Hank was not happy.
"The Realm is dangerous. How can you do that to them?"

The excited murmur quieted.

"All of my people died, except for the hybrid slaves." Venger's voice
was uncompromising. "Better to die fighting than be killed without a
chance to resist."

Mulder had a different vision to ponder. "Think how useful it will be
to be able to pop in and out of the Realm. It'll be great for 
escaping the odd Men in Black. Not to mention making the most of our 
vacation time."

"You never take your vacation time, Mulder."

"Well, now I won't have to."

"I am sorry," said Dungeonmaster, "but you and the Paladin have not
earned enough experience points to be granted a key."

"We could stay on a few more years," Mulder offered. His face 
darkened. "That is, if Scully...."

She stiffened. "No, Mulder."

"You two have your own destiny to follow," said Dungeonmaster.
"On your own world, among your own people. Although not quite 
without magic, Paladin." His eyes twinkled. "Do not fear, Bard.
You have said it yourself: the truth will save both her and you.
Go and find it."

"What about the Consortium people on this world?" said Scully.

"I will take care of them," said Venger. "After you leave, of 
course. I would not have the children see such things."

"My son, I can see that we are going to have to talk more about
vengeance," said Dungeonmaster with a sigh.

He held out his hands, and they all gave him their weapons. There 
was some brief hugging among the party. Then he told Mulder and 
Scully to concentrate, and a dark and wintry amusement park appeared
in the mirror. The vortex formed above. It drew them up and through 
itself, and then the two agents were gone.

The other six concentrated, and a bright summer day ten years earlier
came into view. The vortex formed and drew them through -- in the
same positions they'd taken when they went through the first time. A
moment later, they'd slammed back into the roller coaster car in their 
old clothing and were taking the last few turns and slopes of the 
Dungeons and Dragons ride before they came back out into the humid 
air.

"How was it?" somebody in line asked as the car slowed.

"Great!" said Diana.

"Not too bad," said Sheila, with a sideways glance at Hank.

Bobby climbed out of the car slowly. "I want to go back," he said,
already starting to miss Uni. "It was the best."

Presto poked Bobby on the shoulder. "Check out the souvenir in your
pocket."

Bobby carried a lot in his pockets. He sorted patiently through a 
piece of string, a couple rubber bands, an old piece of gum in its
wrapper (Yuck! he thought. It's been _years_ since it touched my
mouth!), some interesting rocks, a couple arcade tokens, and...a 
red pyramid-shaped four-sided die.

The others each had a similar die: eight-sided, ten-sided, twelve-
sided, twenty-sided....

"I got the six-sided," said Eric. "Bor-ring."

"I still have one question," said Diana. "If we're supposed to fit
in and raise a resistance, why would Mulder and Scully think we'd
disappeared?"

"Maybe we just hadn't come back yet," said Presto. "I guess we needed
Mulder and Scully to come along or else we wouldn't have made it
back."

"Yeah, that makes sense."



Back in the Realm, however, a young and ambitious Consortium 
employee named Krycek reported all that he had seen and heard to
his bosses. Krycek was rewarded with a position of trust, and
assigned to masquerade as partner to Fox Mulder. Meanwhile, a watch 
was set on a certain amusement park. 



Mulder and Scully fell out of the vortex and onto their butts. Which
figured, thought Mulder. While he was cheered to think that he and
Scully might now have a few more allies than they'd thought, he 
suddenly wondered why the children had disappeared. And wasn't that
meddling in time, if they now came home safe?  And....

Something hit him over the head, and his thoughts were lost.



They strolled out of the park at the end of the day, laughing and
eating and talking together. They hadn't been much interested in the
rides, actually; they'd spent most of their time just strolling 
around, talking and trying to get used to their old world. When they
met up with the others at the designated time, Eric grimaced at the
site of his father's limousine. It wasn't supposed to be here. 

Then he brightened. "Hey, ditch the bus. You guys can ride with me!"

"I don't know, Eric," Sheila said dubiously. "I think we're supposed
to go the same way we came."

"Aw, c'mon, you guys," he wheedled, "Nobody'll care as long as the 
bus driver knows where we've gone. And it'll be fun."

Diana shrugged. "I'm not gonna turn down a limo ride." 

They were a little surprised that the bus driver didn't make more of
a fuss. But it had been a long day for her, too. Eric led them all
over to the limo. The chauffeur blandly opened the door for them.

His father was sitting inside.

Eric stopped dead in shock -- but they only noticed because they
knew him. "Dad," he recovered, "allow me to present some friends
of mine." He gave their full names. "I was intending to give them a
ride home." He stopped there, marshaling his arguments.

"A good thought, Eric," his father said. "I'm very glad to meet you
youngsters. Please, sit down."

As the car drove away, the chauffeur locked all the doors while 
Eric's father fingered the gun in his pocket. 

He hoped not to use it.



"Vengeance is useless," Dungeonmaster said again.

"Vengeance is necessary," countered Venger. 

"Oh, yes," said Shadowdemon suddenly. "And vengeance is mine."

Venger felt the power flowing out of him. It was as strong and 
painful a sensation as blood dripping from a wound. "What have you
done!"

"Why, I was shocked by what you said about repudiating your master.
So I sent word to him," said Shadowdemon complacently. "And now that
you have lost your magic, I am free. You are weak, and I am strong. 
I must say I enjoy the feeling. Farewell, _master_."

Anywhere else in the Realm, a shadowdemon does not have enough
substance to affect matter much. But there, at the threshold of the
road to all worlds, Shadowdemon was able to push Venger into the 
vortex that led to Earth.

"No!" Venger screamed -- and he was gone.

Dungeonmaster rounded on Shadowdemon, expressionless.

"Now, now," said Shadowdemon, suddenly nervous. "Remember what you
were just saying about vengeance."

And suddenly, Uni, who had seen the firefight from the cliff, 
ventured down from them in time to hear Krycek make his report, 
and feared greatly for Bobby, jumped into the vortex with a 
determined meh.

Dungeonmaster began to feel somewhat put-upon.

This was not going according to plan.



Part 8: The Road to All Lands

"I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not 
learn a little something about courage."
-- Blaine Faulkner, "Jose Chung's _From Outer Space_", The X-Files.


For once it was all going according to plan. 

He took a long satisfying drag off his cigarette and reflected on the
usefulness of portals through time and space. Ten years ago young 
Krycek had brought back a story and a few fuzzy photos from that 
debacle on World Five. He had recognized Agent Mulder but had no idea
how his old friend's son had gone from freshly-recruited Fibbie to the
middle-aged man of the photos, or why he and the missing children were
accompanied by a stunning redhead. He had put down the Mulder in the 
photos down as just another counterpart from an alternate universe, 
until a few days ago when Mulder reopened the children's X-File.

He took another puff. He'd been notified then, as was standard when
anyone sniffed too close to the Project. He'd called for the old files
and taken another look at the photos. He still couldn't identify the
short man or the one with the batwinged cape whom the technicians had 
nicknamed "Bruce Wayne". But Mulder was the Mulder of today, and the
mysterious redhead was the pale, too thin Agent Scully who fought a
losing battle with cancer.

So he had sent a team to the amusement park. They'd kept the agents
under surveillance as the two of them promptly disappeared, thanks
to one of those annoying space/time faults which the portals created
every once in a while and which the Project scientists weren't yet 
able to explain, much less prevent. Within a few moments, the agents
had popped out again none the worse for wear and unprepared for 
being taken into custody. 

The sweepers had enjoyed their easy mission. The scientists were
ecstatic over the readings they'd been able to get, given a little
warning. (Though the faults had been relatively harmless so far,
everyone would be happier if they could be eliminated altogether.) The
only sticky point had, as usual, been the agents themselves. Despite
the best efforts of a psych squad who'd worked on the agents before
during their numerous abductions, disappearances, and bits of 'missing
time', the agents had not answered a single question about their time
on World Five. They could not be persuaded, tricked or forced to do
so. Nor would they speak of the children except as part of the case
they'd followed to the amusement park.

"This isn't just their usual stubbornness," Dr. Ligotti had reported
with a wry smile for his charges. "Someone else has been poking around
in there. I couldn't tell if he left a compulsion, an erasure, or just 
your standard memory block, but he was thorough. We've been working on
them for three days, and neither the chemicals nor the hunger, thirst
and sleep deprivation has done any good. If you want them returned in
good shape, we're going to have to start treating them now. We'll also
have to redo all their old memory blocks and cover scenarios. Our
unknown -- we're codenaming him Curious George -- has been poking 
around in there, too."

"This Curious George -- could it be Dr. Verber?"

Ligotti snorted. "In his dreams, maybe. Verber's a quack who's 
caught a few lucky breaks. Curious George has real talent." He 
paused, considering. "When you catch him, sir, if he's still 
reasonably intact, I'd like a chance to recruit him for our team. A 
little attitude adjustment might make him very valuable to the 
Project."

"I'll take that under consideration," he'd told Ligotti, amused.
Then he'd ordered Ligotti to see that the treatment and memory work 
repairs began immediately. He lit another cigarette after the doctor
left and considered the problem. Another piece had been placed on
the board, it seemed, and this Curious George could become a problem.
Mulder with his full memory -- or worse yet, Scully -- was a danger
to the Project and everything it was trying to achieve.

But there were other dangers. Like the young people in pseudo-medieval
clothing who had raided five Project facilities and escaped with 
valuable Merchandise, including a whole lab: fetuses, equipment and 
all. The missing children were all grown up, and they scorned to hide
their faces. They appeared and vanished through temporary portals, and
the scientists kept tracing the portals back to the coordinates of 
World Five. But no scientist had been able to open a portal to World 
Five in ten years. 

They rescued Merchandise, so they would doubtless attempt to rescue 
Mulder and Scully. When they did, his people would be ready. He 
crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray and picked up the remote.
He thumbed play and began to watch the videocassette that held the 
relevant excerpts from the old surveillance tapes. Ten years ago, 
their people had not been ready at all.

Static. A warning of the tape's clearance level, which he ignored
except to adjust the tracking. Then the tape began, with an overhead
shot of the children being escorted into the facility by Tom Blake
and his sweeper team. The anonymous architecture could have belonged
to any office building, although the key card locks suggested a 
certain amount of security for the time. The timestamp said 23:00.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back to study the tape again.

"No, I don't own the amusement park," Blake said easily. "But I'm 
on the board of the corporation that does, and I'm a major 
stockholder. So of course the park administration wass eager to oblige."

"Wow!" That was the youngest boy, Bobby. "That behind-the-scenes tour
of the park at night was tubular! And that was the first time I ever
got to stay at the park late enough to see the fireworks show."

"I don't know about this," his sister Sheila said uneasily. "Mom and
Dad are expecting us soon."

"I gave them a call to let them know where you were," Blake assured
them, opening a waiting room door and ushering them inside where 
another child was waiting. "Please, take a seat. I'll be back in just 
a moment with a guide for the rest of the tour. Eric, walk with me."  

Eric, Blake's son, looked uncertain but obeyed. The other children 
walked in guilelessly and ignored the door closing behind them in 
favor of questioning the child already waiting.

"Jimmy Whittaker?" You could hear the disbelief absolutely dripping 
from the boy with glasses...what did they call him...ah, yes. Presto.

"Who else would I be? Bet you didn't think you'd see me today. Ha! I 
got to go to the amusement park anyway!" His expression changed. "But 
this part of it is pretty boring." 

The children exchanged looks of dismay for no apparent reason. Well,
other than the obvious one of being forced to breathe the same air
as this twit. He inhaled sharply. He remembered trying to interrogate
the boy. It was entirely too bad that no stray bullet had ever hit 
Jimmy Whittaker, and that his genes had made him entirely useless for 
hybrid research.

Hank's face took on an expression of concern. "What happened? How did 
you get here?"

Jimmy even shrugged insolently. "My parents sent me to bed early. Oh,
and I had a bad dream. You guys were in it, and boy, did you look 
stupid!" He stopped for a moment to laugh. The other children's
expressions ranged from resigned to murderous. "Anyway, when I woke 
up, these government guys were at the door. They drove me up here."

"'Government guys?'" Hank repeated. "But this is private property!"

"And your parents let them?" Diana looked flabbergasted. "That late 
at night? What'd they say?"

"I dunno." Jimmy shrugged again. "I didn't see them. One of the
government guys was talking to the parentals in the living room, but
I didn't pay much attention to what he was going on about."

"Did they show you any ID?" Diana persisted. "Or say who they worked
for?"

"No." For the first time, Jimmy's bubble of self-absorption actually
seemed to pop. "Should they?"

"Of course they should've!" Presto yelped. 

"Yeah, Jimmy," Bobby jeered. "Even I know that. Don't you ever watch
TV?"

Sheila shook her head. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"So do I," said Diana. She tried the door. "We're locked in!"

The tape switched to a sequence of views down the hallway as Eric and
his father passed from one surveillance camera's range into another. 
Blake walked along briskly, probably to discourage questions. Eric
studied the discreet signs on each door and seemed to find much that
puzzled him. But when they came to an elevator, Eric turned to his 
father as they came to a stop.

"So, Dad," Eric said hesitantly, "how've you been?"

"Fine." Blake punched the call button. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, Dad, we really don't talk all that much, so I was hoping that
it might lead to an actual conversation." 

"All right, we'll talk." Blake's voice turned cold. "So, what did you 
do today, Eric?"

"You'd never believe me if I told you," replied Eric fervently. "It 
was incredible! Unbelievable! But I've never been so glad to see you 
in all my life as when you pulled up, and as soon as we get home I'm
going to take the longest bath! I'm surprised you can't smell me from
here! And..."

The elevator dinged!  Eric walked in, ignoring the normal taboo 
against talking in the elevator in favor of letting his words flow 
out of him. "...I'm so glad you've finally gotten to meet my friends.
Hank and Presto, they're great guys, aren't they? And Diana, she's...."

"But what did you do today?" Blake leaned forward, his impassive face
actually taking on a look of interest.

Eric seemed flattered by his concern. "We rode a lot of rides, but 
when we rode the Dungeons and Dragons coaster..." Eric paused, seemed 
on the verge of saying something, and then ended lamely, "...it was 
kinda cheesy, but we had fun."

The elevator dinged!

Even from the awkward angle of the surveillance camera, he could see
Blake hooding his eyes. "I'm disappointed in you, Eric." He stepped 
briskly out of the elevator. 

Eric hurried after him. "Dad?"

"I thought I could trust you."

"You did? I mean, you can trust me," Eric elaborated, "but I
mean, I didn't think you thought...."

"You're my son. A man should be able to trust his son. I thought
I knew you better than that."

Eric strode faster, trying to catch up. "Now wait just a minute, Dad!
I haven't done anything to betray your trust. Of course, you've never
trusted me with anything. And as for knowing me, well, I'd like to 
know how you could. You've never been interested in finding out what
I think or feel, much less what Michael does. We're the only family 
you've got, and we do love you -- when we see you, anyway. 
Personally, I'd like to see a bit more of you than the occasional 
visit to lecture me on how my grades aren't good enough, but...."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, son. Not for a while, anyway."

"Yeah, sure, Dad. Whatever you say."

Blake opened a door and ushered Eric in ahead of him. As soon as
Eric had stepped inside the office, Blake stepped back into the 
hallway and locked the door. 

Eric must have heard the lock click. "Dad? What are you doing?"
He rattled the handle. 

Blake's voice was muffled by the door. "I gave you a chance to tell 
me the truth willingly. I'm sorry you didn't take it. It would have 
been good to work with one of my sons beside me." 

"Dad! Let me out of here!"

"Don't worry. You'll be interrogated, but gently. After your memory
of this incident is wiped, you'll be fine. I won't take you into the
business, of course, but your trust fund should be sufficient for
whatever you decide you want to do."

"Dad! Are you nuts? I told you as much as I could! Really!" He 
pounded on the door, but futilely.

"Goodbye, Eric."

Eric pounded on the door some more. After some thought, he backed up
and tried to break the door down with his shoulder. He bounced off,
rubbed his shoulder, and muttered, "Some welcome, huh, Dad?"

"Yeah. He got me, too."

Eric turned to see his younger brother Michael uncurling sleepily
from the office couch.  "Hey, little brother. I see you got back in
one piece."

"Yeah. And then Dad came in with some goons in black to ask me 
questions about...There. Dad called it World Five. But how could he
know where I'd been? How could anybody know?"

As with Eric, there was something Michael couldn't quite manage to 
spit out. It came up again and again on the tapes of the missing 
children. No psych squad had been able to examine the children 
before their abrupt departure from the facility, but it seemed likely
that this had been more of Curious George's work.

"Don't ask me!" Eric slumped down beside his brother on the couch.
"I thought that when I got home, all I'd have to worry about was
what toppings to put on my first pizza." He sighed. "Maybe this 
isn't really home, just some kind of evil mirror universe. Or 
maybe this is all a nightmare and I'll wake up."

Michael pinched him hard.

Eric swatted at him. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Did you wake up?"

Eric growled. Michael looked innocent. Eric sighed and slumped 
back into the couch. Michael smiled smugly.

After a moment, Eric looked at his brother. "Did you hear what Dad 
said there at the end?"

"About interrogation? And mindwiping?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds like something from a World War II movie."

"Yeah, and Dad's the Gestapo." Eric shook his head. "This can't be
happening! V...he must have taken over his brain or something."

"What are we gonna do?"

"Get out of here somehow and warn the guys."  Eric got up again.
"That door's pretty solid. How about the windows?"

"No windows."

"Well, there's gotta be something...Mike, you search the desk and
see if you can find anything interesting. Check that computer, too.
Maybe there's disks."

"What are you going to do?"

Eric picked a pen up off the desk and took off its cap. "I'm going to
see if I can unscrew these so we can get into the airducts."

"Outrageous! Oh, and what are we going to do about that camera?"

"What camera?"

"That one, in the corner up there."

Eric said some words he shouldn't have, then sighed. "We'll just have
to hope they haven't been tuning in on us so far." He pulled a tissue
out of a box on the desk and brought it toward the camera. After a 
moment, the screen turned white.

Well, anyone could have seen where that was leading. If they'd routed
the video to a monitor instead of a VCR. He sighed again. This was 
what came of leaving security to the private sector.

He paused the tape and lit another cigarette. The next bit was
interesting and had been the focus of much debate among the Elders.
Psychic power, magic, or merely an advanced technology? In their 
experience, very few results from the first two were useful, practical 
or reproducible. But of course, that only applied to this world.

The video switched back to the waiting room. Presto was fiddling 
with one of those tiny executive Zen gardens, trying to build a tiny 
sand castle instead of raking tiny wave patterns around the tiny 
rocks. He looked deeply depressed. "He said he could let me have a 
used Apple. I can't believe I fell for that."

"We all fell for it, Presto," Sheila said quietly. "Even Eric. I hope
he's all right."

"Jimmy, we already tried breaking down the door," Hank explained 
patiently. 

"It's time to move on," said Diana. "Now, if we can just get the 
hinges off the door, we can get out of here and let Eric know what's
going on!"

Jimmy sneered. "We wouldn't need to, if you guys weren't too wimpy 
to bust it down."

Bobby folded his arms and stared at Jimmy. "We aren't wimpy!"

"Yeah, right."

"Fine. I'll just show you!"

Sheila hauled Bobby over to the door. "I've got my housekeys. Maybe we 
can use them like screwdrivers," she suggested, pointedly ignoring
Jimmy. Bobby continued to glare at the twit.

Hank nodded. "Maybe...."

Jimmy laughed. "Yeah, and maybe if we clap our hands, Tinkerbell will
save us!"

Presto absently took a pinch of sand and threw it at Jimmy. "Go to 
sleep and don't let out a peep." He went back to playing with the 
sand.

"Hey, take the keys off the keychain, Sheila," said Diana. "That way, 
we can use both of them at the same time."

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something and slumped in his seat. The
children continued to discuss. Presto continued moodily pushing sand
around.

"There's one screw out," Diana said helpfully. "You get the top one,
Hank. How you doing, Sheila?"

"Working on it...."

Hank strained to reach the top of the door. "Can't quite get it. 
Presto, give me a leg up, will you?" he asked, turning around.

"I'm coming," said Presto, sighing and setting down the glorified
sandbox. "Hey, what are you staring at, Bobby?"

Bobby's eyes were very wide. "Jimmy."

"What about him?"

"You told him to go to sleep, Presto."

"And?"

"And he did."

The other children's heads swiveled. Then they traded glances.

Presto turned away, shaking his head violently. "No. No way."

"Why not, Presto?" Diana's eyes were lighting up. "Remember when
_he_ was in the amusement park? He was still able to do it."

"But none of ours worked!" Presto protested.

"He wasn't using..." The odd hesitation from Sheila. "...anything 
but himself. And I hate to say it, but he and you do have the same 
job." 

"But I needed...."

"We wouldn't've had them taken away from us if we were still going to 
need them," Hank said. He stepped away from the door and began to 
pace. "Diana still has the agility she built up. I'm sure I'm still 
just as good a shot. Heck, maybe we _should_ have let Bobby try to 
break down the door."

"Yeah! Lemme at it!" Bobby agreed.

"And Presto," Diana added, "you did learn how to twiddle."  She 
motioned to the twit. "Just ask Jimmy!"

"He'll have to," Sheila added, just a bit of regret in her voice.
"We can't leave Jimmy sleeping when we go looking for Eric."

"Can you leave him asleep when we leave?"

The children looked up, shocked, and chorused "Eric?!"

"In the flesh!" The boy jumped down into camera range, followed by 
his brother. "Come on, guys, wake up Jimmy the Geek and let's blow
this popstand!"

Sheila grabbed Bobby in mid-run. "Wake him up, Presto."

Presto shrugged. "Here goes nothing...probably a whole lot of nothing,"
he grumbled. Then he twiddled his fingers. "This test's got no make-up. 
Jimmy, you wake up!"

Jimmy yawned and sat up.

"Okay," Eric said, tapping his foot, "_Now_ can we blow this 
popstand?"

"How stupid are you people?" Jimmy demanded. "You're going to run
away from the government?"

"Yeah, like these guys are really from the government," said Bobby. 
"If you want to stick around, fine with me."

"I'm not going anywhere," said Jimmy, crossing his arms. "If you guys
want to get in trouble, that's your problem."

The older children glanced at each other and shrugged.

Hank sighed. "Jimmy, I really think you should reconsider."

"I'm staying," he said again.

"Fine," Eric snapped. "Got any message for Dad, Mike?"

Michael looked uncomfortable. "Tell our dad we said goodbye."

Eric's anger faded for a moment. "Yeah. Tell him to have a good life."
He turned away and dug into his pocket. "Come on, guys. Let's go 
home."

"Home...." Hank smiled wryly. "Yeah, I guess so." He put his hand in 
his pocket, too. "Hope we get a better welcome there than here."

"Couldn't be much worse," Diana chimed in.

"Just a minute," said Presto. He twiddled his fingers and said under
his breath (as far as the lipreaders could tell, and as the subtitles 
announced on screen), "I'm only a wizard and not Sigmund Freud, but 
noone questioning Jimmy gets _too_ annoyed." He sighed. "I hope."
He turned back to them. "I'm ready. Let's go."

And they all vanished in a burst of light, leaving only Jimmy behind.
Temporary portals to World Five, the readings said. They read more
portals a bit later, when the excitement was over and most of the
personnel had gone home. Shortly afterward, all the portal machinery 
and most of the research files had been stolen or destroyed. 
Naturally, there were backups available, but research had been slowed 
considerably -- and when the portal machinery was repaired, they had 
found that World Five was no longer accessible to them.

They'd covered the matter up, of course. The children had mysteriously
disappeared from the amusement park, everyone was told. Blake was kept
out of the matter, except when he appeared on television, convincingly
frightened, to make an appeal to the 'kidnappers' who had mailed him
a 'ransom note'. He had reason to be frightened. If he had not been so
valuable to the Project _and_ been related to the Roushes of Roush 
Pharmaceutical on his mother's side, he would have disappeared as 
quickly as his sons had. For simplicity's sake, however, only Eric was
'missing'. The cover story was that Michael had been sent to a 
boarding school abroad. Over the years, Michael had attended a private
college, earned his degree, and gone back to Europe to study 
literature. They even provided Blake with 'current' photos of his son
to display at work.

The 'ransom note' had turned the disappearance into a kidnapping and
brought in the FBI. Neither the police nor the FBI discovered 
anything, and the case was termed cold by the local police and 
given an X prefix by the FBI. Only Mulder and Scully, and now Skinner,
had really looked into the case since then. 

But Skinner, though not given to Mulder profiling or Scully forensics 
skill, was thorough in his fieldwork. He'd been under constant 
surveillance since he got to town. He'd spoken to all the children's
parents except Blake, and his results had been interesting. The 
parents were helpful and cooperative. They clearly missed their 
children and worried about them. But Skinner had seen it as clearly as 
he had.  Those parents weren't worried about an unknown. Ten years ago,
they hadn't known anything useful, but now they knew exactly where 
their children were and what they were doing. When the surveillance
tapes were scanned frame-by-frame, you could even see microexpressions
of pride cross their faces.

He took a final puff from the cigarette before putting it out. The 
parents were all under surveillance now. As soon as the children's
raid began or surveillance detected any odd goings-on, the parents 
would be brought in for use as hostages, then kept for questioning
once the children had surrendered. Any use of portals would quickly
be detected. The agents were under heavy guard, and would themselves
be useful as hostages. Soon the missing children would be recaptured.

Nothing could possibly go wrong.


Two floors below the room where the man sat smoking, four more 
interns were coming into work. The three men and one woman wore 
white lab coats over their T-shirts and jeans and carried backpacks. 
The guards checked their photos against the most recent photos of 
the 'visitors' they'd been told to expect. These weren't them. Their 
badges were in order and the photos were right, so the guards passed 
them through.

"Kinda young for this work," one commented to the other after they'd
gone.

"Those college kids always look young when they start here," the 
other guard said. "But they can do the work and keep their mouths
shut."

"'Cause if they couldn't, we wouldn't see 'em anymore?" 

"Something like that."

Neither the guards nor the camera monitors picked up the fifth
person. That was not surprising, since she had been in and out of
the facility once already without causing the slightest alarm.
She gave the stocky young man who led the way a poke in the arm
to guide him toward the elevator. When the already-crowded elevator
arrived, the four carefully made room for a fifth in their midst. 
She slid into the elevator sideways so that her presence was less 
obvious, and narrowly escaped getting a door in the face. One of her 
visible comrades, a weedy-looking fellow, held the door from closing, 
then let it go again. "Sorry. Thought I saw someone coming," he 
explained. The other employees said nothing but "What floor?"
The elevator buttons were unusual. There was UL3, UL2, UL1 (where 
they'd boarded the elevator), and then buttons for LL1-8.  A few of
the levels apparently required keys.

The people in the elevator could have been from any company. Most 
wore jeans and polo shirts in honor of the Friday casual day. A few
wore suits and received a bit of commiseration; they had some formal
presentation or meeting today. Many wore labcoats. There was a 
company picnic coming up, and while a few hoped it would take place
elsewhere, most were resigned to making the traditional pilgrimage
to the amusement park.  "Borrrring. We could just go up the access 
tunnels a few hundred feet and do that every day," one complained.
The others gave him a hard look and he subsided.

The five who'd gotten on together traded glances. 

Most of the besuited ones got off the elevator on UL3 -- upper level,
apparently. So did one of the five: a rawboned, red-haired young man.
Nobody gave him a second look as he trundled down the hall in his
labcoat.

The invisible one silently wished him luck.

Back in town, the sixth member of their expedition had gathered
together all of the parents, pets, worldly goods and useful items
which they had spent a week gathering together. Bringing that much
material from world to world required a larger portal than the dice
could create; it needed at least one wizard (preferably more) and some
serious spell-casting time.

They'd found that out the time they'd raided the lab with all those
clones and fetuses in it. They'd assumed it would be a quick matter of
smash and burn, and had been totally unprepared to loot and pillage.
Even their seer hadn't dreamed of such a possibility. The clones had
been more than willing to leave their enslavement. The clones urged
them to destroy the slightly younger victims of the Consortium, but
killing so many living creatures was naturally out of the question.
Despite the logistical difficulties they had found a way. They had
sent a message back to the wizards at the college and found one who
admitted knowledge of the somewhat dubious techniques used to create
chimerical magic creatures. That took care of how to keep the eggs
viable and fetuses and embryos alive until they came to term. It had
also inspired them to keep a very strong watch on the process. There
was no point rescuing people from experiments in one world, only to
let them fall victim to the same thing in another. Still, the time it
all had taken had nearly been their undoing. Five people, however
skilled and well-equipped with magical weapons, were a poor match for
an army of Men in Black, and a worse one for the shapeshifting Bounty
Hunters. Her cloak had done her little good that day; let enough
bullets fly and even the invisible can be hit.

She felt the hands of the watch on her wrist. Their wizard would 
begin transport in five minutes. They would begin the rescue 
operation at about the same time, thus dividing the enemy's forces.
With luck, they'd all be able to avoid a messy fight.

Even as she thought back on this, the invisible one paid attention to
the feel of the talisman in her hand. The tug of magic in it grew
stronger as the elevator went further down. As they came to LL5, she
felt the pull turn horizontal. She nudged her companions. This was 
the floor.

By this time the elevator had cleared out somewhat, so leaving the 
elevator was not nearly such a production number.  As they had seen 
on the previous levels, at least three different hallways led away 
from the shaft.

"Great. A maze of twisty little passages that all look alike," 
groaned the short blocky one. "Hoody hoo."

"Not all alike," she whispered back, still unseen. "The talisman 
says they're thataway."

"What if this doesn't work?"

"It'll work. The next turn's here, and then...." At the end of the
next intersecting hallway, two guards stood glowering at them in 
front of a door. The four kept walking casually past the hallway, 
but stopped a few yards beyond. "I'll take the guards." They could
not hear her silent steps, but they knew she had walked forward and
then run back.  They peeked around the corner. The guards slumped. 
"Sleep powder makes me feel so lazy," she said. "But it's useful, 
and I'd really hate to have to hurt them."

"Is it safe now?"

"Give it another few seconds to lose potency...yes."

"Then let's move!"

The four hurried down the hallway. They dragged the guards out of
the way and looked at the two identical doors, each furnished with
electronic key locks. "Can you get these open, Sheila?"

A pile of weapons with no obvious means of support paused in the
act of being passed out. "Not quickly. Bobby?"

The darkhaired man did not look at all like the blond barbarian that
the Consortium was looking for, but when a club appeared, seemingly
floating in mid-air, he grasped it eagerly. "Stand back, everybody,"
he warned, then pounded it against the ground until it glowed with
power and slammed it against the two locked doors in turn. 

The doors fell like the wargames market.

There were guards within, as they had suspected. The labcoated 
warriors retreated, leaving nothing behind but an invisible cloud of 
the sleep powder. The guards ran right into it.

"Awww. I was hoping for a fight, Sheila. Couldn't you leave me a 
couple of 'em?"

"We're not here for the fun of it. We're here to rescue Dana and 
Mulder."

"Yeah, I know."

They waited the requisite time and then peered into the rooms. Each 
was identically furnished with a hospital bed and a patient under 
restraints: Dana and Mulder, respectively. Sheila took off her hood,
administered the sleep powder antidote, and hurried over to the other 
room to give it to Mulder as well. Within a few minutes, the two FBI
agents were both free and conscious again, although looking weaker 
than she liked; she'd had to give Mulder her arm just to walk him
over to his partner's room. And all the while she felt the pressure
of time passing. 

"Sheila I recognize...barely. But who are the rest of you people?"
Mulder demanded.

"The Consortium knows what we look like," Bobby explained. "But 
give Sheila her cloak and us a polymorph spell, and we can waltz in 
before anybody knows what happened!"

"Magic works here," Hank's voice explained out of the weedy-looking
man's body, "as long as you have enough magical power of your own,
or the spell is cast in the Realm."

"And even if you've got a magical weapon that only works in the
Realm," Diana explained out of a blond woman's body, "you can have a
wizard make a little...bubble of Realm-ness and put it around the
weapon. Once we learned that trick, we were able to pull all kinds
of stunts."

"And we'd better get going if we want to pull this one off," Sheila
warned from the doorway.

"That's good advice," said the smoking man from behind her. "Too bad 
it's too late for you to follow it."

Sheila's hand darted toward her pouch of sleep powder. A bullet
cracked, and the wall beyond her gained a tiny hole. She went still.

"Much better." His gun hand never wavered as he lifted his other
hand to his lips and took a puff. Smoke blurred the shadows where
he stood, making his melodious voice the only part of him they could
clearly perceive. "It appears that we are at somewhat of a stand. You
have the weapons to overcome me, but you cannot do so without 
endangering your friend. Why don't you save time, skip the obligatory
posturing, and simply surrender?"

Sheila's mind whirred. How did he do that? She was the youngest 
mistress of the Thieves' Guild on record, fighting off more coup 
attempts in the last three years than she cared to remember thanks to
her new policies. Nobody could sneak up on her, magically or through
skill -- not even monks! How did he do that?

"You won't get away with this," Hank said, and she approved. Always
good to get the bad guys laughing and off guard. 

"And who will stop me?" the smoking man asked rhetorically. 

"Why, I will, Shadowdemon." Light flooded over the room, and they 
turned to see a small whitehaired man in red robes appear out of 
nowhere. "This has gone far enough."

The smoking man's mouth dropped open. "Dungeonmaster?!"

Mulder and Scully's mouths dropped equally far. "He's a what?"

"Shadowdemon," Sheila explained numbly. "Venger's servant."

Mulder's eyes hardened. "I always knew you weren't human."

"On the contrary. I am as human as you are...perhaps more," he 
insinuated with a smile. "I have all the pains of mortality...
and all the pleasures as well. I have quite enjoyed being part
of your people."

"But how?" asked Hank.

"My pupils, you are not the first to learn how useful a polymorph 
spell can be," Dungeonmaster said quietly. "So this is where you
went after I spared you. Serving He Who Should Not Be Named."

Mulder could not contain himself any longer. "Selling us out to 
the aliens!"

Shadowdemon took another puff. "Actually, I was sent here to help 
humanity."

Even Dungeonmaster looked surprised.

"Oh, yes," Shadowdemon smiled. "We are not so far apart as you 
thought."

Mulder stood up shakily. "You're lying, you smoking bastard!"
Scully's hand stopped him.

Dungeonmaster ignored all this. "What did He Who Should Not Be Named 
offer you, that you would willingly become human?"

"I don't know why I should tell you," said Shadowdemon, grinding his
cigarette out on the doorframe.

"Then I will tell you," Dungeonmaster replied. "Freedom for your
people. Freedom from the summonings of evil clerics and magic-users.
Freedom from doing the will of others. And freedom from your own
master, whom you hated and betrayed."

"If you know so much about it, why did you never do anything to 
help us?"

"I was," said Dungeonmaster. "I trained Presto, who has become one
of the great wizards of his time, and who teaches other magic-users
to summon no being without fair compensation for their labors."

"My people are beyond any summoning now," said Shadowdemon 
complacently.

"That is true enough." The wrinkled face sagged with sorrow.

"What do you mean, old man?" Shadowdemon's hands suddenly shook with
fear. Sheila slipped away from under his gun. He did not notice.

"I feared it was Venger's doing, but now I know the truth," 
Dungeonmaster said as if to himself. He gathered himself and looked
kindly at the smoking man. "There is no gentle way to say this, I'm 
afraid. Your people no longer exist."

Shadowdemon's smooth voice stuttered. "You...you made that up. To 
distract me. So the girl could escape."

"You know I did no such thing." Dungeonmaster gathered the others
together with his eyes. "We are leaving, Shadowdemon. You may explain
our loss to your masters as you will; I disabled the surveillance
equipment in these rooms. You will not attempt further interrogation
of any of my pupils on matters of the Realm; they are geased to say
nothing." He hesitated. "And if you ever tire of serving so many bad
masters, say my name. Even the greatest forces of evil cannot enslave
the unwilling."


A great light swept the room, so bright that he was forced to shield
his eyes. When it cleared, he stood alone.

All alone. He was the last of his people, living in a form that was
not his own, in a land that was farther from his home than he could
easily imagine. 

But not quite kinless, he reminded himself. Remember young Jeffrey.
The thought made him breathe easier.

He went back to his work. He ordered his Men in Black to pull in the
parents for questioning. The parents too were gone; may have been for 
days. His men had been doing surveillance on illusions -- Presto's 
doing, no doubt, or perhaps that Varla girl he'd been so fond of.
Tom Blake was gone, too, and many of his files with him.

He smiled reluctantly. If he had to be defeated, at least it had
been done by people he respected. The same could not be said of his
human masters.

He ordered his men to pull the surveillance tape from Blake's office. 
He watched it, smoking thoughtfully as Eric spoke to a ring and 
banished the polymorph spell on himself where he stood in front of
Blake's desk.

"Hey, dad," he said casually. "I'm home."

Tom Blake must have recognized his son from the photos, thought 
Shadowdemon. But they had hardly done the young man justice.  Eric
was not just taller and older; there was a look of wisdom in his 
face. 

Tom Blake's face turned gray. "Why did you come back? They'll do 
worse than kill you if they find you here. Go!"

"I know what they'll do. That's why I've come -- to get you out away 
from all this," Eric said. "You thought this'd be just another 
government contract, maybe with security stricter than most. There'd 
be no harm in a black budget project, just secrecy and money, and 
prestige when the project was declassified later on. But it didn't 
work that way, did it?"

"No," Blake said hollowly. "No, it wasn't. And they told me things...
if I didn't obey, I'd be dead. If I did, they'd protect us -- you and
your brother and I. By the time I figured out what they were doing, it
was too late. The things I've done --"

"I know," Eric said. "But it's not too late." 

His father said nothing.

Eric leaned forward. "I mean it. My friends and I are fighting them.
We need to know the things you know. You need a chance to make up
for what you've done. Come with me, and you can."

"Just get up and go?"

"I don't think there's anything here that you need. Mike or I can
put you up -- I'd take Mike's place if I were you. He's got a 
beautiful house adjoining the Library of the Sages he set up, but
all I can offer you is a bed in the Celestial Knights' barracks...
did I mention we revived them? Yeah, I'm commander, more by default
than qualifications. I hope you can give me some management advice,
'cause I've been having to teach myself or talk to my friends for
most of it...."

Shadowdemon watched, and thought of two young men he knew: one the 
son of his body, one the son of his choice. Yes, if he could only 
make Mulder see reason, he could give him his Scully, save him from 
the aliens, and get a man he respected to work by his side. Then 
both young men could work together, as Shadowdemon had worked with
his first human friends, Ronald and Bill. They might even have 
children. The thought made Shadowdemon smile again.

"I'm going to marry soon. Hey," Eric said, mock-shocked, "it'll look 
bad if the head of the new Celestial Knights doesn't have more of his 
family there than his little brother. So what do you say, Dad?"

And Tom Blake smiled for the first time in ten years and quoted,
"I hear there's a great universe next door. Let's go."

Tom Blake, Shadowdemon mused, was a fortunate man.



Mulder and Scully looked around them. They stood in a circle, in a 
courtyard in the middle of a castle. Armed people looked down on them
suspiciously. "What's the password?" one called. 

"Your mother wears army boots and your father smells of gooseberries!"
Bobby yelled.

The guards relaxed and put away their weaponry. "Welcome home!" called
the one who'd spoken before. She took off her helmet to reveal purple
hair and pointed ears which were decidedly not the latex kind.

Presto and a gaggle of wizards came out. The polymorph spell was duly
broken, and Bobby, Hank and Diana regained their normal forms. 

Eric came out. Michael came out. And then a wave of happy parents 
converged upon their children.

Mulder and Scully stood watching, the only strangers in the midst of
the crowd. Their eyes turned to each other, and Mulder's hand fell
on Scully's shoulder. "Not a bad way for adventures to end."

"Once you hit tenth level you attract followers and build a 
stronghold," Scully said, reminding him. "That's a different kind of
adventure."

Even as they watched, more people emerged from inside the castle,
including four who looked exactly like the Young Ones' polymorphed
forms.

"Deja vu, Mulder?"

"The original models, I guess."

"Fellow pupils of yours," said Dungeonmaster, who was suddenly right 
beside them. "From the town of Muncie, in Indiana. Although I may have 
made a mistake with them."

"Oh?"

"It is not every group of my students that retrieves a cursed evil 
artifact, throws it into a rabbit warren, waits for the rabbits to 
be possessed by evil, and then slays them all with a blessed hand 
grenade for the experience points."

"Is that legal?" asked Mulder, with a strange gleam in his eyes. 

"It was." Dungeonmaster looked amused. "The software has since been 
adjusted."

"Damn!"

Scully gave Mulder a look. "No, we wouldn't want people to kill
innocent animals just for experience points."

"Of course not," said Dungeonmaster, with a smile. "No more than
we would want someone to bring in a cadaver and introduce it as
a new player." 

Mulder looked at Scully unbelievingly. Scully avoided meeting 
Mulder's eyes. 

Dungeonmaster reclaimed their attention. "And now that one group of 
my pupils has returned to their home, it is time for you to return 
to yours." He frowned. "Before anything else happens."

Walter Skinner looked at Mulder and Scully and grunted. In all his
years in the service and the FBI, he had seen some pretty strange
things. But he had never seen two lost agents drop down out of a
clear blue sky. And land in the bushes around a drained-for-the-winter
amusement park lake. Or seen said amusement park rock like a skyscraper
in California as someone set off charges to block the hidden tunnels
below.

But then, he'd never closed out a kidnapping case because the parents 
disappeared, either.

"So this is your report?" He stared them down. "Doesn't tell much."

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other unhappily.

"Sir," said Scully carefully, "if there was anything we could add to
that report, I assure you, we would do so."

Skinner stared at them for a moment more, then closed the folder. 
"Dismissed. And try not to cause me any more trouble...for at least
a week."

"Sounds like a plan, sir," said Mulder blandly. "If my partner will 
cooperate."



Epilogue: A Very Large Rock

(to Frohike) "I'm gonna go play a little D&D...uh, in memoriam."
-- Ringo Langly, "Three of a Kind", The X-Files


The portal swirled on. Something was screaming madly in his ear. 
Venger damned his useless vestigial wings and tried to keep his gorge 
down.  He tried and failed a dozen times to teleport back to his 
castle or perform any useful magic, but failed. He Who Should Not Be
Named (damned over-officious lord that he was) had taken all the power
he had.

Something tumbled past him, and the noise came with it. The unicorn
foal! He grabbed at her, and the terrified little idiot actually bit 
him! He swore but refused to lose his hold on the creature. 

Crazed hooves battered at him, but he hung on. "We are caught in this
place!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "Neither of us have 
enough magic to escape it! We must work together!"

"Meh? Mor mut?" she demanded defiantly. Clearly she had more mane 
than wit. 

"Or we stay here forever, you fool!"

The unicorn stopped trying to do him bodily harm and actually looked
him in the eye thoughtfully. For once, he wasn't lying, and he hoped
she could tell.

"Meh," it said carefully. "Meh. Mor mau."

She gathered her power then, while he shaped it with all his skill.
The purity and strength of it was wondrous to work with, but the
goodness of it was so honey-sweet it was disgusting. But he could
stand it. He could stand anything to survive; that was his strength.

Soon they both could perceive the vortex of power about them. There
was no way home within reach, but a path leading elsewhere hung 
before them. United by a common conviction that anywhere was better
than here, they reached for it....

....and found themselves in a place blazing with light, with a feel
more evil than Venger's throneroom. The unicorn actually shrunk 
against his leg. He looked down, angered. "You dare to touch me?"

The unicorn looked insulted. "Meh, mehmuze me." It pranced a pace 
away. Then it stuck out its tongue at him. 

"Much better." He waved his hands and tried to detect something of
his surroundings. He could make no sense of what he learned, but at
least he got something. 

He turned to the unicorn. She was sniffing the air, and it seemed that
she found it distasteful. But still she sniffed, and suddenly looked
excited. "Meh!" she said, and danced forward. Then she turned back,
looking impatient. "Meh!" she said again.

He had come to this: using a unicorn for a guide. But he followed her.

They walked through endless spiraling corridors, working their way in.
The little unicorn grew tired, but doggedly went on, walking more and
more slowly. They were making far too little progress, and the fear
of being captured by this unknown foe whose halls they walked began to
wear upon his patience.

"Can you not go faster?" he asked finally.

"Muh-uh."

"You are a tiresome creature!" he told her angrily. Then he picked the 
unicorn up and stuffed her under one arm. 

"Meh?!"

Venger stepped out briskly, his soul filled with humiliation and bile.
"Now perhaps we can find our way out of this place before we are 
killed by slow torture. If indeed _this_ is not the slow torture."

They followed the scent to a chamber not far from the center of the 
place, if he judged the spiraling correctly. He set the unicorn down
and she trotted toward it without hesitation, then stood looking at 
him expectantly. The door of the chamber opened for them without him 
having to touch it or use a spell. Within it, entangled in a mass of
small wires as if in a kraken's tentacles, a human woman hung 
suspended in a tank of water.

"This is what you smelled?"

"Meh!"

"I came all this way with you...put myself in danger...not for a way
out, not for a way back to the Realm...but to...." He spit out the 
words somehow. "To rescue a damsel in distress?"

The unicorn almost shrugged. "Meh."

He wanted to pound his head against the wall. Better, he wanted to 
pound the _unicorn's_ head against the wall. Instead he made a virtue
of necessity, pulled the woman out of the tank, and began to 
disconnect the wires. She had brown hair, he noticed. After he had
disconnected a certain number of wires and tubes, her eyes opened.
They were brown as well.

/Thank you,/ she said in his head.

"Who are you, to invade my thoughts?" he demanded.

/I don't know who I am,/ she said sadly. /I'm sorry. I didn't mean to 
make you mad./ Her thoughts withdrew, but she said nothing. 

"Can you not speak?" he asked exasperated.

She tried, but made only a gagging noise. The unicorn looked at him
accusingly. 

"Fine," he said finally. "Use telepathy if you must."

/Thank you./

"Do you know any way to leave this place?"

/I know many ways. But our status is spacegoing. We must use a ship./

Venger did not concern himself with her odd way of expressing herself.
Only one thing was important now. "Where?"

/Two levels down, in the hangar bay./ Her mind reached out, and 
suddenly a map of the place was impressed in his skull and the 
unicorn's. 

He would have left them behind, then. But something nagged at him
about that plan. What was it? Why did it not feel like the correct
thing to do?

Oh. Yes. He would not know how to sail this sort of ship. But the
woman would. Besides, a Psionicist such as herself would make a
valuable servant. And he would need the unicorn's magic again. How 
else could he return to the Realm?

And so it was that Venger, deprived of the power of Evil, began his 
slow turn towards Good; and a strange alliance formed between three 
lost travelers seeking their homes: Venger, Uni, and Samantha Mulder.

--------------------------------------------------------------
"Although multidimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an 
infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one
outcome." 
-- Mulder quoting Scully's senior physics thesis, "Synchrony", 
    The X-Files.

THE END
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