"In the Year of Blue Fire? You are a spellscarred… tree?"

"The few creatures that survived full contact with the most virulent wave of spellplague are more than merely scarred, but utterly transformed. Plaguechanged. They are monstrous entities of rage and destruction. The world is lucky most of these creatures are bound to one location. Of course, I am an exception. I am prone more to philosophy."

Raidon suppressed the urge to explain that he too had been touched and changed by the initial wave of spellplague. Did that mean the Cerulean Symbol bound to his soul was more than "merely" a spellscar, as well? He looked down at the massive root field surrounding the ash tree, then back into the woman's burning eyes.

"I am bound, yes. But unlike the Chalk Destrier and others, my mind remains uncorrupted. Perhaps it is because I had no mind before I was awakened by the touch of unleashed, wild magic."

"Yet you have a shape like mine." Raidon pointed at the woman. He flirted with the idea of asking if she were a dryad. Some instinct made him refrain.

"I am an avatar only, a seedling," she replied. "In this form, I can move within the bounds of this changeland, but not beyond. Not yet."

Raidon frowned but chose to ignore the last.

"Can you direct me to this Chalk Destrier?"

"It will prove your death, as it did your friends."

"They have perished, then? You know that?"

"In time, I can taste all that occurs on the surface of the Plague-wrought Land. That which rots is absorbed into the earth, even soil as unstable as that found in this region. My roots spread even farther below ground than is visible above. I tasted their essence diffused into the loam some years ago. True, my subterranean tendrils cannot reach all the way into that creature's lair. Perhaps they were only wounded. But my knowledge of the Chalk Destrier leads me to believe otherwise."

Raidon nodded. "We suspect the same, but we think the sword remains."

"We?" inquired Grandmother Ash's avatar.

"My advisor, Cynosure. He is not with me now." Raidon looked around wondering if a voice out of thin air would prove him wrong. But a few more moments proved that hope false.

"Ah," said the avatar, her head cocked in a human fashion, indicating her uncertainty.

"I must retrieve the sword Angul. Events outside the borders of your land require him. Angul is a relic of vanished Sildeyuir. He has the power to oppose the Abolethic Sovereignty."

The woman brushed her hair back with a delicate, bark-skinned hand. She said, "I am unfamiliar with this Sovereignty."

"It is a group of creatures who are like the plaguechanged you described-fiends from the deep earth that must be opposed."

"And it is given to you to oppose them." "The task has fallen to me, yes."

The woman clapped her hands, making a sound like two planks slamming together. "A hero! The pilgrims' tales sometimes described such. You're my first."

The avatar smiled.

Silence stretched.

"Will you help me?" Raidon was suddenly weary. "Usually pilgrims must give me a story in return for my aid. But for you, a hero brave and true, I require only that you allow me to accompany you. When you meet the Chalk Destrier, my old foe, perhaps I can distract him long enough for you to look for your lost sword, if it's there."

Raidon bowed his head slightly. "Thank you, Grandmother Ash."

"This way, hero." The avatar touched his elbow and turned him to face a new direction. South. Southeast, perhaps. The strength in her root fingers was incredible, and the gnarled wood abraded his skin.

Releasing him, she pointed. "We must pass into a maelstrom of greater activity to reach the heart."

So saying, all the individual tendrils composing her form were sucked into the ground, like a plant growing in reverse, until she was gone.

Confused, he looked back to the great tree. Hadn't the woman just indicated she'd accompany him? The vast shape provided no answers.

Raidon glanced in the direction the avatar pointed. A stormy cloudscape hovered on the horizon, somehow half familiar. Blue lightning played within it.

A hundred paces from where he stood, a stem burst from the earth, followed instantly by dozens more. They twined and condensed. An eye-blink later, Raidon recognized the avatar.

She called, "Come along, hero. This way!"

Anusha screamed the worst profanity she could ever recall hearing, something her half brother once said to a servant. The darkened cabin aboard the Green Siren absorbed her outburst, and quiet returned.

Japheth had moved too far for her dream to follow. Just when he needed her most! With Nogah killed, how would he ever find what he looked for? How would he ever find his way back out again? He could retreat to his castle-but there he risked dying at the hand of a Feywild witch with murder in her heart. If he didn't kill himself first with his tin of traveler's dust.

Think, she commanded herself. Panic won't help, girl.

Easy enough said, hard to follow through. But she attempted to calm her breathing. She concentrated on the sound of her too fast heart. She willed it quieter, until she could no longer hear it beating in her ears.

Her body was too far from the island's center. How could she get it closer without risking detection? Did it matter anymore? With Nogah dead, perhaps the great kraken already knew the ship lay at anchor off the seamount's coast. Slimy kuo-toa swimmers and the ink-trailing aerial sentinels could be turning their attention this way even as she imagined the possibility.

She pushed those thoughts away. They made her heart race. She wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.

That thought alone signaled it was already too late, she knew. When one is most desperate to fall into slumber, sleep is furthest away. Awake or tired, she knew she was in for a long period before she could relax enough even for a nap. Worse, it seemed the more she used Japheth's potion, the less she was able to fall asleep naturally. Concern puckered her brows at the thought.

She was becoming just as addicted to that silver vial as Japheth was to his damned dust tin. "No," she mumbled.

Maybe, she thought. It didn't matter. She could leave Japheth to his fate or try to help him. Simple as that. She pulled the stopper from the silver vial and drank.

Even as she lay back and closed her eyes, her dream pair opened. Anusha stepped from her slumping physical body clad in the plate armor of dream.

She stowed the silver vial carefully back within a pocket in her sleeping body's skirt. She vowed she wouldn't use the vial again. As she had told herself last time.

"Stop it! You've got more pressing issues, now."

She took what seemed like a real breath. "A dream I am, and so I perceive the world about me," she affirmed, trying to convince herself.

Anusha closed the lid on the traveling case, her body still snug within. She reached into the interior, and slid home the latch from the inside.

"Now the hard part. Maybe."

She bent, arms wide, and grasped the brass handles on each side of the carrying case. She heaved. The chest moved' slightly, no more.

Anusha frowned.

"In my dream, I am as strong as I need to be," she asserted.

She heaved again. Another inch of movement.

She relinquished her grip and said the profanity again, but this time it was only half-hearted. She plucked a crumb-laden trencher from the sideboard. This she could lift easily as her waking form could. Why should limitations of the waking world shackle her dream?

Because, deep down, she expected the rules to be the same. Despite the fact they manifestly were not the same-she could walk through walls and move invisibly. Why should her ability to affect the world remain the same when everything else was different?