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By Root 442 0

cairn, a cairn that was exactly like the one I had seen before, down to the placement of the last rock. I could not look at it without feeling a shiver creep up from my tailbone and I was glad when we left the chamber. We moved cautiously through the spiraling tunnel, this time going up instead of down. It did not appear as if the Technomancers had searched the lower levels—there was no reason why they should. To judge by the thick layer of undisturbed dust on the smooth floor, no one had been here for perhaps as many years as the magically shaped tunnel had been in existence. We took no chances, however, and crept along as silently as possible, guided by the ghostly image of Simkin and the faint eerie glow of his orange silk scarf.

Simkin’s transformation had come about under duress. Before leaving the chamber, Mosiah had insisted on carrying Teddy, in order to keep an eye on him.

“Absolutely not!” Teddy was appalled at the indignity and pleaded and bleated. Finding Mosiah proof against both the bear’s threats and Eliza’s intercessions on his behalf, Simkin had abandoned his stuffed self and condescended to appear before us “naked,” as he put it.

“It takes a great deal out of me, maintaining this form, as you can see. Or can’t see,” Simkin said in gloomy undertones as we walked through the tunnel. The orange glow from his scarf lit the way for Mosiah and me. Scylla and Eliza came behind us, using Scylla’s flashlight.

“Odd,” said Mosiah. “The Kij vine finds enough magical Life to thrive. I am surprised you don’t.”

“The Kij vine,” Simkin observed, “is a weed.”

“Precisely,” Mosiah said dryly.

“Oh, very funny. Ha-ha and all that. According to you, I have Life coming out my ears and I’m just frittering it away, scattering it to the four winds in a blithe and merry dance of revelry. I’ll have you know,” Simkin added in aggrieved tones, “that I haven’t changed clothes in twenty years! Twenty years!”

He dabbed at his eyes with the scarf, which was the only solid piece of him.

“Perhaps you’re using your magic for other purposes,” Mosiah suggested. “Such as sending us hopscotching through time.”

“What do you take me for?” Simkin demanded, sniffing. “A bloody amusement park? There are lots of places I would be glad to send you, Mosiah, but bounding gleefully among the nanosec-. onds is not one of them.

“I say!” Simkin came to a halt, glared at us indignantly. “Have you been leaping the years? Annus touristi? And you didn’t take mel “

“What now?” Scylla demanded, coming up from her position as rear guard. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” Mosiah said.

“Then keep moving! This is no time to stop and have a chat!” Scylla stalked on ahead of us.

“Got you in trouble!” Simkin said in smothered tones, and laughing, he flitted back to walk beside Eliza and flirt with her, most shamefully.

“An interesting point, don’t you think?” Mosiah said to me softly. “Simkin wasn’t with us in that other time. And Simkin would never throw a party that he himself didn’t attend!”

I conceded that this might be true. Still, as I glanced behind me, watching uneasily the orange glow bob along close to Eliza, I recalled that in each of the alternate lines of time, Simkin had betrayed Joram. Why were we to suppose that this one would be any different?

Except that now he would not be betraying Joram. The treacherous kiss would be given to Joram’s daughter.

The tunnel seemed much longer going up than coming down. By the time we neared the top, my legs ached, I was gulping for breath, and the difficult part was only beginning.

I had pictured the top portion of the cavern as being the same as in the alternate time, if that’s truly where (or should I say when!) we had been. I soon realized I was wrong. Rounding a bend, Scylla, in the lead, suddenly switched off her light and jumped backward.

“Light!” she whispered. “It’s coming from ahead!”

Now that her flashlight was turned off, I could see the glow of another light reflected on the cavern walls. There had been no light in the other cavern, I recalled, remembering that Saryon had left a tinderbox