"The baby dragons!" cried Lirenna in delight. "Your dreams of the baby dragons in their glass tanks!"

     Thomas nodded. "Yes, I'd already come to the same conclusion. Tak Eweela went on to become Lord Sapphire, a Gem Lord, who tried to create a race of legless dragons, the Gods alone know why. The engineering of new life forms must have become an area of expertise for him."

     "Just like that?" said Lirenna, however, suddenly doubtful. "He sees some scribbled notes left by his master and in no time at all he's churning out new hybrid creatures all over the place? If it's so easy, how come no-one's creating new forms of life now?"

     "It's vivomancy," pointed out Thomas. "The manipulation of the very stuff of life itself and closely related to necromancy, the study of death. Research into both areas is very tightly controlled and vivomancy has virtually died out nowadays. The spells just don't exist any more. Back then, though, you could study vivomancy and necromancy as much as you liked. In fact they were two of the most popular schools of magic, especially as rumours of elixirs of life spread. Tak would have had a much easier time pursuing those experiments than we would if we tried it today. He wasn't the only one either. It's thought that all chimeric organisms were created by wizards, some of them so long ago that their creations have evolved to smooth out some of the flaws in their original design."

     He paused, suddenly deep in thought. "If I concentrate, I can almost remember some of the spells he used. Spells that have been unknown to wizardry since the days of the immortal wizards. Maybe I can get them down in a spellbook. Actually cast them for myself..."

     "Be careful!" cried Lirenna in alarm. "If someone should find out what you're doing..."

     "I know," agreed her husband with a reassuring grin. "I could have my memory wiped with amnesia spells, maybe even demagistrated. They won't trust me to keep them to myself. They'll be terrified of necromancy spells getting out into the magical community, out of anyone's control."

     He frowned. "I have to say, they might have a point. Those spells are so dangerous... If the mundane population found out about them, that we had the means to meddle with the forces of life and death themselves... I mean, we may already have amazing powers compared with ordinary people, to fight and build and transform, but in the end we all die, just like everybody else. If that changed, though, if wizards suddenly learned how to live for hundreds of years, we'd be setting ourselves apart from them again. We'd we wiping out all the good the University's done over the past five hundred years trying to present ourselves as ordinary people, just like them."

     "The shae folk live for hundreds of years," pointed out Lirenna. "There's no great hatred between our two races, though."

     "But no great friendship either, and some humans feel a burning envy for the shae folk, for their long lives. I've seen what relations were like between wizards and mundanes back in the days before the Massacre of the Mages. I couldn't live with myself if we went back to that kind of existence because of me. Maybe I should have these other memories erased before I unleash something we can't control..."

      No!" cried Lirenna, though. "Don't even think it! We'll be careful, no-one else will ever find out. I want you to rediscover those spells. I want you to live as long as I will! You can keep them in a separate spellbook, hidden somewhere safe. You can conduct your experiments here, in the tree."

     "There's not enough room here for..."

     "Yes there is! For your initial researches, anyway, and we'll have much more space and freedom when we get back to Haven." She grabbed his arm and squeezed it hard. "I want you to rediscover the elixir of life! I'll help you anyway I can! Together we'll do it!"

     Thomas grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that," he admitted. "I don't want great chunks of my memories cut away by a bunch of frightened old men. And I want to live as long as you. I want to be your husband for a long, long time."

     Squealing with delight she fell into his arms, and they spent the next two hours reminding each other just why they'd fallen so deeply in love with each other.

☆☆☆

     His work with Saturn on the skydeath detection spell kept Thomas fully occupied for the next few days.

     When the day came when they were ready to test their first, primitive version of the spell, Thomas went with Saturn to install the apparatus aboard the Ship of Space. It was a simple globe of shiny white clay, about the size of a large apple, and it would shatter if it was exposed to a dangerously high level of skydeath. It was the simplest possible artifact. A crude device whose purpose was simply to test the concept, and if it worked Saturn had a much more sophisticated device in mind. Something that could be used more than once and that would indicate the direction in which the danger lay as well as just that the danger existed.

     Edward called their primitive prototype the clay canary and half seriously suggested that it be painted yellow. Saturn overheard him, though, and gave him a severe reprimand along with the reminder that "magic is a serious business, and if you can't treat it with the dignity it deserves you might want to consider a change of career."

     Suitably chastened, Edward had apologised, but had pulled a face at the older wizard's back the moment he'd turned to leave. The contrast between wizardry today and the way it had been in Tak's time struck Thomas forcibly and he tried to imagine the punishment Molos Gomm might have inflicted upon Tak if he'd dared to show such independence of spirit.

     "Where are we going to put it?" he asked as they stepped out of the teleportation cubicle into the ship's hanger deck. Unlike the time when they'd brought one of the Rings of Salammis aboard, the hanger now contained two Hummingbird class scouting craft and space was very cramped as they squeezed past them towards the stairs to the upper decks. It was made more difficult by Thomas's having to carry a cage of white mice, which he kept bumping against the painted wooden hulls and catching in the beams and rigging of the folded masts. In the end he had to hold it up over his head until he got it into the open area beyond.

     "The bridge," replied the older wizard, who ignored the difficulties his assistant was having. "It's close to the centre of the ship, and there will always be at least one person on duty to keep an eye on it. The finished product will be beside the scrying mirror. There'll always be someone looking in that direction, but this prototype will be on the wall facing the mirror, behind the Captain's seat."

     Thomas nodded, guessing the reason for this, and when they arrived he held it in place while Saturn cast the Glue spell that attached it to the metal bulkhead. He then spoke the word of command to activate the scrying mirror and Thomas gasped at the majesty and beauty of the planet that appeared in it. Lightning lit up the banded and turbulent cloud tops, which were moving visibly in the thousand mile per hour winds, and even without any visual cues he could sense the gigantic size of the body they were orbiting. A ball of gas so huge that it could have swallowed up the planet Tharia a thousand times over.

     "By all the Gods!" he breathed, his eyes as wide as saucers. "Look at it! Look at it! By the Gods, just look at it!"

     Saturn nodded. For once, even he showed a sign of being moved, of being touched in a deep place. "Yes," he agreed. "For all our long history, it's been nothing but a tiny point of light in the sky. I suppose the observers on Kronos might have seen something like we're seeing now through the Lenses of Farseeing, but I doubt they could get this sense of, of overbearing. Of power and might. You have to actually be here for that."

     "So awesome," murmured Thomas, "and yet so deadly. I suppose we are safe at this distance?"

     "Quite safe," snapped Saturn brusquely, as if he regretted having opened his soul, even if only for a moment. "Enough talk. Let's finish this."

     He gave another command to the scrying mirror that would allow him to use it, from back in his laboratory in the valley, to observe the skydeath detector and the mice, whose cage Thomas placed on the Captain's chair, on a sheet of paper. The Captain would not be pleased if he found himself sitting on bits of damp straw and mouse droppings.

     The door opened and Rin Wellin entered. "Is everything ready, my good friend?" he asked, and then his attention was also taken by the image in the scrying mirror and his jaw dropped. "Great horned mother..."

     "Everything is ready," replied the elderly wizard. "We will need an orbit that... Rin Wellin!"

     The shae snapped out of his trance and turned his attention back to the human wizard. "Forgive me, my good friend. I was, was..." His eyes tried to stray back to the awesome spectacle in the mirror and it took a deliberate effort to remain focused on the wizard.

     "Yes, yes," replied Saturn impatiently, although Thomas noticed that his eyes tended to stray in that direction as well. If they weren't careful, all three of them would end up staring at the glorious spectacle of the planet Rama until they lost all sense of the passage of time.

     Saturn snapped a word of command and the view changed to show one of the planet-sized balls of ice that orbited the gas giant. "We will need an orbit that takes us within ten thousand miles of Rama's cloudtops," he said. "Using the recently formulated rules of orbital dynamics, Karog has worked out the exact vector that needs to be applied." He reached into a pocket of his robes and produced a scrap of paper that he passed to the shae.

     Rin Wellin studied it for a moment, then nodded. "This seems simple enough, my friend. A single command will suffice..."

     "Just so long as you get it right," snapped Saturn. "Once you've changed our orbit we'll all be going back to Tharia until the ship's a safe distance from the planet again. If you've got it wrong, there'll be no-one on board to correct our course."

     The shae visibly bristled, and Thomas heard the anger in his voice even as he tried to keep it calm and even. "I will implement the instructions given here," he said. "Let us hope our friend Karog has done his calculations correctly." Then he climbed up the ladder to the shae habitat above and the chamber containing the Orb of Propulsion.

     Thomas looked around the bridge, feeling a pang as he suddenly remembered that a friend and fellow wizard had received a lethal dose of skydeath here, in this very room, and the sadness returned, along with a sense of alarm at how suddenly and silently his end had come. Skydeath. Who could have imagined that such a thing existed! Such a lethal force lurking invisibly in the spaces between worlds. You couldn't see it, you couldn't hear it, but it could seep through the very walls and kill you before you even knew it was there. For what possible reason had the Gods created such a thing?

     He glanced nervously at the skydeath detector, reassuring himself that it was still intact, but that was assuming that it worked as Saturn said it would. What if he was wrong? What if he'd made a mistake? There could be skydeath all around them right now and they wouldn't know it until some time later, when they started retching and bleeding from every orifice. The clerics could cure it in most cases now, of course, but they hadn't been able to save poor Gunther. He'd been in it too long. Even if they learned how to cure it in all cases, though, who knew what other hazards and perils were waiting for them out there?

     He looked at the stars in the scrying mirror, overawed by the vast empty spaces. But we're only assuming they're empty, he reminded himself. There could be anything out there. Anything! He found he suddenly had grave reservations about Lirenna exposing herself to such risks. If anything should happen to her... If she should suffer the long, agonising death Gunther had suffered...

     Was there any way he could talk her out of it? He'd have to be diplomatic, of course. She really got her back up whenever he got too protective. She would begin insisting that she was a better wizard than he was, which, he had to admit, she probably was, but you couldn't defeat a skydeath cloud by casting an enchantment on it. He nodded to himself, knowing he wouldn't be able to concentrate on his duties as a ships wizard while her life was in danger. Yes, he would have a word with her, and he'd be diplomatic.

     Rin Wellin returned, gracefully descending the ladder. "Our new course is set," he said. "The ship will pass within ten thousand miles of the cloudtops two days from now, and sometime between now and then it will enter the skydeath cloud. It should be safe to come back aboard four days from now."

     "Very good," replied Saturn, checking the mice to make sure they had enough food. "Let's go then."

     The three of them then left to return to the hanger deck and the teleportation chamber that would take them back to Tharia.

☆☆☆

     Lirenna refused to even consider giving up her place aboard the Jules Verne. "Why is it too dangerous for me but not for you?" she demanded, her arms folded defiantly below her small breasts.

     "You're not being reasonable and you know it," replied Thomas in his most patient voice, trying very hard to remain calm. "I have to go. I'm the only one who can sense Rossemian magic..."

     "Saturn has artifacts that can do the job," pointed out the demi shae. "You're not indispensable. Do you think I like the idea of you taking risks with your life?"

     "I just want to make the world a safe place for our son. If there's any chance that there's a powerful, hostile civilisation out there..."

     "So do I! He's my son as well, and I love him as much as you do."

     "Of course you do! I never meant to imply anything else. But you can protect him best by staying home and looking after him. I don't like the idea of putting myself in danger, but just think how much worse it would be for him if both his parents were killed in the same disaster."

     Lirenna nodded seriously in a way that Thomas, in his own defence, had come to recognise. "Yes, of course, you're right," she agreed. "You'd better stay behind so he'll still have one surviving parent."

     "You're not being reasonable!" cried Thomas in frustration. "I'm trying to make a serious point here and all you do is..."

     "Insist on being treated as an equal," interrupted the demi shae, her eyes flashing. "I won't be treated like a child, like an infant who can't be trusted to look after herself. You wouldn't stand for it, so why should I?"

     "Because I love you!" cried Thomas, only realising after the words were out of his mouth what he'd said. "I love you," he repeated more softly, "and if anything happened to you..."

     "And I love you too," replied the demi shae, her eyes suddenly glowing warmly as she stepped closer to him. "I don't know how I'd go on living if anything happened to you, but I know how much you need to be free, to explore and learn, and I know how important this mission is to the safety and security of the world. It tore the heart out of me when you went to the Southern Continent, and I almost had a heart attack when I heard how you'd risked your life to save Gunther and Karog. I love you, but I know better than to try to chain you down. All I ask is that you grant me the same freedom."

     She moved closer to him, staring imploringly up into his eyes. "Do you think you're the only one with a sense of adventure, the only one who loves travelling to exciting new places and seeing things no-one's ever seen before? Yes, I long to return to Haven and get back to our normal life there, the cosy safeness of our own home, but I can't be this close to something so big and exciting without wanting to be a part of it! Just one last adventure, that's all I ask."

     Thomas felt himself weakening. He imagined himself in her place. He imagined watching while she went off having great adventures while he could only stay at home and wait for her return. He could well understand the point she was making but he still balked at the thought of the danger.

     But there's danger everywhere, he suddenly thought. Lexandria valley is one of the safest places in the world, but even here there have been clay men and Felisian saboteurs running around and causing chaos, and she could be killed by one of her own backfiring spells wherever she was. It was even possible that, surrounded by four wizards, four priests and a full crew of civilised Beltharan soldiers, she would be safer aboard the Jules Verne than in her own home. It wasn't as if she'd be with the exploring parties, after all. She wouldn't be visiting any of the new worlds they would discover. As one of the shayen controllers of the Orb of Propulsion, she would be remaining safely aboard the ship at all times.

     "I still don't like it," he said, therefore, "but if it means that much to you..."

     "It does!" insisted Lirenna firmly, but her eyes brightened as she sensed the approach of victory.

     Thomas nodded. "Okay," he said, deciding to give in gracefully. "I suppose you're right, I've got no right trying to stop you doing what I do without a second thought. I won't try to talk you out of it any more."

     "I'm sure there'll be no danger," said Lirenna, grinning all over with happiness and delight. "It'll just be like a long cruise, a wonderful holiday. An experience we'll remember for the rest of our lives."

     "That's what I'm afraid of," said Thomas, his face still shadowed with anxiety and worry.

     Lirenna moved into his arms, however, and hugged him close. "Thank you for caring so much for me," she said into his chest. "You can be so aggravating sometimes, but knowing it's because you love me so much makes me feel so warm and protected. I love being loved."

     "Me too," agreed Thomas, and he kissed her radiant, upturned face.