Dema drifted free, her mind in turmoil.

She had been outside her body before. In fact it was part of being in a high state of shaman awareness. But always before it was her own natural body she was out of. This time, after the rapid shape-shifting sequence that Chaos had led her through, she was outside of no body at all.

She realized she'd been suckered. Chaos had never wanted a physical confrontation in any form. The shape-shifting, and getting Dema to follow suit, had been all about robbing Dema of her control so that Chaos could deliver the mental blow that now left her bodiless.

Somehow Chaos had been far better prepared for this encounter than Dema could have imagined. Dema tried to be mentally calm, but it was difficult. What was she to do? Must she remain a disembodied spirit, a ghost at best? As she hovered over the puddle that Chaos had left her, she recalled her first experience as the Lamia, when she had gradually become the snake, against her will, and the worry that had caused her.

She wondered what would have happened to her then, if she had become the snake faster and had not been able to get to Sedna. Might she, like Kore, have simply remained in snake form? But this was worse! Her body was now utterly formless, even revolting. There was no way she could go to Sedna or anyone else for help.

She thought about contacting Sedna mentally. "Grandma, can you please come and mop me up and put me in a bucket until I can figure out what to do with myself?"

The puddle that had been her body was already seeping into the cracks between the stones, and some of it was dripping into a drain set in the floor. The thought of mopping it up was so absurd that she might have laughed hysterically if she'd had a body she could laugh with. The puddle quivered.

The puddle quivered! Dema had wanted to laugh, and the puddle tried to respond. Dema had been the snake, but she had learned how to control her dream and shift back to Lamia form at will. Dema had been the Lamia, but in finding her lost sister she had found the key to controlling that form as well.

Now Dema's body was a formless puddle, but she suddenly knew that, just as always, this was an aberration, an alteration of the natural reality, one that had been imposed by the will of Chaos. Overcoming her revulsion at its temporary appearance, she could sense that every cell of her body wanted to return to her natural form. Only Dema's own mental connection to the altered reality Chaos had led her into kept it from doing that.

Dema had been caught off guard by a thrust of will that Chaos had directed, not at her own bodily substance, but at Dema's. Dema knew the technique, having practiced similar glamours on inanimate objects, but she had not before experienced it from the receiving end.

She looked back at the instant it had happened. She had been in the shaman dream, prepared to dream a new form to counter anything that Chaos might do. Every cell in her body had been under her control, ready to respond to her will.

But Dema herself had been deep in the altered reality created by Chaos, in a state where she had unconsciously conditioned herself to perceive and respond to whatever changes in this alternate reality Chaos might originate. Chaos had caught her on the cusp of such a change, and like a house of cards Dema's own altered reality had collapsed into total disarray.

But just as the Lamia form could not persist without Dema's inner agreement, so too this alteration into shapelessness could not persist, now that Dema understood the insidious trick Chaos had pulled on her. With that improbable mental reality eliminated, Dema's natural body had already reformed itself around her, and she was standing where the puddle had been, looking out through her body's eyes at a world suddenly bright and new once more.

She strode forward, through the curtained door where Chaos had exited, and found herself back in the main meeting chamber. Only Kore and Roger were there, their drug-induced daze making them incapable of fending for themselves. Apparently Chaos had chosen not to carry on without her minions present, and they had all fled, if not from the wrath of the Lamia then from the magical disappearance of both her and Chaos.

The Lamia in Dema wanted to continue the chase, but she had Kore and Roger to look after. Although still dazed and docile, they followed her readily enough as she led them to the Jeep. It was not long before Naga met her at the clinic, and took them both inside.

"Come in and tell me what happened!" said Naga.

"These two can tell you well enough, as soon as they are coherent. I have other things to attend to." Dema turned her Jeep around and headed back to the meeting chamber.