Chapter Ten: THE CHIMERA

"Rigel, wake up, dear." A soft, worried voice brushed his conscious, and something cool and moist smoothed the heat from his face. The stars that spun all around him slowed and began to lose their brilliance. Gone was Clarion's beacon. Gone was the touch of Clairvoyant's powerful mind. For a moment Rigel feared that the wizards had abandoned him in the blackness of the universe.

"Rigel. Rigel." The voice was his mother's, and others began to drift into his senses from somewhere behind her. His long black lashes fluttered as he tried to open his eyes, and the lids slowly raised to reveal dark orbs misted with thick magic. Unfocused shapes floated around him, gradually transforming themselves into the faces and furnishings of Auria's bedroom. Rigel squinted in pain as the brilliant light of early morning glared through huge arched windows into the room. The sun's angle told him that he had sat in mystic vigil all night, searching the corners of the universe for his Princess.

"Mother?" he tried to say, but his throat was dry and his tongue swollen. Raven held a cup to her son's lips, and the icy touch of sweet fruit juice on their parched surfaces was an oasis in the desert. He drank deeply--greedy swallows drained the cup in his mother's hand. "I couldn't find her."

"We know, dear. But you will." Raven comforted her son, and returned to soothing his heated face with the cool cloth.

Rigel looked around him. His head ached, and his eyelids were sore from long hours of being held closed. He tried to stretch his muscles, but they rebelled in protest, and sent sharp surges of pain streaking down his limbs. Clairvoyant sat before him, his handsome face etched with lines of weariness. Aleia was holding a cup to the young seer's lips, and his eyes closed in exhausted gratitude.

Over a thickly cushioned chair in the corner of the bedroom hovered a tall blond man. He was tending to Clarion, who sat before him in an exhausted heap. His motions were careful and attentive. Tapered fingers massaged the aged wizard's temples, then lifted a cup to the man's beard-shrouded lips. It took Rigel a moment to realize that the young man was Poseidon, and the sight of his obvious concern for his uncle's condition startled Rigel.

"You've worn yourself out, Uncle." The charming man's voice was soft with patronizing affection. "Please, when you're ready to resume the search, let me assist. I don't have the power of a great wizard, but perhaps I can relay messages from the telepaths that are aiding the ground search--and take some of the burden from you."

Clarion shook his head and accepted the cup Poseidon held out to him. "No, son, you've done enough already. You've been invaluable to me in taking over the physical side of my duties. This condition is a necessary side effect of a wizard's profession. Even if you should take on part of the task, I'd wind up in the same state--and you would, also. Then who would hand me my drinks, eh?" The mage smiled fondly at the young man, who chuckled and patted his uncle's shoulder.

"I suppose you're right. But please let me know how I can help." Poseidon took the empty cup and set it on the table by the wizard's side. "I feel I must do something to help locate the child, aside from taking over your book-work and fetching your drinks."

Rigel watched the exchange with curiosity. His senses were suddenly alert, shaken from the fog that had enshrouded his awakening. Poseidon's fluid movements and soothing voice drew his attention like a magnet, and an odd feeling of regret for having doubted the man seeped into the back of his mind. The sensation made Rigel very uncomfortable.

Another sense was roused from slumber--a rude interruption of Rigel's train of thought. The door to the outer room opened and servants entered carrying trays. The boy's stomach rumbled like thunder in response to the smell of breakfast.

Clairvoyant's eager gaze followed Rigel's as the trays were set down and uncovered. Pancakes, smothered in fresh fruit and honey, sent a steamy cloud of aroma through the air. Its savory sweetness teased the boy's nostrils, and his mouth began to water shamefully. Rigel couldn't remember ever having felt so hungry.

"It does that to you," Clairvoyant stated, as he slid to the edge of the bed and dove into his breakfast.

The sweet flavor of honey and peaches demanded all of Rigel's attention as he shoveled enormous mouthfuls from his plate. Steaming, fluffy pancakes melted on his tongue. His teeth crushed the juice from the tender golden fruit. New life coursed through him as his stomach filled, and the sticky ambrosia lent energy to his drained physical form.

"Why didn't we find her, Voy?" When at last he spoke, the words were mumbled through a mouthful of pancakes. He took a long drink of juice before adding, "I could see that spark you told us about the whole time, but why couldn't we locate it--find out where she was?"

The mage laid his fork on an empty plate. "Her mind is completely blocked off. She has to be in such a deep unconsciousness that she isn't sending out any energies at all. What we did see was her life force, but if her mind can't focus that force in some remote way, it can't lead us to her. I was hoping you might be able to focus in on her despite it all. I'm still hopeful of that. We just haven't found the right way to do it."

Clarion's voice drifted across the room as the servants cleared the empty trays. "We know for a certainty that she is alive. Don't despair, Rigel. That in itself is a step forward. The spark Clairvoyant found last night has not gone out. When we continue--after we all have the chance to rest--we have a starting place and will make further progress."

Rigel fought the doubt that tried to creep into his mind. He looked to the Queen, who sat in the chair by the head of Aury's bed. She watched him from beneath lids half-closed with a desperate need for rest. He reached his mind to hers with a shy touch of affection, and his heart rejoiced as hers pulled him in, hugging his spirit with tenderness.

Her voice filled the chamber with hope when she spoke. "You'll find her, Rigel. You'll bring her home to us."

Clarion rose from his chair, Poseidon's attentive hand on his elbow. He patted the young man's fingers and dislodged them from his arm. "I'm old, my good fellow, but more spry than I appear. I can walk unaided, but thank you anyway." He turned to the Queen, and bowed his head. "I must rest, Your Majesty, and so must these boys--although I fear that they will protest that fact." His stern gaze speared the youngsters as they opened their mouths to complain. "I know you are eager to continue the search, but a few hours sleep will do your spirits good. If you don't refresh your strengths, they will drain to the point that they are useless."

Queen Aleia nodded, and Rigel saw the relief on his mother's worried face when the royal lady spoke. "As anxious as I am to have my child back in my arms, I cannot risk the safety of these two young men in the process of finding her. They will be stronger and more effective for their rest. Go, Clarion, get some sleep. I'll see to these two." Her tone was unrelenting as she spoke the final phrase, and Poseidon accompanied his uncle from the room.

Rigel persisted. "It might be too late by the time we wake up. What if her spark goes out?" He didn't want to waste a moment in bringing the Princess home, and his heart seethed with frustration.

Aleia shook her head firmly. "It won't. Not Auria. After you rest, you will find her. No more arguments. You two just lie down right where you are and get some sleep."

Clairvoyant obeyed the forceful tone of the Queen without further argument. His tousled head sank into the soft pillows of Aury's huge bed, and Rigel watched as his breathing slowed to the deep rhythms of sleep. The younger teen met Aleia's gaze once more with thoughts of protest, but the stern look on her face made him change his mind. As Raven pulled the draperies across the windows to soften the light, Rigel lay down beside his friend and was asleep before he could give the matter further thought.

He floated through the silent stillness of space. Flickering stars surrounded him, casting blue-white highlights that played among the crests and valleys of his body. The quiet was thunderous, and he was alone. No longer was Clairvoyant's mind in constant, protective touch with his. No longer was Clarion's reassuring beacon stretched out before him. All around him was darkness but for the stars, and those stars were the eyes of his starshine, calling to him.

Rigel cast his gaze from side to side, his mind alert and reaching out for Auria. "Where are you?" he repeated over and over, "I know you're out there somewhere."

The stars flickered and went out, like a candle extinguished by the wind, and he was wrapped in a shroud of blackness. Rigel's blood raced in a terrified frenzy through his veins--its drumbeat echoed in his ears. It was hard to breathe, as if a thick cloth covered his face, and he fought back the rising fear of suffocation. He heard his own voice moan, muffled, somewhere in the back of his mind. A hard, cold surface pressed his left side, and he was startled to find himself curled in a fetal position, unable to move his hands or his feet. The boy tried in vain to bring his hand to his head, for it was throbbing with pain, and his neck felt stiff and sore. Then, his consciousness slowly began to slip away once again.

Again!

"Starshine!" Rigel made a desperate grab at the mind that had touched his own so intimately it fooled him into thinking the thoughts were his. "Aury, don't go back. I'm here, starshine. I've got you." Her drug-clouded subconscious responded by gripping his spirit. She was dreaming, and in her dreams she knew him. She clung to him for the sake of her very life.

A nightmare memory, seen through Aury's eyes, burst upon his mind: a hideous beast with the head of a lion, needle-sharp fangs dripping with venomous saliva, sneered into her face. Its fetid breath made her wretch, and it lunged for her. Aury tried to counter the beast's attack, but its swiftness caught her off guard. A black bolt of magic deflected her defense. Cloven-hooved forelegs clasped her between them--a scaled serpentine tail wrapped around her torso. The dragon-like appendage constricted, cutting off a scream, and Rigel could feel the pain and terror as something sharp pierced the side of her neck. Blackness exploded around her in a cloudburst of fear.

"Hang on, starshine. I'm coming with help." The boy tightened his grip on the Princess's catatonic mind, and jolted himself awake.

"I've found her!" Rigel shouted as he bolted upright in the oversized bed.

Clairvoyant had just emerged from the bathroom. He wore fresh clothes and a rested countenance, and was rubbing his dripping hair with a soft, white towel. His eyes widened in shock. He dropped the towel in a damp heap, and rushed across the chamber.

"How? Where is she?"

Clarion appeared, his face aglow with excitement. "Rigel! How did you find her?"

"She dreamed." Rigel's voice shook with impatience. "She came to enough to dream, and our minds locked." He tapped his head, and shifted his excited gaze from mage to mage. "She's here now. I won't let her go."

"Good lad!" The ancient wizard laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, and turned as Aleia and Raven rushed into the room. "Rigel located the Princess."

"I heard," the Queen replied, and grasped the boy in a frantic embrace. "I knew you would, Rigel. I knew you'd bring her home to me."

Rigel's mother took her son's hands and hugged them to her. Her eyes gleamed with tears and pride. "How did you find her?"

Clairvoyant and Clarion answered together, both voices trembling with excitement. "It was the Dreamsharing."

The ancient mage gazed at Rigel with wonder. "When the Princess is home safe, I shall have to look into this phenomenon."

Rigel sprang to his feet and paced the floor in agitation. "She's somewhere cold and dark, and her face is covered with thick cloth that makes it hard for her to breathe. She's in pain, and her hands and feet are tied. She's terrified." He turned back toward the wizards and his words cracked with fear. "We have to go get her now. Please."

"I'll alert the King," Aleia offered. She watched with frightened anticipation as Clairvoyant sat on the bed and beckoned to Rigel. "He'll rally the troops and follow your beacon, Clarion. Guide him to where you find my daughter."

"I shall, Madam. Now if you please." The ancient mage glanced toward the door.

Aleia took Raven by the arm to steer her from the room.

"Rigel, son, be careful." She rushed to Rigel's side and flung her arms around him as if she feared she might not see him again.

"I'll be careful, Mother. We'll bring Aury home soon." He looked into her pale, terrified face. "Everything is going to be okay now."

Raven and the Queen left the Princess's bedroom arm in arm, and Clarion closed the door behind them.

"I think I should warn you both," Rigel said to the wizards after the women had gone. "There was a beast."

Two sets of eyebrows raised with curious intent, and both mages turned to face the boy.

"Beast?" Clairvoyant waited for Rigel to continue, his mind alert with the anticipation of danger.

Rigel described the monster from the nightmare, and waited for a reaction from one of the sorcerers.

"A chimera," Clarion whispered. "Now why would something so dark and evil have designs on the young Princess? It wasn't the usual motive for the beasts or it would have devoured her already."

A chill ran down Rigel's spine at the old wizard's ominous words, and the hairs on the back of his neck did a static dance. He could feel his stomach turn as the image Clarion painted came unbidden into his mind.

"This is going to be very dangerous, Rigel." Clairvoyant touched the youngster's hand. "Are you ready?"

Black eyes met midnight blue and held them without a hint of the fear that lingered in his heart. "I'm waiting for you," he said, and placed his hand on his knees as the mage had shown him the night before. With a firm grasp on the subconscious mind of the Princess, Rigel beckoned to the wizards to follow, and led the way.

Three powerful minds drifted, locked together by magic, among the stars, as Rigel made an effort to home in on Aury's spirit. With painful intensity, the boy concentrated on that small flicker of her subconscious, and pulled himself gradually toward it. The feel of her pain, the sensation of cold stone beneath her, the stifling blackness of the cloth that covered her face, grew stronger as he neared. Then he had her. Like a physical presence, he could hold her in a firm embrace, grasp her spirit with strong psychic hands. With a brief touch back to make sure Clairvoyant and Clarion were with him, Rigel vaulted himself to Auria's side with a surge of massive power.

Darkness engulfed him as he materialized into solid form--a cold, damp blackness that chilled him to his core. The wizards came into substance behind him, and a soft glow began to light his surroundings. Clarion took a step past the boy, his outstretched hand holding a twisted staff that glowed at one end with pale golden light.

The room appeared to be a cell. Stone walls and floor were damp and covered with lichens, and the air carried the stale odor of centuries without sunlight. There was no furniture, no window, no sign of comfort or humanity. A solid door in one wall, its thick wood petrified with age, was a windowless barrier to what lay on the other side. It wore no knob or handle--any control of that portal came entirely from without.

Heaped in a corner upon the cold stone floor like a discarded pile of rubbish, lay a black cloth sack. Rigel rushed forward with a heart-wrenching moan, and clawed at the bag with frantic hands. He rent a hole in the side, and tore it wide. He had found Aury.

"Oh, starshine," he groaned as he pulled her to him. Her face was bruised and swollen. The tip of her parched tongue protruded from dehydrated lips. As he lifted her small body to a sitting position, her head fell back. There on her neck were the bloody marks through which her captor had injected the mind-numbing poison. "Aury, Aury," Rigel called, smoothing back the matted hair from her face, and clutching her to him like a prized possession. He searched the worried faces of his comrades as they bent over the unconscious child. "Please say you can help her."

Clarion's wizened face radiated tender concern, and he gave way to tears for the battered Princess. "Oh, child. What has this demon done to you?" His expert magical hands went over her, feeling out the extent of her injuries. "Stars, but she's strong. She should be dead--so much poison has been forced through her veins. I am amazed that there is enough of her left to dream-- to call out to you, Rigel. Anyone else would have been destroyed. The Princess's mind is intact. Her captor has subdued it, but despite all attempts has done it no permanent damage. With time and love, she will heal."

"Yrren is on his way," Clairvoyant whispered as he presented a cloth soaked in a soothing herbal potion and touched it to Auria's cracked lips.

The child's tongue moved in response to the taste of the liquid, and Rigel watched the magic work. Her lips began to heal, moving soundlessly as the cool moisture trickled into her mouth, and she swallowed its spicy sweetness. The parched pain that tormented his mind began to ease, and his bond-friend's thoughts became more restful. He felt her soul surge with joy as she realized that his arms were around her, and she leaned her spirit into his. A shuddering sigh of relief escaped him, stirring the dank air in the chamber with breath-life. He was whole again. Tears spilled from his dark eyes into her tangled hair as he hugged his soul-mate tightly.

Clarion's fingers touched the wounds on Auria's neck, and he shook his head in consternation. He traced the path of her blood vessels with a feather-light touch; from the punctures, down her neck and chest, and to her heart. Rigel watched in wonder as a soft blue light shimmered where the old's wizard's fingertips contacted the child's bruised flesh. The glow hovered over Aury's wounds, then gently settled itself through her skin and into her body.

"I do not know this drug." The wizard spoke aloud, more to himself than to his young companions. "It is from some distant place--some distant time, perhaps. Much of it still courses through the child's body, but it is wearing off. See that she has been injected numerous times. Her captor has had to renew the potion's strength. He had not counted on our Princess's ability to fight the poison."

A shiver raced down Rigel's back as the image of the monstrous chimera from Aury's nightmare assaulted his mind. "If he has to keep injecting her to keep her unconscious, and I was able to touch her dreams, that means she's due for another dose. . . . "

" . . . now," Clairvoyant finished for him. The air shimmered red around the young sorcerer as he rose to a defensive stance, and turned toward the center of the room. A staff appeared in his hand, and he hovered protectively over the prone child and her attendants.

Scarlet light distorted the darkness at the heart of the chamber. It began as a blinding pinpoint and swiftly spread outward. The aura revolved, shifted, then concentrated into a hideous solid form.

"Stars!" Rigel gasped in fear and pulled Aury's limp body against him.

Clarion, staff in hand, rose beside his apprentice to face head-on the creature that now stood before them.

Puzzlement clouded its yellow leonine eyes as they scanned the scene. The bestial face contorted in ferocious rage as it pieced the puzzle together.

"How did you find her?!" A rumbling roar burst forth from the beast's throat, and the floor beneath them trembled. The chimera bared narrow, three-inch fangs that dripped in anticipation of the taste of human blood. It crouched, preparing itself to spring.

A flare of light from Clairvoyant's staff caught the beast in the chest, hurling it backward against the wall of the chamber. With a single fluid motion, it righted itself and reassessed its plan of attack.

"Who are you and what do you want with the Princess?" Clarion shouted, growing in stature to a fearful size and striding toward the monster.

"I have my reasons for doing what I do. Prepare to die!"

The chimera launched itself past the mage, knocking him aside, and made for Clairvoyant's throat. The young seer reacted with cat-like reflexes, his movements blending into a single lightning blur. His body twisted sideways with arms raised high. The oaken staff fell with a crack across the monster's muzzle, and forced it to miss its mark. The lion-head twisted toward him in a dazed attempt to recover its attack. Teeth grazed the teen's arm, tore into clothing and drew beads of blood where razor fangs scraped flesh. Voy sprang aside, narrowly avoiding the serpentine tail that thrashed toward him, and the chimera's jaws snapped shut on empty air. Magic surged from the boy's flashing indigo eyes, and blasted the thing from the side with a bolt of power before it could lunge again.

At that instant, Clarion attacked. He swung his staff over his head and rushed toward the chimera with a shouted incantation.

A beam of golden light shot out from the ancient wizard and engulfed the beast. The monster writhed on the floor--its screams of pain reverberated off the walls of the chamber. The magical aura crackled and sparked around it, and held it tightly in its grasp. The chimera thrashed and rolled in a brief effort to free itself, and then lay still. Its panting breath bubbled through the foam that covered its muzzle.

Clarion continued to mutter incantations. His voice vibrated through the musty air, saturating it with mystical energy. The field around the monster pulsed with power. The beast's form began to waver and shift. Cries of pain emerged from deep within the chimera's core as Clarion's magic forced it to reveal its true form.

"No! No!" Its voice began to sound less bestial. The guttural growl melted slowly into smooth human speech as its body transformed. As the mages and Rigel looked on, the mutant form of the three-part monster evolved into that of a man. The pulsing magic slowed its rhythm. The glowing field around the captive steadied. The transformation was complete. On the mold- covered stone before them, terror radiated from the forest green eyes of Clarion's nephew.