Throne room...

/Welcome to your doom!/ cackled a voice within their heads as the trio arrived at the new destination. /You may have defeated my leutentants but you now have me to deal with. MWA HAHAHA!/

The eyes of the paralyzed mage pleaded for help, but... BZZZAP! KA-BOOM!

"That was harsh, Witch!"
"Why, Altheus," the Queen, said sweetly, "what a thing to say to a former fiancee."

Just as Jacrose was about to try out a new spell the Witch Queen shook her finger, "UH-UH! You have done well with your training, Jacrose, but you are still a little cub," Saihve sniggered, as the trio of travellers found themselves frozen on the spot, unable to lift a finger. "Still, I'm sure you shall prove useful to me..."

"Daria," whispered Altheus' urgent voice in the girl's mind, "I don't think Saihve considers you a serious threat, for her only interest seems to lie with your cousin. You'll have to make a real progress now if we're to get any chance of escape from the blasted Sorceress. You can't use the threads magic to get us out of here, for she has us trapped, but you can put it to a different use..."

Suddenly, out of nowhere, knowledge of what exactly has to be done comes into Daria's head with no warning. She concentrates again on the feeling of having myriads of thin threads passing through her fingers, until she manages to get hold of one that burns with intense red fire in her hands, the one that she knows to be connected to the woman in front of her. With every ounce of her strength, Daria attempts to hammer the thread with the biggest mental blow she can muster. The next minute, excrutiating pain explodes in her entire body, and she would have collapsed to the floor was it not for Saihve's paralysing spell. Through the tears of pain in her eyes, Daria could still see that her attempt did not go unnoticed by the Queen.

"I felt that," Saihve says, looking over Daria as though it was the first time she actually paid attention to the girl. "Your mental blow wouldn't have bowled a kitten over, but after all you didn't have a proper training." She clasps her hands in malicious delight. "I thought of disposing of you, but now I shall keep you alive along with your cousin... and who knows, I might have gotten more than I bargained for!"

/Assistance, please, My Tutor of the Feline Arts,/ Tigre mewed to Blackthorn, hoping that he may arrive.

"A message to your cousin perhaps?" asked Saihve noticing the transmission, "or maybe to your inept guide, Altheus. "

/As if I'd want to tell you which way it was going, murderer!/ Tigre thought back to the Witch Queen.

/It was for a good cause then, young tiger,/ Saihve transmitted to Jacrose, as she hovered over to him, /there were too many Dragons around for your own good./ "And there still are.."

BZZZAP! Jacrose gets hit with a bolt of lightning, like the paralyzed mage, but it only made him drop to the floor. "One down.." Witch Queen Saihve sniggered, "Two more to go!" She then cackles insanely for about five minutes, and sits back on her throne.

***

In Tigre's Mind...

/Am I dead?/

\Not just yet, my boy, you still have some fight left in you. ^_^\

/Who are you?/

/*Chuckle* Alteus.../

/What can I do now? Am I free?/

/Gotta go, she maybe on to me../

/WAIT!/ Tigre moans silently, and shakes the cobwebs out of his head.

"My, I thought you'd have more fire in you, my little dragons," says Saihve, standing up from her throne once again and looking over the trio. "I've had my share of fun and games with you, but right now I've got other important matters to press on with..."

At her sign, a dozen of dark cowled figures detach themselves from the walls and hover over the fallen cousins and their guide.

"Take them away to the Chamber of Lost Souls," says the Queen. "It will take some time for the Wraiths to be strong enough for the Possession Ritual to begin... in the meantime, keep an eye on them for me."

Through the mist of pain in her eyes, Daria watches as four of the dark figures rush towards her. Unable to move a finger, she feels her body lift above the ground, then float away towards the dark corridor, surrounded at each side by the dark shape. Her cousin and Altheus follow close behind, also flanked by the Queen's servants.

A short time later the trio found themselves just outside of the dreaded Chamber of Lost Souls. Altheus and Daria, still paralyzed from Saihve's spell, had to be posed by the cowled servants of the Witch Queen, and chained to the wall. Jacrose, on the other hand, feigned his paralysis and after the captors left the room morphed out of his chains and helped his friends out from their own.

Saihve watched as the young tiger tried his best to undo the spell she weaved on his companions from her alchemy lab. "So he wants them free, does he?" she mused to herself, "why not? If they are to be a proper challenge they need the practice; my special minions will give it to them! MWA! HA! HA! HA! HA!"

Still drowsy from the spell, Daria looks around the spacious, darkened room they found themselves in, lit only by the three gigantic shimmering pillars standing in the middle of the floor, whose tips disappear into the swirling mist dancing along the chamber's ceiling. She has an uneasy feeling that whatever plans Saihve's got for them in store have something to do with those pillars.

"What do we do now, Altheus?" Jacrose asks.

"I don't know," replies the guide, his voice slightly slurred. "Saihve or one of her stronger minions must be watching our every move now. I haven't noticed any doors or portals on our way into the room; the cowled servants must have an ability to walk through the walls... which incidentally we do not have."

"By the way, Altheus," says Daria, casually, "why did the Queen refer to you as her former fiancee?"

"We were once betrothed before she got her taste for power," their guide sighs. The cousins gasped at the news. "Our parents decided to marry us to each other at an early age."

***

Saihve, watching from her lab, said aloud, but not to them, "but it didn't turn out that way did it, Altheus? Our parents were crushed, literally!"

***

"But why was I put in hibernation, Alteus?" the cub wanted to know, "and why was my Cousin allowed to be free in the world?"

Before their Guide could answer Tigre's questions, three guards came in and captured Altheus.

"The Queen wants a word with you," said a semi-metallic voice from one of the guards.
"You stay behind and watch these two carefully," it ordered the third member of its small party. "Stun them if they try any thing."
"Sir!" saluted the remaining guard as the others took the Guide to Saihve.

"The guard's armour, Jacrose. This is your chance..." was the last mental message Tigre received from Altheus as he was led away from the chamber.

"Ah, don't you try any of your spells on my guard, friends," says the remaining guard in Saihve's voice, as his expressionless eyes suddenly flare with blue light, "for they shall be of no help to you." The guard's eyes then turn as lifeless as before and he stands motionless yet menacing before the cousins... not realising that a barely visible speck of dust that Altheus managed to stick onto the back of his armour just before he was led out of the chamber has started to glow...

Tigre suddenly remembered something he heard shortly before his hibernation period:

"...any amount of Earth, even dust, may attract any spell to a supposedly 'spell proof' object, little one...."

Instead of chanting like some do, or playing the fipple flute, Tigre started to sing...

"All that is lost shall be found.
Our feet have again touched solid ground.
Our stay here shall not last.
Her hold on you now has passed..."

The guard started to waver, as if from a deep sleep, but regained rigidness all too quickly...

"Her hold on you... now... has... passed..."

The guard shook the cobwebs from his head and stared at the cousins.

"Please let us go," Tigre asked politely. The guard, silent and scared, looked at the cousins and finally said, "I don't even know how I got here."

Then Daria had an idea. "Stand as you were, tall and straight, and stun my cousin." Tigre looked at his cousin warily, then he got the picture.

Saihve watched from her quarters as young Jacrose got shocked by her guard. "Well done," the Witch Queen applauded. "Thanks, my Queen." the guard replied. "Now keep those two in line whilst I have some fun up here," Saihve said sinuously. "A..a..a..as you command your majesty." the guard hastily bowed, and shocked Tigre again for good measure.

Jacrose, bruised and full of electricity, really wanted to let some of it out on the guard. Daria, noticing this, reached into her awareness of things and pulled her cousin short of catastrophe.

"He was only doing what we wanted him to do, remember, Jacrose?" she asked calmly. With the anger surge gone, he replied, "Yeah. Sorry about that."

"I.. I.. don't mind at all," the guard replied. "But the Queen may know of our deception by now."

Suddenly, Daria shivers as if from some inner shock, and says in a voice that doesn't seem to belong to her: "Jacrose... Saihve will be... occupied with me for some time now... she will not be watching over you. Use this time... get out of the chamber... find a Red Room..." Daria barely suppresses a scream as a jolt of pain explodes in her head and the strange voice is no more.

"Who was that??" gasped Jacrose. "I think it was Altheus..." says Daria slowly. "Saihve... I think she'd doing something terrible to him, cousin. I felt his horror, his desperation, I don't think he expects to survive."

"I know of the room this Altheus of yours described," the guard said warily. "I was taken there myself once, for an unknown purpose."

"Could you guide us to it, please?" pleaded Tigre, looking at the saved man with puppy-dog eyes. "Time is of the essence, Sir," Daria told the guard, " and we don't have too much time to waste if we are to get to the Red Room to see what lies within."

Finally getting the gumption to show the cousins the way, the guard started to move out...
" A word of warning to you both.."
"Yes?" the cousins replied.
"There are traps that can only be avoided if you know how to use the right spells," the guard winked a knowing wink, and started again on the journey to the Red Room.

They went deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of murky corridors and passageways until the guard stopped in front of the inconspicuous-looking door that looks no different to the hundreds of doors they've just passed by.

"This is it," says the guard, "but if I were you I wouldn't touch this door with my bare hands, young sir, for it is sealed with evil enchantments. When I was taken inside the Queen would unlock the door with a spell unknown to me."

"What is this red room anyway and why were you taken there?" asks Daria.

"I know nothing of magic arts, my lady," replied the guard, "yet it was clear to me that it had something to do with the... missions my fellow guards and I were sent on straight after our stay in the room; missions of the... shall we say, investigative nature."

"Ah. Spying," says Daria with a knowing chuckle. "Jacrose, I think I know now why Altheus sent us here. Do you remember how you rescued us from the Red Room the Guide and I were trapped in? These rooms are probably powerful magical devices that can be set to different uses. I think that this one could be used to cloak one from the view of all who would try to use magic to track them, even probably the Queen herself, if only for a while. I just wish we knew how to unlock this silly door..."

"Try using me, you dolts!" came a voice behind Jacrose.

"Who said that?" the threesome asked together, and then a high note sounded briefly. Tigre slowly took the fipple flute from its place on his back, and asked, "You can talk?"

"The original dolt didn't know how to play me correctly so I had no reason to. Now?" two wispy arms form into a shrug. "How do you fit in the scheme of things?" asked Tigre's cousin Daria.

"Easily," came the reply, "I am an artifact from long ago that the queen usurped for her own ends. That would-be-bard she gave me to knew nothing of what I was really capable of in the right hands, until it was too late."

*Merry tune of delight*

The door opens...

They cautiously step into the small room that to Daria looks unnervingly like the trap she and Altheus were lucky to escape, the only difference being a small panel located on the right of the door that suddenly starts to glow ominously just as the last person crossed into the room.

"Umm.... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here..." mumbles Daria, whose nerves are frayed to extreme at this point. But before they can change their minds, the door that no one remembered shutting behind them suddenly flares up, then disappears, leaving solid wall behind. The darkness doesn't last a minute before the whole room is lit with sinister red glowing mist that creeps out from nowhere, takes on strangely humanoid shapes, and envelopes the party. Daria feels a tingling sensation passing through her body which, though not unpleasant, is still rather unsettling.

"Is this what's supposed to happen?" she whispers to the guard.

"I do not know, my lady, for I never was awake when the procedure took place," answers the guard, who is visibly shaken, too. After what seems like an eternity, the mist clears away, and through the haze Daria watches as the fiery outline of the door appears on the wall, then melts away to reveal the room as it was before.

"Well, I can't say that I feel any different," says Jacrose, but Daria interrupts him with a puzzled frown on her face.

"No, something -must- have happened to us," she says slowly. "Tigre, it seems that I can't track you with my threads magic, and your thread should be the brightest since you're right here next to me. Nor can I locate... er, what is your name by the way?" she asks the guard, somewhat embarrassed.

"Ramjen, my lady," answers the guard. "And I'm sorry to interrupt, but you'll have to decide on your next action pretty quickly, for I fear our disappearance may have been discovered..."

***

In the Witch Queen's Lab...

"THEY HAVE ESCAPED!" Saihve exclaimed, knocking over a few vials of non-vital potions. "But how?" she wondered, not looking at the smug expression on Alteus' face.

***

Jacrose felt a strange sensation from the humanoid forms, and tried something that neither his cousin, or the guard expected... He morphed into his 'Tiger' form, and in the language of cats asked: /What do you want from us?/

The 'night vision' of the 'cat morph' allows Tigre to see what his cousin missed...

/We are trapped here because of the Witch Queen Saihve.../ came the reply, suprisingly in Dragesh. /After our defeat at her hands she need us for something, but that was never known./

/Is he the one?/

/They are both talented, but he wields the flute./

Morphing back into a human, Jacrose translates all that he heard, and can still hear, to his cousin and Ramjen.

***

The Queen seems to have recovered from shock and is now furiously pacing the floor, until she suddenly stops and smiles. "Of course! There's only one place that would hide them from my sight!" She smiles at the helpless Altheus with contempt. "Foolish man! You thought that this pathetic plan of yours would save them. Surely you must remember that their magical powers will be much weakened by the same force that protects them? In a minute, every pathway around the Red Chamber will be cut off by my soldiers; the room's magic will not save them from steel and fire!"

Altheus manages to look suitably grieved and broken, while on the inside a triumphant thought passes through his mind: "Ah, dear fiancee, but you don't even begin to guess the real reason I sent them over there... I can only hope that the trapped spirits will not let us down..."

***

/Her will is beginning to increase on us!/ one of the shadows exclaimed in pain. /You...Cat-Dragon..have the power../ they moaned.

/Me?!?/ came Tigre's reply, / how?/

/Use the flute..to end. AAAARGH!/

Just when they reached out and tried to drain the magical energies out of Tigre, they were blocked by the sudden intervention of a wall of threads!

/Be at peace with yourselves, and use your skills,/ said a familiar voice in the cousins' minds... /Free them from their turmoil and they may help you when you face Saihve./

/Momma?/ thought Jacrose, almost tearing up, /Momma is that you?/

/Be well, my little tiger cub, and be sure to take good care of each other./

/We will,/ the cousins replied as one, as the voice faded it said: /Farewell, both of you, and good luck./

/Farewell, momma.../ Jacrose sniffed, and got the fipple flute ready for a spell.

As Tigre weaves the spell, he notices no particular change within the shadows, yet somehow he feels the tension in the room subside. A slight gasp from Daria tells him that she can finally see the spirits as well, although a puzzled look from Ramjen means that they still remain invisible to their new friend.

"We thank you, Cat-Dragon," says one of the spirits, "for freeing us from our accursed prison. We have been trapped in this room for long, long years, waiting for somebody magically gifted as you are to hear our pleas. We are forever in your debt, and will help you whatever way we can."

"Our friend is held by the Queen Saihve," says Daria, "and needs our help. If you could help us in any way to defeat the Witch... do you know of any weaknesses or secrets of hers that we may use?"

"In truth, web weaver, we can not leave this room," one of the spirits announced. "But we may give you what we have drained over the years to you both to help in your quest."

Remjan, the guard, looked at the cousins with a worried eye. /What have I gotten myself into here?/ he thought to himself.

/A task that you were destined for.../

"WHAT?!" he exclaimed, leaping at least a yard into the air. "We said nothing." Jacrose and Daria replied when he landed. "Are you o.k.? That was quite a leap, Ramjen."

"Saihve is a powerful sorceress," continues one of the spirits, paying no attention to Remjan's display of acrobatics, "but it is the Dragon Stone she stole from your kind that makes her all but invincible."

"Yes, our guides in this world have mentioned the Stone, several times," Daria interrupts, "yet so far no one has been able to tell us how we could claim it back... could you possibly help us?"

"Oh, any web weaver such as you are could potentially track down the Stone, for it has a life-thread to it just like a living creature, and it shines the brightest of them all. Yet had you actually attempted it, you would not have been able to withstand the sheer force coming from the Stone, and incurable madness would be the most merciful outcome you could hope for."

The spirits draw closer to the cousins. "We know little of the Stone's location, except that the Witch Queen keeps it here in the Castle. If you trust us well enough, young Dragons, will you let us grant you the powers that will make the walls, physical and otherwise, disappear for you?"

The cousins were about to give their answer when they hear the sound of armor hitting the floor. "Ramjen!"

***

/M..My destiny?/ Ramjen asked the unknown voice.

/In time you too will learn what you need to know...\ it answered, \perhaps from the one with the flute...\

Then the guard too began to see the spirits. "M-m-m-my g-g-goodness!" he exclaims, as they suddenly appear to him, and he faints from the shock.

***

Ramjen awoke to see Jacrose and Daria standing over him. "What happened?" he asked them, only to notice that the spirits were forming around them too.

Daria opens her mouth to say something when she suddenly hears noise growing louder outside the Red Room, made of shouts, footsteps and clinking of armour.

"We've been loitering around in this godforsaken room for far too long! It's the Queen's guards coming!" groans Remjan from the floor, who for a second forgot his terror of the spirits in the face of this new danger. "We're doomed!"

Tigre turns around and faces one of the ghosts. "We have no other choice but to trust you," he says firmly.

The spirit's frame shines brighter for a moment as if in delight, and as he and his fellow spirits draw closer Daria lifts Remjan up on his feet and says hurriedly, "I'll explain it later, just PLEASE don't faint anymore, they mean us no harm!" I hope, she adds to herself.

Before she can say anything else a paralysing sensation passes through her as one of the spirits touches her shoulder with what could only be described as some sort of spectral arm, while the other two do the same to her companions. The sensation lasts for a couple of seconds until the arm withdraws and Daria almost chokes on the air that streams back into her lungs again.

"I'd be very quick now, young Dragons," says one of the spirits, "for your enemies will burst into this room any minute now."

"Well, where do you expect us to go then?" asks Remjan angrily.

"Why, I thought we made it clear, young human," says the spirit, slightly taken aback. He waves his "arm" around the room. "Just go through any wall you like."

"Of course!" Jacrose exclaimed excitedly, "We've received the power to phase!"

"Just go already!" the spirit ordered. "We'll try to handle the guards should they enter here!"

"But.."

"SCOOT!" and with that final word, the three companions were blown through the north wall into the next corridor.

***

In the Lab of the Witch Queen Sahieve.. "They've escaped again!?!" she ranted, "How can this be possible?"

"My charges are very resourceful, Saihve," Altheus risked saying. "You should know this by now."

Sahieve waltzed closer to her ex-fiancée. "You are lucky that I have other plans for you, fiancée. Otherwise you'd be food for my minions!"

***

Ramjen was the first to get up from the blast. /Now this is a revolting development./

/You're telling me?/ came a familiar voice

/Who..who are you?/

/The 'Pied Piper',/ came the sarcastic answer, /Jacrose, who else?/

/What are we doing?/ the Cousins' former guard asked.

/Telepathy,/ came the reply. /But we, especially you, should use it only when in dire needs./

"You hear me, Ramjen?" The former guard of the Cousins only nodded.

"How you became involved in this I'll never know, but I do know one thing for sure...We need to check on Daria," Tigre said in a worried tone, "she's not waking up..."

"Hey, I'm alright," protests Daria, then realises that her companions are not looking at her but at the motionless shape lying on the floor that looks very familiar. "Oh..." is all she manages to say, unable to grasp the idea of looking at her own body from the outside.

/We are very sorry/, says one of the spirits to Jacrose. /It looks like the powers we have given you had an unexpected effect on your cousin and left her spirit torn away from her body. She will come back as the powers wear off, but when, we do not know.../

/Just my luck that my cousin is now with the Spirits!/ Tigre thought to himself in a annoyed tone. /She is among you now?/ the younger cousin asked the shades, then he felt a familiar twinge from the magic that only his cousin knows.

/Of course I'm here, silly!/ Daria's voice laughed, /I wouldn't leave you behind that easily, not now, not ever./

As tears began to well up in Jacrose's eyes with joy, a voice from behind him said "Use me to return her, stupid!"

Tigre unhooked the fipple flute from his back and asked, "Can you help me with the casting of the spell, Spirit of the Fipple Flute?"

"What would a musical instrument know about this?" Ramjen asked.

"Plenty, Guard!" came the reply, "now do your duty while I help this youngster out!"

Within a space of a few minutes the 'Spirit of the Fipple Flute' (Who preferred to be called 'Spirit Flute' or 'Mr.Fipple') taught the *Spirit Return* spell to Daria's musical cousin.

/Get ready, Daria,/ Jacrose warned, /cause this is my first attempt at this, and I pray it works!/

An erie melody wafted thru the air. A sound not harkened to one heard ever before by mortal ears. When the spell had ended and the last haunting sounds had floated away an ominous silence pressed on in the darkened gloom of the hallway...

At first it seemed as though the effort had been in vain. It left Jacrose with an uneasy feeling that the melody may have not been quite right. There was a feeling of change, something was not as it was before. It could not be seen, but could be felt - not as the feeling of a breeze or likened to a solid or tangible thing, but a feeling of restlessness, of being watched by unseen eyes. The air felt heavy and it almost seemed as though the little light that was present was dimming; and what? ...in the edges of the darkened hallway just beyond the edge of sight it almost seemed as though a nameless, formless thing was moving in the dark!

The fipple flute had worked, it had called forth the spirit of the fipple flute! ...or had it? Something was not quite right for the usual feeling of lightness and companionship was not present. But something was there! Jacrose knew it! But what would he do? He could not go back, and the means for escape was a path he did not want to approach because of... DANGER! He could feel it! It was welling up inside! There was surely something there! He could not ignore it! Something far worse was before him than that which he had left behind. As his alarm swelled he could hear the sound of his own heavy breathing, he could feel the claminess of his skin as the air aound him grew cold and felt as if it was pressing in around him... He had almost given in to feelings of desparation when he was jolted from his thougts as Ramjen exclaimed, "It worked! See! She is stirring!".

Daria feels a slight pullling sensation which grows stronger every second until it makes her feel as if she's being stretched like a rubberband, then the world in front of her eyes shifts and the next moment she finds herself lying on the floor grinding her teeth against a monstrous headache. She manages to give her worried companions a reassuring smile and croaks, "it's alright, I'm back into my head now... and what a miserable place it is!"

"She got -that- right," a completely different female voice comes out of Daria's mouth, low and husky in comparison, "this headache almost makes me want to go back into that accursed room. Almost."

A stunned silence that follows is only broken when Daria picks up her lower jaw and gasps: "Did I just say that?!"

/No, I did,/ the same voice chuckles inside her head, and from the look on Remjan and Jacrose's faces Daria can tell that the strange entity made itself heard to them, as well. /I am sorry for intrusion, young Dragon, but you have no idea what it was like to have been locked up in that room for centuries with nothing but a few crazed spirits as a company. If I am to be in a prison I prefer a moving and living one./

"Get out of my head, now!" Daria screams, enraged.

/Oh, but I can't,/ says the voice. /We are bound if not forever, then until the death of your physical body; any spirit-banishing spell would banish us both. I do not expect you to forgive me but you do not need to fear me. I can have no power over your body if you do not wish it. I also have a feeling that I may be of help to you in your quest./

/For one thing, it would be a really good idea to get out of this place./

"We are not alone are we?", said Daria. "There is something near. Something dangerous. I can't see it, but yet it is there!" Tigre replied. "I feel it as well.", Ramjen uttered from a distance. "Here! What are you doing knave!, shouted Tigre. "Over here!", cried Ramjen. "I have found us a way out!"

They eagerly pursued Ramjen as he pushed on what looked like solid stone wall. It at first seemed foolhardy, but slowly with some effort and a grinding sound, an opening started to appear where there had once been only a small crack in the wall.

"It was almost completely hidden in the darkness. I was leaning against it and felt it move.", said Ramjen. Soon the opening was large enough to allow for their escape. The group moved quickly, sensing a growing uneasiness at that which all knew was there, but could not see. And in the darkness something stirred.

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