The shimmer rapidly resolved itself and I felt a strange sense of the blue glow filling my mind. The Iskar shot me a sharp and calculating look before she resumed looking at what had appeared in the chair. There was a silence besides the crackling of the fire and the rumble of water flowing by the cottage. The River Wytch smiled as she looked at us before she settled her gaze on Lady Silver. "I have never heard one of your kind be polite and ask rather than try to dominate and order. Are you sure your breeding has been true?" The voice was girlish and young but there was an odd resonance to it that one felt rather than heard like the rumble of the water by the cottage running up through my boots. Lady Silver seemed to bristle but then she settled with a sigh. "I am truly of them." "But you are not an Elder so why seek you out me?" "The myths. They say that one such as you are the Guardian of the Way. That way is truly feared by the Elders though they do not tell us why nor do most ask. I have seen what our Elders have inflicted on the universe and I would bring it to an end." Blue-green eyes glowed strangely as the River Wytch continued to stare at Lady Silver. "Even if in doing so you end yourself?" she asked quietly but with a deadly earnestness that seemed to shake all of us. "Even so," Lady Silver answered without hesitation. "Your Elders remember only the fear. They have forgotten what they fear. Even now the Eldest has joined the chase which is up behind you. She fears that you might find what you seek. Only she has the power to order me to show the way and you do not have her blessing. So why have you disturbed me?" Despite her childish appearance there was a feeling of menace and power growing about her. It seemed to threaten our very existence. "Because I would learn what it is that they so fear that I may end their rule and the barbarities that they inflict on these," she waved her hands at us, her companions, "they think of as their personal toys and playthings." The menace was still there but now it felt in abeyance as the River Wytch cocked her head to a different angle to gaze at Lady Silver as if to figure out the puzzle she represented. "What if the menace is something that should be locked away beyond redemption or recall?" she asked quietly. "I have dreamed, Wytch. That which was locked away holds no evil for any who face it with a true heart." Lady Silver stood her ground against the menace radiating from the child in the chair. "Perhaps you have been truly touched, beast," the girl said. "There remains the fact that only the Elders can order me to open the wards and show the path. And they are coming fast behind you to end your rebellion before it can begin. What say you on that?" To my astonishment I saw Lady Silver do the unbelievable. With stunning grace she bowed and prostrated herself before the child-like entity in the chair. "I ask, even beg if you wish, your cooperation in opening the wards and showing to me the path to what I seek so that I may end the power of my kind over all things, even over you." The Lady remained in that position not even looking up to see what effect her plea had. I saw stunned shock play over the face of the girl in the chair as she sat back and looked at the Iskar. "You are not compelled, broken one?" The Iskar shook her head. "I serve by my choice though she has often asked me to not do so." Next she looked at Sally who cringed back. "And she saved your life from her fellows who would have destroyed you." Sally managed to nod. "And she offered to send me away to a place of relative safety. She would not force me to do one thing or another but that being near to her put me in grave jeopardy. Yet here I remain of my own choice." Now her eyes turned my way and it was as if she truly saw me for the first time. She nodded her head to me in some kind of acknowledgment. "And what say you, Guardian?" she asked. To be Continued....