It's been over two Spheres since Rory returned from visiting the Monument, but the little unicorn has been so busy he's hardly had time to notice the time going by. Despite his apparent youth (and relative "immaturity"), the Guild has put him to work. "You're a Journeyman," Babel's Master Shadow mage told him. "You can work as well as anyone." In truth, he could work a good deal better than the Eeee Shadow mage, a man so elderly his brown fur had turned almost completely white.

Babel isn't as rich as it had been ten, or even five, years ago, and not many can afford the College's prices any more. But well-to-do merchants and nobles (and some people who seem a good deal less-than-noble, if you ask Rory) still come to the Guild Hall to hire a shadow mage to guard their secrets and be assured of absolute privacy for their meetings. Rory doesn't get to find out much about the meetings he guards – part of the deal is that even he won't be privy to these secrets – but he's noticed a peculiar pattern to certain meetings. All held at different locations, and hired by different people, but the some of the same individuals seem to recur at them. A male Eeee of the same size and shape always attends, always cloaked and hooded, but one time Rory saw his hood slip – and he'd swear it was the former Grand Vizier Thath himself – who had, by rumor, been absent from Babel almost since the death of the High Princess.

In addition to the surprising demand for his Shadow magic, Rory asked one of the resident Life Mages, Tanieta, for study materials so he could continue his education in that Sphere. She offered to give him some lessons … and soon had pressed him into service actually treating people. "As far as I'm concerned, you're a Journeyman Life mage, at least for healing. And that's what counts," Mage Tanieta told him. Helping sick people wasn't as glamorous, it seemed, as arranging super-secret ultra-important meetings – but there were a lot more sick people to treat. It didn't pay as well, either, and Rory had the feeling that he and Tanieta were probably breaking some College rule, somewhere, with some of the patients that the Guild took in who were too poor to pay, or with some of their trips to the pitiful, under-staffed hospices around the city. But it sure didn't seem right not to help whomever they could.

Rory hasn't been so busy, however, that he didn't notice what a depressing city Babel has become. Maybe it was always this way, and he just never noticed because he didn't have a rakhtor at his disposal before, but it seems awfully dangerous just to go flying from place to place. When they go on their hospice rounds, Mage Tanieta always has him do a shadow spell to make them less noticeable – and she always gets them back to the Guild before dark. Once she even stopped him from casting a ritual because it would keep them out too late.

Reminders – great and small – of the aftereffects of Envoy's speech have been all around. Two nights afterwards, rioters came to the Guild Hall and shattered most of the big glass windows on the eastern side. They injured a couple of guards, too, before the mages and the guards got the mob under control and rebuffed them. The windows are boarded up now … the Babel Guild has asked Caroban for funding to replace them, but on their own budget, they can't afford it. Slogans and crude runes are painted and cleaned from the outer walls almost daily. Things like "Mages get out," "Babel doesn't need you!" and "Rephath will slay the blasphemers!" are some of the more polite things that have sprung up. at some of the clinics, even Tanieta and Rory get a cool reception.

On this day, however, Tanieta is taking a well-earned break, and encouraged Rory to do the same. After a few hours of circling around various chambers in the Tower, the little unicorn finally picked Mr. Porky off his bed, took out the directions he'd gotten on Reckoning Day from the Guild's records, and headed to the stables to borrow a rakhtor. An hour later, he arrives at his destination.

Rory, still new to the business of flying in to visit people, looks anxiously about for the proper place to land. He sights a sheltered rookery, and tries to goad his mount toward it. "We'll land there, okay? See where the other rakhtors are? That must be where the rakhtors go! I hope they're friendly."

The rakhtor, an old, tame beast suited to Rory's inexperience, if not to his excitability, soars down to land on the cleared ground near the rookery. The stabled rakhtors caws loudly at the newcomer, and it answers in kind, flapping its wings once or twice as it stabilizes to let off its passenger.

The little unicorn clambers gracelessly off the back of the rakhtor, then hugs it somewhere near the neck. "Thank you! You're a great rakhtor!" He waves to the other rakhtors. "Hiiii! His name's Bucky! He's a really great rakhtor, so please be nice to him!" He pats the big bird and whispers, "I'll try not to be too long, okay?"

Bucky clucks at the boy, then scratches at the ground, pecking up a few dried-up bits of meat left over from the last time the birds were fed. If the rakhtor is especially concerned about how long the young unicorn plans to be gone, he doesn't show it.

Rory makes a face as he notices the bits of meat on the ground, and takes care not to step in anything. He looks up long enough, however, to take in a look at the tower, and to start heading toward the most immediately visible entrance along the most obvious route to get there.

The most prominent entrance is the arched front door with a statue of Inala carved into one pillar, looking welcoming as she beckons with one hand, and holds a bronze bell in the other, while a statue of Rephath, carved into the other, holds her battleaxe menacingly. The overall effect is … strange. There's a path of flat stones leading to it, and Rory follows them without mishap.

Rory takes care as he follows the stones, stepping on each one, and not on any of the cracks, clippity-clopping as he hops along them, sometimes leaping two stones instead of just stepping one, just because. "I – help – Tan-i-eta, she's a real nice doc-tor! She – makes – folks-feel-betta, rides around on rakhtors!" he sing-songs, pausing now and then to figure out the next words to sing.

As he's clip-clopping along the stones, he notices a face peering out at him from a window near the door. A moment later, the curtain by the window is dropped. Then, the door opens, and the same face – a not-very-friendly looking male Eeee in a servant's uniform – is staring at him disapprovingly from the doorway…

Rory is just in the middle of his next verse – "You – had – really-betta reach on up and knock-tor! Or Reph-ath's gonna getcha, with her axe and whock-tor!" He sticks out his tongue, and decides to give up on the made-up lyrics. "Okay, that was bad. Uhm … " He looks up at the disapproving look. "Or maybe I'm supposed to ring the ding-a-ling thing." He shrinks down. "And not sing? Oh! Hey, that rhymes!"

The Eeee butler crosses his arms before him. "What business have you with the house of Gadiel, sir Mage?" The cold expression on the Eeee's face extends to his voice.

Rory throws his hands to his sides, causing Mr. Porky to squeak as he gets squeezed under one arm. The unicorn tries to stand up straight, and switches to Babelite. "Oh! I'm Shadow Mage Rorschach Stormshadow. I'm a friend of Skiree. I … uh … " He lifts up the stuffed Bromthen forest-hog. "

"I brought this," the unicorn continues. "I'm here to see Skiree's parents. This belongs to her."

The butler starts to say something else, then stops. Instead, he merely nods. "You may enter." He shows Rory into a little cubby of a parlor near the front door, then flies up to the higher stories in the traditionally open design of the tower, leaving the unicorn there.

The unicorn looks curiously about the parlor, having never given too much thought of what Skiree's house would actually look like, and quietly wondering at seeing the real thing. He scans about, looking for signs that this really is her house, though not sure just what that might be. As nonsensical as it might be, he half imagines to see little misplaced pieces of candy peeking out of hiding places, or hand-drawn pictures by Skiree, or stuffed animals like Mr. Porky.

At first glance, the interior of the place looks as dreary as the outside. Somber tapestries adorn the walls, and the furniture is not only uncomfortable for Rory to sit on, but looks like it would also be uncomfortable for an Eeee, or almost any other living creature. The mantelpiece has a selection of Eeee goddess statuette, and some more depressing artifacts are arrayed in a curio cabinet. On the bottom shelf of the curio, however, are arrayed a selection of neatly carved miniature Eeee children, dressed up and posed as if at a pretend war. The little scene has a gaiety wholly absent from the rest of the room.

The unicorn accordingly is drawn toward the oasis of gaiety at the expense of all other distractions, and he crouches down to get a better look at the miniatures. "Darrrrk!" he whispers, in appreciation of the neat little "toys."

A female Eeee who, if Rory squints, might look like Skiree if the little batling had grown up, lost all her cheerful enthusiasm, and recently eaten a really strong sour bug, glides down to land in the room, just as Rory is getting a good look at the scenario and admiring the details of clearly feigned, "death throes" on one of the statuettes of the playing children. The butler follows her, but she waves him off, and at her command he leaves. "I am Miriam, wife of Gadiel," she tells him. "You have something of my daughter's?"

The unicorn's ears flick, having expected a dreadfully long wait in the parlor (or at least a good chance to poke his nose around), and turns about, straightening up and stepping away a safe distance from the curio cabinet before executing a bow. "I am Rorschach Stormshadow of the Sphere of Shadow," he says, and then straightens up, stuffed animal held toward the woman, "and this is Mister Porky."

"You knew my daughter at the Guild Hall, then." Miriam nods to his introduction, then looks at Mister Porky, showing no sign of recognition. A little frown creases her brow, as if she's trying to imagine why Rory would call her attention to the toy.

Rory frowns, looking back down at the doll. He looks back up again, squinting briefly, momentarily entertaining the notion of seeing if she really does look like a grown-up and not-very-humorous Skiree … but then quickly decides that would be rude and stupid, and if she is humorless, she's bound to have a problem with antics like that and probably would rather be seen as humorless anyway. "Uhm … yes. She was really really really nice. She was my friend. We were on a field trip to Himar, when word got to us about war breaking out, and she had to go home because you were afraid that she would get hurt. But I didn't have anybody to call me home, so I stayed on the ship, and we went all the way to Lamu … " He frowns, realizing he's rambling again. " … but of course that doesn't matter any. Except I spent a long time there, like, a bunch of years, and didn't learn about … uhm … things … here … until just now when I got back. I am really really sorry."

The unicorn hugs the stuffed doll absently.

The Eeee woman takes some time before responding, as if she's having a hard time sorting out his words. "In … Lamu … you did not hear of … the Wound?" she asks, at last. She sounds incredulous.

Rorschach nods. "That's correct, ma'am. Your reaction is a lot like everyone has when I say I hadn't heard about it. But Lamu, it's … uhm … out in the middle of nowhere. I was apprenticed to Master Koshiro out there, but you don't know him. It's real hot and muggy and there's not even a Guild Hall or anything. But, no, I didn't hear of it, not until somebody remembered they'd forgotten me out there after a few years, and came to check up on me. I wrote Skiree lots of letters, but, well, most of them never actually got mailed. I kind of hoped, since she was studying to be a Scryer, maybe she could somehow read them anyway, even if I didn't have a way to send them." His ears blush.

Miriam nods. Oddly, she looks as though she thinks it's perfectly reasonable to write letters that never get sent to people who are dead, and expect them to be read. "This is what you brought for Skiree – letters?" she queries.

"Well," Rory says, "I've still got them all. The ones that didn't get mailed. But I was mostly bringing Mister Porky here. You see, Skiree left him with me, and had me take care of him. I think she left him with me as a focus for her, as a sort of Scryer magic thing. I only know a very little Scrying magic, so I don't really understand it totally. But … I figure that where she is, she can probably find me whether I've got Mister Porky or not. And … well … I felt bad holding onto him, if maybe you wanted him back. Since, you know, he was special to Skiree. Did you get him for her yourself?"

The thoughtful frown reappears on the Eeee's brow, as she gazes at the stuffed animal. "Yes," she says, at last. "I did. Come. You should give him back to her." She turns and starts towards the door.

Rory bows low. "Yes, ma'am." He then turns and hastens to keep up with her longer strides.

After they pass out the front door, Miriam's wings unfold, and she glides over the grounds to a where a smaller tower peeps out from between the trees. At Rory's startled cry, she lands again, and waits for him to catch up to her.

The unicorn clutches the doll tightly to his chest, and clip-clops as fast as he can manage, rushing to catch up with the adult.

Miriam leads the young unicorn, at a stately pace, up the staircase, keeping her wings folded at her back. They ascend to the third story, where many of the small doors in the walls are blank. Skiree's mother walks to one on the far end of the decorated rows, where a the carved figure of a child-like Sunala rests, arms outspread, eyes closed, peaceful. On the altar before this carving, Rory notices, are some bugs-onna-stick and peppermint candies – Skiree's favorite. "This is where my daughter rests now," she tells him.

The unicorn sniffles, despite his best efforts to act a little older than he appears. "Thank you," he says, standing awkwardly before the altar, uncertain of the proper procedure, and ashamed at having spent so long in Babel without learning such things (largely because a great deal of it is, to his mind, fairly scary). He bows before the altar, then places the stuffed animal on what open space he can find on the altar. "I've brought him back to you, Skiree," he says, in a low whisper. "Thank you for trusting him to me, but it's time for me to give him back to you. If there's anything I can ever do to help you or your family … please let me know … somehow."

The Eeee woman has been curiously devoid of all emotion through all of this, but now, she reaches out to Mr. Porky and pats it on the head. "Be a good girl, Skiree," she says. She bows her head and folds her hands before her, wings held flat at her back – the pose looks ritually formal.

Rory keeps his head bowed as well, partially out of respect, and partially to hide his eyes. Remembering something, he digs around in his collection of pouches, to see if he has any of the letters with him (as, more or less, all his earthly possessions, save for spare changes of clothes and large textbooks, are on his person at any given time).

Rory's search produces some old and very squashed jelly squirmers, a collection of string, half a dozen shekels, and some bandages, before he finally locates several of the folded letters, serving as bookmarks in a little booklet on Life magic that Tanieta lent him.

The unicorn fumbles with the folded letters, checking them to make sure they're actually letters to Skiree rather than spell component shopping lists, and as reverently as he can manage, places them in a little stack on the altar, tucking them just under Mister Porky, so as not to take up more space on the altar than is warranted. "And here's these, too," he whispers. "I hope you were already able to read them … but … maybe you'd like to read them again. Or something. Goodness, Skiree, I miss you. I already went to the Monument, and I thought I was supposed to be all done with the crying stuff." He wipes his face with a sleeve. "I'm totally lousy at this. I'd better go now."

Miriam doesn't seem to hear him – Rory's not even sure she's listening – but then she raises her head. The Eeee woman bows to the altar, and makes her way back down the stairs, leading Rory out.

Rory takes several gulping breaths of air – musty smell of death or no – and tries desperately to control his breathing and not to cry any more as he heads down the stairs any more. In his mind, he's apologizing over and over, I'm sorry, Mrs. Gadiel, I'm so sorry! but if he said anything at this point, he knows he'd totally lose it, and this doesn't seem to be a place that needs its silent solemnity broken any further.

While Skiree's mother doesn't share his turbulent emotion – or even show any particular sympathy with them – she doesn't seem disapproving or upset by it, either. She escorts him back into the house, giving the little unicorn the idea that he's expected to follow her, and sits him in the parlor. She takes some handkerchiefs from a drawer in the curio, sets them on the table before the boy, and tells the sniffling unicorn, "I will be back in a little bit."

"Thank you, ma'am!" the unicorn says, taking one of the handkerchiefs and turning about as he wipes at his face and tries to recover himself.

The older woman nods to him as she withdraws. Some time later, Rory has pretty well gotten control of himself, and is almost starting to wonder where Skiree's mom went off to and whether or not he should go look for her. The front door opens, and a young, brown-furred Eeee man enters. The butler comes to take his cloak, and the young man starts for the parlor, then stops on seeing the unicorn. He gapes, open-mouthed, in an expression of astonishment bordering on the comical, even staggering back a step. The Eeee waves his hand before his eyes, then says, "Rory?"

The unicorn blinks, looking away from the curio cabinet, and up at the young man. "Yes, sir? I'm Rorschach Stormshadow of the Shadow Sphere," he says, nervously clenching a handkerchief in his left hand, uncertain of what to do with it. "I'm a friend of Skiree," he explains.

"Gah!" The young man takes another step back.

The butler peers at him curiously. "Sir, are you well? I'll get your mother."

The unicorn shrinks down at the reaction, then looks to the butler. "Oh, sir? Where do I put used hankies?"

"No, no, don't, I'm fine … uh … do you see … him … too?" The young man points to Rory surreptitiously.

The unicorn crosses his eyes, as the thought occurs to him suddenly that he might have somehow cast a Shadow spell without knowing it … but then figuring that doesn't make much sense, if someone can actually see him.

"Of course. He came to bring back something of your sister's," the servant answers. He steps forward to take the used handkerchiefs, seeming not the least bit squeamish about the act. Meanwhile, Skiree's brother has taken on a rather sheepish look. He waves weakly to Rory, and starts to enter the parlor.

The unicorn waves back, smiling genuinely, though privately wondering in the back of his mind just what has transpired.

"Oh, wait," the unicorn thinks out loud. "He didn't tell me his name."

"Er … sorry about that. I'm Skiree's brother, Harel bar Gadiel," the newcomer tells Rory. "It's just. Er." He stares at Rory for a few more minutes, then says, "I thought Skiree just made you up. I didn't think you were … that is … a real person."

"Oh," Rory says, nodding slightly. "Nice to meet you! I guess that makes sense, since, well, I've got a friend who is imaginary, too, and most people think she isn't real. Except Mage Canticle, that is. Though, really, it's probably just as well they don't, because I'm sort of afraid of what people say about spirits and whether that applies to imaginary friends, too. But … I don't think that means I'm an imaginary friend." He looks at his hands. "I mean, I feel pretty real. Wouldn't that be just so weird?"

Harel nods. "That would be," he agrees. "At first, I thought I was imagining you, but since Ethan saw you, you can't be just Skiree's imaginary friend, of mine, for that matter." He scratches his head. "It is nice to see you in person, Rory. Actually, it's nice to know that you have a person to be seen in, er, so to speak. After all these years of thinking you were an imaginary friend. Did Skiree really leave Mr. Porky with you and not just lose him?"

Rory nods vigorously. "Yes! I brought him back with me today. She left him with me so he could be sort of a Scrying-magic focus so she could find me with her Scrying magic, or something like that. But … you know … now, I guess she can just kind of get around however she likes, so I don't think I need to be holding onto him, and she'd probably like him back, so your mom showed me out to that tower out in the trees, where I dropped him off, plus a bunch of letters for Skiree to read. I also visited the Monument, too, and left off some of her favorite candy there … though I ate some, too. But I had enough left over for her, and to give to this girl who was out there, too, who was a lot like Skiree, only different."

The Eeee smiles. "Oh, candy! That was her favorite. I make sure to leave her some every couple of days. Good of you to bring Mr. Porky back. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure she missed you more than him, but she used to talk about how much she wanted to see both of you again. Sorry I didn't think you were real, there. Skiree talked about so many things it was hard to know what was real and what she was making up, or exaggerating about. I mean, she'd tell you about changing into a monster to scare people away from her master's place, then about a white-furred sorceress destroying the power of Zahirinee's lake, or … well … you know, I'm sure. What she was like."

The unicorn nods. "Well, weird things happen to mages, you know. And it sounds even weirder when you tell people about it. Especially if you talk like it's no big deal and you just kind of go flying right through it, without taking the time to explain everything. Of course, that would take forever, and you'd probably get weird looks anyway. But I'm really glad that you're glad I brought Mister Porky back. I was sort of afraid I might be doing the wrong thing. Mister Cyprian sure seemed pretty gloomy about the whole idea, but then, I don't know him too well, so maybe I misunderstood him. Or maybe it's because I was making him gloomy. I mean, I kind of cry a lot. I'm trying to get over that, though."

Harel glances over his shoulder to the archway. "Er. I can imagine why he might've thought that. But, no, I'm glad you came," he looks back to Rory and smiles. "Really. I'm sure Mother appreciates it, too. She's very good about maintaining the House of the Dead." He pauses, then asks, "Did you really find a spotted monster and save Rephidim from it? And go through a cave full of precious stones with Skiree?"

The unicorn blinks. "I'm not sure about the spotted monster, unless it was that Savanite we ran into, when we were playing Jupani-Pile on the campus. And the cave – yeah! That was in Himar, where we were going on our field trip! It was a shiny-cave, where the Vartans mine shinies. We were there to learn more about stones – that was really important for the Earth apprentices, you know, but kind of useful for others, too, since different stones get used for components and ritual circles and for making special chalks. We heard about a monster that once lived at the bottom of the cave, but we didn't actually get to see it – which is a good thing, because it would have ruined the trip if anybody had gotten eaten."

Skiree's brother grins. "I imagine it would! She made it sound like quite an adventure. I think that field trip was the best time of her life, the way she talked about it." The two of them go on for some time, exchanging stories about Skiree. Rory barely notices the butler come in to leave more tea, or that Miriam doesn't comes back inside. From the way Harel talks, Rory can tell he was find of his little sister, though it doesn't sound like he saw all that much of her. "Mostly she was away, with Zahirinee, at Guild Hall, on Rephidim, you know." For all that, his affection is obvious and genuine.

Finally, Miriam reappears in the doorway, She nods to Rory, then looks at her son. "Harel, your father will be home soon."

Harel blinks. "Is it that late already?" He glances to the window, and frowns. "Oh. Rory … you'd better go on back to the Guild Hall. It's getting late."

"Oh," Rory says, looking disappointedly out the window. "Well, thank you very much for letting me come here. I feel a lot better about bringing Mister Porky back and all. And I'm very glad to meet you. And I told Skiree if there was anything I could do for her or her family, to just ask, but if there's some way I could help you, I figure you're as close to Skiree as anybody, so you could just let me know. I mean, I'm a Shadow mage, but I also know a little Life and Scrying magic, too, thanks to Master Koshiro – though he's not a Guild mage, so I'm not really officially accredited and all that, though I plan to work on it to make it official and all that. I just do a little help at … uh … I guess I'd better stop talking and start walking, before it gets even later, huh? Well, you can contact me through the Guild Hall, if you need some help hiding something or stuff like that."

Mother and son exchange glances. "Thank you, Mage Rorschach," Miriam says, evenly, giving him a polite bow. "I will remember that."

Harel shows Rory to the door, walking with him back to his rakhtor. "Thanks again, Rory," he says. "Not just for bringing Mr. Porky back. For coming. And … remembering. Take care of yourself."

Rory bows again. "I will." He smiles. "And you take care of Skiree and Mister Porky, all right? Bye!" And with that, he rushes off toward the rakhtors. "Hey, Bucky, wake up, it's time to go!"