Chapter 10: From Bad To Worse ----------------------------- "The woman you seek is not among... her brother the captain is." The words intruded on his peaceful dream. He resented them. He shrugged them off and slipped back to sleep, back to the dream. A cave, one he hadn't explored before. No one had, not for years. But this is where he'd find the greatest treasure, according to his research. Treasure to make the Phoenix look like a bauble. This was a thing he couldn't pass up. Not the possession of it; he'd never worked to that end, no matter what the others might have thought. No, in most cases, it was the thrill of finding something that had lain for centuries, forgotten in the mists of time. The thrill of looking on something that no man had seen for years, centuries, ages. And here it was. In this chest. The small box was locked, but there was no trap. No danger; it had just been placed in storage, once, and never retrieved. He thought about breaking the box open, but that could damage the treasure, so he did it the hard way. He was the world's greatest treasure hunter; no mere lock could stop him! In a matter of seconds he was rewarded with a click. The lock fell away. He opened the box. He stared in shock. A painting. Of his friends, the unlikely group that had saved the world. "Of course. The greatest treasure..." He smiled. The world once more intruded. He had once been magic-dead, but the espers that had imbued him with their now-vanished power had also left him sensitive. A flash of magic mightier than almost any he had encountered swept over Locke, and his body began to stir. He finally was pulled back to awareness moments later, as a second wave of magic washed over him. His first thought: His second thought: His eyes snapped open and he blinked several times in surprise. An old but regal man stood next to his bed, with a concerned-looking woman at his left. A beautiful woman. With wings. Her voice was strangely musical. "...seems to have recovered very quickly, your majesty. I don't know why." The man----replied, "Perhaps he has some magic of his own. Or perhaps he has magical equipment other than the dagger." The winged woman nodded. Locke, skilled at reading body language, decided that she'd already reached the same conclusion, and that she wanted to placate the... king? "It's my red cap," he said, in a thin but audible voice. Both of them stopped and peered at him quizzically. Locke gathered that he wasn't supposed to be capable of speech yet. "It increases my vitality," he managed. The man decided it was his place to answer. "Indeed? That is fortunate. Quite possibly it saved your life." "Where am I?" The king looked annoyed at the interruption. "Hrrmph. You're in the Land of Summoned Monsters, of course. I don't have time for this. Tell him," he ordered the woman, and without another word he turned to stalk out of the room. "Wait..." "Don't mind him," the woman chimed. "He hasn't had a good century. I'm sure he'll feel better in a few more decades. I'm Kyria, a Sylph." She smiled at Locke's dumbfounded look. "I'm not surprised you haven't heard of us. We keep to ourselves. Although there was that nice young man, oh, one or two thousand years ago. He fell right from the world above, can you believe it? Took my sisters and I quite a while to nurse to health. Not that I'm complaining. It would have been a boring year without him. He healed, of course, and we took him back to the surface, past the dangerous floor sections... they're no trouble for us, we can fly, but for land beings like you, it would hurt. Besides, we have an agreement with the monsters. Anyway, that nice man helped save the world... and he even came back to visit every now and then! We miss him..." Kyria sighed and Locke seized the chance to get a word in edgewise. "Dangerous floors? Land of Summoned Monsters? World above? I mean... thank you for rescuing me, but I really must leave. I'm needed... elsewhere. Is there a way to get out of this land?" The winged woman-- he corrected himself--paused. "The floors are dangerous. You would need magic to escape. I'd take you, but I'm needed here. Maybe you can find something in the library? It's the biggest one in the world, you know. There's no need to hurry either." Locke frowned. "What do you mean? Time is of the essence..." "Oh, didn't you know? Time passes more quickly here than in the world above. You can spend years here and only weeks will pass above..." She stopped. "Oh, I'd forgotten! There's about to be another shift!" At his puzzled glance, she continued, "Time is changing. In a short time, it will pass more slowly here than above!" Locke groaned. "I'd better get started. Can you give me directions to the library?" She did. "But you're too weak to get up for another week at least..." She stopped as he slid out of bed. "Oh. That must be some cap." He nodded. "Thank you for your help, Kyria. I'd love to talk to you some more, but I have to start looking for a way out," he added apologetically. "That's all right, I should really be working with these others. But it's so nice to talk to a human for a change." She pouted. "Will you come back to visit before you go back to the world above?" "Of course," Locke promised. "But for now..." She nodded. "I understand. I'll be waiting." She smiled, then flitted to the other side of the room to check on a female patient. With a quick wave, Locke left the room and headed to the library, pretending to be oblivious to the stares of the town's monstrous occupants. He remembered the Sylph's comment. He found the library. Kyria hadn't been exaggerating. The shelves of books filled the room. He sighed. He didn't mind reading himself--it was the best way to find clues to hidden treasure--but this could take a lifetime. He began to scan the titles of the books, grimly searching for anything that sounded promising, and nearly ran over a... creature. He couldn't tell whether it was male or female; it was wearing a voluminous one-piece outfit and had long hair. But it was more human-looking than anything he'd seen here except for the old king. It seemed lost, as though it was looking for something. He turned back to the endless rows of books.