The smell of salt water and the touch of brisk, cold air informed Edgar of where he was even before he materialized completely. He was standing at the end of a worn pier, facing a calm sea. Turning around, he beheld a rich, green land that matched the crystal dragon's definition perfectly: a quaint little country with gentle rivers flowing between tall birches and oaks, with that one gigantic mountain casting an ominous shadow over it all. Even if this wasn't Llewdor, it was certainly beautiful.

Oddly, as Edgar examined the land's single peak, it didn't appear quite as menacing as it did at first glance. It began to look more like a lone sentinel guarding the countryside. Upon closer examination, Edgar could make out an impressive house built upon its zenith, and as daunting as the walk up to it appeared, he decided to make that house his goal.

Edgar walked down the length of the pier, making his way towards dry land. The pier was quite weathered; the planks that made it up had turned a dull grayish brown from the elements. The construction had undoubtedly endured many seasons of sun, wind and rain, as well as continuous abuse from the sea it stood in. The gentle lapping of the water against the pylons belied the fury that the sea could unleash during a storm.

Reaching the shore, he found himself among the sparse buildings of the country's only town. Most of the businesses seemed closed, and judging by the position of the sun, perhaps the people were currently in the midst of a siesta. Edgar continued inland, past a small brook and several large boulders covered with vegetation – boulders that must have tumbled down from the mountain long ago.

Oddly, unlike the Bountiful Woods, no flowers grew in the fields of this country, and although the sun was at its highest, it still hung rather low in the sky. It looked more like late summer than spring here. This confused Edgar even more than seeing the Woods in the springtime after the summer in Etheria. He speculated that the world that Etheria and Eldritch were part of didn't follow the seasons in synchronization with the world that Daventry and this land were part of, since the two existed on different planes of existence. Although this hypothesis satiated him for the time being, he still felt that the pendant he wore was doing more than merely taking him to different places.

When the prince finally reached the base of the jutting peak, he was pleased to see a sandy path winding its way up the sheer rock face. He started up it immediately, and within ten minutes, he was above most of the treetops. The cool wind in his face was exhilarating, and he barely tired as he continued up the mountainside.

His enthusiasm was short-lived, however. Looking ahead past a sharp turn in the path, he saw that his progress was blocked by a huge stone. It must have fallen from a cliff above the path, or perhaps the path around it had eroded away. Whatever the reason for its presence, the boulder was there, immovable and impassable.

Edgar muttered angrily to himself and stared furiously at the path that wound its way up to the now unreachable mountaintop. If only he had had more magic lessons with his parents. Perhaps then he would have been able to fly up the mountain. Of course, wishing that was just as futile as wishing that he had been born with wings. At least if that had happened, he wouldn't have people mistaking him for a human and forcing him to explain what he really was all the time…

But that was irrelevant now. That path. It was only a few feet away from him, in plain sight, but just too far for him to jump. If it weren't for this blasted boulder…he had to get around it somehow. He just had to. That path…that path…

Edgar realized his pendant was glowing. Just as he was wondering why it was doing this, since he hadn't been visualizing another land at all, he suddenly disappeared…

…and reappeared on the path beyond the boulder.

Edgar stared behind him in astonishment, then removed his pendant from his shirt and stared at it. It had obviously teleported him to this part of the path. Why?

Because he wanted to be there. Apparently, this pendant didn't just transport its wearer to other lands. It could transport its wearer to any otherwise unreachable location he wanted, if he concentrated hard enough. Edgar tucked his pendant out of sight again and tried thinking himself back to the spot on the path where he originally was. In a flash, he was there. He thought himself back to the section beyond the boulder, then turned towards the distant sea and focused on an enormous rock looming out of the water, which was the size of Edgar's thumb from this height.

This time, nothing happened. The pendant didn't even illuminate. Edgar scratched his head and looked upwards. The top of the mountain was close, but unreachable without several more minutes of hiking up the steep path. What if the pendant could teleport him there? Edgar decided to try this. He concentrated on the mountain's summit, focusing on the image of himself standing on top of it…

Again, nothing happened. What was wrong? Had the pendant stopped working? He shivered at the thought, and then tried teleporting himself back to his original place on the path. He was there in an instant. Then he began to see what was going on: the rock in the sea was nearly invisible in the ocean fog, and the distance between it and him made it even more indistinct. The mountain's peak wasn't visible to him, and he had no way of knowing what it looked like. Apparently, the pendant wouldn't work with locations that weren't visible enough to the wearer or were too distant. It was probably a built-in precaution so that the wearer didn't think himself somewhere he couldn't see, that turned out to be home to an angry ogre or engulfed by a river of lava.

Nonetheless, Edgar was pleased with this new discovery, and remained so as he thought himself to the unreachable half of the path again and continued hiking up the steep trail.

As Edgar reached the flat top of the mountain, he stopped to catch his breath and examine the splendor of the huge white house which dominated it. It had all the pride and stoicism of a castle, with a slightly sinister overtone which Edgar couldn't figure out. What he could tell was that a practitioner of magic once lived here for a very long time – and he wasn't a benevolent sort, either. With a shudder, Edgar wondered whether Shadrack had lived in this house.

His apprehensions were quickly quelled as he noticed a plainly robed, bearded, middle-aged man tossing grain to a fluttering of white chickens in a humble pen, which looked even shabbier next to the magnificent house. As the man slowly rose to look at Edgar, the friendly look in his pale eyes and the even friendlier smile beneath him put all lingering suspicions that he was a possible foe out of the prince's mind.

"Good day, friend," The man said quietly, yet not timidly.

"Good day…Tell me, is this land the land of Llewdor?"

"That it is," the man nodded. "A small, yet significant place in this world."

"Why do you say that?"

The stranger stared at Edgar, looking puzzled.

"What is your name?"

"Edgar."

The puzzled look gave way to one of surprise, then incredulity.

"Just that?"

"Yes. Just that," Edgar confirmed, not wanting to give away his formal title, despite the stranger's amiable demeanor. "By the way, the path up here has become a little impassable."

"I'm aware of that," the man replied. "I'll fix it one of these days. Anyway, I am called Derek. Derek Karlavaegen."

Edgar blinked.

Karlavaegen? He thought. Where have I heard that name before? He could have sworn he heard that name mentioned by Rosella at least twice before. Surnames weren't very common in Daventry, and it was hard to forget a name like "Karlavaegen"…

"You seem confused," the man with the strange last name said with stunning accuracy. "I think we should have a talk inside. Follow me."

He entered the house through the ornate front door, and after some hesitation, Edgar followed suit.

"Let me see if I've got it all straight now: this house once belonged to an enchanter who stole boys from their homes, then had them work for him until they were eighteen years of age?"

"That is correct. And then he would slay them."

"Yikes."

He and Derek were sitting at the large oak table in the house's dining room. Derek had filled him in on the history of the place, some of which Edgar had heard snippets of before. So this was where Rosella's brother had spent his life. Spending most of your life as a green hunchback with an evil fairy as an adoptive mother seemed like a bed of roses compared to what Alexander had endured.

It certainly was a strange mansion. Though Derek's presence made the place slightly less menacing, some parts simply couldn't be seen as anything but frightening. The huge, mounted head on the wall behind them was one such terror. It looked like that of a giant, deformed donkey with huge antlers resembling gigantic spoons with prongs adorning the edges. Edgar had no idea what it was, but he suspected a complete specimen would probably just fit in the cavernous oven used by the troll chef of Vulcanix – the one which the chef bragged could hold ten naughty troll children, should a reason to do so arose.

"Why have you come here, Edgar?" Derek asked, cutting through the mist of the prince's thoughts.

"I was told to come here," Edgar replied. "Before that I was told to go somewhere else by a young woman. Her name is…is…I can't remember it at the moment…"

The pensive look Derek had been wearing throughout their conversation grew slightly more intense.

"Did she say she was married?"

"Yes…I think so…"

"Did she have dark hair and green eyes?"

"Well…the hair I'm certain of, and yes, I think her eyes were green…"

"And you have never met this woman before?"

"Never. But for some reason, she seems so…so familiar. So do you…"

Derek rose to his feet.

"I would like to talk to you more, Edgar, but I think you should leave now."

"But why…" Edgar began, slightly put out by the sudden invitation to the outside.

"I can't tell you now, my son. Great change is taking place, and you and that woman, different though you may seem, are both tied up in it."

"But how…"

"The only thing I can give you that can possibly assist you in your travels is this."

Derek dug in one of his pockets and pulled out a small stone object, squat and tubular in shape and tawny in color with a brilliant blue stone set in it.

"It's some odd trinket that I found on a dusty shelf. I have no idea where it came from, either. It looks useless to me, but it might contain great power that you may be able to use."

Edgar silently took the object.

"Now go, Edgar," Derek said in a brisk, yet polite tone. "And may you learn all that you wish to know."

Edgar took one last look at the mysterious fellow before turning and slowly walking to the front door. As soon as the door shut, Derek furrowed his brow and fingered a tuft of his modest gray beard.

"So the Oracle was right after all…something is definitely amiss. It looks like I'll have to wait a few years to make sense of it all…but by the multiverse, wait until the people from the Other World read about this…"

As Edgar continued walking along through the lush meadows, he began to sense something in the air – something magical. As he was a supernatural being, he could detect such things just as an ordinary person could detect a foreign smell or sound. Edgar stopped and glanced at his surroundings. He recognized a small grove of saplings and realized that he had passed this way before, on his way to the mountain. He couldn't tell where the magic was emanating from, but it was definitely coming from somewhere near – and it hadn't been here before.

He shut his eyes and focused on the source of the magic. After a few moments of concentration, he was able to pinpoint its location. He opened his eyes, pointed himself in the appropriate direction – northeast – and slowly began making his way forward.

The energy became more intense as he neared its origin: a large, dark, rounded cave. As forbidding as the cavern looked, Edgar couldn't sense anything malevolent in the magic, which had now grown quite strong. His pendant would be able to teleport him out in a hurry if there was anything unpleasant in there, and he could always create an orb of light if it was too dark to see.

Edgar silently stepped into the cavern, For a moment, there was nothing but darkness, the heavy pulse of magic and the echo of his breath. Then a soft glow began to illuminate the cave walls, issuing from a spherical object sitting upon a rock pedestal in the cave's center. As Edgar watched, a cloaked figure with eyes like two candle flames slowly materialized behind the sphere. Its movements were slow and languid, yet oddly graceful…and somewhat ominous.

"Welcome, young one."

It had to be the entity speaking, yet the monotonous, genderless voice had no discernable origin – it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Edgar cautiously nodded in response.

"Uh…"

"I know who you are, and what your quest is," said the voice. The sphere, which Edgar now realized was a crystal ball, began flickering gently, casting bizarre shadows on the irregular cavern walls.

"But…I don't know what my quest is," Edgar admitted sheepishly.

"I will tell you, my son. Step closer."

Edgar obeyed. A closer look didn't reveal anything more about the ghostly creature. In fact, it seemed to grow more indistinct as he drew closer to it. He stopped when he was an arm's length from the crystal ball.

"I am the Oracle of the Western Lands," the being explained. "The man with whom you have just spoken with is wiser than he appears. He knows – and will know – everything there is to know about both you and your friend."

Friend? Despite her overall kind behavior towards him, Edgar didn't think a woman who pressed a dagger to his throat the minute she saw him fit the definition of the word.

"That woman – Cassima – she isn't my friend. I don't even know her!"

"Ah, but you do," the Oracle resonated. "Far more than you think. She and you are connected in ways that are far beyond the identical charms you both wear."

It pointed a slender hand towards Edgar's concealed pendant, which started glowing – most likely in response to the entity's magic.

"And," the Oracle continued, "I know the reason why you originally left your home."

It gently touched the crystal ball. It stopped flickering, and within the depths of the mystical sphere, a blurry image began to take shape. It slowly resolved itself into the image of a throne room. Edgar had never seen this throne room before, and he was amazed by its elegance, even if it was just a slightly distorted likeness of the real thing.

He was looking at two golden thrones in a large dais from the right side of its occupants, should the thrones have had them. Though no one sat on either of the thrones, a downcast young woman with long, golden hair sat on the steps leading up to the dais. Edgar's heart sprang like a startled deer.

"Rosella!" he gasped, approaching the ball and grasping its cool surface with his palms. "Rosella, can you hear me?"

The girl in the image slowly turned her head his way.

"What? Who…Edgar!" she cried. Then in an instant, she was on her feet, running towards the prince. "You're alive!"

Had she come any closer she might have stepped out of the sphere and into Edgar's arms. Instead, she stopped just inches from the ball's skin, staring at the prince in near-tearful amazement out of those innocent azure eyes.

"How can you see me, Rosella?" Edgar asked, just as astonished and grateful to see her as she was to see him.

"I can see your face in the Magic Mirror!" Rosella exclaimed. It took a moment for Edgar to recall what this was: a mirror that could show events, people and places from the past, present, or future, and a lot more besides. (It was also one of the three great treasures of Daventry, the other two of which were a chest that was forever overflowing with gold and a shield that protected its bearer from nearly any threat.) "But where are you?"

Edgar paused. Seeing Rosella again had momentarily made him forget this strange quest he had let himself get talked into, in addition to the name of the country he was currently in.

"I…I'm in Llewdor, and I'm – I guess there's no better word for it – speaking through a crystal ball."

"I can't believe you're alive!" Rosella said.

"To be truthful, neither can I," Edgar said with a wan smile, which faded quickly as Rosella's face suddenly became worried.

"But…Edgar, when are you going to come back?"

Edgar sighed heavily.

"Well…I don't know how to say this, but…I ran into someone with the same pendant as the one I'm wearing. She just talked me into this quest to find this sorcerer, and…well, I'm sorry, Rosella, but I've got this feeling that I can't come back. Not yet. It's too early. You've been on quests before, haven't you? You understand?"

Rosella glanced downward.

"Yes…I suppose I do…" she said quietly. She looked into his eyes again, appearing more curious than grievous.

"But Edgar, who is this other woman? Who is this sorcerer?"

"I just can't remember it all now," Edgar muttered. "But Rosella, I promise you I won't fail at whatever it is that I'm doing. I'll find a way. I promise."

Rosella stared unblinkingly at him for a moment, then nodded solemnly.

"I believe you," she said, so quietly that it was almost a whisper.

She started to fade and grow blurry; apparently the Oracle had decided that the conversation had run its course. Edgar smiled reassuringly until Rosella was completely gone from sight. Then his face split into a twisted grimace, his loud, frustrated groan rent the silence of the cave, and without any thought to the consequences, he slammed his head against the crystal ball.

After the throbbing had subsided enough, Edgar weakly struck at the ball and groaned again, this time in physical as well as mental anguish.

"Of all the stupid things to say to her…" he muttered angrily. "I don't deserve someone like her. What have I done? I've only caused her trouble. Trouble, trouble and then some! And now I've disappeared from my homeland and probably worried both of our families half to death. Why is she showing such sympathy for me now?"

"Don't fret, young boy," said the Oracle's voice. "She loves you."

Edgar slowly raised his head, still bracing himself against the sphere.

"But why?" he almost yelled. "Her mother told me Rosella refused to marry! Why is she changing her mind now?"

"Please…" the Oracle said, slightly louder than before. "Don't dwell on what has passed. You must continue, and find the answers to your questions."

Edgar pushed himself to his feet, rubbed his forehead, raked his hair away from his eyes and took a step away from the Oracle. He was no longer quite as upset about Rosella, but still fairly irate.

"What questions?" he asked testily.

"The questions that emerged during your talk with the man named Derek. why you and the girl named Cassima are so much alike in spite of the fact that you seem so different. Why you are on this quest. What is so special about the amulets you wear. And most importantly, why a maiden like Rosella should love a man like you."

This being certainly did its job well. Edgar had never met an Oracle before, but if this one wasn't a prime example, he didn't think he was mentally prepared to visit one that was.

"I advise you to go to the land of Tamir," the Oracle said after a pause. "It was the land you grew up in, no? Yes, I think that would be a good place for you to go next. Farewell, young Edgar."

Edgar had become almost as calm as he was upon entering the cave by now. Whether it was a result of the Oracle's monotone or not, he couldn't tell, but that didn't matter now. His search here hadn't proven successful, but he now had another land he could set his sights on, and one that he actually knew, too.

"All right," he replied. "Thank you, great Oracle. I will remember what you said."

He bowed politely, turned and stepped out into the sunlight.

Tamir. The land where Edgar had spent nearly all of his life. Even though he had never set foot in the lowlands, he had looked down upon them from his bedroom window for years. It would be a doddle to visualize Tamir.

However, Edgar didn't want to zap himself over there just yet. He had grown a little weary from his stroll through the Bountiful Woods and the hike up the mountain. He decided to find somewhere to rest and gather his thoughts.

He headed west, towards a small brook and past a tiny waterfall that flowed from the mountain that Derek resided upon. Edgar gazed at the gigantic peak, wondering what it would be like to live up there, high above the rest of the world. He quickly realized that it wouldn't be that much different than Etheria, the only real difference was that Etheria was a lot higher, and it didn't have a path that led up to it.

Edgar paused and drank from the cool falls. The icy water was a welcome change from the hot afternoon. He easily leapt across the brook and continued west, finally coming to a halt at the edge of a vast desert. The vivid grass quickly gave way to sand, which gave way to dunes and cacti, then a yellow blur distorted by the heat, all the way to the horizon.

So this is the desert the dragon mentioned, Edgar thought, squinting as a hot breeze ruffled his hair. Whether the desert continued to the sea on all sides or separated Llewdor from another country was something Edgar neither knew nor wanted to know at the moment.

He gratefully sat down on an eroded hunk of granite. As tireless and noble as Rosella and her kin seemed in their adventures, Edgar was sure they had to rest their backsides on a nice rock or stump at least once over the course of their quests. Even the most urgent of missions would fail miserably without a little rest on the hero's part.

As Edgar sat, he decided to search his pockets to see what he had collected during his travels. Aside from his cloak and his pendant, all he had to his name were that strange unidentifiable clump of fur he had brushed from the console in that bizarre tree in the Bountiful Woods and the odd trinkets he had received from the crystal dragon and Derek Karlavaegen.

He examined the latter carefully, and was surprised to notice that the shapes of the two trinkets were completely identical. Everything else was different, but the overall shape was the same: a very shallow arc.

Edgar tried fitting the ends of the two objects together. Even though they formed a seamless tube when he aligned them, they somehow didn't seem to belong together. The white pattern and the purple stone of the dragon's trinket clashed violently with the tawny pattern and the light blue stone of Derek's trinket. Despite Derek's optimism about the piece he gave Edgar, if it or the dragon's piece contained any magic, it was so faint that Edgar couldn't feel it. He supposed that it could be dormant or residing elsewhere, but he didn't want to place too much faith in these strange items.

Shrugging, Edgar tucked his meager possessions away. He began recalling all that had taken place over the past few hours.

His father had been driven almost mad by a nightmare about some dark cloak…that was a bit alarming.

He had almost fallen off the Edge of the World…that was pretty frightening.

He had met a beautiful woman who tried to kill him…that was a bit harrowing.

He had met a sprite and a dragon…fairly ordinary and somewhat extraordinary, respectively.

And yes, he couldn't forget that the beautiful woman in Item Three had persuaded him to join her on a quest to find a man Edgar had never heard of, not because of what the man had done, but for what he had the potential to do.

It was a good thing he hadn't told all of this to Rosella. She would have become even more upset than she already was – heaven knew how she and Edgar's parents were coping with his absence.

It was becoming painful to think of Rosella now. The more he thought of her, the more he felt that she would never love him as he loved her. He was an embarrassment to both his family and hers: being careless enough to be kidnapped by Malicia, then kidnapping Rosella and turning her into a troll – that was an accident, Edgar told himself firmly. I did not do that to her on purpose – almost blowing up his entire homeland – that was an accident too…I swear it was – and helping Malicia construct the device which would do that – stupid, stupid, stupid…

Edgar cried out in rage and frustration, causing a few birds in a nearby tree to take flight, while a pair of squirrels chattered angrily. Breathing heavily, he struggled to regain his composure. It would do him no good to dwell on these thoughts, especially not now, in this foreign land. There was nothing he could do to reconcile these problems. All he could do was hope that his journey was successful and that he would be able to see Rosella again – whether she chose to be his bride or not.

Edgar sighed and stared out at the desert again. There was nothing out there in those blistering sands. Absolutely nothing. Edgar wondered how the nomads of such places survived. They couldn't always travel in groups – did they ever go mad wandering alone in the desolate wastes with nothing but their own minds for company? Did they end up talking to their camels or donkeys?

Edgar forced himself to smile at that, but noted that a temperate land could be just as lonely to a single traveler. A friend could be so important on a long journey. Someone to talk to, to trust, to care for and be cared for in return.

Friend. That Oracle had called that raven-haired woman his friend. Edgar still didn't see Cassima as one, however. He saw her as somebody he had unexpectedly become allies with and nothing more. Still…there was something terribly familiar about her…

Edgar pulled his pendant out. It was the only thing that he and Cassima had in common. Other than that, they were as different as water and fire. He was cautious, she was impulsive. He was shy, she was bold. It made the power of the pendants all that more remarkable – how else could two total opposites have run into each other at the Edge of the World?

As reluctant as he was to see that woman as a friend, there was so much about her that he didn't know – and wanted to learn. Where had she come from? Who was this husband of hers? Why in the world did she have a pendant just like Edgar's? Why did her name and appearance bring about such feelings of déjà vu?

As Edgar pondered these questions, the pendant in his hand grew bright, and within moments, the face of the very black-haired, green-eyed woman his thoughts had been centered around materialized before his own.

---

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