"Hello again, Edgar. I'm happy to see you."

"Why?"

Cassima shrugged and smiled a little awkwardly, somewhat at a loss as to how to answer the question.

"I'm just so glad that you haven't failed so far," she finally said. "Where are you headed?"

"I was thinking of seeing what's up there," Edgar said, pointing up the steep cliffs.

"Sounds like a good idea," Cassima agreed. "I might do the same thing. Let me see if I can climb up this slope…"

She started trying to make her way up the rocky side of the slope. After climbing about eight feet, she slipped and almost fell back down, catching herself just in time. As she was falling, however, something fell out of her pocket and landed on the grass. Edgar stooped to examine what it was.

He gaped in surprise – it was another trinket! How had Cassima come across it? He picked it up and was about to ask this question of Cassima when the queen stopped attempting to scale the cliffs and almost laughed as she said:

"What was I thinking? I know how to get up these cliffs. There's a plateau at the top – did Rosella ever tell you about her father's travels here?"

"I think she might've."

"Well, I know you can reach the plateau with that flying ship of yours, but I think I'll use this magic bracelet of mine to ascend."

Edgar cringed.

"You mean that…thing that allows you to change into other creatures?"

Cassima nodded, then stepped back a few paces. She knew exactly which form to assume – she didn't want to overexert herself by flying, but fortunately, the cliffs were just craggy and sloped enough for the shape she had in mind.

"I'm going to change now, Edgar," she said. "You don't need to watch me if it unsettles you."

As Edgar watched her, a wild thought crossed his mind.

"Eh…that's all right, I think I can handle it."

"Are you sure?" Cassima asked, remembering how frightened he had appeared when she had just mentioned changing into another form.

"Yeah, yeah. Maybe watching you will help me get over this…um…problem of mine."

"Very well. You'll need to watch closely if you really want to conquer it, though. Oreamnos!"

Edgar tried to watch Cassima changing without turning away in terror. He kept reminding himself over and over that in this world and his own, enchantments were common, transfiguration was common, and combinations of the two were common as well, and if he wanted to stay sane, he would have to desensitize himself to all three magical phenomena. After all, what happened to Rosella in Vulcanix was not his fault, and it wasn't his fault that he had spent most of his life in a different body either.

With these faintly reassuring thoughts in mind, he tried to focus on Cassima's slowly changing form, forcing himself to watch as she grew smaller and darker, her clothing melting away like spider's webs drifting away in the wind, her body becoming stockier, her hands and feet fusing into cloven hooves, her face becoming longer, two horns sprouting from between her ears…

Suddenly, a large, dark shadow skimmed the ground between Cassima and Edgar. Edgar's head snapped upward, as he tried to catch a glimpse of the creature that had cast the shadow.

"Great Levanter! What was that?" he cried.

"Edgar!" Cassima snarled with a distinctively hircine quality to her voice. Edgar looked down to see a large black goat standing where Cassima had been moments before.

"You idiot!" she bleated.

At first Edgar didn't understand the reason for her sudden anger, but then he realized what Cassima had realized when he had looked up at whatever it was that had cast the shadow. He hadn't looked up because he was eager to see what the thing was. He had looked up because he had glimpsed an excuse to look at something other than Cassima, and he had brazenly seized it.

He looked ashamedly at the irritated goat standing in front of him, feeling his face grow hot.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I just saw something flying overhead…it looked like a demon…"

The look on Cassima's odd features was surprisingly easy to interpret. It was a calm, somewhat sarcastic look that made it clear that she knew he was trying to cover up the fact that transfiguration scared him witless and that he was too scared even to watch somebody else changing their shape, but just the same, she wasn't going to rub this fact into his face.

"We can't worry about that now," she said. "Let's get up to that plateau. We need to find a place to…oh…"

She suddenly bowed her head, then knelt down, one foreleg splayed out in front of her while the other remained tucked beneath her.

"What's wrong?" Edgar demanded.

"I think these pains are slowly getting worse…" she gasped.

"Before we do anything else, Cassima," Edgar said as Cassima slowly straightened herself up, "I think I should tell you that I know why you've been having these pain spells."

"Why? What is it?"

"You…you are with child, Cassima."

The sleek black goat that Cassima had become looked quite surprised for a moment, then calmer as she came to terms with the realization. Edgar hoped she wasn't contemplating what being in the form of a goat was doing to her baby.

"I am?" she asked innocently. So that's the third piece of the union symbol that King Neptune couldn't come up with on his own, she thought. "I supposed that's what it had to be. My mother told me how it can be uncomfortable in the early…Who told you this?"

"Oh, just someone…someone I met," Edgar muttered, not eager to go into the details of his conversation with himself at the moment. "He also told me that combining our pendants could aid us in our quest somehow."

"In what way?"

"Well…" Edgar theorized, "If I think about it, it seems to me that combining two identical pendants by two completely different people with different thoughts could…somehow…combine them, and maybe we would be able to…"

Cassima almost jumped with enthusiasm as she completed Edgar's sentence:

"We could probably both go to exactly the right time and place, for once!"

"Yes! That's it! I think…"

"But still, I think we should both get up to the top of that plateau and rest before trying something like that. I'm sure you're as tired as me."

Edgar nodded. Cassima bounded up to the nearest rocky crag then nimbly leapt to the next, slowly making her way up the steep slope. Edgar prepared his skyship for boarding, then slipped his feet through the familiar metal straps and soared straight up the cliff side, leaving Cassima well behind.

The plateau Cassima had mentioned was quite large, and quite verdant as well. Trees and shrubs sprouted everywhere, and the occasional boulder interrupted the otherwise endless grassy fields. It was just as beautiful here as it was at ground level.

Edgar landed on the plateau, packed his ship away and waited for Cassima to catch up, which didn't take long. In mere minutes the goat had caught up with him, leaping from the last crag and onto the flat, grassy plain that Edgar was standing on.

"Well, Edgar," she said as soon as she had caught her breath, "We'd better find some shelter up here."

"Why?" Edgar queried. "It's only afternoon."

"Yes, but see those clouds?" Cassima said, turning to the west. The dark clouds that Edgar had glimpsed earlier had become much larger and darker.

"There's a storm coming," Cassima said. "Also, I'm in need of some water, and I'd prefer not to ingest it by standing out in the rain with my mouth open."

"You think there might be some lakes up here?"

"There were plenty of pools and streams down there, and streams always start in the mountains. Remember that waterfall?"

"True," Edgar concurred, "And now that I recall, Rosella told me that her father found a cave up here. That should be a good shelter as well as a place to rest."

When Edgar glanced east, he saw something in the distance that looked very much like what he had just been talking about. Cassima had noticed it as well, and she set out for it at a slow trot, with Edgar close behind her. Although Cassima had no real reason to remain a goat now that she had scaled the cliffs, she still wanted to make the most out of this stint as an animal, not changing back until it was absolutely necessary.

Perhaps if she hadn't been so hasty to change back into a human after she flew up the Logic Cliffs, she might have been able to fly over the barriers blocking her way to the Winged Ones' city instead of taking the long way around, and perhaps staying as a panther after escaping the textile shop would have helped her deal with that monster Bluebeard…provided he hadn't been armed, of course.

Soon, the pair came to the entrance of the cave. It was fair-sized, but unfortunately, its entrance was blocked by a thick pile of tree branches.

"Well…" Cassima muttered, "I guess what Rosella told you was half right."

"But this cave," Edgar said, gesturing towards it, "It wasn't like this when Graham was here…what does this mean?"

"It means we're in a different time…again. And judging by how untamed this land is, I'd say it's in the distant past, long before we, or maybe even Graham was born."

"Wow," Edgar said. "That's quite a thought."

"Maybe, but let's stick to the present, so to speak. We need to get rid of this barrier somehow."

Edgar grunted in response and sighed as he realized that it would take at least an hour to clear the cave's entrance. Cassima, on the other hand, eyed the barrier with an odd feeling of familiarity, as if she had encountered something very similar to it before. She smirked to herself as she suddenly realized just what she needed to do in a situation like this.

She stepped backward several paces and began pawing the ground, slowly lowering her head. Edgar stared at her, wondering whether the charm bracelet had somehow affected her mind.

"Cassima…what are you doing?" he hissed.

"Stand aside, Edgar," Cassima said determinedly. "I'm going in!"

"But…"

Cassima began galloping towards the barricade, praying that she really was as headstrong as her mother said she was. There was a discordant crash as Cassima's horns smashed into the brittle branches. Edgar staggered back, coughing as an enormous cloud of dust filled the air surrounding the cave.

"Cassima?" he gasped, trying to make out where the queen was in the blinding cloud. "Cassima? Hey! Cassima!"

For a few seconds, there was silence. The dust gradually settled, then out of the cave – now completely clear of obstructions – came Cassima, walking on two legs and rubbing her forehead with her hand.

"Are you…are you all right, your highness?"

"Don't worry," Cassima mumbled, absently brushing several branch fragments from her clothing. "I've had worse headaches. But now I really need to find some water. This dust is making me choke. You should find some for yourself, too, in case I don't find a large enough source."

"If you say so."

"I'll go to the south, you'll go north. Is that all right?"

"Certainly. When should we meet back here?" Edgar asked.

"Maybe in a quarter of an hour. Good-bye."

Cassima began purposefully walking towards the southern side of the plateau. Even though she couldn't see him, Edgar waved politely as she left.

"Good-bye," he said. Then, more to himself than to anyone else, he muttered:

"Boy. What a queen."

---

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