Cassima reappeared in a dreary, desolate land, with nothing but rocky rolling hills and dark, low-hanging clouds as far as the eye could see. Wherever she was, it couldn't be Daventry. She couldn't imagine Alexander's homeland looking as gloomy and depressing as this.

She slipped her pendant over her head again and turned around to see whether Edgar had made it, but she didn't see him. She did, however, see a huge, knotted, purplish tree that stretched at least twenty feet into the overcast sky. Nestled in its bare branches was an odd conical tent of thick, bluish vines. An odd metal device hung from one of its branches by a piece of a string, and a telescope was mounted on one of its stronger limbs. A series of bulbous protuberancies jutted out from its trunk, strongly resembling a flight of steps leading up to the tent, with a rope ladder leading directly into the unusual dwelling – if indeed that was what it was.

Standing in front of the tree was the last thing Cassima would have expected to see in such an ominous land: a young man that seemed scarcely out of his boyhood, wearing a long, brown robe. His thin, blond hair was styled like a boy's, his skin was fair and smooth, yet something about him extruded an aura of experience, wisdom, and knowledge far greater than a boy his age could possibly possess. Surely, this was no normal youth.

Cassima approached and greeted him politely:

"Hello. May I ask what land this is?"

"You may indeed, my lady," the boy said in a typical boy's voice that seemed so atypical at the same time. "This is the outer strip of Ooga Booga. Since our Count Tsepish married the Lady Elspeth, we've been getting along quite well with the main graveyard."

Ooga Booga? The name seemed quite familiar to Cassima, yet it was as if part of her barely knew the name. One half of her mind only remembered the name from what Rosella had told her and Alexander about her adventures in Eldritch, yet the other half remembered it very clearly as the land populated mostly by the undead, west of the Wood of the Were-Folk and the Bountiful Woods, and directly above Vulcanix…

But she didn't know any of that before…

Then she realized that she must have somehow "absorbed" some of Edgar's memories. He knew the realm of Eldritch much better than she did, and when they connected their pendants, some of his memories must have crossed over into her mind.

How odd. At least she now had a better sense of both where and when she was. When Rosella came to Ooga Booga, Count Tsepish and his wife had been dead (or its closest equivalent) for some time. If they had just married, it meant that Cassima had to be in the past.

"Then Count Tsepish is still…alive?" she asked the young man.

"He is, but the day he will be beheaded will come soon, I fear."

Cassima had suspected the boy wasn't a normal boy, but she hadn't expected him to be as abnormal as this.

"You can see the future?"

"That I can," the boy said, proudly straightening his robe. "Past, present and future."

"Are you a sorcerer?"

"Of course. I've spent many a decade studying the obscure sciences of this world and the next."

"But…you look so young…"

The sorcerer rolled his eyes and groaned.

"Don't get me started on that!" he muttered exasperatedly. "Everyone who sees me says that I'm young. So what? Who says that a sorcerer has to be ancient and crotchety with a long white beard and warts on his nose? I'm a sorcerer without any of those stereotypes."

"Oh. I see," Cassima replied, humbled by his outburst. Still, a sorcerer was a sorcerer, and a competent, benevolent sorcerer of any age was just what she had been looking for. Perhaps this accidental detour into Ooga Booga wouldn't be such a fruitless one after all.

"Anything you want, stranger?"

"Yes…My name is Cassima. I'm looking for a dark wizard named Shadrack. Have you heard of him?"

The sorcerer's face looked blank for a moment, then he nodded solemnly.

"Yes, I have. A very nasty fellow. Nasty now, nasty in your time."

"What can you tell me about him?"

"Plenty, Cassia, but not out here in the open. Let's go up to my house."

He pointed upwards toward the viny tent atop the purple tree.

"Very well," Cassima replied. "And it's 'Cassima,' not 'Cassia.'"

The sorcerer looked down awkwardly.

"Right," he muttered. "Well, up we go…"

With that, he scurried up the steps of the tree like a squirrel and scampered up the short rope ladder leading to the tent. He parted the vines and stepped within. Cassima followed him at a much slower pace. Just out of curiosity, she stopped by the branch with the telescope and decided to see how accurate Edgar's memory of Ooga Booga was. She took a glance through the telescope to discover that sure enough, the distant fields were covered with graves, crypts and tombstones, dotting the barren landscape like pockmarks. Cassima decided that it wasn't a nice place to live unless you were among the living dead.

Cassima pushed the vines of the tent aside, revealing a small room that was scarcely more than a wooden platform with a single pole protruding from its center. A tiny lantern hung from the central pole, casting a dim light over the tent's interior. The vines surrounding the room almost seemed to be breathing – perhaps it was the sorcerer's magical ambiance that made them seem that way. The sorcerer himself sat cross-legged on the far side of the room, patiently waiting for Cassima to enter. The queen cautiously stepped across the wooden planks and sat down on the rough floor.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Cassandra," the sorcerer said.

"Cassima," Cassima corrected.

"Sorry. I have so much on my mind, it is hard to keep track of such minor trifles. What did you want to ask me?"

"I wanted to learn all you know about Shadrack," Cassima said. "Where do you think he is? Where do you think he is headed?"

"One at a time, my child."

Cassima stared quizzically at the sorcerer.

"Why do you call me that?" she asked. "You're not much older than me. In fact, I'd think you were several years younger."

The sorcerer sighed, sounding suddenly depressed.

"It's part of my profession. We have to act as if we're superior to everyone, no matter how old or young the teacher and the student are. I'm trying my hardest to keep this act up, and I would appreciate it if you wouldn't ask me questions like that."

"Yes, sir…" Cassima said, a little ashamed of herself. "What is your name, anyway?"

"I'm getting to that as well as your last questions, Casi Mas."

"Cassima," the queen said, wondering why this sorcerer was having such a difficult time getting her name right. It wasn't that difficult a name to remember.

"Right. Sorry about that," the sorcerer apologized. "I have much knowledge about this Shadrack, and I'm sure my knowledge may assist you, my lady. But, there is a price to this wisdom."

"There usually is," Cassima shrugged. The sorcerer's gaze suddenly became quite intense, so intense that the lantern seemed to flicker and darken.

"I have formulated a riddle that no one, living or dead in this time or any other time has been able to solve," he said quietly. "I have even scattered clues to its answer throughout this realm, the realm closest to it and through their many eras, but no one has been able to find and decipher them all…maybe I should have confined them to just one land or one time. Anyway, whoever solves this conundrum will be able to tell me the name that I go by. Answer my riddle, friend, and you shall know what I know."

It sounded like an impossible task, but Cassima felt prepared to take it on.

"All right. Tell me the riddle."

The sorcerer cleared his throat, sat up rigidly and began reciting the riddle in a strange, distant voice:

Listen, my child, and then you shall hear
Though I may be your age, give or take a year,
I have here the wisdom of ages past
But what I know is fading fast

Answer me this riddle perplexing
So that it will put an end to this quandary vexing
Guess my name, my title strong
It's not too short and not too long

See now, as my song unravels
Half the way the seasons travel
Admonish one, and leave the rest
What is the solution to this test?

Cassima gazed blankly at the vines surrounding the sorcerer's home as the words of his riddle resonated within her head. She couldn't make heads or tails out of it, and she doubted that she could solve it even with the "clues" he mentioned. She had never been any good at riddles. She could survive enslavement by a dark wizard, traverse a dank, tenebrous labyrinth without any fear, literally stab a traitorous vizier in the back and barely escape the clutches of a wife-slaughtering madman, but she had always had trouble with little things like riddles. Aside from her husband, she didn't know anyone who was even remotely good at them either…

Yes, you do.

Do I? Cassima thought, perplexed.

Of course. Remember…

And Cassima did remember, but she wasn't examining her memories. She was examining Edgar's. During his quest, he had solved multiple riddles on two occasions. Not only that, but he had deciphered that perplexing paper from Shadrack's agent, and figured out its cryptic meaning. Then Cassima remembered something else, something that Neptune's Channeler had said:

"Though you have been apart from him, you have been together since the moment you slipped those pendants on over your heads. Whatever you can't do, your friend will do, and what neither of you can do alone can be done together."

The Channeler was right. Cassima didn't have the answer to the riddle, but there was a good chance that Edgar did, and at this particular time and place, no one else was better qualified for solving a riddle than him.

"Eh, Sir," Cassima said to the sorcerer, "Could you excuse me for a moment?"

"Of course," he said. "Take your time, Casabianca."

"Cassima."

"Cassima," the sorcerer echoed. "Tell me when you're ready."

---

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