<html> <head> <style></style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'>  (As always, text enclosed in /text/ is italicized.) -----    For hours that night, Alexastra lay cuddled in Drift's arms.  Wolfram had raised a scandalizing smile when he'd heard Drift offer his bed for the evening rather than have her fly home so tired, but once Drift had ever-so-politely told Wolfram what he could do with his innuendos, the ram had left them in peace.  Drift had been true to his word, of course, and had pulled out a woven floor mat for himself in spite of her protests.  He'd even provided her with a screen and nightclothes that he had thoughtfully purchased several weeks before.  His bed was soft and warm, but she'd soon left it.  Drift's nightmares tore at her and she slipped down to his side to soothe them away, waking him just long enough to wrap herself in his arms.  It felt… special to be held like that.  Not until nearly morning did she pry herself away to repair the damage her hex had done to his vest.    Once that was done, she settled back into her Edward's sleeping embrace and started laying new plans.  Dangerous plans.  "Be careful out there on the ice today," she said to him that morning after dressing in fresh clothes that Kyia had thoughtfully provided.  "I have to go on a short trip this morning, but I'll be back as soon as I can."  Smothering his protests with a kiss, she continued, "I know I promised I'd come see your ice-carving crew.  I'll be there just as soon as I get this finished.  Don't worry…"  She reached up to scratch behind his ears, smiling as that dopey grin of his showed up again, and then kissed him again.  "I know it's cold out.  I'll bundle up."    Bundle up she did, once she got out of Kyia's view, in the white fur and form of an ermine Keeper.  Disguised thus by the ice and snow, she was quickly up and over the town wall without being spotted, and out into the woods a moment or two later.  She sensed what she needed out there among the trees: a ripple in reality, a nascent rift to the Dreamlands.  It was the work of a moment to tear it open and step through, changing as she did to her raven-haired human form.    Shooing away a circling pixie with a fair-skinned hand, Alexastra cast her senses wide.  It did not take long to find what she sought.  She turned to the west and started running with one goal in mind: to gain, by whatever means necessary, an audience with the Lady of Dreams. -----    "A servant of Agemnos?" Nocturna remarked, her voice resigned and a bit annoyed.  She gently shooed away the fae deer she'd been tending and turned her full attention on the creature before her.  She stood slowly and turned to regard Alexastra with an expression crafted to show curiosity, boredom, and a deep-seated annoyance.  “What scheme of his might it be about this time?"    Alexastra, still on bended knee, checked for the sixth time for scrying eyes and felt none.  "Lady of Night," she replied in her most polite and formal tone, "I beg a boon of you, but I would prefer to make it in complete privacy.  If it would please you to ensure that privacy, I can repay your courtesy in short order."    "Are all of your master's servants rewarded according to the number of words spoken?" Nocturna asked, raising her hand languidly.  With an effortless sweep she banished the night-silvered forest, wrapping the two in a veil of impenetrable darkness.  “I am listening, child.”  Slender arms crossed over her breast as she regarded the kneeling woman.    The moment Nocturna's privacy ward was in place and while her attention was still elsewhere, Alexastra did something none of her kind had done since the very first spymaster had awakened to power: she dropped her masks.  All of them.  Broad bat wings wrapped around her like an ebon cloak, partly flesh, partly shadow.  Dark hair and dusky skin framed eyes like chips of coal.  Around her swirled an aura of twisted fates, of tightly hoarded secrets, of swift knives in the darkness… and of carefully, deliberately concealed power.    Nocturna watched this transformation without moving, only one slightly raised brow revealing her surprise.  Compared to her, this display of power was as nothing, but the daedra beneath all those masks was one for whom she'd been searching for quite some time.  "Alexastra.  I -thought- that was you under all those veils.  This puts a different spin on things."    Alexastra suppressed a wince.  Lord Agemnos had warned her to avoid the Queen of Omens because of her talent for divination and foresight.  A spymaster with no secrets had very little with which to bargain.  Still, she had already accepted that this was likely to happen and, however weak a hand she'd been dealt, she would play it to the best of her ability.  She had to.  Drift's life, and possibly even his soul, depended on her success.    "Lady Nocturna, my plea is this: I ask-"    The Queen of Omens speared the creature before her with a glance.  "You ask my protection so that you can rebel against your lord and master.  You desire my aid so that you can wrest a mortal target from his commanding grip, when you were the one who put that mortal there in the first place.  You would have me prop you up in the face of a hurricane and possibly risk my sworn neutrality."  With each sentence, Nocturna leaned forward and her scowl deepened.  "In return for this mighty boon, you would propose -what- as payment?  You have nothing with which to bargain."    This time it wasn't a mere wince that she pressed down, but a full-on cringe away from the daedra lady's precisely accurate revelations.  Each was a deliberately calculated strike at her pride, her talents, and her prestige, and she knew it.    "What could you possibly offer me, imp of Agemnos?" Nocturna repeated.    Summoning up the entirety of her skill as a negotiator, Alexastra looked up into Nocturna's eyes for the first time in the entire conversation and replied in a voice as calm and level as a pond on a windless night.  "I could tell you a story."  Cupping her hands, Alexastra raised them skyward as if throwing something.  Sparks flew from them, arcing outward to fall in a circle amidst the enshrouding darkness.  Where they landed, they flickered and multiplied.  They looked like so many candle flames, for that's what they had become: uncountable candle flames, stretching away as far as the eye could see.  "I would tell you a story of candles in the dark."  Rising to her feet, she circled around the inner edge of the lights, her hands folded at the small of her back as she admired them, flickering in all their millions.  "They're beautiful, aren't they?  So fragile that a breath could extinguish them, so short-lived even when sheltered, and yet how brightly they shine in their short little span!"    "It's a well-crafted illusion," Nocturna replied, her voice flat and unimpressed.    Alexastra fixed the goddess of dreams with a hurt little moue over the faint praise and stooped to pick up one of the candles, shielding the candle flame with her hand as she brought it to the goddess.  "Perhaps a closer look might shed some light on my meaning?"    Only at the last possible moment did the young daedra's hand drop, and Nocturna startled in spite of herself.  It was no ordinary flame that danced atop the candle, but an image of her beloved Malger Sutt, playing his flute among a merry crowd.  Its light flared brighter as the image shifted to a different scene, the marten shouting with fury as his twin blades danced through a fight.  When the scene changed again, dimming and guttering as he fell ill with a fever, Alexastra asked, "How far would you go to stop someone from- urk!"    Nocturna's hand closed tight around the young daedra's throat, choking off her air before she could blow.  "Not even in an illusion," she warned, her eyes narrowed.  Taking control of the illusory candle, she plucked it from Alexastra's hand and sheltered it away from any fickle breezes.  "I would advise you to take more care with your stories, child.  You tread on very dangerous ground."    The goddess startled anew when she felt an unexpected touch on her shoulder.  An exact duplicate of the young daedra stepped around from behind her.  "I do it only to make a point, my lady," she apologized, cradling a second candle in her hands.  It was a match for the one that Nocturna had taken away, save for the shape of the flame: instead of a lean and sinewy marten, there flickered a sturdy canine form swinging a smithing hammer.  "You go to great lengths to protect yours," she said, her voice soft with commiseration.  "Do you think I wouldn't do the same for mine?"    Now Nocturna had to be impressed.  "Sight, sound, scent, and now touch, too?" she asked the Alexastra still seized in her hand.    "Projected directly into the mind, but only when I'm in physical contact with the target," replied the illusory second, mirroring the calm collectedness of the first.  Both of them then turned that patient look into a small, almost playful smile.  "Speaking of which... may I please have my neck back now?  This is somewhat uncomfortable."    Nocturna let go and broke into a soft chuckle.  "You are very, very good," she said, unable to keep the admiration out of her voice as realization dawned.  "You -wanted- me to grab you, and set me up to do so."    "It seemed the most efficient and memorable way to demonstrate my potential usefulness to you," the real Alexastra replied, massaging her throat before taking the candle from her illusory 'second self', who vanished like smoke in a gust of wind.  All the candles around them flickered in that wind except for the two held sheltered by their respective protectors.  "I would hope that it helped me plead my case as well.  Please.  I know the odds are next to nothing.  All I ask is a chance."    The Queen of Dreams pondered for several long moments, one slender brow elevating ever so slightly while she regarded the clever daedra underling before her.  Slowly crossing her arms, she lifted her chin to gaze at her, forcing herself to draw back emotionally.  As much as she owed Agemnos a thumb in the eye for what he'd done to her by this child all those centuries ago, this still required careful handling.  "If all it took to achieve something in the Hells was raw courage and brass," she said at last, "I would dare the dark lords to gainsay you.  Unfortunately, such is never the case."    Unfolding her arms, Nocturna held up the candle with which Alexastra had taunted her and focused her attention upon the minstrel's fiery form as he danced a silent pirouette.  Plucking the flame from its wick, she cupped it between her palms.  "In these flames we are alike, and for that small spark of sisterhood I will hear your plea."  The burning minstrel danced along her fingertips as she raised her gaze back to the daedra spy.  "I will do what I can to guide the path you follow, that at its end you find that flame you hold dear.  But beware, seeker, for nothing is ever guaranteed."  Her hand closed slowly, the fiery minstrel disappearing but for a flickering glow.  "Now, tell me what you intend." -----    Lord Agemnos leaned back in his throne and contemplated his former servant for several long minutes.  His silence weighed heavy on the room as he considered the offer that she had just made, but its weight and the force of his scrutiny seemed not to affect the she-daedra at all.  She held her supplicant kneeling posture without flinching or fidgeting, the calm of a practiced negotiator.  /Good/, he thought.  /After all the effort I put into raising and training her, she had better be able to hold her calm at the negotiating table.  This might actually prove interesting enough to keep me from strangling her./  Not that he had any qualms about eliminating the traitorous wretch, but paying recompense to Nocturna for killing her newest servant would be a bothersome hassle.    "You intrigue me, Alexastra," he said finally.  "I've noticed your reluctance to move against Snow for some time now, but never before have you openly asked for him to be removed from the equation.  Therefore, before I decide upon your request, I want one question answered.  Why?"    "My lord?"    "Why are you doing this?  Why throw away everything you've ever gained, and all that you stand to gain for a very long time, for the sake of this one meaningless mortal?"  His voice took on a curious, almost inviting tone as he spoke, but it still kept a diplomatic distance.  Both of them knew it was a question he did not expect would be answered.  Information of that type was beyond precious.    She hesitated.  "You want to know my motives, my lord?" she asked finally, clearly stalling for time.  "Is that part of your price?"    Agemnos smiled.  He had all the cards in his hand.  He could ask whatever price he wanted.  "It is."    "On one condition."    She hadn't even blinked.  The speed with which she'd responded surprised him, because it suggested that she had anticipated his insistence.  If her voice or her posture had been different, it might have been desperation, but no.  She actually thought she could predict him!  The sheer effrontery of it was amazing, but her calm manner in doing so piqued his interest.  He sat back and gestured for her to continue.  "Name your condition."    She produced a small parchment and offered it to him.    "You audacious minx!" Agemnos exclaimed, leaning forward in open astonishment.  "You dare to write a contract for me?  You forget your place!"    Alexastra drew her hand back as if both surprised and startled, and her face turned perfectly guileless as she unrolled the parchment.  It was blank.  "A contract, my lord?"  She flirted her free hand in a throwaway gesture.  "I wouldn't dream of it.  I had hoped for your written vow that, in the interests of courtesy, what I reveal of my motives shall remain personal and private.  However, since you react so poorly to the idea, I would be gladly willing to accept your given word."    The Lord of Avarice regarded his wayward spymistress for several long moments, pondering a particularly messy dismemberment, and then did something most unusual: he sat back in his chair and applauded.  "Very well done, my dear.  You goad me into a reaction and then set yourself up as the faultless party of reason, thus mentally improving your bargaining position.  Beautifully maneuvered."    Alexastra bowed graciously low, her long black hair sweeping the ground before she rose again.  "I studied at the feet of the master," she replied, the offending parchment vanished away by some sleight of hand.    Agemnos rose to his feet.  "Normally, dear Alexastra, I would have you executed where you stand for your temerity and rebellion," he said as he stepped down from his throne, "but you appear to have guarded yourself well against my wrath... for now.  You must have bargained quite well indeed to gain Nocturna's favor and protection.  To set yourself so clearly against me..."  He paused to stroke his chin.  "One might almost think you mad.  Still, you have provided me with more amusement in these past few hours than I have had in the past several years, and done it while still technically honoring my ethos.    I suppose I should consider it a compliment."  Agemnos reached his scrying pool and began to stir it into a lazy swirl.  "Very well," he said finally.  "I won't demand to know your motives, not at this time.    "Instead, I'll make you a deal.  If you can keep your precious toy alive and out of my direct control for two full months- let us say until the midnight stroke at the end of February, then not only will I declare him safely off-limits for the full span of his natural life, I will forgive your rebellion and accept you back into my employ with no recriminations if you should ever choose to return.  I will also see to it that, whether you return to me or not, you are promoted to a higher rank as a reward for your ingenuity and cunning."    "That is exceedingly generous, my lord," Alexastra replied with a grateful smile, but a shadow of worry crossed her face immediately after.    Agemnos allowed himself the merest hint of a smirk.  "You sense the other hand starting to close.  Good.  You are correct:  it is very generous.  If you manage to succeed, without violating Nocturna's desire for neutrality and thus voiding your own protection, then I clearly must have underestimated your talents and been wrong about the potential of your mortal toy.  Ignoring errors and misconceptions is bad for business.  You'll have done me a favor worthy of magnanimity on my part."  He sketched a partial bow, allowing even perhaps a bit more of a smirk than earlier.  "Let it never be said that I am ungracious in defeat."    "And if I lose?"    All levity vanished from the daedra lord's tone with the speed of a scourging whip-lash.  "Then you will leave Nocturna's employ at once, get your presumptuous and traitorous hide back here, and accept full punishment for your hubris and defiance."  His eyes narrowed.  "I assure you that said punishment will be neither pleasant nor brief.  On that, you have my sworn oath."  Finally, a genuine shudder from her.  It was about time the little wretch realized just how deeply in trouble she was.  Still, she recovered her calm well and quickly, which Lord Agemnos noted with approval.    "Lastly, oh prideful daughter of mine, should you now decide that you don't want to risk my deal..."  Agemnos ceased stirring the scrying pool and an image of Snow's ice-carving crew swam into view, preparing for a day's work on a small, curved lake near Metamor River.  Snow himself was out on the ice with them, reviewing the tasks of each team member if his gestures were any judge.  Then the daedra lord snapped his fingers and the image in the pool flickered and changed, with fire-red lines appearing like a crazed spider's web beneath the ice.  "It doesn't quite have the panache of Linafex putting a sword through his back," Agemnos mused, "but I know your toy can't swim.  Even if he survives the ice breaking up beneath him, I have plenty of ways to make him dead before you can get back to him."  He paused for effect, his hand poised over the scrying pool.  "Accept the deal and I will give you a head start."    Alexastra didn't hesitate.  "Done."    "Good," Agemnos replied, keeping his right hand hovering above the scrying pool while his left gestured to the door.  The golden portal swung open as if of its own accord.  "You'd better hurry," the daedra lord added, allowing himself the pleasure of twisting the knife just a little bit deeper as she made her escape.  "I won't wait long."    "Fortune to you, father," Alexastra said from the doorway.    "And to you, daughter."    Neither said which kind of fortune they wished the other. ----- !DSPAM:4d20ce1588491795620989! </body> </html>