Concussion. Jake hadn’t minded Portals for a while now, but this was nothing so civilised. The Messenger had simply grabbed Jake’s arm in his teeth, and dragged them through the Outside like a wolf carrying home a deer.

Silver landed on the red sand like a cat. "Hmm. Okay, it’s desert. Doesn’t prove a thing."

For a queasy moment Jake thought he’d landed on a corpse, he’d probably been spending too much time around them lately, he thought. But it was a statue, of a woman bearing a plate of fruit. Probably fruit. And presumably her nose had been eroded away, but Jake doubted it.

"Jake, I hate to disrupt the archaeology, but our lift home’s just vanished."

"You’ve still got your sticks, right?"

"Right, but I don’t know where we are. Not even approximately. Not even which galaxy, for pity’s sake."

"Maybe he’ll be back."

"And maybe the Harlequins have abandoned us here for the duration. And we’re not even sure this is Du Cray."

"Someone humanoid was here. Someone with no nose."

"With- Oh, come on, now we’re here we might as well take a look."

Deserts, thought Jake half an hour later, are very impressive. Used in music videos, films, wildlife documentaries, whatever. The trouble is, after you’re stuck in it for, say, thirty minutes, you can’t help noticing that’s sand doesn’t have many benefits in the way of food-making, sheltering and general survival.

"Heads up," called Silver, "Sandstorm approaching."

"Doesn’t anything worry you?" snapped Jake. "Like a sodding great sandstorm when we have no shelter?"

"Oh, no, not more sand! We’ll get it everywhere! Jake, I have sand in places I don’t even want to talk about, and the last thing I need is you wittering. Look, let’s just go down that suspiciously man-made hole over there and hope it isn’t some kind of trap, because if it is I’m really going to hate myself for falling for it."

Quickly, the pair of them scrabbled through the darkness, and landed on stone blocks."

"Is it a mine?"

"No, more like a corridor. Hang on." Silver produced a pen torch. The tiny beam lit up gargoyles and what might have been stained glass.

"It’s like Notré Dame."

Silver flinched. "Why can’t Americans handle French accents?"

Jake grinned. "It’s because we don’t have a history that consists of two thousand years of kicking the hell out of them."

"Not fair! There are some interesting castles."

"Mostly put there defend the coast against the French."

Silver snorted, but peered at the carvings. "Hmm. Remind me of something."

"The gargoyles? Sure, I had a history teacher looked just like that."

Silver smiled slightly. "Cute, Jake. Anyway, they’re not gargoyles, they’re grotesques. Gargoyles are water-spouts with delusions of grandeur."

"On a desert world I bet they couldn’t manage delusions of adequacy."

Silver smiled again. "Quite. The space opens out ahead."

It took a while for the pen torch to reveal the more pertinent features, so when the feeble beam landed on a wall bracket Jake dug out a lighter and lit the oily scum it was filled with.

"I didn’t know you smoked."

"I don’t. You know those really boring lectures were everyone around you is doing Hangman or paper Connect 4? Well, you can always melt your Biro into these sorta twisted shapes, and pull the plastic around until you’ve got a bendy pen."

"In my day, we used to paint the tutors Newton’s Cradle with this stuff that bursts into flames on contact. So as soon as the first ball started, the whole thing went whoomp!"

"Whoomp!" echoed a voice behind them. Jake and Silver froze, then turned as though on little wheels. The oldest, most ragged old woman Jake had ever seen was staring at them, clutching a small, ornately carved wooden box.

"Hello," said Silver softly. "I’m Silver, and this is Jake. What’s your name?"

"You’re not Unity?"

"No, I’m not."

The woman relaxed for a moment, then tensed right back up. "You Sisters?"

Jake shook his head wordlessly. The woman blinked, than relaxed again.

"Duft. The lady Duft."

Silver tried to curtsey, never a good idea in jeans. Duft’s face wrinkled in pleasure.

"You may rise," she quavered.

"My lady, could you tell us where we are?"

"You’re in my palace."

"Thank you my lady. What estates do you rule?"

"It’s obvious. Ask anyone." She waved an imperious hand. "There are lots of people out there, you can see them from the highest tower. Carrying plates and holding up things and... and things."

"You mean the stat- my lady, do you ever go out among your people?"

"Oh, dear me, no! That would never do. I have all the people I want to see here." The hand waved again. "But not the jesters. Not the clowns, no, nasty misshapen lumps." Her face clouded. "No, don’t like them. They thought things they oughtn’t. They thought they were better than us, that they deserved the power. They ran away somewhere. They wanted there to be a balance, as they called it. And they couldn’t find it here."

"Where’s here? My lady."

"Why this is the city of Du Cray, little one." Silver chose to ignore Jake’s smug expression. From overhead, the sandstorm whirled up the sand with a high keening. Duft looked up.

"Hark at those chimes, it must be time for the dance. Off the floor, children."

The old woman started humming, and following the unseen dancers with her eyes. Jake pulled Silver to one side.

"She’s nuts."

"She’s been alone for a long time. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone left. Poor woman."

Jake had a sudden vivid impression of Adam, old and insane with sheer loneliness. So this was what he’d been trying to avoid. He forced his mind away from that.

"What do you suppose is in the box?"

Duft stopped humming to the remembered music, and clasped the box to her. "Mine! My box! My little box of shinies. Got to look after them. You wouldn’t take an old woman’s little box, would you children?"

"Oh, no, my lady! May I see the shinies? Just to see?"

Humming less certainly to herself, Duft opened the rusty catch on the box. In it a number of differently sized stones, a little like clear quartz. She snapped the box shut.

"Mine!"

"Yes, my lady. They’re yours. All yours. Where did you get them?"

"They were given. I have to look after them, until Father comes back. He’s in a war."

"Ah." Silver was stumped. The only coherent thought left in this woman’s head was that she mustn’t give up the stones. And she didn’t like clowns. Carefully, she made a little signal to Jake behind her back, then turned back to Duft.

"This is a beautiful palace, my lady. How was it made?"

"Ah, that’s a secret. It’s all a secret - no! Mercy! My shinies!"

Jake snatched the box, selected the biggest piece inside, then threw the little wooden oblong back at Duft. She screeched like an enraged tigress, and flattened Jake, clawing the stone out of his grasp. Then she ran, calling for the guards. Silver helped Jake up, and they gave chase.

They rounded a corner, and saw Duft was at bay, the Messenger snarling and forcing her into a corner. She whimpered with fear, and clutched the box for comfort. Silver guessed from the arch of his back that the Messenger was even more frightened of this amazingly strong madwoman than the other way round, but was doing his level best not to show it.

Silver took a deep breath, then got between the wolf and the woman. She winked at the Messenger, who sprang, and she threw him as gently as she could to one side. Duft gibbered with relief.

"Saved me! Saved me. And your bad friend did nothing." Duft patted Silver’s arm, which would have made Jake squirm. "Pretty child saved me, saved my shinies. You can have a pretty shiny all of your own." Duft produced the stone Jake had tried to steal, kissed it goodbye, then pressed it into Silver’s hand. Silver tried to curtsey again.

"Oh, thank you, my lady! I’ll take the dog and the thief away, shall I?"

"Oh, yes, child! And there’ll be a feast soon, so don’t tarry."

Around the corner, both Silver’s companions gave her a withering look.

"Thief?"

"Dog?"

"Don’t look at me like that, I’m feeling like scum as it is. Did you see her face when she gave me the stone?"

Jake shrugged. "So, what now?"

"There’s a Beckett play I’m thinking of."

"What? ‘Waiting for Godot’?"

"No." Silver’s face was shadowed "’Endgame’."

© Naomi 'Ni' Claydon 2000. No copying without permission.