porcelain steps next to me and can only imagine how incongruous he must have looked to her, a sea gull with no sea in sight. The silhouetted woman pointedly ignored him.
We stopped next to her in the doorway, and I squinted, still unable to see her features. 'I'm Guerrand DiThon,' I said, knowing as 1 did how foolish I must have sounded.
She looked meaningfully at my red robes. 'Do you think I open the door for just anyone who happens by?'
I looked toward the red eyes beyond the fence. 'Has anyone just happened by?'
'Not yet.'
'And your name is-?'
'My business.' She waved us through the door impatiently. 'Dagamier.' The bright light fell across her face, and at last I could see her. She looked young, perhaps of an age with my little sister Kirah, except around the eyes. Though her skin was unlined, there was a depth of experience, a cynical sadness, even, in orbs the dark blue of an angry, storm- tossed sea.
Dagamier was-is-a study in contrasts. Skin as white and unblemished as unveined marble, more polished than pale. Straight, shoulder-length hair the same midnight black as the silk robe she always wears. She's one of those people who looks good, sensuous even, in black, with her sharp, compact angles and a woman's soft, graceful moves. She's smart as a whip, with a tongue to match. I am ever on eggshells with her. Frankly, I haven't figured her out yet, and I'm not sure a lifetime of study would help that. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
'I will show you the nave area that is common to us all and to the red wing,' Dagamier said, leading us into the apse. 'Ezius will likely give you a tour of the white wing when he has completed his shift in the scrying sphere. You will have no need to see the black wing.'
'I have seen it,' I said abruptly, involuntarily. 'I've seen them all, at least from the outside.'
She looked over her shoulder, one brow arched skeptically.
'Didn't the Council tell you?' I felt compelled to ask. 'I was among the twenty-one mages who helped build Bastion before it was moved herefrom the Prime Material Plane.'
Honestly, Maladorigar, I don't know what made me tell her all that. I should have known it would annoy her.
Dagamier's firm-lipped silence confirmed that it had.
'Then you will not be requiring a tour.' She took a step to leave, and I instinctively reached out a hand to her forearm. I thought I had touched fire.
'Oh, but I do need one,' 1 assured her quickly, pulling my hand away. 'Nothing inside looks as I remember it. My involvement in the construction ended with the raising of the walls. The interior was completed by the Council of Three after they sent the other eighteen representatives from the site. Even the gargoyles, the fence, the creatures beyond it, the runes tluit surround it, are all new to me.'
'The runes were drawn upon Bastion by the Council of Three to send Bastion here. The creatures are hell hounds, other-dimensional flame-belching monstrosities with fangs and claws, brought here by LaDonna as the black order's contribution to security. They patrol outside the fence.' She continued in her bored voice, as if reading the information from a handbill. 'The gargoyles were conjured by justarius for the red wing; they watch the forecourt for unwanted visitors.'
Catching the pattern here, I asked, 'And the fence was Par-Salian's doing?'
She stared at me for long moments in a most disconcerting manner. 'No.'
Dagamier walked through the apse to the soaring central nave. It, too, was new to me, and seemed to serve no other purpose than to connect the three wings that join it at equidistant points from the towering front door. Actually, nine doors lead away from this area: one each to the white and red wings respectively, seven into the black wing, seven separate and distinct rooms that can only be entered from the nave.
In the center of the room is a wide, round column that stretches from floor to ceiling. A support pillar, I supposed, not recalling it from the construction. The column is ringed by a narrow, fish-filled gurgling stream, like a miniature moat, whose source is a mystery.
'That column houses the scrying diorama, Par-Salian's contribution to defense,' Dagamier said pointedly. 'Each of us takes a shift inside, watching Bastion and this entire demiplane for signs of intrusion.'
'Of course,' I said lamely, wishing I sounded more like the new high defender than some sheepish apprentice. Glancing around, I was struck by the whiteness of the walls, the natural-looking brightness that seems to filter down from the ceiling, as if it's a glass pane that faces the sun. Par-Salian's influence here is obvious, as is justarius's. The snowy whiteness is broken only by man-sized lush, tropical plants. There is little evidence of LaDonna's hand here, except, perhaps, in the shadows.
Dagamier must have seen me looking at the greenery, because she said, 'The plants and fish have always been the responsibility of the red representative. They'd all be dead if it were up to me.' She looked at Zagarus for the first time. 'Naturally, your gull and its mess is also your responsibil- ity.'
Zag's wing feathers gathered up like a bird in the cold. Does she think I can't hear her? he griped. Imagine talking about me like I'm some wild animal.
'Of course-' I barely managed to mutter to Dagamier.
'We can discuss other duties, like the scrying sphere, after you've settled in your rooms.'
Uh-oh, sang Zagarus. She obviously doesn't know you're the boss!
'Did they… the Council, that is… tell you about my position?' I gulped.
Dagamier looked up with one dark eye. 'The top guard thing?'
'High defender,' I corrected her gently. This was not going well. Since I was to be her superior, 1 decided to take: he bull, so to speak, by the horns. 'You don't like me much. Or is it the idea of me?'
Frankly, I haven't thought of either,' she said with a dis- five wave of her hand. 'If it makes you feel any better,though, I don't like anyone much. That's why I sought out this position. I prefer solitude.'
Arid the world is better for it, snorted Zag.
I swallowed a smile with a cough. 'Uh, how long have you been here?'
'Long enough.' She pierced me with narrowed eyes. 'I hope you won't be inclined to change procedures and routines you know nothing about.'
Do you want me to peck the harridan? Zag said to me. I think I'll call her Harry, for short.
I almost laughed despite my growing irritation, so unexpected and apt was Zag's evaluation. I can handle her, I ensured my familiar silently.
Actually, Zagarus's genuine but ridiculous offer helped knock the insecurity right out of me. I sensed that if I didn't demand Dagamier's respect in that instant, if only for the position I hold, I would never get it. I silently invoked a quick protective magic and quite literally but gently poked her once in her mannish lapels.
'Look,' I said fiercely, 'I can understand your irritation at being passed up for promotion, but I won't tolerate your insolence. I'm in charge here, whether you like it or not. The Council of Three obviously wants me to be high defender. I would hate to have to report to them that there is another position to fill.' I spoke without heat, but lowered my eyes briefly to the pattern on the floor. 'Dependable black wizards are hard to find.'
Dagamier pushed herself away with surprising strength for someone of her size. She met my eyes fully for the first time, and there was neither anger nor distaste there. I wouldn't call it respect, but a weary acceptance. It was more than I expected.
The short tour went better after that. Dagamier was at least civil, if not pleasant.
'Did the Council tell you where Bastion is, in the scheme of the cosmos, that is?' she asked while we walked slowly about the nave.
' 'Beyond the circles of the universe,' I believe they said. They didn't want to tell me more specifically for fear that I might let the secret slip.'
'Believe it or not,' she said, beginning to steer me in the direction of the red wing, 'Bastion is visible from Krynn, if only you know where to look.' She must have seen the disbelief on my face, because she stopped to look me. 'It's true. Have you ever noticed the dark line on the horizon, where earth and sea meet sky? That's the side of Bastion, like the rim of a steel piece.'
I nodded slowly in understanding, thinking it somehow fitting that I should aid up here, when I had spent so much of my youth staring wistfully at the horizon from the heath near Castle DiThon.
Contemplating that line, I said aloud, 'That would mean Bastion's plane is two-dimensional.'
Dagamier looked impressed. 'You probably noticed a sense of disorientation, of flatness, when you arrived in
