smile empty and idiotic.
His feet touched down, and he folded his wings. We were on the ground, in the center of the grass-grown circle of Stones, in the center of the ring of toadstools.
Colin said in a sleepy voice, 'Why did you slap me, Amelia? That wasn't very nice. All I wanted to do was I..'
I looked in the higher dimensions. Rising up from the guitar were webs upon webs. They were all around us, strands and nets of magic. They were winding more and more tightly around Colin and me, glistening ruddily.
This was magic: Quentin's paradigm. It neither automatically trumped my paradigm, nor did mine automatically trump it. Was there something I could do?
I reached into the nearest cluster of moral imperatives and... twisted... something, curving the morality-strand back inward on itself to form an infinitely recurring loop.
In effect, I hoped to do to the woven web of moral obligations what I had done to the nanotech virus Dr. Fell had injected in me. I thought that if I gave the moral obligations free will, they might not be able to be used as an enchantment or as a snare.
For a moment, it seemed as if the webs might wake up and loosen us.
But then a slim and beautiful woman, dark-haired and ivory-skinned, stepped out from a tree, her footstep as soft and shy as a doe stepping. Her corona was a wreath of living leaves. Her gown was green.
She did not come from behind the tree, but from inside it: For a moment, her form was a mist or invisible essence sliding between the substance of the bark. With her next quiet step, she was solid.
I could see from her inner nature that she resided in a vessel, shaped like a woman, which was, at that moment, made for her, solidified out of thin air.
In one hand she held a slender wand of willow. She tapped it on the ground, saying, 'Phobetor, Prince of Night, my gentle sweet, look to me. Look, and be enchanted by, Oenone.'
His face turned toward her. His eyes were utterly blank at this point.
I saw the strand of morality twisting, shaking, tossing. I reached more deeply into the energy knot involved, trying to liberate the core of the incoming power before...
'Phobetor, you have slain Leucosia, our husband's wife, ending and therefore owing us a life. You now are owned by the nymphs of stream and tree...'
Part of the strand began to uncurl. I shouted in triumph and alarm, calling out to Colin, begging him to wake up.
Colin stirred and blinked. A tone of confusion and anger rang in his voice: 'Amelia! What is happening to me-? Can you-?'
The nymph said softly, 'Arms of Phaethusa, you have slain our lord's wild lady, grim Chalcomede-why should your bloodstained hands undo our work, when hers are nerveless and forever still? Hands and arms! An equal balance must require that you do our lord's and not your lady's will.'
My arms tingled and fell numb, not merely my human arms in this dimension, but the energy-tendrils I was using in the other world to try to unwind the spell snaring us.
My legs went numb as well. I collapsed heavily into Colin's arms. He turned and caught me.
Colin's eyes were now bright and awake.
My voice was working. 'Drop me. Stop her!'
The idiot dropped me. When I said 'drop,' of course, I had meant for him to lower me quickly but gently to the ground, not just to let my head bounce off the pavement. What a jerk.
And he ran at her, his arms already beginning to turn into flame.
She said, 'Phobetor-I call you by your true name. Resume that shape you knew on Earth, mortal boy.'
His true shape snapped back into place, fires extinguished. He stumbled and slowed.
The nymph smiled, and cooed in a voice like a dove: 'Your magics desert you, mortal boy. No powers remain you to employ.'
He said, 'Ah... but I still have the memory of my mother to inspire me. Funny things, memories.
Here. Look.'
From somewhere, or perhaps from nowhere, Colin drew out his card. The little black playing card on which was sketched his father, Morpheus, and his unknown mother.
Colin held the little card up before him, at arm's length, and advanced toward the nymph. Her eyes focused on the card. Then, either sensing magic, or fearing some trap, she held up her hand to shield her eyes and turned her head away.
It was at that moment her eyes went blank. When she looked away from the card, not when she looked at it, her memory was interrupted.
