At almost exactly the same moment that the felisian was leaving the valley, someone else was arriving. A flying carpet was weaving its way carefully between the high, frozen peaks of the Blue Mountains, following the tortuously winding valleys and skimming low over the occasional high ridge, in places passing just a few feet above their crowns of wind sculpted snow before dropping gratefully down into the next valley, out of the howling gales that overtopped them.

Its passenger hugged thick layers of furry clothing around him and gave a grateful sigh as he finally saw the land opening up before him. A small oasis of warmth and greenery lost amidst the frozen, blizzard swept nightmare that surrounded it. The carpet slowed as it dropped towards the woodlands that covered much of the western half of Lexandria Valley, and its rider swept his eyes across the valley walls, searching out the castles and mansions of retired wizards perched on their vertiginous slopes. Looking for any sign that he'd been seen.

He guided his carpet carefully down through the tangled forest canopy, past leafy branches filled with twittering birds and suspiciously staring squirrels, until it reached the shaded open spaces below and landed gently on the leaf covered forest floor. There, he stripped off his furs, revealing the gown of an apprentice wizard beneath; a disguise that would, hopefully, allow him to move freely around the valley. He dug a shallow hole in the thin soil and buried the carpet, rolled up in his robes for protection, hoping that its magical aura wouldn't attract the attention of any of the valley's wizards or students.

All this accomplished, he stripped off his dirty gloves revealing long fingered hands that he'd spent some time staining with acids and potions to give them the proper apprentice look, suggesting months or years of study and hard work. An apprentice with clean fingers would have been spotted almost immediately, with all the paranoia regarding the sabotage incidents, and his mission was far too important to take a risk like that. He then set off at a brisk walk, his path taking him through the Bellwoods and startling a small herd of unicorns that had been grazing contentedly on the toflowers. They cantered a few yards, then paused, staring at him suspiciously with their large brown eyes.

He was a handsome young man with shoulder length dark hair, a narrow nose and the beginnings of a stubbly beard. He held a small flute in his left hand. The kind of instrument that was currently fashionable in Clarnia and Kenestra and that, according to his researches, several apprentices from that part of the world liked to practice on as a form of relaxation during their brief moments of personal time. It was an ideal disguise for a sophisticated magical artifact, and it had been carefully designed to leak as little magic as possible. Even a senior wizard, standing right next to him, probably wouldn't have been able to sense anything, and he didn't intend to let any get that close in any case. The discovery of its true nature would raise questions he couldn't answer, and with most of his powers left behind in the Realms it might well mean his having to abandon his mission, maybe even his body as his soul was forced to abandon it and return naked to the Ruby Keep. Another covert attempt to gain access to Thomas Gown would then be much more difficult, maybe even impossible, and the whole project would be in danger. He refused to even contemplate that possibility. He would succeed. He wouldn't let anything stop him.

The entire western half of the valley was covered with woodland. Thicker and denser at the entrances to the four dead end passes leading away into the mountains, thinner in between where steep sided ridges pressed inwards. If he were careful he ought to be able to make it all the way to the shaewoods without being seen from the University buildings and perhaps bringing a proctor, demanding to know what he was doing away from his classes. He had a list of excuses all prepared, just in case, but it would be far better if he didn't need to use them.

Reaching a small gurgling stream, Jasper climbed down the bank it had carved through the stony soil to examine his reflection in a pool of still water that had formed to one side. He was relieved to see that his eyes were still brown. Perhaps just a shade lighter than they'd been when he'd transferred his soul into this new body but brown nevertheless. A safe, ordinary colour. It was impossible to predict how long it would take for his spell augmented soul to turn his eyes red, the colour of the Gem Lord whom he served, and the change had sometimes been known to take place over an amazingly brief period. Only a couple of hours in some cases. Glowing red eyes would be sure to attract the attention of anyone he might happen to meet, which was why he'd taken a new body for this mission. A body straight out of the gestation tanks.

He would have needed a new body before long anyway, he mused, his previous one having grown feeble with age, but it had been comfortable, like an old, well worn pair of shoes, and he'd been rather fond of it. It always took a few months to settle into a new body, to build up flaccid muscles and settle the digestion into a steady rhythm, and the gem raks always put it off for as long as possible, trusting in their soul gems to preserve their souls if an old body should suddenly die from a stroke or heart failure.

Crouching down to examine his reflection suddenly made him feel nauseous and he straightened up rapidly, cursing an alimentary canal that had had to deal with solid food for the first time only twenty four hours before. He scrambled back up the bank, his underdeveloped muscles groaning under the strain, and paused for a moment to catch his breath before continuing on his way. A new, young body had some advantages of course, he mused as he strolled casually through the forest. It had been nearly two hundred years since he'd been able to give the lovely Jade the kind of attention she deserved...

He reached the shaewoods a few minutes later and took the path leading to the Gowns' dwelling tree. Any shae who saw him would think he was just a friend coming to visit. They wouldn't bother him unless he tried to go deeper into the woods, which he had no intention of doing. Seeing the tree ahead of him, he closed the last few yards slowly and carefully, not wanting to make a single noise that might give him away. If he was seen by any of the Gowns he would have to use another of his cover stories and he was acutely aware that the demi shae possessed a ring of ESP that could read the truth right out of any ordinary man's head. If she tried to use it on him, her failure to read his mind would set alarm bells ringing loud and clear and again he would have failed. He couldn't let that happen. Not at this stage.

He reached the tree without incident, though, and pressed his back against its smooth bark while he listened to the voices coming from inside. It sounded as though all three of them were in there. Mother, father and son. That was good. It lessened the likelihood of anyone turning up unexpectedly while he was in the middle of his work. He edged his way closer to the window, lifted the flute and whispered the command that returned it to its true form; a black wand with a silver cap on each end. One end moulded into the shape of a snake's head, the other in the shape of an eagle's talon gripping a large ruby. He then turned to face the window, pointed the wand in through the opening and spoke a word.

The conversation stopped suddenly, and Jasper breathed a sigh of relief. The trickiest part of his mission had been successfully accomplished. He moved around to the door and entered, to find the Gowns sitting silently in a light hypnotic trance, gazing ahead into space. Thomas was at his desk, a spellbook open in front of him, and Derrin was sitting in Lirenna's lap on one of the armchairs. A book on the history of the shayen race had fallen from her limp fingers to the floor at her feet. They had evidently been reading it together.

He took a moment to gaze in wonder at the two demi shaes, overawed by their beauty, as he always was when he saw one of the fair race. Soon after the transformation of the Gem Lords and their creation of the Realms, they had experimented with placing their souls in the bodies of shae folk, but it hadn't worked out. Human souls were only really comfortable in human bodies, although Lady Jet was supposed to be still working on the problem. He smiled, thinking it would be pretty ironic if she succeeded in moving their souls into immortal bodies just in time for the end of the world.

He took Derrin's chin in his fingers and gently tilted the boy's face up so that he could look into his eyes. His strikingly blue eyes. Both his parents had been born with grey eyes. By all rights the sixteen year old boy should have had grey eyes as well, but instead they were the deep glowing blue of the Pythean sea, exactly the same shade as the eyes of his father; as the eyes of Topaz and Lapis Lazuli. And the boy had been conceived after his father had been impregnated with the seed. It couldn't be a coincidence. Something must have been passed from father to son. Some essence of the Gem Lords. Derrin shared his father's ability to sense Garusian magic, after all, and that was a side effect of the presence of the seed. Could the seed have split, with part of it going into the boy?

There was a way to find out. He unbuttoned the boy's shirt and parted it, baring his chest, then touched the silver snake's head of the wand to his skin and spoke a word to activate it. The ruby gripped in the eagle's talon began to glow with its own inner light and the boy began to moan softly as the wand probed and explored his soul. Had he been fully conscious he would have been in agony, but the hypnotic trance protected him from the worst of it and he only shifted a little in his mother's lap as the wand did its work. Lirenna, somehow sensing her son's distress even in her own hypnotised state, put her hands on his shoulders and gently kissed the back of his head.

Jasper watched the ruby carefully for several minutes before speaking the word to de-activate the wand and buttoning up the boy's shirt. There was no trace of any part of the seed in the boy's body. But something had passed into him. Something important. This boy would have to be watched very carefully as he grew. His progress would have to be monitored constantly. It was possible that action would have to be taken at some point, and if they did have to move, it would have to be at the earliest possible moment.

He left the two half shae folk and crossed the room to where Thomas was still sitting at the table, oblivious to everything that had happened so far. "Go into the bedroom," commanded Jasper and the wizard obeyed, moving like a sleepwalker as he rose to his feet and entered the next room. "Remove your shirt and lie down on the bed." Thomas did so, automatically taking his side of the bed and folding his hands neatly on his stomach. Jasper sat down next to him and touched the wand to his chest.

A few seconds was all it took to confirm that the seed was still there, healthy and intact, and that it had successfully grafted itself onto his soul. Some of the skills and memories it contained had already begun to transfer themselves into the wizard, but the process was a slow one and would take decades longer to complete if allowed to continue at this rate. The advantage of forcing the seed to develop at such an artificially slow rate was that the host would not have to cope with the alien memories until he'd had enough life experience of his own, until he'd grown into a big enough person to be able to contain them. Also, if the seed and the host turned out not to be compatible, it gave them plenty of time to remove it before any permanent harm was done. The ruby clutched in the eagle's talons confirmed what the Gem Lords had already deduced, though. Thomas and the seed were an almost perfect match. A match that theory predicted would only appear once in every thousand years.

There could no longer be any doubt. All thought of removing the seed vanished. It had to be quickened immediately before any more time was lost. He spoke a word of command, therefore, and the ruby flared into incandescent brilliance, shining like a star, while at the same time Thomas's chest was lit up by a light so powerful that it rendered his flesh momentarily transparent, revealing his ribs and the rapid thumping of his heart. His head was thrown back as a grunt of pain escaped from between his clenched teeth and his hands clenched into fists by his side.

A moment later it was done. The seed was welded immovably to his soul. They were committed now. There was no going back even if they wanted to. The seed could not now be removed from his body by any means known to the Gem Lords, and his death would be a tragedy greater than he was capable of understanding. If Thomas Gown died now, the Gem Lords would die with him, along with the planet Tharia and innumerable other worlds, in this universe and others. Not straight away, certainly. His wife and son would live out the entire span of their lives. Derrin might marry and have children of his own, and would be able to watch as they too grew to adulthood. Many more generations might come and go. Empires might rise and fall. Some of his colleagues thought that two or three thousand years might pass before the Day of Fire, but no matter how much time there was, time had a habit of passing and the Day of Fire would always be there, waiting for them, silently mocking all man's dreams and aspirations. In all the planes of existence, only this young man, Thomas Gown, could stop it.

Jasper stared at the wizard for a few moments, contemplating the fragility of existence, then ordered him to put his shirt back on and return to his desk. Thomas walked stiffly, as if he had a stitch in his side, and Jasper ordered him not to notice the discomfort, which would pass anyway in a few hours. When he left, he wanted there to be nothing to indicate that anything had happened during the past few minutes.

As the wizard sat back down at his desk, Jasper left the dwelling tree and walked around to the window, pausing there while he quickly scanned the forest, making sure he was still alone. Then he poked the wand in through the window and gave the word of command again.

The Gown family snapped out of their trances, looking around in surprise as if suspecting that something had happened but not sure what. Lirenna saw she'd dropped the book she and Derrin had been reading and bent over to pick it up, while at the same time keeping a firm grip on the boy's shoulder, not understanding the powerful sense of protectiveness that had suddenly come over her. Thomas rubbed his chest, which itched a little, and stared out the window, trying to decide whether he'd seen a movement out of the corner of his eye. After a moment he decided he was being silly and returned to his work.

Jasper waited until he heard Lirenna's soft voice commenting on some aspect of shayen culture they were reading about in the book. Then he relaxed in relief and satisfaction and moved quietly away, changing the wand back into its flute disguise. Very soon now, the memories contained in the seed would begin to manifest themselves, and the Gem Lords would have to make open contact with him, to explain things and answer his questions. That would be a difficult time, and one of the most difficult things they would have to decide was how much to tell his wife.

Thomas would want to tell her everything, of course, but Lord Ruby and some of the others thought it better for him to make a clean break. Perhaps fake his own death. It would be hard on his wife and son, but Jasper suspected that it would be better for them in the long run. The task Thomas had ahead of him had destroyed a Gem Lord, and it would be the sheerest agony for Lirenna to have to watch the same thing happening to her husband, assuming she was even capable of accepting the nature of the transformation he would have to undergo.

He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost walked right into the man walking in the opposite direction along the woodland path. He looked up in alarm to see a ferocious looking one eyed wizard glaring down at him, his other eye covered by a crude black eyepatch.

"Watch where you're going!" snapped Saturn in irritation. "Why aren't you at your classes?"

Jasper's startled mind groped for one of his prepared excuses. "Master Gown asked me to fetch him a book from the library. I've just delivered it. Excuse me please, Master, but Master Rastellin will be angry if I'm late back."

He made to leave, but Saturn caught his arm. "One moment, apprentice. What's your name?"

"Er," stammered Jasper, struggling to remember the cover name he'd thought up. "It's Jules, Master. Brian Jules."

Saturn scowled down at him. "I thought I knew all the fifth year apprentices on sight. I don't remember seeing you before."

"I'm a fourth year apprentice, Master," said Jasper quickly. Too quickly. His fear was affecting his performance. He wasn't managing to sound natural and relaxed, as he would if he was telling the truth and had nothing to fear. But then, a real apprentice would be afraid of Saturn, or of any senior wizard for that matter. Maybe his nervousness lent credibility to his performance.

Saturn studied him carefully for a minute or two, then nodded. "Very good. Return to your classes. And look where you're going in future."

Jasper hurried off, giving thanks to the Gods for his luck, and raced off through the woods, pausing only when he was a safe distance away to let himself calm down and his heart rate return to normal. He burst into breathless laughter, caused by relief at his close escape, and when he'd recovered he set off again, back to the spot where he'd buried the carpet. He dug up the parcel, dressed himself in the warm furs and sat on the carpet, giving the command that took it back up and out of the forest canopy.

As he rose, he glanced nervously at the bare valley walls around him, once again imagining dozens of pairs of eyes looking down at him. He commanded the carpet to its maximum speed, eager to get out of there before anything worse happened, and it gained height until it slipped over the ridge at the end of the pass, back into the nightmare of snow and ice.