Why hallucinations?

Then, a jarring thought: perhaps he was mad.

Gingerly Johan touched the glyphs painted on his lizard-skin robe. Rather than the paint flaking off, it had etched the purple hide stark as a cattle brand. A badge of servitude, a yoke. Affecting his mind, altering his very thoughts, inducing bizarre daymares.

Shauku's doing. As tyrant, Johan had enthralled enough servants to see the pattern. Now was too late to prevent it. Fear knotted his stomach. Would he only be enslaved or be reduced to a drooling moron, the castle fool, the village idiot?

Time, Johan thought, to learn more about his mysterious host, and gain a hold upon her.

Come late evening, in the privacy of the ravaged library, Johan uttered a spell to render himself invisible.

More than invisible, actually-intangible. He uttered another spell while swiping his hands down his body to mask his smell, the sound of his breathing, the rustling of robes, even any footprints he might make. Padding down the stairs and entering the passage to the great hall, Johan knew he'd succeeded when the Akron Legionnaire didn't even stir.

Behind Lady Shauku's open-air great hall, Johan discovered the kitchen roof intact, in fact cory with a low roof and working fireplace, though the walls were stained and a window overgrown by vines. Two yellow-skinned boys in yellow tunics without emblems, no doubt cadets, polished boots by the fire. The walls were hung with soldierly gear, and off the kitchen, in what had been a pantry or larder, Johan saw bunks and heard snores.

Passing through the kitchen, the emperor descended a flight of circular stairs that must sink to the wine cellar. That, Johan reasoned, was the only place Lady Shauku could live. Down, around, and down he sank in absolute silence. Everywhere were signs of rot: mildew, water stains, crumbled mortar, and dust. A putrid smell of rotted flesh and offal assailed Johan's nostrils, though he was rarely fussy. How could Lady Shauku endure the odor?

At the bottom of the stairs, he found two stone-lined rooms. One room was black and reeked of an ancient sweet-sour smell of spilled wine even above the reek of death. The other chamber was small and illuminated by a single candle. Empty barrels stood or lay about. One had staves cut low on one side to fashion a chair. In the chair slept the lovely Lady Shauku, wrapped in a tattered robe that seemed faded to no color at all. She looked as out of place as a rare flower in a garbage heap.

Searching, Johan found a barrel with the top stove in and a bunghole in one side. Carefully he climbed inside and sat- and waited. After centuries of study and scheming and waiting for long-term plans to come to fruition, Johan had patience in abundance. He could easily wait all night and day, if necessary, to learn Shauku's secrets.

The invisibility spell faded, though Johan sat in darkness.

Time passed. Eventually a rustling like a snake over autumn leaves bespoke Shauku stirring. Peering through the bunghole, Johan watched the lady drop her hard-to-see sleeping robe and glide out the door. Where to?

Slipping over the barrel's edge, Johan started to follow, then recalled the queer color-shifting robe. It lay on the floor. In pale candle light, Johan could barely see it, thinking it gray. But as he picked it up, for a second it burned black. The fold in his hand took the color of his red-black skin. The tail of the robe looked like wood and stone. When Johan draped it against his lizard-skin robe, it shone pale purple. A curious and handy rag. Why would the sorceress sleep in this robe? To hide? From what? Or for some other reason?

Knowledge came with risks, the sorcerer knew. Wrapping the robe about his shoulders, he sat in the barrel throne to see what happened.

Nothing.

The cellar remained silent. The robe smelled of dust and mold and a snaky musk. Waiting, the minutes dragging, Johan dozed.

And dreamed.

Darkness was shot with a million stars. Lights pinwheeled to describe slow spirals. Stars shone white, blue, red, yellow, orange, infinitesimally small against the black fabric of night. Shooting stars sizzled like single-minded fireflies. Dust motes and boulders pinged on a crowded plateau. Monsters crouched, jammed together, thick as grasses on a prairie, until nor an inch of soil remained uncovered, until not one single beast could send a quivering tendril in any direction but upward. Noise bubbled. Roars and hoots and squawls and bellows rose to the heavens in a cacophonous chorus that never ceased. Everywhere pressed a crushing bruising shivering desire to be free, separate, alone, unbound. Then a lurching explosion erupted into the sky.

Startling awake, Johan jumped from the barrel throne and shed the robe. Sweat ran down his face and ribs for the first time in centuries. A dream coat, he realized. But what mad realm of Dominaria did it portray, if a real world at all? And what did Lady Shauku glean from it?

Shaking, Johan quit the chamber. The opposite room was pitchy. Shauku had not ascended the stairs so must have, passed within. Uttering a short spell, Johan adjusted his vision to see in darkness. Four wooden tuns big as hayricks were cradled in a frame against the wall. Johan thumped the ends, but all proved hollow. A few minutes' probing and prodding sprung the latch hidden on the last tun. The end swung inward on a wooden hinge. Steep stairs led down to a cave mouth. Immediately Johan was washed by the unmistakable stink of rotten flesh.

For a moment the emperor hesitated. But knowledge was the key to power. Girding his loins, Johan descended.

Not far away…

A faint moan and a demented gibbering wafted up from a different cave. The explorers stopped cold in their tracks.

Pirates and pine folk were shielded from sight by a jumble of rocks and scruffy birches and brush. Before them, a vertical slit of cave infiltrated the hill under Shauku's castle. As from many such fissures, smoke trickled out and rose into a light evening rain.

"These are the Caverns of Despair, I tell you. They're haunted. We shouldn't venture within." Magfire shifted her red-hafted spike from hand to hand. Her brother Taurion, the quick-handed Kyenou, and four more woods warriors were just as shaky.

"The Akron Legionnaires pass within," countered Adira. "You said they cut trees and haul them down into the caves on the far side of this hill. The smoke speaks of fires, for whatever purpose. But if the soldiers can enter-"

"They enjoy protection from the sorceress," said Magfire. "We don't."

"Then leave." Adira and Magfire hadn't gotten along ever since Magfire's burning kiss both aroused and disturbed Adira. Both bullheaded and used to command, the two leaders chafed like ship and shore. Adira faced the cave mouth and stroked her hands alight with a firefly glow.

"Ah-shist! Ghosts can't make me weigh anchor. Harmless as jellyfish. They're not even there, just echoes of the past. And Magfire, recall the bulk of your fighters should be pinking the legionnaires as a diversion. You can't leave them hung out to dry. Circle of Seven, follow in my wake."

Sniffing, Adira Strongheart entered the cave with her cold blue light. Four others bore torches. Despite their leader's brave words, the pirates were also spooked. Jasmine Boreal,

Heath, Sergeant Murdoch, Simone the Siren, Whistledove, and Sister Wilemina clustered like children in a graveyard as they scuffled in darkness. Only Jedit Ojanen strode tall and aloof, sniffing at the dim depths.

Voice low, he rumbled, "Something dwells below besides ghosts. I smell dead flesh, and wood smoke, but too a queer metallic tang. A great amount of it."