"I'll kill him!" Frothing at the mouth, Jedit had barely regained his senses. Rubbing his nose, he growled, "I'll crack this egg and suck the meat! This despot killed my father! I'll render him dead and rotten with his bones scattered for vultures!"

"Belay that bilge!" Adira didn't lower her sword. "This poxy bastard owes me half a crew and a tenth the population of Palmyra! We've all suffered at his bloody hands! Now settle down, or I'll lop off a limb and you can limp three-legged the rest of your misbegotten life!"

Throughout the show, Johan sat with arms around his knees, for he was cramped inside the crystal. He watched the clustered comrades coolly as a basilisk. In a pause, his voice came faint and tinny as if piped through a keyhole.

"Children, control your impulses. I'm safe. You can't crack this crystal any more than I."

"We'll see," snapped Adira. "Murdoch, strike."

"Aye, milady." Black sword in hand, the ex-soldier wound up two-handed, slung his blade high, and crashed it atop the crystal. The sword bounced off and almost wrenched from Murdoch's hand.

"As expected," asked Adira, "but we must essay everything, and simplest things first. Johan, tell us how to free you, so we can kill you."

"Gladly," called the archmage in a fine bout of sarcasm. "If only I knew."

Simone the Siren snorted. "We finally find our archenemy helpless as a hung goose, and we can't lay a hand on him!"

"Speaking of confinement." Murdoch was used to keeping his head in dangerous country. "If Jedit's cry does summon Shauku, we might all get smothered by amber."

"Too true," said Adira. Magfire had put out pickets, but now the pirate chief sent Heath and Murdoch to explore for more boltholes. The pirate queen sheathed her black sword. "What now? Can we roll this blighter through the tunnels and crack him out later? Will it even fit?"

"Why free him at all?" asked Jasmine Boreal. "Wouldn't it better serve the world to find a deep cleft and roll him into it?"

"So does a simple mind squander a valuable resource for spite," sneered the mage inside his amber cage.

"Who's simple?" retorted the druid. "Who's painted 'round with runes of enslavement?"

"Stifle your blather," chided the prisoner. "However loathsome, it's best we work together to stop Shauku."

Adira Strongheart waved a hand. "Shauku is nothing to us."

"Beg to differ!" bristled Magfire. "My people seek to unseat and punish Shauku! Don't count on our aid unless you also fight Shauku!"

Adira Strongheart didn't argue. Idly she drew a dagger and picked at a joint in the crystal. The keen blade left no mark. "How do you breathe in there?"

"I have no idea."

"How did she trap you? Do these crystals unlatch like bird cages, or did she shove you inside like a finger into a soap bubble?"

Johan shook his horned head. "I know not. I was spellbound."

"Spellbound? The master of deceit, overthrown by a greater liar?" Idly Adira tapped the crystal. "I wonder if this surface would take paint or pitch. We could black this crystal all over, smear it with dirt, then roll it into a dark comer for a hundred years."

The pirate queen was rewarded as Johan's eyes widened. Rapidly he said, "Did you know Shauku is a vampire?"

Consternation struck the heroes of Palmyra and Arboria. Magfire swore bitter oaths. Adira and the rest listened raptly as Johan described how Shauku shed her disguise and bled a woodswoman. Then Johan pressed his case.

"Clearly Shauku is the greater danger. But I have a suggestion to undermine her power."

"And free yourself?" asked Adira.

"Hush," demanded Magfire. "Let him talk. He's not my enemy, though I agree he's a rat. Shauku preys upon my people like a giant leech. I want her head on a pike. Johan is your problem."

"This is how you aid allies?" snarled Adira. "I pity your enemies."

"Gentle women," soothed Taurion, "surely we can find middle ground where both Johan and Shauku are rendered dead or impotent."

"Yes, stop spatting!" chided Jasmine Boreal, large violet eyes aflame. "You quibble like two lovers on a honeymoon! It profits nothing and grates on the ear! Punish those who deserve it!"

Chastised, Adira and Magfire settled for glaring. Taurion prompted Johan, "Go on."

Confined, Johan squirmed on his rump. "This patchwork monster possesses great and unknown magics, for it fell from the stars. Shauku found the beast and taps its knowledge and spells. No surprise. Some wizards in Dominaria spend all their time accumulating new sources of magic to tap. To pin it in one place, Shauku rooted it here. The monster grows like a plant, you see, propagating by sending out shoots that take root. Thus Shauku orders the kobolds to maintain the ring of fire to confine it. Now, see the amber crystals scattered about? These crystals are like eggs."

"Eggs?" asked several people.

"Exactly. An egg contains both the substance of a bird, the yolk, and the food it needs to grow, the white. The crystals are the same. Inside is a jot of meat or wood that becomes a beast, and the amber fluid to sustain it. There's more. The monster is somewhat like a plant, but too a hive beast like a colony of bees, where separate minds and bodies cooperate to survive."

"How know you this?" asked Magfire.

Silent a moment, Johan finally confessed, "I saw its dreams."

"What?"

"Shauku communes with the monster by wrapping in a robe and napping," explained the mage. "Her dream coat lets the wearer absorb errant thoughts. I donned the coat and dreamt of the beast's foreign world in the sky."

"That can backfire," put in Jasmine. "Even insane, the monster might still possess unimaginable magics to fry your brain like an egg, or do worse."

"World in the sky?" Magfire, down-to-earth and edgy, hissed in exasperation. "Do you claim this ugly twitchy blotch fell from the Glitter Moon?"

"Never mind its origins! We waste time!" Adira was aware the vampire might arrive any time. "Why speak of all this?"

"The beast has no food," said Johan simply. "It starves."

"Sad," said Adira, "but so what?"

"If you extinguish the fires and give the beast food, it might regain its strength. Then it, not we, could lash out and punish Shauku!"

Adira and Magfire looked blank. Taurion, Heath, and Jasmine squinted.

"Think!" admonished Johan. "Any plan Shauku pursues discommodes us! To scotch her plans can only help your cause! Or will you fight Shauku and her legionnaires with your ragtag misfits?"

"We might fight the horror too!" retorted Adira. "Who knows what happens if it's loose? It might kill Shauku. It might kill all of us, or turn us into jellyfish, or pull the mountain down on our heads!"

Yet Adira Strongheart looked at her battered crew. She'd lost Virgil and Peregrine. Sister Wilemina had a broken arm. And none of them, she guessed, despite their bravery, could win against a single schooled and skillful Akron Legionnaire, let alone fifty.

Finally Adira said, "I hate to agree, but Johan's course makes sense. As Murdoch said, we need allies. Best we set this massive monster free to strike at its enemy. We'll have enough fighting to satisfy, I judge. Very well, Johan, how?"

"Look around," said the trapped wizard. "At the walls. Disregard the rubble. See how the walls join at odd angles? See the hints of six-sided tunnels, same as these crystals? These walls are made of no material found in Dominaria."

"So what?" asked Adira.

"I see it." Taurion's brown eyes went wide. He pointed through the haze at facets stippled along the walls, six-sided edges like a gigantic honeycomb. Until now, the adventurers had been too busy to notice.

"Exactly," said Johan with a tone of triumph. "When the monster fell from the stars, it crashed right on this spot."