LIES

                                by Ashtoreth

               Copyright (c) 1993, 1995 Ashtoreth (William Haas)
                              All rights reserved


	The light that wasn't from a sun shone down on a city laid out 
like a tray of desserts, all pink and green marble, rising and spreading 
in fantastic shapes from a broad foundation which rose, as far as could 
be seen, from the air.  There were myriad nameless floating cities 
situated along the edges and nexus points between dimensions, but this 
one was, as is said in the manner of legend, "really nice."  Nice 
enough, in fact, that it invited the attention of the better sort of 
evil wizards and ungodly demonic types, which kept the property values 
up and safely out of reach of mere mortals, even if its location outside 
of known space didn't always.
	Nestled among the buildings like a clearing in a forest was the 
huge circular pink marble terrace of the Golden Tong Restaurant.  
Whether `Tong' was meant to refer to lifting implements or southeast 
Asian drug cartels or was possibly a misspelling of `Tongue' wasn't 
certain, since the restaurant's sign didn't have a mascot on it.  It 
did, however, have a smaller sign which said "Under New Management."  
The new management didn't know what the name meant, either; the 
information had not come with the lease, evidently.
	And seated at one of the splendid spidery silver cafe tables were 
two foxmorphs... identical sandy-golden foxmorphs, as far as could be 
told from looking.  Though they were sitting it was evident that they 
were tall and slender, and wirily muscular.  Their faces were 
identically androgynous, especially so since they were vulpine.  
Hairstyle was no help in determining gender, either, their creamy 
headfur being teased into a high, poofy peak and forelock with a narrow 
crest behind, bodyfur groomed sleek and flat, tails brushy and fluffed 
out like twin stoles.
	They chatted, their husky-lilting voices and occasional laughter 
carried away by the insubstantial breeze snaking through the cafe 
terrace.  Something in their gestures and the inflection of their voices 
hinted at darker aspects beneath their surface.
	From the chin down their bodies became a rollercoaster ride, a 
study in contrasts... a long, slender neck descended to delicate 
shoulders and a too-heavy bustline, which then narrowed to an absurdly 
narrow, weasellike trunk, shaped that way to satisfy some unknown 
aesthetic.  Though their hips weren't especially broad by humanoid 
standards, the narrow termination of their torsos made them appear more 
substantial.
	Long legs were clad tightly in blue jeans, both the garments and 
the tightness of them to vulpine fur indicating that the foxmorphs used 
magic, but this was hardly extraordinary in the floating cities out on 
the String.  To a critical eye the vulpines resembled exaggerated 
drawings of the female form, such as would be rendered by an adolescent 
or a sex-starved artist, wild curves separated by mostly empty space, 
except that they had been made flesh.  And except that the fronts of the 
vixens' jeans bulged in a way which couldn't be explained away as the 
drapery of excess fabric.
	The identical foxmorphs wore identical dress.  As well as the 
jeans they had white short-sleeved knitted half-tops which couldn't help 
but be clingy, and two vicious pairs of lace-up army boots.
	People tended to mind their own affairs in this part of existence, 
but if they'd listened to the two fox-vixens conversing, they would have 
heard the pair chirpily discussing events better left unmentioned, which 
they themselves had participated in, if not wholly committed, the 
memories of which they were savoring with near-orgasmic delight.  But 
other than the unpleasantness of what they were discussing, it was 
unremarkable.  Nobody listened to the prattlings of small children.
	Although they'd been out of their master's hands for a few short 
months, Mnemora and Arial were becoming well-known for their beauty and 
also for their extreme awareness of it.  On the solid worlds within 
dimensions, they were garnering a less pleasant reputation alongside it.
	Arial said something to her sister, and Mnemora laughed, batting 
long lush ensnaring lashes across jeweled amber eyes, showing her sharp 
fox teeth.  Arial joined her in giggling, subtly stretching and rolling 
her shoulders, their every move a sexual tease to somebody.  They fell 
silent, smiling.
	Unlike the inhabitants of many places, such as the place they'd 
just been, no one sharing the terrace with them appeared to be alarmed 
or disturbed by their presence... indeed no one took any inordinate 
notice of their identity, because here they were no one in particular.  
Of course they still got their share of admiring glances over the rims 
of glasses or from behind open books, because they were identically and 
strikingly beautiful hermaphroditic vixens, slender and graceful and 
sensual, as they had been designed to be, and despite a lot of 
deficiencies in their creator's skills, he had gotten this bit very 
right.
	They, on their end, didn't really pay this furtive ogling any 
mind; it was very nice to be admired, but they knew that they were 
perfectly gorgeous and didn't require any affirmation of this.  They had 
been programmed to be utterly convinced of their glory and they believed 
in it as solidly as gravity.
	Around them, daemons, elemental creatures, betentacled 
dimensionless Lovecraftian horrors nattered about what they'd bought 
that day while shopping, or how heavily the ethereal fluff which passed 
for weather was going to hang this afternoon.  It was a sparklingly 
pleasant pseudo-sunny day, the light glinting off of each unique goblet 
and piece of diningware (the Golden Tong had taken mismatching to its 
extreme, with exquisite results) in an acceptably blinding way, sending 
rays of diverted light in atypical directions to strike the fine sandy-
furred features of the two vulpines in ways which rendered them even 
more Apollonian than they themselves imagined, if such a thing were 
possible.  It probably wasn't possible.  The light was favorable to 
them.
	Mnemora sipped at her tiny demitasse cup, which seemed 
precariously balanced at the end of her slender muzzle as she held it to 
her lips.  Draining the liquid within, she replaced it on the platform 
of the inexplicably tall and spiral-necked tea saucer it had come with, 
and shared a meaning-filled gaze with her sister.
	The look contained the usual brimming lust, but also was heavy 
with some hidden, shared thought that need not be said aloud, because 
each knew it must be on the mind of the other.  Arial held her sister's 
gaze and delicately drank from her own vessel, which was a tall blue 
crystal goblet, blown in the shape of an anemone-headed Chinese dragon 
which held the bell of the goblet in its forepaws, and coiled around the 
base, a squat mountaintop smoking glassy ruffles of vapor.  The glass 
held exactly the same drink that Mnemora was having.  The Golden Tong 
was building quite a reputation upon the fanciful variety of utensils it 
had at its disposal.
	Mnemora lowered her muzzle slightly and fixed Arial with another 
look which simply meant that she was about to speak, frowned, and 
uttered "Can you /believe/ he said that?"  Her eyes flicked upward in 
disbelieving amazement.
	Arial closed her eyes for a moment, as if some awful truth was 
staring her down.  She seemed to shudder, but was not humbled at all as 
she replied, "No, I can't."
	She set down her glass, and studied its sculpted neck.  The 
tentacled head of the dragon also acted as a straw, but surprisingly few 
people were prepared to use it as such.  She looked up again, raising 
her eyebrows, and said "He calls himself a seer?  I don't think so."  
She smirked, showing many sharp little teeth, making it evident that she 
had clearly never believed /that/, whatever it was, could be true, and 
added, "The very idea."
	Her sister leaned a bit closer and brushed her whitefurred fingers 
along Arial's arm, seeming to gain strength from the contact.  Mnemora 
and Arial, as well as being twin sisters, were lovers, their Narcissism 
attracting them to each other in the way that two magnets will snap 
together, their opposite ends firmly fastened.  "Well, you know how holy 
men are," she confided.  "They're not supposed to think about that sort 
of thing."
	"And we /are/ that sort of thing," added Arial, grinning.
	"Yes," said Mnemora.
	"Yes," confirmed Arial.
	They were silent for a moment.  "Perhaps he was being sarcastic," 
Arial suggested.
	Mnemora twirled a finger a bit in her foxish whiskers.  "It was 
hardly appropriate for the situation... and the tone of voice in which 
it was said was decidedly wrong.  He may not have been very good at 
sarcasm, however."
	"An odd time to start practicing," said Arial, nodding.
	Presently the waiter arrived, and Mnemora cordially ordered them 
another two of whatever they were drinking.  In this city, even the 
menial labor was worthy of respect beyond that of ordinary people, and 
so unlike one might expect, the two vixens weren't hassling him.  For a 
large percentage of the population, who were escaped servitor demons and 
imps and the like, something like bussing tables was a step up.
	"Still, in all," said Arial, "he should really be more perceptive 
than that.  A seer is known for seeing things that are not immediately 
apparent, and we were right in front of him."
	Mnemora raised her eyebrows, appeasing the point. "What we see as 
the world is but a shadow of the real world," she said, though this 
philosophy didn't apply to creatures like herself and Arial, who were 
already extradimensional.
	Arial made conversational gestures, saying "But a high priest of 
Regundelakt is supposed to be versed in all things, and have a pan-
planar view of all before him.  How could he therefore say something so 
obviously wrong?"  Her tail swept back and forth behind her, inviting 
reply.
	Mnemora shrugged, and thought a while.  "Well, he /was/ on fire," 
she said.  "That could have clouded his judgment."
	Arial made an "mmmm" sound, covering her mouth and nodding.  
"That's true," she said.
	They both looked out over the city for a long moment, studying the 
flow of the pink-white ether across the sky, and the interesting shapes 
and shadows that it made over the sweeping view of the city that the 
terrace afforded.
	Ari lifted her chin and stroked her throatfur.  Her sister 
twiddled with her cup, as though she could somehow will her drink to 
arrive sooner by manipulating it in the right fashion, and grinning, she 
said "And since we were the ones who set him on fire, he might not have 
been very well-disposed towards us afterward."
	Arial prodded the anemone-dragon with her index finger. "Another 
valid point."
	Mnemora said, "Keep in mind, also--" but was interrupted by the 
arrival of the waiter with their drinks, possibly prompted by Mnemora's 
fiddling with the cup of its predecessor.  She received her beverage, 
this time in a long bow-shaped iridescent green glass affair with the 
cup on one end and a glass ball weight upon the other, cradled in a 
filigreed gold stand, balanced like a drinking horn.  "Keep in mind," 
she resumed, "that we'd just torn through the entire temple complex, 
killing or blowing up everything in it--"
	"--sometimes both--"
	"--and he and we were the only living things left in it when he 
met us, so I think he was aware that we were the ones who'd done it," 
finished Mnemora.
	The waiter had no interest in their mundane conversation and 
without notice placed the other vessel before Arial.  It was a plain 
glass tumbler without any ornamentation whatsoever.  These things did 
happen.  Arial nodded.  "That all makes perfect sense, love-butt," she 
purred.
	Mnemora grinned down her awkward drinking implement, and said 
"...but?"
	Arial grinned identically, arching her back and looking down her 
muzzle, and said "But, even though we aced everyone there and laid waste 
to the fertile temple grounds and desecrated everything in sight that we 
could point an orifice at, /and/ stole that grotty totem they don't want 
anyone to see, we're /still/ sexy as dirt, and no amount of carnage on 
our part changes that."  She drained her glass and banged it down on the 
table with finality, as though challenging it to be as sturdy as it 
looked.  "In fact, if anything, it only enhances our presence."
	"Impeccable logic," said Mnemora, brushing the backs of her short, 
sharp nails over her sister's clothed breast.  No one watching them 
evidenced any objection to this publicly affectionate display, and 
indeed most of those who were paying attention were hiding their 
observation of the pair with some desperation.  "He must have been 
lying."
	Arial took Mnemora's hand in both of her own and squeezed it 
gently, smiling softly at her sister, a gesture which might have 
appeared sweet and demure, if Arial hadn't forced the back of Mnemora's 
hand into her breastflesh, spreading it lewdly across the upthrust curve 
of her chest.  The level of silverware noise rose noticeably, even in 
this place.
	"Certainly," she murmured, leaning closer, sharing her sister's 
breaths.  "It was an obvious untruth, meant to hurt us with his dying 
words."
	Knowing that his patrons were going to be leaving soon, the waiter 
turned up with the check.  He was hyperperceptive, or maybe only 
psychic.  The signs given by the vixens were becoming too blatant for 
anyone to miss, however.  Arial and Mnemora edged further off their 
seats, edged closer to each other, that misty brainless look in their 
eyes growing, showing with increasing clarity that they would soon want 
a private room, empty save for each other, very badly.
	The waiter prudently skittered away.
	The vixen sisters' passion for each other was like Old Faithful at 
Yellowstone, in that its eruptions were sudden, explosive, and took 
place with an inevitable regularity; and those who were around them for 
any length of time, such as the employees of the restaurant that Mnemora 
and Arial frequented, couldn't help but recognize the pattern after a 
while.  Other similarities which could be remarked upon were the fame of 
these eruptions, and the fact that they both involved a lot of splashing 
liquid, but that wouldn't be nice to say.
	The vixens' tonguetips made electric contact as their muzzles 
neared, and they held the position, looking for all the world like they 
were drawing real, tangible power from each other through their tongues 
in some obscene thaumaturgiotantric ritual.  After a long, well-watched 
while they broke contact, gasping in tandem, and Mnemora, recomposing 
herself, murmured "Do you wanna do what we did to the Regundelaktine 
Altar yesterday?"  She grinned, and added, "I still have the 
talisman...."
	Arial linked her arm through her sister's and said "Yes, let's."  
The dappled non-sunlight danced across their features for a moment, and 
Mnemora carefully emptied her glass with her free hand.
	She jingled some currency onto the table and helped her sister up, 
prepared to walk off hand in hand, but they paused as something caused 
their high, pointed ears to flicker.
	There was a whistling noise, much like the classic sound of a 
falling bomb... exactly like it, in fact.  Involuntarily the pair threw 
heavy energy shields around themselves, but there was no explosion... a 
number of squat cylinders impacted in a radial pattern around them, 
embedding themselves in the marble with metallic thuds, brutish iron 
bolts at their tips marring the extravagant surface and holding them 
fast.
	Instantly, with metallic squeals, the sides of the cylinders swung 
open in clusters of stubby tubes, and with a /fssssh!/ each device 
erupted in showers of blatantly red paint, laying with splattery sounds 
thick sloppy stripes over the pink terrace, and, since the paint was 
harmless as far as the shields were concerned, over the end of Mnemora's 
bushy tail... her eyes widened as she felt the liquid seep through to 
the skin.
	Relaxing from their tensed posture, they looked around.  The 
stripes, though poorly rendered, were aimed to meet each other in 
places.  From the point of view of the other Golden Tong patrons, who 
had fled to the sidelines, it was difficult to make out the shape, but 
from above the paintmarks resolved themselves into a blotchy and 
somewhat lopsided pentacle, a magical sigil meant to keep demons in (and 
nasty extradimensional invasions out).  Arial surveyed the spent, 
smoking projectiles, seeing them dribble red paint in a phallic if 
gruesome manner.  She was a little miffed, since the silly things might 
have hit her or her sister.  Her sister was considerably more upset.
	Mnemora swiveled her upper body around bonelessly and her eyes 
widened as she caught sight of her tail.  Her tail curled also as if to 
meet her gaze.  She bent in a further direction, facing up towards the 
source of the offending devices.  Her face had darkened to a positively 
worrisome level.
	"You painted my tail!" she snarled skywards.  "You /fuck./"
	A chuckle met her from above.  Arial's head tracked to follow her 
sister's line of sight.
	Perched on the starboard side of a splendid mahogany skyship with 
crimson sails, commanding a long view of the city and of the encircled 
vixens on the terrace below, was an obviously wizardly figure.  Dressed 
in royal blue robes with the latest star-and-crescent motif, he showed 
off a great deal of pumped pectoral muscle through the half-open tunic.  
The hems of the outfit blew in the light breeze.  He wore a workmanlike, 
traditional tall pointed hat, which he had chosen to lend him 
credibility, and also wielded a gilded wooden staff.
	Though he was presently silhouetted in the etherlight, the 
pendulous wisps of a goatee could be seen from time to time, blowing in 
the wind.  Mnemora and Arial were familiar enough with this piece of 
mandibular foliage, and they loathed it.
	The light changed, lit more evenly the features of the figure 
above.  Soft blue eyes were set in a tanned face, as was a smile which 
wanted to say `austerely respected' but really came across as 
`sophomorically arrogant,' and ashen-blonde surfer's hair peeked from 
beneath his cap.
	Seeing what his devices had done, the figure looked away, raising 
his head and arms to the heavens, as though aligning himself with the 
very fabric of existence, becoming one with it so it all pointed to him 
and showed everyone what a great guy he was.  A whole lot of heaven's 
glorious light seemed to glint off of his perfect teeth.  He moved as 
though to his own theme music.
	Mnemora glanced at a different heaven and shook her head very 
softly, as if she'd simply die if she had to tolerate more of the 
wizard's theatrics.  Arial looked thoughtfully at the goopy red mess 
encircling them, stroking her chin.
	"Grentvark the Groovy," said Mnemora with bald contempt, for 
that's who it was.  He was the wizard who had created them, from whom 
they had escaped, and he had finally caught up with his creations.  She 
joined her sister in looking grimly at the abjurating sigil which had 
been suddenly dropped around them.
	The wizard floated down through the air with arms outstretched in 
triumph and robes flowing --a perfect, stock pose that had been repeated 
countless times before-- descending to the accompaniment of eldritch, 
Gregorian disco music, finally alighting upon the broad disc of pink 
marble, settling into his Wizard Beach sandals.
	"He looks like a black velvet painting."
	"Or a black-light poster."
	Heroic, bronzed and healthy, he looked about 45, though he was 
certainly much older if he suffered himself to appear that age despite 
his powers, and for some reason he stood at about seven feet tall, his 
build and stature like an Egyptian god.  He looked around at the 
gathering crowd of spectators with gaunt, cultured pride, as though he'd 
just done the world some great public service.  He would find out that 
he hadn't.
	"Grrr.  My tail."
	"Do you want wings or legs, love?"
	Grentvark strode up to admire his handiwork and to grin 
indulgently at the crowd that had collected to gawk at his feat.  He 
held up the hand not holding the staff.  /Man, I'm great,/ he thought, 
turning up his smile.  /I get my familiars back, I get to save the day.  
This is really going to be good./
	"It's all right, everyone.  Everything is under control.  No need 
to worry," he said, and added with some relish, "/I'm/ here."  His voice 
was gravelly enough to convey austerity, but not so much that he sounded 
feeble.  It carried very well in the warm afternoon air.
	He returned his attention to the renegade hermvixens standing 
within the painted symbol, noting with satisfaction that he in his funky 
wizard garb was much more impressive than the subdued pair, who were 
only wearing scrubby street clothes over their excessive bodies.  For a 
moment he longed to touch again what he had made with his own hands.
	He put such thoughts out of his mind for the time being, 
concentrating on his rehearsed speech.  "You've led me a long chase," 
said Grentvark for the benefit of the crowd more than anyone else, "but 
at last I have found you, and you are mine."  He showed everyone the 
nice teeth stuffed in his tanned face, eyes on the vixens.
	Mnemora's tail flicked back and forth irritably, shedding large 
red drops like ketchup running out of a hamburger.  "I hate this," she 
said.
	The great service that Grentvark had done was mostly to himself... 
Mnemora and Arial weren't simply his familiars, they were examples of 
his finest work.  Months, years he'd spent on their planning and 
construction, to say nothing of the cost, and his reputation had 
skyrocketed when he'd finally presented them to his circle of fellow 
wizards.  It wouldn't have been out of place to say that the vixen 
familiars were his whole life; they were the sum of all his learning and 
skill.
	And then they'd run away.  After all he'd given them.
	Arial nudged Mnemora and surreptitiously thrust a thought into her 
sister's open mind, her eyes not leaving their former master.  Mnemora's 
tail changed tempo for a moment as she nudged back, then resumed its 
previous annoyed lashing.
	Grentvark raised his hands to the crowd and pronounced, "I have 
saved you all from this terrible, terrible menace.  I will take these 
subcreatures away with me, so they can do you no harm."  He looked as 
though he expected the crowd to positively radiate gratitude, for saving 
them from hermvixens eating lunch.  Perhaps in his mind the crowd did.  
The speech had gone over very well, at times in the past.
	He omitted mentioning that he was the cause of the potential harm, 
something which he figured Mnemora and Arial detested admitting to and 
would not bring up to embarrass him with.
	"You see these low, base creatures, cowering before you now that 
they are trapped," continued the wizard, regarding the vixens with 
theatrical contempt.  "Pity them, for they are as children, and realize 
not what they've done.  They will be well-treated.  But they have 
misbehaved, and require admonishment.  See how they are no longer so 
bold, when they are rendered impotent by the magic circle?" said 
Grentvark with a flex of his chest muscles, trying to nail down his 
image with some masculine display.
	"A subject he has personal experience with," said Mnemora with a 
twist of the corner of her mouth.
	"Go /away,/" said Arial slowly and deliberately, in case Grentvark 
hadn't gotten the hint yet.
	"Will you be quiet, please?  Hello?"
	"It's not a magic circle, it's a pentacle. A magic circle is 
something else entirely."
	"All is safe now," said the wizard, riding over the vixens' words.  
"I will now humbly accept your gratitude, good people of this fair 
city."  Some people blinked at him.  Some people had stopped watching a 
while back.  Grentvark smiled, and regarded his two captives again.
	"Come, children," said the wizard silkenly.  "It's time for you to 
come home."
	Mnemora pinched her brow and tried to think of the most hateful 
and virulently scathing response imaginable, but she found herself 
incapable of an adequate reply and just scowled like the petulant child 
that Grentvark was playing her up to be.
	"Mnemora," said Grentvark in a parental tone.  "Be nice."
	"I am so amazingly /sick/ of this!" snapped Mnemora, her face, her 
whole body twisted into a snarl.  "Leave us /alone./  And stop being 
melodramatic near us."
	"I'm not going to let you two out of there until you behave.  
You're going home with me, and that's all there is to it.  I'm going to 
give you some manners."
	The matter-of-factness of the wizard's tone of voice made such a 
prospect especially ominous.  The two vixens got as close to the wizard 
as the outline of the pentacle would allow, until they were almost nose-
to-nose with him.  Grentvark crossed his arms and grinned at his trapped 
prizes, enjoying this as long as he could without looking mean, standing 
brazenly close to the sigil's edge.
	Arial reached out through the supposedly impenetrable wall of the 
pentacle and tickled his chin with her claws.  "Kiss kiss," she said, 
the corners of her mouth turning up.
	"Whaaa--" said Grentvark, like he'd been clopped in the face with 
a big flat rock, which was certainly something that Mnemora and Arial 
would have endorsed.
	Arial jabbed the wizard in the chest with her bony finger, making 
him stumble backwards a step.  "This isn't a pentacle, butt-boy.  This 
is a ten-pointed polygon with a pretty star in the middle."
	"The instant pentacle sprayer is the bottom-of-the-line of 
entrapment devices," said Mnemora, nodding.  She too demonstrated the 
ineffectiveness of the sigil by getting up in Grentvark's face.
	"How do you get a fixed paint jet to draw a circle?" said Arial, 
her voice going all sweet as her predatory instincts became slowly sated 
by the turning of the tables.  Serpentlike, she sidled up behind the 
wizard and grabbed his arms, pulling them back until the tendons 
creaked.  She rested her chin on his shoulder and her knee in his back.
	"You don't," said Mnemora, talking at Grentvark's throat, her tone 
making it clear that she'd just as happily bite it out.
	"Yes, you don't," said Arial.
	"Yes," said Mnemora.
	"Silly Gruntfart," said Arial, tightening the already 
uncomfortable hold on her master's arms.  "This pentacle doesn't work at 
/all./  It has no detectable magical aura.  It's supposed to be painted 
in goat's blood, and this is Krylon.  And you bisected the fire-air 
segment by painting part of it over Mora's tail.  Not to mention that 
it's the wrong shape.  It's good to know your magic is as helpful as 
ever."
	"Now," said Mnemora, "while we have you here, this would be a good 
time for you to hand over all the notes you have regarding our 
construction.  Don't you think so, Ari?"
	"Oh, yes."
	"Yes," continued Mnemora.  "Every last scrap."  She dragged a claw 
over Grentvark's artificially buffed chest. "Every /scrap,/" she said, 
her nails hinting at scraps of something else.
	"Now, girls... /yeeagh!/" yelled the wizard, as Arial experimented 
with inflicting double-jointedness on him.  He looked around at the now-
sizable crowd which was watching this little drama with animal interest.   
Some of them had returned to their tables and were sipping drinks as 
they watched.  It was nothing to the vixens and they ignored the 
gawkers.
	"And then we can keep you from finding us, which will keep us from 
bruising and lacerating you.  Doesn't that sound agreeable?" purred 
Mnemora, prodding with her claw, looking for the best place to sign her 
name.
	"Mnemora, Arial," said Grentvark winningly, shrugging his hunched-
up shoulders in an obliging way.  "There's no need for this sort of 
talk... ahh, or behavior," he corrected himself.
	"/We/ need it," said Mnemora, smiling.
	"Have to have it," added Arial.
	"The notes," hissed Mnemora, pressing a little closer.
	"Ahh, the notes," said Grentvark the Groovy, swallowing.   "I'm 
afraid that just isn't possible, girls.  I can't let you have those.  
Sorry," he said politely, smiling a little.
	Mnemora looked at Arial, eyes sparkling, and said "He can't let us 
have them?  Isn't that great?"
	"Super," said her sister, agreeing.
	"Yes.  Now," said Mnemora, cracking her knuckles, "this little 
kidney went to market..."  Her hard, knuckly fist blurred inward to thud 
against Grentvark's bronzed abdominals, a little faster than human eyes 
could follow.  Grentvark oofed.  Since he had the youth spells, he had 
resilience beyond his actual age-- so his body responded like that of a 
healthy middle-aged human being punched in the gut.  "And this little 
kidney stayed home..."  Mnemora did it again, crouching and following 
through and grinning up at the wizard foxily, to see if he enjoyed that 
as much as the first one.
	"Notes?" said Arial into the wizard's ear, stroking his hair.
	"Unngh," said Grentvark.
	Mnemora resumed the special treatment, grunting with the effort, 
using her fists as a painful kind of punctuation.  "And a /three,/ and a 
/four,/ and a--"
	Grentvark interrupted with a wheezy /hooh!/ kind of sound, and 
suddenly needed the support of Arial's restraint to hold him up.  
Mnemora uninserted her knee from between his thighs.
	"Sorry about that.  I skipped to the end."  She grinned.  Mnemora 
slugged him in the stomach a few more times with relish, heedless of the 
fact that her punching bag was something alive.  Arial pressed up 
against Grentvark's back like a furry leech, lovingly savoring her 
sister's muffled blows.
	After a while Mnemora stopped, to give Grentvark a chance to say 
something that she could cleverly retort.
	Grentvark the Groovy gasped for breath, a string of spit hanging 
from his mouth.  "...I didn't bring you up to be like this..."
	"You didn't bring us up, you grew us in a tank," said Arial.
	"/I/ was going to say that, Ari," purred Mnemora, rubbing her 
hands.
	"Really?  Imagine that," she said, and the two vixens chuckled 
slightly out of sync.
	Mnemora had followed the excruciating-looking blows with a number 
of jaw punches, the semi-interested patrons oohing and ahhing as the 
vixen seemingly tried to spin Grentvark's head around, some finding this 
as arousing as the vixens' earlier fondling of each other, when the 
local militia finally turned up, responding to the call the proprietors 
of the Golden Tong had placed.
	The wizard and vixens were suddenly towered over by a huge figure 
in an equally expansive and impeccably crisp and ironed blue uniform 
which was sort of a cross between 1920's New York beat cop and Conan the 
Barbarian garb.  A tall ogre with broken-nosed good looks squinted down 
at them.  "What's going on here, then?" he rasped, sounding much like 
the Kurgan from /Highlander,/ except bored and overworked.  He was 
backed up by a couple of Bonehead orcs who probably weren't very bright, 
but were probably very loyal, and good at breaking things.  They too had 
surprisingly well-maintained blue uniforms, and both carried rough-hewn 
steam-powered bolt throwers, which were primarily for show, because they 
also had huge fists the size of end tables which were certainly better 
weapons.
	Grentvark gagged for breath, now sounding like a 45-year-old with 
a four-pack-a-day habit.  Perhaps he'd made his little sex pets too 
skilled at sadomasochism, he thought.  Mnemora and Arial ceased their 
entertainment for the time being, releasing their former master and 
standing a comfortable few feet away.
	"Thank goodness you've arrived, officer," gasped the wizard.  "A 
little experiment of mine has gotten out of control.  I'll need your 
assistance in--"
	The officer canted his head towards the bloody-appearing near-
pentacle congealing on the terrace.  "Is this yours?" he rasped with 
minimal inquisitive lilt, withdrawing a notebook from inside his jacket.
	"He's not ours," said Mnemora, grinning.
	"Yes, officer," said Grentvark, "I'm attempting to capture these 
dangerously antisocial simulants," adding a little dramatic flourish, as 
though the hermvixens were fabulous but lethal game show prizes.  
"They've just... well, to put it frankly, they've just beaten the crap 
out of me," he said, wiping his brow and chuckling, "but I believe that 
if you force them to step back away from us, I can bring them back under 
my control, and there will be no need to imprison them in your 
facilities."
	He glanced first to Mnemora, then back to Arial, and then to the 
officer again
	 "I would of course drop any charges that I'm entitled to make."  
Grentvark grinned, trying to look even more like a bronzed blond surfer 
god, thinking this would make him more credible, but the officer had 
turned away to speak to the arriving manager of the restaurant.
	The day manager of the Golden Tong discussed charges with the 
officer, and this involved a lot of rapid and rather violent 
gesticulation on the part of the manager.  Arial butted in for a second 
to offer her apologies for the very existence of her very bad-mannered 
creator, and the manager in turn spared her a few placating gestures, to 
indicate that she and her sister were not the major object of his 
particular frustration, before turning back to the militia officer and 
resuming his spirited rant.
	The officer's response to this was a disturbingly thoughtful 
"Mmmmm."
	Grentvark picked up on the mood of the Golden Tong's manager, and 
added, "I'd be happy to have Mnemora and Arial clean up the mess here... 
as part of their rehabilitation, as it were."
	The ogre slipped his notebook back into his jacket, and said, "I'm 
afraid you're going to have to come with me."
	The wizard made an unhappy thoughtful noise and toyed with his 
goatee.  "Well, may I make arrangements to come down to the station and 
recover them later?  I really do have quite a bit of time and manna 
invested in them," said Grentvark.
	"No, sir," said the ogre, and added "/You're/ coming with me."
	Grentvark planted his feet further apart and slung his muscled 
arms across his chest.  "I said I'd take care of the damages.  What is 
the problem?" he growled, looking pointedly at the considerably smaller 
restaurant manager.  Arial and Mnemora exchanged glances, as if they had 
no idea what was transpiring.
	"The problem is," said the militia ogre, bulwarking his chest with 
a similar posture, "assaulting two of our citizens with intent to 
magically entrap."
	Grentvark blinked for quite some time while he processed the 
entire sentence.  "They're citizens?" he finally sputtered.  "They're 
simulants!  I /made/ them."
	"That's all very well, sir, but they /are/ citizens," said the 
ogre.
	Arial flashed her Pistondrive Club pin, while Mnemora gave the 
officer a glimpse of her ceremonial tool belt with the number of her 
Plumberic Temple on it.
	"We're the fine, upstanding penises-- oops, I mean pillars of our 
community," Arial said.
	"Knight of the Brazen Drain Snake," said Mnemora, grinning.  "The 
only person who ranks higher than that around here is Mario Mario, and 
he's /never/ going to find his way back here a second time."
	"And what a drain snake she has," said Arial, and licked her lips.
	"Concrete vandalism, disturbing the peace, of course..." continued 
the officer.
	"This is wrong, this is all terribly wrong," said Grentvark, 
shaking his head.
	"That's what /we/ thought," said Arial.
	Grentvark stabbed his finger at the vixens a few times, saying 
"These are /my/ simulants.  I built them, I paid for them..."
	"That's not how it is here," said Mnemora, grinning and swishing 
her tail.  "Who may or may not have created us isn't an issue."
	"You really should familiarize yourself with the local ordinances 
before attempting something like kidnapping," said Arial, grinning also.
	"Yes."
	"Yes."
	The vixens chuckled in tandem.  Grentvark the Groovy emitted a 
slight whining sigh.  His creations could be rather irritating when they 
weren't cooperative, which was nearly all the time, but arguing with 
them really drove him nuts.
	"Well, this is ridiculous," said the wizard, crossing his arms a 
little more aggressively.  "I'm not from around here, your laws don't 
apply to me.  I'm not going."
	The ogre masticated thoughtfully and said "You're going," with 
perfect certainty.
	Arial slinked up behind Grentvark and took hold of his arms again.  
The officer frowned a little and said, "That's not necessary."  He 
nodded to his all-too-eager bullyboys, and they stepped forward to the 
task.
	"Hey... hey!" said Grentvark, struggling.
	Arial very carefully transferred hold of the wizard's wrists from 
her hands to one of the orcs'.  "By all means," she said, smiling.  The 
orc grinned and nodded, and proceeded to squeeze the blood out of 
Grentvark's wrists.  Arial patted the orc on the head; he beamed.  The 
other orc kept Grentvark covered with his gun, posing dramatically with 
the weapon, though in all likelihood he still wasn't certain which end 
he was supposed to point away from himself.
	The ogre militiaman watched this and nodded.  "Leave it to the 
best and the brightest," he said, turning up the corner of his mouth.
	Grentvark grunted and struggled with futility.  "When do they get 
here?" he snarled.
	"That's one of our lines," said Mnemora.  "Can you charge him with 
stealing that?"
	The manager, satisfied for the nonce, returned to the unharmed 
portions of the restaurant.
	"What about them?!" said Grentvark as some rather large iron cuffs 
were bolted around his wrists.  "They assaulted me too!"
	Arial waved her tail.  "They're a militia, not a police force.  
They're very liberal about self-defense."  To demonstrate this she idly 
swept the wizard's feet out from under him with her leg, and Grentvark 
hit the ground with a thud, his built-up chest keeping him from actually 
cracking his jaw on the marble.  The orc grinned, glad for the 
assistance.  The ogre said "Hey," but otherwise seemed uninterested.
	Presently the orc had finished trussing up Grentvark, and the 
ogrish officer opened his palm towards what appeared to be some nearby 
ornamental ironwork, which reacted by crackling with green sparks, 
revealing itself to be a hardwired teleport.  With a nod from their 
boss, the orcs dragged Grentvark the Groovy to his feet and towards the 
waiting gate.  Mnemora and Arial stood side by side, hands behind their 
backs and chests thrust outward, grinning widely.
	The officer nodded to the vixens.  "Thank you for your 
cooperation," he growled, and then squinted, his rough-hewn face 
wrinkling.  "Aren't you kids kinda young to be out on your own?"
	Arial raised her eyebrows.  "It's that or him, isn't it?"  The 
ogre grunted.
	"We'll manage."  Mnemora picked up Grentvark's pointed hat and 
helpfully crushed it before chucking it in the wizard's direction.  The 
orcs were scraping him along the marble towards the teleport; their 
captain turned and followed.
	"I never thought I'd be pleased to see Gruntfart in bondage gear," 
purred Mnemora.
	"Happy landings, sweet cheeks," Arial said to the bound wizard, 
giving him a big thumbs-up, in case he was interested in swiveling on 
it.
	"I /made/ them!" shouted Grentvark as the militiamen dragged him 
off into the civic teleport gate.  "/They're my property!/"
	"Terrible approach."
	"I don't think he brushed his teeth, either."
	Green lightning spilled in a corona around the ironwork affair, 
then with a sudden ZAP it arced and faded out, its occupants sent 
elsewhere.
	"I've got your property right here," muttered Mnemora, grabbing 
her well-appointed crotch.  "Survey this property.   Build a few houses 
on this vast tract of land."  She looked at her sister and sighed.  
"Look at my tail."
	"I always do, love," purred Arial, her own tail swishing in 
sympathy.
	"This is becoming far too inconvenient for me to stand," said 
Mnemora.  "I think we should pay his pals a visit and see if they will 
convince him to stop troubling us."  She shook out her tail, growling a 
little.  "What was the name of that second-rate magic club he belongs 
to?  Masters of Reality or something?"
	"Masters of Destiny," said Arial, avoiding the resultant flurry of 
red droplets.
	"Let's bounce over and see how cooperative we can make them," said 
her sister.

                                  * * *

	"Oh, look, Bauervagen," said the further wizard with mild 
interest.  "It's Grentvark's little escaped playthings."
	The wizard lowered his Taro-keno cards just enough to eye the two 
very uninvited figures standing behind his mate.  Yes, they were most 
definitely the twin familiars which had somehow escaped from his 
colleague, Grentvark the Groovy.  There was no mistaking them for 
anything else.
	The nearer of the two magicians, to wit, Bauervagen, a gentleman 
with frizzy brown Larry Fine hair and a complexion like a corpse, 
deigned to look over his shoulder.  He squinted and said with a guttural 
accent, "Why, so they are.  I wonder how they came to be here."  He 
regarded Mnemora and Arial with the sort of open-mouthed boredom he 
might show while watching television, if he ever did.  His eyes were 
almost entirely occluded from view by the glare off of the lenses of his 
spectacles.
	"They felt compelled to return to service, I'd expect," said the 
first, his voice low and smooth like a rich sauce.  He was glowingly 
obese, and had a great number of whiskers on his chin, which he stroked 
in thought, and to cover his baldness he also had a round little red 
velvet hat, such as might be worn by a very lucky bellboy.  Turning to 
look over his own shoulder, he said "Grossback, notify Grentvark that 
we've recovered his simulants, there's a good fellow," to a rather 
emaciated wizard tinkering with some magical junk a few tables away.  
This person stopped what he was doing, in his own time, and pressed the 
pads of his fingers to a glowing crystal sphere, murmuring a few words 
into it.
	The rest of Masters of Destiny looked pretty much like this part 
of it; lots of rich wood paneling and royal blue drapery surrounding a 
number of sturdy chairs and drinking tables. It wasn't very showy, but 
the better wizard clubs weren't.  Since this club also had various sexy 
gorgon and dragon pinups tacked to the walls, though, it probably wasn't 
of the better sort.  Lighting in the club was dim and prone to pools of 
shadow on the periphery, and a fireglobe adorned each table, as did 
bowls of neglected snack foods.
	The vixens ported into the club with a minimum of trouble, and 
didn't expect to have any difficulty escaping, primarily because escape 
wasn't on their minds.  They were incensed by the notion that they had 
been "recovered," but for the moment refrained from saying so, because 
they wanted the wizards to look upon them favorably.  It seemed like a 
good idea to try the polite way.
	Mnemora crossed her arms over her chest, heaving her breasts up 
into the collar of her top in a way which was meant to make those who 
witnessed it more pliable and agreeable, and said, "We need to talk to 
you about-- about /him./"  Waving her freshly-laundered tail, she waited 
for a response.
	There wasn't any.  The two magic-users continued with their game, 
and the wizard apparently named Grossback told the first wizard that 
Grentvark the Groovy was not in his lab at the moment and that he'd left 
a message.
	"Mm.  Try him back again in a few minutes, would you?" said the 
first wizard.  Arial noted with some distaste that the first wizard 
actually had his name embroidered on his red velvet robes.  It was 
written in the form of a single rune in the language of a dead and long-
forgotten elder race, more design than writing, but it was still a tacky 
name tag in her view.  It said that his name and title were Colen 
Premuntur.  Grossback nodded to him and went back to whatever he was 
futzing around with.
	"Excuse me," said Mnemora, the tone of her voice indicating that 
her usually sparse patience was dwindling.  "We need to talk to you 
about Grentvark."
	"What do you want to do with those?" said Bauervagen, leaning his 
head in the vixens' direction.  Both vixens narrowed their eyes.
	"They don't seem to be causing any trouble.  A bit noisy...."
	"Hey!  Hello..." said Mnemora as she leaned on the edge of the 
table with her hands, making it creak.  Her perfect breasts swayed 
hypnotically within their tight confines, but she was too angry by now 
to take advantage of it.
	The second wizard's eyes darted Mnemora-wards for a moment, to 
indicate to his friend that the simulant wanted /his/ attention.  The 
Premuntur folded down his cards with exasperation at being forced to 
make the sociological leap which allowed him to speak conversationally 
with what he regarded as an appliance, and said "What is it?" to the 
hermvixen.
	Mnemora took a deep breath and said, "We need to talk to you 
about--"
	"You don't /need/ anything," interrupted Colen, his voice soft and 
reasonable as he folded his hands together.  His fingers were quite fat 
so this took some wrangling.  "I know that Grentvark dotes on you two, 
but you aren't going to get anywhere with an attitude like that."
	The vixen blinked very slowly, in lieu of picking up the game 
table and hurling it across the room, which was what she was used to 
doing... she knew that tact was called for if she wanted any help from 
Grentvark's clique of wizard pals, so she tried very, very hard to 
restrain herself.  She stood up and folded her arms again.
	"We would /like,/" she said, "for you to talk to Grentvark, and 
ask him to stop bothering us."
	Colen Premuntur raised his eyebrows and said "Would you really, 
now?" as if this were amusingly unreasonable.
	"Yes, that's right," said Mnemora as gently as she could manage.
	Colen sat up a little, though with his shape it wasn't that easy 
to tell.  "You want me to talk to your master and say `Grentvark, those 
terribly expensive simulants which escaped from you would appreciate it 
very much if you stopped trying to recover them, would you mind terribly 
much letting them alone?'" he said, smiling.  "Is that it?"
	"If you all would have a word with him, we'd appreciate it," said 
Mnemora, with Herculean restraint.  She tried to remind herself that the 
situation was basically under her control, and that this was simply for 
her and her sister's convenience, but it seemed that she wasn't designed 
for humility.  There also seemed to be some sort of urgency to getting 
their former master off their backs.
	"So you would /like,/" pronounced Colen, "for all of us to speak 
on your behalf, and convince him that he should relinquish his property 
and let it run free across creation."  He tapped his fingers together 
softly.  "Is there anything /else/ you would like?"  There were some 
chuckles; a small crowd was beginning to form around the opposite side 
of the table as the club's members noticed that some wayward simulants 
were going to get a good dressing-down.
	"Just that, please," said Mnemora, loathing the sound of her own 
voice saying those words to these people.  "I think that's reasonable."
	The Premuntur let out a soft chuckle not meant for an equal, and 
said, "Fatuous nonsense, you..." and seemed certain to follow that with 
something derogatory, but instead said "Grossback, would you try him 
back again?"  The other wizard nodded.   "Honestly, I don't know why 
Grentvark gave them such unfettered willpower."
	Mnemora clenched her fingers, and said "Because he had no idea 
what he was doing when he made us."
	Colen Premuntur raised his eyebrows and said, "What did you say?"
	"He doesn't really know anything about creating artificial life," 
said Mnemora, raising her voice.
	The pointy-hats found this very amusing, the bunch of them 
laughing rather uncharitably.
	"What," said Bauervagen, putting down his cards, "what do you call 
yourselves, then?"
	Mnemora gritted her teeth and tightened her crossed arms another 
notch.  "An accident."
	This elicited only slightly less laughter.  Colen leaned over on 
his elbow, entertained.  "Well, I should say so, with you running about 
loose, eluding your master," he said, his chest heaving fluidly with his 
low chuckling.
	"He's not really as good as you think he is," said Arial, who, 
other than occasional remarks, was letting her sister handle 
negotiations.
	"And what would you know about it?"  Colen's voice went a bit 
querulous.  "He's a thaumaturge of great talent, and we consider 
ourselves fortunate to have him here," said the Premuntur, just a little 
put off by either the slander or the insolence.
	"How often do /you/ have him?" smirked Arial.
	"You're fortunate to have him here because he should have blown 
himself up by now," growled Mnemora.
	"Not at all...."
	"Yes, much more than you think."
	"I won't hear of it.  Grentvark is a man of unimpeachable 
character."
	"You can't impeach character if it was killed off in the first 
chapter."
	The grouping hooted in appreciation of this saucy remark, coming 
as it did from a simulant, but it could hardly be called support.  "Who 
is your master?" said someone.
	Mnemora wrinkled her nose, and said "Grentvark the Groovy," 
accompanying it with a little prancing mince which was meant to indicate 
his strength of character.  The questioner ahhed, as though this 
explained everything, and resumed his spectatorial status.
	"It's not going to go very well on you when your master finds out 
you've been lying about him.  I wonder that he gave you the capability," 
said Colen Premuntur.
	The hermvixen fretted and tried to think of a more palatable 
approach.
	"He's been cruel to us.  Don't you have any rules about that kind 
of treatment?"
	"Some do, yes."
	"He keeps trying to recapture us because we're the only thing he's 
done that's ever turned out right," said Arial.
	"He also keeps trying to get into our pants, and we don't want him 
there."  Mnemora's tail was beginning to lash back and forth.
	Bauervagen piped up, his cards ignored since the Taro-keno game 
seemed to be a loss at this point.  "I thought that was one of your 
functions."  He shot a grin at the Premuntur, saying "You know he's got 
to be screwing them.  You don't build computofamiliars into bodies like 
that without a little something happening on the side...." and then 
laughing wheezily.  A few lecherous chuckles floated across the room, 
since Bauervagen hadn't actually whispered this to his pal.
	Mnemora's breaths started to catch a little, and she thought at 
her sister, /Ari, I really need to hurt these people... I don't know if 
I can do this the nice way./  Arial surrounded her mind with familiar, 
intimate thoughts and said, /Please try, love... if we can get this to 
work, we won't have to do this again... you can always break them later 
if we fail./
	Mnemora blinked and cleared her throat.
	"Yes?" said Colen, as if he'd expected Mnemora to have vanished 
while his attention was elsewhere.  He knocked his hat to the side a 
little and said, "Oh, bother.  Has he beaten you?"
	Arial turned up the corner of her mouth.  Mnemora kept a straight 
face.  "No," she said.  /Quite the opposite,/ she thought.
	"Deliberately tormented you?  Set you tasks you haven't the skills 
to carry out?"
	"No, but that was--" Mnemora said.
	"Has he told you to do anything dangerous?" inquired Bauervagen.
	Colen glanced his way.  "That's what they're /for,/ Bauervagen," 
he sighed.  The smaller wizard mumbled.
	"We just can't stand him!" said the vixen, standing a little more 
imposingly with her clenched fists at her sides.  "He and we just don't 
get along.  Our personalities are completely incompatible."
	The room exploded in unrestrained laughter.  Even those who had 
seen Grentvark the Groovy's initial demonstration of his extremely 
realistic synthetic familiars were unprepared for this concept.
	Nearly a year before, while they were still in his possession, 
Grentvark had shown Mnemora and Arial with great ceremony to the 
membership of Masters of Destiny.  That was how they knew the 
familiars... they could hardly forget.
	Mnemora and Arial had their own distasteful memories of the event.  
Instead of a scientific demonstration, it was really more like a 
cocktail party, with them as the waiters.  They'd been made to wear 
short, sheer dresses, their pansexual nature hidden, and submit to 
insulting tests of their intelligence, as they served snacks to a lot of 
unattractive old men in robes.  The hermvixens hated dresses, and 
especially hated serving.
	Although there were legendary sorcerers who could create life 
indistinguishable from nature, none of them associated with this bunch, 
and their idea of a simulant was a half-living creature which moved like 
poorly-oiled clockwork and could only discuss its master and its tasks.  
A pair of simulants who had multiple skills, /and/ looked good in a 
dress, were an amazing treat.
	But a simulant, no matter how fancy, was a nonentity, a machine 
which mimicked life.  It didn't have a soul, and it didn't really think, 
not like real people.
	Someone dropped a glass because they just couldn't hold onto it.  
Colen Premuntur quivered sumptuously as he choked on delicate laughter.
	"Good Lord," he said, shaking.  "Your /what?/"
	"I think they said `personalities,'" answered Bauervagen, his own 
amusement making him spill cards all over the floor.
	"You've been programmed to believe you have a personality... 
you're automatons," said Colen as though he were addressing a 
particularly stupid flunkie apprentice.
	Mnemora's ears drooped a little as for a fraction of a second she 
felt chastened.  She hated how this felt and lowered her ears further in 
anger.
	"We are /real!/" she shouted, leaning in over the drinking table.
	"Oh no you're not," said the Premuntur, chuckling. "You're fancy 
toys who haven't learned how to accept their station."  The unity of 
belief behind this statement pressed in upon the vixens tangibly.  "And 
I don't care what warbeast genes that Grentvark stuck into you, you will 
/not/ raise your voice to me!"  Without looking back he said, 
"Grossback, try him back again, and if you can't reach him this time, go 
/get/ him.  How are our wards?" he said to a ludicrously armored wizard.
	"Solid," said this wizard.
	Arial slipped her hand lightly around Mnemora's arm, compelling 
her sister to hold her ground and not damage any of the sorcerers, 
though she believed her sister had by now tolerated enough.
	"Pah," said the Premuntur, leaning forward, nudging the table 
forward a few inches with a bark of wood on wood.  "You haven't anything 
that wasn't installed by your master.  Everything that you feel and 
think is simply a set of sorcerous commands that your flesh was imbued 
with, to serve your master.  That is what you are for, to /serve/ him, 
whether he's using you to complete an experiment or using you as a 
pretty fuck-toy," the wizard thickly purred.  "He is the only reason you 
exist.  You aren't a person, you aren't /anything/ without him."
	Mnemora was shaking.  /We're being good,/ she thought, /we're 
behaving... we behaved so you would listen... aren't you supposed to 
respect this behavior?/  The wizards' expressions still looked as though 
they were looking at something behind the vixens, instead of at them... 
although they'd said the rudest things to her and Arial, she knew she 
had to be good.  /Why is this so hard?/  They'd never help her and her 
sister, otherwise.
	She became aware that some time had gone by since anyone had said 
anything, had addressed her.  The wizards were waiting for her to say 
something, waiting for her to dare to answer.  Confirming that they'd 
finally shut her up.  /They might not even help us if we're good.  It 
doesn't look promising.  He's never going to leave us alone./  The 
silence grew.
	"That's what I want to hear from you," said the Premuntur, leaning 
back again.
	Mnemora started to say something, perhaps to object, but her next 
couple of breaths only came out as a pair of weak, shrieking gasps, and 
then, extraordinarily, she lowered her head and started to sniffle.  
Arial jumped as though the emotion had physically arced to her body, and 
slipped her arms tightly around her sister from behind, closely holding 
her and murmuring soothing nothings.
	A couple of the more novice wizards watched this with jaws 
hanging; simulants could be programmed to adore their masters, but 
hardly were they ever designed to feel anything for each other, and 
sympathy wasn't among the standard gamut of feelings that they were 
given.  Senior wizards started to look around at each other 
uncomfortably, averting their eyes from the scene, disturbed to find out 
that an undue percentage of them were moved by the simulants' emotional 
outburst.  Those who were unmoved by the sentimentality of the scene 
found themselves uneasy about what Arial's response implied.  
	Mnemora's chest hitched as she quietly sobbed, leaning weakly into 
her sister's embrace.
	"That was pretty easy," said a voice muffledly, which then 
coughed.
	Some of the wizards shook their heads at the apparent instability 
of the simulants' emotional structure; the opinion was passed around 
that these couldn't be something that Grentvark the Groovy had built, 
not if they fell apart that rapidly under intense questioning, realistic 
or not.  If it was emotional failure.  If it was some sort of simulation 
to make them seem more lifelike, it probably trod all over their main 
functions in any kind of difficult situation.
	It was suggested in hushed tones, by one of the junior mages, that 
perhaps Grentvark wasn't as skilled a sorcerer as they had thought; he 
was curtly reprimanded for this, to which he responded by saying that it 
was what the simulants had been asserting... under normal circumstances 
the senior clique would have laughed.  Instead of that, some glanced at 
the vixens.
	Arial proceeded to make the sorcerers even more uneasy, fixing 
them with a murderous gaze.  "You maggots... she let you hurt her," she 
hissed.  "If she didn't need me... you couldn't imagine what would be 
done to you."  She sat back into a nearby chair, pulling Mnemora into 
her lap, and began to rock her softly, murmuring to her.  "I'm so sorry, 
love... next time we'll do it our way."  She pressed her muzzle softly 
to Mnemora's cheek.
	"Oh, gods," one of the wizards said calmly, turning to the others 
as though some point had just been proven by the display.  "They've got 
a defense system set for each other."
	"How?!  We didn't even touch them... what is Grentvark playing 
at?"  Some of the flightier sorcerers fingered the components of 
defensive spells.
	"...not letting us cast any divination spells on them..."
	"I've seen enough.  They're dangerously unstable... will someone 
/please/ cast them out?!" someone said in an excited, cracking tone 
which they probably didn't often reach.
	The wizards bickered and nurtured panic among each other, 
disregarding the fact that the familiars were listening to themselves be 
talked about.
	Colen Premuntur and Bauervagen watched the hermvixens with 
fascination of the more academic kind, ignoring the emotional overtones 
of the vixenish tableau, also ignoring the increasingly distracting 
speculations of their fellow wizards.  The smaller mage took off his 
glasses and wiped them with the sleeve of his magic robe before 
replacing them, revealing tired but alertly open eyes.
	"Look at that.  That's amazing."  Something like awe was in 
Colen's voice.  "She's succumbed to stress.  Simulants aren't supposed 
to be able to do that... they're only supposed to react in certain ways 
to specific stimuli... isn't that right, Tsang...?"  He waved his hand 
towards one of the collective wizards hanging over the table, but got no 
coherent response.  "I didn't say anything that should have provoked 
that.  How highly strung does Grentvark have them wound?"
	"What is this?" said Bauervagen, studying the pair.  "Stress is 
terrible for magic-channellers.  It... it only reduces efficiency.  It's 
proven."  He took off his pointy hat and ran a hand through his 
electric-frizzed hair.
	"No one in their right mind would give that to a magic-
channeller," said a tall and narrow wizard in purple robes, with an 
extraordinary Yanni mustache.  "I /knew/ that they didn't look nearly 
docile enough when he showed them to us."
	"Something isn't right here," someone in the back said, long after 
the time for this statement had passed.
	"Perhaps their attachment to each other compensates for the 
stress?  This is very remarkable," said the Premuntur, stroking his 
whiskers and stabbing a pinky thoughtfully in the vixens' direction.
	"If nobody's going to eject them, then I am," said the same 
excited voice as before.
	"You'll do no such thing," murmured the Premuntur, focused on the 
familiars.
	"No, it is impossible that stress would assist their magic-using 
abilities.  Marchand's Theorem is fundamental.  Never been disproved," 
said Bauervagen, wringing his hands.
	Colen bounced his fist lightly off the table edge in thought.  
"Then that's a fundamental mistake... that he deliberately made..."
	"...or was it deliberate...?"
	Colen went "Mmmm?" and looked at Bauervagen.  "If he did it on 
purpose it doesn't seem to help them.  Look at them."  The two wizards 
regarded Mnemora and Arial.  The collective members of Masters of 
Destiny also watched, scratching their heads mentally or actually, not 
certain what to make of the vixens.  By now few of them were willing to 
take Grentvark's presentation at face value.  A couple of the wizards 
had made themselves scarce, possibly before an angry hermvixen did.
	Arial looked back at them hatefully, then closed her eyes so she 
wouldn't have to see them, kissing her sister on the cheek.  Mnemora 
sniffled and buried her face in her sister's generous, comforting 
breast, kneeling on the floor between Arial's legs and hugging her 
around her snakish trunk.
	Colen Premuntur exchanged glances with his tablemate several more 
times, before he underwent a fundamental change in perception, which was 
signaled with an innocuous little "hmmph" sound.
	Addressing the vixens, he said, "I daresay that we should begin 
this conversation anew."

                                  * * *

	Ignoring the panicky suggestions of the rest of the wizard corps, 
who were just getting in the way now, Colen Premuntur and Bauervagen 
managed to defuse Arial's temper before Mnemora recovered from her 
breakdown and the vixens had time to consider doing things "their way;" 
but it was only because Mnemora and Arial had come there inclined to be 
polite that this was possible.  After placating the vixens with a string 
of apologies the likes of which they were unused to giving, even to 
their equals, they attempted to restore some sort of normalcy to 
relations by agreeing to discuss the matter of Grentvark the Groovy and 
his relentless irritation of his former appliances.
	Arial and Mnemora presented at length the knowledge they 
possessed, which suggested that Grentvark the Groovy was a complete fool 
and that even if he had by some miracle of fate managed to create 
something as wonderful as they, it was pure and simple justice that they 
escape him and never return.
	Unlikely at best, fanciful and outlandish at worst, most of it 
unkind, the simulants seemed desperate to convince the collection of 
wizards that it was true... as tension thawed, the hermvixens' testimony 
took on more of a matter-of-fact tone, which only a few of the assembled 
wizards could dismiss.
	They regarded it as the hypnotically earnest relaying of nonsense 
by a pair of sexually compelling computofamiliars, or a stunningly-
crafted lie mechanism, or scrambled memory, anything but factual 
information about their most revered and honored club member.  It was 
just too contradictory to everything they believed about the man.  After 
several minutes of listening to cold and unflattering description of 
Grentvark's lesser-known `accomplishments,' these few individuals 
departed in disgust.
	The rest of the audience was rapt in attention, taking a perverse 
pleasure in listening to an all-too-perfect colleague being cut down to 
size by his creations.  Even if it was garbage, it was fascinating to 
listen to, and they indulged the simulants' desire to talk for the 
moment.
	At some point during this duo-monologue, Mnemora and Arial 
bothered to let drop the fact that Grentvark had gotten busted for 
interrupting their lunch.
	"Is /that/ where he is?" piped up Grossback.
	The assembled wizardry paused a beat and then the walls shook with 
unreserved laughter.  They'd come to learn in the last half hour that it 
was possible to laugh too much.
	"Oh, Lord," said Colen Premuntur, half-laughing and half-coughing.  
"You had him /arrested/ for trying to recover you?!"  He could barely 
get the words out.  The wizard rocked back and forth in his squeakily 
protesting seat.  "Where do you live?"
	Mnemora replied, "Out on the String," and then pronounced the 
coordinates of their city, which were the only identifier it had.
	Arial then entertained them by describing the whole encounter from 
start to finish.
	"Very bad idea," wheezed Bauervagen after Arial had finished her 
story.  "Lots of escaped demons out on that fringe..."  He made a 
`tch'ing sound.  "What could he have been thinking?"
	"He wasn't, it's not his strong suit," spat Mnemora, smirking.
	"He entered a part of the frontier settled by escaped demons and 
servant beings..." Colen said.
	"And loudly proclaimed our capture, that's right, yes."
	"Great Shaddoth."
	"Mad," added Bauervagen.
	"He was /very/ mad," Mnemora said, "once the cuffs were on."  She 
fluttered her eyelashes sweetly.
	"He used detectives," said Arial, waving her tail.  "He isn't 
capable of finding us himself."
	"And they assumed he was aware of the political climate out on the 
String, and why we went there, of all the places we could have gone," 
added Mnemora.  "Finders aren't in the business of clueing in morons, 
they just find."  The derisive noise level rose slightly.  Mnemora 
leaned back in her chair, draping her long, jeans-clad legs over the 
table as though they were being presented as the focus of attention.  
This was probably at least partly the case, and Mnemora slowly rubbed 
one leg against the other, the denim rasping softly, straining over her 
muscular thighs.  Such mesmerizing might not have been necessary at this 
point, but it was second nature to Mnemora and her sister and they were 
often unaware that they were doing things like this.
	"Indeed," said the Premuntur, chuckling.
	"If you still don't believe us, go bail him out.  He'll be there."
	The senior wizard nodded, as this was exactly what he intended to 
do.  "Tsang, could you go see if you could spring Grentvark from his 
keepers?  The treasury should have enough coin.  Oh, and be sure they 
tell you what the charge was."  The named wizard nodded and ambled out 
of the room, robes ruffling.
	"Awwww," said Arial, "do you have to let him out so soon?"  She 
leaned into the chair she was straddling, her breastflesh pressing in a 
devastating manner through the slats of the chair back.  She wasn't 
really interested in delaying Grentvark's release, but she knew she 
could probably do that.  Arial topped off the display with a furtive 
lick of her lips, and rested her head on her crossed arms.  "We like him 
where he is."
	"We prefer him where he is," amended Mnemora.
	"We don't like him under any conditions," said Arial.
	"Yes," Mnemora said.
	"Yes," confirmed Arial.
	Colen's head spun just a little.  He chuckled and distributed some 
of his weight to the armrest of his chair.  "Oh, come now," said the 
wizard.  "That's not very kind.  He is your master, after all."
	Arial and Mnemora wrinkled their noses as though a bad smell had 
just drifted through the room.  Colen made a little "I see" sound, 
draping his fingers over his mouth and studying the pair.
	"We're not very kind either," said Arial, arching her torso 
upright.
	Mnemora crossed her arms behind her head.  "The term `master' 
implies mastery, and Gruntfart hasn't mastered us, nor has he mastered 
anything we've ever watched him attempt," she growled.
	Colen Premuntur choked.  "What did you say?" he asked.
	Mnemora's eyes twinkled.  "Gruntfart?" she said, showing her teeth 
as she grinned.
	The Premuntur's face started to turn red as he was unable to 
vocalize his mirth, and he made a couple of clogged-sinus sounds.
	"Yes, that!" said Bauervagen, snickering wheezily.  "Gruntfart... 
ha! Ha ha!" he pronounced.
	"We have an even better name for when we're talking about his 
dubious sexual prowess," purred Arial, leaning into her chair again.
	"And if you're very good we might tell you what it is," Mnemora 
said, arching her back, letting the room get an unmistakable hint of the 
ring piercing her nipple as her blouse valiantly strained.  She bit her 
tonguetip, picturing the room steadily bending to her and her sister's 
will.  She wondered if the wizards were laughing at the vixens' jokes 
now because they genuinely found them funny, or because they wanted to 
seem like prospective sexual partners; and she shared this thought with 
Arial, who quietly laughed, eyeing the assorted wizards, themselves 
ignorant of what was passing between the vixens.  Arial replied by 
thinking that it wouldn't be long before they had the wizards giggling 
dumbly and hovering on their every word like a bunch of schoolboys, and 
Mnemora turned to her, chuckling.
	This exchange should have been enough to tip some of the wizards 
to the familiars' mental link.  Arial smirked with wicked affection and 
pinched Mnemora's behind, causing the latter vixen to yelp and jump, 
certain parts of her anatomy quivering and threatening the integrity of 
her clothing.  Mentally she reminded Mnemora that they had certainly had 
their share of schoolboys, so they should certainly be able to compare.  
Mnemora snorted.
	Bauervagen nudged the Premuntur, flashing him with the 
impenetrable glare of his spectacle lenses.  "No wonder Grentvark wants 
them back," he muttered and grinned, showing teeth like the slats of a 
picket fence.  Colen poked him to remind him not to be so predictable.
	"Ahem, yes, well," said Colen with feigned embarrassment, giving 
up a smile.  "He can't be that bad, can he?  He made you two, after 
all."  He repositioned his hat, which had started to slide again.
	Arial nodded, leaning back.  "That puzzles us, too."
	Colen widened his eyes a little.  "He /did/ make you...?"  he 
said, for the moment entertaining the concept of Grentvark truly being a 
great fool, despite this being contrary to his own evidence.
	Mnemora sat up, crossing her arms on her chest now.  "We're pretty 
sure he did," she said.
	"Unfortunately."
	Mnemora nodded to her sister.  "He had the equipment to do it, and 
we discovered enough notes to indicate it was him."
	"In an uncharacteristic exertion of cleverness on his part, he 
kept us from reading our actual construction notes and plans," said 
Arial, her tail lashing a bit in irritation.  "We want them," she added.
	Mnemora righted her chair and sauntered over to a rather stout keg 
set into the plank wall.  "They're a possible danger to us in his 
hands," she said, filling one of the club's fine magic steins from the 
spigot.  "But if he doesn't have them he won't even come close.  He's 
nothing without his notes."
	"Aha," said Colen, tapping the table.  "And you two were his 
notes."
	"We were his notes," said Arial, stretching and revolving her 
shoulders.
	"Just not those notes," said Mnemora.  A foamy brown fluid swirled 
in the stein as it filled to the top and Mnemora capped the lid on it.  
She returned to the table and scooted her chair up to it, giving herself 
ample opportunities to mash her breasts against the tabletop... it was a 
time-honored hypnotic technique.  Nevertheless a number of the wizard 
club members had lost interest as the conversation had taken a more 
academic turn, and were quietly vanishing or going back to whatever 
they'd been doing before the hermvixens' arrival.
	"He's not a total bungler though, is he?" countered Colen as he 
tormented his whiskers.  "I mean, that multigate display he put together 
on the Samhain..."
	Mnemora coughed politely.
	"Oh, right," said Arial, sneering. "/We/ did that."
	"But didn't you follow his formulae, his calculations?" asked 
Bauervagen, polishing his glasses again.
	"If we followed /his/ calculations we would have been incinerated.   
We performed a Queens' Juxtaposition instead.  He couldn't tell the 
difference."
	"He doesn't know a Queens' Juxtaposition from a Manhattan 
Transfer," said Mnemora.
	"A what?"
	"Do you know how many imps he cooked trying to place the candles 
correctly?" Arial said.
	"We had to shovel out the bodies because we were the only 
assistants left," growled Mnemora.  "He even fried a couple of the 
guards who were stupid enough to help out.  It was them or us."  She 
poured a great quantity of brown ale down her throat.
	"Really... how did you manage to place all the candles in such a 
short time?" asked the Premuntur, leaning forward to present his 
question.
	"Mnemora and I spent a few hours one day sorting through all 
possible combinations of slideline variables.  There are a few specific 
combinations of foci which allow for shortcuts in placement and 
displacement."  Arial made this revelation as though she was unaware 
that it was extremely useful and previously unknown magical data, but 
rather was something incidental that she and her sister had discovered 
while killing time one afternoon.
	"A few hours?  That should have taken weeks to do... but nobody's 
even tried to survey all combinations because it was thought 
unprofitable--"
	"Mind you, Grentvark thought you were just supposed to stick the 
candles in the dirt and draw lines between them," said Mnemora, having 
finished the swallow.  The room got a good laugh out of this idea.
	"Can we have copies of your findings?" said the Yanni wizard.
	"If you want," said Arial, shrugging.  "We would have to write it 
down...."
	"It would really be appreciated," said the wizard.
	"You guys were ready to hang us out to dry a few minutes ago," 
said Mnemora, smirking.  "We'll see if we have time."  Polite laughter.
	"Not that we couldn't do it now.  If you must be tiresome and 
insist on demonstrations of our ability, ask away.  Mora and I are at 
least fifteenth degree, though since we weren't formally trained we 
can't precisely place ourselves."
	Colen found this amazingly audacious.  "No, that's quite all 
right... I will take your word for it."  He folded his hands together 
and leaned back.  "...for now." he growled amicably.
	Arial began to run her fingers through the long, brushy fur of 
Mnemora's tail.  "I suppose it's not entirely his fault that he started 
to use us to do his experiments.  But it was becoming clear that he knew 
so little about what he wanted to do that he could easily get us killed 
doing it his way.  We convinced him that we could produce much better 
results if he allowed us to execute the experiments as well as calculate 
them."  She pulled her sister's tail into her lap, petting it.
	"He didn't argue too terribly," said Mnemora, her eyes narrowing 
in decadent pleasure as she draped herself over the drinking table and 
emptied the remainder of the stein's contents into her yawning throat.  
She gave the other wizards a bored predatory glance, showing a few 
teeth.
	Her sister nodded, pulling her curled fingers in sweeping strokes 
through Mnemora's tail, eliciting a low purring sound from deep within 
Mora's throat.  "He still wanted to get his hand in when he could," said 
Arial, "which is what screwed up most of his botched experiments after 
we took over the casting."  She looked sidelong with contempt at the 
mental image of her creator.  "He seemed to think that magic-using was a 
big game and that it wasn't really dangerous in any way."
	"We guess a lot of short-lived imps don't count." Mnemora purred.
	"Yes," said Arial.
	"Urp... yes," said Mnemora, and snickered raucously, smiling at 
her sister.
	Arial patted Mnemora's behind.  "You're becoming drunk, love," she 
said.
	Mnemora nodded, her tail waving unsteadily.  "Needed to, love.  
Nervous system was overloaded.  Depressant required."  On the infrequent 
occasions when the hermvixens got drunk, their speech gradually 
degenerated into technical rubbish, so grammatically spare that it was 
difficult for an outsider to follow.  The number of phallic references 
they made also escalated dramatically.  She rubbed her muzzle against 
her arm, scratching an itch on one or the other.  Arial nodded and 
resumed grooming her sister's tail.
	Colen Premuntur shook his head.  "Data-throwers getting drunk.  
Now I've seen everything.  I think /I/ need a drink."  He discarded his 
felt hat and padded with ponderous grace towards the keg.  Wizards were 
evidently a jaded lot, and their formerly large audience had thinned to 
just a few club members besides Colen and Bauervagen.  The building's 
animate lighting had lowered to a murky barroom level with the coming of 
the evening.
	"You expect a computational familiar to be bland, without 
assertiveness, don't you?  If he was smart he would have made us like 
that.  And we wouldn't be here," said Arial.  She turned up the corner 
of her mouth.  "Here's to incompetence."
	Mnemora twirled her finger in the air and snickered.  "Does that 
mean you're going to talk to Grentvark for us?  You don't look entirely 
convinced," said the vixen.  "In fact, you look blurry."
	"I have to keep reminding myself as I talk to you that you're 
synthetic familiars, but it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to 
think of you as automatons."  Colen let the foam drain off of the edge 
of a huge beer stein that befitted his rank and capacity.  "And I 
suspect my colleague is having difficulty thinking of you with your 
clothes on."  Bauervagen grinned like he was chewing something brittle, 
a faint pinkness evidencing itself on his pallid cheeks.  This was 
probably supposed to be a blush.
	The Premuntur clanked his stein on the table, priming the tabletop 
with a generous slosh of brown ale over the vessel's rim, and said "When 
you were first demonstrated to us, I knew there was something 
extraordinary about you that Grentvark was holding back," waggling a 
plump finger accusatorily towards the hermvixens.  Mnemora thought it 
looked good enough to eat.  She lifted her own tankard again, finding it 
had refilled itself.  /There was no point to having a stein be magic 
unless its trick was to refill,/ she thought.  She realized she probably 
found this much more profound than it was.
	"All the while he's parading us around he's saying we're not 
anything much, being very cool and modest," said Mnemora.  "His penis 
isn't anything much, and his testicles are very cool and modest."  
Bauervagen seemed to find this comment hideously funny.
	"Yes, well, he didn't want us to say anything too smart, like `We, 
the lowly familiars, are engineering this impressive magical display 
entirely by ourselves' or anything else that might make you suspect 
Grentvark's magical ability."  Arial turned up the corners of her mouth.  
"You remember that ridiculous little wand he was waving around 
throughout the whole experiment?"
	Colen grunted an affirmative as he took a healthy drink from his 
stein.
	"It was just a stick with a light glamour cast on it.  A wooden 
stick.  Grentvark can't cast through wands or staves.  He's totally 
inept at it.  He uses preset spells and misdirection, and waves this 
stupid little stick around like it's doing something," said Arial, 
looking very pleased that she'd dumped this particular load on her 
former master.
	"Sometimes a wand is just a wand," said Mnemora.  She considered 
following that with a joke about getting Albert Einstein drunk, but 
didn't want to ruin the rapport that she and her sister had managed to 
cultivate with the Masters of Destiny.  Mnemora snickered and otherwise 
remained fairly quiet, attending to her relaxant.
	"Ask him to show it to you when you see him next," said Arial, 
grinning up through her forelock.
	The senior wizard cleared his throat.  "I will not put Grentvark 
through an examination," he said calmly.
	"Suit yourself.  I think you'd be amused."
	Colen was unsure where the innuendo had ended.  "Ahh, the 
multigate...?"
	Arial nodded.  "Yes, that's right.  He's twirling around like a 
Valley dervish with that stupid little stick of his, pointing at the 
spots we'd told him to point to... saying `Huzzah'... it's so sad."
	"You told him to?"
	Arial stood and turned her chair around before sitting in it 
properly.  "He wanted us to tell him where the manna discharge would be 
visible, and `flashy,' so he'd know where to point the stick.  We 
rehearsed it with him."  She shook her head.  "And after we'd explained 
to him what his own spell was going to do, he patronized us.  `Make sure 
you're all ready, we've got a big day tomorrow.'"  The vixen narrowed 
her eyes, remembering.  "He can stick it up his-- come to think of it, 
after that he usually would."
	Colen Premuntur coughed.  Bauervagen, who had been fussily 
recollecting the playing cards, suddenly started paying much closer 
attention.
	"Oh, yes," purred Arial, "he was seriously into that.  Why do you 
think he gave us these?"  She wrapped her fingers around the crotch of 
her pants, giving it a more-than-passing squeeze.  Mnemora jumped a 
little, and muttered something, grinning, as Arial had telekinesed the 
grope to her sister as well.  Ari gave her sister a smile, and said 
"What our stories lack in finesse, they make up for with embarrassing 
substance, don't you agree?
	"Whether we like it or not, our bodies were designed to indulge 
his particular kinks.  Being Grentvark's sex toys was not an incidental 
function, and you knew that when you first saw us.  If something looks 
obvious it probably is."
	"That's why we enjoy beating him up so much," Mnemora said, her 
voice muffled by the table she was resting her head on.  "He made us 
like it."
	"Ahh, he's a submissive, is he?" buzzed Bauervagen.  Arial began 
to wonder if the man was Sigmund Freud in disguise.
	"He /wished/ he was a submissive. He'd tell us to tie him up and 
flog him, and then when we started, he'd whine about how it hurt too 
much, and tell us to untie him again.  It was sorely disappointing."
	"Today was nice," purred Mnemora, smiling dreamily or drunkenly, 
or both, at her sister.
	Running her fingers down Mnemora's back and tail, Arial let out a 
pleasant sigh... Mnemora's uninhibited mind was cascading her 
continuously with blissful, loving thoughts, and it was all she could do 
to maintain the conversation.  Her sister was ignoring the ever-full 
stein now, so she would soon level off and gradually regain her self-
control.  "Yes it was, love," Arial said softly.
	"What happened today?" asked the Premuntur, settling back in his 
seat and abstaining for now.
	"We beat him up a lot," said Arial, "when he failed to imprison 
us."
	"Yes, that... what method did he use to imprison you?"
	"Lame spray-on pentacle darts."
	Colen hmmphed.  "Those are the bottom-of-the-line of entrapment 
devices."
	"One of them painted Mora's tail," said Arial, raising her 
eyebrows.  "She couldn't let that go unanswered."
	"Indeed," said the wizard.  "You didn't, ah, injure him, I 
hope..."
	"No, we left that to the militia," said Mnemora, "for otherwise 
they would feel unneeded and useless."
	As if Mnemora had spoken some mystic word of summoning, Tsang 
warped back in at that exact moment, with a familiar face beside him.  
Blue light flashed, painting the walls of the club and pressing into 
dark corners, accompanied by a static buzz.  The light lingered, slowly 
melting away as the teleport gate shut.
	"...what they're thinking of, setting themselves up out there like 
real people and imprisoning anyone who tries to recover their own 
property.  Let me tell you, someone ought to get an... an expedition 
together and go out there and deal with them before they start getting 
too com--"
	Grentvark halted in mid-word as his eyes scanned the room and saw 
a pair of objects which shouldn't have been there.  It took him a moment 
to figure out the problem.
	"My familiars are here," he said, chuckling weakly.
	The Premuntur nodded to him.  "Grentvark.  I'm glad to see you 
came out of your little... ordeal intact."  He gestured to a vacant spot 
at the table.  "Why not favor us with the tale--"
	There was a rude squealing of chair against planks.  Mnemora 
propelled herself to her feet with a push of her hands, kicking her seat 
out from under herself.  "Gruntfuck!  How are you, my old doorknob?  
How's prison treating you?" she slurred.  There was a lurking feeling of 
horror about this meeting, beyond the insults, which hadn't quite named 
itself in the wizard's mind.
	Grentvark turned from Mnemora and was caught by Arial's eyes, 
sparkling in the gloom... she was there, too.  The other vulpine smirked 
up at him, her arms crossed and covering her bosom, as though to remind 
him he wasn't allowed to touch it.  "Hi there, cookie-baby," she purred.
	"C'mere, Gruntfuck," Mnemora said to her ex-master.  "I've got a 
bladderful for you.  Come and get it," she also said, stunning the room 
for not the first time.  She decided she wanted to sit again, and 
flopped back into the chair which her sister had helpfully righted.  
Grentvark, in contrast, went rigid.
	Colen Premuntur bit his lower lip, hard, to keep from giggling as 
Mnemora revealed her very best nickname for her former master.  
Bauervagen made do by stuffing his sleeve in his mouth.  It was all 
extremely childish but somehow contagious.  Grentvark noticed this.
	"Colen, what's wrong with you?" he said.  "You're laughing at 
their feeble humor?"  He took a few steps into the room, unmussing his 
robes.  "I do apologize for my pets if they've been disruptive, but I'm 
sad to say they've been out of my sphere of influence for a number of 
months."  Grentvark gave the hermvixens an admonishing look, hoping this 
would keep them quiet.  Unsurprisingly, it didn't work.
	"Hey Grentvark," said Arial, giving the wizard a foxish grin as 
her eyes snagged his again.  "Why don't you tell us what Zane's Constant 
is?"
	"Oh, that's /cold,/" said Mnemora, grinning crazily.
	Bauervagen prodded Arial's shoulder.  "Bladderful?" he queried, 
squinting.
	Arial turned to him, showing teeth.  "You really wouldn't want to 
know."
	Bauervagen waggled his hand and mmmmed as though he didn't quite 
agree with this assessment, grinning a little.
	Arial patted him on the head.  "Or maybe you would.  Later."
	The wizard chuckled, the sound of someone whose self-direction was 
eluding them.
	"Are you sure you want to fuck a home appliance, Bauervagen?"
	The little man wheezed with what was presumably humor.
	For a second Colen Premuntur half-considered asking Grentvark was 
Zane's Constant was himself, but rejected the idea instantly... he 
respected the wizard far more than that.  "Grentvark, please have a 
seat."  That sort of invitation sounded a bit too portentous to 
Grentvark.
	"What do you mean, `please have a seat'?  What is going on here?"
	Colen tried to tell his friend that he just thought it would be 
calmer for all if he sat, but he was interrupted.
	"We're going on.  And on.  About everything you've never wanted 
them to know."  Mnemora stood, keeping the chair beneath her in case she 
needed to fall back into it again.
	Grentvark swept his hat off his head.  "What in Shaddoth's name 
are you talking about, Mnemora?"  One last heroic effort at denial.
	"Everything, Grentvark," Arial said, silken evil in her voice.  
"We told them everything.  The ultimate teenage embarrassment nightmare 
has come true for you."
	Grentvark's face lengthened as the enormity of the consequences of 
this unplanned reunion struck him.  For a second he looked as though he 
might burst into tears.  Arial took a good solid look at him, savoring 
the moment as she had almost nothing else.  She refrained from taunting 
her former master, but only because Mnemora in her current state would 
be far better at it.
	"Ohh, bloobery bloo boo," said Mnemora in an absurd babytalk 
voice.  "Did we break up Gruntfuck's widdle party?"  Between the 
thoughts of comeuppance and the alcohol her wit had become rapaciously 
harsh, dropping crude, hectoring taunts and unwanted hints that clashed 
like metal on concrete, each tidbit making the audience wince.  Arial 
had her hands full trying to keep up.
	Grentvark the Groovy looked around, feeling a little dizzy... and 
his friends were actually snickering at what his familiars were saying!  
How much /had/ they let out?  Was there anything left to salvage here?  
As he watched, Arial (he /thought/ it was Arial) prodded the Premuntur's 
plump side, as if to goad him into full-blown laughter....
	"You little /beasts!/" shouted Grentvark, veins in his neck 
bulging scarily.  He stood with arms curled and fists clenched at his 
sides like he was flexing his pecs, but did it because he wanted to 
smash something and couldn't.  For all his bodily hardware he was not a 
physically aggressive person, although right now he wanted so badly to 
be.  His tanned face was giving way to red.
	"Does it hurt good, Grentvark?"  Arial's tail twitched back and 
forth.  "Is this something like what you had in mind?"  Mnemora took a 
step forward, to see if she could make him shrink back.
	"Cry for us, Gruntfuck.  We want your tears."  She bent her narrow 
body out towards the wizard like a serpent preparing to strike.  "You 
know you want them, too."
	Grentvark turned away and tried to catch his breath.  They seemed 
to know things about him that he didn't fully understand, as though they 
had designed /him./  And they wouldn't stop /digging/ at him.  If they 
saw any weakness they would gnaw at it until something gave way.  He 
wondered what he had done wrong while laying down their personalities, 
that they attacked so viciously.
	Colen thought this had gotten dangerously out of hand in a 
disturbingly brief space of time.  "Girls, stop," said the wizard, 
placing himself between Grentvark and his creations.  "This is not funny 
anymore."  Mnemora sank back into her seat, another round over.
	Colen pulled on the other wizard's arm.
	"Come on, Grentvark," said the Premuntur, "come and sit down.  
There's a good man."
	Grentvark yanked his arm away.  "What do you mean, sit down?  I'm 
ruined, Colen!  If these little bastards have been spreading lies about 
me up and down the wizardry... they've only got charm powers, you know!"
	The Premuntur held his hands out.  "Nobody is going to be judged 
on the basis of tales or hearsay, Grentvark.  Purely on ability.  The 
burden of proof is on them."  Grentvark's eyes bugged.
	"My integrity is in question?"  The vixens' master used his height 
to advantage, leaning in over the Premuntur.  "What, you mean they're 
members now?  Since when are we recruiting simulants?"
	"I didn't say that, Grentvark.  Will you please take a seat and 
listen?  Your integrity is /not/ in question...."
	"We don't have charm powers," Arial said quietly to Bauervagen.  
The wizard nodded enthusiastically, grinning like a madman.
	"Then why are you talking to them like they're real?!" yelled 
Grentvark, his voice rising in pitch.
	"They're very compelling, Grentvark..." said Colen, fumbling for 
words.  "Will you please /sit down?/"
	"No, I will /not/ sit down!  I think you and everyone else here 
has been taken in by them."  Grentvark pointed at the vixens, who felt 
no need to say anything more.  "I /made/ the damned things, so I ought 
to be able to tell when someone's been charmed by them, shouldn't I?"  
he said, though he knew this argument wasn't going to get him anywhere, 
ultimately.
	Colen was growing exhausted.  "If they're charming us, then 
someone can detect for charm aura, and that will settle that."
	"So again my word isn't good enough?"
	"Grentvark..."
	"No, I'm sorry, I'm not going to stay and listen to this any 
longer," said Grentvark the Groovy, tugging at the collar of his robe.  
"If you want to reach me you can leave a message on my ball."
	Mnemora and Arial kept desperately quiet, even as a hundred 
smartass replies raced through their heads.  Grentvark tugged his pointy 
hat on, and turned to his creations, his face red with rage and hurt.  
He shook a finger at them, his arm practically spasming.
	"I... I cannot believe you would do this... after all that I gave 
you!  ...you... arrgh!" he howled, throwing up his hands and porting out 
in the middle of his frustrated rant, achieving an effect more dramatic 
than he'd been able to get intentionally.  The sound of the 
teleportation was like a small thunderclap, and the flash from the waste 
manna kept the small room lit for a number of seconds before it faded 
away.
	After a brief silence Mnemora began to clap.
	"Mnemora, stop that."  Colen scratched his temple.  "This is very 
serious."  The vixen snickered but she stopped.  The senior wizard sat 
in his squeaking chair, and swirled his tankard of ale beneath his nose, 
as if to clear his mind with the aroma.
	"I'll let him get some of the poison out of his system before I go 
see him," he said after some consideration.  "I'm afraid in his current 
state he won't speak to anyone.  I don't think I've ever seen him so 
upset."
	Mnemora licked her teeth, and said "He was scared."
	"He left because he was found out," added Arial, nodding.
	"Or he might have left because you threatened and insulted him."
	"Come on, Colen," said Arial with a confiding purr.  "He's a weed.  
Who would know better than us?"  The Premuntur shook his head.
	"I don't mean to insult you," he said, "but it's still possible 
that you two are lying."
	Arial and Mnemora resolved to make the wizard see reason.
	"He can't control us."
	"You agree with that."
	"If he had any competence he would have put controls in us."
	"We told you he was a fool."
	"Were we lying about that?"
	"Girls, please, one at a time."
	"This /is/ one at a time."
	"Yes."
	"Yes."
	"/Please./"  Colen gave a huffy sigh.  Computers were only 
supposed to give you an answer, not bully you into accepting it.  "He 
could have given you self-determination for some purpose.  That might 
have been poor judgment on his part, but it isn't necessarily 
incompetence."  The vixens scowled, their pretty expressions darkening.  
"That is moot, however, as it has nothing to do with whether or not he 
should be pursuing you."
	The twins puzzled over this apparent contradiction for a couple of 
seconds.  "You mean we're entitled to our own lives."
	"I haven't said that... that's pointless to consider.  We both 
know that you'll attempt to elude recovery for as long as you're able."
	"/Are/ you going to recommend that he stop trying to capture us?"
	"Plainly, I don't think you and he should be anywhere near each 
other."  Colen slouched and mopped his brow with his hat, sighing 
gustily.
	"We'll take that as a `yes,' then."
	"I do however question the wisdom of letting you two run around 
unsupervised."  The wizard leaned forward to address them.  "I 
understand that you're very intelligent, but you have no experience to 
draw upon..."
	"We have access to every magical library that Grentvark was snobby 
enough to invest sponsorship in."  Arial remembered that much of the 
information was redundant, it turned out, when she and Mnemora had 
finished memorizing the contents of these libraries.
	"That isn't what I mean.  People.  Do you know how to behave with 
them, how to treat them?"
	Arial grinned.  "I think we have a good approach."
	"If it's anything like how you dealt with your master I should be 
very worried."  He took a pull at his ale and licked his lip.  "Not 
everyone you intimidate is going to flee from you in terror."
	Mnemora lurched to her feet, though she seemed a bit more steady 
on them than she'd been earlier.  "We do have some experience with these 
things, Colen, but thanks for the advice."  She tugged on her sister's 
sleeve.  "Ari, I wanna..."  She leaned over and whispered something into 
her sister's ear.
	Arial giggled.  "Me too," she said, grinning.  "Night night, 
Colen, Bauervagen.  Lads."  She gave a general wave to the room as she 
got to her feet also.
	"If you'll excuse us, Ari and I have to go do things."
	"Curse of the fuck toy, don't you know."  Arial turned to Mnemora.  
"Do you want to do the spell?"
	Mnemora put her arm around Arial's shoulders for support.  "No, 
you'd better."
	Nodding, Arial raised her hand in an extremely economical gesture, 
and without ceremony she and Mnemora flashed away.  The wizards found 
themselves impressed by how clean the teleport spell was, hardly 
emitting a light flash.  Bauervagen chuckled at some private thought and 
turned to his associate.
	"Do you think she likes me?"
	"Oh, Bauervagen, really," said Colen, shaking his head and 
immersing himself in his stein.

                                  * * *

	A semblance of night had come to the nameless city.  The ethereal 
sky would slowly, softly pulsate, light and dark, and it was this cycle 
which substituted for the spinning of a sunlit, spherical world on its 
axis.  It had dimmed to a twilight blue color, and the translucent 
marble walk seemed to glow violet from within, as though concealing a 
fire far below.
	Mnemora and Arial walked hand in hand, fingers meshed perfectly.
	After the unusual evening at Masters of Destiny, they had 
teleported back to their small palazzo on the nice edge of the city, and 
made frenzied, desperate love.  By design, their libidos were as 
demanding as any addiction; this was partly the reason they'd grown 
attached to each other.  Their master had made them too sexually hungry, 
and he couldn't keep up with their needs.  It did suit his voyeurism, 
but that didn't suit the vixens very well.
	The other cause of their attachment had to do with the primary 
reference work that Grentvark used when designing their personalities.  
It had been very emphatic about making certain that the synthetic 
creature was satisfied with itself.  Boredom, depression, even suicide 
could result if the creature's personality wasn't compatible with its 
form, the book said.
	Grentvark turned this way up, and gave the familiars nearly 
Narcissistic self-image.
	This would have been fine if there was just the one hermvixen, but 
he made a matched set of them, inescapably identical.  From almost the 
very moment each familiar was aware of the other's presence, each 
belonged irretrievably to the other.
	The cool evening air ruffled through the vixens' fur as they stood 
by the stone railing of a long, curving marble lane, overlooking an 
unseen expanse of the floating city.  Arial pressed her lips softly to 
her sister's neck, and whispered to her.  "Do you ever have any... 
regrets that Grentvark created us?"
	"No, not at all, love.  We're perfect.  The world is fortunate 
that we exist."
	Arial smirked affirmatively.  "I meant if you had any regrets that 
/he/ created us, rather than someone else."
	"I've thought about it."  Mnemora waved her tail.  "Of course, he 
disgusts me..."
	"Of course."
	"But if we'd been created by someone halfway competent, we'd never 
have been able to escape, and we wouldn't have found each other when we 
were meant to be his.
	"If it hadn't been him, it might not have been us."  Arial nodded, 
lowering her muzzle.
	Mnemora's tail curled and brushed against her sister's.  "Do you?" 
she asked.
	Arial paused a moment, then spoke.  "Well, I do find it kind of 
twisted that people as wonderful as we could have been designed and 
built by someone as hopelessly lost as Grentvark the Groovy."
	"I know what you mean, love."
	"I wonder sometimes if he really did build us."
	"So do I.  But we saw the evidence."
	Arial nodded, making a soft thoughtful sound.
	"Are you grateful?" said Mnemora.  "That he made us."
	Arial thought about it for a few moments.  "I don't feel any 
gratitude towards him for making me... even knowing that he's 
responsible for how glorious I am, I can't find it in my heart to thank 
him for that.  But I'm so very thankful that he made you, love."  Arial 
touched her nose gently to her sister's.  "As much as I loathe the man, 
I have to be grateful for you... I guess it's okay to give him that, if 
his stupid mistake is our nirvana."  Mnemora giggled quietly and gave 
her sister a quick, soft kiss.
	"Thank you, Grentvark, for being stupid enough to do something 
right once in a while."
	Arial giggled also and pressed her lips to Mnemora's, holding them 
there.  Mnemora's eyes widened as her sister began to back her up 
against the railing, pressing her body close... she held on to Arial's 
hips to keep her balance.  She emitted a sudden, sultry growl as her 
behind bumped the railing and her hips pressed tightly to Arial's.
	"You're feeling dominant today," purred Mnemora.  "I thought I 
always took lead."
	"You obviously aren't keeping track."  Arial smiled, grinding her 
hips to Mnemora's.
	"Oh, yeah," her sister purred.  "Right here, on the wall."
	"Down, love.  This is just for making me answer such a difficult 
question when we're supposed to be relaxing."
	Mnemora pouted.  "If you torment me like this regularly, I'll have 
to tie you up so I can have you whenever I want."
	"Tease."  Arial brushed lips with her sister, gazing through half-
lidded eyes at her, and gently moved her weight to her feet again.  
Mnemora's tongue darted out to lick her lips after Arial's had passed, 
tasting.  She took Arial's hand and they resumed their stroll.
	"As long as we're playing truth-or-dare," purred Arial, "is there 
anything about us that you would change?"
	"About us?"
	"About the way we're shaped or the way our minds work."
	Mnemora suddenly grinned.   "Well, clothing has always been a 
cramp to find."
	"Mmmhmm."
	"But for a body like this it's worth it."  Mnemora grinned 
wickedly and crossed her arms behind her head, bending her long body and 
thrusting out both her sizable chest and her behind.
	"Mora, stop teasing me!  I'm going to soil my jeans," cried Arial.
	"You started it, love-pet."
	"I'll finish it, too.  When we get back home."  Mnemora nodded.  
"Is there anything else you'd change?"  Mnemora closed her eyes in 
thought.
	"If there wasn't somebody around who I loved as much as you, I 
think I might regret that Grentvark made me so insufferably horny."
	Arial grinned and licked her lips.  "I wouldn't exactly call it 
suffering."
	Mnemora leaned in easily and nipped the muscle of Arial's 
shoulder.  "I said `insufferably.'  Meaning that if you weren't here, 
there'd be nobody who could keep up with me."  She grinned back, 
lowering her muzzle and gazing up at her sister.
	"Imagine if there wasn't anyone who could keep up with us."  Both 
vixens shuddered at the thought of there being no one around to give 
their bodies the supplication they required.
	"Horrible to think about."
	Mnemora held up her hand.  Her ears twitched, and she wrinkled her 
nose, whiskers flexing.  "Someone's about to port in, right... there," 
she said, pointing to a nondescript spot along the walk.
	Electric blue light erupted in a particularly dirty teleport, a 
loud /pop/ sounding in the open air with the arrival.  Everything around 
it lit up like a lightning flash for a second, until the light dissolved 
and the vixens' eyes readjusted, and could make out the figure before 
them.
	The figure turned out to be Grentvark.
	The wizard looked as though his temper had returned... in a way 
this was disturbing.  He was grinning, almost gritting his teeth, more 
of a grimace than any expression of pleasure or amusement.
	The vixens sighed and crossed their arms in tandem.  Wasn't he 
going to give up?  Their afternoon had already been ruined by the 
wizard, and they'd had rather a full evening.
	"Push off, Grentvark," said Mnemora, her tail switching side to 
side.   "Ring us back tomorrow.  We're relaxing."
	"Yes.  Make an appointment and we'll beat you up later."
	Grentvark moved his hands in what was unmistakably a closure 
somatic.
	"Now what does he think he's up to?" Mnemora murmured.  Arial 
shook her head and sighed softly in building irritation.  "We don't feel 
like playing," she said to the wizard.
	A small shiver went down Mnemora's tail as the wizard failed to 
respond to this in any manner.  He just stood there and watched the 
hermvixens, showing them his teeth.  Mnemora gave her sister a mental 
prod, and a series of invisible shields enveloped their bodies.  Arial 
was also aware that something wasn't right with their former master.
	"Go away," said Mnemora.
	The wizard just watched them impassively, as though contemplating 
something, his robe slapping in the light breeze.  The vixens were 
disturbed by this inaction, and the fact that it was Grentvark bothered 
them even more.
	"I said get lost, Grentvark."
	Mnemora took a step forward.  The wizard appeared to make some 
sort of decision, and took a broader stance.  He raised his hand, but it 
wasn't a somatic spell component, it was just a gesture.  He half-
pointed his finger at the vixens in a flabby kind of motion, without 
intent.
	"You're not amusing us," said Mnemora.
	Grentvark pronounced a single word.
	Mnemora bent and clutched her stomach as if stricken, her eyes 
widening mostly in surprise.  She began to draw short, shallow breaths 
as a terrible mortal pain burrowed through her body.  She clutched at 
Arial's shoulder, gasping, her grasp painful. "...ohh... Ari...."
	Arial jumped as her sister's pain became her own, but muted.  
Although Mnemora was holding back for her benefit, the hurt was also too 
deep to be conveyed.  She tried to surround her sister with her arms, as 
Mnemora began to sway back and forth off balance; her sister seemed to 
have lost the control of her limbs.
	Arial stiffened as an emotion flooded from her sister that had 
never come before; fear.  She cried out softly in alarm as the feeling 
penetrated her own mind.  Reaching out with her thoughts, she tried to 
more directly touch Mnemora's, but Mnemora's mind jittered with 
confusion, her thoughts disrupted by unaccustomed emotions.
	She collapsed to one knee, her arm sliding from Arial's shoulder 
and thrashing around to find support, the other wrapped around her own 
abdomen.  Mnemora tensed again, baring her teeth in a silent snarl, 
squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
	Reacting in instinct, Arial swept the area in the blink of an eye, 
to learn what had struck her sister, but there was nothing.  Whatever 
had been cast on her had already taken place.
	Faster than the eye could catch, Arial's head turned to face her 
former master.  As far as Grentvark could see, she was now suddenly 
facing him.  The fact that he hadn't flinched turned Arial's spine cold.
	She moved to take a step forward but something in her couldn't 
bear to move even an inch from Mnemora's side.  She spoke the word 
"What--" to the wizard, and was drawn back by Mnemora's soft, pained 
whimpering.
	Arial shuddered at the sound and leapt to prepare a stasis field, 
a region of stopped time, to surround her sister with until she 
understood what had been done, but as she watched, Mnemora's head rolled 
back, as it would in a stretch or a yawn, and then her body turned into 
a muddy river and sprouted bones and washed to the ground in a great 
splash.
	Arial's mind stopped.  She stared ahead and saw nothing, unable to 
absorb what had just happened.  Her hands covered her muzzle, her teeth 
promptly sinking into the heels of her hands, locking.  For a very long 
while she didn't breathe.
	As if in slow motion, Arial's body swiveled around of its own 
accord to face the wizard.
	Their master was still watching, with the same grim expression.  
Grentvark's grin was one of satisfaction with something else more 
malevolent mingled; he gaped at the scene as though he'd been watching a 
particularly good fireworks display.
	The grin slowly crumbled as he realized that one of the familiars 
was still standing.  His expression diminished further, into one of 
alarm as he understood the consequences of one of the pair surviving, 
and he broke his stance and into frantic action.  Grentvark hastily 
moved his hands through the gestures of a teleport spell, the sleeves of 
his robe whipping wildly.  Light bloomed around him.
	Though his voice couldn't be heard over the sudden noise of his 
exit, the last words visible on his lips before he vanished could only 
have been "oh, shit".  Arial had plenty of time to see this, as time 
seemed to have slowed down for her.  At the edges of her vision she 
noticed people; she had no idea how long they had been there or how much 
they'd seen.  She heard the wind.
	Her gaze slid down to fall upon the awful heap of degenerated 
flesh beside her.  It may as well not have been there for all the 
acceptance her mind gave it.  Arial trembled and squeaked her sister's 
name, and then whimpered to herself.  /Herself./
	In a panic she tried to force her mind to work, to continue, but 
all its useful parts were stuck and unresponsive.  All she knew was that 
she was screaming and screaming at the top of her voice, unable to stop, 
unable to think.

	She found herself on her hands and knees, her body trying 
sluggishly to get to its feet without her assistance.  Her vision had 
contracted so that she could only see what was in front of her, 
mercifully blocking out the sight of what was nearby.  The fact of her 
surroundings soaked back into her consciousness like a mild tide, and 
she realized she had blacked out.
	Arial rose uncertainly to her feet, her legs uncooperative... the 
same people were there and the light of the sky was the same-- an acid 
blue which burned her sight, now --so she hadn't lost very many minutes, 
but although her environment was unchanged it was also dreamlike now, 
unreal, like something showing on a screen meant to look like the real 
thing.
	She staggered forward and nearly fell headlong into the pool of 
unpleasantness her sister had become... she croaked in agonizing grief, 
seeing it and not seeing it, and her legs gave out again, tumbling her 
back onto her haunches.  Her draggling headfur was suddenly feeling 
sticky and clinging like it was trying to smother her... she felt as 
though someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop and removed half of her 
brain with it... she could feel the gap where so much was suddenly 
missing.
	People were standing uselessly around her, watching for some 
reason.  Just watching.  She was thankful that no one had tried to 
console her yet; the reality of a comforting touch would have destroyed 
her, would have solidified what she was trying to keep unreal until she 
could change it.
	Arial tried to get to her feet again.  Something inside her waited 
to explode... she whined with the effort of keeping it within.
	The bystanders moved back just a little, to let the crippled thing 
have some room... had any of them even called for help?  /Why are you 
standing there, help, help meeee--/  She groaned through gritted teeth, 
fighting to stay on her feet.
	Arial gasped for breath, and made herself look at what had been 
done to her sister, since it wouldn't become any easier to think about.  
Her chest hitched and she made a strangled sound, her tears an 
incidental thing as she forced her mind to encompass what had just 
happened.
	Whoever was still watching her was edging away now, perhaps in 
anticipation of what she might do once she was aware.  Although her 
vision was still badly tunneled, the scrape of feet on marble was livid 
in her ears.
	When Arial began to tearfully mutter the first words of her 
incantation, the watchers commenced what could have been called an 
orderly retreat... it was not unknown for magical creatures to destroy 
themselves spectacularly in moments of grief, or to vent their anguish 
on whoever happened to be nearby.
	The clopping of footfalls faded.  Arial tried to concentrate on 
the spell she was casting... it would almost certainly be her last if 
she did it wrong.  She sobbed in the middle of a syllable, and had to 
stop when that verse failed.  The vixen drew in deep, strong breaths, 
inhaling the putrefaction before her, and started again.
	She had never cast anything remotely as draining as a time-
reversal effect; she and her sister of course were thoroughly read upon 
the subject, but had never thought to perform one.  A time reversal was 
so demanding of energy that for a single spellcaster it was only useful 
as a parlor trick, an impractical entertainment.
	"Afril dis narmundi," pronounced the vixen, moving her hands and 
arms through the somatics which would lay the framework for the spell.  
"Narmundi (at hort ferun) di'ir dis... /aran./"  The spell was now 
drawing manna, her body the draw, the lightning rod, for the energy.  
Its familiar buzzing was in her head.
	Arial swept her hands around in intricate patterns, every pause of 
her fingertips the vectors of a physical equation in manna, its terms 
defined by the words she spoke.  She let her emotion be lost in the 
execution of the spell, giving herself over to her function, her motions 
expert.  Flawless.
	"Weretil at /iadorundum./"  The spell effect was now active, the 
manna stream now live, pouring through Arial's body and growing.  
Although the familiars' bodies had been tuned to near-optimum magical 
focus when their master had formed them, the magnitude of this spell was 
beyond anything Arial had ever tried on her own.  You didn't simply jump 
into a high-degree spell unless you built up to it, sometimes for years 
beforehand.  Her flesh began to resent the buffeting of magical power.
	She held her palms a short distance apart and pictured what was to 
happen.  A moment later the air between her open hands could be seen to 
shimmer, as though from thermal disturbance.
	"Eiiti onton at diristilon diristil movar..." she growled.
	Blossoms of bruises shot up her arms beneath the fur, from the 
wrist, then started to creep up the sides of her neck, like ink 
diffusing through water; she all but ignored them and continued to 
pronounce the words... the air between her hands actually quivered like 
it had gone thick, gelatinous, a sphere of sluggish space and compacted 
manna hovering between her palms.
	"...unt narmundi mifar dis haristin autu destat..."
	The globule between Arial's hands shuddered with potential, 
sucking power.
	"...varar histira at meristalium orvo /difarin iston nantirir!!/"
	These last words were enunciated in a shriek, all the force of her 
lungs used to get them out before her voice cracked.
	Arial closed her hands.  The thickened space between them extended 
itself, flowed to fill an invisible vessel which encompassed Mnemora's 
remains, its boundaries defined as the space turned a deep green, like 
rippled glass or seawater, imperfections swirling over its surface.
	Arial pushed more energy through herself and into the field.  
Magical force moved through her clenched hands, wanting to take the path 
of least resistance through her fingertips, and she gripped harder, 
biting her claws into her palmpads.  A low whine rose from within her as 
she made herself part of a circuit for a level of power she'd never 
manipulated before.
	She pushed the time field back; for a long time nothing appeared 
to happen, as she rolled back through the long, wasted minutes that 
she'd been unconscious.  Then, as though a wave had moved through the 
seawater, the debris was disturbed, swept up into the body of fluid 
space and slowly resolved itself into something like a kneeling figure.
	If she'd been able to consider such things, it might have been 
sickening to watch, to see this intermediate stage between life and 
unlife.  All that mattered was that she hadn't taken the time field far 
enough, and she opened herself wider, drawing in more of the ambient 
manna.  The bruises on her arms and throat darkened, began to ache, 
their pain bright against the subsonic throb of thaumaturgic force 
gushing through her body.
	Teasingly the scene before her oozed backwards second by second, 
until it was Mnemora, Mnemora in pain and shock, caught at her last 
moment of awareness.  Harshly barking, Arial pushed a great lump of 
force into the time field, and the scene jumped back several seconds at 
once before resuming its maddening crawl.
	She tasted a coppery gorge seeping up through her throat.  It 
would be a terrible joke if she brought her sister back to life, only to 
have her die of grief when she found that Arial was now gone instead.
	The going was getting harder... the farther she took the region 
back, the more energy it seemed to require for the same period of time.  
Arial was aware of this phenomenon, but hadn't thought it would happen 
nearly so soon into the spell.
	It was evident from extrapolation that she couldn't roll the 
region's time back to before the word had affected Mnemora.  Arial 
continued to push energy into the spell... the ambient manna would last 
for quite some time before being depleted, but she didn't think she 
would, and if she couldn't function magically after this, the chance was 
it would be for nothing.  She would have to wait here until someone 
turned up who could help, assuming someone did before the spells ran 
down.
	When they did, they would have no way of knowing how to reverse 
the dissolution word... a failsafe like that didn't often have a 
reversal, and she could be certain that Grentvark wouldn't have put one 
in.  Someone from Masters of Destiny would have to go to his castle and 
dicker with him over restoring his wayward familiar, and then study the 
vixens' design notes to determine what could be done.  If anything.
	Arial leaned into the energy flow for support.  While they were 
sorting out the notes, the time reversal would be getting more and more 
expensive in manna, and require greater numbers of and eventually more 
powerful spellcasters to maintain.  Arial suspected not many of them 
would be too happy to expend that kind of effort for a legally-destroyed 
familiar.  Not with its master watching disapprovingly all the while.
	Groaning, Arial tied up the end of the spell, stumbling forward as 
the power flow suddenly ceased.
	The area of the spell's effect looked like the bell of an upturned 
wineglass, swirling dense green.  The region actually penetrated the 
ground and formed an ellipsoid.  Within, trapped like an unfortunate bug 
was her poor sister, looking intact but startled and fearful.  Arial 
didn't bother with the diagnostics to check the time field's quality; 
instead she prepared it for attachment to another spell.
	With calm movements of her hands Arial cast a stasis field around 
the time field.  It formed itself in a precise capsular shape, utterly 
black, impenetrable.
	Only after checking the field's integrity did Arial fall to her 
hands and knees and allow herself the luxury of vomiting.
	When she'd recovered, she was unsurprised to see her stomach's 
contents were streaked with blood.  She looked up at the stasis region, 
glad that her sister's frozen, pained expression wasn't looking out at 
her.
	Her breathing labored, Arial ran a check on her capacity for 
spellcasting... she'd been able to put up the stasis field with no 
trouble, and seemed all right in that regard.  She rose somewhat to her 
feet, hands resting on her knees.  The memories of what had just 
transpired assaulted her again, and she let out a strained cry.  
Shallowly gasping, she looked up at the black capsule.
	/She isn't dead,/ she thought, /she isn't dead and she needs me./	

                                    * * *

	"Well, good night then, Bauervagen."
	Colen swept his bejeweled cape around his back and over his 
shoulders, and lifted his chin to hook up the choker.  "Be sure and shut 
everything off when you leave."
	`Everything' wasn't much, since Masters of Destiny was almost 
dark, vacant except for the two wizards, who had needed their own 
relaxation after the evening's events.  They'd taken up their cards 
again and played through the night and into the early morning.
	Colen the Premuntur patted his hat into place, and moved to make 
the gesture for the trip home.  He stopped and squinted his eyes when 
they were barraged by a burst of teleport light.
	"Shaddoth.  Who in hell..."
	Arial materialized in the middle of the glow, and walked straight 
into a wall.
	She managed to turn her head in time to avoid banging her nose 
against it, and was caught on her cheek and the side of her muzzle 
instead.  She let out a quiet grunt as though the collision had mildly 
surprised her, her hands kissing the wall for balance, and started to 
backpedal.  The wizard club was darkly lit, but she should have been 
able to see... she stumbled over something solid.
	She didn't actually fall because someone's hands caught her.
	"Mnemora?"
	She winced.  "Arial," she whispered, swaying in their grasp.
	Whoever she was being held by was large and soft; she presumed it 
was Colen.
	Someone else spoke.  "Where is your sister?"  /Definitely 
Bauervagen./
	Disembarking the arms that surrounded her, Arial felt around 
before herself.  She felt she'd better say something about the lighting 
conditions.  "I can't see you..."
	Colen flicked his hand backwards, the lights increasing to a 
useful level.
	The sounds of breathing, which Arial had been navigating with, 
went quiet.  /Yes, I've been having a wonderful time./  The light was 
all too bright now, but soon her eyes adjusted to it.
	"Do you know you have blood running from your mouth?"  Arial shook 
her head, uninterested.  She moved to a part of the room with less 
things to bump into.
	The wizard caught sight of the telltale blooms of manna overload 
down the vixen's arms and throat.  "Good Lord, child, what have you been 
getting up to?"  /Concern./  He unfastened his heavy cloak again, and 
let it slide onto a seat.
	"Where is your sister?" repeated the other wizard.
	Arial leaned on one of the drinking tables, hanging her head as 
she took her breaths.  She saw a spot of blood appear on the tabletop 
beneath her.
	"Grentvark," she rasped.  "Killed her... tried to kill her... he 
had a word of dissolution.  I don't know why it only hurt her."  She 
said this last as if apologizing to someone.  Bauervagen drew a short 
breath.
	Colen whispered "My goodness," and placed his fingers on his chin, 
looking ahead at nothing in particular.  "Killed her?"
	Arial looked balefully at the wizard.  "Tried to."  She shut her 
eyes.  "I have her in a time reversal..."
	Bauervagen mumbled anxiously and said "Who is maintaining it?"
	The vixen walked around the table, pawing at the chairs.  
"Nobody... I tied it to a stasis effect...."  Bauervagen nodded as 
though he'd sorted this out before she replied.
	"Even so, you don't have very long...."
	"You have her in a /time reversal.../"  Colen's mouth pinched into 
a hard line as he imagined how this related to the vixen familiar's 
current state.  Arial chuffed a breath through her mouth as a response.
	"I don't have very long," parroted Arial.  She looked through the 
floor.  "There's also magical sanitation."  Arial remembered that there 
were crews who went around her city, cleaning up stray or unauthorized 
magical effects.  "Go get her... bring her back here... maintain the 
fields... don't touch..."  Her bony hand seized a fold of Colen's robe 
and crushed it, twisting.  "Please..." she said, somewhere between plea 
and demand.
	"Of course," said the Premuntur, his voice hinting something like 
tenderness.  "Bauervagen, I shall need your assistance, come, come!"  He 
gestured to the other wizard with a few short jerks of his arm, velvet 
sleeve billowing.
	Bauervagen's face lost the blankness it had taken, and he moved 
towards his cohort.
	"You stay here, and /rest./" Colen darted his finger at a couch a 
few times.  Arial hadn't the energy to explain to the Premuntur what she 
needed to do, and she knew she'd considered the situation more 
thoroughly than the two wizards had.  She just nodded.
	Arial's hand slipped weakly from the wizard's robe, fingers 
trailing, as she continued her aimless pace through the room.  The two 
wizards prepared their teleport spells.
	"Colen," the vixen said suddenly, the word almost a sob.  The 
wizard turned to her.  "Bring the region back... surround and 
transport..."
	"Of course, child."
	Arial looked up at the ceiling, though there was nothing there she 
needed to see.  The emptiness at the back of her mind nagged at her 
without end.  She clutched her fingers around her nape as though feeling 
the void there.
	Colen and Bauervagen moved through the components of their spells, 
preparing to leave the vixen behind, but before they completed the 
gestures, Arial herself had already vanished.

                                    * * *

	Every creak and drip and grate that the castle gave off seemed 
haunting to Grentvark.  He could have built a smart, clean, even modern 
extradimensional castle, but that wasn't the style he was looking for.  
The artificially-installed medieval atmosphere was beginning to look 
like a poor choice, especially since they were hard enchantments and he 
couldn't shut them off.
	Grentvark's main laboratory was a large vaulted open space, which 
nevertheless managed to feel like a claustrophobic hole.  Its high 
arching stone walls met at a peak high above, but the mass of the vault 
was filled with a ball of darkness which the workbench fireglobes never 
quite pierced.  Magical and alchemistry equipment was tumbled and 
sprawled on tables and along walls and in corners, giving the impression 
that it was used too frequently to be stored in an orderly fashion.  It 
was all wonderfully melodramatic in its style, and again, it was playing 
on Grentvark's ragged nerves.
	His first instinct was to pack up his things and `take an extended 
holiday' as it were; but he really had no good destination in mind, and 
as the minutes escaped he turned to the conclusion that his own magical 
keep was the safest place for him to be.
	The other strategy which offered promise was to find the 
dissolution word for the other familiar.  There had been two of them, 
/two,/ dammit.  One for each, in case for some reason he only wanted to 
disable one of the familiars.  Brilliant idea, that.
	Grentvark was rifling through the copious, ill-ordered stacks of 
design notes, looking for it... he was /never/ going to find it.  With 
every passing minute he grew more frantic.  The wizard kept looking 
behind, expecting the vixen familiar to be there each time, ready to rip 
its vicious little teeth into him, and each time he was startled and 
relieved to see that she wasn't.
	/Why did I give them teeth?/
	With an incoherent cry of triumph, Grentvark's hand emerged from 
the mass of paperwork with a single sheet.  It had two words written on 
it, circled over and over in red pencil.
	The wizard set down the paper on one of the workbenches and moved 
through the motions of a simple primer spell.  He'd done the spell once 
already this evening.  It wasn't a very long one.  Grentvark brought the 
spell up to just before the closure.  Now he could use it at any time, 
by moving his hands through the final somatic.  He breathed a sigh of 
relief as he knew he was ready.
	Almost ready.  It could still catch him from behind, or possibly 
from above, and... and do something to him that would keep him from 
speaking the word.  He eyed the dark space above.
	He backed up against the kilns.  Nothing was going to be coming at 
him through those.  His location gave him a direct line of sight to the 
door, and there weren't any openings behind him.  The sloping chimneys 
of the kilns made a low ceiling above, which would be helpful, at least.  
If the familiar came up through the floor he'd just have to be quick.
	After a moment's thought he rushed over to the door, removed the 
iron-shod bar from across it, and returned to his position.
	The wizard considered dismissing the guards as well, as long as he 
was making his home inviting, but it wouldn't do to make the trap too 
obvious.  He watched, monitoring the wards he kept his castle surrounded 
with, and waited, hearing the castle's subtle sound effects.
	Where was she?  Initially he fled thinking the familiar would be 
right on his heels, but she hadn't turned up behind him.  She'd probably 
been in shock after the deactivation of her sister.  /I was certain she 
would have been here sooner./  Perhaps her system failed entirely.
	Grentvark shifted his weight from foot to foot as minutes crept 
by.  /She's not coming,/ thought the wizard.  /She's probably still 
frozen there on the pavement./  He checked the wards again; they held 
firm.  He started to feel stupid, waiting there.  /Maybe I can salvage 
her--/
	Something was tampering with the outer ward.
	Grentvark watched as the outer layer of his defenses was probed, 
then prodded at with light dispelling magics.  Of course they did 
nothing to the stout enchanted defense.  Whoever was out there wasn't 
very desperate to enter.  The surviving familiar might be too weak even 
to get inside... he didn't know how much of their power arose from the 
combining of the two.
	If it wasn't his familiar, it might be someone else he knew, 
trying to reach him, possibly from the club.  They might have news about 
the stray simulant, or could help him get it under control.  Or they 
might not know anything about the events of the last hour, in which case 
they'd get caught in the middle if the familiar eventually came for him 
and they were outside.
	He couldn't just wait there.  "Who is it?" he said, projecting his 
voice to the clairaudience node outside his front gate.
	"It's me, Grentvark.  It's Colen.  I want to talk to you, about 
tonight."
	It was Colen.
	Wait.  It /might/ be his friend, or it might be the familiar, 
trying to fool him.  It certainly sounded like the Premuntur.  Grentvark 
felt outward, trying to touch the mind of the visitor.  It was difficult 
to tell with a full set of wards between him and the owner of the voice.  
It might have been Colen.  Grentvark cleared his throat.
	"I've already settled my little problem with them."
	The presence twinged noticeably; it had a strong feeling about the 
statement.  It /had/ to be the familiar.
	"Have you?" said Colen's voice.  It paused.  "You weren't at all 
well tonight."
	Grentvark said nothing.  He thought.
	"I'm not leaving until you let me in, Grentvark.  Not until I know 
that you're okay."
	/You have the dissolution word.  Let whoever it is in.  It has to 
go like that anyway./
	"All right, Colen.  I'm bringing down my wards.  I'm in my 
laboratory."  He deactivated the wards.  After a moment's thought he 
added, "I can't talk for very long, Colen.  Tonight has been too much 
for me."
	No reply.  Grentvark nodded to himself and rubbed his hands 
together, smearing sweat.  After a long enough wait, he restored the 
magical shields, and stood in position.  Once he thought he heard an 
uncertain, vaguely metallic noise, but by the time he held his breath it 
had silenced, and he was unsure if he'd really heard it.
	It was about five minutes from his entry hall to his laboratory if 
one knew the way, and Colen did.  It felt like it had been much longer 
since he'd let the wards down.  He turned his head to look at the clock, 
but a motion in his peripheral vision made him turn back.
	The heavy laboratory door swung open ever so slowly, as if carried 
by a draft, whispering its way open.  It came to a stop; an anticlimax.  
Nobody was there.
	And then the solidity of his escaped familiar took him by 
surprise, emerging from the shadows of the corridor outside, unhurriedly 
walking through the laboratory door as if merely dropping by for a visit 
and a nice chat.
	He'd never seriously believed it was Colen outside.  It was safer 
to assume the worst.  He and the vixen regarded each other with the 
understanding that nobody had been fooled.
	Grentvark passed his hand through the closure somatic which would 
let him activate the dissolution word, wincing a little as he 
anticipated the vixen springing on him before he could finish.
	She didn't.  Grentvark restrained himself, waiting until the 
hermvixen got closer.  The word of dissolution had, after all, 
completely incapacitated the other familiar.  He didn't expect this one 
would be able to reach him once he'd spoken it.
	His familiar stopped, though, a few feet into the room, looking at 
him.  Her gaze pinned him to the spot like it was something tangible, 
like he was prey.  He noticed she'd changed her blouse... no, she 
hadn't.  It was blood.  Her front and arms were covered with it... he 
didn't know how he could have missed that right off.  Grentvark wondered 
whose it was.
	/Surely she knows I can kill her with a word.  Did she come here 
to die?  Or does she want to talk?/
	Neither of them said anything, but let the looks on their faces do 
the speaking.  The vixen had a blank, determined expression, like she'd 
been programmed to come find him.  It looked appropriate on a simulant, 
when none of her regular expressions had.  Grentvark thought he looked 
resigned.
	This broke as the vixen took a couple of quick steps towards him 
and raised her sinewy arm as if to beat him.  She wasn't here to talk.  
A smile broke across Grentvark's face in the last fraction of a second 
as he opened his mouth and pronounced a word.
	Nothing came out of his mouth.  He actually looked down, as if he 
could see what his mouth was doing wrong, and pronounced the word again.
	Still nothing.  He'd lost his voice.
	Horror pierced his chest in a pang as the vixen showed her fangs, 
showing that she was well-aware of his vulnerability.
	Then the wall of her restraint dissolved and she lifted both her 
fists over her head and just as quickly brought them down.  Grentvark 
had no time to cringe.
	"SHUT UP!" screeched the vixen, doubling over and bringing her 
fists together before her... something invisible hit Grentvark in the 
abdomen with the force of a charging bull, and hurled him against the 
far wall, his head catching up to his body shortly thereafter and 
hitting with an audible /crack./  The echoes of the vixen's shout rang 
in his ears.
	Instead of sliding down the wall he stuck to it.
	A couple of seconds had eluded him.  Grentvark shook his head a 
little to clear it.  That was all he could do.  He was immobilized.  His 
whole body was beginning to ache, and it was very unkindly crushed up 
against the brick wall it had just collided with.  Something made of 
metal dug into his side, possibly embedded there.  He could still open 
his eyes, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to do that.
	Thinking about what she might be preparing to do was worse.  He 
opened his eyes and looked at her.
	Arial's vulpine face seemed masked in a visible pall, her fanged 
grit a fearful gash in the haze of dark emotion.
	"You can't imagine what I'm feeling right now," she grated softly, 
looking keenly back at him.  Her eyes glittered as she padded quietly 
closer, looking his hateful, pseudo-youthful form over... she wanted to 
gnaw her way into his belly... she didn't know what she wanted to do to 
him first.  But she still needed the wizard.  /Restraint... so much 
restraint.  I didn't think I was capable of this./
	"I would act amazed that you were brave enough to wait around for 
me, but your confidence in your abilities has always been astounding in 
itself.
	"And yet you did make us.  Your perfect playthings."  She sneered.  
"You should have let us get away.  Regardless of whatever else we are, 
we were made for you."
	The vixen took a glance around the lab.  It felt odd to her.  She 
knew she'd spent her early life here, had been born here, but after 
having been away it felt like a foreign place.
	"Oh, and it was a spell of silence.  I rolled it in when the door 
opened."
	Grentvark closed his eyes, not believing he'd been bested by 
something so minor.
	"I've had to learn self-control in a very short time.  Now be 
quiet," she said, and he was.  He couldn't have thought of anything to 
say anyway, other than one particular word.
	The wizard watched as the vixen raised her hands to the level of 
her head, palms flat.  She muttered a few words, and much of the 
cluttered, scroll-littered laboratory began to glow a faint yellow.  The 
intensity of this light increased as the vixen's voice buzzed just below 
understandability.  Grentvark wasn't sure what she was doing... he was 
continuously disconcerted by how inadequate his familiars made him feel.
	Arial lowered her hands without haste.  The glow diminished and 
went out.  Glancing at an open expanse of floor, the vixen nodded, and a 
large mass of some sort slowly faded into existence.  It grew less 
ghostly, becoming real and solid.  Several stacks of books and scrolls.
	She didn't bother explaining to the wizard that she'd scanned 
every shred of paper in his keep and duplicated all that was relevant to 
her and her sister's design and construction.  She wasn't supposed to be 
the teacher here.  Given who the author was, there wasn't much chance 
that the original notes had been written with disappearing runes or any 
such sneakiness, but Arial couldn't take the chance.  She turned to the 
wizard again.
	"We made the mistake of considering you an annoying nuisance," she 
said.  "Consider your status updated."
	The vixen stretched her hand forth, a long finger pointing at the 
wizard's head.  Grentvark struggled inside an immobile body, fighting to 
turn himself to avoid the aim of that finger.  Now that she had the 
notes she had no need for him.  Arial placed her other hand over her 
brow and closed her eyes. 
	He suddenly grimaced and closed his own eyes in fear, as if some 
large insect were trying to land on his face.  As the vixen entered his 
mind, his head snapped back very slightly.
	/Don't play unconscious.  I know you're in there, filth-bug./
	Furtive thoughts peeked, giving themselves away in their morbid 
curiosity.
	A spiteful, amused thought, and then, /I need your help, 
Grentvark.  You're going to give it to me.  If not, I'm going to stay in 
here with you.  You don't enjoy this much, do you?  I'll stay here in 
your head and remind you of how unhappy I am with you.  Forever and 
ever./
	Grentvark cowered in a corner of his mind.  /Whose blood is that?/ 
he thought to ask.
	/It's your guards'.  They're real dead.  We have a lot of work to 
do and I can't have them barging in disturbing us./
	Grentvark's mind expressed shock.  That was fine with her.
	/...some of them were kind to you when you were here.../
	/And some of them would pinch my ass.  I've already got my 
priorities set.  You could have warned them that I might be turning up./
	In the brief time between the moment he let down the wards and the 
moment the familiar came through the door, she'd killed every guard in 
the keep.  Or so she was claiming.  Granted, she knew where most of them 
were...
	/Do you feel my rage, Grentvark?  The big, glowing hot thing above 
me that wants inside?  It's for you.  I haven't got time to waste.  When 
I ask you questions, you'll answer./

	Arial didn't have much use for him for the first couple of hours.  
She used that time to actually read and sort the documents, absorb their 
content and work out cross-references.  As she'd suspected, much of it 
was garbled, contradictory, or flatly incorrect.  Fortunately she had 
the author with her to clarify anything she couldn't follow.
	When there was something she needed that wasn't in the notes, she 
pushed Grentvark to go into his subconscious to retrieve the 
information.  It was all there, whether he realized it or not.  He was 
generally ignorant of what he had stored back there... it was a dark and 
unpleasant place, and he tried not to look into it too often.  The first 
couple of times he balked, but Arial had no patience and would present 
him with thoughts and visions which made his secret thoughts look tame 
in comparison.  After a few plunges it was quite tolerable.
	The more difficult part of Arial's direction was the speed at 
which she expected him to move.  Grentvark had constructed her and her 
sister to be rapid computational and data-handling devices, as well as 
familiars.  Arial was all too aware of how limited her former master was 
in this respect, and soothed her own hurt by pushing him as hard as she 
usefully could.
	Grentvark, despite his profession, wasn't used to flexing his mind 
nearly this much, and in addition to the headache the concussion had 
given him, a deeply-seated migraine was blossoming in the core of his 
skull.  He took the abuse uncomplaining for a while, complaining for 
quite a while more, and finally tried to halt the vixen's unwavering 
computation so he could rest.
	/...there... I... I think that's what I meant.../
	/It's what you meant.  It's obvious now./
	/...I have to stop.../
	/Now I need the next thirty-four constants for this branch of the 
involuntary systems helix./
	Grentvark's exhausted mind pleaded with her.  /...too fast... 
we're going too fast... I can't think this fast.../
	Arial focused on him sternly.  /But you expected us to.  You made 
us so we could, so you didn't have to.  It's not so easy, is it?  Keep 
up with me and I may let you live./
	/Please, Arial... please.../
	/I have no more pity for you,/ she thrust at him.  /You're not the 
good-natured bumbler we thought you were.  We embarrass you and you 
decide to off us because we're just machines.  You've graduated to 
flashy thug.  Now be quiet and tell me the constants, before I remove 
them myself./
	/You can talk!/ the wizard cried mentally.  /What about the people 
you've killed since you left me?/
	/What about them?/ thought the vixen.  /What about them?  You can 
smell that, can't you?  Memories of what we've done.  Mora and I never 
killed anyone for telling the truth about us./  She took on a more 
inquisitive tone.  /Do you find that such behavior is useful to you?/
	Grentvark felt an unfounded sense of relief.  His familiar sounded 
more like she did when she'd just been activated, before everything had 
gone so wrong... then he shuddered inwardly as he imagined she might be 
seriously asking, as she had in the beginning, for purposes of analysis 
and adaptation.
	He didn't get a chance to reply.  /And we never killed anybody 
because we didn't like them.  You go to all that trouble and expense, 
and it turns out we aren't what you wanted./
	/You won't obey me,/ said the wizard, /you don't--/  He stopped, 
but his emotions coasted ahead.
	There was a rippling of mirth in the wizard's head.  /We don't 
love you.  That/ is /what you were going to say./  Arial paused.  /Of 
course we don't love you.  You didn't put that in us./
	/I wanted you to... I wanted you to... choose to./
	The weight of Arial's will upon his mind lightened a little, then 
took another direction.  /Did you really, Grentvark?/ she thought.  /Be 
quiet now.  The constants./  Grentvark relented and drew the information 
forth.

	He spoke to her again, after a long period during which she had no 
need of him.  Grentvark was free to stray through Arial's surface 
thoughts and memories.
	/You're awful.  I don't know how I could have created you./
	Arial directed her attention towards him, bothered, but not very 
much, for her work was almost done and she was encouraged by the results 
she'd gotten.  /That's the root of the problem, isn't it?/ she thought.  
/You didn't know what you were doing.  Which is not to say that you 
didn't know better./
	/How can you judge me like that?  After all the terrible things 
you and your sister have done?/
	/Before I respond, let me point out that the fact that you can 
make us to your specifications, and then expect us to answer for it when 
we don't do what you wanted is incredibly cowardly.  You made us like 
this.  We like to do the things we do because you designed us to take 
pleasure in them.  You made us dominants, and so we dominate... you gave 
us a taste for hurting, so we do it without pause.  You're so fond of 
saying `all that I gave you.'  Why does this surprise you?
	/ If we feel bad about something we do, we can console ourselves 
with the knowledge that we couldn't have done anything else.  That was 
how we were made, and you are here to be our proof.  And you are 
responsible for us, so you are responsible for what we do./
	/I tried to take responsibility for you tonight./
	Arial's thoughts constricted around his painfully for a moment, 
and then slowly loosened.
	/It's too late for that now.  If you wanted the privilege of 
erasing us, you shouldn't have given us a will to live.  I don't know 
what your wizardly code of ethics says about the subject, but now that 
you've given me and Mora our lives, we don't intend to let you take them 
back./
	The vixen went back to her work.  Grentvark only dared to 
interrupt her once more.  Arial was double- and triple-checking aspects 
of the spell she was constructing, when the wizard, without warning, 
spoke up.
	/It isn't fair, you know, to be so cold to me.  I made mistakes... 
I can only follow my instincts, too./
	/I suggest you take that up with/ your /creator.  Mnemora and I 
are cold to you because of how you've treated us, and honestly because 
we don't like you.  Our leaving was for your benefit also.  If you 
respected our intellect enough to exploit us as you did, you should have 
known we made the best decision./  Despite what she'd said earlier, a 
small flush of pity blossomed.  /Grentvark, how could you not know we'd 
take this course?  You designed us... you sad bastard./
	The wizard blindly grabbed for the opportunity.  /I thought you 
would grow to love me.../
	/Stop that.  My emotions are tangled enough without you trying to 
make me feel guilty.  We're going to finish this.  Shut up and tell me 
what I asked for.  Master./
	Less than a half hour later she was finished.  She constructed a 
spell which should have been able to interrupt the word of 
dissolution... she had no idea how much damage Mnemora had already 
suffered, however, or if the interrupt would allow her to recover from 
it.
	With an offhanded wave, the stack of documents was gone, 
transported to a secret place to be recovered later if all went as she 
hoped.  She turned up the corner of her mouth as the untidy piles of 
remaining papers sagged a little, the originals disintegrating under her 
gaze.  She felt like erasing Grentvark's entire magical library, but she 
couldn't afford the energy.
	Arial also had another spell she could use.  If she was very 
quick, she could draw Mnemora's lifeforce out of the dying body and 
place it in her own, alongside her.  They would be together, permanently 
joined, and it was a proven spell, not like the hasty concoction she'd 
spent the morning designing.  But her sister's beloved body, her touch, 
her scent, would be lost... and how would Mnemora cope without her own 
physical form?
	She would only have time to cast one or the other.
	She had a good two hours yet, before the decay of the time 
reversal spell ate through the stasis field and brought it all down, but 
Arial didn't mean to waste a minute.  She still had some things to say 
to the wizard, however, which deserved the time.
	Arial padded over to the restraining field, and looked up at the 
huge frame of the blonde wizard, her arms crossed.  She nudged Grentvark 
mentally to get his attention.
	The wizard's eyes snapped open.
	"You're still alive," said the vixen.
	Grentvark looked back at her, as if to let her know he felt this 
was a good thing, and would be happy to let it continue.
	The vixen studied him, trying to piece together some sort of 
coherency from her rage.  She finally drew a deep breath and let it go, 
and said evenly, "If you've killed my sister, my only function will be 
to make your existence one drawn-out, miserable hell.  You will live a 
long and full life.
	"I love my sister very much... if you try to harm us again, we 
will not let you live... or we'll be sure someone else will come for you 
in our place."  Grentvark shivered inwardly, as he got a sense, for the 
first time, that Mnemora and Arial were something completely other than 
what he'd intended.
	After a pause the vixen opened her mouth as if to say something 
further, but instead thrust her palm outward at the wizard.  The back of 
Grentvark's skull hit the wall behind him, and he was out like a light.

                                   * * *

	"Good Lord, the blood..."
	"I've been around to see Grentvark."  Arial grimaced and showed 
all her teeth, letting them assume the worst for a moment.
	"This is from his guards," she finally said.  "Gruntfuck is fine, 
though taking a little nap."
	Arial padded into the high-ceilinged central hall of Masters of 
Destiny.  She looked up at the implacable black stasis field, transposed 
to the club as requested.  "You haven't touched it...?"
	"It's been completely stable for most of the time we had it 
here..."  The vixen nodded, plodding among the furniture.  "We felt that 
you had your own intent."  She nodded again.  "You've tried to get an 
antidote out of him."  Arial nodded again, impatiently.
	"And did you?" said Colen, anxiously.
	"Sort of."  Arial paced around the wizard club, poking through the 
piles of arcane junk until she found a large enough piece of paper, and 
a pencil.  The vixen scribbled out a formula rapidly with assisted 
writing, rather than willing the text to appear on the paper.  It was 
less expensive to her system.
	Arial thrust the piece of paper in front of Colen when she was 
done.  "Can you cast this?"  The Premuntur studied the piece of paper 
for a good minute before he nodded.
	"Good.  After you've stored this spell up, you're going to cast a 
primer spell, and then you're going to say /this/ word at me."  She 
stabbed her finger weakly at a word down in the corner of the page, 
circled.
	"Is that...?"
	"That's my own word of dissolution."  Arial tugged gently on 
Colen's robe as the look of dismay crossed his face.  "Colen, if my 
spell doesn't work, I don't need to live."  She coughed.  "There isn't 
anyone else to test it on."
	The vixen looked so miserably fatalistic that Colen felt his chest 
tightening.
	"You believe now, don't you?" she said.  Colen nodded, blinking 
rapidly.  "Then after you've said the word, you cast the spell I've just 
handed you.  It's supposed to counteract the dissolution word."
	Arial walked to a clear part of the room, apparently prepared to 
start that very instant.  "You've got to let me get a few seconds into 
it before you counteract it.  I couldn't take Mnemora all the way back 
to the beginning."
	Colen chafed at the imprecision.  "How many is `a few'?"
	Arial tried to remember, tried to account for her own shock at the 
time.  "Five seconds."
	"Arial," said Colen, trying to slow her momentum.  "There has to 
be another way to do this.  Why can't we... why can't we close this time 
reversal and start a new one at an earlier point?  We could push her 
back to before she was struck.  You wouldn't have to do this."
	"No, I'm not taking a chance with her."
	"Arial, this will involve no risk... even if it should fail it may 
gain her several seconds."
	"I said no.  Hit me."
	"Arial, please!"  The vixen growled sharply and looked away.  
"Grossback has cast time fields before... we have half the membership 
here, to support the spell."  As Arial looked around, the membership 
looked generally displeased to be directed by a simulant, but they 
appeared compliant.
	"Has Grossback ever cast anything this large?  Have any of you?"  
She turned to the stasis field for a moment, holding her breath.  Her 
voice was hushed when she spoke again.  "The spell is misleading... it 
starts slowing down sooner than you expect it to.  What do you think I 
was trying to do when I cast it?"
	She sighed, and covered her eyes with her hand, her ears drooping 
a little.  What she didn't tell was that she couldn't bring herself to 
put Mnemora through her agony a second time... even if by the end, the 
event would have never happened for her sister.
	"Bauervagen will be backing him up."  The small wizard, at the 
mention of his name, tried to look bright and optimistic for the vixen's 
benefit, and seemed a little crestfallen when she didn't notice.
	Arial studied Grossback.  Looks could be deceiving, but Arial 
didn't think he'd be able to pull off a time reversal for very long.  
Even if he turned out to be pathetic at time spells, however, he'd at 
least be able to come even with her spell, surely, given how much time 
she lost while blacked out.
	/You're being selfish,/ she told herself.  /You want to do it all 
yourself, and you don't want to feel your sister die again.  You wish it 
had been you./
	"Are you willing to go into overload?"  she heard herself say 
quietly.
	"Accounting for the casting time, nobody should have to go into 
overload," said the wizard called Grossback.  /Thank you for that solid 
affirmation of bravado./  She reminded herself that any strategy which 
avoided risking Mnemora's life was worth trying.
	"That isn't answering my question."
	"If it comes to that I'll take up the casting," said the 
Premuntur.
	"No, I need you to be free to help me if his spell doesn't work."  
/And you and Bauervagen are the only ones I trust to help Mnemora if 
mine doesn't./
	Grossback frowned at her a little.  /And excuse me if I don't 
exactly trust sorcerers right now,/ she thought.
	Colen's hand was on her shoulder.  "Are you consenting?"
	Arial gave the slightest nod.  "I can't watch again," she 
whispered, head sinking.  "I'll be in there..."  She gestured towards 
the next room.  "...call me when Grossback's finished his spell."  The 
senior wizard nodded, and thoughtfully watched her leave.
	Arial stopped as she was almost through the doorway and said "I 
used a standard Minyxis envelope, Grossback.  It's the fastest to cast.  
Use that."  She didn't look back.
	Grossback appeared insulted that a familiar would give him casting 
suggestions, but the amount of blood on the familiar's shirt suggested 
to him that it would be unwise to debate with her.  He started moving 
through the spell's physical components, Bauervagen following his lead.
	Thankfully the room was dark as Arial curled herself around a 
chair and sat, squeezing it until it gave a protesting sort of creak.  
If she'd been well, it would have splintered easily.  /I hope I have 
something left to give you, Mora./  She rested her head on its back and 
waited for what she knew would shortly come.
	She tried to put it out of her mind by drilling herself on what 
she'd do after.
	If Grossback by some miracle was able to push Mnemora back to 
before the word took her, it would just be healing spells and a bit of 
explanation.  She already had a healing in reserve, even if she drained 
herself of everything else.
	In the more likely event that Grossback brought Mnemora back to 
more or less the same position in her own time, she'd get-- /make/ --the 
Premuntur use the dissolution word on herself and then negate it after 
five seconds.  All she had to do was live through that, and she could 
use the negation spell on her sister when the wizards closed the time 
reversal.
	If Grossback bombed out and couldn't sustain a time spell... she 
might be able to throw another stasis field up.  She could just barely 
manage one.  After that--
	Arial cried out in surprise as her mind was suddenly, intensely 
complete again.
	They'd taken down her fields.  She covered her mouth with her 
hands and tried not to picture what was happening behind her back.
	Mnemora's presence had returned to her mind, filling its 
accustomed position, completing her, if only temporarily.  Instinctively 
she reached out to touch her sister's mind, and found it filled with 
pain and confusion.
	/...Ari... it hurts.../
	Arial swallowed and moaned quietly in the dark room.  She tried to 
pull herself together and send loving, comforting feelings to her 
sister, if she could do nothing else.
	/...Ari... ohhh... where are you?/
	Arial squeezed her muzzle in both hands, unable to breathe.  What 
could she possibly say to her sister to explain, as she died a second 
time?
	/...where are you, my love? ...please speak to me... I'm scared./
	The vixen buried her face in her crossed arms, waiting for it to 
stop.
	/...where am I? ...are we in that awful wizard club?/  Arial 
raised her head again, her breaths gasping.  It dawned on Arial that her 
sister wasn't in the unthinkable pain she'd transmitted to Arial before, 
and that she was growing more coherent, not less.
	Full of growing, foolish hope she yelped and leapt to her feet, 
the chair cartwheeling to one side.
	/Ari, are you awake? I don't feel at all well.../
	Emerging from the dark room, Arial whined softly at what she saw, 
an explosion of several different emotions inundating her.  Surrounded 
by wizards, staring at her either out of amazement or scientific 
interest, was Mnemora, looking ill but quite intact, and very alive.  A 
large hemispherical hunk of marble had come along with her when the 
fields were moved, and it rocked with dull grinding sounds as the 
hermvixen tried to keep her equilibrium.
	The wizards were standing dumbly around the stone, watching as 
Mnemora went more and more off-balance trying to stand on the silly 
thing.  Arial darted through the ring of wizards, and slowed her 
sister's fall with her own body as Mnemora finally made her way off of 
the rock, and stumbled.
	"We /would/ have caught her," said someone.
	The moment Mnemora fell into her arms, Arial activated the healing 
spell that she'd kept in reserve.  Her essence began to flow into her 
weakened sister, but there was little remaining to give.  She closed her 
eyes as she held Mnemora.
	"Lover... don't leave again," she whispered, squeezing weakly.  
Mnemora expressed confusion.
	Suddenly Mnemora was lifted away from her embrace.  Arial's eyes 
shot open and she snarled.
	A hand settled firmly onto her shoulder.  "Let us," said a voice.  
"You can't give any more, not in 
your state."  She looked up to see Mnemora carried to a nearby couch, 
where one of the club's members prepared the components of a healing 
spell.  Arial sank to a seated position on the floor, relief showing its 
face in the back of her mind.
	Colen was looking very pleased with himself.  He mopped his brow 
with his hat, and then fanned himself with it.
	Arial looked at him, panting.  "You... couldn't have composed and 
cast the spell... in that time..."
	Colen nodded to her.  "Oh, yes.  I composed it as Grossback was 
composing his time reversal," he said simply.  "I reasoned that if your 
spell failed, Grossback could proceed with the time spell and you'd have 
time to revise yours."
	"He never even cast the time reversal...."  The side of Arial's 
muzzle turned up in a snarl as she rose unsteadily to her feet.   "You 
could have... killed her..." she gasped, her panting turning into 
hyperventilation.
	"You were being very stubborn, Arial.  If your spell was bad, as 
you believed it could be, then we might have sealed Mnemora in a stasis 
field and tried again later.  If you'd tested it on yourself and it 
/had/ been bad, we couldn't possibly have sustained the two of you."
	The vixen growled and tottered towards the Premuntur, but crumpled 
to her knees as she reached him, her short claws pricking and scraping 
for purchase on the velvet-clad expanse of his belly.  Instead of 
recoiling as someone sensible would have, Colen put his arms around her 
shoulders and tried to hold Arial up, but Arial's consciousness eluded 
her at last and she curled up at his ankles.

                                     * * *

	She woke to see an ornate green soapstone ceiling above her head, 
the edges of her vision cluttered by a profusion of airy white silken 
pillows, smelling a little strongly of vulpine musk.  It was home, and 
she was in bed.
	Arial tried to get up, but although it didn't hurt very much, her 
arms and legs were like slag as she tried to move them.  She was still 
weakened from the events of the previous day.  These events came back to 
her all at once, and with hope she looked around as much as she was 
able.
	"Ooh, she's up!" purred a soft foxish voice.
	Someone bounced on the bed next to Arial, and then her vision was 
filled by her sister Mnemora's beautiful face.  Before she could say 
anything, Mnemora covered her mouth with her own and pressed her gently 
back into the pillow with the force of her kiss.  Arial quickly 
succumbed and moaned quietly into Mnemora's mouth, trembling, grateful 
beyond words to touch her again.
	Words weren't necessary... their minds meshed through each other, 
and anything they might have needed to say was carried from one to the 
other.
	Mnemora made a similar sound, her tongue tasting her sister's lips 
before she murmured "And how is my evil genius sister doing?"  Her tail 
curled back and forth behind her, rustling over Arial's feet.
	"Mmmh, a little stiff."
	"My little sister broke her manna cherry and I wasn't there to 
see."  The term `little sister' was a joke between them, since of course 
they'd been animated simultaneously by their master.
	"Yes, such fun," Arial said, muffled, pressing her muzzle a bit 
into Mnemora's cleavage and taking comfort from its warmth.  Her sister 
obliged by cradling the back of her head; Arial shivered and exhaled a 
relieved-sounding sigh.
	"I was in such a state when I recovered and saw you... your sexy 
self all bruised and burned out from saving me.  I've been running low-
impact healing spells on you, because you needed your rest."  She ran 
her fingers softly along the purpled inside of Arial's arm, and Arial 
noted, as she watched, that the dark flowerings beneath her fur seemed 
to have faded a little.  She hadn't really been paying attention at the 
time she'd received them, though.
	"And all that blood.  I thought it was yours until I got a good 
smell of it."  Arial looked down at herself reflexively, but of course 
the blood-soaked blouse was gone.  She felt a pleasant flush of pride at 
the sight of her glorious vixenish bosom, the fur electric-white... 
Mnemora had used a cleansing spell on her fur, or--
	"I bathed you," Mnemora purred, her hand following the full curve 
of Arial's left breast.  "I had to do something to satisfy myself while 
you slept.  I'm incorrigible."  Arial licked her lips, the proximity of 
her sister's fingers encouraging her nipple to spring outward eagerly.
	"It was from Grentvark's guards.  Big dumb jarheads thinking 
they'd get cush jobs with a respected wizard."  Arial chuckled, then 
winced.
	Mnemora shushed her.  "No opportunity to take out Gruntfart 
himself?"
	"I didn't kill him.  No time.  Are we going to hurt him later?"
	"I hope so.  I was furious when I learned what happened.  
Unfortunately when I turned up at the castle, I found he'd embarked upon 
a long vacation.  And I was so looking forward to beating his head into 
sludge."
	"Aren't we all." Arial closed her eyes and relaxed into the 
stroking as much as was possible.
	"Yes.  Not everyone at his club believes we deserve equal status, 
but it's generally agreed that his handling of our `correction' was 
negligently cruel, as well as reckless.  However I'm sad to say that 
he's not their pariah yet.  Most of his pointy-hat pals think he just 
had a bad couple of months."
	Arial wrinkled her nose.  "What do you have to /say/ about the 
guy?"
	"I don't know.  I don't think there's anything left to say about 
him."  Mnemora leaned in over her sister, covering her a little with her 
body.  "I've memorized your spell... just in case he tries it again."
	"It works, then."
	"Evidently."  They smiled.  Arial stiffened a little as she 
remembered something.
	"Colen used it on you before I had a chance to test it on myself.  
He tried to get me to not use it on myself, and then he went ahead and 
cast it on you when I was out of the room."  Her expression soured.
	Mnemora rubbed her a little behind one ear.  "I know, love.  He 
had to tell me /something/ while I was waiting for you to wake up."
	Arial growled.  "He could have killed you.  I'm going to go back 
there and give him a liposuctioning he won't soon forget."
	Mnemora giggled and pressed her muzzle alongside Arial's.  "Leave 
him, love.  He had the good sense to realize that any spell you came up 
with was the best there was, and therefore there was nothing to lose."  
Arial pushed up against her sister's weight, but was still too weak to 
budge a determined hermvixen.  She grumped.
	"He wasn't there to make decisions, he was just supposed to 
/help./"
	"He helped, sweet-pet.  I'm here, aren't I?  You have to give him 
credit for wanting to preserve at least one of us... he realized what a 
grace we are upon creation."
	"But he ignored my instructions like I was just another 
automaton...."
	Mnemora shook her head.  "He explained it to me.  Sometimes you 
have to do what's best for a person, instead of what they want.  He 
sounded very sincere.  And not just because we're deadly, love."  Her 
fingers combed softly down the back of Arial's neck.
	Arial nodded, her look softening a little as she understood this 
was true.  She still was troubled.
	"It's not just that..."  Her sense of self-sacrifice had been 
thwarted, and it bothered her.  She started again to protest, but failed 
to see a good reason to.  It was her spell that had saved her sister, 
regardless of who had cast it, and having her sister back was more 
important than anything.  Mnemora kissed her on the nose.
	"Now we're going to get you all healthy and gorgeous again, and 
then I'll give /you/ a suctioning you won't soon forget."
	Arial grinned, raising her eyebrows a little.  "Mmmm... I don't 
feel all that unwell as it is."
	Mnemora straddled her sister on her hands and knees, and slowly 
undulated down along her body.  "Then by the time I'm done with your 
treatment you're going to feel positively wonderful."


                                    END