The thing on the other side of the membrane between two worlds tested it once again, and a moment later it burst through.  It was long, thick tentacle, necrotic grey and covered with suction cups.  It searched along the stone floor of the cell, tentatively at first.  Then it touched the sorceress sitting naked and chanting and suddenly it shook and thrashed throughout the chamber.

“No!” shouted Nils Chapman and he jumped in front of Zurfina.  The tentacle found him and wrapped around his waist.

“No!” he cried again, and then it yanked him so violently that the snapping of his neck was clearly audible, as it pulled him beyond the shimmering veil.

Suddenly the room was filled with a hundred tentacles, touching every inch of the cell, caressing the woman like a demonic lover.  She slowly rose to her feet, the tips of the alien appendages touching every inch of her skin.

“Uuathanum eetarri blechtore maiius uusteros vadia jonai corakathum nit.”

A black fog poured into the cell from all four walls.  It filled up the tiny chamber and sprayed through the openings in the door, creeping down the corridors of the prison and into every room and every cell, every nook and every alcove.

* * * * *

“How is it?”

“It was ace,” replied Saba.  “Now I just want the sun to come back.”

“Don’t be like that.”  Yuah stepped down the stairs from the back door and put an arm around the boy’s shoulders.  “Let me take a look.”

Saba held the square of magic glass up and Yuah pressed her eye to it, leaning back to find the sun.  “There.  The sun’s starting to move out from behind the moon.  In a few minutes everything will be just like it was before.”

“Good.”

“You shouldn’t let Miss D ruin your fun.  She’s a right bitch, you know.”

“No, she’s not.”

“She is.”

“Well, it’s not her fault.”

“What do you mean?” asked Yuah.

“Nothing.  Here.  Do you want this?”  Saba pushed the magic glass into her hands and started up the stairs into the house.

* * * * *

 Zurfina smiled as the dead grey tentacles caressed her.

“Now I will leave and now I will lay my vengeance on this stony prison and this little kingdom and this world.”  She raised her arms and began her final incantation.  “Uuthanum…”

At that moment a thin streak of light entered from the small window high up on the wall.  It was so tiny that it might have gone totally unnoticed, had it not stuck the first and largest of the grey arms moving around the cell.  But the tiny sliver of sunlight burned through the tentacle like a hot ember through a slice of bread.  The great tentacle jerked and thrashed about the room and the other appendages did too, one of them striking the woman and throwing her halfway across the floor.  More sunlight entered through the window and all of the unearthly, unholy members were yanked back through the portals that shimmered where the walls of the cell had once been.

“No!  No, I’m not finished!” screamed Zurfina.

* * * * *

Yuah stood in the courtyard, idly staring up at the eclipse, and totally unaware that she was being watched from a window on the third floor.  Terrence watched her, appraising her in a way that he didn’t bother appraising other women.  There was no doubt that she was beautiful.  She wore no makeup, had her hair pulled back into a bun wrapped by a maid’s cap, and she wore a simple servant’s dress with minimal bustle and almost no color.  And yet she was one of the most beautiful women that he had ever seen.  There was no doubt about that.  Iolanthe was thought to be a great beauty and with her flawless skin and those striking aquamarine eyes, she was something special.  Yuah’s chocolate brown eyes had a tenderness and an innocence in them though that one would never find in his sister’s, and Yuah’s features were perfect.  She could have been one of those women that the great sculptors of old used as a model.  She was just the right height and she was well-proportioned.  So what if she was a bit skinny.

Yuah was almost perfect.  But Terrence didn’t want an almost perfect woman.  He had thrown away any chance at a wife and a family and a home.  That was not going to be his future.  His future was far away, in another time and another place, on a great field of purple flowers with a woman who was frighteningly perfect.  He turned away from the window and climbed back into bed, pulling the box filled with small blue vials from beneath the pillow.