Sahan had a bad feeling about what she was about to encounter, and as the doors of the access tube opened onto "Level Zero", her fears promptly became reality.

At the other end of the hall, flanking the solitary doorway to the maximum security containment area, stood two armoured figures - women, apparently, with the heads and long necks of great serpents, and tails of the same extending from the base of their spines, whilst instead of arms they had the leathery wings of dragons. These were Dracbrood - Darkhawk's most prized pets - and the technological armour, a mix of plating and force-fields, identified the creatures as members of the feared "Enhanced Squadron". At their slightest whim, their focussed fire-breath could melt the spell-caster to smoke and steam in a heart-beat...

Remembering what Delpas had told her, Sahan approached the Dracbrood with confidence that the Defender's name would be enough to secure her safe passage. As Delpas had warned, Sahan did not go unchallenged - as the spell-caster drew near, one of the dragon-women, from the toes of her long lacquered leather boots to the crest of her helmet twice and more the height of Sahan, lunged at the Oris woman, teeth bared, letting out an alarming, rasping hiss: "Kheee-aaah...!"

...do what they do, Delpas had told Sahan, and the spell-caster did just that, lunging forward, baring her teeth, eyes never blinking, doing her very best to imitate the snarl. For several seconds, they stood almost nose-to-nose, staring into each other's eyes, then the armoured Dracchild retreated, raising her head, a strange gurgling sound in her throat - it could have been laughter.

Sahan didn't know what to do next. Do I speak, or wait to be spoken to?, she wondered. Do I just try to walk in, or...?

The Dracchild that had challenged Sahan suddenly lowered its head to the Oris's eye-level, and there was a curious faint flicker of a glow to the fearsome creature's eyes. "Darkhawk says you may proceed", said the dragon-woman, in a voice that sounded a lot more woman than dragon. "Listen carefully, watch carefully - The Mother of Dominion will want to know everything"

The glow faded from the Dracchild's eyes towards the end, and as the mighty reptile-woman stepped back, Sahan couldn't help but feel that Darkhawk was already watching...

Sahan placed her hand on the access panel - Access Granted came up on the small screen above it - and the massive security door, previously a single seamless slab, split in two across the middle, one half sinking into the floor, the other slowly vanishing into the ceiling. They remained open long enough to allow Sahan inside, then they closed, almost silently, behind her, leaving her alone in the small antechamber to the security vault, one less imposing door between her and what lay within.

The spell-caster repeated the process, this time waiting several seconds for the security scan to not only verify her identity, but confirm she was carrying no weapons, or hazardous materials, before the inner doors opened to admit her to the containment area...

Given the level of security, the two armoured Dracbrood on guard outside, Sahan had been expecting the occupant of the vault to be something big, and dangerous - or at least something clearly powerful. At first, all the Oris spell-caster could make out was a raised circular platform surrounded by light, beyond which the walls and ceiling were quite lost in the darkness, but as she approached, Sahan could see a figure seated there, legs crossed as though she was meditating - a figure who was simultaneously unexceptional and entirely fascinating, in a manner the Oris woman struggled to define. It was almost as though the mystery woman wasn't always there.

As she came even closer, the spell-caster realised that the air itself was playing tricks on the eye. If one concentrated on the "guest", it could be seen - the air appeared to have facets, like a colourless gem-stone, slowly rotating with the seated figure at its centre. Each "facet" Sahan looked through gave a different view; sometimes, the air was like frosted glass, or glass coated with condensed steam; sometimes the seated woman looked like a crude approximation of a person, other times, she looked like Sahan Tasameed - sometimes, the strange female simply didn't... exist.

Most alarming, however, was one view that appeared more often than the rest: the woman on the pedestal could sometimes be seen with striking red hair, pale blue skin, a third eye at the centre of her forehead - a daunting figure Sahan recognised at once as one of The Mistresses of Dominion...

"Lady - Lady Frostfire...?"

The seated figure looked up, and the air abruptly lost its "faceted" quality. The woman herself took on a constant form, not that of the three-eyes demi-goddess, but that of a being much like the "baseline" Primus sub-species of Dominion's Hybrine population, albeit one with much of the colour "washed out" of her skin, hair and eyes. When she spoke, the woman even sounded "colourless", and Sahan started to wonder whether she was talking to a ghost...

"No - and yes", said the mysterious being. "For some time, I have assumed the appearance of Frostfire, but I am not in truth, she."

Does Darkhawk know?, Sahan wanted to ask...

"Yes, Sahan Tasameed, Darkhawk knows", continued the strange female. "It was she who advised me to come here, to avoid... complications with Dominion's command structure. I'm not sure whether she knew in advance about the magic-absorbing properties of this world, and if she did, what effect she expected it to have upon me..."

"You - you know who I am?", asked Sahan, the words following her name having washed over her without properly sinking in.

"I know everyone in this tiny realm - how could I not?", came the reply. "You, Defender Delpas - the Lady Ravani, even Shrae and D'shaka outside. All except one - she who is now outside the reach of my thoughts. The one who has lost her name, her self - yet I know her best of all. You must bring her to me, for only then can she be whole again, and I a little bit - a piece - closer to being complete once more."

"I don't understand", murmured Sahan.

"You don't need to", replied the pale woman. "Not yet, at least. Now, if you would be so kind, please contact Lady Ravani, and tell her that I request her presence and the presence of the other, whose past is lost. The healing must continue."

"Who... who shall I say calls for them?", asked Sahan. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."

The woman on the platform paused, tilted her head to one side, and looked puzzled. "I have never been asked that before", she murmured, "and I must admit that I do not have an answer for you. For most of my life, I have been Frostfire - the rest, I have been alone, my existence not even acknowledged. I - I have never needed a name..."

The revelation struck deep into Sahan's being - how can someone live without a name?, she wondered - and she resolved to put an end to such an unthinkable oversight.

"You may not have needed one before", she said to the strange woman, "but not any more. A name is part of who you are, not just something others call you."

The woman nodded, slowly, and a little uncertainly. "I understand that", she said, somewhat unconvincingly, "and that was something I had hoped to discuss with my mother, but she hasn't come to see me yet. I don't feel hurt by that, for she must be so busy right now - I wish I could help her..."

"Well, you could always choose a name yourself", suggested Sahan. "It's an opportunity few people get."

"I wouldn't know where to begin", said the strange female, disconsolately. "The only names I know are already taken. You must help me..."

She commanded the Dominion fleet in battle, now she needs my help in picking a name, thought Sahan. Strange times...

An idea suddenly came to the spell-caster. "I had an aunt - my mother's sister", she said. "She served on a ship that fought against The Gylar Alliance - but she never came home. Her - her name was Jaceel. My family would, I'm sure, be honoured for her name to live on..."

"Jaceel...", murmured the mysterious "guest", uttering the name as though it was a fine wine to be savoured at length. "Jaceel... I like that. It would be my honour to bear the name, so that I may better aid those who have unknowingly given me shelter. That shelter now includes the trust you have placed in me, this day."

"Jaceel" seemed to draw renewed inner strength from this step towards defining an identity of her very own, and her voice sounded firmer, more confident when next she spoke. "Please contact Lady Ravani for me", she said to Sahan. "As I can no longer sense neither her nor the one who has forgotten herself, I am assuming they are in the same place, beyond my senses. Let Lady Ravani know that I wish to meet with her and the girl - and that neither of them need fear this place. I will ensure they suffer no ill effects - and if there are any doubts, there is something I know that no other does, something secret, something precious..."

Ravani dreaded setting foot on Zone Gamma again, but as the transit-tube carried her and Splinter into the deepest caverns of the planetoid, the Mystalornan found that the one who had hidden behind the guise of Frostfire was true to her word. The alien rock surrounding them had, for the moment, been rendered powerless, and as long as that remained the case, Ravani was content to proceed.

Splinter, however, was a rather different matter. She had admitted to only a lingering discomfort before, but now she was growing more and more agitated. "I feel it - that which calls to me sings - sings..."

Ravani watched the girl almost touching the shard of crystal once again, but this time, something new caught the sorceress's attention. The crystal "horn" was glowing - faintly, intermittently, but it was radiating light. Even now, she doesn't seem to notice, thought the Mystalornan. It's as though the shard is somehow outside of her perception. Sometimes, she almost registers its presence...

Ravani encountered an unexpected pleasure as the transit-tube doors opened, and she saw the two Dracbrood on guard. She had not been part of Darkhawk's organisation at the start, and so she had never encountered the Dracbrood as enemies, so they were wonderful and fascinating to her. She was quite prepared to answer the traditional challenge, but instead the armoured dragon-women welcomed her almost as one of their own, dressed as she was in her snakeskin boots and dragon-scale armoured dress. The creatures moved in close, sniffing at her with great interest, and not a hint of predatory aggression, but this display did very little to ease Splinter's mind.

"M-monsters", she whimpered, backing away, towards the now-sealed transit-tube doors. "Monsters!"

One of the reptilian guards made a sudden move forward, the lunge that led into the full territorial challenge, but the snarl and the bared teeth did not follow. At that very same moment, the main vault doors began to open, and the Dracchild fell unexpectedly quiet as Sahan appeared from within.

"Please, come on in", said the Oris spell-caster, the Dracbrood guards retreating quietly. "Jaceel is expecting you. Especially you - Irinati."

Splinter's eyes grew wide. She silently mouthed the word the Oris woman had uttered, then she ran inside, past Sahan, and into the presence of the woman the spell-caster had referred to as "Jaceel".

"How - how do you know?", the girl exclaimed, but any anxiety, all anger, left her as she gazed into the "crystallised air" around the occupant of the vault, and by the time Ravani had caught up with her, Splinter - Irinati - was smiling, her face brighter and more lively than ever before.

"Are you all right?", asked Ravani.

"Yes", murmured Irinati. "I - we've never been better..."

"My... friend understands, Ravani, Child of Mystalorn", said the woman on the pedestal. "I think we are ready to begin."

...to be continued...