Tara spoke. "We are all here now, and we will all be needed. This is something that has never happened before. Quite possibly the worst thing that has ever happened to this world. You all, no doubt, remember hearing or feeling a ringing sound a week or so past. It was heard everywhere on this planet, because the planet itself was ringing. Jordanis can explain it better than I can, I think." She turned to the robed mage standing next to her chair, and he nodded, his canine face sober. He was a were-jackal, but unlike most of the were-folk he chose to keep in his change form rather than stay human.

"I'll leave the technical details of what we think happened out," he said, "And just say that the ringing was only a side-effect of the spell that caused it. Ordinarily non-mages can't hear the sound of magic, but this was so powerful, so loud, that everyone and everything heard it. But as I said, that was not the true purpose of the spell. Its true purpose was to crack the world sphere."

There was a gasp from several people at that. Aidan and Flame exchanged glances, neither of them quite knowing what Jordanis meant.

"I'll explain. Or rather, I'll show you what I mean." He raised one blunt-clawed hand, and a swirling mist formed in the air next to him. The center of the mist cleared, and it showed a map, familiar to all those watching. It was a map of the Kingdom of Tara. Then the view drew back, and the elven kingdoms to the east, the northern continent, and the southern plains all gradually appeared. The view continued to pull back until a globe hung there, black space behind it. Tara was tiny on the vast expanse. "Some people think that Aretha is flat, and that the sky is a dome that arches over it, with sun, moon, and stars moving along it. This is not true. Aretha is a sphere, and it spins in space." The view pulled back still more, and the moon came into view, circling the larger world. "The moon circles Aretha, and Aretha in turn circles the sun." The view moved back further. A thin white line drew out behind the planet, and as the view pulled back more and more the line became visibly curved. When the world was nothing more than a tiny speck the sun came into view, a ball of glowing fire, and the line of the world's track was revealed as a slightly elliptical circle. Two more circles appeared inside it, and Jordanis said, "There are two other worlds closer to the sun. There are also three more further out." The view drew back still more. Aretha was completely invisible now, only the thin line of its orbit showed, and three more circles appeared around the sun, which was now itself only a tiny ball in the center of the view. Flame was wide-eyed at the scale of it. She had never known the universe was so large! "Beyond those worlds there is a ring of smaller things. Asteroids and comets and things not quite large enough to be worlds." Still further back now, a hazy ring, like a cloud of dust, circled everything. "And beyond that, the world sphere, with the stars set in it." And suddenly the view rushed back, and passed through something like a wall, and the wall drew back and became a sphere of silvery-blue crystal.

"This is what has cracked. The hole is tiny on such a scale, no larger than the size of a man, but beyond the sphere there is nothing but primal chaos. The sphere resists chaos, but what lies within it cannot, and chaos is leaking in through the hole. For now the effects are tiny, unnoticeable. But chaos diffuses quickly, and the first touch of it is already here, if you know how to measure such things. Within a few weeks the effects will begin to show. In a few months chaos will be warping and distorting everything. In a few years this world will be completely uninhabitable, but there will be nothing we would recognize left to inhabit it anyhow. And eventually everything within the world sphere will have been dissolved into the primal chaos and there will be nothing at all left."

Faces all around the room looked grim. "You wouldn't have called us if there wasn't something we could do," said Brianna. She was the leader of the Queen's Own, a skilled warrior and a talented negotiator and strategist.

Tara nodded. "There is something. Several somethings. This calamity was caused by a vampiric human named Radu. We know almost nothing about him, though we are fairly certain he is an outworlder. We hope to be able to find him, capture him, find the nature of the spell he did this with and perhaps reverse it. Most of you will be staying here in the kingdom to help with that effort. But... we cannot count on finding him. We didn't know his name or race until recently, but we have been hunting him for some years with no luck. So we must have a second plan as well."

Jordanis spoke again. "The second plan is to repair the leak. I have certain gifts that make this possible. Not easy, but possible. All of you who are spell-crafters will be staying here, with myself and with the other court mages, to build the spells that we'll need in the attempt. Just reaching the breach will be difficult, and fixing it... I cannot create the stuff the sphere is made from. I may be able to alter it slightly, and I hope to be able to mold it so that I can patch the hole. But the surest way to patch it is to find the pieces. I don't expect we can find all of them, some are very small, but there were two large chunks broken loose, and if I have those in my possession the repair will be, if not easy, at least within what I know I can accomplish. So some of you must go after the pieces."

"But the pieces have gone out into the primal chaos," said Lavasida quietly from his corner. "We can't venture there."

Jordanis shook his head. "No. Or rather yes, but that's not the full story. Chaos cannot dissolve or change the material of the sphere, but the effects of chaos may still work on it, and what chaos did to these pieces was to fling them elsewhere. They are on other worlds now. I can't track the smaller shards, but the large pieces carry enough of the sense of Aretha with them that I was able to locate them." He grinned, a brief flash of sharp teeth. "I have a natural talent, a gift, as it were, for portal magic. I can build portals to other worlds. I do it by instinct, by feel. I can feel the shards, the tiny bit of this reality, in those other worlds. I can send you there to bring them back. Other people of this world may be making their own efforts to fix this, but my gift is beyond rare. I doubt there is anyone else in the world who has it. So we must do this, nobody else can."

"So some of you will have to go across the worlds," said Tara, "And retrieve the shards. I want to send a selection of abilities. We don't know much about the places you'll be going. You may need to fight for them, you may need to bargain for them, or you may need to steal them." She flashed a smile at Aidan, and he smiled back. "Brianna, you should go, to bargain. And Lavasida also, for bargains of a different sort. Lon, of course," she smiled at Brianna's husband, a were-wolf and a healing cleric. "And Aidan, in case thievery will be needed. And Belak, you're probably our best fighter." The dwarf nodded. "And I suppose Flame Song will want to go along with Aidan." Flame smiled. "You'll make a second fighter, and Lavasida a third. And lastly... Seymore?" The little goblin perked up. "We don't know the races of the worlds where we'll send you, but Jordanis says these worlds are near ours, and that this means they're likely to be similar. So you go as well, in case the shards are in the hands of one of the uncivilized races."

She looked at them all. "Those of you who are helping Jordanis with his spell-crafting should go with him to begin. Those who will stay and hunt for Radu stay here, I have more to tell you. And those who will be going to the other worlds," she looked at Aidan and Flame, "You're yet tired, and I don't want to send you out exhausted. Go rest, sleep, and prepare. Jordanis will cast the portal spell to send you out first thing in the morning."