He hoped she was correct.

At the top of the hill he saw the dragon. It was a monstrous serpentine winged figure whose head was large enough to gulp down the body of a man.

"We must wait," Violet said. "You must meet the dragon alone." She shivered. "Now I am afraid!"

Van kissed her again. It was very sweet. Then he nerved himself and went forward to meet the dragon.

The huge head swung around to orient on him. "Be at ease, Van," the dragon said. "I am satisfied with you."

Just like that?

"Do not speak aloud of this," the Dragon said. "There is one other test for you, but it is not mine. It is that of those who sent you. I can not prevent this, for they are not of my domain.

But I will finish my business with you before they come."

Business? Van still hadn't adjusted to the notion of the dragon's instant acceptance. How could the dragon know his heart, without even looking?

The dragon smiled. "I knew it yesterday, Van. The dog is my creature. So is Nothing. If there was abuse in your heart, it could have shown then." He glanced past Van. "Nothing! Come to me."

The boy left Violet and walked forward.

"Now wait!" Van protested. "I adopted that boy."

"You don't want him," the dragon said. "He is an obnoxious pest. I will exchange him for a better child."

"You can't just switch our children!"

Smoke puffed from the hot nostrils. "I can."

Van drew his sword. "You can't!"

"Oh, I like you!" the dragon said. "You have the heart of a hero. But your way does not govern here."

Van stepped forward, lifting the sword. But the dragon exhaled flame. It surrounded Van, setting him afire without pain. He was unable to move. The creature's power was overwhelming.

Nothing came to stand before the dragon. The enormous eyes focused on the tiny boy.

Please! Van thought. It was the only way he could express himself now. I made a deal with the dog. I know the boy is obnoxious, but I can handle him. I don't want him to die by your agency any more than I did by the dog's agency. He deserves his life. You gave me my chance; give him his chance.

"The boy does not exist," the dragon said. "He was never more than a manifestation, there only to test for the ugliness of hearts. He can not remain with you."

But—

"But you may keep the child—in her true aspect," the dragon continued. He breathed on Nothing, and Nothing changed. Where he had stood was the most adorable little girl Van could imagine. Niceness emanated from her. "I give you Veeda. She will be the joy of your life, as she has been of mine. She is the best of all my children."

The little girl turned and smiled at Van. "I love you, Daddy," she said. "You stood up for me when I was mean."

The fire faded, and Van was free. He put away his sword and squatted to hug the darling creature. He remembered that Violet had wanted a girl, but had accepted the boy. Violet, too, had passed her test.

Van stood as Veeda went to embrace Violet. He addressed the dragon. "You know my heart," he agreed. "I never suspected."

"You should have," the dragon said. "How could an N child join a V hearth?"

Van clapped his palm to his head. Of course! V had accepted the child, and that was possible for only the right letter. Even Violet had not thought to rename Nothing.

"Now grasp this," the dragon said. "At dawn tomorrow the colony will rejoin its parent world. All of you will come here to me for the transfer. Do not be late, for once the portal closes you can not pass. The colony will become a settlement in our world, and will manifest the things of science as persuasive illusions, so that we of magic can better understand the creatures of science. In time perhaps our two cultures can adjust to each other. In time, perhaps, we can teach the ways of peace and the living world to the other.

With your help. This is why we extended our presence to the world of science, though here our power is slight, limited largely to illusion. In our own world it is the other way around, and we have difficulty even perceiving the manifestations of science. The concept of war remains opaque to us. I regret that we had so little time to let you adjust, Van, and I realize that this has been hard on you, but the science folk are preparing to move against us and we have little choice. We have to get out of their way."

Van knew that it was so. The two worlds differed not only in magic and science, but in fundamental philosophy. The science people had seen the magic world only as a place to be conquered and exploited. They had sent in things of science, whose effect there had been limited and diminishing, just as magic things were in the science world. So the invasion forces had been nullified. In future it might be possible to prevent the invasions from ever getting started. He would be glad to help with that effort.

"We hold the members of those invasion forces in benign captivity," the dragon said, following his thoughts. "We are providing women and employment for them, and gradually they are learning. The members of this colony are different; all of you loved magic at the outset, and were ready to fathom our way. But those others remain hostile. So we depend on you to be our liaison—"

Suddenly there came a noise from beyond the dragon. Violet screamed. Van looked up—

and there was a military helicopter bearing down on them. The science folk were attacking!

Van drew his sword. "Get away from here, Violet!" he cried. "Take Veeda!" Then he moved to block the way, so that no one could pursue them down the path.

The machine landed and helmeted warriors debouched. They charged Van—and suddenly all he held was a stick, while they had guns. So much for heroics. In a moment they had him; he was the one they wanted.

"I don't understand," the Colonel said. "You are in that village barely two days, and suddenly your mind is all cluttered with junk about the supernatural. They feed you hallucinogens?"

Van shrugged in the fatigues they had put him in. He hated this foreign clothing. It chafed both his body and his soul. "No. They showed me the truth."

"That they do things by magic? Come off it, Sergeant!"

"Your devices can't pick up on it, because science doesn't fathom magic, any more than magic fathoms science. It's an enchanted world over there, sir. You'll never be able to exploit it, because you can't send in military equipment. The farther a tank gets from the aperture, the less valid will be the principles on which it operates, mechanical and philosophical, until it grinds to a halt. That's what happened to your invasion forces. You'd be better off trying to understand—"

"I understand that you had repeated sex with that fat pig just as if you liked it, and then you went and felt up a damned ten-year-old girl! Then you went out with the girl and messed with a mongrel cur. Then you came back for more disgusting sex. Where the hell was your mission, Sergeant?"

Van looked at the red-faced man with new appraisal. What filthy attitudes the oafs of this world had! Unable to see beauty, they saw obscenity. Yet his duty required that he try.

"Sir—"

"Enough of this nonsense!" the Colonel snapped. "We're going to deprogram you, Sergeant. We'll cure you of your delusions. Then maybe we'll get at the truth."

"Lotsa luck, sir."

Then the orderlies took him away. They left him in a padded cell.

Van didn't care what the Colonel believed. He had to get out of here! The colony was going home at dawn, and it was dusk now. But how could he escape a padded cell? Nothing he said would impress the orderlies, who thought him crazy. And he might as well be, because there was no magic here.

Or was there? He knew how science faded the farther into the magic world a person went, and magic faded similarly here. But this complex was not far from the village. Could there be a little magic here?

It was mostly illusion, anyway. Illusion wouldn't help; he needed the reality of a key to his cell. He didn't even know how to craft an illusion.

But he did know how to make a fire, maybe.

He inspected the walls and floor of his cell. It was as he had thought: This was not a professional job, but an amateur one. This was a military base, not a prison or mental hospital. They had had to make do. They had tied mattresses in place, and the mattresses were stuffed with material which was surely flammable, because these were old "surplus"

mattresses, the sort that no longer passed flammability standards. The military never threw away anything; it stored it for eventual use, no matter what it was.

He worked at a seam until he was able to pull out some threads and open it. The job was tedious and time-consuming, because the mattress was tough and his fingernails were short. Eventually he got the stuffing, and made a little pile of it. Then he sat between his pile and the front bars, concealing it, and concentrated.

Fire, fire, light my hearth.

Nothing happened. Well, he hadn't expected it to. But he had just begun. He needed to focus his hope and belief.

Hours later, without success, he began to get depressed. If he didn't get to the dragon by dawn, he would be stuck in this dreary world for the rest of his life!

Oh spirit of my hearth, he prayed. Oh V, I beg you, give me strength for this magic!

Then he tried again. This time a tiny curl of smoke rose from the stuffing. He was doing it!

Buoyed by that, he intensified his concentration. The smoke thickened, then billowed, and then a tongue of flame showed. Victory!

Thank you, V! he thought. You are truly watching out for me.

He fed the flame with more stuffing, and then with the corner of a mattress itself. The stuff did not burn readily, but it smoldered well. The thick smoke was spreading out into the building. The fire was established; it no longer depended on magic. It would interfere with the science world just fine.

In due course an alarm sounded. The soldier in charge of the wing dashed in. "Get a damn extinguisher, you idiot!" Van shouted. "Want me to burn to death?"

Rattled, the soldier dashed out, to return a moment later with a hand extinguisher. He started to spray through the bars, but couldn't get to the farther reaches of the cell. The smoke ballooned as the struck mattresses hissed.

The man came up to the bars and poked the nozzle through, trying to score more perfectly.

He was of course a fool, as Van had hoped. Van grabbed his arm and then his body, holding him through the bars. Sure enough, the cell key was on him. Van took it and let the man go.

The soldier opened his mouth to shout. Van tossed a smoldering divot of mattress at him.

While the man tried to get it off him, Van unlocked the gate and stepped out.

Just in time! Several other men were arriving at the scene. Van hunched low and caught the first in the chest with his shoulder. The man grunted and went down. This unit certainly wasn't combat-ready!

He charged through the building, pausing only to duck out of sight as the commotion of the fire brought more men. He made it to the Alien Plot door and rammed into it. But the thing was locked, and he didn't have the key for that. He couldn't get out!

Could he go out the front, circle the building, and climb the fence that enclosed the Plot?

No, that was barbed and electrified; he'd never make it. He could get out front and lose himself in the woods, but that would do him no good; it was the plot he had to get into.

Oh, V, what can I do? he thought.

Forget V; his fire is down, another thought came. It was the dragon! How do doors open in the science world?

They have keys to unlock them. But I don't have the key to this door.

Then get the key from the desk.

In the desk? Could it be?

He lunged to the desk across the room. Sure enough, the security-oblivious dopes had left it in the drawer! He grabbed it and ran back to the door. In a moment he had it open. Then, as an afterthought, he held the door open and bent the key sharply to the side until it broke off. He slammed the door shut. No one else would follow him for a while. Not with the broken key jammed in the lock.

He ran out from the wall toward the village. Not that way, the dragon thought. Come to me.

Van realized that much of the night had passed in his slow effort to build a fire. He had to get to the top of the hill before dawn.

Lights flashed in the sky. Oh, no—the helicopter was coming after him! He had blocked the door, but the troops weren't limited by that.

Van plunged into the dark forest. Branches tore at his clothing and flesh, but the concealment was good. The copter would not be able to find him here.

The copter did not try. It swung across toward the hill. Oh, no! It knew where he was headed, and would wait for him there. What was he to do now? He couldn't just hide and wait; dawn would finish him.

"Here."

Van knew that voice: It was the two-headed dog! "I'm not here to fight you!" he said, looking desperately for some weapon. The Project personnel had thrown away his stick, and if it had reverted to its sword form, it was still up on the hill.

"No fight," the dog said. "I'm going too. The dragon sent me. Follow me."

Of course! The dog would be better off in the magic world. But it wasn't enough. "That machine will stop me. It'll stop us all. We have to get it away from the hill."

"How can we do that?"

"Another fire!" Van exclaimed. "Can we light one here?"

"We can try," the dog said dubiously. "It's not my skill."

"I might do it, but it could take hours." Then he thought of another ploy. "The village—can you get a coal from a hearth?"

"In my mouth?"

Obviously not. "Then lead me there, quickly. I'll start a fire there."

"You may not have time to reach the dragon, if you do."

"But at least the others will escape!"

I'll do it, the dragon thought. I can pass people through only at the key site, but I can start afire anywhere. That village is no longer needed.

"But the hearths!" Van protested. "The magic letters! We can't burn them up!"

"The people took down the letters," the dog said. "They wouldn't go home without them.

The village is a husk."

"Then let's go!" Van cried, relieved. He ran after the voice of the dog.

Soon there was a light from the direction of the village. The dragon had started the fire. It expanded rapidly, illuminating the night sky.

Sure enough, the helicopter left its perch on the hill and moved to cover the fire. The diversion was succeeding.

Come to me, all of you! the dragon thought. We must complete this before the science thing returns.

This distance wasn't far, but it took Van another half hour, struggling cross-country in the dark. His body felt like a mass of welts. But he made it to the top of the hill, and saw the magnificent dragon standing there, glowing faintly.

"Come on, Daddy!" a sweet little voice cried. It was Veeda.

Van swept her up and stumbled on. He saw Violet waiting beside the dragon, lighted by the glow; she had not gone without him. No one else was there; it seemed they had already made it through.

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