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without losing their status and abilities, although we can repeat tales that are apocryphal or outright fiction as long as we present them that way, as stories."
    Achmed nodded. "So if you reject this story out of hand, why are you worried?"
    'Who said I was worried?"
    The Firbolg king grinned repulsively. "The fire," he said smugly, nodding at the hearth. Rhapsody turned toward the thin flames; they were lapping unsteadily around a heavy log which refused to ignite. She laughed in spite of herself.

    'All right, you caught me. And, by the way, I don't reject the story out of hand. I just said there are some parts that I think are exaggerated. Some of it may very well be right."
    'Such as?"
    Rhapsody put the manuscript back down on the table and folded her arms.
    "Well, despite the disparity in the reports of her actual size, I have no doubt that she was—is—immense." Achmed thought he detected a slight shudder run through her. "She may actually have the ability to assume those fire, wind, water, and earth forms; dragons are said to be tied to each of the five elements. And though she may, in fact, be evil and vicious, I don't believe the story about the devastation of the western continent."
    'Oh?"
    'Yes, the forests there are virgin in most of the parts we passed through, and the trees are the wrong kind to have sprung up after a fire."
    'I see. Well, I don't doubt your knowledge of forests, or virgins—after all, you've been one twice—
    'Shut up," Rhapsody said again. This time the fire reacted; the weak flames sprang to violent life, roaring angrily. She pushed her chair back, rose and walked purposely to the coat peg near the door. She snatched down her cape. "Get out of my room. I have to go meet Jo." With a savage shrug she donned the garment, then rerolled the scroll and slapped it into Achmed's hand.
    'Thanks for the bedtime reading," she said sarcastically, opening her door. "I assume I don't need to give you specific anatomical directions as to where you should store it." Achmed chuckled as the door slammed shut behind her.
    I
    was beginning to abate, or so it seemed. It had been hovering • i't't isively on the threshold of leaving for some time, reluctant to release its erip entirely while giving way grudgingly to a fairer wind and sky. The air f early spring was clear and cold, but held the scent of the earth again, a promise of warmth to come.
    Rhapsody climbed carefully up the rocky face of the crags that led to the heath at the top of the world, a wide, expansive meadow beyond the canyon that a long-dead river had carved many millennia before. The basket she was lugging had almost spilled twice by the time she reached the flat land; she was off-balance, weighed down by the additional burden of the gear for her impending journey.
    Waiting above in the dark meadow, Jo watched in amusement as the basket appeared at the crest of the heath, wobbled a moment, then righted itself. It slid forward a few inches as if under its own power, then finally a golden head surfaced, followed by intense green eyes. A second later Rhapsody's smile emerged over the edge; it was a smaller version of the sunrise that would come in an hour or so.

    'Good morning," she said. Only her head was visible.
    Jo rose and came to help her, laughing. "What's taking you so long? Usually you can make this climb in a dead run. You must be getting old." She offered her elder, smaller sister a hand and hauled her up over the edge.
    'Be nice, or you don't get any breakfast." Rhapsody smiled as she laid her pack on the ground. Jo had no idea how right she was. By her own calculations she was somewhere in the neighborhood of sixteen hundred twenty years old in actual time, though all but two decades of that had passed while she and the two Bolg were within the Earth, crawling along the Root.
    Jo grabbed the basket and unhooked the catch, then dumped its contents unceremoniously onto the frozen meadow grass, ignoring Rhapsody's dismayed