"Thanks for letting us know what you were doing," I sighed, keeping an eye out for suddenly appearing Wynns or other visitors.
    Nothing happened; she climbed back out of the amphitheatre with an expression of satisfaction.
    Conner found himself giving a longing look at the crown and managed to resist the urge to go look at it. That he would feel such a thing in such a place alarmed him enormously. "Gannon, grab my hand."
    The sun shone, the breeze drifted, little things that looked like chipmunks weren't scampered among the marble benches and waved to us cheerfully.
    "There's a crown down there," Conner observed casually.
    Llweder cast the spell called Faerie Ring and got an amazing response; the ring of toadstools surrounded the entire amphitheatre, and he had the impression that a nearby grove of trees was creeping closer.
    Having thus opened himself to the power of the Fae, Llweder was consumed with thoughts of that crown. It was such a lovely crown. It shouldn't be sitting there all alone like that, where anything at all could happen to it..... He started down the slope. Gannon was still holding onto Conner.
    "Llweder, what are you doing?" I asked.
    "Stop him!" the accountant cried.
    I tackled him.
    Conner ripped free of Gannon. "I just want to see how it feels!"
    "Shit," I muttered from on top of Llweder.
    "Princess, are these comfortable?" he called dreamily.
    "No, they're not," Meara said with great presence of mind. "They're horribly uncomfortable. You become a Rhys the minute you put it on. Perhaps you want to put it in—"
    "I already am a Rhys."
    "No, a king. You become a king the minute you put it on, you get stuck going into battle constantly."
    One of Gannon's multitude of knives whisked through the air, knocking the crown out of Conner's hands.
    Meara promptly cast a sleep spell on the besotted wizard and ran down to the bottom of the theatre again. "If you behave, we'll agree to take you with us," she told the crown. It sat there innocently.
    Conner sat down with a thump.
    Meara wrapped the crown in a piece of velvet and put it in her bag.
    "I'll hold onto it," he volunteered sleepily.
    "No. We'll have the Rhys hang onto it."
    "But it won't even fit her!"
    "That's the point."
    While they argued, I agreed to hold onto it, as I didn't feel the effects of whatever it was. Of course, that meant getting off Llweder, who did not seem as strongly affected. Probably because he's not Fae himself. Meara left half her bouquet on the throne and took the rest with her. As we returned to the door, the not-chipmunks appeared to be organizing a cleaning detail.
    "Shall we go muck with the sword?" the priestess suggested.
    "Oh, a sword? I carry a sword. What's through here?" Conner headed for the black marble door.
    "Who are you and what have you done with Conner?" I demanded.
    "I understand there's probably a sword in here—stop hitting me!" he snapped at Gannon.
    "How are you with hammers?" Meara asked.
    "Not very good."
    We went back through the maze rather than go through what Meara suspected was Wynn's place in the center. Conner stuck his head through the lintel; he was still invisible, after all.
    Yep: big black craggy stone tower.
    "You were right," he told Meara. "Let's go back around."
    "Do you think he'll be waiting for us?" she asked excitedly.
    "No, I think he would rather make an entrance," I judged. "Just guessing."
    "Do you think we'll have as many problems with the sword as we had with the crown?"
    "Probably more." I wasn't looking forward to going back there.
    "Now that we know what to expect down there, it can't hurt to put another faerie circle up to protect the area. We're closing off avenues of escape," Conner said in his professional voice.
    "Not a bad idea," Meara agreed.
    "And I'd like to take a look at it, now that we know it's there....."
    She handed each of us a twig of rowan and looked around for the wizard. "Where are you?"
    "I have some."
    "Well, wear it."
    Back out and in once again through impossible spirals, greeted once again by the baying of hounds. I hoped that we weren't going to get home and find out fifty years had gone by. Conner went down to make sure the sword was there.
    "Yeah, it's still here, you want to come down and take a look at it?" It looked as it had been forged from a piece of the night sky.
    Meara joined him at the bottom of the amphitheatre; I could hear them bickering as she struck the chains from the blade with a thunderous echo. Things began to move out from the undergrowth, invisible but from the corner of the eye. They didn't seem threatening, just.... there.
    "My lady, I don't suppose you have a velvet cloak you don't care about?" she called up.
    "Not with me."
    She wrapped it in her last scrap of velvet along with the remainder of the final bouquet. "Have to remember to raid Wynn's place."
    I could just imagine his expression.
    "I have most of your sweater," Conner offered.
    "That is probably one of the finest sweaters I've ever seen. It's not velvet, however. I think the sword would look rather silly in it. Shall we go visit His Nibs? Do you want to go up the front door, or through the side door?"
    I put the sword and so forth in my pack along with the crown. "Oh, the front door, by all means." No sense skulking about.
    "Did you cast your Faerie Circle here?" she asked Llweder.
    "I haven't. Do you think it's a good idea?"
    "It might actually keep Wynn out," she pointed out. "He did have a good point in that, it might be completely and totally ineffective to him, too....."
    "What could it hurt?" Gannon asked.
    "It could hurt quite a lot, actually," she admitted.
    Llweder performed the spell successfully; things slithered around the base of the toadstools.
    "Let's go, guys," Conner announced nervously. "Let's go through the front door like a respectable visitor, since it will take us longer to get there that way, and I appreciate this whole breathing in, breathing out."
    "Enjoy it while you can," I suggested.
    He sounded more like himself than he had since the crown got to him. That was probably because he was now thinking, That's a really nice sword. And it's just sitting there in her pack, abandoned and lonely.... bereft of companionship. Maybe I should hold onto it until whoever it's meant for comes along......
    We went back out through the maze and up the path of black roses; Meara collected botanicals as usual. Conner seemed to be walking awfully close behind me. I glared at him, but it didn't seem to have any effect.
         

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