The Skein was silent as Gann stood in the centre of the stone chamber. Tarva, beside him, raised her eyes to his, a concerned query in their depths. He had no answer for her, and simply shrugged, releasing her hand. She didn't seem satisfied, but inclined her head and changed the subject. "We had best not linger here, I think." Her voice sounded very small, but it was enough to break the spell; Safiya and Okku, who'd tactfully kept clear while Gann confronted his mother, came up to them.

The Red Wizard took one look at Gann, and visibly changed what she'd about to say. "Well. I've read about possession before. I hadn't expected to be on the receiving end." She rubbed a hand over her bare scalp. "Velander's scroll compared it to being Dominated... but it's really quite unlike. I must write an account."

Trust Safiya to be more interested in the intellectual questions raised by being possessed by a mad hag than worried about the implications. Never mind apologising for fireballing him in the back – but then, that really hadn't been her, had it?

Okku, on the other hand... The bear god's expressions were not usually easy to read, but his current one was an exception. Gann found his voice – to his relief, it came out light and easy. "Old Father Bear, you are looking most inappropriately sheepish."

Okku growled. "I have never been more ashamed in my life. I, Okku, the son's son of Wotomo, who traces his direct descent from Ursuin himself, I cowered in a corner like a mewling cub. Afraid, by Lurue! Terrified of a skinny hag, whose neck I could have snapped as easily as a frozen twig!"

Tarva scratched at the back of the great beast's neck. "Peace, Okku. Nobody here is questioning your courage. That terror was magically imposed."

"But it did not touch you, little one, or Safiya, or Gann. I was the only one who succumbed!"

The weapon master cast a warning glance at the wizard and the shaman. "Those who use magic are often less susceptible to its effects. And of the two of us, Okku, who was a greater threat to the hag? I tell you, if I were her, I would be concentrating all my efforts on nullifying the god of bears." Gann smirked - and it felt good to be himself, even if it took effort – at Safiya as Okku subsided. A barefaced lie and a bit of flattery, and Old Father Bear calmed right down. "Come," Tarva said, approaching the door Gulk'aush had indicated. "We still have a Coven to question."

The steps that led upwards were slimy with mildew and in bad repair. Okku grumbled, and motioned the others on before him. Claws to grip with did not make mounting stairs too small for his massive paws much easier, apparently. Tarva led, Gann behind her, and Safiya behind him.

"Gann," Tarva said over her shoulder. "This stone... it should be yours."

"No," he said. He was still floundering, more than a little, at the discovery of his mother, of who and what she was, but of that much, at least, he was certain. "She gave it to you, and yours it will remain. It will do far more for you than it would in my hands."

He couldn't see her face as they climbed the long stairway, but her voice was thoughtful. "Do what for me, precisely?"

"A hag's eye is... a powerful focus. It aids the hag as she walks through others' dreams. If it has been used by a strong hag for long enough – as this one has been - it becomes imbued with some of her power."

"That's not an answer, Gann."

"Not really," he acknowledged. "Well, you are gifted with the Dreamer's Eye and the Dreamer's Voice –"

"Voice? You neglected to mention that before."

"None of us have been inclined to talk much during the last few days," Gann said – that was rather an understatement – "and you have only begun to display it recently. If you wish it, however, you may walk into dreams even as I do." She paused on the stair for a moment at that, then climbed onwards. "My mother's eye will grant you that ability."

He would have explained further, but finally they were up the stairs and in a small, featureless room. Gann rubbed at his aching calves – they'd been doing a lot of walking over the past few weeks, but that endless flight of stairs was another matter entirely. Tarva bent and stretched, the gestures looking somewhat strange in full plate armour, as though some insane wizard - Halaster, perhaps - had decided that cross-breeding a cat and an armadillo was a simply splendid idea.

"If I see another flight of stairs this month, I may well scream," Safiya announced as she rose into view. Kaji, fluttering behind her shoulder, volunteered a comment; Gann didn't hear it. There was a niggling sense at the back of his head, something he could only compare to the murmuring of many voices from a nearby room, but he was certain that he wasn't hearing it. He tilted his head to one side, then the other – probably looking quite mad – and concentrated.

"Thanks for the warning," Tarva said. "Gann, what's the matter?"

Okku lumbered up and onto solid ground, grumbling. "I would do many things for you, spirit-eater. Any creature that threatens you will face my teeth and my claws. But by all my ancestors, I will not face those steps again!"

"The chances you'll need to are, I hope, extremely low," Tarva said.

"Hmph. Little one, this room reeks of hags and hagspawn. It is even stronger..." Okku crossed the floor, nosed at the stone door. "Here. There are very many of them in the next room."

Ah. That would be it. "Yes," Gann said. Once Old Father Bear had explained it, it was trivially easy to identify the tendrils of dreaming that brushed against his senses. "We are very near the Slumbering Coven." The ones who had jailed his mother and murdered his father – if the words of the mad hag were to be believed. He... was inclined to trust that they were, remembering the love that had lit her face when she looked at him, but he was not entirely certain.

Encouraged by Safiya, Kaji was already prodding at the door that separated them. A slight, sardonic smile curved one corner of Tarva's mouth. "Well, if our previous encounters with hags count for anything, it's quite likely this will either begin or end in violence. Bearing that in mind – and, also, that it's probably not safe to rest here - how's everyone doing?"

"I could do with a rest," Safiya admitted. "That damned hag – sorry, Gann –" he shook his head slightly, taking no offence – "used a couple of my higher-level spells. I don't quite like the idea of going up against the most powerful circle of hags in Rashemen without them... but otherwise, I'm fine."

"I'm ready when you are, little one."

"Gann?"

He simply nodded. Tarva tilted her head and tossed him a healing potion. "I can see those char marks even if you've forgotten about them. Drink it." She downed one herself. "All right. Shall we do this?"

Okku pushed open the stone door; Tarva followed him, and Gann trailed at her heels.

The hag who'd sent them to the Skein, flanked by a couple of hagspawn guards. "What? Filthy half-breeds." She raised her arms, blue light beginning to glow about her fingers; in an instant, Tarva's scythe interrupted the spell.

"Not... going... back..." the half-elf's words were punctuated by strokes of her scythe, concentrated on the hag, but whirling to strike out at the hagspawn guards whenever she saw an opening. Beside her, Okku had risen to his hind legs, his massive paws raking out and rearranging the features of one of the hagspawns. It was almost an improvement.

Gann's arrows followed, but he barely had time to fire off more than a couple before there were no more targets for him, and they were left standing alone before the Slumbering Coven.

"Everyone still in one piece?" Tarva asked, panting, and looked at them. "Good to see. What have we got here, Gann?"

Nine hags, surrounded with violet light, the power of their dreaming rushing against his senses. He reached out and placed his palm flat against the spell; it was as unyielding to his touch as a blade. "We cannot simply slay them in their sleep; they are protected." Tarva joined him, and touched the barrier as it to see for herself.

"Hmmm." She reversed her grip on her scythe, and cracked the wooden butt of its handle against the spell, to no visible effect. "Safiya?"

A dispel shot over Gann's head and splashed against the glowing purple light. "Strongest I've got," the wizard said.

Tarva was pulling at her hair. Gann smirked. "It's very simple, really," and enjoyed the sensation of all eyes on him. Exactly as it should be. "Okku and Safiya will remain on guard, whilst Tarva and I invade their dream and destroy it from within."

A moment of silence.

"You can do that?" Safiya asked Tarva.

"If Gann says so, probably." She looked at him, one eyebrow slightly raised.

"Yes, with my mother's Eye, you can. Safiya, would you happen to have a Sleep spell – or two, preferably – prepared?" Looking a little troubled, the Red Wizard nodded her bald head. "Good." He surveyed the room, and chose a reasonably defensible corner to lay out a blanket. "Come," he beckoned Tarva, and sat down. A little slowly, a little reluctantly, she joined him; Okku and Safiya stood nearby. "I don't know how long this may take," he told them all. "As experienced a dreamwalker I am, I have never invaded the collective dream of the most powerful circle of hags in Rashemen."

"That doesn't sound very reassuring," Safiya noted. "Should we be worried?"

"Yes," Tarva said.

"Trust me," Gann told her. "This won't work any other way." She paused, and then nodded gravely.

Following his instructions, Tarva passed him the Eye, and lay back on the blanket. Her dark hair fanned out about her head as Gann leant over her, and resisted a flicker of temptation to simply bend his head and kiss her. Instead, he placed the Eye in the centre of her forehead, and watched her eyes widen.

"You hear it." Good. He had had a moment's doubt, and he could not have ventured into the Coven's dream alone. He laid himself down beside her. "Now, if you would kindly grace us with your spell, Safiya?" The Sleep spell wrapped around them, as Gann, his voice low, murmured to Tarva. "Listen. Be aware of the Eye, listen to the dreams of the hags, and to me. Let me guide you," and his words slipped into the nonsense syllables he used to focus even his eyelids grew heavy and closed...