For Pilyarquitect, who encourages me to keep going-and knows what's going on. This one's for you.

And thanks to Lonely Wolf and Filosofie for the heartfelt emotions. You touched my heart.

Latraviata closed her eyes, overcome with regret. She should have told Obelix straight out she had been sent by Caesar. She should have spoken to Asterix. Beyond her closed eyes, the litany of desperation and remorse continued. "I'll stay with you forever, I'll never let anyone keep me away from you again, please, Asterix, please, please, please…"

There were other sounds. The small dog whimpering. Asterix's raspy breathing. Obelix's stifled sobs—and then a thud and a whimper. Caesar's shaman had fallen to his knees.

Shaman.

Latraviata's eyes snapped open.

"O Druid," she said, urgently shaking Getafix's arm. "Is there nothing that can be done for Asterix?"

Getafix suddenly looked his true age—very old. "I had hoped the elixir—"

"No, listen. What if there were a shaman available?"

The druid's eyes widened. "In this forest?"

"Never mind logistics!" She turned to face him. "If there were?"

"Of course," the druid said slowly, "that would be different."

"Would you know how to guide a shaman?"

"My dear," Getafix said gently, "while actors are known to be second only to the oracles, I doubt that you could…"

"Not me!" She whirled, grabbing the little shaman's shoulders. "Him!"

Caius blinked. So did the druid. Obelix had raised his head and was staring at them, following the conversation with desperate hope.

Getafix nodded slowly, hope dawning in his eyes. "I had no idea you were trained as a shaman."

"I'm not!" Caius blurted desperately. "I don't even know what you're talking about!"

The druid blinked. "Then how do you expect to…?"

Latraviata, never a patient woman, shook the shaman by the shoulders. "You've kept saying "shown me, shown me," haven't you? Well, I'm showing you. Get into Asterix's mind and heal him."

"But how would I even start? I'm not a shaman."

"What's a shaman?" Obelix managed to choke out.

"A shaman, Obelix," the druid said, "is one who heals by entering another's mind, and taking their injuries into themselves, then dissipating… er… making them go away."

"You mean he can help Asterix?!" Obelix cried, as Caius yelled, "Taking on injuries? I've never done that!"

Leaving Getafix to explain it to Obelix, Latraviata turned to Caius. "You don't know it by that name, perhaps," she said. "But has no-one ever told you you could use your talent to heal?"

Caius actually staggered back. "I…" He looked up at her. "Yes. M—my mother told me. Long ago."

"Then do it!" snapped the actress.

"But I can't take on injuries! I don't have the faintest idea where to start!" Caius tapped his head. "Are you out of your mind?"

"This whole mess was because of your instructions!" Latraviata rounded on him. "And mine too! His blood is on both our hands. Do you want to help undo the damage?"

Caius stepped back. "I do… but…"

"Yes, shamans usually apprentice. But your dirty work for Caesar has trained you plenty. You want to undo the damage? Do it!"

The druid nodded. "I would say your experience with dream-whispering will help. And we have nothing to lose."

A wounded sound came from Obelix. Caius looked at the man he had been sent to destroy. Barely breathing, silent tears slipping down his cheeks, Obelix held his friend, and looked at Caius with nothing but supplication. "Please. Do something." He choked. "Help him."

Caius Insidius nodded. He straightened and closed his eyes. His eyelids clung to one another briefly. In that instant, he saw bright brown eyes, and the shadow of a smile.

He reached for Asterix's mind.

A blank wall blocked him. The spark of consciousness was too feeble, the life inside too frail to support an outsider. He recoiled. Opening his eyes, he saw the druid, Obelix and the actress all staring at him in desperate hope.

"There's too much damage," he gasped. "I can't gain entry."

They looked at each other for a moment. "Obelix, then!" the druid burst out. "Use him as a conduit."

"What?" Obelix and Caius said in unison.

This time it was the actress who spoke. "The way you've been parading in and out of his dreams for nights on end, it should be a doddle to get into his mind! And from there, get into Asterix's. I'm sure they'll be linked. You have seen it, haven't you?"

Caius nodded. He had.

"Then do it."

Getafix narrowed his eyes at Latraviata. "You… could tell they were linked?"

"Oh, come on!" The actress waved an exasperated hand. "It's hardly a secret! All you have to do is look at them."

Obelix's eyes were wide. "You mean… there's a way from my mind into Asterix's?"

"Yes," said the druid.

Obelix looked at Caius again. "Please. Come in. What do I have to do? Just tell me what to do and I'll do it."

Caius looked up at both of them. Then he screwed up his courage. "Close your eyes," he said. It was the first time he'd spoken directly to the man whose dreams he'd invaded.

"Yes, all right, I will. Just help him."

"Wait!" snapped the druid. "Lie down." As they all stared at him, he continued, "Most shamanic healing entails sleep. Do you really want to fall on Asterix and crush him when you drop?"

Obelix's eyes widened in horror. Casting about until he found a big oak, he went over and sat down in the grass with his back against the tree and Asterix resting on his big stomach, his arms loosely bracketing Asterix's unconscious form. Like a tiny shadow, his little dog trotted with him and curled up at his side. Acknowledging it as a good idea, Caius Insidius came with him, and sat by his side against the tree. "Now, close your eyes."

Obelix obeyed.

Caius shut his own eyes and breathed with him, readying himself for the gentle step over the threshold.

His innards swooped down to his toes as he was dragged in by a savage undertow. "By J—"

The words were choked off in a shattered world of broken shapes and harsh colors. Nothing was real; there was no analogy to anything he'd seen in life. Screaming yellow, red, green; sounds were colors and touch was sight—and pain, everything hurt. He was on a bed of nails.

Breathe, my Caius.

He breathed.

Grief, fear, grief, fear, grief—He breathed again. Black, misery, weight, stone, despair.

The combination of Asterix's pain and Obelix's grief was quicksand, pulling Caius down, disorienting. There was no 'up' or 'down' or any analogue of the outside world anymore, only profound misery and terror. He breathed, struck out. Thinking of it as swimming helped. He needed to find something to hold onto.

Blindly, he reached out, not knowing what for, only trying to understand. He couldn't see in this mix of insane colors and blanketing darkness, but there was something there, felt/seen in this strange mixture of senses: a delicate, shining thread. Without knowing how, he knew that this was Asterix.

He should have thought before reaching out to touch a dying man's consciousness.

It almost finished Caius then and there. Asterix's hurts, physical and emotional, were so terrible that they screeched through Caius' nerves like a lightning-strike, shredding them and filling him with only one no no no no no no no.

He recoiled.

Much later, apprenticed to a real shaman, Caius learned that the intensity of his recoil was probably the only thing that had prevented him being sucked into Asterix's injuries and killed outright. But then, all he did was curse and yell as he was flung backwards as though he had been struck by lightning.

His head bounced off the tree. Falling sideways, Caius landed on the grass, night around him.

In the distance were the sounds of a battle. Getafix's and the actress' worried eyes were on him. Obelix blinked and shuddered, as though waking from a nightmare. "Asterix!" cried Obelix, looking eagerly down at his friend. His face fell. "It didn't work," he said miserably. "What went wrong? Can we try again?"

"What happened?" the druid urged. "Tell me in detail."

Caius looked up at Asterix, who appeared unchanged. "It was… I…" He never recalled what halting words he used to describe his experience; he might have let himself lose conscious thought for a moment as he spoke.

"…and then I was thrown out." When he ran out of words, he found his eyes were closed. He opened them, staring at the druid.

The druid was grimacing, as if in pain. "What you describe sounds like something I've heard of. When… when the subject's malady is too grave to be healed."

"No," Obelix moaned.

Caius listened intently to the druid. "It can have this effect, make a shaman lose focus. It can prevent the shaman from finding the injury if a disease has spread too far…" Getafix swallowed, "or if the wounds are too great. If the patient is too far gone."

"No. No, don't say that," pleaded Obelix. "Don't say that." Caius had never seen such terror in a human being as he saw now, in his one-time victim's eyes.

"Obelix," said Getafix gently, "if he went in now, he would not only be unable to save Asterix… he would die. A shaman works by taking the patient's injuries onto himself. These are just… too much. They would kill our Roman friend."

For a moment, Caius was overwhelmed by those words. Our Roman friend. Clearly, the druid had forgiven him once he had proved he was on their side. But there was no time for introspection. Obelix, having been thinking as hard as he possibly could, asked the druid, "So he'd help Asterix by taking his… his um bruises and such by – by – by moving them to himself?"

"Yes. But—"

"So instead of Asterix having a broken leg, he," Obelix stumbled, unable to speak the Roman's name, "he'd have it instead?"

"Yes, but—"

"What about me?"

Getafix stared uncomprehendingly. "Come again?"

"You said Asterix was hurt," Obelix gulped, "too… too badly for him," he nodded at the Roman, "to help, but what about me? If I was – You said he was going in through my mind, right? So why can't I take some of it for Asterix, instead of him?"

Quietly, Latraviata's mouth fell open.

"That's not how it works, Obe—" the druid began. But he was interrupted by Caius Insidius.

"Maybe it's not how it works, but all this is my fault! I'm not a real shaman anyway, am I? What have we got to lose?"

The actress nodded. "I have to agree."

The druid looked hard at Obelix. "I don't know anything about this. It's never been tried. If you take Asterix's injuries onto yourself, you might not save him—you might die with him."

Obelix pressed his cheek to the crown of Asterix's head. "All right."

"Or you might die from his injuries."

Still with his face buried in Asterix's hair, Obelix raised his eyes. "But he'd live?"

"Possibly. But you'd be dead!"

Obelix shrugged, unmoved. "That's all right then, if he'd be all right."

The druid took a deep breath. "On the other hand, the potion might protect you." He looked at both soberly. "Good luck."

Caius breathed in. Time to act as if he knew what he was doing, or at least make less of an imperial mess of this than he had before. "Right. Keep your eyes open for now." Careful not to close his own, Caius laid a hand on Obelix's arm.

Instantly, grief and pain poured through his body. This time, though, Caius stayed grounded in the real world. He looked at everything around him: the moonlight, the treetops, the Gauls. It helped him resist the pull. He breathed deeply. Mother, give me strength.

He looked up at Obelix. "Close your eyes," he said. "And…" He was making it up as he went along, but this seemed right. Perhaps his mother was guiding him. Or perhaps he was going to get all three of them killed. "Invite me into your mind. I think it'll work better."

Obelix inhaled deeply and looked down at his friend, as though drawing strength from him, before closing his eyes. "Please come into my head and help Asterix," he said simply.

Caius braced himself, and closed his eyes. For the first time, he stepped into Obelix's mind—invited.

Immediately, he felt a difference. There was no screaming confusion: instead, it was like stepping into a cave of velvet. All around him was soft darkness. The red haze of pain pressing down on him was manageable. Obelix was willingly helping him now, and the big Gaul's strength clearly extended to the mental world. There were still no images, nothing analogous to the forest he had just been in or even Obelix's garden of the past, but at least Caius knew which way was up.

He felt a presence at his side, and reached out. His arm gripped something soft and strong. He knew without being told that it was Obelix's big forearm. He looked, but there was no-one there. This was not the time to wonder if he was still holding Obelix's arm in the real world. No sight, then: only sensation, at least for now. The question thrummed through his mind: How do I do this? How do I do this?

Still gripping the strong anchor, he reached out, searching for the luminous thread he had found before. For a moment he felt nothing, and was overcome with the fear of being too late. Had Asterix been dead when they were talking, had he come in here too late?

But no! There it was, a tendril of light. Dim, tattered and riddled with holes, but still there.

Now, how do I do this? This time, he did not reach out to touch it himself. He tugged on Obelix's arm – or whatever represented his presence in this intangible world – and guided his presence to that of his friend. He felt a need to bind them together, to complete the link.

Now another problem presented itself – how to translate Obelix's touch-presence into something resembling Asterix's light-presence. How do I do this?

You don't know how, my son. But try, and it will come.

Yes, Mater. Caius' eyes filled with tears. tared at the place where he could feel the softness of the big man's innocent touch, trying to visualize it as light. Obligingly, it began to solidify. He nodded, trying to encourage its formation. "That's it…" he whispered, finding words in this space for the first time. "Come on now…"

Taking a deep breath, Caius stared at the place where he could feel the softness of the big man's innocent touch, trying to visualize it as light. Obligingly, it began to solidify. He nodded, trying to encourage its formation. "That's it…" he whispered, finding words in this space for the first time. "Come on now…" Slowly, the broad swathe of Obelix-essence took on power and light.

Caius stared in awe. While Asterix's light was the bright pale gold of dawn, Obelix's was the deep, warm amber of late afternoon, a ribbon far broader and mellower than Asterix's sharply focused comet-streak. It swirled and rippled sinuously in this mind-space with the lazy, undulating motion of a sea-snake underwater. Or, given how broad it was, like a long, long length from a bolt of golden fabric floating loose under the surface of the sea.

How do I... Experimentally, Caius moved his arm, trying to guide the light like a snake-charmer. Obelix's light moved obediently. So far, so good. He looked over at Asterix's light—and gasped.

The pale yellow was flickering, feebly guttering like a candle-flame. "Come," he coaxed the amber ribbon urgently. The ribbon hesitated, as if it didn't know how to move. "Come," Caius said again, and looked over at the golden thread that was Asterix.

It wasn't there.

In the few moments he'd turned to speak to Obelix, the light had guttered out entirely.