Sweet Goddesses, the house is burning!

Sheik awoke to the smell of smoke, and sat up as quickly as his sickly frame could manage, glancing about wildly. Surprisingly enough, the house was not a raging inferno; the scent was coming from the black lumps smoking on the plate Link was holding out to him. Sheik looked from the lumps, to Link's sunny face, back to the lumps, and then back to Link again. His head tipped to one side, his half-asleep mind not quite absorbing all of this.

"Good afternoon, starshine!" Link beamed, and, if Sheik were alert and felt the inclination, he could have counted the hylian's teeth. "I made you breakfast...or maybe lunch. Well, anyway, I made food." Sheik looked at the lumps again. "All you have is eggs," Link continued, "and it's been a while since I cooked an egg... Are you feeling any better?"

Sheik slowly raised his eyes back up to Link's face. "I was, but now I'm not so sure." Thinking that statement through a little more, he added quickly, "Must have sat up too fast."

Link looked sympathetic. "Poor Sheik. Just drink the water then; you can eat later. You'll want to save some for the eggs, though. They...scrape a little on the way down." His grin took a slightly sheepish turn.

Sheik offered a brave, more-then-a-little-forced grin of his own. He waited until Link left the room to dispose of the...food. Except that Link didn't leave. Link, in fact, sat down on the other bed and watched Sheik with that 'Look, I'm so useful' expression on his face.

Sheik's bemused gaze returned to the eggs, which were only giving off a little acrid smoke by this point. Eggs should not be crunchy. Nor should they stink like that. And I'm not going to eat charcoal briquettes just because I'd feel guilty about hurting Link's feelings when he's just trying to be helpful, but he really can't cook at all... I mean, this is sub-Zelda level, here, and it probably won't sit well with me...and why in the thirty-nine hells am I trying to talk myself out of something I know I'll end up doing, anyway? Sighing, and fighting down a snarl, Sheik gingerly picked up one smoking egg of doom, popped it into his mouth, chewed it up as fast as he could while making a very interesting sort of squint, and choked it down with a little pained grunt as the egg did, as Link had warned, scrape all the way down. Our hero repeated this procedure with the other egg, and downed the water in an attempt to soothe his raw throat and get the foul taste out of his mouth.

"It's...not so bad, really," he rasped. "Once you get through the outer...crusty bit."

Link brightened. "Really? You really think so?" Sheik nodded. "Oh, good. I was afraid you wouldn't be able to get it down. Would you like some more?" Sheik shook his head.

"NO!" He coughed and tried again. "I mean, no thanks, Link. I don't want to put too much on my stomach just yet."

"Oh, right. Okay."

Link left to fetch more water. Sheik sighed, knowing he wouldn't get back to sleep again, and leaned back against the headboard. Wrapping the blanket around himself more snugly, he wondered how a person could feel hot and cold at the same time. Oh well. At least I'm not queasy anymore.

Someone knocked on the front door. Don't answer it... Footsteps, the creak of hinges, and Link's chirpy 'hello, can I help you?' confirmed once again that Sheik was not a telepath.

Meanwhile, at the front door, Link faced the captain of the guard, who, for his part, was feeling a good deal less intimidating and authoritative on seeing Link. The blond who greeted Dominic at the door was significantly greener, taller, and bulkier than he had anticipated. Through his trepidation the thought occurred to the captain that the man looked like a game warden.

"Can I help you?" Link repeated, almost as confused as Dominic.

Dominic stopped staring and tried to peer over Link's shoulder into the house. "Er...yes. Is the sheikah that lives here-"

"Oh, Sheik's still in bed." The captain blanched and took a small step back. Link went on. "If you're a friend of his, I'm sure you could come in and..." He noticed that Dominic was rather pale and clammy. "I could get you a cup of water, if you'd like."

"N-no," Dominic sputtered, "That's quite all right. I was simply passing by and remembered that we've gotten several reports that the...resident here has been breaking curfew rather regularly."

"It's just that you look kind of pale," Link answered. He was the type who would follow his train of thought all the way out to the end of the line. "Maybe if you had a drink and got out of your armor for a little while, you'd-"

"Great Farore!" Dominic interrupted desperately, "Is that where the sun is? I really must be going now; carry on, citizen!" It's difficult to scamper in armor, even the guards' summer armor, but that's exactly what Dominic did. Link looked on, puzzled, then shrugged and went back inside.

"What's a curfew?" Link asked as he handed Sheik a cupful of water and reclaimed his spot on the other bed.

Sheik had heard Dominic's voice. Oh, brother. "It means we can't go outside after dark." He sipped his water. "Why?"

"Oh," Link said. "I guess someone saw us come in late." He was quiet for a moment. "So, people here aren't allowed to leaves their houses at all after the sun goes down?"

Sheik nodded. "Dusk 'til dawn."

Link thought this over for a minute more. "That's kind of dumb."

"Indeed, it is. But people are harder to keep track of in the dark. Remember who's in charge now."

"Oh, yeah..." Changing the subject, Link said, "The gorons are repairing their city."

"Good," Sheik smiled, glad for a change in topic also. "I thought they'd be all right."

Link grimaced. "I wish they didn't like giving hugs so much, though. My back made a lot of weird clunky sounds..."

Sheik grimaced in sympathy. "I know what you mean. A pat on the back would suffice."

"I don't know. The last time I got a pat on the back from Darunia I ended up eating dirt."

"They don't know their own strength. That kid of his trounced me a few weeks ago."

Link brightened. "Oh, yeah? Link seemed a nice enough guy to me. ...After he ran me over..."

"I rest my case." Our hero noticed a draft coming through the open window. His body couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to shiver or sigh in relief.

Link followed his line of sight. "Oh. Sorry, Navi went to visit her aunt this morning, and I didn't want to trap her outside."

"No, that's all right," Sheik assured him, accepting the waft of cool breeze as a mixed blessing in the greatest sense of the phrase.

A short while later, after the boys' naptime, the blue pixie herself fluttered in through the window. "Well," she said, "that was nice. I got to see all my little cousins, even." She lighted on Link's open palm and ticked off names on her tiny fingers. "There was Jesse, and Natalie, and Caleb, and Susan, and Jing-mei, and Ethan, and Cletus, and Barb, and Little Anton, and..." She wrinkled her nose. "What's that smell? Is that YOU?"

Link blushed. "Oops."

Navi made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "Don't tell me you forgot to bathe this week! Am I going to have to start leaving notes for you again? Do you have any idea how long it takes me to write big enough for you to see?"

Link shook his head.

"It takes..." Navi began, trailing off as she considered the actual duration of her backbreaking labors. "It takes several minutes! Minutes sucked out of my life that I can never get back!"

After several such minutes of half-hearted argument, Link finally conceded that yes, perhaps he did need a wash-up, and yes, his clothing was getting the tiniest bit sour. Sheik kindly dragged his diseased carcass out of bed long enough to find a suitable change of clothes for Link from Impa's dresser, directed man and pixie to his usual bathing spot, and retreated back under the blankets.

"Honestly," Navi clucked as she shooed her bemused charge out the door, "I shudder to think of you living on your own."

With the two greatest sources of noise out of the house, Sheik swiftly stole away once again into slumber in serene solitude. The potion he'd downed the night previous had knocked him out cold. What medicine that was still in his system was at least partially responsible for some decidedly strange dreams.

In his dream, Sheik found himself industriously painting cheerful green polka dots on the exterior of his house. He wasn't quite certain why he was doing it, but it was definitely something he did often, as the ease with which he wielded his paintbrush averred.

A tap on his shoulder distracted his from his work, causing one of the dots to have a drunken, lopsided look about it. Turning around, he was surprised and slightly bewildered at facing Captain Dominic in a comically oversized feathered hat.

"You, there!" the captain barked, flicking a huge feather out of his eyes in irritation. "What's your favorite color?"

Sheik glared. He interrupted me and ruined my flow for that? "Purple," he snapped curtly. "I already told you."

"Oh?" Dominic said with malicious glee, "Then what's that?" he asked, pointing at the bucket of green paint Sheik held with one hand, while pulling a set of manacles from his pocket with the other.

Sheik showed him exactly what it was by splashing the paint into Dominic's face. While the officer was thus temporarily incapacitated, our fearless sheikan warrior beat a hasty retreat toward the entrance to the pass into Death Mountain. Alas, his way was blocked not only by the closed gate, but also by a sizable group of townspeople, who eyed him with what could only be termed as a predatory stare.

Skidding to a halt with a muttered invective, Sheik made a quick about-face and lit off in the other direction, weaving through alleys to avoid the fuming Dominic and the rest of his pursuers and tripping over every possible obstacle in his way. Eventually, all other escape routes exhausted, Sheik stumbled into the graveyard and scaled the largest of its many sickly trees.

No sooner had he installed himself in the highest branches and paused to catch his breath, than the impromptu mob arrived on the scene, headed by Dominic in his huge, feathered, and now very green hat. He spotted Sheik first, and, at his call, the townsfolk surrounded the base of the tree, staring up at Sheik like a pack of hounds with a raccoon at bay.

Sheik tightened his grip on the tree and pondered his options. Somehow, screaming at them to go away doesn't seem to promise results...

"Go away!" he screamed. It was worth a shot. For some reason, he couldn't come up with any other ideas, let alone any better ideas. I wish I had something to throw at them.

As if in answer to Sheik's thoughts, Victor plucked a stone from the ground and lobbed it at our stranded hero. Ducking to dodge the missile, Sheik nearly lost his balance and toppled to the ground. Windmilling his arms for a few tense seconds, he snatched at the branches and managed to pull himself back to safety.

"Hey!" he shouted indignantly, for lack of a wittier retort.

"Just climb down," drawled a sulky voice to his left. Sheik glanced up from the mob in surprise to see Grog the hybrid sitting nonchalantly on an adjacent branch.

"Are you insane?!" Sheik cried. "You want me to climb down into that?" He pointed down at the mob, swarming like angry ants around the tree. Some of the more impatient folks tried shaking the trunk to dislodge their quarry. Sheik simply gripped the branches tighter.

Grog didn't even twitch. "You know they're going to get you out of the tree somehow eventually. It would be easier to just climb down and have done with it."

Sheik had to admit that there was a cold, disconsolate logic to Grog's advice. A single hurled stone would soon become a hail of rocks, a few of the people carried torches and sooner or later they'd figure out how to use them, and in any case, at some point Sheik would just be too tired to hang on any longer.

"Oh, don't pay any attention to him," another voice beckoned from Sheik's right. A little annoyed at the continued interruptions to his thoughts, Sheik turned to see Sebastian sharing his branch. "We'll think of something." Bas beamed reassuringly, an expression that fit his face as well as a suit fit a cucco. Sheik wasn't feeling very reassured, but appreciated the moral support. At least someone was on his side.

Looking down again, the homogenous crowd began to resolve itself into individual people. There was Dominic, of course, his green face upturned patiently. There was Victor, who threw the rock. Goodwife Thatcher watched him, along with several of the other neighbors and their children. There were the twins, Marcus and Taran, smiling and waving. Ito, the loquacious zora, stood on the edge of the crowd, looking confused but interested in the proceedings. Also on the fringes lurked Edgar and a few of his pet poes, gazing silently up at the tree with his sad, permanent half-grin. Widow Spinkly, Zelda, and the Lakeside doctor gave silent encouragement, along with Link and Navi, the Great Fairies, and Kaepora... In fact, Sheik found that if he looked at any bland, generic form long enough, it would somehow change into someone he knew.

Sheik swept his gaze over his friends scattered throughout the predominantly bloodthirsty crowd and wondered idly why they couldn't figure out that he was in trouble.

"I would suggest that you make up your mind about what you're doing, before they do it for you," Grog sighed dispassionately.

"I know!" Bas exclaimed. "Why don't you just fly somewhere else?"

Raising one eyebrow in disbelief at the sheer idiocy of Bas' statement, Sheik peevishly replied, "Why do you think?"

Bas gave Sheik the look one reserves for slow but well-loved child. "Because you're a bird."

Just as Sheik opened his beak to argue, he noticed that he was, in fact, a bird. One of the graveyard's many crows, by the looks of things. Well, I'll be...

"But I can't fly," Sheik murmured nervously, gazing forlornly down at the crowd.

Gently, Bas lifted Sheik off the branch and climbed with him to an opening in the foliage. "Sure you can. Now, get ready..."

Without further ado, or tearful farewells, Bas threw a very startled Sheik into the air.

Flapping like mad, Sheik ended his fall just out of reach of the townsfolk and laboriously climbed above the treetops. Aiming himself in the general direction of the mountains to the north, he settled into a glide, relaxed a bit in his newfound safety, and enjoyed flying. One should never look a gift flying dream in the mouth, after all...

The sounds of the crowd followed him, but Sheik wasn't alarmed by this until he became aware that he was steadily losing altitude. Flapping, and beginning to feel the burn, he fought for more height, with limited success. Wouldn't you know it--I knew it was too good to last... His flight feathers were spilling air faster than a leaky balloon, and no matter how hard he struggled, his faulty wings wouldn't keep him airborne for much longer. Sinking fast, with his pursuers close behind, the situation was beginning to look rather dire.

With a desperate groan, Sheik spied his open bedroom window and managed to stay in the air just long enough to duck inside. Frantic, and somehow his usual, unfeathered self again, he searched for his chain whip, or even his harp, and was dismayed to find neither weapon. Wait a second; why didn't I just teleport in the first place? A loud slam accompanied by a crack of splintering wood announced that the mob had forced the door open. Sheik thought of a safe, quiet spot and was understandably upset when nothing happened.

By this time, the townsfolk had searched downstairs and were headed toward Sheik's loft. Bracing himself, our hero fixed his eyes on the top of the stairs.

Predictably enough, Dominic led the procession. Sheik had meant to go down fighting, but got to sending dagger looks to those of his so-called friends who crowded into his room along with his so-called enemies. In some physics-bending way, the entire town population and then some were inside with room to spare in an empty perimeter around Sheik, and he was so busy trying to reason this out that he forgot his peril until Dominic placed him under official arrest and the crowd went wild in the most literal and least pleasant sense of the term.

Snatching at him and pulling him in about three and a half different directions (whoever had caught him around the waist didn't seem to have quite the same muscularity of the other three factions), friend and foe alike seemed to have lost all sense of teamwork and were playing tug-of-war with their unwilling sheikan rope.

Shaking them off, Sheik turned in a worried circle as he tried to stay in the middle of his circle of empty floor, a circle that was growing ever smaller. If he jumped back to dodge one person's swipe, he'd blunder back into someone else and have to fight his way loose again. Seeing the crowd fighting almost as much with each other as they were against him, and hearing the insistent, angry chatter reminded our weary and worn-down hero of a flock of cuccos.

...And, with that quality dreams have of taking everything to heart, no sooner was the analogy made than the people turned into a chaotic melee of white barnyard fowl, and poor Sheik the flightless crow was suddenly the nucleus of an enraged bird atom. Mercilessly pecked, clawed, and buffeted by wings, Sheik was helpless to do anything but crouch down low to the ground and shield himself with his own useless wings as best he could.

Sheik had squeezed his eyes shut to save them from murderous beaks and claws, and launched the odd bite himself by feel. He may or may not have been yelling, but the raucous screeches of the cuccos drowned it out. Blindly skidding across the floor as he was smacked and kicked, he hugged his wings closer around himself and shivered in avian terror, a sad little ball of black feathers in what appeared to be a storm of homicidal pillows with beaks and legs. A cucco pecked his back and plucked out a beakful of feathers, adding insult to injury.

Bruised, scratched, bitten, and too tired to dodge the blows that rained down on him, Sheik accepted defeat and prepared for the worst, which came in the form of a nasty peck that he'd decided to face head-on.

When Link very lightly slapped Sheik on the cheek to wake him, the brave sheikah leapt awake with a panicked yelp and a spasmodic flailing of limbs, nearly socking Link a good one right in the nose.

"Um...hi," Link said softly, easing Sheik out of whatever fighting stance he'd tried to achieve while tangled in a blanket, disoriented, and off-balance.

"Aww," Navi cooed mockingly, "Did oo have a scawy dweam?"

Having gotten himself more or less under control, Sheik glared at her as he got shakily to his feet and hobbled out to the klivingchen. "No," he muttered sullenly. "He just surprised me, is all." He looked back over his shoulder at Link. "And you're lucky I caught myself; with my killer instincts, someone might have gotten hurt."

"Like you," Navi mumbled in Sheik's direction blithely.

Moving Link's drying clothes out of the way, Sheik set himself to fixing dinner, since it looked to be about that time of night. He managed to make sure everyone's eggs still looked, smelled, and tasted more or less like eggs, much to his and his guests' relief.

Two more days passed in similar manner, Sheik and Link sleeping most of the time, and chatting or sitting in amiable silence when they were awake. When the medicine wore off to the point where both could stay up all day without feeling too groggy, Link decided that he might as well be back on his way. Thanking his host, he and Navi excused themselves to the Water Temple, leaving our hero once again home alone.

He was filling a small bucket from the rain barrel out back, with the intent of washing the floors, when he heard a soft squeak. His curiosity piqued, Sheik stooped down to examine the weeds under the tree beside his window. Imagine with what mixed emotions he found that blasted robin, lying on the ground with blood oozing out of a bald spot on his back. He was probably attacked by a jay...

"Well, you should have known it would happen someday," Sheik scolded as the robin peeped again on seeing its savior. "You've gone and mouthed off to the wrong bird."

Peep.

"Now, don't give me that. You're not entirely blameless."

Peep.

"I know you're a family man, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. The chicks are fledged, and your mate's still young enough to find someone else. There's no really urgent reason for me to help you."

Peep.

Sheik had to admit that the bird was persuasive. Sighing at the world in general, he scooped up the injured robin and carried it inside. The robin made a soft chirrup in its throat and sat placidly in Sheik's cupped hand.

"I'll bet you're going to give me fleas, too..." Sheik grumbled without any genuine rancor.

Washing the floors was replaced with carefully cleaning the robin's injury. The scratches weren't as deep as they had first appeared, but they could still become infected. Sheik removed the last two eggs in the house from their basket for lunch. As they boiled, he found some ratty clothing in Zelda and Impa's room that he assumed they wouldn't miss, and made a nest of sorts in the empty egg basket.

The robin snuggled into its soft bed appreciatively and dozed on the table. Sheik watched the bird as he ate, wondering how and when he had become such a push-over. He was peeling the shell off the second egg when the chirping started up again. Sheik's eyes met the robin's across the table, and dropped back down to the egg he was holding. Sighing, he pulled the yolk out and crumbled it with his fingers within pecking distance of the bird.

"That's what you get, take it or leave it," Sheik said reproachfully, eating the remains of his lunch. "I'm not catching bugs for you. A guy's got to draw the line somewhere."

The bird took it, snarfing the yolk with alarming speed, and going back to sleep.

"You're welcome," our hero muttered curmudgeonly, taking care to keep his voice low.

Sheik was wandering from room to room listlessly, tidying things and generally at a loss for anything to do. An unexpected knock at the door shook him into wakefulness. He couldn't make out who it was through the windows, and felt some trepidation about opening a door that might reveal Dominic.

His visitor turned out to be Sebastian. If seeing the gravedigger during an overcast day was unusual, seeing him in full sunshine was downright eerie. Sheik invited him inside before the man turned to dust and blew away.

Bas explained that he'd fretted over his sick friend's health and had finally decided to check up on him. "By the time I remembered that I don't know where you live, I was kind of lost," he said. "And people didn't really like me staying in the shadows of their houses, either. I told them that it was only because I get sunburns so easily, but I got hollered at anyway." He sighed, absently stroking the top of the robin's head. He hadn't asked about the bird, and apparently didn't find it particularly odd that it was snoozing on the table.

"Well, one lady gave me directions, and it turns out you live right next door to her! I must have passed this place five times." He paused. "She gave me the meanest look when I mentioned your name, though..."

"Oh," Sheik said with a wave of his hand, "she's going through that time of life, I think."

"Ah."

An awkward pause ensued. Bas fidgeted self-consciously, obviously feeling out of place so far from the graveyard. "So," he began, trying to be casual, "you look like you're on the mend."

"Yep." Sheik found himself sharing in Bas' unease. Why was it so unnatural for him to be here in the house when they could yak for hours in the cemetery? It's just another one of those things I'll never know...

Struggling for something else to break the dead air, Sheik commented, "Your hair looks different, for some reason."

Bas colored. On such a pale face, even a slight blush was conspicuous. "Oh, that. Actually, that's my second reason for coming to see you. I thought that, perhaps, for a change of pace, I'd braid my hair." He grimaced. "Well, I don't have a mirror, and I haven't really braided much before...and I got it all tangled up. The ghosts are useless; they just laugh at me."

Sheik raised an eyebrow. He wondered if any of Link's beneficiaries were as odd as his own. "And you can't get the knots out yourself?"

Suddenly finding a fascinating spot on the table to look at, Bas nodded. "I can't see the snags back there. I brought my own comb," he added brightly. "...It's in there, somewhere."

Since he'd already taken in a robin that he loathed, Sheik didn't see anything wrong with aiding someone he actually did like. Going out behind the house where there was ample light and a cooling breeze, the pair settled into the shade of the tree.

Freeing the comb from tendrils of hair that had taken on a life of its own took the better part of ten minutes, and then the real fun began. Sheik stared in disbelief at the shoulder-blade length serpents' nest of snarls and knots that passed for a braid from a distance.

"Bas, even without a mirror, how in the thirty-nine hells did you mess up this badly?"

Bas shrugged apologetically and sighed. Thinking that the easiest way to start would be to undo the majority of the braid with his fingers, Sheik was irritated to find that almost anywhere he pulled two pieces apart, some part of the braid tightened even more.

"Sweet Nayru!" Sheik barked as Bas yelped from having his hair roughly pulled for the umpteenth time. Half an hour after he'd started, Sheik had managed to get the braid undone, but there were still dozens of smaller snags that refused to come out without just the right movements. "It would be a lot easier to just cut them out."

"If we were allowed to own knives, that's what I would have done," Bas murmured, trying to buttress Sheik's ebbing patience.

After a few more minutes during which Sheik's frustration mounted, he said, "Could you talk, or distract me in some way, so I don't tear these tangles out by the roots?" Unsurprisingly, Bas was all too happy to oblige in this request.

"I saw something weird on my way here."

"Oh?" Sheik murmured, finally persuading one particularly huge knot to come undone. His urge to horribly mangle something lessened somewhat.

Remembering not to nod, Bas went on. "Yeah; I was passing by the Well of Three Features and happened to notice that it's run dry."

Sheik paused, comb halfway through a tricky snag. "After that wet winter we had, and after it rained all spring, the well is dry? Either you're pulling my chain, or you saw it wrong. I was just there last week and the water was only ten feet from the surface."

Bas huffed. "I don't pull chains," he remarked, a bit offended. "And I saw the bedrock at the bottom, clear as crystal. It may have been full last week, but it's dry as a bone now. It was creepy."

"That well is always creepy," Sheik said off-handedly, "That's one of its features."

"It's not usually that bad," Bas insisted, "It gave me the heebie-jeebies today."

That was food for thought. It takes a lot to faze a guy who works alongside ghosts every day... Sheik was then reminded of something else.

"Say, speaking of heebie-jeebies, have the ghosts got back to their normal cheery selves yet?"

With a defeated sigh, the gravedigger said, "No, they're getting worse, no matter what I say to them. Restless spirits, I can deal with. That's normal. But everyone's downright antsy lately. It's irritating; it's even more irritating that they won't tell me what's wrong."

"Hmm." Another tangle disappeared as Sheik pondered that. "I've never heard of spirits acting that way before."

"Me neither; it's like they're waiting for a blow to-yowch!-- fall, or something."

"Sorry," Sheik muttered after accidentally plucking out a few hairs. "...There. I'd say that's as good as it's going to get."

Bas cautiously ran his fingers through his freed hair as they stood up. "Thanks."

They wended their way through Kakariko's alleyways, sticking to the shade out of consideration for Bas' complexion and keeping up a more or less steady stream of chatter. Sheik had been arguing vehemently about the well for upwards of five minutes when the pair found themselves, conveniently enough, at the very source of the disagreement.

"...and here it is." Sheik pointed out the Well of Three Features, which crouched menacingly on a small rise south of the windmill. "I'll show you. There's no way the well could have run dry that quickly."

Boldly leading his friend to the rim of the well, Sheik grinned smugly and made a sweeping gesture over the structure's mouth with his arm. "Observe." He picked a small pebble off the ground and showed it to Bas. Once again, it falls to the highly-evolved sheikah to elucidate the masses. "It's a trick of the light. I'll just toss this pebble in, and in a moment we shall hear it splash."

"But-"

Sheik held up a finger. "We shall hear it splash because it will have hit the water which is still in the well. Listen." With great ceremony, he released the pebble, and the two friends leaned out over the well mouth to catch the sound it made.

There was a small smack of stone hitting and bouncing along stone. Far, far below, Sheik thought he could make out crisscrossing lines of bedrock.

Bas nodded, satisfied. "Yep. You sure showed me."

"Well," Sheik muttered, still staring down the very empty, very dry well. "I'll be a scrub's uncle."

Man, what an unbalanced chapter. Calculus and Classical Mechanics at the same time will do that...