Sarah stepped into the faery gate. A sense of nothingness washed over her and she lost sight of her friends. It set her off guard and sent caused her stomach to sink. A sense of fear gave way to a sense of awe.

The essence of the Gatekeeper was more beautiful, more frightening and exhilarating than anything she had ever seen before. As the depthless, sightless light of its eyes passed through her, she had a glimpse of what God might be. It was nothing within her preconceived definition's reach. It was all glory and magic, science and art, form and formless, individual and community combined into one. It looked down upon her with an all-seeing, sightless eye. It bestowed love upon her. It showed her the beauty of order. It also gave her a hint that, perhaps, there was even some beauty in chaos.

Then her feet touched ground and the nothingness resolved itself into the darkness and shadow of a place somewhere else. As her eyes tried to focus on this new place, she felt a sense of momentary understanding. While she did not know where her journey would take her or the ultimate reason for the journey, she felt her journey would succeed and that it would prove to be worthwhile.

As the smells reached her and the lines crispened, she began to sense that she was at the oasis at the center of a dry desert. Sand reached her nostrils amid this amazingly lush are as well as a view of her fellow travelers, who were as disoriented as she was. Her eyes moved to a slight rustle in the foliage, where she could discern painted faces peering at her from behind the thinly spread trees. The faces seemed to watch her with a hint of the same all-seeing depth of the Gatekeeper. It was with their mysterious help that she realized something had changed within her on her journey through the portal. Though her companions had simultaneously made the landing from the portal, it was only her upon which these curious faces peered.

She looked to the others in her group, and could not discern that they had experienced anything particularly extraordinary in the journey, other than physical disorientation caused by being snatched and replaced in a drastically different landscape. They all looked to each other with eyes that questioned the origins of these brown-skinned people that stared at Sarah so intently.

"Aborigines." She smiled at the thought. Such a fantastic people from her world, with a magic all their own. Had she been a bit wiser as a teenager, she might have found the desire to visit the fantastic creatures and people of her own world instead of seeing it necessary to escape in an alternate one. Not that she regretted all that had happened to her since the fateful day the Goblin King took her to the Underground. She just had begun to appreciate how marvelous Aboveground could be, as well.

One man turned to his companion. "Look'id this here 'merican woman, Wonggu. She got the dreamtime. She bring dese dream-dwellers to de dreamtime."

Wonggu responded by coming closer to examine Sage and Ludo more closely, giving the two a very circumspect, yet fascinated once-over. "Never seen dese type folk. Whad your name, Dreamwoman? Who dese you bring?"

Sarah was amazed at their ability to so readily except her and her friends. No astonishment? No fear? And they spoke of dreamtime, as if they were in it. In dreamtime? She had always assumed that dreamtime was just a place at the center of their mythology, not someplace real.

She wanted to speak, but she felt uncharacteristically shy all of a sudden. It took a moment before she could get the words out. "I'm Sarah, from the land Underground. I just came with my companions from the Mist of Dreams."

Sage looked up at her with a probing expression when she did not continue in her speech, then turned to ask what he was sure was on everyone's mind. "Is this another Mist? Dreamtime?"

"Do'know boud no mists. Dey be misty'a'times." Wonggu held his arm aloft in an encompassing sweep. "Dis da dreamtime. Where we sees the beginning a'all tings, where da river began. We visit, to let the river flow through our mind."

"Dis here be like no dream-dweller I ha'seen," Wonggu said, pointing to Sage. "I ha'seen the bug-women, but no stick-ears.You a man bug? No wings, but stick ears?"

"I'm an Elf," Sage offered with a smile. "It sounds as if you have seen what we call faery. They live on our world, too. Actually, they live on both our worlds, just don't show themselves as often to those Aboveground."

"Ah, yeah, he's a'right. Only in dreamtime, they come, these faery. Not in the Bush." Albert seemed most able to grasp the English language. His Australian accent came through. Sarah noticed that he wore a pair of Levi's.

"You look like de faery, but you got no wings," Albert said to Sarah. "You be de queen?"

Sarah chuckled warmly, a rosy glow spreading on her cheeks. "Well, you got the queen part right, anyhow."

"Strange things be happenin," Albert grumbled as he looked to his friend, Wonggu.

Wonggu looked at the group of Undergrounders quietly, taking in Albert's words as if chewing on gravel.

The silence was becoming awkward, so Sarah forced herself to stutter out some pertinent questions. "Is this… Australia?"

The aborigine men frowned. Albert shook his head as if exasperated. "Don' know where we be. This seem like da Bush, but don't see much green, even by th'water holes."

Wonggu offered an idea between grunts. "Maybe we come to white feller city. Always some green dere."

The two men were very still compared to the Undergrounders they spoke to. There was little in the way of shifting stances and nodding heads. Perplexed as they were, they took the current situation completely in stride.

Albert sniffed the air as if even it were completely new to him, then spoke up. "Not whitefeller country. Something bad gone wrong."

Sage and the others looked up at Sarah as if expecting answers. Granen scratched his bristly chin thoughtfully. "That's'n understatement, m'friends."

Sarah's head swum as she tried to get a grip on the situation. She looked at Sage with an intense gaze, hoping some kind of understanding would be revealed in his face. When he didn't offer any comfort, she asked him, "So what do we do?"

The elf man was completely silent, and turned to look at the two Aboriginal men circumspectly.

They seemed to know what he was thinking. "Follow us, underworlders," Wonggu said with a curt motion of his hand. "We find some land marks to lead us outta da Dreaming."

The group began to follow, one by one, a strange caravan of creatures in tow of the Aborigine men. Hoggle, the dwarf; Ludo, the beast; Vindar, son of Sage; Isabelle, former goblin girl; Eberon, King of Elves; Sage, Queen's friend and Elfin advisor; Eepwot, King of Fieries; Benedick, King of Felines; Mandelbrot, personal sorcerer to Eberon; Granen, undying friend to Jareth; and Sarah, Queen of the Underground.

Sarah looked behind her and a sudden sinking feeling took grip of her stomach. She forced it aside and looked ahead. Still, her thoughts got the better of her.

This is ridiculous.