Sorry the update took so long, folks. I've been sick and after dealing with a room full of rowdy kids all day on top of a head cold, the only thing I've felt like doing is sleeping.

Read and enjoy!! And review, please!

With a look of dread on her face, Orianah gestured to Jeb. "The floor is yours, Commander."

With the precision of a military man, Jeb began. "About six months ago, a message was received by the Resistance Movement operating south of Central City. This message arrived by crow and how the author knew where to find us, we were never able to find out."

"What was in the message?" Ahamo asked

"A specific and detailed description of Fort Etain, a Long Coat outpost not far from where the Resistance was stationed. Included were enemy numbers and times for when the guard was changed."

"That was a valuable fort." Azkadellia spoke up. She was smiling grimly. "The Witch was none to happy when it was taken."

Jeb nodded. "With the details we were provided, we were able to take the fort without one casualty. The second message was even more interesting. It detailed a supply convoy heading out of Central City. Again, numbers of troops and a weapons inventory was included, along with a detailed itinerary of the convoy's movements."

"Did you attack?" Ahamo asked.

"We did, sir. Many of the Long Coats escaped, but we were able to seize the supplies."

"What were they?"

Jeb looked as though he were about to drop a bomb. "Moritanium."

The implications hit DG head on as Glitch burst out. "Moritanium out of Central City? And not to the tower?"

"No." Jeb answered. "When we attacked, we were well north of Central City."

"There's another machine, isn't there?" DG said quietly, staring straight ahead. "That woman is going to use my magic to power some terrible machine like a Sun Seater, isn't she?"

Glitch winced as she attacked the machine he invented, but at the moment, she was too caught up in her own emotion to be sensitive to his feelings. She felt her stomach drop as she thought about what atrocities her light could be used for. People could be hurt . . . the O.Z. destroyed.

DG turned her wide blue eyes to her sister. "Az? Do you remember anything?"

The brief look of shock passed and concentration etched Azkadellia's face as she wracked her brain, trying to search the voids of her patchwork memory for any piece of information, any clue as to what the Witch had planned to the north. All eyes were on her when she refocused and said helplessly, "She blocked it from me. I-I can't remember anything about a second machine."

Glitch was talking again. Fast. "It can't be another Sun Seater. The eclipse has passed . . . "

"Easy," Cain said. "Maybe it was just a back up. In case the Resistance was able to destroy the original."

"Do you have any idea how much that doesn't make sense? The man power needed, the materials, not to mention the challenges of a power source, and the fact that I had only one brain to attach to it. . ."

"Ambrose!" It was rare for Orianah to raise her voice. Her advisor snapped his mouth shut. "Commander, if you would continue."

DG felt numb as she turned back to Jeb. How much worse was this going to get?

The young man reached into the front of his dark blue tunic and pulled out a scroll. "This message arrived yesterday into my hands. It is by the same author."

Orianah reached out a hand for it and Jeb handed it over. "It's encoded, Majesty."

"Indeed." Orianah had unrolled the scroll and was looking at it. "Do you know what this language is?"

"Yes." Jeb seemed even more uncomfortable. "It's an obscure dialect of Viewer called Tridic, used mainly in tribes to the north and east. All of the messages were written in it."

As Glitch made some comment about the oddity of the language the author had chosen to use, DG noticed Cain despite herself. He was staring at Jeb as though he had just the rudest shock of his life. He noticed her watching him and forced his face into a neutral scowl.

"What does it say?" Raw had been quiet but now seemed intrigued at the language.

"'It is built. More taken. No time left.'" Jeb recited.

"Construction didn't end with the fall of the Witch." Orianah stated solemnly.

"No, Your Majesty." Jeb replied. "It is my feeling that the Witch began work on a second machine and it has been completed by those loyal to her."

It made sense to DG, too. "But you don't know anything else about it?"

"I'm afraid not, Your Highness, but that's only the first three lines."

"What about the rest of it?" Orianah had passed the message to Glitch.

"What do you mean 'the rest of it'?" DG asked.

To answer, Glitch handed her the scroll. At the bottom, there were beautiful, flowing characters, four lines of them.

Azkadellia had been looking over her shoulder. "It sort of looks like the language of the Ancients. But there's something not quite right about it."

"We had thought that as well." Jeb spoke up. "We found one or two scholars that are versed in the picture-language, but when they translated it, it never made any sense."

"Ambrose, I want you to have a look please." Orianah instructed, "The rest of that message is vital. It could be the location of whatever this machine maybe or a description of its capabilities."

"If you crack that, I want to know immediately." Cain ordered.

"I'm on it." Glitch retrieved the paper from DG and gave her a wink and a smile before leaving the room.

"Is there anything else that needs to be added?" Orianah asked. Quiet answered her. "Then we shall adjourn and see what Ambrose yields. If the message cannot be decoded, then we will explore other avenues. Mr. Cain."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"If this information is accurate, it means someone is moving against my family."

"Security will be air-tight. I promise."

"I thank you again." She turned to Jeb. "Commander."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"I want to make sure that we are prepared from a military standpoint to neutralize this threat. I will write a letter to General Ritnik outlining the situation and what needs to be done. I would ask that you hand deliver it to him when you return to Central City in the morning."

"The morning?" Jeb said, confused. "With all due respect, I was planning to return this evening."

"I understand your anxiousness," the Queen smiled, "but there are few others I would trust with this information. Besides, it is growing dark."

The smile had faded as she rose to look out the windows. "And the roads of my kingdom are not as safe as I would like them to be."

He was running, feeling every beat of his heart as it threatened to come through the wall of his chest. The stark white elm loomed in front of him. He ran past it and into the woods. Her name burned in his throat as he screamed it, beating back the underbrush.

He was so close.

The cabin was small and modest, lit by the faint gray light that filtered through the canopy. He called again, praying, pleading that this time. . .

The door opened and a slender form moved through it.

This was how it was supposed to be.

The wind blew her soft honey-colored hair as she looked with those incredibly blue eyes towards the source of the commotion. They widened in disbelief and he saw his name come to her lips as she jumped off of the porch and ran to meet him. He was so close now; he could see the tears in her eyes. He reached out, so close. . .

And she was gone, leaving him grabbing for fistfuls of air. He stood for a second in shock, not believing.

Then he heard it. The sound of a small fist beating on metal. He turned, feeling as though his body had slowed. It was behind him, the form that he would never forget, the metal suit in which he had been imprisoned for so long. The one that now held his wife.

He could see her beating the glass, calling his name, begging for him to let her out. He ran to her and quickly unlocked her prison. He was here this time. He could save her.

But as he wrenched the door open, he saw that she had disappeared again. He screamed in his frustration and fell to his knees. Why couldn't he stop this?

Laughter sounded behind him and he spun around. Zero was there in his Long Coat uniform, standing over freshly turned dirt. The simple wooden marker with "Adora Cain" scratched crudely into it stood at her head.

"Too late, Cain," Zero laughed, mockingly. "Too late to save her, again, Cain. Too late . . ."

"Cain!"

His eyes shot open and he realized he already had a handful of the intruder's shirt as he fumbled around on his nightstand for his gun. It wasn't there.

It was dangling from between Glitch's thumb and forefinger. The other man was smirking. "The mark of a truly brilliant man is that he learns from past experiences."

"Give me that before you shoot yourself." Cain snapped, grabbing the revolver and replacing it on the nightstand. Then, he pulled himself to a sitting position and rubbed his face. The effects of the nightmare were fading, but the vividness was still clinging. He could feel his nerves still tingling and the sweat drying on his chest.

In the moonlight, he could see Glitch studying him. "You were having a pretty bad dream."

"Yeah."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"No. What are you doing in here?"

"Oh." Glitch held up a piece of paper. "You wanted to know when I solved it."

He looked from Glitch to the paper and back again. "Already?"

"Well, it wasn't hard. I started with the Ancient texts, but like Jeb said, it didn't make any sense when I translated it. So I ended up going back to my old school books and looking at the alphabet."

"It's a picture language, how can it have an alphabet?"

Glitch glared at Cain for the interruption. "Among scholars, there is a certain order in which all known symbols are placed. It is an alphabet. Anyway, what I discovered is if you correspond a symbol in the message with one found three behind it in the alphabet, it gives you a clear message."

"Hold on," Cain held up a hand to stop Glitch. "He uses some obscure Viewer dialect to write part of the message and then some weird variation on the Ancients language to write the rest. How in the hell did he expect anyone to read it?"

"Guess its just luck that someone in the resistance spoke Tridic."

"Luck would have been-" Cain cursed under his breath for the slip.

"What?"

"Nothing." He pushed on. "What did the message say?"

Glitch looked at him warily, but read aloud. "Seek answers when Atla and Alena are making their longest trek. Do not delay. The gate of heaven awaits."

"I thought you said you translated it." Cain growled.

"I did. Can't you read it?" Glitch held up the paper with his elegant script upon it.

"Yes, but I still don't understand it."

"Well, bub, I was only told to translate, not interpret."

"What's going on?" Azkadellia in her night things stood looking confused in Cain's doorway.

"Like trying to sleep in a Central City bus station." Cain grumbled as he reached for his own robe and pulled it on. "What's got you up, Highness?"

"I was just checking on DG." Azkadellia entered the room. "I heard you two talking. What's going on?"

"Nothing, just go back to bed." Cain told her. "Glitch and I were just finishing up."

She was different then DG. Whereas the younger princess would have commenced to talk him to death had he dismissed her in such a fashion, Azkadellia merely crossed her arms and looked back coolly. "I'll go back to bed in a minute."

For a full thirty seconds, she met his gaze unwaveringly. Finally, he thought, what the hell? "Glitch managed to get us a translation."

The other man was staring at the page as though the message's cryptic meaning would leap off of the page at him.

The princess looked at him. "May I see it?"

The advisor looked up quickly to Cain, looking for approval. Grudgingly, Cain gave it and Glitch handed the paper over to Azkadellia. She took it and her brown eyes moved over it once before she spoke. "Atla and Alena? The twins?"

Glitch and Cain looked at each other and then at the princess. "You know what that's talkin' about?" Cain asked.

"Yes. It's an old Ozian creation myth. Neither of you have ever heard it?" The men shook their heads. "It's the story of two sisters that are lost in the forest and as their way grows darker, their lights grow brighter. Each day they travel the sky and each night they lay down to sleep."

"They became the suns." Glitch said, catching on.

"Yes."

A thought occurred to Cain. "The solstice is in two days. When the suns will be up the longest."

"Could it be a meeting?" Azkadellia asked. "At this gate of heaven?"

"It could be." Cain had been thinking along the same lines. "Do you know what our letter writer could be talking about?"

"No, I don't." Azkadellia confessed. "But my mother might."

"That's what I was thinking." Cain stood. "You two mind getting out of here so I can put some clothes on?"

A few minutes later, they were down the hall. Azkadellia slipped into her parent's chambers. There was a gentle murmur of conversation before the Queen's gentle voice beckoned them in.

"I'm sorry to disturb you." Cain said to Orianah and Ahamo as he entered. "It's important."

"It's all right Mr. Cain." Ahamo answered as he rubbed his eyes. "What's wrong?"

Between Glitch and Cain, they managed to lay out all of the details. Orianah smiled at Azkadellia. "I don't believe you remember that story."

"You told it quite often."

The Queen made a face. "That's because I hoped the message would get through." She turned to Glitch. "A gate of heaven?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"It's actually ringing a faint bell." She looked to Ahamo. "Anything?"

He smiled. "Of course."

"Are you going to keep us in suspense, dear?"

"It's called Heaven's Gate." Ahamo said. "It's about a two day's ride west of here, near a small town called Ruxton."

Orianah gave her husband a quizzical look. "How do you know that?"

"It's a rather unusual rock formation that I noticed when the storm first blew me here. I found the name appropriate since I passed over it to get to you."

Cain felt a twinge in his chest and cleared his throat. "Two days, you said?"

"Yes."

"All right. Let me get some provisions and I'll be on my way."

"The message was for your son, Mr. Cain." Orianah said. "Should he be informed?"

"No."

He managed to convey a silent message that the Queen understood. She nodded. "Ambrose will go with you."

"I'd rather go alone."

"Hey, hey." Glitch intervened. "Running off into the wilderness all on your own isn't smart. What if you get killed or something? Who's going to bring the message back?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Cain growled at a smirking Glitch. "Fact is, Majesty, I can move faster on my own."

"Ambrose will not be a hindrance. It is he that understands the language the author chose to communicate with. He may be of help."

"I'll go, too." Azkadellia spoke up.

"Oh, no." Glitch exploded as Cain put in. "No way."

Again, she did not argue with them and instead turned to her mother. "I believe I could help. What happened to DG was my fault."

"No, dear, it wasn't." Ahamo said.

"Yes it was." Azkadellia said adamantly. "I insisted on going. She only went on that mission because of me. If we're going to get her light back, someone needs to go along that has a basic understanding of magic."

"Princess," Cain spoke up. "We're going to have to ride hard to get to Ruxton by the solstice. That's going to be hard enough without having to look after you."

"With all do respect, Mr. Cain, it is perhaps you that will need looking after."

"Azkadellia has a point." Orianah said before Cain could argue. "Zero has already tried once to kill you and he is in the company of the Ice Witch. At the moment, Azkadellia is the only one equipped to deal with such a threat."

"Glitch and I can look after ourselves." He replied stubbornly. Wandering the countryside with a person sporting a bulls-eye on her back wasn't a good idea. "Azkadellia should stay here where she's safe."

"If there is another machine of some kind being built, even Finaqua won't stay safe for long." Azkadellia said. "Do you really think it's going to make DG feel better if either of you get turned into a Popsicle?"

"Oh, geez." Glitch grimaced. "DG. She's going to be mad if we leave without telling her."

"If we tell her, she'll want to go." Cain sighed. And at that rate, he might as well get some Eastern Guild tap-dancers into the act and make a parade of it.

"DG is in too fragile a state for such a journey." Ahamo said. "Without her magic, her mother and I worry for her safety."

"Agreed. But she's gonna be none to happy." Cain smiled slightly as he thought about the tantrum his young friend was going to throw.

"I will deal with DG." Orianah assured him. "And I'm sure Raw will be able to temper the blow."

"Poor guy." Glitch said with sympathy.

Cain turned back to Azkadellia. "Now, as for you, Highness. . . "

"Mr. Cain, I have a riddle for you. Where does a magic-wielding princess go?"

He groaned. DG had told a similar joke about a 900 pound ape. The answers were the same. "Anywhere she wants, I guess."

"Correct."

The Tin Man studied her for a second. "If you insist. Get your gear."

The young woman nodded and left the room. When she was out of earshot, Cain turned back to her parents. "This is not a good idea. That Witch is probably after her as much as Zero is after me."

"But we are on the defensive, now." Orianah replied gently. "Trust in her abilities."

Reluctantly he nodded before looking to the Queen again. "I wonder if you wouldn't mind doing me a favor, Your Majesty?"

A/N: Sorry about the repost! I realized there was something missing and it was irritating me!