"This is very disturbing," Shanara announced. "I wish I knew what was going on!" She paced back and forward across her room, chewing at her lower lip. From his perch on the table, Blink opened one eye and looked at her.

            "You should learn to relax more," he informed her. "Am I worried? No. I wait, and see what will happen when it reveals itself."

            "Relax?" Shanara whirled around in mid-pace, her long lime-green hair spinning about her beautiful face. "How can I relax? Magic has started to break down. Oracle has been missing for hours, and I can't work a spell to find out what's happened to Score, Helaine, Pixel and Jenna. Everything is breaking down, and all you can suggest is that I try and relax? Are you insane?"

            "No." The red panda stretched, yawned, and then tried to settle back to sleep. "I know my limitations, and I feel the best thing I can do is conserve my energy for when it's most needed. You should do the same. All that pacing of yours makes me exhausted just to watch."

            "You're not watching," Shanara growled. "Your eyes are closed."

            "Well, I can hear you," Blink grumbled. "Can't you fret and panic quietly?"

            Shanara glared at him. She was about to say something when she felt a shimmering in the air. "At last!" she exclaimed, as Oracle reappeared. "Where have you been for so long?"

            Oracle sighed. He was a tall man, dressed entirely in black, though quite elegantly. Shanara could vaguely see through him because he wasn't completely real – he was a magical construct, an image of a man. As a result, he could be wherever he chose, and was able to walk between worlds, and to go to places too dangerous for a person who had a solid body that could be harmed. Three hours ago, he had left her to journey to the world of Jewel. Jewel lay at the heart of the Diadem, and was the place where magic was the strongest. It was so strong that if she ever visited it, the power would burn her body up. Few living beings could ever go there, but it was perfectly safe for Oracle.

            "Troubles rage and problems breed

            This is the hour of greatest need."

            Shanara stared at Oracle in horror. "You're still talking in rhyme," she gasped. "Has magic broken down that far?" The flow of magic in the Diadem was controlled from Jewel. She had felt that there was a breakdown, which was why Oracle had been there to investigate. In the heart of Jewel was a special room. Inside it was a magical analog of the Diadem, where each world was represented by a jewel, and inside each jewel a spirit from that world was held captive. As long as the analog worked, magic was intact.

            "Our plight is bad and getting worse,

            The problem now we can't reverse.

            Our only chance that I can find

            Is to set the trap we have in mind."

            "The trap?" Shanara felt a chill sweep through her. She and Oracle had indeed been preparing a trap, one that both had sincerely hoped would never be needed. The Diadem analog had been maintained by Score, Helaine and Pixel, who had siphoned some of their own power off to keep it going. The room had then been sealed by a unicorn's horn, which negated all magic that approached it. Nobody but Oracle or one of the three young magicians could enter that room. Shanara and Oracle had been afraid that the analog was breaking down when the flow of magic had become damaged. "What has happened to the analog?" she demanded. She knew she was avoiding the subject of their trap.

            "The analog is breaking here

            "The problem is on Calomir.

            The jewel that held grim Nantor's soul

            Is empty now, and growing cold."

            Nantor! Shanara gasped. The three youngsters she had befriended and helped had turned out to be not quite what they seemed. The Diadem had once been mercilessly controlled by the Three Who Rule – Nantor, Eremin and Traxis. They had been attacked, and had vanished – only to reappear as their own younger selves. Score, Helaine and Pixel were not exactly the tyrannical Traxis, Eremin and Nantor, but they all had the potential to grow into those cold, heartless villains. Shanara had grown to know and love the three youngsters – and Jenna, who had later joined them – and had felt almost certain that they could never become the Three again. But... it was that "almost" that had scared her.

            She and Oracle knew that they could never take the chance that the Three might return. If they did, the Diadem would be plunged back into abject slavery and misery. So they had prepared a trap, just in case – a trap that even the great powers of Pixel, Score and Helaine couldn't defeat. Shanara had felt as if she was betraying the youngsters even by planning the trap, and she had prayed desperately that it would never need to be used.

            But now Oracle was saying that they had no other option. They had to spring the trap that was meant to kill the three young magicians...

            "Do we have to?" Shanara asked, so softly her voice was almost lost.

            "To save the worlds we have no choice

            You must give the magics voice.

            Prepare the trap, all set to fall –

            Or else it's ruin for us all."

            Shanara knew there were tears running down her cheeks, but she didn't care. To kill her friends...! But Oracle was right – if Nantor had escaped somehow, then it would only be a short while before that evil genius found a way to free his two partners in terror. And once all three were free, the Diadem would be doomed. There was no choice in the matter – it was better by far that her friends should die than to allow the enslavement of countless worlds.

            Shanara nodded slowly, grimly. "Alright," she agreed, her voice choking in her throat. "As you say, we have no choice. The Three Who Rule cannot be allowed to go free. I shall prepare the trap." She shuddered. "My poor young friends..."

            "I too shall mourn when they are gone

            "But this is our task, and must be done."

            Shanara nodded, and turned back to Blink, who had fallen asleep again. "Awake, you lazy beast!" she cried, funneling her grief into anger at him. "This is a time of great danger – and great betrayal. It is not the time to sleep!"

            Blink shivered, and opened one eye to look at her. "Now what's going on?" he complained. "I know that there's a great disaster, but does it have to spoil my rest?"

            "Yes." Shanara began preparing for the spell they must cast. She needed Blink's help, because this was the strongest and most terrible spell she had ever made.

            It was a spell to kill Score, Helaine and Pixel...