"Belfour," I said not long after I'd left Gwydion behind, "explain why you are here, and how you managed that feat."

"The Oracle spoke to me during your visit," he began. "She was able to hold two conversations at once, an ability she had in Cait Sith to twist the time stream to make it possible.

"She told me that I needed to come, that this world didn't have Aziza, and that you would need me to gather intelligence, to separate truth from lies.

"But she warned that I had to remain hidden. That I should hide my presence inside the aura of another until you took steps to hide our movement from those that could scry and spy on our movement.

"She said that I would gain the help I needed to help you after you placed the Sithern and planted the World Tree. I apologize for acting without authority, but I thought it was better to believe her. She is Sidhe and cannot lie," he pointed out.

"How did you hide your presence?" I asked.

"It was simple, I simple hid inside Meala's ear canal," he boasted smugly.

"That wouldn't have worked against Gwyn ap Nudd," I pointed out.

"The Oracle said he would know of my presence, and of the reason why I was hiding. She said he would allow my passage, that I was [Fated] to be the template for some of the changes you would need to make if you were going to complete your quests."

I had already assumed some of that to be true. I knew there was no way for him to have hid from Gwyn ap Nudd, and if He was willing to bring Balfour along, then there must be a reason behind it.

Even if I wasn't happy to have been kept in the dark, there was nothing I could do about it now. Sure, I could demand Balfour use [Portal: Talahm] and return home, but it wasn't worth the risk. If the Oracle was right, and I sent him home in a fit of pique, then I might fail the quests I'd been given.

I decided it was better just to accept what was and work on something that was still bothering me. My magic.

Casting spells was much easier in a universe with System functions. Here on Urt, I had to learn the nuance of spellcraft, of my magic, and how I was able to access it and release it. Most of it was instinctive and worked in the same manner as how I'd been using my skills, but issues of intensity and duration required precision and purpose that was usually handled by the System.

It wasn't until I started practicing that I noticed a kind of lag had set in, a delay between thought and casting that had never existed before. My body was used to operating under System constraints. The System worked as a type of programming language, the spells, and skills that I had learned to adhere to patterns that had been created and saved as named abilities. [Fireball] worked like the app that I had created and saved to my M-AI, I activated it, and System took over.

Without that support, I was functional, but symptoms of latency became evident. Each time I cast a spell or activated a skill, my body tried to reach for and use those System programming scripts. It caused a delay between thought and action, which was noticeable.

Not large, but there was an effect, a lag that I would have to overcome. Practice would help. The more I practiced, the less lag I noticed. Those observing would never notice. They had nothing to compare my current skill-set with what I was familiar with on Talahm.

"Teigh," Caraid said, gaining my attention. "This fjord ahead should be the waterway we need to cross before reaching Limerick."

We had been riding double on Meala, the honey badger holding up well as we traveled toward Limerick. Our journey had quieted after defeating the Fachen and meeting with Gwydion. We had noticed animals and monsters, but they had given us a wide berth. The rolling green hills of the Sidhe country had had a calming effect on each of us.

Meala had even found a beehive filled with clover honey that she refused to ignore until she had emptied it of honey and larvae. Honey badgers were as obsessed with honey as bears were, and I was willing to indulge her sweet tooth. Not that I had much choice. At least she was kind enough to allow us to dismount before she attacked the hive in gluttonous delight.

Limerick was uniquely suited to serve as the staging place for the Sithern to be planted. It was located next to the River Shannon, a location on the river far enough upstream to offer some protection, but one that eventually opened into the ocean.

Placing the Sithern in this location would allow Sidhe, that populated rivers and oceans, to gain access with the same ease as those that lived on land. A confluence of ley-lines also formed in the area, a nexus of magic that made it an ideal location. The Sithern would be able to draw upon those magics to increase the depth and dimension of the contained space it controlled.

"Do you notice anything strange?" I asked, noticing something wrong about the ambient magic now that I was no longer concentrating on spell craft.

The magic in the area seemed off. It wasn't as strong as it should be. The number of ley-lines and the pooling nexus should have created an environment of energy that was palpable. Instead, there seemed a dearth of magic, as if the land itself was dying. I sent my magic senses spiraling deep underground, searching, using my mind's eye to inspect the ley-lines and their health. Nothing seemed out of place. Each line glowed with health and vitality, the pulse of magic flowing unobstructed.

It was only when I risked examining the nexus itself that I found the problem.

The lake of energy that should have formed had, but it had been tapped. Something was drawing the magical energy that was accumulating, siphoning the energy as fast it was accumulating to power a spell or seeming. The amount of magic that was being leached was alarming. The spell being powered was enough to feed ten Sithern. Enough magic was being stolen that if something wasn't done to reverse the theft, the entire area would soon find itself bereft, a magical null zone, even with the node being fed by multiple ley-lines.

Limerick itself had been developed. It might not have been the largest Sidhe holding, but it had advanced enough that it would be considered a prosperous city when it was populated. At the moment, it was nothing more than a ghost town. The Sidhe that had lived her either moved Underhill, sent to the front-lines, or relocated to cities inland, places more protected.

The Shannon river would have allowed the city to grow into a trading hub, but with the attacks of Man and beast now occurring, the river became treacherous, another avenue of attack for those forces able to make use of sailing vessels. That the river eventually opened into the ocean only made things more dangerous.

"I have never encountered a leeching of natural node constrained like this before, but I do recognize the effect. Something I have seen between people, I wasn't aware it was possible to do the same thing to the environment," Caraid said, after he had spent a few moments trying to understand why the magic that should have been so plentiful was missing. "This type of miasma is a byproduct that occurs when the Leanan Sidhe are involved.

"Usually, this sparsity of magic exists when the bodies of changelings or mortals are siphoned. It happens when a changeling and Leanan Sidhe form a pair bond.

"The woman of the Leanan are trapped, forced into a parasitic relationship. They become emotional vampires, draining the emotions and magical energy from anyone foolish enough to become enthralled by their beauty. I've never seen or heard of them draining magic like this before, though. If a Leanan Sidhe is involved, she is draining the nexus instead of a lover."

"Why?" I asked. "What is the reason they siphon emotions?"

"They were cursed for their hubris," Caraid explained.

"Branwen, the Goddess of Love and Beauty was once Sidhe. Her beauty was such that High King and Giant Bendigeidfran applied to her father for permission to marry her. Things might have ended happily for them at that point, if Branwen's brother, Efinisien, hadn't taken insult over the betrothal.

"He was furious that he wasn't consulted, and his incestuous love for his sister became apparent what he had kept hidden could no longer be contained. He maimed the horses Branwen's father had delivered as dowry and destroyed or stole the gold and gems that had been part of the bride's price.

"Bendigeidfran retaliated by punishing Branwen. Once she had safely delivered him a son, he demoted her, made her a maid, and began beating her daily. Branwen, in her anger, summoned Gwyn ap Nudd for justice. Justice that came with a twist.

"Gwyn ap Nudd elevated Branwen, made her a Goddess. In order to give her real justice, he elevated her above her position as Queen. He reasoned that in order to offset the humiliation of having been forced to serve as a maid and beaten that she had to be made Queen of queens. With her newly ascended and able to harness the Divine, she cursed all the women of Bendigeidfran's line, to feel the despair that she had been forced to suffer.

"They would become psychic vampires, unable to feel any other emotion, to understand love, unless they could induce a Sidhe, Changeling, or Mortal to fall in love with them. It was only then that they could siphon the emotions that had been denied them and live full lives.

"Unfortunately, those lives filled with emotion came at a price. The people that had been foolish enough to fall in love with them would wither, slowly dying as their emotions, that bit of light that made life worth living was slowly drained from them.

"I have no idea how a Leanan Sidhe might have learned to siphon magic from a nexus pool, but I doubt she would care that her actions are draining the magic from the land. They don't have the emotional capacity to worry about the enormity of this action.

"And the magic that is contained within this Nexus has no emotions. There is nothing there to reason with or convince a Leanan Sidhe to stop. Without emotion, without love, they are two-dimensional characters at best," Caraid concluded.