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who walks from here toward the other side of the clearing will find himself in another world.”
    “How intriguing!” The captain leaned to see around Edison. “Shall we go into this other world now? Many of us are quite ready to embark on a new adventure.”
    Edison scanned the troops. Standing shoulder to shoulder, at least eighty men had filled the clearing except forthe center section where he and the captain stood. A long line of soldiers waited to join them, perhaps another three to four hundred. Their eyes, wide and wandering, didn’t confirm Captain Reed’s assertion. Many were young and scared, not nearly as hardened as their commanding officer.
    “Yes,” Edison said, “we can go now.” He stopped himself from saying more. As a former soldier himself, he had to stifle the instinct to tell Captain Reed all. He couldn’t risk diluting the effect of what Cassabrie had planned.
    “I will see if Cassabrie is ready for our arrival,” Orion said, turning toward the portal.
    “No!” The sound of dragon wings filled the air. Magnar swooped toward the ground, Marcelle riding low on his back. “Don’t let him go!” she shouted. “He’ll close the portal!”
    Orion leaped through and disappeared. Magnar and Marcelle darted after him. In a flash of light, they both vanished.

Three
    C assabrie hovered within Exodus ten feet above the ground and thirty feet in front of the portal. The characters and setting for her tale were ready, but how long could she keep everything in place? Edison hadn’t indicated the time of his return with any certainty.
    She reached into her pocket. The tube she had taken from the spear that had punctured Exodus lay at the bottom, along with its control box. The words on the tube’s scorched label still pulsed in her mind —
Danger. Explosive.
    Cassabrie shuddered. The grim reality of her plan had never felt so close. Soon every man, woman, and child on Starlight would have an opportunity to get a taste of what the true purpose of a Starlighter was all about.
    Shaking off the thoughts, she scanned the area. To her left, a stream flowed through a pebbles-and-sand terrain.Bare-chested children followed the shoreline, carrying buckets filled with stones, while a dragon with a whip kept watch on her right. Red, bleeding welts striped the children’s backs, dirt smudged their cheeks, and gnats swarmed around their matted hair.
    When one of the smallest girls neared the dragon, she stumbled and fell. The dragon beat her mercilessly with his whip while the other children looked on, stoic, hopeless, as if they were watching the same tale they had seen a hundred times before.
    Although in reality, snow lay on the ground, Cassabrie had replaced it with arid landscape in order to simulate cattle-camp conditions, but removing the snow in the air presented a far more difficult challenge. No matter how effectively she might be able to mask the falling flakes, it would be nearly impossible to keep the soldiers from noticing snow accumulating on their heads and shoulders. At the very least, they would feel the cold wetness seeping through their clothing.
    Cassabrie waved her arms. The line of children retreated and began a new march from left to right, as they had done a dozen times already. She would allow the scene to replay again and again until the soldiers arrived, for any man who could witness this cruelty without feeling a passion to rescue these poor waifs didn’t have the heart they needed for the upcoming battle.
    After the tenth repetition, rain began mixing with the snow. Soon every flake disappeared, replaced by a cold drizzle that only served to make the destitute children seem that much more pathetic, though a close observer would notice that they did not get wet.
    Without warning, Orion lunged through the portal. He gave Cassabrie a quick glance, then stooped between a boulder and the line of crystalline pegs, a hand reaching toward the center one.
    “Wait!” Cassabrie shouted.