Trapped

not exactly safe. We’re taking the calculated risk that we can get this done before the Bacchants or anyone else zeroes in on us. We had a couple of weeks or more to work with the first two times. It’s probably okay to scurry around for a few hours. «
    › Heh! That’s what the squirrel said. ‹
    We hiked a quarter mile up the gentle lower slopes of Olympus, until we found a tree with a bright white center in the magical spectrum. Having explained the plan to Granuaile on the way, I created a tether to Tír na nÓg first, and we shifted there to scout a suitable location for our shenanigans along the river of time.
    » That will do nicely, « I said, pointing to an unoccupied island pretty far upstream. » Time moves so slowly there that they’ll spend a century saying, ‘Wait,’ when they’re trying to say, ‘Wait, don’t leave me here!’ «
    » How do you use the islands? «
    » See the obelisk at the edge of the shore with the Ogham script on it? That’s its address. Using that, you open portals to it wherever you are and shove stuff through. We have to use portals instead of trees because we don’t want to teleport ourselves into that timestream. «
    » Nice thinking. «
    » We learned from someone else’s mistake. I think the first person who used a tree on an island to shift is still stuck there. But word is he ought to be able to shift himself out of there in another decade or so. «
    › So he’s been there for centuries? ‹
    He’s been there longer than I’ve been alive .
    › Wow. He’s missed out on a lot. Where do you think he’ll stand on the Kirk vs. Picard question? ‹
    I memorized the Ogham address, and we shifted back to the oak tree with the white center—except we shifted to the one growing on the Roman plane. The dryad was nowhere in sight.
    » Where is she? « Granuaile asked as she turned around, scanning the area.
    I shrugged. » Nearby. Or maybe on the Greek plane. She’ll let us know where she’s at once we start to unbind her from the tree. «
    » Are you sure this won’t hurt her? «
    » It’ll hurt a little bit. She has to feel it. But it won’t be life-threatening the way we’re doing it. «
    » How can you know that? «
    » Because while she’s frozen in time, her tree will be frozen too. When we bind them back together, it will be as if only a few seconds passed. «
    Granuaile was unconvinced. » I think we’re going to be doomed. «
    › Alert! Much fear apprentice shows! Adopt Yoda syntax you must! ‹
    » Nonsense. Remember, you’re going to speak soothingly in Latin when the Dryad shows up, so I can cast the portal. «
    » Got it. «
    Focusing on the white light, I zoomed in my focus to examine the structure of the binding.
    It was beautiful stuff. The Greeks approached magic differently than the Celts did, of course, relying on structures reminiscent of their architecture: lots of straight lines, sharp angles, triangles, and mathematical precision; columns of cubes that could be endlessly halved and halved again; and a bloody tesseract at the heart of it all, tying together an oak and a dryad. Funny thing about columns is the lack of redundancy one finds in more organic structures. Knock out a few columns and the integrity is seriously compromised. I unbound a triangle knot and felt a small tremor in the tree. I unraveled a column and felt it shudder more violently.
    A cultured voice spoke from behind me in perfect Latin. » Please stop. «
    I turned and beheld a woman who shone with white around her heart. It was clearly the dryad belonging to the tree, so I dispelled my magical sight and beheld her as she hoped to be seen. She flinched upon seeing my burned features.
    She had something akin to a soft-focus filter about her; gazing on her form was like looking at a Waterhouse painting, full of depth and pathos yet suffused with the visual silk of a rose petal, delicate and ethereal and inspiring anxiety in the viewer—I felt I mustn’t stare too intently or else I might crush her beauty forever, and I’d pine away until I died of guilt.
    Her hair, dark and abundant and festooned with a flowering vine woven throughout, tumbled in a loose braid down her left breast until it ended at her waist. Another flowering vine circled her body, fastening a loose white tunic of thin material about her. Her legs and feet were bare; her eyes implored us to leave in peace.
    Hers was the kind of beauty that, once glimpsed, convinced a person that divinity had a