Tansfora the Avatar circled the transparent red dome that held Shamino's body, looking for a small hole. According to the parchment that he had left for her at the Lyceum, it would be used to start reviving him. She found the hole behind a wad of cobwebs and, following the next instruction on the parchment, she inserted the ankh that she always wore around her neck into it. The dome dissolved and reformed into a platform that was as broad and long as a barn door, with Shamino lying face up in the center. Its weight caused the dusty old floorboards of the room to creak. The Avatar mounted the platform, her knees sinking an inch into its soft surface, and examined him.

He didn't look much older than he had looked when she had last seen him, many decades ago on Serpent Isle. Then again, she thought, he had already been more than 800 years old by then, without ever looking any older than forty. Even if he had waited a hundred or so years before going into suspended animation, it wouldn't have made much of a difference. He had, however, apparently waited long enough to grow the blond queue that ran down over his shoulder and halfway down his chest. He was dressed in his usual faded-but-neat forest greens and browns, and his arms were crossed over his chest. He looks different every time I return to Britannia, she thought, but he always turns out to be the same old Shamino. It's just like dear old Shamino, she continued thinking as she read further in the parchment, to put himself through the painful and difficult process of going into suspended animation just so that he could be young enough to help her rid Britannia of the Guardian when she came back. She looked at him again. There was a sizeable bulge in the front of his trousers. Powerful magics, she remembered, such as the ones that were keeping him alive in stasis, usually caused strong sexual arousal in humans. She dropped the parchment and put her hand on the bulge, shifting his cock around until it was lying with its head pointed toward his navel. That should make it less painful for him when he regains consciousness, she thought. She climbed off of the platform and picked up the parchment again.

"Step Two: There's a hidden door in the south wall, behind the brown tapestry." The Avatar searched for the tapestry, and found a frayed, faded scrap of brownish embroidered fabric that was, apparently, the one that he had been referring to. The door's outlines were plainly visible through the holes in the fabric. "Go into the room behind the door, and you will see a lever sticking out of the far wall. Pull the lever." She stepped through the door and examined the lever. It had been, if the tiny holes and gouges in it were any indication, food to many termites over the years. She gave the lever a sharp yank, and it broke off. A small puff of sawdust blew off of the end of the lever. Horrified, she stared at the hole where the lever had been. There was less of a quarter of an inch of wood left in the wall, which made it too short for her to get a grip on it. She took her dagger off of her tool belt and jammed it into the hole, trying to wedge the lever open, but the lever splintered into pieces when the dagger's tip hit it.

I should have been more careful with that lever, she thought, knowing how fragile it was. Now, she thought further, I'll never be able to revive him. She retreated into the main room, climbed back up onto the platform, and put her hand on the back of his hand. His hand was deathly cold. A small piece of fungus from one of the many patches that were growing on the walls and ceiling fell onto his face. In a few years, now that she had destroyed the red field that surrounded and protected his body, the things that were slowly rotting and destroying the room that he was lying in would slowly rot and destroy him. The Avatar drew her sword, determined to give him a quick and painless death. As she knelt on the platform with her sword raised above his neck, gritting her teeth, it occurred to her that there might be more than one way to revive him.

Sleeping Beauty, she thought. It was the source of his favorite Earth-derived sexual fantasy. Beatrix, Amber, the Avatar herself, and every other female lucky enough to attract his interest had, at least once, played Sleeping Beauty with him, platform, kissing, and all. Maybe, knowing that his elaborate instructions for waking him might fail, he had keyed his revivification to Sleeping Beauty. It was worth a try. Sheathing her weapon, she turned his face toward hers and kissed him. No response. She kissed him again, this time poking her tongue as far into his mouth as his closed jaw would allow. Then, she unbuttoned his shirt and listened to his heart to see if it had started beating again. Still no response. Perhaps, she thought as she looked down at the bulge in his pants, he needs to be kissed somewhere else. She grinned. Odd, she thought. It had usually been Dupre who had needed to be awakened with oral sex. Shamino had normally been up, in all senses of the term, by the time she woke up in the morning. She stroked his bulge with a light feathery stroke and then started to unbutton his fly. After she had taken his slender and slightly curved cock out of his trousers, she opened up his legs and knelt between them. She then leaned over towards his body, supporting herself with one of her hands, and took his cock into her mouth.