Oddly, the portrait contains an image of her favorite necklace, which she lost half a cycle ago.

Chiana returns to Moya, only to encounter a DRD bearing her lost necklace. When she looks back at the portrait, it has changed.

As she gets closer, she trips on the DRD, breaking her leg. The portrait shows a fractured leg to match.

Zhaan wants to run some tests on the portrait, but Chiana refuses to let her do more than chip off a tiny piece.

She’s afraid the priestess will inadvertently disrupt whatever's going on, and she wants to see what it will do next.

Rygel performs some tests of his own on the tiara, which to his amazement appears to be genuine.

Zhaan catches him "borrowing" her reagents, and reminds him that he should have asked first with a sharp ear twist.

Rygel is unfazed and unrepentant. "Silly old woman had no idea what she had," he crows, ordering Pilot to reverse course so he can return to Kyvan and sell the tiara back at a healthy profit.

Zhaan countermands the order, but Rygel announces he’ll take the matter up with the others.

Chiana studies the portrait, wondering what it’ll show her next. D’argo worries that it’s causing the future rather than predicting it.

Even assuming Kyvan was telling the truth, D’argo asks, "Do you really want to know what the future holds?"

"Of course I do," Chiana says. She’s surprised that D’argo wouldn’t want to know things about the future -- such as whether or not he’ll ever find his lost son -- but the Luxan doesn’t want to risk bad news.

Chiana’s touched that D’argo is so concerned about her, which in turn makes her wonder what the portrait might show about the two of them.

That’s another thing D’argo isn’t sure he wants to know. He insists she be "sensible" and get rid of the portrait.

Crichton thinks they’d be safer not letting anyone or anything on the ship. Aeryn would prefer putting Rygel and Chiana, the two chief troublemakers off.

Actually, when pressed, Aeryn admits that she’d like having the ship entirely to herself.

In her lab, Zhaan gets the feeling she’s being watched. She jumps, startled, when Crichton walks into the room.

She doesn’t have good news. The material from the portrait has nothing odd about it – but something strange really is happening, and if her suspicions are correct, Chiana is in great danger.

"John," she says, "soon there may come a time when I need you and everyone to do exactly what I say, quickly and without question. Do you have enough faith in me to obey?"

Crichton assures her he’ll back her up. Then she asks him to bring her the portrait so she can destroy it.

In Chiana’s quarters, the portrait changes, showing her covered with flames.

D’argo meets Crichton in the hall – he’s also certain the portrait should be taken away from Chiana. As they continue towards her quarters, they hear her scream.

Chiana has panicked, terrified by the possibly prophetic burning image. As D’argo picks her up and takes her from the room, she screams that she feels like she’s burning up.

Crichton brings the portrait to Zhaan and hurries back to help Chiana. D’argo carries Chiana to the cargo bay and puts her in a refrigerated cargo unit.

Aeryn thinks they're all being foolish.

Meanwhile, Zhaan places her hands on the portrait and concentrates, but her concentration is shattered by the sound of distant laughter.

Suddenly, flames break out in Chiana’s cargo unit. The door jams, and as the others work to break it open, there is a flash of light.

After the flash, both Chiana and the flames are gone.

The door functions again, and the others look in to see a pile of ashes and the necklace.

Rygel goes to Zhaan as she prays, demanding to know why she couldn’t save Chiana if she knew what was going on with the portrait.

"At least we tried," Zhaan snarls. "Which is more than I can say for you. Where were you when she died -- sleeping? Eating?"

She orders him out, but not before the noise attracts Crichton and D’argo.

"There are number of things we all should have done," Crichton says. "We can do one of them right now. Zhaan, how do we dispose of this piece of junk?"

"Fire would be a fitting end to it," answers Zhaan.

She spreads a green liquid on the portrait, ignites it and prays.

Aeryn demands to know what happened, insisting on examining every possibility, but Pilot is baffled.

Crichton enters Pilot’s den and tells her to knock it off – "it’s not your fault."

She protests that she didn’t think it was her fault, but Crichton accurately diagnoses her sense of guilt.

When she brushes his concern off, he explodes.

"Are you always going to do this?" he asks. "Keep the entire world at a distance? Keep everyone away? Is that ever going to change?"

D’argo interrupts before she can answer. The burned portrait has reassembled – and now it’s got D’argo in it.

According to Zhaan, the picture of D’argo is still in flux, so he smashes it before the likeness can get any closer. The crew decides to toss the remains into space before the picture can reassemble again.

Meanwhile, Aeryn takes Crichton’s module – her Prowler is in the shop – and heads back to the trader to ask some hard questions.

They take the fragments to an oubliette and flush them out of Moya. "I don’t know art," Crichton mutters, "but I know what I don’t like."

Aeryn discovers Rygel has stowed away aboard Farscape One. He intends to extract financial restitution for Chiana’s death – "it’s what she would have wanted," he argues.

The portrait of D’argo has reappeared in the hangar bay. A symbol seemingly representing his sword protrudes from his back.

"What do we have to do to ditch this thing?" Crichton asks. "Drop it in a black hole?"

D’argo is resigned to his fate. Zhaan despairs, weeping, "We can’t keep fighting – it’s stronger than all of us!"

Crichton tells Zhaan to lock away D’argo’s sword, then starts looking around for a large open space free of sharp objects. D’argo stops him, standing near Aeryn’s Prowler and assuring Crichton that it’s been a pleasure to know him.

As Crichton tries to warn D’argo about self-fulfilling prophecies, an electrical short ignites the Prowler’s engines. D’argo steps forward to throw Crichton out of the path of the fighter as it lurches forward, burying its needle-like nose in his back.

D’argo screams but -- less understandably, even under the circumstances -- also shatters into fragments.

D’argo is astonished to find himself in the portrait. He hears Chiana’s voice – distorted by the bizarre space of the portrait -- and finds an upside-down image of her in a doorway.

Crichton knows something unusually is going on – Luxans rarely shatter and vanish – but has no idea what. Meanwhile, Zhaan’s spotted another painting, this time of Crichton being electrocuted.

"Zhaan, I’m ready, " he says. He wants her to come up with a plan, reminding her that, "This magical mystery crap is your specialty, not mine, you just tell me what to do and I’ll do it!"

Sadly, she comes up short.

Meanwhile, Aeryn and Rygel have found the trader. Aeryn begins the interrogation by knocking items of the shelves and smashing them. "If I were you I’d tell her everything," Rygel advises.

The trader protests that she knows nothing – which is too bad, according to Aeryn, because now Aeryn has no reason not to shoot her.

Staring down the barrel of Aeryn’s pistol, the trader quickly confesses that she was forced to create the portrait by Maldis, a sorcerer who bedeviled the crew last year.

Crichton can’t believe it’s the theoretically destroyed Maldis, but Zhaan explains that she knew he’d coalesce again some day. She never dreamt it would be this soon.

With that, she starts praying again, now with a near catatonic intensity.

Aeryn fails to get more information out of the trader, while Crichton tries to rally Zhaan.

She grabs him and speaks to him via the bond of unity they forged last year. She does indeed have a plan, but she needs him to hold Maldis’ attention while she executes it.

Releasing him, she continues to publicly pretend to complete despair. Crichton plays along, determinedly telling her, "I’m not giving up."

"I am," she says – and throws him into the live circuitry exposed by the earlier power surge. He shatters into fragments, leaving Zhaan staring at a portrait of herself.

"That’s some step," Crichton mutters as he arrives within the portrait. Despite an attempt by D’argo to warn him off, he walks through the archway to find somewhere completely different.

"Great," Crichton says. "It’s not just a painting, it’s a maze." At least he knows who built it – he calls out Maldis, telling him to "show me your ugly face."

Maldis obliges. He tells Crichton being dispersed was "less than pleasant," and that he sustained himself by concentrating on revenge.

He’s not interested in revenge against Crichton, though – his ire is directed at Zhaan. He took out Chiana, D’argo and Crichton first so that she could see her shipmates die.

In the galley, echoes of Maldis’ voice call out Zhaan’s name, and she cries out.

Maldis reminds Crichton that fear and helplessness make him stronger, though he’s sure Crichton thinks Zhaan is ready to "pull some Delvian fast one to save the day."

"I’m betting on her," Crichton says. "Not you."

"Bad bet."

Zhaan has told Pilot what she wants her to do. He doesn’t understand her logic, but he will comply.

He wishes her luck, "for all our sakes."

Maldis continues to gloat, pointing out to Crichton that in their last encounter Zhaan had help – "cost the poor fellow his life, didn’t it?" This time she’s alone and afraid, which is why he’ll destroy her.

He calls out Zhaan’s name. She whirls around, frightened, and stumbles off the walkway into the deep pit around Pilot’s den.

She falls and lands in the portrait.

"So much for that plan," Maldis chortles. "Any more bets?"

"What a wreck," Maldis comments. "She begged me to put her out of her misery. Unfortunately, I want to enjoy her misery a little longer."

Since he sees no reason she should suffer on her own, he brings Chiana and D’argo in where they can see the proceedings.

Since Chiana (like some viewers, presumably) wasn’t aboard Moya when the others encountered Maldis, but Crichton and D’argo bring her up to date.

"We keep our cool," Crichton tells Zhaan, "and we starve him out."

"Bravado to the end!" sneers Maldis. "You want fear? I’ll give you some."

He puts Crichton into one of the archways, away from Zhaan.

"Picture if you will, me standing on your home planet. Six billion creatures like you – heavy breeders! – your species would keep me well fed for quite a long time."

He continues to torment them, playing on D’argo’s anxiety over his son and Chiana’s fear of being sent back to her homeworld. Then he announces that he will leave the portrait dimension he’s created and let it dissolve, taking the four of them with it.

He walks over Zhaan, reveling in her pitiful cries for mercy, and prepares a gateway out of the portrait dimension into Moya.

The DRDs warn Pilot of the impending arrival, so Pilot sends a "priority message" from Zhaan to Aeryn: kill the trader and get out as fast as she can.

She complies immediately. The trader shatters, and her station explodes moments after Farscape One pulls away from it.

Maldis falls back into the depths of the portrait dimension.

"Was that your doing?" he exclaims. "Well it won’t help you, because I am much stronger than you think."

Throwing off her fear, Zhaan says, "So am I." She unleashes a righteous Delvian kung fu smackdown on Maldis, beating him and tossing him into the deepest depths of the portrait dimension.

Freed from the archways by Maldis’ defeat, the others flee the portrait dimension through the portal the sorcerer created. Zhaan demands to be left behind, but Crichton throws her over his shoulder and runs.

After leaping out of the portrait, D’argo and Chiana find themselves briefly in each other’s arms. He pulls away to yank Zhaan and Crichton through the portal.

"Home sweet home," Crichton says, but the respite is brief. The giant hand of a very angry Maldis reaches out through the portal at them.

The crew makes a fighting retreat across the room, unleashing the combined arsenal of several DRDs and the guns of the Aeryn’s prowler at Maldis. He screams in anger and pain, and retreats back into the closing portal.

Crichton asks in disbelief, "That was your plan?"

"Yes," replies the exhausted Zhaan. "Like it?"

"Well," Crichton says, "what’s not to like?"

Chiana and Rygel compare bewilderment over a snack. She wants to know why everyone’s deaths were fake and her broken leg was real, while he wants to know what the connection between Maldis and the trader was.

Rygel has no idea about the broken leg, but Zhaan explained to Chiana about the trader. Since the dispersed Maldis was unable to reassemble himself in the physical plane, he remotely manipulated matter to create the trader and portrait.

All this leaves the Hynerian as confused as ever, but decides it’s "best not to ponder questions like these. They only make your head hurt."

"Forget about it," Chiana counsels. "Sit back and enjoy the happy ending."

Crichton wants to know if they’ve seen the last of Maldis, but Zhaan says you can never be sure with beings like him. Crichton is not encouraged – he would have preferred the comforting lie of "stick a fork in him, he’s done."

"You had us all fooled with your Scared Nellie routine," he comments.

"My fear wasn’t an act," Zhaan says.

"You were really that scared?" he asks.

"I’ve never been more scared in my life."