Whatever Happened To The Terra Draconis?

This is one of the new told stories of the old times. In the years after the Vanishing wiped the Terra Draconis from the worlds of Faerie there were remnants, survivors, a few who had evaded the cataclysm that lead to the eventual disappearance of all the dragons from Faerie.

Unexpectedly the person made most unhappy by the complete disappearance of the continent was the instigator of the plan to wipe it out in the first place. Count Okulas had planned to use the qualic energy of the continent and its vast reserves of elegantly balanced magicks to become the most powerful sorcerer in existence. Once the deed was done and the energies were contained in a vessel other than the Count he was beside himself with fury and determined to recover the vessel of power he now regarded as 'his'.

Unfortunately for the count the Quintessence Crystal, the vessel containing the energy the Count craved, had been well hidden by Prince Avan Weatherstrong's thief companion shortly after the time of the the Vanishing.

It was only a matter of time before Okulas located the crystal. While he may not have been the most powerful sorcerer to ever have existed he was still an incredibly gifted magician with whole armies at his command. His singular martial innovation was a creature known as the glass monkey, a beast strong, stealthy and loyal, although not terribly bright. The glass monkeys were Okulas's eyes and ears in the remaining lands of Faerie.

One day a glass monkey came to Caer Okulas, nestled in a deep valley in the dark shadows far beyond the edge of the Hundred Kingdoms, with the news of the location of the Quintessence Crystal; a city on the border of the Hundred Kingdoms: Deepwight. Okulas reached out to the eyes of his monkeys near to the crystal and in moments he saw...

"...need it for anyway?" asked a small, grubby little boy dressed in rags as he handed a package wrapped in thin canvas to his companion, a tall, slender figure obscured in the shadows of an alley way.

For a moment Count Okulas felt a shiver of excitement. Was the prize he sought within the canvas package? Then he realised that it could not be. The package was long and flat, not thick enough to contain the crystal.

"Never you mind," the shadowy figure said. "The less you know about my business the better, Wish Forbetter."

"Right you are," Wish shrugged, feigning disinterest. "I have several shiny coins in my possession, so I really don't know what I'm doing here talking to you."

Wish casually spun on his heel and disappeared up the street towards Deepwight market.

Forget the boy, follow the other one. Okulas ordered his glass monkey. The monkey obeyed and as the slender figure disappeared deeper into the alleyway the monkey scaled to the roof and took up an aerial view from the edge of the eaves looking down upon the figure. As they emerged in-between buildings Okulas could see that the figure wore a hooded cloak, it was impossible to see their face.

The dark sorcerer urged his servant to find a vantage point from where some clue to the identity of the stranger could be determined but, although glass monkeys are very difficult to spot, they do make noise so every one was nervous of getting within earshot of people. Particularly the kind of people who did strange deals in alleyways with street urchins and wore long, heavy, grey hooded cloaks.

The only identifying feature that the person wore was a large golden brooch that pinned the front of the cloak to the stranger's left shoulder. The brooch was bright and round, it told anyone who knew of the old Dragon Lore that this person was representing to be one of the last of the Dragon Warriors.

That wasn't entirely impossible. There were a few such left scattered across the Shadows, the Hundred Kingdoms and out in far-flung Araby. It was only a matter of time before Okulas found them all. Maybe this one would be one of the first to go.

The monkey continued to follow the slender Dragon Warrior into the warrens of Deepwight's poor quarter. The further they went the more evidence of filth and crime surrounded them. This person was walking without fear into the worst part of the city. Before long they reached their destination, a building that bore the secret markings that denoted it as the real thieves' guild house.

Every city had an official Thieves' Guild. Thieves, of course, could be employed to commit crimes, theft being the least of them. They were also often used as freelance spies, secret couriers, the quietest whispers between the courts of kings spilled, silken, into the ears of thieves for carriage. A thief's skull held a lot of powerful magic, if one had the stomach for such sorcery, Okulas knew.

The problem was that the official Thieves' Guild building was, like so many things with the thieving community, just a facade that concealed the places where the real business got done. The real Thieves' Guild was always in the poor quarter, the building disguised to look like any other hovel in such a place. There were outward signs for those that knew to look for them and Okulas knew what it was he was seeing.

His monkey, on the other hand, knew nothing. It scampered along the roof of the adjacent building ready to leap onto the walls of the guildhouse.

Stop! commanded Count Okulas. We shall have to wait and see if our friend comes back out.

Proper Thieves' Guildhouses were steeped in defensive magic so heavy that not even an invisible monkey could get inside. They also had multiple entrances and exits, not all of which were visible at street level. Okulas reflected angrily that he had, in all likelihood, lost the trail here.

Then the monkey turned its head and saw that it was not the only one to have followed the slender warrior to this location. On the roof opposite the urchin, Wish, had followed the warrior to the Guildhouse. He scampered down a drainpipe from the roof and slid into a sewer opening at the side of the road.

Don't dawdle! Okulas commanded his servant. Follow the grotty little twerp.

This was the best opportunity they would get to pick up the trail again. If the boy knew a way in, fine, but if he didn't then the Thieves would reason it was the boy who set off any alarm that was raised. There would never be any evidence of a glass monkey anywhere near the building. Okulas loved a win-win

As it happened the boy did seem to know a route into the Thieves' Guild without tripping any of their security. Okulas felt a tiny quiver of admiration, the boy was no more than fifteen years of age, at the outside, yet he had found a way to circumnavigate a series of security measures that even a glass monkey had to be cautious of.

Once inside the building one of the Thieves' passive security measures came in to play. A natural thief had to have a good sense of direction, without one a building with many identical rooms and hallways became very difficult to navigate. This observation was deeply embedded into thief lore and all proper thieves' guild building interiors were square, grey and featureless, so only a thief could get their bearings in them.

The boy was good, but he wasn't that good. He spent an hour just bumbling around, hiding from thieves who nearly spotted him and not finding the person he'd given the package to. Eventually, by sheer luck, he heard a conversation saying that she (a she? Okulas should have known but was still surprised) was taking the Grand Canal out of the city.

The boy knew where the underwater dock was and went there fast enough to be able to get onto the barge that was taking this female dragon warrior on towards her destination. The glass monkey followed, and watched carefully. If this street-urchin hadn't come along for the ride then Okulas would never have known where this woman was going; or even that it was a woman.

The barge took the small party away from the poor quarter and out to the main canal ways, toward the market quarter's shipping yard. Once there the Dragon Warrior, the urchin and Okulas's monkey switched to another boat. As this boat left the ship yard on to the canal way that would merge with the Deepwight River the Dragon Warrior's companion, a gruff looking boatman, spoke aloud for the first time since the boat transfer.

"Did you get it?" he asked the woman.

"I did," she said. "Wouldn't be here if I hadn't. Can't get past the padfoot without it."

"You could probably have just tried telling it off," the boatman remarked, the shadow of a smile upon his lips.

"There's nothing that will disperse this padfoot save the Storm's Eye, it's a geis," the woman said. Her face was still not visible within the hood but there was the sound of a grin in her voice.

After this brief exchange the conversation devolved into an exchange of pleasantries and tidbits of tedious gossip. Okulas ceased to listen, instead pressing the glass monkey to look about and see where they were headed and who else was on board the barge.

The answers turned out to be, southwards and nobody else. The former did not tell Okulas very much, except that they were heading into the Hundred Kingdoms. The latter pleased him greatly, particularly as Okulas was going to have to keep any activities he undertook within the Kingdoms very quiet indeed.

Eventually the boatman took his rest and the woman piloted the barge down the river alone. In the small hours the boatman took the tiller again and the woman rested. While the boatman was in charge he steered the boat off the Deepwight River and onto a tributary branch. They headed north again, as well as to the east, but not far enough north to leave the Hundred Kingdoms once more.

It didn't take long before they reached a small inland port with space to provide mooring for maybe twenty barges. The barge that carried the four passengers was the only craft at this place. The boatman moored the barge and woke the Dragon Warrior.

As the morning grew to full strength another person approached the port. A thief, riding a horse, a second horse tethered behind. The woman saddled up the second horse and climbed on its back.

They were in the process of bidding farewell to the boatman when the urchin revealed his presence. He tumbled from under a mound of sacking on the aft of the barge, not four feet from the tiller of the craft and stood, looking defiantly sheepish out on the edge of the dock as the three figures regarded him with amazement.

"Wish Forbetter!" the woman said, dismounting from her steed and coming over to the boy. "What do you think you are doing stowing away on Old Jed's boat?"

"I wanted to see where you were going," Wish responded. "It seemed like an adventure."

"It's more than any adventure a lad should be along on," the thief responded, a note of anger in his voice. "I shall have to take you to the nearest town, that will delay us by at least a day."

"There is no time, Garnet," the woman said. "He will have to come with us. We can't afford the time. Okulas will catch wind of what we're doing."

Okulas permitted himself a moment to preen at this clear evidence that his own hidden passenger had not been detected. As pleased as he was by this he was concerned that the boy might be sent away before the party got to its destination. He didn't want to ruin any more of his own plan than absolutely necessary with a thief and a Dragon Warrior knowing his minion was even present. A quick strike at the key moment would be the best plan.

"You can't take a boy into Hammerlode!" Garnet objected.

"We don't have a choice, he will have to ride with me," the woman said. "We had best be quick, in and out. Okulas has eyes everywhere you know."

The thief Garnet did not seem terribly happy at the arrangement, but he deferred to the Dragon Warrior's command. The three of them left the port side and rode their horses up a mountain road that soon turned into a thin trail. The trail ended at the mouth of an old mine, its entrance covered over with boards of weathered wood.

"You stay with Garnet," the woman said to Wish before they approached the mine entrance. "Don't think you can lend a hand to me, because you can't. Understood?"

Wish nodded, solemnly. With that warning in place Garnet and the woman pulled down the boards over the entrance and proceeded on into the mine. Wish trailed on after Garnet, the glass monkey slunk along behind them all.

They hadn't gone very far into the shaft before they were greeted by the sound of a mournful howl coming from the dark tunnels ahead. The woman and Garnet both took a moment to light torches. The flickering yellow-white flames illuminated the mine walls but the light did not push back the shadows a great distance.

"You sure this is going to work?" Garnet asked nervously.

"The Storm's Eye was forged to defeat a spectre-hound," the woman said. "I haven't personally tested it though, no. They're not very common these days."

Garnet was visibly unhappy at this news, the woman shrugged.

"You want to go back?" she asked.

"No, carry on," Garnet's tone said the exact opposite of his actual words. The woman listened to the words and not the tone.

The mine shaft sloped down and was extensive, eventually it levelled out and divided. After following a few twists and turns without even pausing Okulas guessed that the woman's route was pre-planned and memorised. If the Quintessence Crystal was here it was really no wonder that the Count had never found it, Weatherstrong's thief friend had done an excellent job of hiding it.

That made Okulas wonder why it was that this Dragon Warrior had taken it upon herself to move it. Given all the time that the Count had spent on locating the crystal without success so far there were really only two options. One was that the woman was a paranoid idiot, the other was that where they were moving it to wouldn't stop at being an obscure location, it would probably also be resistant to being located at all.

Okulas had long ago become averse to the risks of assumption. That meant he had to be very sure that he did not lose the crystal this time. Otherwise he may never get another chance to drain its power.

The Count had barely had time to make this resolution before the attack happened. Okulas had encountered a padfoot before this one was a large and particularly ferocious example of a breed that was formidable even in its weaker members.

The woman fought the spectral hound with the sword that she had obtained from Wish. Okulas commanded his monkey to stay well out of the way. A spectre-hound had all the senses of its material counterpart enhanced with some magical senses as well. None of the folk in the mine shaft could see the glass monkey but the padfoot might.

And indeed it did. Spectre-hounds have a keen sense of threat and a glass monkey was definitely the most threatening presence in the party. The hound broke from its engagement with the Dragon Warrior to run towards the glass monkey.

Okulas's servant panicked and turned to bolt away. There would be no chance for the creature alone in the dark tunnels. Okulas took control of the creature expending some of his magical energy to dominate the monkey's will. He made the monkey turn and dodge past the padfoot. He wanted to bring the beast back towards the woman.

In normal circumstances this would have been risky, the glass monkey might be revealed if it could be heard or felt. In the heat of battle it was a risk that had to be taken. Okulas imagined the woman was already puzzled at the dog's sudden switch of focus. Okulas intended that the focus switched back.

Placing the monkey behind the woman worked beautifully. The padfoot came back towards the woman. The new situation provided an unexpected bonus for everyone except the spectre-hound. The padfoot was trying to kill the monkey but whilst the woman was in the way she was attacking the monster. As a result she didn't have to try terribly hard to stab and slice at the padfoot because it was distracted.

Within a few moments the spectre-hound dissolved, defeated. The woman looked over to Garnet and Wish and caught her breath.

"See," Wish said happily. "No problem at all."

"Seemed too easy," the woman said, looking about her, suspicious.

Okulas took his cue and withdrew the glass monkey to a safe distance.

"Sometimes things are what they are, Princess," Garnet said flatly. "Can we be done?"

The woman, the princess, nodded curtly and continued on her route through the mine. A short distance further on they came to another downward shaft, the top of a ladder visible over the edge of the excavation.

They climbed down the ladder and walked along a short passage into a small cavern. Inside the cavern was a single item: a giant, stone pumpkin. The pumpkin was carved in two interlocking pieces. The princess stuck the shaft of her torch into the floor and shifted the top half of the pumpkin, inside the carved husk was a book, an old volume of simple spells such as might be given to a student witch. That was not something one would go to the trouble of hiding down here.

The princess opened the book, the inside was hollowed out and nestling within the space carved into the pages was the shard of crystal that contained all the power of the Terra Draconis.

Now was the moment. Okulas pushed the glass monkey to lope forward and jump onto Garnet's back. The monkey dug its hands into the man's neck and Okulas pushed the force of his mental domination forward through the man's flesh.

Dominating the mind of a man was not at all as simple a business as dominating a servile glass monkey. Garnet resisted but all resistance melted before the sheer force of Okulas's determination. Within a second Okulas had drawn Garnet's knife and put it to Wish's throat.

"Garnet?" the princess was genuinely shocked by her companion's apparent betrayal. That was an important tactical advantage Okulas decided to play the traitor card for what it was worth.

"Sorry, Princess," Okulas said through Garnet's mouth. He hoped the fact that he did not know the princess's name wouldn't cause him any problems. "You want the boy, my master wants the crystal."

"The Count is not your master," the princess said. "He killed your wife."

"And now all I have is money," Okulas said. He knew that some people put ridiculous sentimental attachments above the acquisition of money and power. He also knew there were fewer of this type of person among the ranks of thieves than elsewhere.

"I can't believe this Garnet," the princess said. "You wouldn't kill a boy. Think of Flint, think of your son."

"But this ain't my son," Okulas responded. "This is just a boy who will never be a man unless you give me what I want."

"I can't let you have this," the princess said.

"Then the boy dies," Okulas responded. Garnet was fighting the control but Okulas did push the blade tighter against Wish's neck. The blade pierced the skin and Wish cried out.

"I'm coming closer," the princess said. She held the glowing crystal aloft, her spare hand was open, empty, reaching out towards Wish. The princess was looking straight into Garnet's eye as she came forward.

"I can kill him before you can pull him close to you," Okulas warned her.

"Then I won't pull," the princess said as the glow from the Quintessence Crystal instensified. The princess's hand brushed Wish's cheek and the white light became a blinding beacon that obscured Okulas's vision. When the light had cleared the princess, Wish and the crystal had vanished, leaving Garnet and the glass monkey alone in the mine.

Okulas howled in frustration but it was too late, the princess had taken the crystal away.

"Does it tell you where they took it to?" asked Phoebe September, listening to this tale in another time at another place.

"It does," the story gatherer reported, looking up from the page of the tale. "But the reference is vague, it says that she hid the crystal, herself and Wish in a place called the Skull Garden, a place she had heard of from her friends when she was young. We never had those stories, till you came."

"Then our destination is written somewhere in here!" Tabarnas said, motioning towards Volume One of Anabyl's adventures.

And indeed it was, it didn't take them long to work out the route and the Story Gatherers sent them to the Garden, but what happened when they got there is a story for another day.

Lester And James Distract A Wolf

"So what are we doing again?" Lester asked, twitching the wrist of his right hand, uncomfortably grasping a short sword, to swish the blade about a bit in the air.

"We're a distraction," James said. His sword remained still, his eyes searching the forest path intently.

"Okay," Lester said. Lester hadn't felt proper misery now for quite some time. Panic, confusion, fear, awkwardness, guilt and even terror, all yes; misery, not so much. He didn't even really know how to express his misery because the reasons for it would either sound stupid or selfish or both.

Since James had found his own form in the Undone; since they had escaped, all three of them, into this charming little shadow kingdom; since they had set out into the woods in the hope of picking up a trade route back to Bridgetown, Lester's misery had grown.

Was Lester miserable about James now not being a mouse? It was true that the lanky, intense individual that had replaced the sarcastic, emotionally complex little rodent was a bit of a system shock. Someone's physical shape should not play such a huge part in how one related to them, Lester felt. Yet here was James, now not a cheeky mouse, instead a charismatic and intelligent man approaching a distinguished middle age.

The transformation appeared to demand that people took James more seriously, not to mention the man's kind and lovely wife. Rebecca had known the man James for longer than the mouse James. From the first moment they had been together Lester knew that Rebecca would never have viewed her husband's rodent form as anything more than a horrible affliction. Lester had never known James as a man and so had always thought of him as a mouse with amnesia.

The amnesia was another thing that had put Lester off kilter. A mouse could have amnesia and it was possible for an observer not to take the whole thing terribly seriously. After all what important memories could a mouse have? When the mouse was a man, the pain of forgetting written in the lines on his face, you were forced to confront your own flippancy.

None of this was a recipe for much more than confusion and a period of necessary adjustment, of course. The problem was the misery and sense of loss that accompanied the confusion. Lester realised that whilst he and James had both been bewildered, both seeking things that appeared impossible to find, that their bond had formed organically, without either one of them noticing. In a world where the finding of a clue to the location of a brother, or a memory that might help upon the road to a mislaid daughter, was a task of gargantuan proportions the funny young man in the pinstripe flannel suit and the amnesiac mouse had each other.

James had gone with Lester on an amazing journey, through some of the strangest places in Faerie, they had seen the ruins of a sorcerer's palace, the edge of the Undone and the colourful stalls of the market at the centre of everything. James's journey had restored to him many (although still not all) of his memories, his daughter, his wife and his physical form. Lester had managed to harvest an elliptical letter and a bottle of potion he had used up to escape the Undone.

Lester knew that his quest was ongoing, and probably a worthwhile endeavour, but when he compared his progress to James's the results were not encouraging. Still, Lester felt incredibly selfish for resenting his companion's progress and feeling the blank, empty helplessness of his current empty-handedness.

Even trying his hardest to put all this aside Lester still felt that he was losing the best friend he had ever had, before he'd even ever really had a chance to tell this friend how he felt. He couldn't help but gain the impression that James believed that they were companions because of circumstance and not because of friendship. As James now had a family to think about, and some handy opposable thumbs, it became more and more apparent that Lester was somewhat of a third wheel in any situation James might find himself in.

That was difficult and caused a sadness that Lester couldn't just squash down out of the way.

"You know," Lester said, filling the empty, silent air with a distracting burble of noise. "Things have happened pretty quickly today. I'm not even sure that I know what we're standing here for."

"I just said," James repeated, absently, "we're a distraction."

"Yes," Lester said. "I got that. I just don't know what we're a distraction from, or indeed what it is we're supposed to be distracting. It has something to do with a wizard. I remember the wizard, and you, you were talking to a mouse."

"Yes," James said. "Gargantuus Redstorm, who lives in the wall just yonder, told us that he was the member of a tribe that gathered intelligence for Silas Strumpkin, a wizard who lives in that house over there." James pointed at the house just visible along the path about fifty feet away. "Wizard Strumpkin is currently engaged in commune with the weave, trying to gain some information paid for by a noble in the next shadow. A rival noble has sent a lupine mercenary to kill Strumpkin whilst he is vulnerable. Gargantuus and his tribe are not able to warn Silas and so we are here to defeat the mercenary before it can get to the wizard."

"Right," Lester said. He took a look down at the lumpen, poorly forged metal rod in his hand. A poorly constructed melange of sword and mace. He had never held a weapon before now, he wasn't sure that this was the weapon to start with. Also, how was he supposed to be of any use fighting a wolf? There were more questions. 'Why?' seemed to be one of the most pertinent, so he asked it.

"Gargantuus knows that Silas has recorded a spell of transportation in his book of spells. If the wizard awakes from his trance alive and in good humour Gargantuus will persude him to send us back to Bridgetown."

"So all we have to do is kill a wolf to save a wizard and we go back to where we started from?" Lester said. "Done much wolf killing, have you?"

James shook his head.

"Almost none that I can remember," he replied. "We're not really supposed to kill it, we're just supposed to keep it busy until Rebecca can kill it with an arrow."

"Oh, okay," Lester nodded. "And what happens if the wolf comes from the other direction?"

"Then she'll be in the ideal position to kill it before it ever sees her or us," James said, his tone was beginning to gain an edge of annoyance. "You weren't listening at all back there, were you?"

"Not really," Lester admitted, allowing a little ire to leak out in his tone. "I'm tired, and afraid. I'm pretty hungry and... if I'm entirely honest... I was busy wondering why a mouse was called Gigantuus."

"It's a mouse thing," James said. "I discovered this when I was one. Mice think of themselves as the biggest creatures in the world. Anything bigger than them is, to them, just as big as them. So they like to call themselves big, tough names, to recognize their awesome stature and whatnot. They're mostly a species of proud warriors."

"I see, they always struck me as a little nervous," Lester said.

"They're very proud of their flight reflex. They have almost no voluntary control over it," James explained. "I had more because I wasn't born a mouse. Regular rats and mice will run automatically in the face of overwhelming odds without even really being aware that they're doing it. They call it 'saviour ghosting', well, they do when they get away intact."

"Wow," Lester said. "There's quite a lot going on with those mice then. I never knew."

Silence fell, which was not a good thing for Lester as his mind was instantly alerted at his failure to actually admit what was really troubling him when he had said 'if I'm entirely honest'. Worse Lester had realised that he had given James a hard time about not being entirely honest when he himself had been too confused to be honest on several recent occasions.

Lester had made a decision to improve his honesty and was now failing miserably to speak up and be direct about things. Lester didn't feel comfortable with the notion that emotions could be difficult, they were going to happen no matter how complex or inconvenient they were going to be, but that didn't make them any simpler. Lester was in danger of becoming wreathed in sadness again. He had to talk or his feelings would overwhelm him.

"So, you're glad... to be a person again?" Lester asked. If he brought up a topic of conversation that put James's transformation on the table maybe he would find a way to say the difficult things.

"It's definitely an advantage," James replied. "If I could just get my memory, my daughter and my home back then I would feel a lot better still."

"Yes," Lester said. "That would be nice. Having everything sorted out would be nice."

James looked over at Lester, the clear, grey-green human eyes in James's human face were far more expressive than the small dark eyes of the mouse he had been. Lester found human James too human to deal with. Adding guilt to the misery Lester realised that his sense of loss came with the realisation that he was no longer the most important person in the duo. He was a drifter looking for an elusive brother. James... well, James was some kind of important.

Someone had robbed James of his memories and put him into a faraway shadow not far from the edge of the Undone. Someone had turned James into a mouse and dispersed his wife. Someone had wanted James hidden away and imprisoned. Whatever James's full story was it was a story that mattered a great deal to several powerful people.

What about Lester and Chester Topping? Chester was so important that he had been forced to hide himself from everyone, including his twin brother. All Lester was trying to do was find him. Lester was not important. Lester was just Lester.

"If I can do anything to help you find Chester, when I have the power to do so, then I will, of course," James said quietly.

There was no time to respond to that. Lester saw a movement on the path, not far from where they stood. It looked as if the mercenary had arrived.

Lester looked pointedly at the approaching figure, James turned to look in the direction Lester was indicating.

"Just concentrate on staying safe," James said. "Try to knock him back, give Rebecca a clear shot."

Lester nodded. The sudden tension in his stomach made him completely unable to feel sadness, or inadequacy, or guilt. Lester shifted his grip on his wonky sword. He wondered if he could get used to this sort of thing, like a knight.

About sixty seconds later Lester had firmly decided that, no, he was never going to make a knight. The wolf was being kept back but this was mostly due to a lunatic ferocity he was managing to exhibit in his sword waving antics. The adrenaline flooding his system prevented him from looking over to see if James was doing any better but, regardless, a few seconds later the whole thing was over when an arrow in the chest put down the ravening lupine mercenary.

"Remind me to avoid being a decoy again," James said, leaning over and putting his hands on his knees, exhausted.

"Same here," Lester replied.

They got about a minute to gather themselves together before Rebecca joined them on the path and the three of them went back towards the wizard's house. Once James had talked once more with Gargantuus, and the three of them had shown that the mercenary had been thwarted, they went back to the house with their rodent companion.

After a few hours Silas Strumpkin came out of his trance and, upon being told by Gargantuus of the bravery of the three strangers was happy to make them a portal to transport them into the Patchwork Market. So James, Lester and Rebecca stepped through the portal back to their destination, but what happened to them when they got there is a story for another time.

Sir Cobb and the Cage Match

"I will never love again," Avan Weatherstrong said, tears stinging at his eyes.

"You are a ridiculous man," replied the phantom Kal'hath. "You knew when first we met that our time together would be this brief."

"Had I but perfected the potion we both sought," Avan said. "Then we could be together for all time."

"We will be," the phantom replied. "For now, the change of death has come upon me. I must go on my way. I shall never forget you my prince."

"Nor I you," Avan Weatherstrong replied. Now he was alone beneath the ragblossom tree in the Wylde Woods so his words were borne away upon the wind. He did not know if his first love heard them, but he chose to believe that she had.

Prince Weatherstrong performed many great deeds, and one day he met the woman who would be the love of his life. All of these adventures will be written of, but not at this time.

Well, I don't think anyone wanted it to end like that, Frederick mused, and I didn't even like her that much. He closed the bound copy of "The Tales of Avan Weatherstronge Volume VI" that he had picked up for a half crown in Bridgetown. He had bought the volume mostly to check up on what had happened after he left.

Frederick had noted that the entire volume V was peppered with references to Avan's plucky but hapless sidekick, Sir Cobbe. He had left wondering about whether these tales had existed before his diversion into the distant past for wiser heads; ones less likely to throb at the consideration of the topic.

Now that he had concluded the adventures of volume VI with the certain knowledge that Avan's love affair with the shapeshifter Kal'Hath had probably been a bad idea he wanted to see what happened in volume VII. He also wanted to reassure Avan that he had made it back to where he had started off without too much permanent damage.

The door of the inn room opened and Lester came in.

"Phoebe said if we're not all ready to go by morning bell that she would see to it we would be very very sorry," he said. "I, for one, am inclined to believe her."

"Sorry," Frederick said, slipping the book into his knapsack. As he did so he realised that, having finished it, the volume was now an encumbrance rather than a vital piece of research material. He decided that he would have to sell it at the market while they were searching for the little girl and the goblin trader this morning.

"No need to apologise to me," Lester said. "And I don't think it would do much good with Phoebe when she's in a temper. If there's one thing I've noticed it is that she is not fun to be around when she's angry."

A brief image of Phoebe's flashing eyes and plasma filled hands impressed itself on Frederick's mind.

"Oh, I don't know," he said with a little smirk.

"Yes, well," Lester appeared to find Frederick's response flustering. He crossed to the side of his bed and knocked gently on the lid of the small wooden box that the old goblin lady had sold them. "James, time to get up."

"I've been up for the past five minutes with all your banging around," came a muted tone of annoyance from within the box. "The lid's a little heavy. Either that or it's stuck."

"Oh, hang on," Lester said. He fiddled with the lid, after a small amount of exertion it popped open. "Oops," he said. "Yes, it is a little tight."

"Tonight I think I shall sleep with the lid open, if it's all the same to you," James said, sitting up inside the box. "That was far too much like waking up in a coffin."

"I shall not be pleased," an angry female voice came floating down the corridor from outside the room. "If I have to come in there. Come on, daylight's burning."

The two men did a quick circuit of the room to check that they had not forgotten anything, once they were satisfied James was allowed to climb up on to Lester's shoulder. Locking the inn room behind them they all went downstairs to meet Phoebe.

Phoebe had found them a less than hearty breakfast of fruit which they ate as they walked out of the inn and down to the market square at Steephill Fell.

Frederick concentrated very hard on his pear and even more on his apple. He had learned, in the last couple of days, to concentrate on a variety of objects and tasks that were not Phoebe. Only a few weeks ago he had been despairing at how pathetic Prince Avan Weatherstrong had seemed besotted with an exotic maiden in black pyjamas. Frederick was determined not to make the same mistake, not that Phoebe was wearing black pyjamas, and even if she were, Frederick would be too busy concetrating on things that weren't her to notice.

"Right, here's the plan for the day," Phoebe said, taking charge as always. Frederick did appreciate Phoebe's instinct to organise things but he assured himself this was just because it gave him a framework that, prior to his encounter with a certain prince of legend, he had been sorely lacking.

"We've got a couple of hours until the mid morning bell," Phoebe pressed on, "we are to spread out and search for the trader's wagon until then. At mid-morning, if we haven't found them I will go to the magic market where I will use the last of my money to buy a new blank spell book and some potions. Thereafter I can sell my services as a healer. Meanwhile Frederick will see if there's a fighting pit where he could earn us a few coins.

"Once either of us has made a Bronze Mark, or it gets to the mid afternoon bell we will come back to meet Lester under the market bell. After that we will continue to search and ask questions until evening bell. We will stay one more night in the Gryphon's Wing and then, in the morning, we must press on, unless we succeed in finding Rachel, in which case we shall come up with a new plan."

"Um, so, I just stay under the market bell?" Lester asked. He didn't sound happy with the arrangement.

"From midmorning until the both of us return, yes," Phoebe said.

"That doesn't seem like a very important job," Lester said.

"Neither selling healing services nor being beaten up for the entertainment of others are important Lester," Phoebe said. "But we all have to do what we can to keep ourselves fed on this journey. You will keep an eye on the market, you never know when we'll encounter someone who will have news of the trader's wagon."

"Just seems a bit tedious," Lester half-grumbled, half-muttered.

"You can have my book of stories to read, if you like," Frederick offered. He didn't expect Lester to greet this idea with enthusiasm. Frederick had found reading chore enough and he had been deeply invested in the contents.

"No," Lester said, "it's fine. I'll just sit quietly and wait for you to return."

"You could talk to me," James said from Lester's shoulder. "I could even read to you from the book. I like a good book."

Everyone took a moment to look at James as if he were crazy.

"What?" the mouse objected. "I find reading very relaxing."

"Look," Phoebe broke across the rapidly disintegrating conversational trajectory. "I don't really care what people do as long as they do it while sticking to the plan. We've only got two bells before mid-morning, let's see what we can find. Now."

Thus directed the party split up to cover the market at Steephill Fell and surrounding streets.

Frederick moved around the market, keeping his eyes open for signs of a goblin merchant accompanied by a young girl, or a young girl wandering alone, or a mermaid, or a mobile trader's wagon. He did have a brief conversation with a rainbow grease merchant, but the goblin's tins of product were imports from Trenchside.

He managed to get a conversation going with a general trader who bought the book from Frederick for the scandalous resale price of twenty shillings, the trader offered this as an improvement on his opening gambit of one hundred groats. Frederick was not particularly good at mental arithmetic but he believed the two figures may actually have amounted to exactly the same thing.

The point was not the poor price he attracted for the resale of the book. The point was rather that, whilst the trader was trying altogether far too hard to bamboozle Frederick, he let slip that there had been an upset in the fishmonger's alley near to the master's quarters the previous evening. As the deal was done the mid-morning bell tolled, indicating that it was time to report to the nearest fighting pit.

"I could have got you a better deal for that book," said a voice from Frederick's waist.

"Don't talk," Frederick said. "Remember Hamsamperburg."

"These are the Rolling Greens," the sword replied, "it's not some Midnight Forest backwater. Talking swords are probably commonplace in this area. Besides, I'm bored of sitting at your waist dumbly. I had myself transferred into this artifact in order to engage in social interaction."

"I thought you were transferred into the sword in order to travel and see the world," Frederick said.

"Both, I made the move for both reasons," the sword replied, its irritation showing. "Regardless, it's a good job I did, I'm clearly more worldly than you. Twenty shillings is a shocking price for a stout volume like the one you just sold."

"I needed to lighten the load, besides I obtained useful information from the deal." Frederick wasn't exactly certain why he felt he had to defend himself to a sword, he carried on nevertheless.

"You are not at all business minded, are you?" the sword asked.

"I'm a knight, I defend the helpless, I avenge wrong wherever I find it. I haven't got time for economics."

"So you're bringing a whole new level of inefficiency to your operation?" the sword countered. "Imagine the do-gooding that you could accomplish if you didn't have to spend up to a quarter of every day grubbing around for loose change."

"So what?" Frederick asked. "I should take a break and find a tutor in basic merchant craft?"

"That burly fellow, Sir Vaskorn, he's clearly had some lessons in efficient resource management," the sword said. "Look at him now."

"Oh, yes, because I really want to model myself after an enormous evil bully," Frederick said.

"Well, you won't ever beat someone like that whilst you're scrabbling on the floor after every meagre groat," the sword pointed out. "You said that you avenge wrong, difficult to do that properly when you have no liquid assets."

"So what do you suggest I do?" Frederick asked.

"Well, you're heading to the arena now," the sword said. "Why don't you simply let me do the talking?"

"If you say so," Frederick sighed, after all, what harm could it do?

Frederick asked about in the tavern and was directed down a small side street into a cellar bar where the local fighting ring was set up. The fight roster for any given pit was determined by which fighters happened to be in the room that day. There were always regular fighters of course, but then there were travelling brawlers, various monsters and, of course, wandering knights who all found occasions where they had to step into the ring of competition in order to earn a small purse.

Frederick presented himself to the bar owner and said that he would like to be added to the day's roster.

"Fights begin at noon bell," the owner said, he pulled a large, black ledger from under the bar and opened it to a fresh page. He took a pen and filled its nib from a pot of ink. "Fighting name?" the tavern keeper asked.

"Sir Cobb," Frederick said. "Champion of the Weak."

"Uh-huh," the tavern keeper said, he might have been less impressed by something he'd heard that day but, if this was the case, Frederick couldn't imagine a tone of voice any flatter or more hollow that he could have employed to indicate the fact. "Every fight earns a shilling for a win," the man said. "Amateur fights last until evening bell."

"I don't think you heard my client," piped up the sword from Frederick's side. "He said he was Sir Cobb, Champion of the Weak."

The tavern keeper looked Frederick in the eye.

"What's that?" he said, tone still flat.

"That, my good man," said the sword, "is Sir Cobb's agent. Sir Cobb is a fighter of rare character and distinction. He does not dirty his knuckles on a shilling fighter. Sir Cobb is a professional man-at-arms. You will not find a coistrel of greater skill between Bridgetown and the Shimmering Shore. I am sure you have a professional purse that would be more suited to my client's skills."

"Professional bouts begin in the evening, you need a Fighter's Guild mark to take part," the tavern keeper said, his facial arrangement moving only enough to allow his mouth to form the words.

"Are you telling me that your business would not benefit from a one-off special event, this very afternoon, against any fighter on the pit roster?" the sword asked, not in the least bit put off by the tavern keeper's manner.

"You'll fight anyone?" the tavern keeper asked Frederick, refusing to address a foot and a half of forged metal strapped to a man's waist.

"He'll beat anyone!" the sword announced proudly.

"There's been a fella here, paid for lodgings, don't like him, smells, is rude," the tavern keeper said. "He won't leave because he can't be beat. You beat him you can name your price."

"A silver crown" the sword cut in before Frederick could ask for a bronze mark.

"A sovereign," the tavern keeper shot back.

"Done," the sword said.

A slow smile spread across the tavern keeper's face. Frederick believed that he much preferred the previous stony neutrality.

"If I were you, friend," the tavern keeper said to Frederick. "I'd keep that sword from issuing edicts your backside might find it hard to enforce."

Frederick wasn't arrogant enough not to get a sinking feeling in his stomach at the tavern keeper's morbid glee. The tavern keeper's gaze slid sideways, away from Frederick, to settle on a small boy sat a table in the corner.

"Jinks!" he called out. "Go tell the crier that we got a fighter for the troll at noon. There's a bowl of Martha's gruel in it for you."

The lad slipped off his chair and ran off to market.

"Every fighter gets a free drink," the tavern keeper said, turning back to Frederick. "What can I get you?"

The news that he was to fight a troll was a matter of some concern to Frederick. Almost the first lesson he'd ever learned was 'if at all possible avoid any confrontation with a troll' and this fighting fixture necessarily ran counter to that general guideline. Still, there was a sovereign on the line. If Frederick could pull this off it would give the party a little financial security for the next few days.

Noon rolled by faster than Frederick might have liked. He was apprehensive at the sight of all the people who had turned out to watch him battle the troll. It appeared that the citizens of Steephill Fell were keen to see this monster get its comeuppance, or to see Frederick beaten to within an inch of his life. Perhaps they were not altogether that concerned which, as long as it was either.

At the noon bell Frederick took a step up into the caged pit area and stood under the harsh overhead dwarf crystal lamps waiting for his opponent to join him. There was a murmur from the crowd as a shadow fell across the entrance to the bar. A heavy tread crossed the distance to the cage and a familiar bulbous-nosed, bearded, warty head came into view in the light of the pit lamps.

"Well, well, well, Frederick Cobb," said Yelloweye Blackfang, grinning unpleasantly. "What a nice surprise waiting for me this afternoon, to be sure."

"You know this gentleman?" asked the sword which, within the cage fighting rules, had been strapped to the bars of the cage on the outside where Frederick could not reach it.

"We... have met on a couple of previous occasions," Frederick said. "I rescued a moon maiden from him, then, when next we crossed paths, I trapped him inside a mirror prison."

"You should have told me," the sword said. "I could have got more money for a grudge match."

"I didn't know!" Frederick complained.

"Oh, well," the sword said. "Nothing to be done about it now."

With that the cage door was closed and locked, the tavern keeper rang the pit bell and Yelloweye Blackfang hollered with wicked delight as he charged forward, intending to barge Frederick to the ground.

The one thing Frederick had going for him at this point was that, since his last encounter with the troll, he had spent three months in hero boot camp and a further month and a half in one of the strangest places that exists anywhere in the weave or beyond. He had learned plenty of good hero-ing tricks and had his capacity for being particularly freaked out by anything tested to its absolute limit.

Not feeling any more panicked than the original 'butterflies in tummy' he'd had now for over an hour he rolled his shoulder and hit the floor. Frederick tumbled to one side of the monster as it barreled past the point where Frederick had been a second previously.

The troll let out a cry of surprise as it ran straight into the stout metal bars at the edge of the cage. The troll bounced off the bars and almost fell backwards into the centre of the ring.

Excellent first move, Frederick thought as he spun to face his monstrous adversary, now, how to finish this off without dying, and without any kind of weapon?

There was really only one tactic that could end this in relative peace without anyone getting too badly hurt, Frederick hated it but the strategy was the only way to go. It didn't help that he had never actually tried to complete the move, although he had seen Avan execute it, once on an eight foot tall lizard man.

If Frederick's mentor could take down an annoyed giant gecko armed only with a length of chain Frederick could certainly apply the same technique to a troll. If he failed he probably deserved the beating.

Frederick ran towards Yelloweye Blackfang and, at the last moment before rebounding of the troll's solid torso he leaped up into the air, extending his leg to push off against the monster's right thigh. Getting a good, solid footing he pushed himself over the troll's right shoulder and, as he flew round, he reached his arms out to encircle its neck. He clamped down hard and began to squeeze, attempting to choke the creature into unconsciousness.

Frederick had been so intent on getting into position without screwing up too badly he hadn't had time to take in reactions from either his opponent or the gathered crowd. Prioritising the two Frederick noticed that Yelloweye Blackfang hadn't moved to throw Frederick off just yet. The troll must be surprised at Frederick's newfound capability but surprise wore off, Frederick did his best to tighten his hold.

Broadening his perspective Frederick realised that the cellar bar had fallen silent. His perception of time probably wasn't exactly normal at the moment. He had probably only taken maybe ten seconds to roll up to a standing position, decide on a strategy, enact it and end up here but in Frederick's mind the fight had already been going on for hours.

"He's choking the troll!" came a cry from the crowd.

"Go on! Give 'im what for!" a second voice piped up.

Suddenly the cage was awash with a lusty roar of excited fight spectators. Frederick didn't have any time to enjoy his sudden popularity as the sound of the crowd broke Yelloweye Blackfang's trance of shock.

"Get off me!" gargled the troll reaching up to grab at Frederick's arm. The advantage of the back position was that it made it an awkward job for the chokee to get a good grip on the choker.

Even as the troll grappled ineffectively with Frederick's arm it also staggered backwards, stumble-stepped but remaining upright. It hit the edge of the cage backwards at some momentum, Frederick had one of many opportunities that had come his way recently to have the wind knocked out of him.

As little flashing spots danced in front of his eyes Frederick marvelled to think that, as recently as ten weeks ago, he might have let go after being winded like that. Now he clung on for grim life and hoped that the troll was finding things a lot more unpleasant where he was standing.

Thankfully Yelloweye Blackfang appeared to be finding it harder to think, which, to be fair, probably wasn't the easiest activity for a troll to engage in even in optimum conditions. The troll staggered and stepped in lazy, broken circles, the grip on Frederick's arm was loosening. The troll dropped to one knee and then, in a desperation move, threw itself backwards onto the floor.

This time 'winding' wasn't the term for what Frederick experienced, this was far more like 'crushing'. Yelloweye Blackfang rolled away as Frederick let go of its neck but the damage was mostly done. Frederick's chest felt as if it had been on the wrong end of a dozen mallet blows, he was struggling for breath, his limbs lay in a sprawl not responding to his commands to get him to his feet.

He saw Yelloweye Blackfang stood, gulping down great lungfuls of oxygen, bent double, its hands on its knees. Frederick knew he did not have it in him to repeat the chokehold position. Now he was in serious trouble.

His body began to respond to his urgent commands to move. The first couple of serious fights Frederick had been involved in he had allowed the pain to keep him down. Very quickly the fledgling knight learned that it often wasn't the one who put people down you had to beware of it was the one who kept getting back up. Since then Frederick had always committed himself to a serious effort to get back up from anything that he possibly could.

He found himself on his feet with unexpected speed, the sound of his heart hammered in his chest, which, incidentally, felt like someone had filled it with broken glass and sand. He had, at most, a second to decide how to attack next, if he slowed for a second the troll would beat him bloody.

He didn't even really know what he was doing, his legs appeared to run towards the bars at the edge of the cage all by themselves. He jumped into the air, gripped the bars further up and hauled his body into the air.

Pushing off from the bars Frederick aimed his entire body towards Yelloweye Blackfang's head and attempted to ram both of his elbows into the top of the troll's skull. The blow made devastating contact sending spikes of agony up and down Frederick's arms.

The pain must have been mutual, Yelloweye Blackfang slumped forward, Frederick flopped down on top of the troll. For a few seconds there was nothing in the whole world except for the blessed relief of being laid out flat and not moving.

Then Frederick heard the cheering.

A couple of pairs of hands urged him upright again and held his aching, wobbly arms aloft in victory.

"The new ring champion!" announced the tavernkeeper, "Sir Cobb! Champion of the Weak!" He sounded a lot more enthusastic about the appellation post-victory.

After that incidents proceeded in a bit of a whirl. Frederick received his sovereign along with many cheers and admiring comments from the fight fans. Before long Frederick was walking slowly back towards the market bell to meet with the others.

He had to tread carefully because his head was still spinning a bit from the fight but as he reached the edge of the market square he was urged on to action. Something exploded on the side of the square near to the market bell and Frederick found himself jogging to return to the place where he expected to find Lester and James.

What had exploded and the things that happened when he got there are both things that I will tell you at another time.

In Which Saeed Visits The City of Sorrowblade

Life, Saeed considered, is filled with hard lessons. The hard lesson that had occasioned this consideration was thus: Do not take the terms of a deal with the Master of the Patchwork Market lightly. Saeed had believed that the restoration of Princess Butterstone's brother, in reasonable health, from his place of captivity would satisfy the deal he had made with Kalico.

The Master of the Market had told Saeed upon his return to the Master's Tower that the agreement was null and void. If Saeed wanted a market seal he would have to do one more job. When Saeed had objected Kalico pointed out the clause in their verbal agreement that required the matter be handled 'with discretion'. Saeed took a moment to reflect and came to the conclusion that the explosion and resultant damage to Sir Vaskorn's plaza, not to mention the confrontation between Vaskorn's mercenaries and the Market Watch that had followed, could hardly be described as 'discreet'.

Saeed's only options were to get angry about the matter or to accept his own shortcomings. A thief Saeed was, hot tempered he was not. So Saeed had, with unspoken sadness and frustration, accepted the master's ruling.

"I knew you had wisdom," Kalico grinned, as he sat behind his large flat desk. The Master of the Market was relaxed, he exercised power with an air of great assurance. He smiled like a shark and had eyes like a snake. Underneath it all, Saeed believed, there was a heart that was, if not good, at least ethical. "Maybe the sting of my harsh ruling will be lessened if I tell you the nature of the job I wish you to do."

"Perhaps," Saeed said, although he could not imagine it.

"What if I told you that yesterday's little disturbance was not the first time that Sir Vaskorn's activities have attracted unwelcome attention?" Kalico asked, his tone smooth and measured.

Saeed could not help but lean forward a little. He had not liked the giant knight one little bit. Sir Vaskorn was a bully, filled with rage, who frightened people into obedience. Any chance Saeed was given to undermine a man like that was a chance to do good in the name of his mother.

Kalico's smile neither grew nor did it falter.

"A wise boy and an excellent thief," Kalico said. "I shall not be able to cut too many deals to my advantage with this one."

Only then did Kalico's facial expression change, it grew darker, the grin disappeared as Kalico sat forward over his desk.

"Before the close of market on Duesday," Kalico said, "One of Vaskorn's men has been observed leaving the market upon a certain bridge to one of the darker far off shadows. The same knight returns upon the following Stockday accompanied by two talking wolves pulling a cart of treasure, the treasure goes onto Vaskorn's plaza. At that point I lose track of it.

"I have, of course, performed routine inspections of Vaskorn's plaza, as I do all pitches in the market, in order to assess the dues to be paid for the upkeep of the market as a whole. My watch have never found evidence of the chests or their contents upon the plaza.

"Aside from the possible dues evasion issue," Kalico said, a new darkness settling into his tone at the mention of 'dues evasion', "there are other matters at hand. For a start nobody knows what is in the chest, nobody knows where the chest comes from and nobody knows what happens to the chest or its contents after it disappears onto Vaskorn's plaza.

"As you have already observed all confrontations between Vaskorn's men and my watch have the potential to turn ugly. It would not be the right play for me to directly confront a dues paying merchant when I do not know what the outcome will be for the market or its other patrons. The Patchwork Market has long held a reputation as being not only the biggest and best market in the lands of Faerie but also a far safer place to bring your coin purse than many smaller establishments. A street war is not something that anyone wants.

"The particulars of market lore prevent me from hiring a retinue of intelligencers but they say nothing about how I choose to reclaim the debt of a thief that I have found causing a disturbance on the plazas. So you see, as much as I may wish to dispense you a seal and send you upon your way, right now I need your particular skills more than I need to be praised for my benevolent generosity.

"Besides, I think I would be right in saying that you are not overly displeased to be offered an opportunity to redress the power balance problem I have with one of my wealthiest patrons."

Saeed could feel the beginnings of a smile start upon his own lips. Kalico's judgement was stern but it could not be argued against.

"Indeed you would not be wrong, Master," Saeed said. "I would be happy to provide you with this service, but I cannot, a second time, allow you the opportunity of a loophole. I am as keen as anyone to see Vaskorn properly hemmed in, but I am more concerned about the progress of my journey towards my mother. If I cannot be assured that I will secure the seal by the performance of this latest task I will have to leave the market and find another road upon my journey. I am sure that, as this would mean that everybody loses, no one here wants this to be the case."

"You argue eloquently," Kalico said. "Be assured that if I find out where the chest comes from, what it contains and where the contents end up, I shall happily furnish you with the seal you require. Discretion in this matter is obviously vital. If Vaskorn catches you I don't have to tell you how badly things would go for you. I also have to inform you that I will not be able to vouch for you if he brings you to me. This matter cannot be sensibly resolved if Vaskorn knows what I have been up to."

"I understand," Saeed said. "As I will not be encumbered by either a weakened prince in a state of confusion or a requirement to make noise it shall be just as if I am not there at all."

"Let us hope for all our sakes that you are neither proud nor boastful," Kalico said.

By the following Duesday Saeed had been given a good three nights to consider the extent of his own arrogance. He had come to the conclusion that a little arrogance was required of a thief, therefore he could only hope that his own was not excessive.

Vaskorn's knight appeared before the noon bell, heading out along the bridge that the Market Watch had pointed out to him. The bridge lead out through the rainbow mists to a shadow called Sorrowblade. This was not a land that Saeed was keen to visit again once he had left this time.

A large city sprawled up the sides of a valley directly upon the far side of the bridge. The sky here was a strange reddish purple. Upon the horizon Saeed could make out the tall stacks of vast chimneys constructed from dark mud bricks.

The same bricks were used to build everything in Sorrowblade, the walls, the roads, the buildings. There was no sign of nature excepting small walled beds of black earth from which there sprung coils of sickly white creeping plants with no leaves. The wind that blew through the valley was warm and dry, it filled Saeed's nose and mouth, drying his throat and leaving a taste like baked bricks and vinegar.

The domain of Sorrowblade was a sad place indeed, buried in bricks and steeped in wickedness.

Thankfully the city streets were a natural home to shadows and the rooftops were high. Saeed did not find it a challenge to follow along behind Vaskorn's agent unseen. The citizens of Sorrowblade all appeared to be talking animals of the ferocious variety. Many were wolves but there were bears and foxes alongside tall rodentine men who obviously had ancenstry among rats, mice, ferrets and weasels. There were also a fair few of the more evolved lizard men living and working in the city.

Saeed recognised the way that the people of Sorrowblade were divided as being very similar to the social divisions of the souk in Afsana. Many of the wolves, bears and foxes were well dressed, they treated the rodents and lizards with contempt, shouting at them and ordering them about. Saeed couldn't help feeling a little sorry for some of them, particularly those who resembled white-furred mice who were not just smaller than their lupine and ursine fellows but also a good deal meeker. In much the same manner as the meek souk residents had been regularly bullied and abused by the palace guards of Afsana so these little fellows were the butt of cruel practical jokes or bore the brunt of horrible abuse from the ferocious bears and wolves.

Saeed followed Vaskorn's knight along a number of streets and over a gigantic square. In the centre of the square was an enormous statue of a jackal sitting upon a throne. The statue's eyes glowered down upon the throng of Sorrowblade citizenry with suspicion.

Vaskorn's knight headed into an alley and down a set of steps into a cellar building. At the door of the cellar the knight's identity was confirmed before he was allowed entry. After he had gone inside the door was locked behind the knight.

He moved from the shadows where he was standing back to the corner of the alleyway. Thankfully there was a low building, two stories high not far away from which he could look at the cellar in the alley and also the front of the same building. That way he would be able to see if the knight returned to continue his journey before evening. Saeed scaled a drainpipe at the side of the building and took up a position at the edge of the roof.

It didn't take long until Saeed began to feel that he was being watched. The entire oppressive atmosphere of Sorrowblade was enough to generate a certain level of paranoia but Saeed began to feel that this was not all there was to his feelings. He surveyed the rooftop and it did not take him long to spot a pair of sleek black cats regarding him with almost total disinterest from the opposite side of the roof.

Upon making eye contact one of the cats stood up, stretched and slunk over to sit beside Saeed on the roof ledge.

"Monkey two legs," the cat said. "Not often we see one of your kind on our streets, let alone within the kingdom of the cats."

"Apologies for my intrusion," Saeed said. "I was not aware that this vantage point belonged to anyone. I promise I will be no trouble and I will be gone soon."

"I am not overly concerned about your presence here, monkey two legs," the cat said. "I barely care enough even to be having this conversation with you. Still, you are strange in my world and I do have a little time for strange things. Would you care to tell me why you come to Sorrowblade? This city is so hostile to your people that you have to hide away in the Cat Kingdom lest you be savaged by a wolf or bear."

"There is another man here," Saeed said. "He comes from the Patchwork Market of Bridgetown and soon he will return there bearing a chest. I just wished to know where the chest came from, and now I do."

"Why do you care?" the cat asked. "What is in the chest?"

"I don't know, this is something else that I need to find out."

"That building is one that has a hot roof," the cat said. "It is not part of the Cat Kingdom. A mischief worker plies his trade inside those walls. A cat goes in, it never comes out."

"What does the mischief worker do?" asked Saeed.

"Works mischief," the cat said in a tone of voice that communicated just how stupid it considered Saeed to be. "All kinds, many kinds fatal. The mischief man has a book of monkey markings, even though he is descended from the play food. We stay away."

"Thank you," Saeed said. "That is very helpful."

"It was not intended to be helpful," the cat said. "And I do not care for your thanks, they are neither soft to sleep on, nor good to eat. I am bored now."

The cat turned and walked away to its companion. After a brief conversation the two of them hopped off the edge of the roof and retreated away from Saeed's position.

The afternoon wore on, the stalls in the square began to close up, a lizard man swept up in front of a stall that advertised itself as a barber's. Saeed assumed the lizard was not the barber, after all who would trust a barber with scales instead of hair? Satisfied that the knight was not going to leave that day and keen not to be caught in Sorrowblade after dark Saeed returned to the Patchwork Market to report his findings to Kalico.

The following Stockday Saeed was waiting by the Sorrowblade Bridge as the knight, accompanied by two wolves on their hind legs, dressed in relatively fine clothes and pulling a cart behind them, returned to Bridgetown.

By the time they arrived the evening bell had rung and the streets of the market were mostly dark and silent. A few of the plazas, particularly those that offered food, entertainment and lodgings (all gathered into the cosmopolitan quarter), were still operating. The knight and the wolves avoided these plazas, sticking instead to the mercantile plazas, all of which were closed for business.

They were even careful to avoid the all night tobacconist stands and appeared to be on a constant lookout for the watch.

Not needing to gain access to Vaskorn's basement area this time, and having already located his prize, Saeed skipped along the beams of the roof tops, only coming down when he needed to cross a bridge behind the knight and the wolves.

Before long they reached Vaskorn's plaza. Saeed took the opportunity to quickly circle the high walls of the area checking for weak spots. This time, the urgency of his mission having decreased as no one's life was on the line, Saeed found a small hole which allowed access for plumbing pipes, gas works and ventilation ducts. Vaskorn's plaza was well defended but it did take advantage of some things that could only be distributed through the market network.

Saeed squeezed through this hole and found himself in the rafters above the plaza, looking down upon the neatly cobbled streets of Vaskorn's domain.

The knight, wolves and their cargo were admitted via the main portcullis and crossed into the small square where Vaskorn and Kalico had confronted one another the previous Longday. A scaffold had been erected over the covered ramp that Prince Butterstone had blown apart, the stocks that Vaskorn had vandalised remained broken.

The knight crossed the square and entered the main building on the plaza via a stout wooden door. After a few minutes the knight returned with another man Saeed did not recognize. The man wore a long dark cloak made of a rich material. He also wore a broad brimmed hat topped with s single green feather stuck into a silk band that was held in place by a jewelled buckle at the front. The quality of the man's attire lead Saeed to believe he was royalty.

"I don't like doing this in the square," the man complained as they crossed to the cart. "It's too exposed."

"Unfortunately the basement rooms are not safe at present, after our accident with the detonating powder," the knight said.

"I hope that teaches you to be more careful with explosives in the future," the man said. "I always thought that Vaskorn was too cavalier in such matters."

"Indeed," the knight said. "Would you care to inspect the shipment?"

"Of course," the man said. "The second thing they teach you growing up in the House of Mossdark is never to trust a Sorrowblader, no offence," he said to the wolves with no hint of sincerity. The wolves didn't appear to be paying much attention anyway.

Vaskorn's knight took a key from a chain about his neck and opened up the chest a little way. A sliver of white-green light spilled out from inside. Before Saeed could get a good look at the contents the man in the cloak held up a hand.

"Not too far," he said. "You can still see the light of dragon crystals from an open plaza, even if you can't see the plaza."

Dragon crystals, Saeed noted. He didn't know what dragon crystals were, but he noted the name for Kalico anyway.

The man in the cloak squinted past the light into the chest and, after a few moments, waved for the chest to be closed. Once that was done he pulled a purse of coin from his cloak and handed it to Vaskorn's knight. Then he produced a stubby stout wooden wand and waved it vaguely in the air in front of the treasure wagon.

A glittering portal opened up in the square and the wolves, who seemed unimpressed by all of the proceedings, followed the man in the dark cloak through the portal which immediately began to shrink and close.

Panic gripped Saeed's heart. He had seen where the chest had come from and he had discovered what was inside. All he knew of where the crystals went was that a man in a dark cloak took them through a magical portal.

Vaskorn's knight was already halfway across the plaza, his back to the closing hole in reality behind him. Thankfully the void had to be big enough to allow a cart pulled by two large man-wolves to pass through it. Without thinking too hard on the decision Saeed jumped down from the rafters sped across the square and dove through the closing portal before it had quite disappeared.

Saeed landed roughly upon a cold stone floor in a broad passageway. There were no windows and it was both damp and cold. Saeed guessed he must be somewhere underground. Up ahead some distance he could see the back of the cart as the wolves pulled it onwards. Once they had delivered the cargo Saeed reasoned they must be allowed to return to Vaskorn's plaza. Only the chest disappeared from view.

Saeed's only option was to follow on behind and hope he could get through the second portal to return him on his way. In the meantime he had to find out who the man in the black cloak was and, if at all possible, what he was doing with chest after chest of dragon crystals. This he did, and returned to the market with news for Kalico, but the ins and outs of the situation are a tale for another day.

How Cressidia Ended Up Watching The Shop

...even as small as he was Sir Cobb used the potion of strength to lift the book of spells above his head and cast it into the fire. Perdita Baleclaw howled with pain and anguish to see the source of her power consumed in flames but it was too late.

Along with her power the wicked sorceress lost her pleasant appearance. The weight of the years she had cheated withered her in an instant. Within a few moments all that was left of Perdita Baleclaw was the impervious ice of her blackened crystal heart.

Already feeling the strength begin to ebb from his tired, aching muscles, Sir Cobb raced to the frozen heart. He scooped it up from the nest of ashes, the witch's remains. The heart was so cold that it burned his hands, turning his fingertips blue. Sir Cobb ignored the discomfort. The young knight carried the prize to his mentor and companion.

Avan Weatherstrong's skin burned red, the sweat that would have cooled his body was turning to steam. Sir Cobb was afraid that it was already too late. Using the magical resizing mirror he inverted the lens and attained his full size once more.

Without time for decorum Sir Cobb pressed the frozen heart hard against the prince's cheek. The cold of the heart was all that could fight the infernal poison in Avan's veins. His strength failing fast Frederick pressed the heart to his friend's skin. He kept it there until Avan could reach up and grasp the crystal for himself...

"You look annoyed," Rachel said, "and puzzled. Yes, definitely, puzzled... and annoyed. Is everything alright?"

Tabarnas broke his attention away from his reading book.  Rachel had entered the little study nook he had made for himself. He had built it in the model throne room, deep inside the replica of Caer Frogfellow. If just about anyone else had interrupted him he would have found himself seriously irritated. As it stood he was, in fact, just annoyed, but not with her, and it was true he was puzzled.

In Tabarnas's life there had never been anyone with whom he could share the magic of stories on a regular basis. Not until Rachel had come along. He told as many tales as he could for a coin in the market but he was a goblin merchant, not a showman. These encounters were singular and often more of a free gift than a matter of trade.

On the rare occasion that Tabarnas could sneak away he would visit the Circus Quarter. There he would pay to hear more stories, or old stories told with flair, by the professionals. The story tellers plied their trade amongst the coloured tents of the market's most frivolous area. He had a special place in his heart for such theatrics. Even so, Tabarnas much preferred to read a story from a leather-bound volume. This made him feel as if he somehow 'owned' the story.

Books were rare in Faerie. Most of the folk could read a notice, a proclamation or a road sign, but they lacked the  powers of concentration to read a whole story. This is one of the reasons why Tabarnas was particularly keen on the tales of Avan Weatherstrong. The Prince who had become the first Lord Sommerslip had defeated the evil ogre Urbegor. He founded the Faerie Archive over the remains of the ogre's tower.

The Faerie Archive was the one place in Faerie dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the written word. Avan Weatherstrong was more than a brave and handsome prince to Tabarnas, he was a role model and a hero.

Goblin merchants, by and large, did not really subscribe to notions of heroism. Nor did the have role models, except insofar as having them helped to get product into the hands of paying customers. Tabarnas was not a usual goblin merchant. Sometimes he suspected that he could be some kind of a reverse changeling. Maybe his true goblin merchant parents brought him up as a true goblin merchant but always to nurse a secret shame.

Tabarnas had made peace with his story habit long ago, he loved his stories without shame. He still kept out of Cressidia's way when he was reading. She found the whole business distasteful and upsetting.

Today Tabarnas may have had an inkling what that felt like. While thumbing through one of his favourite story books he had seen something new and different. He didn't know what it meant and he didn't like it.

"The stories," Tabarnas said. "They've changed."

"What do you mean, silly?" Rachel asked sitting down on a model chair set off to the side of the throne room.

"I've read all twelve volumes of the Tales of Avan Weatherstronge," Tabarnas explained. "I have read them more than once. I am currently reading about his exploits in volume four. That's the one with the tale of Seditas Wolfjaw, the evil sorcerer who enslaved the land of Frogfellow, you remember? This is a scale replica of the castle."

"I remember that you said there _was_ a story," Rachel replied. "You didn't tell the story because I didn't want to hear it, and I still don't."

"Well, fine," Tabarnas said. "Because I remember exactly what happened last time I read it and it's not what happened this time."

"I don't understand," Rachel said.

"Neither do I!" Tabarnas wailed. "There's a whole section of the chronicle that's completely different. In the tale of 'How Avan Weatherstrong Defeated Seditas Wolfjaw' a young knight falls out of nowhere. He just appears above the fountain in the courtyard, accompanied by a gnome, no less.

"They team up to defeat the sorcerer. This is an incident that never took place in the original. Then they go on to have several adventures together. This is all in the service of returning the young knight to his home destination.

"These adventures are sometimes completely original. At other times they're ones I recognise but they resolve very differently. like this one: 'How Avan Weatherstrong Vanguished Perdita Baleclaw'. Avan Weatherstrong always uses the sorceress's frozen crystal heart to cure the infernal poison. He didn't have help before, he never needed help. The last time I read it he used a potion of invisibility. With his last few breaths he managed to cast the Book of Spells into the fire, only able to stand with the help of his sword."

"Maybe you just remembered wrong," Rachel said.

"I have read all the Tales of Avan Weatherstronge! At least twenty times apiece, I'll have you know," Tabarnas snapped. "These stories are different, it's upsetting."

"It's upsetting," said Rachel, "that you don't know why. Maybe you should ask the person who wrote them about it. Maybe they're supposed to refresh themselves from time to time. It could be magic."

"I should..." Tabarnas couldn't speak, it was as if Rachel had set off a firework inside his mind. The thought of meeting the author of his favourite twelve volume chivalric epic had never before occurred to him. The thought that his books could be magic had not occurred to him. There were about a dozen other things about Rachel's suggestion that had not occurred to him. If he were going to sit and think about them now then he would have no room left in his head to make his mouth work.

The bloom of hope and excitement at the unexpected prospect of a quest burst into colourful life within his mind. So Tabarnas dutifully took a mental hobnail boot and crushed it back down again.

"Impossible," he said. "I have to stay here and help mind the stall."

"So," Rachel said. "You've never left Bridgetown? You've never left the Master's Island?"

"Well, when we were younger, of course," Tabarnas said. "Cressie and I would go for a trip along the trade roads. We would move some stock we didn't find so useful, receive some stock that we knew would find a profit back home. We used to take a year out of every ten. Of course that was before we got this pitch on the Master's Island. We're only seventy paces from Kalico's door here. We can't give that up. Besides, Cressie never liked travelling, she said it gave her the vapours."

"How did you feel?" Rachel asked. "And what are vapours?"

"I don't know what vapours are," Tabarnas said. He didn't want to answer the other question. He knew that if he told Rachel that he loved travelling, meeting people and having adventures he would never hear the end of it.

"So you liked the travelling then," Rachel said. This was the girl's problem, she was far too sharp for her own good.

"Well, it doesn't matter if I did or if I didn't. We're not giving up a pitch under a hundred paces from Kalico's door at our age," Tabarnas snapped. "Besides Cressie wouldn't want to go travelling at her age. The vapours would plague worse than ever."

"Well, she could always stay here and mind the pitch," Rachel shrugged. "That way everyone gets something they want."

"Don't be ridiculous," Tabarnas said. "Cressie and I are business partners, that's the closest and strongest bond two goblin traders can share."

"Yet, in the couple of days I've been here I've never seen you spend more than five minutes in one another's company," Rachel said. "You both take advantage of the vast amount of space available in your stacks."

"I don't know what you mean," Tabarnas said. There was a small spark of exuberant joyful hope kindling in his chest. Tabarnas had become used to the idea that anything nice that happened to him was an accident, not deliberate. He had become used to a world in which no one cared what Tabarnas Riseandshine wanted, they all only cared about themselves.

At that thought a filthy, slimy morsel of bad faith dropped out of the upper shadows of Tabarnas's mind.  Despite the misanthropic nature of the thought he couldn't help but believe in its truth.

"What do you care anyway?" he asked Rachel, warming to his bad mood. "Why should it make any difference to you whether I take the trader's wagon along the routes one more time? Why do you want me to be happy?" He peered over the top of his reading spectacles into Rachel's innocent, brown eyes. "What do you get out of it?" he asked grimly.

"Well," Rachel said, looking down at the floor and chewing on her bottom lip. Tabarnas was right, she did want something. In that moment Tabarnas learnedthat being right did not necessarily equate to being happy about the fact. "I did come to see you about Eos. I was talking to her. She's been trapped in that tank now for about six months, she's rather claustrophobic. So I was wondering when it was you were going to release her, and how you were going to manage it. So, if we were to go on a trip..."

"...Then you could set the fish girl free in the ocean along the way," Tabarnas said. He tried to project a tone of  moral superiority. One appropriate catching someone who was up to something. As it turned out she was 'up to' trying to help out a claustrophobic mermaid he felt his moral indignation lacked a certain punch.

"Also," Rachel said. "I would like to see if I could find James. I'm worried about him."

"Oho!" Tabarnas crowed, playing the triumph for all it was worth. "So you don't want to come with me on a trade journey that would also cast light onto my misbehaving story books? You just want to put cod lips back in the ocean and find your little mouse. You thought that you could sucker me into taking you along on that ride, did you?"

"Well, you said you liked to travel," Rachel said, there was a quaver in her voice and it had become breathy. Tabarnas was wrestling with an odd dizzy feeling. He also had a sensation like someone had punched him in the gut with a fist full of feathers. "I just thought... if everybody had a job to do... and I can't help it... James is... James is my dearest friend... I lay awake last night because I couldn't sleep... because... what if... I mean... he's just a mouse and..."

The jumble of thought and emotion overwhelmed Rachel, she sat on the chair and dissolved into great heaving sobs.

Tabarnas rifled through his extensive memories for instructions on what to do when you had been a blustering idiot. An idiot who had moved an innocent little girl to tears. He found that someone must have borrowed these instructions and not returned them. All he could do was stand still, helpless, allowing his shoulders to sink and his chest to deflate. He had not been defeated but he had lost.

"Good going, foolish flim flammer," said Micras flying in at the window. "What's your follow up trick? Liberating sweetmeats from a baby's crib."

"I didn't know she was going to cry," Tabarnas snapped waspishly.

"What did he say?" Micras asked Rachel as he flapped down to perch on the top of the throne. "What's all this hoo-hah about?"

"I'm sorry," Rachel said. "I didn't mean to cry. I miss James. I'm sorry."

"So," Micras said, "you're bullying sad little girls who have lost their closest friends. How is that good for business?"

"It's not," Tabarnas admitted, sitting down on the edge of the dais under the throne. "I was trying to work out why she would be suggesting that I take the trader's wagon out of storage and go on a merchant's trail. She said we could stop off at the Faerie Archive on the way to ask why my favourite stories are misbehaving."

"Do you not want to do that?" Micras asked.

"Well, I... well, of course I do," Tabarnas said shocked into honesty by the direct question. "It sounds like a very pleasant idea. I have always wanted to visit the archive."

"So why did you think it would be a good idea to make Rachel cry over suggesting it?" Micras asked.

"Uh, I didn't. I mean I didn't mean to, I mean... look, we'll go and find the wagon, we'll hitch up the mermaid's tank, we'll look for James, we'll do it. Cressie can stay behind and mind the pitch. I'm sure she'd be pleased of the peace, anyhow."

"You will? We will?" Rachel said, still a bit sniffly but now, at least, smiling.

"As the owl pointed out," Tabarnas said. "It would be foolish not to."

"You have something else to say," Micras said to Tabarnas. "Before we leave this place."

"I do?" Tabarnas said. He thought he'd covered everything, "What's that?"

"Don't you think that for acting like such a foolish buffoon you should apologise?" Micras asked.

All eyes were on Tabarnas, and although that was only four eyes in total it still felt like rather a lot. Tabarnas felt some sort of colour, likely a sickly beetroot, making his cheeks glow.

"Uh, but, goblin traders, they, um, don't..." he said.

"As I understand matters," Micras said sternly, "goblin traders don't read storybooks. You've had no problem doing that."

"Oh," Tabarnas said. "Well, in that case, I'm very sorrugh."

"Not to me," Micras said, "to the little girl you made cry, and don't mumble the important word."

"Um, right," Tabarnas said. Feeling about as awkward as he'd ever felt in his entire life he turned to Rachel. "I'm very sorreh," he said, not quite being able to get the final 'y' to come out straight, "that I made you cry."

"Apology accepted," Rachel said happily. "Now, are we going to find the trader's wagon?"

On the long walk from Mini Caer Frogfellow to the garage, deep in the stacks, Tabarnas had a chance to reflect upon what had just happened. In his long life Tabarnas had never made anyone cry before, at least not about any matter that wasn't purely financial. Tabarnas had never felt guilt before. He had never found himself with a need to apologise before. Since he had signed the partnership contract he had never considered leaving his partner's side.

Now he got the novelty of not knowing how he felt about that. Cressidia and he had never been what someone might describe as close. Despite this they had bailed each other out of trouble on more than one occasion, as business partners should. If Tabarnas was to be honest he had probably had more requirement for bailing out than Cressie. Even so, she had never tried to have the contract broken. In goblin merchant terms this was a clear indication that she must be fond of him. He knew in his heart that he was not the world's most efficient and value-driven partner.

All this had started when he met Rachel. Had he known what telling her that story would lead to he might have kept his mouth shut. Then again, maybe he was having fun. It was either fun or a peculiar sort of indigestion.

In one short day at the market he had rescued a mermaid, lost a mouse, given shelter to a lost little girl and rehomed an owl. That was to say nothing of the incident yesterday evening with the acrobatic street thief. He hadn't actually seen any of that. They did say that one day in the Patchwork Market was enough to turn your world on its head. Usually that applied to the customers, not to the merchants.

Hadn't Rachel mentioned a gnome? And a wish? Gnomes, generally speaking, did not grant wishes. If a gnome was granting a wish that meant that it was a new gnome. If it was a new gnome then it was likely to be out of control, spewing mischief into the world. It was clear to Tabarnas that he was a victim of such mischief right now.

As he found the entrance to the garage, covered over with a large sheet of tarpaulin. He gripped the edge firmly and  lifted the canvas to one side. He would have liked to whip the cover away with a dramatic flourish but feared that he may dislocate his shoulder doing so.

Underneath the canvas a pair of battered wooden doors leaned against a pile of crates at an angle. Rachel poked her head between the edge of the door and the next stack to look at the gap of the angle. Tabarnas could see her puzzled expression by peering down the other side. His face was hurting, he realised that's because he was smiling.

"I don't understand," Rachel said. "What are these doors for?"

"An alchemist of Almanreik once had an idea for a magical barn," Tabarnas explained. "You put the space into a special pocket in the ether anchored to a doorframe. Then attach some lockable doors and, hey presto, instant storage space. The only problem was that they were quite pricey. The process for attaching a barn sized space to a set of doors was very complex and took a lot of time. This is one of only maybe five hundred ever made. Look."

Tabarnas moved around to the front of the garage. He fished the key from the appropriate pocket in his waistcoat to unlock the doors. The doors swung back to reveal the space beyond.

Rachel's mouth described the expected little 'o' as she beheld the gigantic space.  She marvelled at this tiny pocket dimension stowed away behind the door jamb. A smell of dust and aging (although well-preserved) metals wafted out from the gigantic space. The doors were tilted at an angle but the floor of the barn was perfectly straight. From inside the doors appeared to be upright, even though they weren't. Alchemists were tricky fellows for certain.

"Go on," Tabarnas said, "take a look around."

Rachel took a few steps into the barn, looking up and around, her eyes like saucers. She approached the large shape in the centre of the space, also covered by a sheet of canvas.

"Is this-?" she didn't finish the question. Tabarnas guessed that she was still trying to fit the space beyond the doors into her mind. That could easily occupy parts of the brain usually reserved for asking questions.

"The Trader's Wagon," Tabarnas nodded. "I'll have to find a couple of golems to help me move the doors but I think it should all be in fine fettle."

"So we're really going?" Rachel asked. "We're going to find James? And we're going to take Eos home?"

"And we're definitely stopping off in Sommerslip, yes. I shall ask questions about my story book," Tabarnas said. "Although obviously, we have to clear it with Cressie first."

As it turned out clearing things with Cressida was not as hard a job as Tabarnas had believed that it might be. Tabarnas had never broached the idea of going off somewhere by himself. He'd always believed that Cressie would not stand for it.

As it happened Cressida's business sense totally overrode any sentimentality in her character. As soon as she understood what it was Tabarnas was flapping about she  immediately produced a list she had made. A list of stock that she believed needed to be taken away for any chance of a sale.

She set eight clay golems about retrieving the stock to place on the wagon. Then she located two more iron golems to move the doors into the yard between the pitches. By late afternoon the wagon was loaded with stock for the road, so there was only one problem remaining.

"Where are we going to sleep?" asked Rachel, looking into the stuffed interior of the covered caravan.

It was true that Cressida may have underestimated the amount of stock that she had earmarked for the travelling stall. There was barely room for Rachel to stand in the wagon, let alone for her and Tabarnas to find somewhere to sleep.

"Oh, yes," Tabarnas said. "That is a problem. We may have to leave some things behind."

"Ridiculous," Cressida snapped. "I thought you wanted to take your silly books with you."

"Of course," Tabarnas replied. "That's one of the reasons we're going."

"Well, you keep them all in that magic doll's house thing, the castle. Why don't you sleep in there?"

"Oh yes!" Rachel said. "That would work. Besides, I'd love to sleep in a castle, even a toy one."

"But... thieves," Tabarnas said. "How will we guard the stock if we're miniaturised inside a toy castle?"

"You don't think I'm looking to a little girl and a foolish old goblin to protect our stock on the road are you?" Cressida asked, desbelief ringing in her voice.

"Well, I..." Tabarnas said.

"No, don't even bother talking!" Cressida said sharply. "You know listening to idiocy gives me earache. Of course you'll take Ferris and Gerda, they can stay in the castle by day and watch the wagon at night."

"But what if you need help here in the market?" Tabarnas asked.

"We have eight stone golems," Cressie shrugged. "And we're in the Master's Quarter. That means that we're surrounded by the Master's Watch. If we're honest Ferris and Gerda have been more ornamentation than security since we got this pitch."

Tabarnas had to agree. He closed the door on the back of the wagon and climbed up onto the front of the wagon.

"Um, Tabarnas, what about horses?" Rachel asked. "How are we going to go anywhere without horses."

"Horses are expensive to keep, girl," Tabarnas replied. "The trader's wagon cost Cressie and I a great deal but we don't have to pay for feed, watch."

Tabarnas picked up the reins and flicked his wrist. From the front of the cart sprang two wooden shafts. From each of these sprang a startling profusion of metal plates, all attached to hinges, levers and axles. As the wagon's steed assembled itself in front of Cressida and Rachel there was a loud noise. It sounded like someone rattling a dozen cutlery drawers whilst someone else was banging a hammer against a sheet of metal.

After just a few seconds a gigantic, colourful metal horse stood in front of the trader's wagon. Tabarnas flicked the reins a second time and the mechanical horse pulled the wagon out of the storage barn to stand in the yard. The wagon complained a little as it began to move, probably because the golems had loaded it up from roof to rafters. The time the wagon had spent in the barn can't have done it too much harm. As tje cart started off it creaked and complained. By the time the steed had brought it into the yard it appeared to have settled on its axles.

"Come on then," Tabarnas said to Rachel as Ferris and Gerda started moving Eos's tank around to hook it onto the back of the wagon. "Hop up and we'll be off to find adventure."

"And to make us a good deal of profit," Cressidia said her tone still sharp.

"Of course, dear, of course," Tabarnas said a smile painted from ear to ear. And they did both, but those are all stories for another time.