The Princess Liberated

Frederick hadn't acted in his capacity as pest-controller for a while now. He had heard that, in the age of dragons, a jobbing knight would start small with giant rodents and work their way up through lizard men and vampires as a way of scaling their monster killing abilities to the level of dragon.

As the giant bat expired on the blade of Frederick's sword he found himself doubting this theory. Of course, to the layman the idea of working your way up the food chain to dragon slaying appeared reasonable. Frederick did not know for certain that it was not. However, if what he had heard about dragons, and their smaller, sentient cousins the draco, was to be believed the king of all mythical beasts was in a different league to the rest.

You could hack your way through armies of trolls, gryphons and giant snakes but it probably wouldn't serve you well when it came to facing the old, wise and wily dragons of yore. It was as desperate a comparison as saying that taking out a goblin horde was any sort of preparation for taking out an Ogre Champion. The two games were fundamentally different.

It didn't really matter, as far as Frederick could tell, how many foot soldiers you carved up, when you faced the lich in command those experiences counted for nothing.

Even taking on a giant bat was a different game to besting a minotaur, for example. The two monsters had completely different temperaments, strengths, weaknesses and common strategies. The one lesson taking on a bestiary of hostile creatures taught you was that no two were alike enough to be the same fight. There was enough variety within a single species to fox those who did not exercise the proper caution.

That said, sometimes you got lucky. The transformed Lady Crimzona had proven a much weaker foe than this similarly sized giant bat. Frederick imagined that this was due in no small part to the fact that Lady Crimzona was not used to being a giant bat, this fella had got very used to his capabilities. He had even landed a couple of nasty swipes on Frederick's chest and thigh.

So, possibly, there had been some variety in the capability and threat presented by dragons of various types. Maybe some dragons went down easier than others. If there was one comforting thought a knight could take into such a confrontation it was that maybe this dragon would be having an off day.

"Are you alright?" Phoebe asked from behind Frederick as he stood, instinctively holding his left hand over the scratches on his chest and hanging his weight so that it favoured his right leg.

"I'll be okay," he panted. "He was... feisty, is all."

"If I wasn't filled with magical potency," Harvey said. "I would have to get someone to remind me never to annoy you."

"You annoy me all the time," Frederick said. After a battle etiquette choices frayed and crumbled. Frederick allowed himself to be more blunt.

"Yes," Harvey said. "Because I am filled with magical potency. You might be good at monster slaying but you can't follow a simple logical through-line, can you?"

"Not the time, Harvey," Phoebe said absently, pulling a jar of unguent from her knapsack. "Then, it never is, is it?"

Harvey shrugged and subsided as Phoebe approached Frederick and started smearing the greasy paste onto his wounded leg.

Frederick had listened to lurid bardic accounts of fighting men and the women who tended to their wounds. The poetic temperament would have you believe there was some sort of romance, or passion, about a nurse tending a wounded soldier. In some instances maybe there was. However the undoubted, undiscussed presence of unsavoury ingredients in most of these pastes presented large challenges to the development of such a heady emotional atmosphere.

The unguent was enhanced with enchantments but that didn't stop it smelling of vinegar, fat and bad milk mixed together. Neither did it abate the deep burn it put into the wounds upon its application. The burn quickly faded, the odour of the healing medium lingered, in some cases for days.

"Well, now that we have that over, we should probably find that tricky crystal," Harvey said, standing by the entrance as if he were inspecting the hold of the arrow trailing rope embedded in the rock. The head of the arrow was a clockwork device powered by an alchemical crystal that burrowed into rock to form a tight bond.

As the mouth of the cave was where the party had entered the chances that the Quintessence Crystal was lying there, unremarked upon and undiscovered, was vitually nil. Everyone could tell that Harvey was mooching about adjacent to the nearest source of fresh air to avoid the smell.

"Good idea," Phoebe commended him. "Why don't you start somewhere other than where we came in?"

A look of disgust evident on his face Harvey complied with Phoebe's request. Frederick had learned that the djinn often did things voluntarily, rather than wait to be bound by Phoebe. Frederick believed he could understand the sprite's motivation. In a way it was a cruel trick of the binding that the one bound would often prefer to do something because they were obedient, not because magic was compelling them to do it against their will.

That left a question though: Was Harvey really doing what he wanted? Was he truly acting on his own agency? Just because he chose to obey did that mean that he had somehow 'beaten' the binding, or did it just serve to enslave him at an even deeper level?

Frederick's tricky philosophical puzzles would not be answered now as Phoebe cried out. She didn't say 'aha' but it was a noise that meant 'aha' so more or less the same thing. Phoebe carried a small wooden chest out from a dark corner in the back of the bat's lair. The front was closed and bolted but not locked. Frederick reasoned that the person who had left the chest here had believed that anyone who would slay that bat to get to the chest probably deserved the contents.

That bat itself had not been a terrible problem, any mediocre knight should have found it within themselves to dispose of it effectively. The chest's real security was that it was in one of the most distant shadows, right at the limits of organised reality, cloaked in deep magic that would hide the garden's existence from seekers and interfere with the memories of those who had visited. The bat was just a further inconvenience for one who had beaten the heavy duty barriers to entry.

Phoebe opened the chest to reveal the quintessence crystal. Frederick had hoped for something more than your basic glowing crystal, in this he found a small note of disappointment. The quintessence crystal was certainly a bit larger than other magic crystals Frederick had seen but it was, otherwise pretty much identical in every other respect. It glowed a soft yellow-white that filled the cave, there was a high, clear note, resonating from the crystal at a low volume.

"Let's see if this ring that the story-gatherers gave us does the trick then," Phoebe said, donning the small piece of silver jewellery. As it sat on Phoebe's finger the crystal in the ring began to resonate in sympathy with the quintessence crystal. "Oh," Phoebe said, alarmed. "It does work! Quick, grab my hands!"

She held out her hands, Frederick took hold of the left and Harvey of the right, there was a moment of uncertainty, an odd see-sawing feeling in Frederick's gut and then they weren't in the Skull Cave any more.

They were in a long stone corridor that stretched on for as far as the eye could see in either direction. Stone arches divided the corridor into sections at regular intervals. Frederick's ever-present knight paranoia noted that there was just enough space for an attacker to hide in the small recesses in the corners of each section. Doorways, tipped with pointed arches, were visible in some of the sections.

The corridor was lit from above with a soft, flat, grey light. Frederick looked up to see that the light was cast from a roiling layer of luminous clouds above their heads. The shapes of dragons heads, and the forms of people and buildings were occasionally visible in the ever-shifting cloud bank. As soon as you saw a shape, so clear that you could make out the pattern of a dragon's scales, the windows in a tall building or the lines on a person's face, it disappeared back into the mass, invisible once more.

"Well, this is in no way sinister," Harvey said.

"So, what now?" Frederick asked. "We've got into the crystal, what do we do now?"

"I don't know," Phoebe said. "I guess we just have a look about, see if we can pick up Anabyl's trail."

They took a few steps along the corridor, their footsteps making flat clamping sounds against the stone. Frederick found the noises quite disconcerting. He had been expecting a confident ringing echo, not this barely audible slapping noise. He imagined it was something to do with magic, these things usually were.

"Wait," Harvey said after they had gone about twenty paces. "I think..." he paused, closed his eyes and lowered his head. "I think I can feel the... her. I think I can feel Anabyl."

"What do you mean?" Frederick asked. "Feel her how?"

"This," Harvey motioned at the ceiling and the floor with some airy hand waves. "All of this is our minds interpreting the crystal lattice and the energies contained within. We're not part of the qualic stream, the, uh, essence of the Terra Draconis, locked into the crystal lattice. I think the energies are represented by the clouds up there. I don't think that Anabyl is part of that either. She's locked out of the stream, so she's somewhere else in the lattice. I'm made of pure magic so I can feel the resonance of her presence, it's not even that far away."

"Okay then," Phoebe said. "Well, let's get moving."

Harvey lead the other two down a number of corridors that looked, at least to Frederick's eye, exactly the same as the first one they had arrived in. The corridors were all identical and appeared to cross back and forth at random. The corridor intersections were not at the traditional ninety degree angles from one another but often at more a forty-five degree slant, some sloped up, or down, the passages themselves appeared straight but Frederick began to believe that they were subtly curved. Each segment was straight but connected to the next at an almost imperceptible angle.

After walking through this labyrinth for about ten minutes a figure became visible in the distance, standing at an intersection.

"Come on," Phoebe said. "That must be her."

As they drew closer they realised that rather than being a properly defined person the figure was like a three dimensional opaque black shadow. It was roughly person shaped but a little blobby on the right hand side.

"This isn't her," Frederick said.

"No," Harvey responded. "It is, but it's just... I think she's out of phase with us. The crystal resonates with a particular tone, when we're inside its lattice we are riding the waves of that tone, experiencing the crystal's reality as a series of tonal moments at the same part of a repeating wavelength. Anabyl's just experiencing the same thing on a different part of the same wavelength."

"I was with you right up until you said 'resonates'," Frederick said. "Look, I don't need to know what's happening. I just need to know that we can fix it."

"I can fix it," Harvey said. "Although it may bind us more tightly to the lattice. Getting out of here might be trickier than we thought."

"We can't worry about that," said Phoebe. "You'll have to do... whatever it is you need to do, Harvey."

"Very well," Harvey said. "Could we all, possibly, link hands again?"

They all did and Harvey closed his eyes again, concentrating. Frederick began to feel very giddy, the vertigo was sudden and he was forced to drop onto one knee.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Quiet," Harvey said. "Need to focus."

Frederick's senses were beginning to see-saw, the corridor bending and shifting about him. There was a moment when he believed he could see a stone plaza in a great city beyond one of the stone arches then the image was gone and there was just the voice.

"...be long now Wish, you'll see, these shadows probably mean that..."

There was the sound of a sword being drawn.

"Who are you?" the voice demanded, its tone had switched from soothing to harsh in the time it had taken to draw the sword.

"Princess Anabyl Spireshine?" Harvey's voice asked. "I believe you know my companions. Give them a moment to recover."

"It's us, Anabyl," Phoebe said, her voice sounded shaky, Frederick's vision was still blurred and he felt very much as if he'd like to be sick. Frederick blinked a couple of times and tried to take a steady breath.

"Phoebe?" the woman with the sword asked. "And... Sir Cobb."

"Yes," Frederick managed to bite back the nausea and speak. "It's us. We've come to get you out of the crystal."

"Hear that, princess?" said a voice Frederick didn't recognise. "We're getting out of here."

Frederick's vision finally settled down enough that he could see who he was looking at now. Anabyl certainly looked a lot different than the last time they'd crossed paths. For a start she appeared to have ditched the penchant for frilly dresses for a quieter gender-neutral look in breeches and a thin wool jacket. She wore a long dark cloak bound on the left shoulder by a large metal brooch.

As Anabyl had grown her face had lengthened and become leaner, the light of chaotic mischief in her eyes had not burned out but now came with a kind of controlled danger. Her long dark hair was wrapped up in a bun on top of her head.

Standing to Anabyl's right was a young boy in more ragged clothing, the other speaker. Putting things together from the story they had read in the Archive Frederick realised that this must be Wish Forbetter.

"How long have we been in here?" Anabyl asked. "A while, I imagine, if you're the ones to come rescue me."

"We saw you off from the market after facing down Sir Vaskorn about a month ago," Frederick told her. "We understand that you found a way to visit the Terra Draconis in the meanwhile."

Harvey cleared his throat.

"As much as I hate to break up the reunion it's time I dispelled my own magic to get you all out of here," he said.

"Yes, probably a good idea," Phoebe said. "So how will that work?"

"You just all need to place your hands on me, preferably about the shoulders from my point of view and we'll soon have you all back to the cave."

"What about you?" Wish asked. "Aren't you coming with us?"

"I'm afraid not," Harvey said. "I have... other things to devote my energies to."

"What?" Phoebe's question sounded like some sort of reprimand, this wasn't unusual.

"Sorry, Feebs," Harvey said. "Guess I lied to you again. A while back, just before I found you, I was actually floating in the Undone. Didn't even know myself, to be honest, I was just stuff. I annoyed the wrong person, ended up dispersed. So the boss comes to me and offers me an out, not just out of the Undone, out of service to you, a chance to be something else, more than just Harvey Raine, the chaos sprite.

"He told me that if I took the out I would be bound to you again, the way Ma Moorshade always wanted it but the boss explained that if I sacrificed myself for a wish that I would be allowed to move on. The boss is like that, always talks in riddles. Guess it runs in the family. Anyhow, when I saw that the young lad here was called Wish I knew what was coming. If I'd told you about it earlier you might have argued or delayed and, honestly, I don't think you have time.

"If I expend every iota of magic I have I can probably get the four of you out of the Quintessence Crystal lattice, but there won't be enough of me left for me to exit. I guess I will just have to trust the boss to come get me."

"But we can't just leave you behind," Frederick said, he wasn't sure either why he said it or why he meant it but both were true.

"You can, and you have to, your journey's not over by a long chalk," Harvey said. "Come on folks, time's a-wasting."

Frederick could tell that Phoebe was itching to start a row about this. At the same time he could see the realisation on her face that Harvey intended to do this. Plus it was possibly the first selfless thing he would do in his existence. How could she argue with that?

So she didn't. Along with the others she put her hand on Harvey's shoulder. Once they were all in place Harvey looked around them all as if to say goodbye and then he began to glow. Harvey's glow, set against the flat grey-white from the ceiling of the lattice, was a warm and comforting orange-pink. It shone from his eyes and from the lines on his face. The light caught the djinn in a bright halo until Frederick thought that the sprite was no longer present in person, he looked, rather, like a painting of himself. Then the glow from his halo became too bright and Frederick's nostrils were suddenly filled with the scent of bat droppings.

Now there were four of them, stood in the skull cave staring at the Quintessence Crystal. For a moment they could not speak.

A voice from outside broke across the silence.

"If you expand that line so that it becomes the radius of a circle," said a voice that Anabyl, Phoebe and Frederick all recognised. "I mean, we could be months searching for this grave, if it's even here."

The three adventurers exchanged a glance.

"James?" came from Frederick's mouth before he had even really understood the concept fully.

And indeed it was James although no longer a mouse, and Lester, and Rachel, along with James's wife, Rachel's mother, Rebecca. But what they did when they all met once more in the Skull Garden I shall tell you next time.

In Which Avan and Saeed Encounter The Prince Lanchoni Problem

Saeed had reconciled in himself the knowledge that fighting alongside the most renowned warrior-mage in the history of Faerie would place him in some dangerous situations. Since they had first encountered one another they had fought orcs, lizard men and vampires, all in one evening. In addition they had uncovered the mechanisms of a conspiracy that may serve to plunge the Terra Draconis into some very deep trouble.

As Saeed knew that the time of the Vanishing was surely close at hand, the incident in which all traces of living dragons were removed from Faerie, possibly forever, the youthful thief had to wonder if this plan was the first echo of that momentous cataclysm. Saeed knew that time, chronology and history were somewhat malleable but riddled with what could best be understood as 'hard bits', bits you could not change, the structure of the world relied on certain events conforming to a certain shape. The Vanishing appeared to be one such event, so, really, if Miranda Felix and her employer were intent on unleashing such powerful magic upon the world then there was probably very little that Saeed could do about it.

Saeed enjoyed a self-image that included a healthy dose of humility. If he was facing the Vanishing then he was happy to admit that it would happen regardless of what he tried to do about it. He was, after all, a skilled thief who had begun his life as an Afsan street-urchin. How was he to save the world?

Prince Avan Weatherstrong, on the other hand, was the most heroic cultural hero in all the lands of Faerie. Of course, the Prince didn't know much about that, he was living his life, it was only those who came after him who would get the opportunity to turn him into a retrospective demi-god.

Prince Weatherstrong had a kind of humility himself. He was not particularly interested in being a celebrity. However, if you told him that a force of magic so powerful it could wipe an entire continent and species from the face of the world was about to be unleashed he would always attempt to put a stop to it. He would say that even if he couldn't succeed the knowledge he held meant he had to try. To Saeed that just sounded like a different way of believing that you could not fail.

But you could. Just because the consequences of failure would be dire did not make the prospect of success any more likely. Saeed had stayed alive for nearly a quarter of a century safe in that knowledge. Prince Weatherstrong had lived over ten times that his way, but then, well, when all was said and done he was Avan Weatherstrong with all the advantages that this identity implied.

In his life Avan Weatherstrong had fought wicked sorcerers, giant monsters and bloodthirsty warlords. Avan Weatherstrong was more than a man, he was a legend.

So when it came to the task of tracking and retrieving a small running animal it seemed obvious that of the two the humble thief should take the task. Running through the undergrowth outside the house on the edge of Dracopolis Saeed was aware that, although his life was not in danger, the prospect of losing his quarry was cutting cleanly into his sense of self-worth.

He was partnered up with a man who had bloodied the nose of tyrants and written the pages of history in his own hand, if Saeed could not fetch a small animal for this man what was it all for? They had gone to the house looking for one Prince Ystaban Lanchoni, a roguish ne'er do well who had been observed in a square adjacent to the Dracopolis jail house a couple of hours before an explosion opened a hole in the jail's western wall.

When they arrived at the house it had appeared abandoned and unoccupied until they had opened a door into a cellar room to find a small animal, probably a dog, as the sole occupant. The animal gave every indication that it had been waiting for someone to open the door, it dashed past the pair before they had much of an opportunity to see what was happening.

Saeed hadn't even bothered to say anything, he just took off in pursuit and hence the potentially embarrassing current situation. He had followed the bouncing white bundle of muscle and fur out into the forest and noted the disturbance of nesting birds and undergrowth. Saeed had attended closely to the almost indiscernable pounding of tiny paws along the forest floor.

Then it had all stopped. Saeed guessed that the little beast was somewhere close to Saeed's present location, hidden from view. Perhaps it was even waiting for Saeed to stop looking. That was strange behaviour for a small animal in panic. They didn't usually stop running until they knew they were safe. Saeed wasn't that slow.

A thin, depressed whine came from a bush to Saeed's left. Saeed went over to part the branches and observe the small, white dog doing one of the things well-trained small, white dogs do in bushes with a look of surprise, concern and indignation on its face.

It finished up and then looked up at Saeed, testing his pursuer for some hole in his resolve. Finding none the dog tried to dodge past Saeed but reckoned without Saeed's reflexes. The dog gave another, more panicked yelp as he was hauled into the air by the scruff of the neck. A short struggle followed but Saeed kept a tight hold on the little animal.

Before long the white dog was brought back into the presence of Prince Weatherstrong back at the house.

"I think your associate in the Eastgate Inn may have overstated their case," Saeed said holding up the yapping, grumpy beast for Avan's inspection.

The dog did its best to bark in a threatening manner at Avan, but the high pitched squeaks were more ridiculous than anything else. Seeming to be unhappy at the effect of barking the dog switched to a growl that sounded like the operation of a stable but broken clockwork motor.

"I'm going to have to guess that the Prince is not home," Avan said. "That's a setback I hadn't expected. I have to ask what the point of a safe house is if it isn't to keep someone safe after performing some heinous act of wrongdoing?"

"It is always a possibility that Miranda betrayed Prince Lanchoni the same way that she betrayed me," Saeed pointed out. "Without you to look out for him the prince may well be dead."

The dog craned its neck round to stare at Saeed. Saeed had never encountered a look from a dog that implied he was stupid before.

"I'm just talking about the possibility," Saeed said to the dog. "I'm sorry if it betrays your mental image of your master."

The dog just looked downcast, hanging limply over Saeed's right forearm.

"I don't think that's it," Avan said. "Please, could I?"

Avan held out his hand towards the dog. Saeed passed the miserable little beast over to his companion. Avan held the dog up to his face and looked into the dog's eyes.

"Mischief," Avan said. "a lot, hastily applied. The dog's soaked in it. He almost smells of mischief."

"So the dog is magic?" Saeed asked.

"No, I don't think so," Avan answered. "I think it's the result of magic, crudely applied, the kind of thing a wish fairy or similar might do."

"Someone made the dog out of magic?" Saeed asked. He still wasn't used to talking so much with an expert on magical things. Magic felt like its own world to Saeed, he always felt stupid for not understanding it right away.

"I think this animal isn't supposed to be this way," Avan said. "I think that this dog was something else and then the wish fairy, or other sprite, transformed it into a small dog."

"So..." Saeed looked at the dog's floppy ears and little paws. "You think this might be-?"

"If I were a sprite and a muscular royal wolf tried to threaten me," Avan said. "I think this might appear to be a suitable response, a reflexive defence, if you like."

"Oh, I see," Saeed said. "So, should we try to turn him back?"

"That's not the difficult part," Avan replied. "The difficult part is containing him when we do."

"Good point," Saeed agreed. "How do we do that?"

"I have just the thing in my saddlepack," Avan said. "Come on, let's get moving."

Avan took the dog and went outside to where they'd tethered their horses. Avan rummaged through the pack attached to the horse's saddle and pulled out a small metallic ball about the size of a fist. It appeared to have been made by tightly binding together twists of silver-black wire by twisting and looping. From the top of the ball emerged a thin strand of cord that Saeed recognised, spider silk.

Avan hung the ball off the stout branch of a nearby tree and fiddled with a catch in the ball's base. The ball suddenly sprang outward, twisting, unfolding and dropping until it was about nine feet long, no longer a tightly wound ball, now a long cigar-shaped mass of metallic twists reaching from the tree branch to the ground.

"That'll do," Avan said. He held the dog out towards the cage and the twists parted to allow the dog to be placed inside. When Avan withdrew his arm the dog skidded down inside the cage with a small yelp and the wire closed back over the gap. "Now, dispelling mischief, that's not a problem, I think I have a spray." He rummaged in a pocket in his belt and brought out a misting bottle. He sprayed a fine sparkling mist into the cage. A couple more squirts of the mister bulb and Avan took a step back.

Saeed had never seen mischief magic dispelled before, the experience was an unusual one that made him feel a little giddy. The dog in the cage didn't appear to expand or bulk out at all, rather it just seemed to shift around in the confines of the cage to find that there was simply more of it than could have been expected a few seconds before. This slow growth by discovery continued until the small dog was gone and in its place stood a wolf on it hind legs considerably bigger than the talking desert wolves Saeed had seen at home in Afsana.

Prince Lanchoni was similar in stature to the wolves of Sorrowblade, he guessed that they must share a common ancestor at least. This wolf was, if anything, even bigger than that. Its hateful eyes glittered dangerously in the low light of the forest. It regarded both Saeed and Avan with naked contempt.

"Let me out," Prince Lanchoni demanded. "You have no right to keep me here."

"I don't think you're particularly in a position to be making demands," Avan told the captive. "You cooperate and we might think about releasing you."

"What do you want?" Lanchoni growled, staring into Avan's eyes with an expression on his face that Saeed could read easily. If the wolf got out of the cage it would mean trouble for everybody, not least of all Avan.

"You were supposed to meet with Miranda Felix," Avan said. "Then, somehow, you appear to have become sidetracked."

The wolf snorted.

"I made the meeting," Lanchoni said. "Turns out I shouldn't have trusted Felix, she sent lizard men to kill me. She should have sent more."

"You set off the explosion that broke open the Dracopolis Jailhouse," Avan said not waiting for any denials, Lanchoni didn't bother objecting, he just shrugged. "So, what was in it for you? What did Felix promise you?"

"The Sword of Zanczasza," the wolf said. "She promised me she would take it from the Amethyst Treasure House and deliver it to me at the Castle in Serpenside in return for my assistance."

"What did you want that for?" Avan asked. "You realise the blade is cursed?"

"It shortens the life of the one who weilds it, yes," Lanchoni said. "In return it would have given me the power to take Onapica away from my brother."

"A magical coup," Avan nodded. "Not the world's noblest cause."

"What do I care what you think?" Lanchoni said. "My business is mine alone."

"What can you tell me about the lizard men who attacked you?" Avan asked. "Were they alone?"

"No," Lanchoni said. "They were being controlled by a draco, stocky dragon, one eye missing, covered with a patch. He was using some kind of crystal orb that made the lizard men obey his commands."

"A coldblood orb," Avan said. "Not common but available on the black market for a price. Well, thank you very much for your help, Prince Lanchoni, it will aid us in our efforts to track down Felix. I'll be sure to send her your regards."

"If you find her before I do," Lanchoni snarled. "Let me out of here."

"Oh, you'll be released," Avan said to the wolf. "When you're safe in a cell in the Dracopolis jailhouse."

"You said you would release me!" the wolf complained straining to break free of the wire metal prison.

"To be fair I said I'd think about it," Avan replied. "I have and I've come to the conclusion that it would be best to free you only once you're incarcerated for the crime that you have committed."

"So you're just going to leave me here?" Lanchoni complained. "If I get out of here before you arrive with help to get me to the prison I'll make sure you regret it."

"Who said we needed help?" Avan asked. "You might want to brace yourself this next bit can pinch a little."

As soon as those words left Avan's mouth he jumped up to grab a hold of the branch from which the cage-pod was suspended. He swung himself towards the top of the pod and wrapped his hand round the blunt cylinder attached to all of the pod's wires. Avan shifted his fingers across some sort of button or catch and the pod shrunk upwards swiftly.

Lanchoni cried out but as the wires spiralled in tight the cry was cut off. Avan picked the wire ball back off the tree. It was a little larger than it had been when it was empty but otherwise there were no signs that it contained a large, angry wolf.

Avan dropped down from the tree and hung the cage-ball from his belt.

"Is this how you deal with everyone who gets on the wrong side of you?" Saeed asked.

"No," Avan replied. "You I teamed up with, Felix.... well, I don't really know what I'm going to do with Felix when we catch her."

"I thought you intended to kill her," Saeed said.

"Is that what you would do?" Avan asked.

"I... am not sure," Saeed said, although he was sure that when he was a boy he would have revolted at the notion of murder. Somewhere along the line he had come to think of killing someone bad as an unpleasant necessity. Now, strangely, he found himself uncertain again.

"Then we shall both discover what we should do, when we get where we're going," Avan said.

"And where is that?" Saeed asked.

"First," Avan replied. "We are going to find Vasky Jantnor."

"Who's that?" Saeed asked.

"A Draco mercenary, last time we met I took one of his eyes."

And that is where they went, but what happened when they met him is a story for another day.