The Long Road Home

The little girl in the green pyjamas watched the snow fall out of the upstairs window. She had, to her own certain knowledge, never seen snow before because she had lived almost her entire life in a jungle, living in a tree hollow under the shadow of the Great Skull Rock. The little girl, whose name as we should realise by now was Rachel Rummage, had lived a peaceful life, never wanting for anything, never cold, never hungry but a prisoner all the same, sleeping nights in terror of the giant bat that lived in the hollowed out cave at the summit of the Great Skull Rock.

Rebecca's father, James, assured her that in Levercastle snow fell every Christmas, after which he had kindly explained Christmas to her. Rachel imagined that being cold was always unpleasant, that long nights would make her feel sad and that having to wear wellington boots to avoid wet feet in snow would be a tiresome chore. She was surprised to find that all these things were bearable if you could live in a warm, cosy house called Rainbow Reach with your mother and your father. She had also imagined that living in the world of men, far away from Faerie, would mean she missed all the friends she had made after she had left the Skull Garden.

Happily she did not have to get used to a life where she never saw the brave Sir Cobb, the powerful Phoebe September or the mighty Princess Anabyl Spireshine. Levercastle was a town unlike many others where the little holes in reality that allow the world of men and the world of folk to interact are many. The residents of Levercastle are generally happy with the arrangement because many of them have stories like Rachel's and know that there is more to the world than might, at first, meet the eye.

"Hey you, time for bed means time to get into bed, not time to loll around on the window seat in your pyjamas," said dad, James, coming in to Rachel's bedroom.

"I was just looking at the snow," Rachel said. "Remember I've never seen snow before."

"So which would you rather?" James asked. "Look at snow or hear a bedtime story."

"How about hear a story while watching the snow?" Rachel asked.

James sighed and sat down next to his daughter on the window seat. He watched the snow flakes with her for a minute. Then he asked:

"What story do you want to hear?"

"Tell me a story about when we came here, when Lester opened his brother's grave," Rachel said.

"That only happened in September, honey," James said. "Don't you want a story about Avan Weatherstrong, or one of the stories about Anabyl when she escaped the Terra Draconis after the Vanishing, I just got a parcel from the Archive chronicling Sir Cobb's journey through the Upside Out."

"No, I want to enjoy remembering what happened three months ago," Rachel said. "I just want to hear it like it's a story, but to know I was there."

"Okay," James said. "I guess that would be fun, in a weird kind of a way."

And so James recounted the events of three months previously, as if it was a story, but both of them knew that all of this had really happened:

So the story goes there was once a man who lost his brother and could not find him no matter where he looked. In the end, out of desperation, the man tracked down the Master of Mischief to ask for help with his quest.

"Are you quite sure you want to find your brother?" the Master of Mischief asked. "You may not like what you find."

"All I want in this world is to see my brother's face once more," the man said. "Please help me, or if you will not then send me on my way, for I know that you are prone to play games. I know that not all of your games are kind."

"Do you understand the threads I would have to pull? The patterns I would have to break? The mischief I would have to do to give you your heart's desire?" the Master of Mischief asked.

"If I knew what needed to be done to find my brother," the man replied. "Then I would not bother you. Please, will you help me?"

The Master of Mischief smiled his smile, the only part of the Master of Mischief that remains the same no matter which particular face he has chosen to wear that day. The Master of Mischief knows more than he ought to, for which reason the Master of Mischief lies to people, but always for the betterment of all worlds, or so he tells us.

"I am in a good mood today," the Master of Mischief said. "So I will help you. Go to death's garden and dig with a spade. You will find your brother under the earth."

And that is where the story ends. Well, most versions of the story, for stories are lies, and stories are mischief of the purest kind in all places but one. The one place where all stories are reflections, or chronicles, or accounts is the Faerie Archive at Sommerslip. The story is told there almost as rendered above, but there is one major difference. After the Master of Mischief says 'So I will help you' the sentence ends. Underneath is printed, in neat block capitals:

CONTINUED IN 'THE TALES FROM BRIDGETOWN - BOOK ONE'

Of course Lester Topping didn't know any of that. As far as Lester Topping was concerned he had received a letter from his twin brother Chester recounting that Chester had stopped off in Bridgetown to pick up some supplies and was heading on in three days to a distant shadow.

Having become quite lonely without the companionship of his brother Lester had raced to Bridgetown, got himself lost, missed the window to meet up with his brother and been asked by a curious man in a tall hat to watch a mermaid in a tank. None of that resembled the story of the man who had sought the assistance of the Master of Mischief for help with looking for his brother, for that reason no one who knew the story and travelled with Lester put the two things together, not even Lester himself.

This is how the Master of Mischief works. He lies. For the betterment of all worlds, or so he tells us.

So when Lester Topping found himself in death's garden, looking down at a small wooden box revealed within the tomb that, allegedly, marked the remains of his twin brother, his confusion was, perhaps, understandable.

He was glad that the tomb did not appear to contain Chester's remains, Lester could only imagine how upsetting that would be. Still, that did not completely rule out the possibility that within the small wooden box was an urn containing Chester's ashes. There was no note or inscription to explain the tomb's contents, Chester had proven himself an avid communicator, the content of his communications was gnomic at best.

"You should probably open it," Phoebe said, standing with the others, respectfully, at the edge of the grave site. "You have looked for this place for a long time. Whatever is in there will be your answer."

Would it? Lester wondered as he approached the box and lifted it out of its hollow by the two brass handles hanging from the sides. He knew that it should but now that he was, in theory, at the end of his journey he couldn't convince his brain that the moment was at hand.

The box was not heavy. It had, rather, a reassuring solidity that strongly implied the container's importance. The wood of the box was a nice golden brown, not too dark, not too light, like the burnished surface of a fiddle. Brass corners had been fitted to prevent the wood finish from scuffing or splintering. The handles in the side held firm, appearing as if they were part of the wooden body of the box itself. The craftsmanship of the item could not be second guessed, it was impressive in its simplicity.

There was no lock on the box, just a simple latch, a switch that moved from right to left, embossed with the symbol of the hourglass. With a smooth click the lid was open, Lester lifted the lid on well-oiled hinges to reveal the contents.

The box did not contain an urn filled with ashes. It contained a brass hand mirror, its reflecting surface turned down to rest on a cushion of red velvet. Without even thinking about it Lester picked up the mirror to look at his face.

"What is it?" someone asked, he thought it was Eos.

"I don't know, exactly," Lester said, studying his face in the mirror. "Oh, this mirror is broken."

"What do you mean?" Frederick asked. "Is it cracked? It must have cracked before someone put it in there, no shock would reach it through the earth and the rock and the box and the padding."

"No," Lester said. "It's not cracked. It's just when I talk my lips don't move. My whole face is stuck, like a photograph. I can't even... ah, no. I can wink. I can see my eye it looks like its inside something, like I'm wearing glasses or..."

"Your face," Phoebe said. "It shows you that your face is a mask."

"It does," Lester said. "I've worn a mask, all this time. I didn't even know it." He stopped for a second, he could feel his face smirk although the image in the mirror remained completely still. "That means that when I was at Lady Crimzona's party I was wearing two masks, one on top of the other. How silly."

"Well," Rachel asked. "Aren't you going to take the mask off?"

"I had better," Lester said. "It's been far more fun than I thought it would be to wear a mask for all these days, but now I think, somehow, that it is far more important that I take the mask off. So, here goes."

Lester reached up under his chin and caught the edge of his Lester mask. He felt his false face lift off the surface of his real one. It came away easily, not even fixed to his head by a length of cord. Magic had kept Lester's mask in place, in the mirror it was easy to remove for it was all part of the same spell.

Before Lester could see his real face he turned away from the hand mirror to look at the blank white object in his hands. He looked up at the faces of his friends and smiled.

"How do I look?" he said, playing a game for he already knew.

"Honestly?" James said. "Exactly the same."

Chester's grin broadened, for now Lester knew that he was Chester, his own missing twin brother. The absurdity of disguising oneself as one's own identical twin brother was delicious to both of them. Chester realised that it was he who had felt a small twinge of regret at the need to remember all the things that made up Chester Topping, eccentric, traveller and alchemist. Lester wasn't good for much, that was all part of the mask, what Chester had discovered through Lester was a constant and abiding sense of innocent wonder at the world and all it contained. Sometimes, Chester knew, he was far too clever by half.

"I don't get it," Frederick said. "I don't mind being the first to say it but I am willing to bet I'm not the only one. I don't understand what's happening."

"It's all part of the plan, dear boy," Chester said to Frederick. "All part of my plan to get the Quintessence Crystal into the hands of people better suited to its guardianship than myself and poor Professor Rummage there."

"Professor Rummage?" the gnome asked looking up at James. "And here was I just thought he was a common or garden talking mouse when first we met."

James coloured red.

"I didn't, I don't... remember," he said. "I'm a professor? What of?"

"Well, mostly, folklore," Chester said. "It's a little more complicated than that. As far as the world we come from knows, Jimbo, you are an anthropologist and expert on the mythical beasts of world cultures. Anyone inside our social circle knows that you are the foremost expert on the natural history and evolutionary biology of such creatures, that's a key part to how we ended up in this pickle."

"Dragons," Anabyl chimed in. "James found out about the Vanishing, what had happened, where the crystal was."

"Indeed, brave knight," Chester said. "Most unfortunate for he was not the only party interested in the acquisition of such knowledge. As a consulting alchemist to the Grand Order of the Covenenant of Lies I was sent to Levercastle, Professor Rummage's place of residence, to ensure his safety, and the safety of his beautiful family.

"Alas, I was too late, by the time I arrived the wicked agents of Count Bartolomeo Okulas had already turned James into a mouse, saying that they would give him twenty-four hours to see sense and that they would return on the morrow when they expected he would share his secret. I had to think fast, I came up with a plan that was the child of expedience more than prudence.

"I am, in fact, rather glad that things have played out as they have. I cannot claim any particular good judgement on my own part in that, I rather think that I provided an opportunity for several wrongs to be righted in the great tapestry. Our stopgap measure was, therefore, exploited by the Master of Mischief rather than expedited by him."

"Oh, my dear Monsieur Topping," said a new voice that everyone recognised but nobody could place. "How desperately cynical of you. Why could I not merely have found myself in a giving humour?"

The curious man in the tall hat emerged from shadows that no one could remember being there a moment before.

"Apologies," Chester said to the Master of Mischief. "I did not intend my invocation to carry such strength."

"No apologies necessary, alchemist," the Master replied. "I came of my own volition. Mostly because I like to see those who do not wish to deal with me squirm. Partly because I am tired of this business and would like to see it done."

"What is there left?" asked Chester. "I think I have explained everything."

"Well," Frederick said. "There you and I are going to have to differ. I still don't really understand what's going on. You're not Lester, you're an alchemist who looks like himself and James the mouse is really a professor of dragons and there's something to do with Count Okulas, aside from that... I don't really know what we're all doing here."

"Allow me to fill in the gaps," the Master of Mischief said as his famous grin slowly painted itself from one of his ears to the other. "Chester and James were sought after for James's forbidden knowledge by Count Okulas. The one place Chester knew that James could be hidden that Okulas would not find was the same place that the Quintessence Crystal was hidden. James, his family and Chester came here, to the Skull Garden.

"When they all began to forget things Chester understood what was happening. He forged the Lester mask using the garden's own magic to make the enchantment more powerful," the Master shot a sidelong glance in Chester's direction. "That was very cunning by the way," he said, and then returned to his story. "Knowing nothing but the story Chester had told the mask Chester sent himself away to Bridgetown, Lester arrived. Such a bizarre and powerful magic suddenly manifesting in the Patchwork Market attracted my eye. I settled to study it immediately.

"When I understood what was happening I saw the potential to undo one of the most heinous acts that has ever been committed in all the lands of Faerie. The Vanishing of the Terra Draconis was a work of sorcery and witchcraft that, although literally diabolical, was outside my direct influence. Nobody said that I wasn't able to assist those who wished to put things right.

"My only problem is that, as Master of Mischief, I am one of the most powerful figures in the whole of creation. I have to be subtle if I want to weild my powers, hard as it is to believe I am not invincible. In short, I must be perceived to be neutral.

"So, I nipped reality, I tucked it, tipping people on particular paths down little back alleys of my own devising, ensuring that the great mechanism of mischief brought things out as they have become. Frederick, Phoebe, Anabyl, Eos, you are, between you, quite capable of guarding the Quintessence Crystal from the hands of evil doers. James, Chester, Rebecca and dear little Rachel, you are to be freed from a burden too great for you to bear."

"And what about me boss?" the gnome said. "When does the little girl's wish end?"

"It's not your place to ask such questions," the Master snapped at the gnome. "You'll live as I wish and be grateful for the opportunity."

"Yes boss," the gnome said miserably.

"Don't you talk to my friend like that!" Rachel cried out, outraged.

"Darling," Rebecca said. "That's the Master of Mischief, he's very important."

"I don't care how important he thinks he is," Rachel insisted. "The gnome's given me and James our wish, and helped out with all the other stuff too. I think he deserves to be free now and nobody should be rude to him, not even a scary man in a big hat."

"Dear Rachel," the Master said, kneeling down to bring their heights closer together. "You misunderstand. This gnome is not your friend. He is with you because he is bound to you. He is just an accidental random conglomeration of mischief that calls itself a gnome. I doubt he can feel emotions. He's nothing, really, beneath your notice."

"He's my friend," Rachel said. "And he's never done anything mean or horrible. I don't know what you're talking about but it sounds mean and horrible to me. Mean and horrible people are nothing. The gnome is the gnome."

The grin disappeared from the Master's face. Most were silent, the gnome and Rebecca drew in breath sharply.

"Sometimes," the Master said sadly. "It seems even I can forget my place. Very well Cholmondeley, you shall have your own garden, but first we should see to the end of the wish."

"And how do we do that, exactly?" Rachel asked. "If you know so much then you can help us. We haven't done very well at the job ourselves."

"Why, all the answers your poor father ever needed are behind this door," the Master said pointing to a simple wooden door in the base of the Skull Rock that had certainly not been there a moment before.

The Master opened the door and it was as if they were looking out of a house onto a street. Opposite their position was a small wooden fence, painted blue, that surrounded a two storey detached house completely surrounded by well defined, but slightly overgrown flower beds.

"Rainbow's Reach awaits Professor Rummage," the Master said. "And all the stories that you hold within your head will return within its walls. Once that is done so will Cholmondeley's work."

Saying goodbye to all the friends they had made on the long road home James, Rebecca, Rachel and Chester went through the Master's door and back to James's home where their long adventure had begun so many years before, or so it seemed.

When James remembered exactly who he was, and where he had been, and the nature of those things, he understood that life in the Skull Garden unfolded at a vastly different rate to time in his own world and he had, in fact, been gone only a single night as far as his world was concerned.

Unfortunately this meant that, unless Rachel wanted to squash into a crib, which she did not, she had to sleep that night in her parent's bed. None of them minded that arrangement at all and the next day a brand new bed was bought for the little girl who had grown up in the Skull Garden not knowing anything of who she was or where she came from.

The Guardians of the Quintessence Crystal took their responsibilities very seriously indeed, and their stories are even now depicted, along with all the rest, within the deep, dark stacks of the Faerie Archive. That would probably be the best place to read them for, although the Master of Mischief will claim that he can tell you what came next everyone knows that the Master lies to people. Although, you can be assured, he only does so for the betterment of all worlds. Or so he says himself.

THE END

In Which There Is Trouble On The Okulas Moon

"I must confess," Saeed said, as the light of the rainbow bridge faded from view, "I never expected the moon to look like this."

They stood on a wide, featureless plain, covered with a sparse scrub in patches of hard, black soil. Although the stars could be seen, a bright canopy overhead that suggested night, there was plenty of ambient light surrounding Saeed and Avan.

"The moon wears many faces," Avan replied. "She is the mistress of illusion."

"'She'?" Saeed asked. "The moon is female?"

"That is the one thing all the faces have in common, yes," Avan said, then, pointing towards one horizon: "I think that is where we need to be headed."

In the direction that Avan had pointed Saeed could make out the twisted form of a gigantic tree, the only large form on the visible landscape of the Okulas Moon as far as the eye could see in any direction. Saeed and Avan began the long walk toward their destination.

As they drew closer Saeed began to realise that they were not headed towards a normal-sized tree that was a short distance away but, in fact, an enormous tree that was much further away than it first appeared. Even so, as they first crossed the part of the plain where some roots of the enormous tree were becoming visible Saeed could see birds swooping and wheeling around the branches far above his head.

One bird, not flying, was sat on a larger branch about sixty feet up. An impressive looking owl that, while not on the same exact scale as the tree, was large enough to look a little more comfortable with the enormity of its perch than it might have otherwise.

The size of the external roots grew larger and larger as Avan and Saeed drew closer to the bole of the tree. Before they reached a place where they could think of climbing the trunk a voice called out to them.

"Couldn't resist the challenge could you?"

Saeed and Avan turned to see Miranda Felix standing twenty feet up on the ridge of one of the roots.

"You want to give up," Avan said. "You'd be no match for me if I was alone. Let me assure you that your defeat will be swift and humiliating when you face both myself and Saeed."

"If I was alone," Miranda Felix replied. "I would not have called attention to myself. You know as well as anyone I like to pick my battles, my handsome prince."

Saeed surveyed the area around him. All he saw was the rough bark covering the tree roots, appearing grey in the strange blue of the ambient illumination, and the black and blue scrub of the earth.

"You have hidden lizard men, or trolls nearby?" Avan asked.

"I have glass monkeys," Felix replied. "Nearer than you think."

Saeed felt the brush of Avan's arm as he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.

"I must confess," he said. "I've never heard of a glass monkey."

"No, something new on the moon," Felix said. "Dreamed up by a darling little madame I have safe inside a mirror. Mischief sprites can have the cruellest imaginings if you just scare them a little."

"I've never heard of a glass monkey," Saeed muttered to Avan under his breath. "She could be bluffing."

Avan looked about, scanning the ground around them for some sign of Miranda's invisible henchmen.

"So we're supposed to just let you get away because of this assurance?" Avan asked.

"Oh, my sweet boy," Miranda said. "I know you too well to think that you'd take my word for anything." She drew in a breath and called out: "Attack!"

There was a shift in the air and a rhythmic pounding rumble like dozens of feet suddenly moving forward. Something screeched and Saeed felt himself struck in the face so hard it sent him tumbling backwards.

Thankfully Saeed had excellent reflexes. He turned the fall into a backwards hand spring, drawing his sword as he came back up. He swung his blade in an arc around him and drew out the sound of shrieking monkeys as they tried to avoid his random swipes.

"I am not going to be able to keep this up for long!" he shouted at Avan, who had somehow managed to cloak his entire body in fire in the few seconds since the monkeys had attacked.

"No, neither am I," Avan called back. "Besides, Felix is escaping while we're dealing with this nonsense."

"Nonsense, in my experience, tends to be less fatal than this," Saeed called back.

"This should help," Avan said pulling a gourd from one of the pouches on his belt. "Take a deep breath," he warned and threw the gourd into the air. Being a wise thief Saeed inhaled as large a lungful of air as he could in preparation for whatever was coming next.

There was an explosive popping noise and the gourd bloomed into a cloud of green smoke that settled down over them. The green smoke was made of a fine powder that settled on Avan, Saeed and also on the glass monkeys. Now Saeed could see the outline of the places where the powder fell. The monkeys did not like the powder and were scurrying away, trying not to get it on them.

Even as they did so, however, the monkeys began to swoon and fall, there were the sounds of monkey bodies hitting the floor as the green powder caused them to fall into slumber. There were more monkeys than could be caught within the radius of the gourd, of course. But clearing the space gave Avan and Saeed all the head start that they needed.

Swinging their blades ahead of them they charged towards the trunk of the tree and the remaining glass monkeys scampered out of their way, unsure what to do next. When they were outside of the reach of the cloud of green powder Saeed risked opening his mouth to speak.

"I don't think we're going to be able to climb this tree faster than monkeys, not even glass ones," he said.

"Don't you worry," Avan replied. "I don't think that we'll have to."

Avan dodged to the right into a shadowed crook between the out growth of two huge roots and disappeared. Hoping that this was not the result of some kind of sorcery Saeed followed. He was amazed to find that the shadow was far longer, and deeper than he might have imagined. Also, it felt as if he was running along in some sort of darkened interior.

"Hurry!" Avan said from up ahead. The sound of glass monkeys chattering and squealing was growing louder at Saeed's back.

Saeed felt a strong hand pull him forward so he stumbled and fell to the floor. There was the whistle of air sliced by a blade and then the rumble of unspooling rope and the rattle of metal through guide rails. Finally there was the crash of a heavy gate hitting the floor.

Avan muttered one of his minor magical incantations and a soft yellow glow permeated the space around them. Saeed was amazed to see that they were inside the tree, in a room carved into the root, a room with a heavy gate blocking a passage that lead outside.

"How did you know?" Saeed asked.

"Neither Felix not Okulas are lovers of slumming it," Avan said. "I didn't believe either of them would concede to living in the unfurnished branches of a tree, whatever it's size. Besides, I believed I could detect the suck of air entering the tunnel when we were outside."

"So... you could very easily have just run straight into a wall?" Saeed asked as the two of them started to make their way through the hallways and rooms carved into the roots of the tree.

Avan shrugged.

"What's life without a risk once in a while?" he asked.

The two adventurers made short work of finding the grand hall at the core of the tree structure. A vast cylindrical vault ran up the main trunk of the tree. Saeed guessed that it wasn't wide enough to have hollowed out the whole of the tree interior but it was still over one hundred feet in diameter, a series of circular galleries were connected with broad stair cases sweeping upwards in elegant arcs to the branches of the tree above.

"Looks like nobody's home," Saeed said after walking slightly behind Avan and nervously checking over his shoulder every five paces for about ten minutes.

"Worrying," Avan said. "If this place is empty then the forces Okulas had here must have gone somewhere else. The question is, where?"

"Let's hope the owl knows," Saeed said. "And that he's in a mood to share the knowledge."

When Avan and Saeed emerged onto the branch they found that a smooth path had been carved into the upper side of the surface leading out to the owl's perch. Now that they drew closer Saeed could see that the owl was roughly twenty feet tall, an imposing creature indeed, nestled in the branches of this mighty tree.

"You are one of the First?" Avan called to the owl as they drew close enough that it might hear them.

The owl rotated its enormous head. Huge golden discs, the owl's eyes, oriented to regard them.

"You are Prince Avan Weatherstrong, and you are Saeed ibn Abihi, the wanderer," the owl addressed them. "I have been waiting for you."

"What concern are we to one of the arbiters of fate?" Avan asked, his delivery was clear but Saeed had travelled with the Prince long enough that he could detect the quaver of concern in his companion's voice.

"Dark times are ahead, Prince Weatherstrong, only the deepest knowledge and the strongest soul can prevail," the owl said.

"If you tell us where we may find Okulas," Avan declared. "Then we will save the Terra Draconis."

"You will preserve it," the owl told them. Saeed had travelled too long not to note the ring in the owl's voice that told them this was a correction, not an echo. "This is the weft of the Weave. You will find your quarry in the eye of the storm that rages on the dark side of this moon. Nothing larger than a speck of dirt may penetrate the walls of the storm."

"Then that is how we must approach," Avan said. "Great thanks, wise one, we shall show that your trust in us was well placed."

"I do not trust," the owl replied. "I deliver the will of the weave. All things are as they must be."

With that the owl shifted its weight forward to drop off the perch, spreading its wings and swooping away from the tree on the Okulas Moon.

"I have to say that I did not find that conversation at all reassuring," Saeed said.

"Neither did I," Avan said. "But we have come too far to turn back now."

"I promised that I would undo the evil I was tricked into unleashing," Saeed replied. "So I am with you, however dark the road."

"Then you should brace yourself," Avan said. "Because I think we're about to experience a very bumpy ride."

And indeed they did, and in the eye of the storm raging over the dark side of the Okulas Moon Saeed and Avan confronted Count Okulas, but what happened when they did is a story for another time.

Eos and Rachel in the Casa Perdita

"What if he's dead?" Rachel asked.

"Where did you get such a morbid thought from?" Eos asked, although looking out from the mouth of the cave at the charcoal sky and continual fall of rain told her the probable source of Rachel's dark feelings.

"They disappeared, didn't they, into the undone," Rachel said. "Then we turned around and the gnome had gone, then the rain started. Why would the gnome have disappeared if nothing bad had happened?"

"From what I understand from talking with the little gentleman," Eos said. "The gnome has to remain equidistant from the two people involved in the wish he granted. If James had died then the gnome would be bound to you, he wouldn't have been able to leave. So he must be somewhere inbetween you and James, who must, logically, be alive. Don't you think?"

Rachel did not look convinced. She cast her gaze over the glossy black tree trunks down at the swollen muddy earth and up to the bruised skies.

"So what if he's hurt, or in danger?" she asked.

Eos sighed. She really wished that Lester had made more of an effort to remember James when they had run from the undone. Eos had decided that she didn't dislike Lester as intensely as she had when he had been trying to sell her rainbow grease from a market stall, that still didn't mean that she liked him, at all.

He gave every appearance of being some kind of guileless, naive and clumsy idiot. Not that she really thought that was a front. Some of the things Lester did no one would do as part of an act, in her opinion anyway. The problem was... intuitive.

Eos believed that there was this whole other layer to Lester that no one else could see. The trouble was that she didn't even think that Lester could see it. That sounded a bit mean and more than a bit crazy, so she was probably wrong. Feelings, Eos realised, could be wrong and no one could do anything about them. You couldn't just change a feeling because it didn't fit. So she was stuck with it.

Happily, she didn't have to deal with that at the moment because she was sheltering from a heavy storm in the mouth of a cave with a scared, tired and upset little girl who had lost her closest companion. Not only that Rachel had lost Tabarnas, her second closest companion a couple of days ago, after spending a long period (hours? days?) hiding in a completely different cave whilst Eos had been bewitched by the evil Lady Crimzona.

The immediate problem, therefore, became how to distract Rachel's thoughts away from the dark mental images of what she imagined might be hapening to James at this very instant. Eos looked at the skies, if the storm would just clear then walking would provide adequate distraction, but they would be drenched if they stepped outside now, besides they would likely sink up to their waists in mud before too long and that would be no good for anyone.

The only problem was if the storm continued on until after dark. Then there would be the issues of cold and hunger.

"We need a fire," Eos said firmly, and she meant it.

"How are we going to make one?" Rachel asked and Eos was pleased to note this was the first thing Rachel had said that didn't centre on James and the possible calamity that might have befallen him in the last half hour.

"We'll have to scout the cave, while there's still enough light," Eos said.

"Okay," Rachel said. "I was beginning to get a bit chilly anyway."

"Don't go too far," Eos said, she removed the corded belt that looped several times around her waist forming a belt to her dress. Unwound the cord made a single string about ten feet in length. "Here," Eos said. Take one end of this. We should never be further apart than the ends."

"Okay," Rachel said, taking the end of the cord.

The two of them went back into the angular shade of the cave. Searching for dried wood or some other kind of kindling. After a few moments Rachel cried out:

"Ow! My leg!"

"Rachel!" Eos called, alarmed, "what's the matter?"

"There's something back here," Rachel said. "It's big and solid, it's not a rock."

"What is it?" Eos asked following the cord back to Rachel.

"I don't know," Rachel said, "it's too dark to make out."

It was very dark in the corner Rachel had found. Carefully Eos felt about and her hands made contact with something smooth but textured. It had the warmth of wood but it had been carved and varnished. Eos believed that Rachel had found some sort of box. Eos felt the edges of the box and pulled it out into the light for inspection.

What was revealed was more than a simple container. It was an ornate chest decorated with scrollwork in the shape of leaves. Engraved into the top of the chest was something surprising:

'A GIFT FOR EOS AND RACHEL FROM THE OWLS OF WISDOM. REGARDS, PRINCE AVAN WEATHERSTRONG'

Rachel and Eos swapped a surprised look upon reading this. Eos looked back down at the chest a note of nervous energy fluttering near her throat.

"Well," Rachel said. "Should we open it?"

"I suppose we should," Eos said. "Owls of wisdom are not known for this kind of thing."

Eos reached out and undid the chest's latch. She eased open the lid. Inside was a folded parchment on a velvet cushion, sealed shut with red wax. Eos picked up the parchment. She could feel that it was wrapped about something contained within. Closer examination revealed the end of a red ribbon poking out of the seal she imagined the other end of the ribbon was bound around the item inside the parchment.

Using her finger Eos broke the seal and unfolded the document. The red ribbon, freed from its folds, slid to one side and pulled tight as the object tied to the end dangled off the edge of the parchment. Eos picked up the object in her hand to look at it more closely. It was a shard of mirror, the edges appeared sharp.

"What do you suppose it means?" Rachel asked. Eos was pleased to note that Rachel was now entirely consumed with the notion of the mysterious parchment and the shard and not so worried about the health and well being of her tiny companion.

"Well, the edges mean that you definitely shouldn't touch it," Eos said. She transferred her attention to the parchment. The document was a map. Across the top was written: 'Return the shard. Make a wish.' To the right of this directive there was a simple compass rose indicating which direction was North (although compasses were a lot more complicated in Faerie than in the mortal world due to the somewhat lazy approach Faerie had to reality and geography).

The main part of the map showed an area of the forest, the cave, a road way that Eos had not spotted before the storm and, at the side of the road, not too far away if the map's scale was to be believed, an old house marked: Casa Perdita. A dotted line connected the cave and the house.

"Is that where we are supposed to go?" Rachel asked, although the dotted line made it quite plain what was expected.

"I can't say I don't have questions," Eos said. "However, I must admit that I don't have a better idea."

"Okay," Rachel said. "What about the rain?"

"I was scared that we'd get stuck in a swamp," Eos said. "If this road is as nearby as the map suggests I don't think that will be a problem. We might get a bit wet though, not that I particularly mind that."

Eos left Rachel in the cave for a couple of minutes to see if she could find any sign of the road from the map. Sure enough not even fifty paces from the cave mouth Eos found a crook in the cobbled road that was clearly marked on the map. The cobbled throughfare was clearly old, possibly even ancient, but it existed and it looked to be in good shape.

Soon, holding coats over their heads and trying to move as quickly as possible through the belting rain, Eos and Rachel were making good progress along the road. A good job, too, because, by the time they reached the Casa Perdita, the first shades of evening were beginning to draw in.

The house was not in the best shape, it needed more work than the old road that ran in front of it, but the roof was mostly in one piece. The door to the porch in the front of the house was locked but they found a side door, next to a wood pile, that lead into a long kitchen with a stove at the back end. Eos quickly located kindling for a fire and before long she and Rachel were enjoying the first warmth they'd experienced since the sun on top of the Eyrie.

After a brief period in which Rachel and Eos sat and stared into the yellow tongues of fire licking at the walls of the stove Rachel stretched and yawned.

"So, we should find the place to put that bit of mirror," Rachel said.

"I imagine that we should," Eos replied. "After all, we don't really have another plan. I don't know about you but I'm starting to get hungry. We were lucky with the wood but I don't imagine there's much food about here."

"No, I don't think anyone's used this kitchen in a long while," Rachel agreed. "Maybe we could wish for some, when we find the mirror."

"I'm not sure," Eos said. "Wishcraft has a nasty habit of appearing simple but winding up complicated. Also the map said 'make a wish', not 'make as many wishes as you would like'. If we only get one wish each it should be for something a bit more than a sandwich."

"Oh, well," Rachel said. "Mine's easy. I shall wish for all my friends to find their way, safe and sound, back to the Patchwork Market."

"I guess, if I had a wish, I'd wish away the curse that stops me enjoying my tail on demand. This ring still feels like a bit of a risky necessity."

"Well, we won't get to wish for anything if we don't find the mirror," Rachel said. "So I suppose we'd better get on with it."

With the matter decided upon Rachel and Eos left the kitchen by a door that led into the hall. To their right a set of steps lead upwards to the top floor of the house, the front door was to their left, two more doors were on the opposite side. One door lead through to a room at the front, the other, adjacent to the stairwell, lead to a room at the back of the house.

"Upstairs?" Rachel asked, her tone of voice told Eos that Rachel regarded the shaded gloom at the top of the stairs with the same suspicion as Eos.

"Maybe we should try the parlour," Eos suggested, indicating the door directly opposite.

"Okay," Rachel appeared happier with that decision.

Eos and Rachel stepped through the door into what remained of the house's front parlour. A door to their left in the back wall lead through to the back of the house. In the room there was a single wooden chair near the remains of a fireplace. Parts of a couple of other wooden chairs littered the bare floorboards. The walls still had peeling paint that was a murky colour like pale olives, in places the colour was a lighter green in squares, indicating the places where pictures had once hung.

"This is like the house that got undone," Rachel said, Eos could detect a note of panicked melancholy in Rachel's voice. Clearly this was not a time to slow down.

"Well there's no mirror in here," Eos said, so let's take a look out the back."

Eos crossed the parlour quickly and threw open the door. The disorienting sense of confusion was instant but the rationalisation of it was slightly slower to come along.

At first Eos believed she had got turned around and had wandered back into the kitchen, or mistaken the layout of the house. She turned and looked behind her, verifying that Rachel was still there and the front room was still there. Both were true.

Then Eos's head began to go to war with her in a more serious fashion. She had seen the hall, crossed the hall and entered the front room. The kitchen only had two doors, the one to the hall and the one to the outside lean-to containing the woodpile. She was stood in the door that should go to the hall.

It appeared as if someone had built an exact replica of the kitchen in two places within the house. Then Eos realised that the stove was lit and radiating warmth into the room. If this room were a replica it couldn't possibly have a lit stove, unless there was someone else in the house.

"I don't understand," Eos said under her breath.

"What?" Rachel asked. "Why is the kitchen there?"

"I don't know," Eos sighed. "I am as confused as you. Let's backtrack."

Eos left the door open and crossed the parlour headed back to the hall. She opened the door. Still a hall. Not the same hall.

Now the top of a set of stairs was visible set directly to the left of the open doorway, a short landing went ahead of her with a second door immediately to her right, another one adjacent to it at the far end of the landing and one set directly opposite her. Eos looked back into the front room and over to the kitchen, still visible through the door way on her left inside the room.

"Um," Eos said.

"What's happening?" Rachel asked.

"Something's very wrong, is what's happening," Eos said.

"The house is jumbled up, isn't it?" Rachel said, cutting through the shroud of impossibility covering Eos's mind.

Rachel, taking matters into her own hands, once more distracted from upsetting thoughts, opened the door adjacent to the one Eos had just opened.

"Yes," Rachel's voice said, with a curious ringing tone that appeared to be, simultaneously right in front of Eos and a little way off over to her left. "Very jumbled indeed."

Eos looked back towards the kitchen but now the kitchen wasn't there. Instead there was Rachel, standing in the doorway to the left. Eos turned her head, her senses reeling, and saw Rachel standing in front of her just at the door of the room she was standing in. Eos wondered, for a moment, if she could catch sight of herself leaving the front room if she were to hurry past Rachel fast enough.

"Rachel," Eos said, battling nausea that appeared to settle into her stomach after it had fallen from the brain she believed was actually starting to ache now. "Please, close that door."

Rachel complied and Eos heard the door to the left latch shut in perfect time with the door Eos's eyes told her were right in front of her.

"So..." Eos said, turning to the left and walking back to the door that had, moments ago, shown the kitchen. "Where now?"

She opened the door to find herself looking at the bottom of the stairs. This time viewed as she might have expected from the other door out of the front room. The front door of the house was immediately to her right.

"I hope that this magic stops at the exterior doors," Eos said and turned the handle on the front door. The door was locked on the inside as well as the outside and there was no key in the lock. Panic growing Eos opened the door to the kitchen and found herself looking down the upstairs landing at Rachel stood almost ten feet away at the top of the stairs the bottom of which were now immediately to her left.

"Oh, Eos," Rachel said. The little girl moved to the staircase and started down the stairs. Eos turned her head to look up the staircase and see her companion now descending from above, looking just as miserable as Eos felt. "I think we've walked into a trap," Rachel said.

Eos was hard pressed to disagree on that point.

"We shouldn't panic," Eos said, she was looking at Rachel but the comment was largely intended for her own sense of sanity. "I don't think that this is entirely random, it's not just a trap, I think it's also a puzzle, a test."

"What, to see if we're clever enough or something?" Rachel asked.

"Absolutely to see that, yes," Eos said. "So there must be some logic to this somewhere."

"So how do we work out what that is?" Rachel asked.

Eos thought about this for a moment. Eos had never really had much concern about whether she was clever or not. She had always appeared clever enough, at least in her own reckoning. However, this had meant that she had been taken from her family, cursed and, for a brief while displayed for tourists and otherwise exploited. These indignities had always appeared to be moral, maybe, if she had been clever enough, she might have escaped them.

This left the problem that now she had to face up to the real possibility that she was not clever enough to solve the current riddle. As much as she didn't know if she was clever enough she also did not know for certain that she wasn't. So now was the only and also the ideal opportunity to find out.

"Let's see if the rooms cycle, or join up in any particular fashion," Eos said. She crossed the hall and opened the door to the parlour. She found herself looking into a gloomy bedroom, there was a light rectangular area on the floor where the bed had once stood and the left half of a wardrobe lying on the floor to her side, the missing half having been removed forcibly leaving the sad remains of one door and a jagged edge of the back of the wardrobe flush to the wall.

"Right," Eos said, Rachel had come to stand beside Eos and had grabbed hold of her right hand. Eos looked down at the little girl and gave her what she hoped would be interpreted as a reassuring smile. "Let's see what happens now."

She closed the door, then opened it again, same room. She closed the door and opened it again, upper hallway, closed, open, a long, empty room, some cutlery was scattered on the floor, from the shape of it, and the position of the doors and windows it looked like this room was the final room that was intended to be on the ground level. Closed. Open. Upstairs Hall. Closed. Open. Bedroom. Closed. Open. Kitchen. Closed. Open. Upstairs Hall. Closed. Open. Parlour. Closed. Open. Bedroom. Closed. Open. Kitchen.

They continued to close and open the door for the next couple of minutes, no pattern was discernable. Eventually, one time that they opened the door and found the kitchen Eos went over to the side entrance to ascertain whether they could, at least, escape.

Thankfully the house appeared quite content to allow them to leave. The side door consistently continued to open up to the outside and the lean-to. So there was no progress to be made inside but always an invitation to leave.

"Maybe we should just give up," Rachel suggested unhappily.

Although there was, in truth, a good deal of sense to this suggestion Eos found it to be an irksome one. She did not want to walk away from the house feeling that it had, in some sense, beaten her. She had always found brain-teasers and puzzles tiresome and frustrating, the less she had the answers the more she burned to possess them. Maybe that was why she had always avoided them.

Unfortunately this left her with no strategies to cope with the puzzle at hand.

"Maybe we should," Eos said. "Let's have a rest and, if that doesn't help, we can think about leaving. I'll put some wood on the stove."

"Okay," Rachel said and sat back in her chair by the fire.

Eos went out to the lean to and began picking up wood. The lean-to was really just a tall fence with a frame built off the top of it and a canvas roof applied across the top of the frame like the skin of a drum. It looked like the kind of thing the homeowner had done by themselves rather than hire a carpenter or builder to do it for them.

Even so it was a pretty good effort. The person who had put the structure together had even included hooks screwed into the beams from which hung gardening implements, lengths of rope and, in the back corner a small bin had been defined in which was stacked a rolled up bundle of fencing made out of wire and wooden stakes.

Eos turned to take her bundle of firewood back inside but, at the threshold of the door she hesitated, thinking about the items she had just seen in the lean-to. She looked back across the roof hooks, specifically at the coils of cord hung on the inside corner.

Eos began to think that she might be clever enough to solve this after all.

"I think I've worked this out," Eos said as she put the firewood into the stove.

"I knew you would," Rachel beamed. "You're clever."

Am I? Eos thought, she imagined that she might, in fact, just be lucky but she didn't say anything because she didn't know for certain that Rachel was mistaken.

Instead of worrying about the relative state of her cleverness she went outside and took down the loops of cord. There were three hung up, all reasonably lengthy. She tied all three together and then tied one end of the super long cord she had made tightly to the hook.

She then took the rest of the looped cord and walked in through the kitchen door. She crossed the kitchen to the door and opened it until she opened it onto one of the hallways. Fortunately this happened to be the lower one.

She crossed the lower hall and opened the door opposite until she opened it onto the parlour, as was intended in the normal layout of the house. She walked through the door continuing to pay out rope behind her and opened the opposite door she opened and closed that until she found what she considered to be the "right" room, the one with the cutlery on the floor. Once she had that room correct she opened the other door into the back of the downstairs hall until that came up correctly.

During this process she noticed that the number of rooms the next door could open onto never included any of the ones the rope ran through. The rope was creating a single line, preventing the doors from randomly closing when you couldn't see them, preventing the enchantment from including those areas in the jumble of rooms that could be behind the next door.

When she opened the door to see her cord crossing the area at the bottom of the stairs and going in through the parlour along the parlour to end up in her hands in the remains of the dining room Eos went to the foot of the stairs. She wound the rope around the bannister in one complete loop and then went up the stairs to the landing above where she turned and immediately opened the door to her right at the top of the stairs.

After a few more doors and a little more cord strung out there was only one door left in the whole house. The door at the front of the house in the upstairs. As Eos reached this door she realised, in all the random rooms she had seen everywhere else in the house she had never seen the room behind this door come up, not once.

Only now that she had, in a very real sense, strung the other rooms together, could she see that this was the room that was the end of the path. The only way to reach it was to make it impossible for there to be any other room behind the door than the one that was actually, geographically, structurally, intended to be there.

Feeling a small thrill of excitement Eos reached out and opened the door to the last room in the house.

"Make it quick!" said a little voice as the door swung open. A little woman, no more than six inches high kneeled down at the edge of a bedside table stood next to the remains of a sturdy wooden bed. "I'm sorry I hid, but... I just didn't want to die."

Eos stopped at the threshold and looked over to the little woman. She was dressed in the mode of the common house wife, thick skirts, pinafore tied to the waist, heavy high neck blouse and a frilly dust cap. She reminded Eos of the housekeeper from Caer Shaleshore. Being only six inches high Eos guessed she must, in fact, be a sprite.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I thnk you must have me confused with someone else. I'm not here to kill you."

"You're not?" the little woman said, opening one eye and looking Eos up and down suspiciously. "You've been tramping through the house, opening the doors, wailing and carrying on. If you weren't trying to find me then what were you doing?"

Eos reached into her belt and carefully pulled out the shard of mirror.

"There is a broken mirror somwhere here," Eos said. "I was told to come here and repair it with this."

"Oh," the little woman said, the surprise completely overriding her fear. "That will be the mirror in the porch. You'll need the key."

The little woman turned around and opened a small box on the bedside table. She reached in and pulled out the key. Eos crossed the room and took it from the tiny woman. The sprite had found the key to be something of a burden, the key was half the little woman's height. Eos took the key between her thumb and forefinger.

"Thank you," Eos said.

"Oh, anything I can do to help," the little woman said. "It's my job, not that I've been able to do it for a long time."

"I'm sorry to ask," Eos said. "But why did you think I would want to kill you?"

"Well, I'm a house daemon," the woman said. "I look after the owners, but this place hasn't had owners in an awfully long time. This used to be a stop on the way to the coast, before the Vanishing. When the coastline disappeared all the trade routes dried up and people had to move on. The last owners of this house left me behind. It was only a matter of time before one of the agents of the undone came to scrub me away.

"As the mistress of this house I was able to rearrange the insides, made it very difficult to get to this room. It's the only one I feel comfortable in, they left behind this furniture, the old owner's wife said that the room was old-fashioned, so they just abandoned it."

"Well," Eos said. "You'd better not stay long, the undone itself is nearby, less than a day's journey from here. It might get slowed down swallowing the mountains but it won't take forever to reach here."

"Oh, dear," the little woman said. "But I do love this house. If the house is going to go then I suppose I had better find somewhere else to be."

"Me and my friend, we're going to the Patchwork Market," Eos told the sprite. "If you came too maybe then you could find somewhere else to settle."

"Well, yes, I suppose if I must, I must," the little woman said. "Never let it be said that Ivy Cosynook outstayed her welcome. If I have a fault then I guess it could be said I get a little attached. I'm only a bit houseproud, where's the harm in that, particularly for a house daemon."

"I must confess," Eos said. "I don't really see it as a problem, but then I've never met a house daemon before."

"We're not much for fuss," Ivy said. "I don't think the owners of this place ever knew I was here, that's just the way we like it. Shy, see?"

"I see," Eos said, instantly wondering if she'd ever unwittingly stayed in a house with a daemon of its own before.

"Anyway, didn't you say you needed to fix the mirror, hadn't we better be about it?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose we should," Eos said.

With the key Ivy had given her Eos opened the porch, Rachel and Eos got their wishes and they took Ivy with them to the Patchwork Market, what happened when they got there is surely a story for another day.

Sir Cobb's Problem or So What Now?

"That was a lot of work for only half as much as I earned yesterday," Frederick complained.

"Look on the bright side," the tavern keeper said. "You only look half as battered for your troubles."

Frederick was dismayed to note that cage-fighting had now settled into his conscious mind as an everyday occurrence. In Frederick's mind earning money from fighting was the kind of thing a scoundrel would do, and he didn't like to think of himself as a scoundrel. Unfortunately saving maidens from dragons was work as badly paying as it was rare in the days following the Great Vanishing.

"I have to be quite glad that you are too clumsy to actually be able to hit me," said a voice behind Frederick. Frederick turned to take in the ever-present lopsided smirk on the morally ambiguous face of Harvey Raine.

"You were watching?" Frederick asked.

"When you said you were going to spend the evening in a cage with a number of large gentlemen who would like nothing better than to hit you in the face until your teeth rattled I just had to come along," Harvey said. "Phoebe was glad to see the back of me for a few hours. I have to say that although the random violence was entertaining I wasn't expecting you to come out of it quite so... unscathed."

"It's not supposed to be entertaining," Frederick said, in brave but pointless opposition to the actual process of fighting on a stage under bright lights and having each bout announced.. "Come on, we'd better get back to the Inn."

"I think you might be misunderstanding where the six crowns you're currently holding came from," Harvey taunted Frederick but Frederick was already halfway towards the main entrance.

If Frederick had hoped that Harvey might shut the hell up as they made their way out into the street he was to be disappointed. In a corner of his mind that he had never used much growing up Frederick knew that Harvey wouldn't shut his mouth until he'd elicited some sort of angry response from Frederick. This was one of Harvey's favourite games.

"Still, that last chap, he did get a couple of solid head blows in," Harvey continued as they walked down the street towards the market square. "Good job he didn't get you anywhere important, eh, Freddie?"

The words 'don't call me Freddie' were so eager to escape from Frederick's tongue that he actually had to bite down to stop them from coming out. The pain of biting into soft parts of his own anatomy wasn't as sharp as a few of the strikes he'd suffered during the evening's bouts.

The stony silence, unfortunately, had seemingly no effect on Harvey. The djinn was long lived and used to tormenting people, he was pretty much an expert at going at someone until they collapsed into a ball of fury.

"I have to say, Freddie," Harvey continued, how the irritating sprite knew to continue with the hated contraction of Frederick's name probably came down to an almost imperceptible reflex twitch in one of Frederick's facial muscles. "I was impressed by exactly how much damage you avoided taking. I just thought you were some hopeless wannabe. Turns out you're actually a second-rate practitioner. I don't know many people for whom mediocrity would be a step up but to a certain degree I think you should be proud."

Frederick had never previously met anyone like Harvey. The only hope Frederick had of not being taunted by the djinn was if there was some novel opportunity for Harvey to annoy someone else entirely. When no such opportunity presented itself Harvey's taunting of Frederick was merciless.

"Harvey," Frederick said, trying to remain calm but not doing terribly well at the job, "why do you have to insult me all the time?"

The same corner of the mind that had known what Harvey was up to all along threw its hands up in horror at that open invitation, but it was too late, it had been issued.

"Insult you?" Harvey asked, as if that had been the last thing on his little mischief fuelled mind. "Freddie I was just pontificating out loud, sharing my inner thoughts. I don't know what it is you could possibly find to get insulted about in that."

The rest of Frederick's mind gave up on trying to make any sense out of the situation at that point. Frederick turned on his heel to put Harvey behind him and strode off in the direction of the Gryphon's Wing.

Harvey followed along and continued to insult Frederick's name and his competence at knightly activities while, at the same time, conceding that it surprised Harvey that Frederick could even muster the ability to beat people to a pulp in a cage fight. Frederick seemed to have plateaued in a condition of not really paying much attention to this babble and he did notice a distinct drop off in the viciousness and originality of Harvey's barbs.

It was with some satisfaction that Frederick gave Harvey a pointed glare when they reached the threshold of the inn. Harvey grudgingly turned into cat form and allowed himself to be picked up by Frederick. Normally there was no way that Harvey would endure such an imposition but he was under an injunction from Phoebe that could not be resisted.

Phoebe was sitting in the lounge of the inn doing something witchy with a number of pebble sized cut crystals and a cloth with a diagram on it. As soon as she was in sight Harvey hopped out of Frederick's arms and went to sit next to her. Frederick put his coin purse on the table.

"That should see us right for a couple of days," he said, sitting opposite her.

"Then what?" Phoebe asked.

"Well, I guess I'll have to find some more work to do wherever we are," Frederick replied.

"No," Phoebe said, wearing the face that she always wore when Frederick had singularly failed to grasp the thrust of her point. "I mean, what are we going to do? And where are we going to do it?"

"Um," Frederick said. He had made the breakthrough of realising that he wasn't following Phoebe's train of thought but he had no idea what to ask her to get her to make sense. "I, uh, don't exactly know what you, uh..."

"Frederick," Phoebe said. "I think we have to face facts. We joined forces to reunite a little girl and her, uh, mouse, father... mouse-father. That mission has been accomplished, as far as we can tell. Now we each have our own things to be getting on with and... well, don't you think you'd be better off without us hanging around, slowing you down," she looked down at Harvey, "annoying you?"

Frederick could only muster a blink in response to this query. He hadn't really devoted much thought to the matter. He remembered being on his own, miserable, walking around from place to place, earning some scraps of money cage fighting or killing vermin, then he had fallen through a hole in reality and found himself the sidekick to the most celebrated hero in the long history of Faerie.

After that he had taken a long journey alone through a very strange place that ended with his opportunity to prove his knightly credentials by killing an evil sorcerer. Finally he experienced a brief stint in a jail cell in Hamsamperburg where he was arrested for vagrancy and then condemned to burn at the stake as a witch when he explained his situation to the locals. It was during this incarceration that he came to the conclusion that spending too much time on your own made you go a bit funny.

Thankfully, at that point, he had been rescued by Lester, James, Phoebe and the delightful Princess Anabyl. His magic sword, now imbued with the power of speech, was returned to him and from that point on he had been part of the team.

If you'd asked him what he thought the team's overall mission and direction should be, or would be in the future, he wouldn't know. All that he did know was that is was his team and he was happy to be a part of it. He was, in fact, so happy to be a part of it that he hadn't noticed its shrinkage to the point where it could no longer really be called a team any more.

In its current state 'the team' was him, Phoebe and Harvey, which made for two and a half team members, because Harvey was compelled to be present and did his best to sabotage them wherever possible. Also, Frederick had to concede, the idea that a team should have a mission, purpose and direction was a good one.

Frederick had set out to be a wandering knight for hire but, at this stage, he had so done that it wasn't even funny. The next thing that he ought to do was seek a place at the round table of the nearest royal personage who was in the hiring mood. The only problem with that was that most monarchs currently engaged in war were of the evil variety and Frederick was very much looking for a position as a white knight.

So his options were to resume wandering, or to stay with Phoebe and Harvey. The only issue being that Phoebe and Harvey wanted to go their own way. Frederick could not, off the top of his head, think of a knightly reason why he should stay with Phoebe and Harvey. He could think of plenty of personal ones, but knights did not do things for personal reasons, they did things because of their code.

What did Frederick's code have to say on the matter?

That was yet another awkward question. Frederick had never been much for scribing, or any other type of academics. His code boiled down to: 'Try to be nice and make yourself useful'. As filled with benevolent good intention as this was it did not compel him to remain in the company of a powerful newly not-dead witch and her djinn. They didn't even need his help to protect them from anything, having, as they did, a scary abundance of magical power between the two of them.

In wandering through this tangled maze of desire and motivation Frederick did manage to come up with a half-hearted attempt at a response:

"So, what are you going to do next?" he asked. This did not actually commit to the new 'go our separate ways' plan while also being an attempt to discover whether they had any plans which could be considered mutual.

Phoebe sighed.

"Well, I imagine I will have to go back to Vikor's castle... the remains of Vikor's castle, and get the amulet from about the skeleton's neck," Phoebe said. "Until that's broken Harvey and I are bonded together and, well, I don't think that's best for anyone."

"I... see..." Frederick said. "Well, that should be... I mean... I hope that all goes well for you."

"I'm sure you have some knightly things to be getting on with," Phoebe said. "So we shouldn't really delay you, should we?"

Frederick's answer to this question was interrupted by the sudden and unexpected arrival at their table of a worried looking goblin trader. The one who had been with the little girl, the one Harvey had whisked away from the House of Mirth back to Steephill Fell: Tabarnas.

"You two are still here," Tabarnas said. "That's excellent news."

"It is?" Phoebe asked. "Why?"

"Something's happening, to my books," Tabarnas said. "It's making me very worried."

"Your books?" Frederick asked.

"I didn't know you worked any magic," Phoebe said.

"Oh, I don't," Tabarnas replied. "Other than the magic of storytelling. I have a weakness for written tales, you see. So I have, along life's journey, furnished the shelves of a small library, mostly chronicles, mostly Avan Weatherstrong stories."

"So what's the problem?" Frederick asked.

"I have three new books, books I have never read, books that are not about Avan Weatherstrong," Tabarnas said.

"And?" Frederick asked, he was trying not to sound impatient but his hope that this interruption would provide reason for the party to stay together was fading fast.

"These books are a four volume work that describe the heroic ascendance, adventures and tragic demise of a female Dragon Warrior," Tabarnas said. "I only mention it because some of us feature in the prologue."

"Some of us?" Phoebe interrupted. "As in some of us here at the table?"

"Specifically yourself," Tabarnas said, nodding his head and making eye contact with Phoebe, he transferred his gaze to Frederick. "And you. The cat doesn't come into it, neither do I. I just thought you ought to know."

"So in this story, at some point in the future," Frederick said. "We are destined to encounter this dragon warrior?"

"No, that's not it," Tabarnas said. "The implication of this summary of the warrior's early life is that she met you both whilst she was very young."

Phoebe and Frederick exchanged a glance.

"You don't mean-" Phoebe began.

"See, the warrior used a magic spade, so it's said, to liberate you, Miss September," Tabarnas said. "And she provided some assistance in freeing you from a jail cell, so it says, following a journey through a magic mirror, following a regrettable instance with a bow and arrow, so the story goes, anyway."

Tabarnas reached into his overcoat and struggled to pull out a bound pile of books from an enormous interior pocket. He placed the volumes on the table and Frederick and Phoebe read the title of the topmost tome:

The Life and Death of Anabyl, Fiercest of the Dragon Warriors, Volume I

It appeared that Frederick had found some small reason why they might want to remain a team. The Life of Anabyl wasn't so much of a problem, but the death... They would have to study further, and see if such a death was preventable, and, if it was, they would have to prevent it. The how and the where of it were details that would come again, upon another day.

In Which Saeed and Avan Have A Falling Out

Saeed had lived almost his whole life in the grandest cities of Faerie and beyond. He was used to tall buildings, narrow alleys, the rich and the poor living side by side. Noise, heat, bustle, secrets, these were as constant to Saeed as the air he breathed. Even during his time studying in Luminis he had found himself surrounded by crowded grey stone walkways and city people preoccupied with city problems.

City problems, or, to give them a more straightforward title: money problems. City people worried about profit and loss, about making ends meet, about taxes and thieves. In the landscape of a city Saeed was comfortable in the knowledge that he was one of the problems. If you were a problem it tended to be more difficult for you to have a problem. Saeed had worked hard to cultivate an attitude that problems belonged to other people.

When he had been a young boy, trailing after his mother along the streets of far away distant Afsana, Saeed had accepted his temperament on face value. As he had grown older, lost his mother, adventured, become a student, learned a little of the world, Saeed had learned that remaining open-minded and free from worry were two things you definitely had to work at.

Now he surveyed the Plaza of Diamonds, and beyond it the high walls surrounding the Diamond Treasure House and waited for night. He was a stranger in Dracopolis, wearing a hooded cloak, sat at a table outside an Inn, basking in shadow. He would have had a harder time of things if Dracopolis wasn't filled with strangers on a daily basis. Then he might have stood out. As it was he was comfortably invisible in the background noise of a normal day in Faerie's largest city.

Dracopolis was not a place that welcomed strangers, except insofar as it tolerated them, in the days before the great Vanishing tolerance and welcome were not separated by much. In days to come the world would learn better manners. As far as Saeed could tell that just meant you said please and thank you while you were twisting the knife.

Saeed was not bitter, he preferred to think of himself as careful. Saeed was no liar he preferred to think of himself as a victim of circumstance. A thief? Well, some things Saeed could not deny because he didn't want to think of himself as a liar.

The difference between young Saeed and old Saeed was a matter of degree and a matter of relationships. When he was a boy Saeed stole food to live, now he stole things he didn't care about in exchange for money he could use to buy the food he had once stolen. Saeed didn't care about the things he stole but he cared very deeply about who got hurt.

Saeed had made a vow never to lie, and, in the meanwhile, a second vow never to intentionally harm anyone. The first was a vow he had made to his dead mother. His mother, being dead, knew nothing of this. The second vow he had made before his teacher, in the room his teacher called dojo, within his master's house at Luminis. Saeed took the second vow very seriously, as seriously as he took the first, but for entirely different reasons.

The walls of the Diamond Treasure House reminded Saeed of the walls of Luminis. The Treasure House Walls were intended to be intimidating but they were no more than a shadow compared to the barrier that kept those who were not ready out of the city at the brink of forever.

As dusk gave way to night street lights made a declaration that Dracopolis did not intend to stop just because the sun had set. This, too, reminded Saeed of the city where he had learned so much. The similarities were slight, nothing could compare to the glowing heart of Luminis by night.

The Tavern on the Plaza of Diamonds, became louder as the darkness deepened. The pedestrian traffic slowed and thinned. Saeed became more visible as a result, that was never a comfort. Thankfully the people who remained were all preoccupied with each other, none of them were looking at him.

It was still some time from Midnight Bell but if Saeed waited then he risked becoming even more conspicuous. He stood and crossed the square to the Temple of Turan. He hoped that no one had discovered his cache or the preparations he had made to gain entry.

As he crossed the square a young woman, laughing, stumbled out of a party of merry makers and nearly collided with him. He saw her coming, stepped to one side and caught her before she could fall to the floor.

The young woman looked up into Saeed's face, Saeed shifted his head forward so that his features would remain obscured by shadow. They young woman did not appear afraid, she was still smiling.

"Thank you sir," she said. "I'm afraid I got carried away."

Saeed lifted the woman to her feet and gave her a small bow from the waist. He made sure that his hood kept his face from view.

"Don't you speak?" the young woman asked.

Saeed did not want to be remembered as any more than a man in a cloak. He looked at the party of people that the woman had emerged from. They were nearly over to the opposite edge of the square now. Saeed pointed after them.

The young woman looked.

"I don't even know if you have a handsome voice now," the young woman said. "But I felt that you were strong."

She smiled at him, her eyes sparkled in the light from the crystal lamps that lit the square. She was a young Draco, very beautiful. Saeed was not here to fraternise, he just stood waiting for her to move on, or at least to take her eyes off him. She studied him for a moment longer before saying:

"You really are no fun at all," then she turned and chased after her friends.

Out of habit Saeed checked his pockets, but the encounter had not felt like a pickpocket's attack of opportunity. Of course, the best attacks of that nature did not.

Satisfied that he still possessed everything that he needed to proceed Saeed carried on to a small trade entrance at the side of the temple building. From the inside of his cloak he drew a long wire with a hooked end.

He worked the wire in between the wood and the jamb at the hinge end and fished around for a moment. When he pulled the wire back a thin, strong cord was caught on the hook. Saeed picked up the cord and lifted it until he felt the tug of it coming free from the screw that he had wedged it behind on the opposite side. Then he pulled at it gently at about waist height, about where he remembered the bolt being earlier. He felt the bolt slide back. He undid the latch and opened the door, retrieving the cord and stowing it, along with the wire hook in his cloak.

From a pouch at his waist he took a small screwdriver and retrieved the screw he'd used to wedge the cord earlier. He put the screw and the screwdriver back into the pouch. Once he had closed the door, he shot the bolt again leaving no evidence that he had been here at all, except for the tiny hole left by the screw at the hinge end.

Saeed climbed the steps of the temple's offering tower. All Temples to sky gods had tall towers, the law of the city meant that it could not be as tall as the treasure house walls, but it was tall enough for Saeed.

The visitors to the temple had not found Saeed's means of entry, neither had they found the wooden box he had stored in the chimney of the offering room. The wood on the lower side was sooty, the priests had made an offering at some point after Saeed had stowed the box. Saeed's box was varnished with a flame-retardent, it had easily withstood the heat of the fire.

Saeed opened the box and pulled out a crossbow and an arrow with a hard, barbed tip. The head of the arrow trailed a thin cord of dark rope in which could be seen fine filaments of metal. Saeed mounted the arrow into the crossbow, went over to the window of the offering room that faced the treasure house, took careful aim and fired the arrow so that it stuck into the stone near the summit of the wall.

Saeed tested the arrow's hold and found it to be satisfactory. He tied the far end of his thin cord about the bracket of a sconce in the wall opposite the window. This done he hoisted himself off the floor onto the rope and used a clip on his belt to secure him to the cord. His feet pointed back towards the sconce, his head was oriented toward the wall of the treasure house. He began to climb along the rope over the square towards the Treasure House.

This was the riskiest part of the enterprise. He had no contingency for falling. Thankfully he could not be seen from the ground the light from the crystal lamps was reflected downwards by metallic hoods on the fittings. He edged swiftly over the space between the top of the tower and top of the treasure house wall.

He did not pull himself all the way over. Stopping about fifteen feet from the end of the rope. He rested at a point pre-marked in the rope where the silver filament running through the cord stopped. Saeed double checked that the absence of filament was not a trick of the light by sniffing the rope. The pungent aroma of the treatment of the last fifteen feet told him that he had stopped in the right place.

He reached carefully into his pocket for a preprepared alchemical tinderstick he had made. He brought his boot carefully to his waist by bending his knee and struck the tinderstick against a rough patch on the toe of the boot. Then he slowly turned the flaming spill and wedged into a hole drilled into the sole of the boot at the front.

Saeed lifted his toe up and touched the flame to the rope behind him, where the filament started. The rope burst into a fast burning bright red flame and vapourised instantly all the way back down to the tower.The light was intense but the red colour was not bright and lasted only for an instant. The rope, now effectively bissected, fell towards the treasure house wall.

Saeed twisted his body and swung his legs round, bracing for the impact. As he hit the wall a shock ran up his legs along with a little pain, but it was bearable. Once he had stabilised himself Saeed set about getting over the top of the wall. Wrapping the cord of the rope around his right arm for extra stability he began to run sideways along the wall using the rope to help him also run upwards. When he felt that momentum had taken him as far as he would go he spun his heel and ran the other way.

Several times he repeated this action, each time picking up speed, changing the motion from running to a kind of guided swinging. On the last pass he threw his weight up at the end of the spring and sailed over the top of the wall feet first. Bracing himself again he hit the wall on the other side. The impact on his feet was not as hard but the rope burned the skin on his right arm a little.

Hanging there, six hundred feet in the air above the courtyard of the treasure house Saeed took a moment to compose himself before reaching into his cloak and pulling out the slender silver spider cord that would take him to the ground. One end of the spider cord had a metal clip on it in the shape of a lily blossom. Saeed held the lily head to the end of the thicker rope he had fired from the bow. Working a catch on the underside of the clip the petals of the lily sprung shut binding the spider cord to the rope.

Saeed released the rest of the cord to fall into the dark shadowy canyon between the treasure house and the interior side of the wall. He tested that the clip was holding and then transferred his weight to the spider cord. Once he was sure that the spider cord was firm he clipped it through a sprung metal loop on his belt and slid down the cord in a number of jumps down the wall.

Once Saeed's feet had made contact with the ground again he twisted the spider cord in a clockwise direction and, with a few twists, the cord clip released. Saeed quickly regathered the length of spider cord together and placed it back in the knee pocket in his breeches.

Now he was ready to get inside the treasure house. Saeed looked about the thin strip of cobbled courtyard that ran around the base of the building. It was extremely dark down here, more shadow than light. Saeed had prepared for this as well. He took a vial of night's eye drops from a pouch on his belt. He dripped the drops onto the surface of his open eyes and, as the liquid spread across the surface his vision blurred and then cleared, bringing the shadows into focus.

Saeed had descended on the eastern side of the treasure house. There was no entrance to the main building here. He would have to go around to the south side, there would only be one entrance and exit. The disadvantage of this for thieves was that the entrance was bound to be heavily guarded. The advantage was that guard patrols were light, in many cases non-existent.

Taking a peek around the nearby corner Saeed could see a pair of trolls had been left on guard at the main entrance. This was all in line with the operation information he had bought from the goblin in Ferrowmarsh. Saeed had planned ahead for this eventuality.

Using his pocket knife Saeed prised a chunk of cobble out of the ground. Then he pulled the mirror brooch from his belt and clipped it to the outside of his cloak. Still out of sight behind the corner Saeed opened the metal shell that covered the top of the mirror crystal and a perfect copy of him appeared directly opposite him.

Using the angle setting controls embedded in the rim of the brooch Saeed offset his reflection to appear about six feet away from him and slightly off to the right. Then he covered the crystal again and the mirror image phantom disappeared.

Sticking close to the edge of the north wall Saeed crept up to the side of the entrance, remaining in shadow as much as he was able. As he drew within about half a dozen yards of the trolls he threw his rock into the shadows beyond the entrance to strike against the outside wall with a hard crack.

The trolls instantly leaned forward to examine the shadows, exchanging a puzzled glance. Saeed flipped the shell on the mirror brooch and his cloaked form appeared before the trolls. Saeed tried to look as if he was pausing, wondering if he'd been discovered, waiting for the trolls to see him.

One of the trolls pointed at the mirror phantom.

"You!" it cried out. "Stop there!"

Saeed turned, away, knowing the mirror phantom would do the same. He ran a few yards away and out from the walls. He looked back over his shoulder to see the trolls giving chase as the phantom appeared to melt into the shadows.

Saeed closed the brooch shell, spun on his heel and ducked in through the main entrance of the treasure house. He was not out of the wood, but the guard patrols within the vaults should not be as hard to evade as the sentries at the entrance. The warren of narrow corridors and shadowy alcoves was where Saeed felt most at home it didn't take him long to find vault number 425, the lock on the door was almost embarrassingly easy to pick.

For a moment or two Saeed considered the possibility that this had all been an elaborate trap but his fears quickly appeared groundless as he observed the target of his mission, the rainbow lattice, a magical device forged by a powerful druid, Cyrus September.

Wanting to be done with his work as quickly as possible Saeed stepped into the treasure room. Something in the corner of his field of vision caught his eye and he only just managed to raise the grieve protecting the underside of his left arm before a blow aimed at the side of his head made contact. The force of the blow left Saeed in no doubt that his assailant would have rendered him unconscious. The attacker had not reckoned with Saeed's sharp reflexes, born of much training in his master's dojo.

The fight began in a flurry of blocks, strikes and attempted grapples. Whoever this stranger was he had learned some of the unarmed combat techniques that Saeed had learned in Luminis. Saeed needed some time to work out the stranger's style of combat if he was to have any hope of turning it against his opponent.

Talking during a fight was not encouraged but Saeed believed that he might be able to apply the pressure of persuasion to the situation, so he broke the rule:

"Guards finding us fighting won't care that you're trying to stop me," Saeed said.

The opponents fist attempted to plant itself in Saeed's ribs. Saeed danced backwards, evading the hook. As he did so he got a chance to get a better look at his opponent. The man was male, a little older than Saeed, dark haired, full beard neatly trimmed. The man had designs shaved into the sides of the beard where they cut down to his jaw over his ears. The designs were intricate, probably symbolic of rank and also magical. The man wore several jewelled rings, which also indicated that he had some magical power.

Without responding the man stepped forward, planting his feet and raising his arms, adopting a fighting stance. The man had positioned himself between Saeed and the entrance to the treasure room. Saeed noted a sword hung at the man's waist. It became plain that the man could easily have killed Saeed, with metal or magic, but had chosen not to.

"You don't want to kill me," Saeed said. "Is there no agreement we can come to?"

"You leave now, without the lattice, we part, we don't see one another again," the man replied, his tone flat.

"You seem well equipped in every respect, my friend," Saeed replied. "Save that you packed no sense of humour."

"You think this situation is funny?" the stranger asked him.

"Any situation is what you make of it," Saeed replied. "There's no personal animosity between us, unless you are the owner of that artifact, which I do not believe you are."

"Regardless of who I am," the stranger said. "You have no right to the lattice. I will not allow you to take it."

"What does it matter to you?" Saeed asked. "I am just an agent, if I fail another will come."

"If you want to prove that there is more to you than thievery," the man said. "Tell me who sent you here."

"So you do want to threaten my life, no thief can be trusted with the name of their true master," Saeed said. "I am no more than an agent hired, in turn by an agent. The woman who retained my services in this task was a mercenary by the name of Miranda Felix. I do not know who retained her, it is entirely possible she doesn't know either. She knows enough to recognise information she doesn't want to hold."

"Felix?" the man said. "Don't tell me you took a job from her."

"I did some research, no one will be hurt as a result of this job," Saeed said. "This is something I am very particular about."

"I'm going to reach for my pack," the man said. "Do not attempt to escape."

Saeed could only honestly admit to the man that he would take any quarter that was given, so he didn't say anything at all. The man reached his hand behind him, not removing his eyes from Saeed. At the last moment, overtaken by urgency, the man looked away to his pack. Saeed ducked forward and grabbed the lattice before heading for the door.

"Don't-" the man said.

Then things began to go in a very strange direction. Saeed heard the tinkle of a small glass vial breaking in the doorway. In an instant he was surrounded in a choking grey-purple fog. Saeed fell to the floor and the next thing he knew he was looking up into the blurry face of the strange man from the treasure room.

"Are you awake?" the man demanded. "How do you feel?"

Saeed's head felt like it had been hit with a mallet. He groaned.

"What happened?" he asked.

"You'll be fine, stay away from the treasure room," the man said. "Stay here, don't try to move."

Then the man was gone, running off down the corridor, as if giving chase to someone.

Saeed couldn't work out what was happening. One moment he had been sailing through the air, the lattice tucked under one arm and the next he was here, without the lattice, lying on the floor.

It was all very well for the mysterious stranger to tell him to stay put, but what if a guard patrol came by? Then Saeed would be caught and imprisoned. No one should be in the Treasure House without authorisation, no exceptions.

Saeed struggled to sit up, but the pain in his head was accompanied by a weakness in his limbs. He managed to raise his head a little but his arms didn't seem to want to work.

"Well," a female voice said from somewhere over his head, out of view. "You appear to have screwed this up. I should leave you but, I must confess, you seem to strike at a soft spot I didn't even know I had."

A face appeared in the corner of his field of vision: Miranda Felix, smiling at the prospect of having Saeed under her control.

"Come on," she said. "I'll help you up. We'd better get out of here."

Miranda offered Saeed a hand, he forced his arm to reach up and accept it. Between the two of them they got Saeed to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" Saeed asked as they began to make their way, slowly, along the corridor. Miranda was supporting Saeed more than he would have liked.

"Call it an intuition," she said. "When I checked on you in the square before you entered the temple I got the impression that I may have asked too much of you."

"I would have been fine, except for the stranger," Saeed complained.

"What stranger?" Miranda asked.

"Don't move," the stranger said behind them.

"I've heard that voice before," Miranda said. She did not sound too concerned but she had stopped moving. "Prince Weatherstrong, what brings you to the heart of the Terra Draconis?"

"Passing through," the stranger, Saeed now recognised as Avan Weatherstrong, a hero in some tales that he had been told when he was a boy. "I saw your puppet here, and your exchange in the square. I decided that it couldn't be good news so, I followed. Good job too by the look of things, return the lattice."

"She doesn't have the lattice," Saeed said. "She was my contact remember, she paid me to retrieve it."

"She paid you to take the blame for its theft," Avan replied. "She always intended to leave you here to face the consequences of her actions."

"You always had such a dark view of me, Avan," Miranda said. "If you are going to insist on being such a bore then I have no real choice but to comply with your request."

"Slowly," Avan said as Miranda reached over her head to her back pack.

There was another of those confusing moments in which Saeed felt a sick twist of giddyness. He was flying through the air, he collided with something... someone... then he was on the floor again.

"She's getting away," Avan said from underneath Saeed.

Recovering a little more health by the second Saeed struggled to get off Prince Weatherstrong. Once free the prince leaped to his feet and ran off in pursuit of Miranda. Saeed, determined not to be left behind again, followed on afterwards.

It appeared that Prince Weatherstrong had no more right to be in the treasure house than Saeed, they had to pause a couple of times and reroute to avoid guard patrols. Avan lead Saeed down below the ground level of the treasure house and out through an entrance to the Dracopolis sewer system that hadn't been on any of the treasure house plans.

Saeed was too grateful to have got away alive and undetected to ask about that means of entry and escape right away. Avan didn't even really seem to acknowledge that Saeed was following him.

After a short run through the twists and turns of the sewer system Avan found a way up that surfaced below a grate in an alley adjacent to the Market Square. As soon as the two men climbed up onto the streets of Dracopolis it was clear that something was wrong. In the south the sky was orange-lit with flames and there was a tang of smoke upon the air.

"Felix," Avan muttered. "What have you done."

Saeed, tired of feeling out of his depth, plundered his study of the layout of Dracopolis for an answer to Avan's question.

"The jailhouse," Saeed said. "That's in the south. You don't think..."

"You don't know at all who you were working for," Avan replied. "That's exactly the kind of thing that she would do."

"I have spent a long time in a place where I learned much about my own nature," Saeed said. "I am afraid I do not know much of the nature of others. This is what I came out into the world to learn."

"Well, your first lesson is that some people enjoy bending chaos and destruction to suit their own ends," Avan said. "They leave others to help clean up their mess."

The prince turned away from Saeed and strode off towards the Market Square, Saeed could hear the sounds of terrified people screaming and shouting in the distance. His cheeks burned with shame that he had been played for such a fool. He hurried after Prince Weatherstrong once again.

"Please, Prince Weatherstrong," Saeed said. "I am a simple thief, but I have my own code. No harm should come to anyone as a result of my actions. As Melinda has unleashed the inhabitants of the jailhouse to cover her escape if I do not help to end this then I am, indeed, partially responsible. I will help."

"Do as you will," Avan replied. "It is none of my concern."

Saeed wanted to insist that if he could not win the respect of the prince then he would feel that he had faced a great and shaming failure. That was a personal issue, though, for which there may be time later. Saeed could hear his master's voice in his ear, telling him that, in the first instance, he should help to contain the problem that he had created. If he wanted Avan Weatherstrong's respect then that would have to come later.

And indeed it would; in fact, the two would work together to defeat Miranda Felix, and the person behind her actions. But that is a long story, for another time.