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“Home, sweet home,” Gabriel groaned, carelessly heaving his suitcase through the open door of the first room he came to.

Tellwyrn had rented the entire top floor of an inn, giving the students a pretty comfortably-sized living space. In fact, there were four rooms surrounding a lounge area which contained a table and wooden chairs, as well as the stairwell to the three floors below. It was well-lit, the fairy lamps old and flickering, but the space dominated by a large bank of windows.

In fact, everything was old. The woodwork was pitted and scarred, the furniture ramshackle, the rug little more than a pancake of cobwebs with fond memories of having been dyed. One of the widows was, in fact, a board, and one of the others a pane of wavy, frosted glass that admitted light but didn’t provide much of a view.

“You’ll have to shuffle the room arrangements a bit,” Tellwyrn said brightly, standing with her back to the windows. It was still early enough—and cloudy enough—that the daylight framing her wasn’t adequate to cast her face in shadow. In fact, it was barely adequate for dramatic effect. “At least two of the privates will need to room with Juniper—”

“I bet all the privates would like to—”

“You can be vulgar on your own time, Miss Punaji. I am speaking.” Glaring at them over her glasses, she continued. “A certain amount of hanky-panky is to be expected. I don’t particularly care about that. Just be cognizant that there are people on the floors below you and try not to act like caricatures of college students. I don’t recommend advertizing your identities, but these things have a way of getting out. Some of you are rather distinctive.”

“If you don’t care about hanky-panky,” Teal asked, stifling a yawn, “why is Clarke Tower bespelled to keep boys out?”

“Kids,” said Tellwyrn solemnly, “in the course of my three-thousand-year career, I have traversed every continent, explored the Underworld as far as Scyllithar itself, spent years in the Deep Wild and ascended to the very edge of the atmosphere. I’ve fought in wars, started wars and ended them; I have met, befriended and battled gods, dragons, demons and monsters for which you know no description. I have mastered magics and fighting styles that each demand lifetimes of study, founded cities which are now only dust and memory, and in general participated in such adventures that my memoirs, should I ever get around to writing them, would effectively re-shape history itself. My very name is synonymous with chaos and belligerence. For all that, I know my limitations, and one task I am not foolhardy enough to undertake is to prevent a bunch of teenagers from going at each other like bunnies the moment my back is turned.”

“How,” Gabriel asked in awe, “can you be so talkative this early in the morning?”

“Clarke Tower is bespelled—as is the boys’ barracks, by the way—to minimize the chances of somebody ending up accidentally pregnant. Considering the political status of many of my students, that’s a scandal that could resonate across the Empire and beyond. The hope is that if you have to make plans and arrangements to play hide-the-wand, one or the other participant will remember to take some basic precautions. I do not care in the slightest if matching pairs of genitals are rubbed together in any configuration, and I’ve seen enough of you lot interacting with each other at this point that I know nobody here is going to get the wrong kind of lucky. So! Room where you like.”

“Wow,” Trissiny managed.

“Anyhow!” Tellwyrn produced a gold pocket watch and consulted it. “I have a breakfast appointment, which was the whole purpose of this excursion, so I’ll leave you to it and check back in this afternoon.”

“Wait!” Toby said as she started for the stairs. “What are we supposed to be doing? What’s our assignment for this trip?”

“You had to remind her,” Gabe muttered.

“Ah, yes. That.” The Professor smiled disarmingly. “The first part of your assignment is to figure out what your assignment is. Best of luck! As a personal favor, though, do try not to burn the place down; I like this inn. Cheerio!”

She bounded down the steps four at a time, her footfalls making barely a sound.

“I’m just a little bit in love with her,” Rook admitted after a moment.

“You, sir, are a weirdo,” Gabriel informed him.

“Gods, you have no idea,” Moriarty muttered.

“What I need,” said Ruda, “is to figure out how to tell when she’s fucking with us as part of one of her bullshit secret tests, and when she’s fucking with us just to fuck with us.”

“I believe there are elements of both in most if not all of her actions,” said Shaeine.

“Probably. Anyhow, speaking of you, I’m a bit sleep-deprived so I might’ve been hallucinating, but did anybody else notice that like half the people outside on the street were drow?”

“We’re in Lor’naris,” Gabriel explained.

“Uh huh. And what’s that mean when translated into words?”

“Actually, it’s called a lot of things,” he added, pausing to yawn. “It’s got one of those boring district designations I don’t even remember, but the main avenue is Firousi Street. Lor’naris is a newer nickname, from the last few years when all the drow who apparently don’t like living in Tar’naris moved in here. Most of the city calls it Freak Avenue.”

“Do they indeed?” Shaeine said quietly.

“Hey, I’m relaying information here,” Gabriel said, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “As a long-time resident of the city. This district has always been a gathering place for people who don’t fit in elsewhere. Most of the non-humans and halfbloods and such, except the dwarves, who have their own district. I used to come here a lot when I was a kid, before my dad made me promise to stop. From what I understand, it’s actually a much nicer place since the Narisians basically took over the district.”

“Narisians are great at keeping things orderly,” Teal said, glancing at Shaeine. They exchanged a little smile and shifted their hands together, not clasping fingers, but lightly touching.

“Ugh,” Ruda groaned, “I insist that you two not be so adorable before breakfast. You’re gonna put me off my whiskey.”

“Sorry,” Teal said, grinning unrepentantly.

“Oh, don’t be so grumpy just because you’re pent-up, Ruda,” Juniper admonished.

“Allow me to hastily change the subject,” said Gabriel. “As usual, we don’t know what the hell Tellwyrn’s expecting us to do…”

“Oh!” Fross chimed, buzzing around the ceiling in a circle. “But if she put us here, there’s a good chance it’s drow-related!”

“That’s a logical conclusion,” Trissiny agreed, nodding. “So…any ideas where to start?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one.” Ruda yawned hugely. “With a fuckin’ nap.”

“I’m with her,” Gabe said firmly. “Wait, I mean… I agree with that. I’m not with her, in a bed sense. Not that you’re not pretty, Ruda! It’s just I’d rather not be stabbed again. I mean, not that—”

“Gabe.” Toby laid a hand firmly on his shoulder. “Stop talking.”

“…maybe that’d be best, yeah.”

“You can’t seriously want to sleep,” Trissiny complained. “We’ve just arrived in the capital of the Empire! And it sounds to me like we’re in one of the most interesting districts.”

“Yeah, and it’s probably not gonna burn down while we get the rest of the fucking night’s sleep Tellwyrn was in too much of a hurry to let us have,” Ruda said, turning toward another of the room doors. “Nighty-fuckin’ night, guys.”

“Perhaps some additional rest would not be amiss,” Shaeine agreed. “Especially if we are to be at our best when exploring the district.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” Juniper said decisively. “Boys in that room. You three guys can split between my room and Gabe and Toby’s, however you want. Fross, Ruda and Triss can room together, and that leaves the smallest one for Shaeine and Teal.”

“Wait, how come they get their own, oh, uh, nevermind.” Finchley trailed off, blushing. Teal blushed even harder, but Shaeine smiled slightly. There was something vaguely smug about it, unlike her usual little meaningless smiles. She’d been doing that a lot since coming back from break.

“I’ll help you unpack!” Fross declared, zooming into the room after Ruda.

“I can’t believe this,” Trissiny said aloud, standing still while the others shuffled off into their various rooms. “Nobody wants to explore? How much sleep do you all need?”

Toby cleared his throat softly. He was the last person aside from her left in the lounge. “I’m pretty well rested. If you want to go have a look around the area, I’m game.”

She gave him a long look, clenching her jaw.

“On second thought,” she said tightly, “maybe a little more rest wouldn’t hurt.” Trissiny turned and stalked into the room after Ruda and Fross, shutting the scratched old door with more force than it deserved.

As Toby stood there, staring at the door, a soft pattering sound began, and quickly swelled. In moments, sleet was peppering the windows. He stared out at the gloomy weather and heaved a sigh.

“It’s gonna be a long trip.”

 

Sleet flowed around her, deflected by the invisible shield of heated air she kept over her head. Tellwyrn had toyed with the notion of vaporizing it from the sidewalks in front of her, too, but had decided that would have been purely self-indulgent. Even the umbrella verged on too much; she had suffered much worse than cold and damp, and could have dried herself of within seconds of being back indoors, but she really didn’t feel like getting iced down this early in the morning. Walking on the slippery mess was no imposition to one blessed with elven agility, in any case.

She was the only person out and about, which might be typical for the hour, but in this case was undoubtedly due to the weather. It was a lovely neighborhood, a long double row of towering old brownstone townhouses, crammed closely together but each behind its narrow little garden. The gentle curve of the avenue, parallel to the city’s outer wall, meant the end of the street was always out of sight around a permanent bend, which was a nice trick by some city planner to ensure the fat cats who lived here wouldn’t have to see the hoi polloi in neighboring districts when looking up and down their own street. Every so often, at artfully irregular intervals, a building plot had been left, holding a small slice of park or a monument instead of a townhouse, serving to break up up the monotony.

It was actually rather peaceful. If one endured the cold and had some protection, the sound of the sleet was soothing, and trees, iron fences and eaves were taking on a surreal beauty as they were gradually encased in ice.

Thanks to discreet but clear street numbers, finding her destination was simplicity itself—luckily. There were places in this old city where one’s only hope for locating a specific home was getting very clear directions from someone in the know. Tellwyrn pushed through the unlocked gate, crossed the ice-soaked garden in three long strides and stepped into the shelter of the tiny porch.

She had barely tugged the bell rope when the door was pulled open, revealing a lean young woman in a Butler’s traditional suit.

“Good morning, Professor Tellwyrn,” she said crisply, stepping back and bowing. “Please, come in. You are expected.”

“I should hope so,” she replied, stepping inside. The Butler shut the door and cast a rapid glance over her; Tellwyrn could almost see her customary courtesies being frustrated. A guest who had just been out in an ice storm, yet wasn’t so much as damp and had no outer garment to take, must have been somewhat disconcerting. Her composure, of course, didn’t so much as flicker.

“His Grace awaits you in the dining room,” she said diffidently. “Breakfast will be served immediately. If you would follow me?”

Tellwyrn trailed after the girl, peering critically about. This place could have been lifted straight from a magazine illustration. The décor, the art, the furnishings… Its immaculate condition testified to the Butler’s touch, but nothing here evinced the slightest speck of personality. She knew a front when she saw one. Of course, given who occupied this house, that made perfect sense. The only unique thing about the Bishop’s residence was the low light. Even for this hour, it was dim; fairy lamps were present in abundance, but only one in the hallway was lit, and at a minimal level. This guy was comfortable working in the dark, then—which also made sense.

The dining room was more of the same: expensively but tastefully decorated, and as blandly impersonal as a museum display. Tellwyrn gave it scarcely a glance, fixing her attention on the man who rose from the table to greet her.

“Professor,” he said warmly, striding forward and taking her hand in both of his own. “I so appreciate you taking the time to visit me—really, it’s too generous. And in this hideous weather! I’d have taken no offense at all had you wanted to reschedule.”

“I never allow the weather to change my plans,” she said. “That just encourages it.”

He grinned with actual humor. Bishop Darling was a man to whom she’d not likely have given a second glance if she passed him on the street—which was probably the exact effect he was going for. A lean, fit man in his thirties, he was of average height, blue-eyed, his blonde hair just long enough to have been styled in a foppishly wavy coif. His suit was casual, but tailored and clearly expensive.

“Please, please, sit!” he said, ushering her to a chair and holding it gallantly for her. “Let’s get some hot tea into you. Price will have breakfast out in a jiffy.”

“Thank you,” she said evenly, watching him like a hawk as he strode around to seat himself opposite her. “Food can wait, however. I was offered a bribe for coming out here, I believe.”

“Ah, yes, of course. Price?”

The Butler stepped forward, holding out an antique-looking flat jewelry box, which she opened and extended to Tellwyrn. Within, on a cushion of black velvet, sat an incongruously cheap-looking necklace. Attached to a simple silver chain, it consisted of nothing but a few carved wooden beads, the largest of which was bound by a twist of silver wire to a lock of golden hair.

Tellwyrn very carefully lifted the charm from within the box, mindful of its great age. It wasn’t at all fragile, however; the enchantment on it was minor by modern standards, but sufficient to have protected it from the passage of time. She simply held it for long minutes, staring at it, lost in memory. The Butler stepped back, allowing her space; Darling held his peace.

Finally, she shook herself slightly, rousing from her reverie, and carefully tucked the necklace into her vest pocket, just over her heart.

“Well,” she said, turning a piercing look on the Bishop, “considering whose priest you are, I suppose there’s no need to ask how you acquired this. I would very much like to know from whom you took it, though. I’m quite curious where it’s been all these centuries.”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about its journey,” he said, spreading his hands apologetically. He seemed completely unperturbed by her stare, which was the one she used to control classrooms full of the Empire’s most dangerous teenagers. This fellow, clearly, had mastered the art of restraint, for all his apparently warm demeanor. “Except that most recently, Mary the Crow had it.”

Tellwyrn raised her eyebrows sharply. “You stole from the Crow? You surprise me, Bishop Darling. I didn’t come here expecting to be impressed.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be a hell of a thing,” he said wistfully, as Price began laying out plates and serving scones. “They’d remember my name in the same breath as Foxpaw’s… But no, nothing so dramatic, I’m afraid. I recently asked for Mary’s input on a little problem I’m having. She demurred, pleading ignorance, but then nominated you as the leading expert on the matter. Then gave me that, said it was certain to get your attention.”

“I see. Well, this was worth the trip, to me, and entitles you to a few minutes of my time. So now we come to it. What would this ‘little problem’ be?”

He folded his hands on the table, for the moment ignoring his scone. “Khadizroth the Green.”

Tellwyrn raised an eyebrow. “And what business, exactly, do you have with Khadizroth?”

“Oh, none, I assure you. In fact I’d like nothing better than for him to simply go away and forget about me.”

“That’s wise,” she said, nodding approvingly. “I gather he has business with you, then. This should be a good story.”

“A fairly short one, though some of it might be news to you. Are you familiar with the Cobalt Dawn tribe?”

“I’m aware of them…or perhaps I should say I was. They make a convenient cautionary tale for my history class.”

“Well, it turns out a handful of them survived their attack on the Empire.”

“Oh, don’t tell me,” she groaned. “Khadizroth took them under his wing.”

Darling nodded. “What’s alarming is what he intended to do with them. He specifically rescued the children, and was having them raised with himself as their primary caregiver and role model. Once they were old enough, he intended to use the females to…produce more dragons. A lot of them. Ultimately, his plan was to have a force with which to challenge the Empire.”

Tellwyrn stared. “That’s…actually rather brilliant. Elves aren’t the most fertile race, but there are ways around that. Gods, if he could manage to produce just a dozen adolescent dragons, with him leading them… It would take multiple deities to put a stop to that. I doubt the Empire can yet field anything that could have handled it. To read between the lines, I gather this plan is not currently still viable?”

“Thankfully, no,” Darling said, grimacing and toying with his scone. “The two eldest girls were a little too old when Khadizroth took them in to buy into it fully. They smuggled the other elves away from him, hid them with other tribes, and finally fled themselves. From there they ended up in Tiraas, and then as my apprentices in the Thieves’ Guild.”

“And now, you have a green dragon who wants his property back.”

“Precisely.”

She drummed her fingers on the table. “…I gather that giving them to him isn’t an option.”

“No,” Darling said, and there was an undercurrent of steel in his voice. “It is not.”

“Good,” Tellwyrn said with some satisfaction. “Well then, you do have a problem. I’m not sure I concur with Mary that I’m an expert on Khadizroth…”

“She did say that you’d bested him. Repeatedly.”

“Not alone.” Tellwyrn shook her head. “And that, I think, is the beginning of your difficulty. Your instincts are working against you here.”

“My instincts?” He raised his eyebrows.

“You’re an Eserite,” she said. “Unless I miss my guess, you’re thinking in terms of a long con. Trying to control information, use the dragon’s cleverness against him. Playing the game, in other words. Correct?”

“In essence,” he said slowly, leaning back in his chair. “That’s what we do.”

“And that’s your problem. As things stand… You and your apprentices are mostly safe so long as you stay behind the walls of Tiraas. Without his planned army, Khadizroth won’t risk his own safety against the might of the Empire. He’ll come at you through intermediaries, and none of the individuals who do that kind of work are crazy enough to pick a fight with the Guild. Conversely, there’s really nothing you can do to him, either. Do you even know where he is?”

“No,” Darling admitted ruefully.

“Right. So here you two sit, on opposite sides of a board filled with pieces you can’t even move. I guarantee the dragon’s patience is a lot longer than yours, Bishop Darling. Eventually, someone will have to give up their advantage and take some action. That’s likely to be you, and it’s all but certain to be your downfall.”

He was frowning now, but in thought, not dismay. “I see. What, then, are you suggesting?”

“Ignore your instincts,” she said firmly. “Don’t take him on alone. Make noise, Darling. Tell people what’s going on. This dragon was trying to raise an army against the Empire? The Empire will have very strong opinions about that. He was planning to use women as captive breeding stock? Elves or no, that’s exactly the kind of thing that drives the Sisters of Avei into a rage. They have brought down dragons, too.”

“I’ve been operating on the assumption that his interest in my girls is to find out what they’ve revealed, find out who else he has to silence. Keeping him in the dark on this matter is probably all that’s staying his hand.”

“You’re probably right,” she acknowledged, “but what do you really lose by forcing his hand?”

“I go from being a possible nuisance to a definite target for revenge,” he said wryly.

“True. But Khadizroth isn’t one of the more vengeful dragons; most of the greens aren’t. Once his secret is out, you become completely irrelevant. If he’s having to run and hide from a continent full of enemies… Well, they might actually do him in, but even if not, he won’t have the time or attention to spare for you. Better to be a target for revenge than one of active tactical concern.”

“Sounds logical,” he said, now staring at the far wall in thought. “A simple solution.”

“The best ones usually are,” she said with some satisfaction and took a bite of her scone.

“Yeah,” Darling said, then chuckled and shook his head. “And like all the best solutions, it’s not really a realistic option for me. The problem, Professor, is my apprentices. They’re Cobalt Dawn by blood, and… Well, without getting into the messy details, there are other concerns. Guild stuff, elf stuff, various miscellany. The point is, I really cannot afford to bring them to the attention of the Empire. Either Imperial Intelligence or the Sisters will need credible information to act against Khadizroth, and if I provide it… I place my apprentices at considerable risk.”

“Elf stuff?” she said flatly.

He gave her a disarming smile. “I don’t pretend to understand all of it. Suffice it to say, I can’t afford for those girls to become a pin on the Empire’s maps.”

“Mm. You sure didn’t bring me an easy one.”

“Well, it’s well known that you dislike being bored.”

Tellwyrn chewed a bite of scone for a long moment before replying. “Then I guess you were right to ask me. I can offer you some insights into Khadizroth that you may be able to use.”

“You are a gentleman and a scholar!”

“First of all, my original recommendation still applies. If you can’t bring official attention down on him, there are others who’ll help you. Since you somehow have Mary the Crow in your address book, by all means tell her about this, if you haven’t already. She tends to get very aggressive with people who abuse elves on a systematic scale such as you’re talking about.”

“Is Mary a match for a dragon?” he asked, clearly fascinated.

“I have no idea,” Tellwyrn said bluntly. “I don’t know if she’s a match for me, either. I don’t know if I’m a match for Khadizroth, because as I said, when I’ve had to tangle with him in the past, I always called in help. It’s all about maneuver, not force. Yes, I’m aware of my reputation and the irony, but when you’re talking about the affairs of gods and dragons and archfae—anything that deserves a Zero Twenty designation, really—different rules apply. We do not engage one another in destructive contests of power, nor enact grand plans to seize more terrestrial power than we need. Khadizroth clearly just did that last one, and in a way that’s likely to damage the reputation of all dragons—such as it is—should the story get out. Find and tell any dragon what he was up to, and he will immediately have problems of exactly the kind he was trying to inflict on the Empire.”

“Dragons, unfortunately, I do not have in my address book,” he said with a grin, then leaned forward, staring at her intently. “I wonder—”

“No, I will not take him on for you,” she said firmly. “I’ve made my own accommodation with the new order of the world, Darling. I perch atop my mountain and train my students, and the Empire tolerates me occasionally throwing my weight around because I’ve very carefully made it plain that I only do so when I perceive a real need. I’m not an adventurer any more, and acting as one would be a betrayal of the responsibility I owe my students.”

“I see,” he said regretfully. “Well, had to ask.”

“I’ll tell you what I will do for you, though,” she went on. “I know one dragon who’ll listen to me; the others will listen to him. Once I set that in motion, it’ll just be a matter of time before Khadizroth has far more important things than you and your apprentices to worry about.”

“That would be greatly appreciated,” he said fervently. “It surprises me to hear you have a dragon for a friend—though on second thought, I really don’t know why it should.”

“More a nemesis than a friend,” she said, grinning. “A three-thousand-year pain in the ass. Zanzayed was the first individual to cause me real problems when I… Well, that’s not important. We’ve been dueling off and on basically forever now. After that kind of time… Friends come and go, Darling, but the right kind of enemy can become more important to you than a lover. I don’t know what either of us would do if something were to befall the other at this point. When my husband died, it was Zanzayed who tracked me down and talked me out of doing something extremely rash.” She shook her head. “Anyway. Of course, I’ll have to find him first; I’ve not heard from him in a few years, and he does enjoy his intrigues. It’s likely to be months before I can get that in motion. You’ll have to cope in the meantime.”

“Zanzayed the Blue?” he said, tilting his head. “He’s in Onkawa.”

Tellwyrn stared.

“Or was a few weeks ago,” Darling amended, “pursuing some woman. I only know that by happenstance, but I do have access to intelligence reports. I can find out where he went after that, if indeed he’s moved on.”

“No,” she said slowly, “a few weeks is a fresh enough trail. Apparently it’s best if you don’t have the Empire looking into this matter, remember?”

“Quite so. That being the case, thank you very much for the help.”

“Then here’s what you should know about Khadizroth,” she said, pushing aside her plate and leaning forward over the table. “He has the capacity for subtlety, but for the most part disdains it. Sneaking around offends his sense of honor, and of his own majesty. If he feels you’re manipulating him…well, don’t do that, you don’t want him to start making effective use of his resources. If you’re careful, though, if you engage him directly, you can keep his attention focused and his actions relatively aboveboard.”

“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “The fellow sounds a bit like you.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he said, smiling slightly. “But there it is.”

“Okay, I suppose I’ll have to grant you that,” she said ruefully. “The other significant fact about Khadizroth is that he’s a people person.”

“….oh?”

“Most dragons tend to regard the mortal races as beneath them. Some are relatively benevolent, though, and by and large, Khadizroth is one of those. He likes to attract and keep followers, and in fact has a knack for earning very real loyalty from the people with whom he surrounds himself. It sounds like your girls scattered the bulk of his retinue, but it’s best to assume he has devoted servants ready to throw at you.”

“At least one that I know of,” Darling said, frowning.

“It’s not all bad news. He recruits based on loyalty, not skill.”

“Yeah, that fits the guy I met,” the Bishop grinned.

“Khadizroth is, in his way, loyal to his followers. It’s very much the loyalty of an autocrat toward his country; filtered through his ego, but sincere. An attack on them is an attack on him, and in fact he may take that more personally than he would a direct strike against himself. He expects enemies to attack him, you see. Going after his people is dirty pool.”

“I see,” he said, wincing. “And…hypothetically, what if I already roughed up one of his servants? Possibly the only one he has left?”

“Then,” Tellwyrn said dryly, “that revenge thing is likely to be a higher priority for him than I previously suggested.”

“…bollocks.”

“Well, now you know,” she said lightly. “You might be able to make amends. I do encourage you to open a line of communication and keep it open until you can get somebody powerful on his scaly tail. Your best case scenario is to set enemies after Khadizroth without revealing you were behind it. He may be willing to negotiate an end to hostilities with you if he finds you honorable and has bigger fish to fry.”

“That may be a slice of pie in the sky,” Darling said, “the situation being what it is. If anybody gets wind of what he was doing with the Cobalt Dawn and comes after him for it, he’s going to have to assume I was behind that.”

“True,” she said nodding, “but as long as you keep it relatively polite, again, that’s just business as usual. If you’re a declared enemy, he’ll expect you to be hostile. He may still be willing to make peace and turn his attention to more serious threats.”

“Then it sounds like I have a working plan.” He smiled, leaning toward her. “I really can’t thank you enough, Professor Tellwyrn. I know this must have been out of your way—”

“Stop.” She held up a hand. “I’ll tell you what, your Grace. After this is over, if you and your apprentices are still alive and free, look around at your situation and decide whether you still want to thank me. You’ll know where to find me if so.”

 

After the Professor had left, Darling paced in his study, working off some of the tension. She had proven a lot more personable than rumor suggested, but the facts were what they were; Tellwyrn was by far the most dangerous individual he’d ever had under his roof, including the Crow. Mary, at least, was somewhat predictable. Her motives were understood.

Still, it had been well worth it. Tellwyrn’s information was extremely useful, and her offer to help had been more than he’d dared to hope for. Of course, he was still stuck in a contest of wills with a dragon. There was nothing for him to cheer over just yet.

Price cleared her throat softly from the doorway. “Would your Grace like a brandy?”

“Y—no,” he said. “No, Fauna lectures me enough as it is. It’s not even noon, Price. Honestly, I’m surprised at you. What kind of bacchanal are you running here?”

“As you say, your Grace,” she said, perfectly neutral and yet accusing. He grinned at her.

“Price, I have just had a thought.”

“Shall I alert the fire marshal, your Grace?”

“My, aren’t you hilarious. I’ve been thinking I needed to keep this dragon issue as strictly separate from the Archpope and his schemes as possible.”

“That sounds sensible, your Grace.”

“Mm hm. However.” He turned from her and began to pace again. “Based on Tellwyrn’s recommendation, I need to find something straightforward and aggressive to point at Khadizroth until she can get some other dragons to deal with him. On the other hand, the Archpope expects me to recruit and control some of the world’s most dangerous adventurers. My biggest problem there has been finding something for them to do; these aren’t people who’ll be willing to be put on retainer and sit around in pubs until they’re called for. And what, I ask you, is more of a classic task for adventurers than slaying a dragon?”

“I confess I had rather hoped your Grace would task them with the collection of proverbial bear rumps. I have an excellent recipe.”

Darling grinned fiendishly. “Sometimes, Price, when the gods smile on us, two problems are the solutions to each other.”

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“Rise and shine!” Tellwyrn crowed, throwing the door open and slapping the light switch.

Trissiny and Ruda were both on their feet in seconds, aiming swords at her.

“Congratulations, you two are officially the most alert residents of your dorm,” the Professor said, grinning diabolically. “I think Teal’s still not out of bed. You’ve got thirty minutes to be packed and at the Rail platform. We’re going on a field trip! Plan on at least three days away. Anybody not there will be teleported into place, no matter how unpacked or naked you are. Chop chop!”

“What…” Trissiny began.

“Time’s wasting!” Tellwyrn said cheerfully, ducking back out.

The girls looked at each other, then at the window. It was still fully dark outside.

“What the fuck.”

“….yeah.”

 

“But there was no announcement! This is unscheduled! There’s supposed to be an announcement of field trips at least two weeks in advance! It’s the rules!”

“That’s a policy, not a rule,” Tellwyrn said patiently, tromping through the dew-damp grass of the mountainside with most of the inhabitants of Clarke Tower trailing along behind her in various states of wakefulness.

“But—”

“Fross, what did I tell you concerning situations like this?”

The pixie emitted a discordant chime. “The rules are whatever you say they are,” she said fatalistically.

“Damn skippy.” Tellwyrn nodded. “Anyhow, this isn’t a completely anomalous situation; it’s not what you’re used to, but that’s because you’re new. I’ve been called away to consult on an academic matter; when that happens, I customarily consider which if any of my groups of little bastards would educationally benefit from a visit to wherever I’m going, and if there’s a match, they come along. This time, it’s you. Don’t you feel lucky?”

“Hoo-fuckin’-ray,” Ruda mumbled, then stifled a yawn.

“Where’s Juniper?” Trissiny asked.

“She’ll be along presently,” said Tellwyrn. “She needed a little extra preparatory time for the trip to Tiraas.”

“What?!” Fross shot four feet straight upward, sparking in alarm. “We’re going to Tiraas? You can’t take a dryad into Tiraas! It’s illegal!”

“Many years ago,” Tellwyrn said, “there was an actual Heroes’ Guild. They were quite the institution, really; the Guild Hall was one of the world’s great cultural centers. Of course, that was before the earthquake. It’s at the bottom of a lake now, which is a shame. Besides the loss of life, I mean; it was a beautiful structure. I always particularly enjoyed the frescoes inside the main rotunda. They were of scenes from legend, and portraits of the great adventurers and villains of the age, interspersed with calligraphic adages pertaining to the adventuring way of life. Naturally, my favorite part was the one that said ‘Never tell Arachne not to do something.’ Even painted my good side; nobody ever seems to get that right.”

“If you are quite finished publicly fondling your ego,” Trissiny said acidly, “taking a dryad into a major city is a terrifyingly irresponsible act. It’s considered a crisis when a dryad wanders too close to a village. The sheer horrifying number of things that could go disastrously wrong boggles the imagination!”

“You know, Avelea, you get positively poetic when you’re being pompous. Damn it, child, I have told you not to grind your teeth. Listen up, all of you: Juniper will not be unescorted. In addition to you lot, we’re bringing along the soldier boys, whose job will be to ride herd on her at all times. This project was cleared with Imperial Intelligence, agents of which will be shadowing your group.” She glanced over her shoulder at them, grinning. “So if any of you were planning to overthrow the Empire, pick a different trip. This, like Juniper’s very presence on this campus, is an experiment. We’ll have safeguards in place, but the whole point of her being here is for her to learn how to get along with mortal society. This had to happen at some point.”

“This is still a terrible idea,” Trissiny said.

“In the catalog of good ideas, few of them looked like such the first time,” Tellwyrn said airily.

“What’re you going to consult about?” asked Teal.

“Never you mind. Ah, here they come!”

Four figures were making their way down the hill after them. The campus’s three uniformed soldiers were easily identifiable, for all that their navy blue coats tended to fade in the pre-dawn gloom. With them was a young woman in a somewhat ill-fitting dress, at whom the students had to look twice.

“Wow, Juniper,” Teal said as they caught up. “You look…different.”

“This is awful,” the dryad complained, plucking at her skirts. She wore very typical frontier attire, a dress of conservative cut with a heavy shawl draped over her shoulders. Most strikingly, she now had creamy pale skin and brown hair. “How do you people move around with all this crap hanging all over you all the time? I can’t breathe!”

“You can’t walk around Tiraas in a sundress, is what you can’t do,” said Tellwyrn. “It’s winter.”

“The cold doesn’t bother me, I’m an evergreen.”

“Yes,” the Professor said patiently, “but you are passing as a human, which will not work if you prance about in the city’s characteristically miserable weather showing off half your skin. Remember what I told you, Juniper: you can’t let anyone know you’re a dryad. There’ll be a panic.”

“Maybe I could just stay here this time?” she suggested hopefully.

Tellwyrn snorted. “What is it you think Naiya sent you here to do? This is a golden opportunity for you to immerse yourself in human culture, get a feel for how they do things. Just remember your rules and be on your best behavior.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Juniper said glumly, making futile adjustments to her bodice.

“And you three!” Tellwyrn pointed at the soldiers arrayed behind the dryad. “You are not to let her out of your sight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Private Moriarty said crisply.

“That means you’ll be rooming together, needless to say. I’m serious; this was a condition of Lord Vex authorizing this. She is to have Imperial escort at all times.”

Ruda barked a laugh. “Something tells me they’ll find ways to pass the time.”

“I resent the implication,” Rook said haughtily. “I would never take advantage of a lady caught in an uncomfortable situation.”

“Bucko, I think what’s at issue here is the lady will take advantage of you.”

“Yes.” He nodded emphatically. “And I am perfectly okay with that.”

“Where are those two boys?” Tellwyrn demanded.

“When we left the room,” said Finchley, “Toby was still packing and I don’t think Gabe was actually awake.”

The Professor grunted and turned to resume walking. “They have a couple of minutes, yet.”

“You look very nice, Juniper,” Shaeine said.

“Really?” The dryad looked forlorn. “I don’t think this coloring agrees with me at all.”

“With respect, I don’t concur. But then, I’ve been learning to appreciate the aesthetic of humanity.”

“Yeah,” said Ruda with a huge grin, “we all know you’ve got a thing for brunettes.”

Shaeine glanced at her and actually smiled slyly. Teal flushed scarlet.

“How’d you do that, anyway?” Trissiny asked, falling into step beside Juniper. “Is it hair dye and makeup?”

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t work on me. I metabolize pretty much anything, magical or alchemical or not. It’s an enchantment.” She wiggled her left index finger, on which was an apparently plain steel ring. “Professor Tellwyrn says I’m not to take it off until we’re back on the campus. Which is… I mean, it’s a little odd-looking, but it’s not so bad. It’s the clothes that are driving me bonkers. I know humans don’t wear them all the time. I can’t wait till we’re in whatever rooms we get. I’m gonna be naked every chance I get.”

“So the gods do love us after all,” Rook said tearfully.

Trissiny shot him a look. “Private.”

“Sorry, General.” He managed a halfhearted look of contrition and she sighed, but didn’t pursue the matter.

They walked through the silent town, conversation petering out. At the Rail platform, Tellwyrn planted her hands on her hips, peering about. “Well, time’s up.”

With a soft pop, two more figures appeared alongside them. Toby was upright and alert, leaning on his staff with a knapsack dangling from one hand. Gabriel was hunched in front of an open suitcase, which appeared in midair, having apparently been resting on something in its previous location. It thunked to the ground, spilling clothes, and he tumbled over sideways.

“Goddammit! Do you have to do shit like that?!”

“Did you think I was kidding?” Tellwyrn asked dryly. “Hope you’ve got everything you need, Arquin. Our caravan will be here momentarily.”

He muttered mutinously, getting up and surreptitiously rubbing his tailbone. “Well, Toby, this’ll teach you to complain about the weather in Tiraas.”

“Yep,” said the paladin wryly. “Back we go to the land of gloom and sleet.”

“Do you, like, lose your powers if you go too long without seeing the sun?” Ruda asked, sipping from a bottle of whiskey.

Toby sighed. “I hope not. If so, I have a feeling we’ll find out.”

 

“They’re gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“…no. No, I just rolled some dice and the omens portend that Tellwyrn has left the campus.”

The other robed, hooded figure stood up, turning its cowled head to stare at the one currently standing in the doorway.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said sharply. “I watched the caravan leave. They’re halfway to Calderaas by now.”

“All right, all right, no need to get snippy. I think my concern is understandable. This is Tellwyrn we’re talking about.”

“Hm,” his companion said noncommittally, stepping back into the chamber.

It wasn’t deep into the Crawl, but the dungeon beneath the campus was supposed to be off-limits to students except during school-approved exercises. The students at this University being who they were, it was all but traditional for them to sneak in, using the space for various illicit purposes. Most of the corridors and chambers this close to the entrance were relatively secure, long since cleared of monsters and hostile magics, but they did tend to shift about from time to time. Not so dramatically that a person setting foot within was automatically doomed to wander in darkness forever…just enough to make it pointless trying to map the area. This place was the product of the same governing power that had made the Golden Sea; many of the same rules applied.

These two students were garbed in all-concealing robes of deep blood red. Heavy hoods concealed their features, complete with shadowing charms that made their faces invisible underneath. It was the kind of over-the-top getup used only by the most dedicated of cultists, and raw amateurs diligently imitating what they thought a dedicated cultist would do.

The woman paced slowly around the edges, studying the elaborate spell circle inscribed on the floor in faintly glowing enchanting chalk. The man had knelt again, applying the finishing touches to a glyph. Finally, he got somewhat awkwardly to his feet and stepped back.

“Well…there it is. Looks like we’re done. Ready to make a wish?”

“Are you sure you copied the glyphs correctly?”

“No,” he said, deadpan. “I just drew some squiggly lines. I thought they looked pretty.”

“All right,” she muttered. “I guess I deserved that.”

“As long as you’re aware of it. Here.”

She took the sheet of paper he offered, studying its contents. “Ugh. What language is this?”

“You know damn well what language it is. Honestly, what’s with you?”

“I’m stalling,” she groused. “Trying to convince myself this was a good idea.”

“Yeah? How’s that going?”

“About halfway there.”

“Relax, it’ll be contained in the circle, and the magic inherent in the Crawl will keep it from going far if it does escape. Besides, we brought insurance!” He drew a wand from within his voluminous sleeve and waggled it. “Nothing can go wrong.”

“Oh, now, you can’t just say things like that. That’s just asking for the fates to intervene!”

Both of them yelped and staggered backward away from the circle, boggling at the figure now standing within.

“By the way,” she said, grinning, “for future reference, just inscribing a summoning circle is enough to weaken the barriers of reality enough that something can slip through, even before you start casting. As a matter of general practice, it’s smarter not to stand around chitchatting in between steps.”

She was a woman, apparently human, in a slinky red dress with a matching floppy-brimmed hat over her dark hair. A bronze complexion offset the scarlet fabric pleasingly; dark eyes glittered with intelligence above a longish nose.

“…well,” said the man after a moment. He and his companion both had wands out and aimed at her. “That sure doesn’t look like a sshitherosz.”

“Aw, aren’t you sweet,” she said, fluttering her lashes flirtatiously. “I’m the lady in red. It’s something new I’m trying out. You like?” She spread her arms wide as if putting herself on display, cocking her pelvis to one side.

“Very nice,” he said approvingly. “I’d whistle, but you know, I’m not sure what that might mean in demonic and I’d hate to accidentally let you out of that circle. Meanwhile, here we are.” He looked over at his robed companion. “Can we keep her?”

“Kindly don’t be any more idiotic than you can help,” she said caustically. “Now how the hell do we banish her back to wherever she came from?”

“Well, as to that, you don’t,” the lady in red said languidly, waving a hand. Instantly, the white chalk lines on the floor blackened as if scorched, then sizzled away, filling the room with the smell of sulfur.

“Oh, shit,” the female student hissed. She managed to squeeze off two shots with the wand; both lightning bolts slapped harmlessly into the lady’s outstretched palm. Then, suddenly, both wands were bunches of tulips.

“Now, there’s no need for that,” said the lady reprovingly. “And here after I went to all the trouble to come visit you, and prevented the thing you were trying to summon from coming through. You’re welcome, by the way, since that circle of yours would not have held it. Seriously, do you know how many grammatical errors you made in those glyphs? Demonic is a language, not a set of spell components. How daft do you have to be to try improvising commands when you don’t even speak it?”

“You improvised?” the girl shrieked.

“Oops,” he said weakly.

“You need to have a talk with your buddy, here,” the lady said. “Rule of thumb: never leave the man to work unsupervised. Am I right?”

“If it’s not too impolite to ask,” the man said, edging toward the door, “who are you?”

“And what do you want?” the girl added tersely.

“Oh, I’m just sure you’ve heard of me at some point. Everyone has. Let me see if I can jostle your memory,” said the lady, smiling mysteriously, then dissolved in smoke. The reek of sulfur overpoweringly filled the room. Both robed students immediately whirled and sprinted toward the exit; the dilapidated metal gate slammed shut just as they arrived, causing them to smash themselves against it. Despite its rusted appearance, it was more than sturdy enough to hold up to the impact, barely even shifting in its frame.

“Now, now, don’t wander off. We have things to discuss, you and I.”

Both of them turned slowly.

She towered above, all but filling the room. Its ceiling didn’t seem high enough even to fit her, but she managed, as though space itself didn’t dare to inform her she was wrong. The face with much the same—lean, angular, sharp-nosed—but her skin was a dusky crimson now, her eyes swirling pits of orange flame. Horns sprouting from her forehead swept back over her hair, and her legs terminated in cloven hooves.

“Oh…well, then. Fuck,” the boy said weakly. The girl whimpered.

“Nobody’s ever happy to see me,” Elilial complained. “It’s enough to give a girl a complex. Ah, well, I’ll manage. Let’s talk about you.” She grinned broadly, showing off fangs, and both would-be summoners pressed themselves furiously against the gate as though trying to ooze through the bars. “Here you are, precisely like every lazy fool who’s come before you, looking to take extremely hazardous shortcuts to whatever it is you want and utterly failing to comprehend the cost. Oh, stop looking at me like that, you two, I’m not going to incinerate you or anything. In fact, that is precisely the thing at issue here. I promised dear Arachne I wouldn’t harm any of her students. Despite my reputation, my word is my bond.”

The two cowled heads turned toward each other, then back to the goddess. “Whatever you say,” said the boy.

“Oh, if you only knew how right you are,” she said, smiling broadly. “Now, we don’t need to go into the details of what you wanted with a sshitherosz demon. To be perfectly frank, I’m not interested. To yourselves, you are individuals full of hopes, ambitions and mitigating flaws, the protagonists in your own little stories; to me, you’re something for Arachne to do. Something other than sticking her spectacles into my business. To that end, here’s what I’m going to do for you.”

She folded her arms, still smiling smugly. “Of all the gifts of the infernal arts, all the boons that summoners call up demons to beg or demand, there are none more potent or more dangerous than knowledge. And so, knowledge you shall have.”

“W-what knowledge?” the young woman asked, very nearly masking a quaver in her voice.

“More or less all of it,” Elilial said, her grin widening again. “Oh, there are the standard exceptions, a few little tidbits I really can’t have mortals knowing. But aside from that? The dark arts, in general. The entire library of lore and spellcraft sought by diabolists. What I am giving you, countless others have sacrificed everything up to and including their souls to obtain, and precious few succeeded in their goals.”

Both figures had straightened slightly as she talked; even from within the all-enveloping robes, their body language betrayed their interest.

“That is…alarmingly generous,” the boy said slowly. “What is it you want in exchange for this?”

“Exchange?” she repeated, feigning confusion. “Why, I wasn’t proposing to make an exchange. This is my gift, children, free of charge, free of strings or stipulation. I snap my fingers and you go from zero to grandmaster warlock. Oh, there’s a hell of a learning curve, pun intended, and you’ll have a great deal of work to gather up your power—and, even more, to manage how to handle it without corrupting your mortal shells into uninhabitable husks. But the knowing how, that will jump you vastly farther ahead. Farther than the most ambitious should dare dream.”

“No. Bullshit.” The girl shook her head emphatically. “You’re talking sheer insanity. Nobody hands out power of that magnitude without getting something in return. If you’re not going to reveal the catch, I want nothing to do with this.”

“I’m very nearly offended,” Elilial said mildly. “I’ve told you my motives already. I am in the middle of something, and a handful of stubborn interlopers, including your charming professor, are increasingly determined to do something about it. I simply cannot spare the effort or personnel to go chasing down every last little threat to my plans. Thus, you.” She raised a hand languidly, inspecting her claw-like fingernails. “Have you heard the expression ‘power corrupts?’ It’s extremely true. So what do you suppose power over corruption itself does? I’ll tell you exactly what I gain from this arrangement, kids: Red herrings. Ticking time bombs. Mad dogs with torches tied to their tails, set loose in my enemies’ fields. You want to know who hands out vast quantities of unearned, unappreciated power?” A cruel smirk tugged the side of her mouth upward. “Someone who doesn’t care one little bit about the welfare of the person receiving it, or anyone they come into contact with.”

“And how do you know we won’t just use it against you?” The girl swatted him in the midsection with the back of her hand, eliciting a grunt. “Ow! What? It’s a fair question!”

“You could try,” Elilial said with amusement. “You’d hardly be the first. I really can’t express how little I worry about the revenge of mortal warlocks. Besides, you’ll be quite busy, you see. You’ve got to get through the remainder of your education here without Arachne sniffing you out and blasting you to atoms. Then make your way out there in the wide world, avoiding the many hazards that await the powerful. The Tiraan Empire is a dangerous enough thing these days that few if any high-level casters dare challenge it. There are no shortage of other members of the elite club you will have joined, most with power as great as yours and every last one with vastly more experience. Some will regard you as competition, some as a threat to the world. A highly capable druid, priest or even a mage might be able to make friends out there, but you will be hunted and alone, effectively at war with everything which becomes aware of you. Oh, the sheer wreckage you’ll cause in your desperate flailing… It positively chills the blood.

“Or,” she went on, looking viciously self-satisfied, “you could try to counter my plans with a little honesty. Take the gamble that Tellwyrn, or the Empire, or the Pantheon, or the dragons or fairies or anyone else, will give you a fair shake. That they’ll not react to you exactly as any sensible person would to Elilial’s chosen archwarlocks. When you get tired of trying to stay alive—and oh yes, my children, you will—go right ahead and roll those dice.”

“There’s a better option,” the girl said tightly. “We can counter your plans quite effectively by not taking the deal. Count me out.”

“Deal?” the goddess said softly. “My dear, sweet little poppet… No one is offering you a deal.”

She made no gestures, spoke no magic words; there was no visible spell effect, not so much as a puff of sulfur. Elilial simply stood there, smiling thinly down at them, but when she had done speaking, both students rocked abruptly backward as if struck, bouncing against the closed gate.

They crumpled slowly, the boy slouching against the doorframe and sliding down, the girl pitching forward, both clutching at their heads, their minds assaulted by unnavigable torrents of information. Very quickly, the effects escalated and they lost what remained of their footing entirely, their whole nervous systems faltering under the strain of absorbing impossible amounts of knowledge, delivered through a mechanism the brain was never meant to accept.

Elilial watched, her faint smile fading to impassivity, as the pair devolved into kicking, twitching messes on the ground, no longer consciously aware of her—or of anything.

“In a few weeks, or years, or however long it takes for your whole life to come unraveling around you,” she said softly, “and you’re cursing my name… Just remember, you are the brain who decided demonology was a workable shortcut to what you want. Dabbling in what you were… Oh, there are so, so many ways this could have ended so much worse for you. Then again, by the time you’re thinking about it, you’ll understand that full well.”

She turned away, then paused and glanced back over her shoulder. The boy had fallen mostly still, his breath coming in labored rasps; the girl was still twitching feebly.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “I actually am sorry. You’re a means to an end…eggs in a greater omelet than you can imagine. Somebody has to suffer. Might as well be you.”

She made a casual gesture with her hand as though drawing back a curtain, and stepped through. With no visible distortion in the air, she was simply, suddenly gone, leaving behind nothing but the acrid tang of sulfur and the two felled University students, just beginning to regather their senses.

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2 – 21

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Tazlith’s group exchanged a round of glances, Shook began creeping back to place them between himself and Tellwyrn, the three soldiers grinned in unison, McGraw very casually lowered his staff to point in the Professor’s general direction, and Principia said something in elvish that was, even to those who didn’t understand the language, unmistakeably a curse.

“I know what several of you are thinking,” Tellwyrn said, “and the answer is ‘no.’ This nonsense is at an end.”

Marks raised one of his wands. “I think we can take—”

She gestured in his direction and he vanished with an audible snap of arcane energy. In his place a small terrier reappeared at about chest height, yelping when it fell to the ground.

“What the hell?” Tazlith exclaimed. “What did you do?”

“It’s called a baleful polymorph,” Tellwyrn said serenely. “I do not like repeating myself.”

“You can’t just cast a baleful polymorph!” said Lorrie the warlock, her attempts at sententious diction gone in panic. “It takes a ritual circle, multiple spell foci, a huge power source…”

Ox cleared his throat. “That’s Professor Tellwyrn.”

“Oh,” the warlock squeaked, and fell silent, edging behind Tazlith.

“There will be no more acts of violence or general disruptive behavior,” Tellwyrn continued. “Those of you who are under arrest will go quietly with the Sheriff; the rest of you get lost back to your own business.”

“You wretched witch!” Miz Cratchley screeched, brandishing her still-smoking staff at Tellwyrn. “This is all your fault, all of it. This was a good, quiet town before you came along!”

“Except for Mabel, for whom we make allowances,” Tellwyrn said, waving a hand. With a soft pop, Miz Cratchley disappeared.

Sanders cleared his throat. “Ah, if you don’t mind my asking…”

“She’s safely at her home,” Tellwyrn said, “and that staff of hers is in your office. Not sure why I bother,” she added, giving him an exasperated look, “since I know you’re just going to give it back to her again.”

“That staff is an heirloom,” Sanders replied in the weary tone of a man who has had this conversation once too often. “Her husband carried it in the Emperor’s service. It’s also a valuable antique. She’d need to actually hurt someone with it before I can confiscate it.”

“At least have the enchantment stripped off. She’s gonna blow herself up one of these days, and then how will you feel?”

“The vintage enchantment is the better part of what makes it valuable. Damn it, Professor, some of us have to follow the laws!”

“Seems you two could use a mite of privacy,” McGraw said solicitously. “Shall we come back and finish this later?”

“Do you think you’re funny, McGraw?” Tellwyrn asked, turning to face him. She extended an arm and pointed at Rook. “The boy in the scruffy uniform there, he’s funny. You are a pain in the ass.”

“Well, to be fair,” said Rook cheerfully, “I’m also a pain in the ass.”

“With regard to our understanding, ma’am,” McGraw said politely, “I didn’t start this, and I did my very best to prevent it getting out of hand. As I’m sure you are more than aware, reasoning with high-strung youths just ain’t always feasible.”

“Do you know what Zero Twenty means, McGraw?” Tellwyrn asked mildly.

He subtly tightened his grip on his staff. “I’m afraid I do, ma’am.”

“If I may?” the mage with Tazlith said politely. He bowed when Tellwyrn turned to stare at him. “Mr. McGraw speaks truthfully. He made every effort to talk this down before someone intervened, apparently forcing one of Marks’s wands to discharge. It is, by the way, quite an honor to meet you, Professor.”

“Did they, now,” Tellwyrn said quietly. “That’s very interesting.” She shifted her eyes to look straight at Shook.

She wasn’t the only one.

“Anybody who wants to make an accusation had best have more than hearsay backing them up,” Shook said, glaring.

“Oh really? Should I?” Tellwyrn grinned savagely. “And why is that, precisely?”

“If you don’t mind, Professor,” Sanders interjected, “I would prefer to handle this. After all, a fine, upstanding member of the Thieves’ Guild like Mr. Shook here knows better than to resist arrest when he’s fairly caught. Ain’t that right, Jeremiah?”

Shook gave the Sheriff a share of his furious stare, which appeared not to faze him in the slightest.

“It’s true?” Tazlith whispered. She glanced down at Shook’s hands; he tucked them back into his sleeves, but not fast enough. “You stole her rings, too? You said we were protecting her.”

“Oh, shut up, you dimwitted sow,” he snarled. “She’d be dead twice over by now if not for me.”

“Everything was going fine until you blundered into town, dumbshit!” Principia snapped. “Now look. Good fucking job, Enforcer.”

“Yup,” Sanders said. “Looks like everybody’s coming down to the office. Boys, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate your help a while longer.”

“You kidding?” Rook replied, still wearing a grin. “This is fantastic! Most excitement we had at our last post was when they sent us a shipment of bad beans and Moriarty had the runs for a week. Well, until that thing we can’t talk about.” He staggered, having been elbowed hard from both sides by Finchley and Moriarty.

“Shook’s getting charged,” Sanders went on grimly, then pointed at Tazlith. “Also you, missy, since I know for a fact you’re the organizer of this motley troupe. Whatever your intentions, you need to learn a thing or two about law and order, and why you don’t take them into your own little hands.” Tazlith looked absolutely stricken by the unfairness of it all; mouth hanging open, she couldn’t even formulate a response. The Sheriff continued, moving his pointing finger around at those assembled. “The rest of you… I’ll wait till I’ve heard the whole story from all participants before I decide if it’s worth charging anybody with anything. Um…and that fellow who’s now a dog…” He glanced helplessly at Tellwyrn.

“He’s fine,” she said dismissively. “He’ll revert in about an hour, none the worse for wear. You might give him some water, though. This climate is rough if you’re wearing a fur coat.”

Marks yapped furiously at her.

“And her?” Tazlith demanded shrilly, pointing at Principia. McGraw wasn’t visibly aiming a weapon at her, but the elf still held herself as still and small as possible. “Apparently she’s a thief, too!”

Sanders heaved a sigh. “Being a thief is a crime. Being a member of the Thieves’ Guild is not.”

“What?”

“The Guild is the organized cult of Eserion,” Tellwyrn explained, smiling faintly. “You can’t just outlaw the cult of a god of the Pantheon.”

“And as usual,” Sanders said in annoyance, “Prin is sitting pretty in the gray area between what I’m pretty sure she’s done and what I can prove she did. Apparently all she’s guilty of is getting threatened, stolen from, and kidnapped.”

“I would just like to say,” Principia remarked, “fuck you all. Every last one of you in particular. I’m certain you each knows exactly why.”

“Which just leaves the man of the hour, here.” Sanders turned to face McGraw directly. “Kidnapping. Threats of murder. That’s more’n a slap on the wrist.”

“With the greatest possible respect, Sheriff, you are something of a redundancy here,” McGraw said politely, then tipped his hat in Tellwyrn’s direction. “Professor, I’d take it as a kindness if you could suss out just where we stand. Makes quite the difference with regard to what I do next.”

She shrugged. “If you didn’t cause the trouble, you didn’t cause the trouble. You start messing with the Sheriff and matters will be different, but if all the harm you’ve done is to Principia… Well, I did specifically exempt that from any promises of retribution, didn’t I?”

“Wait,” Prin said, stiffening. “You fucking what?”

“I told him I didn’t care what he did to you,” Tellwyrn replied, grinning nastily. “Are you surprised? Offended? Do you think that’s in any way unfair? Grow up already, Prin.”

“Oh, you absolute unutterable bitch!”

“My, my, gendered insults between women. And in public, no less! What would Trissiny think, I wonder?”

Principia fell silent, but her face went scarlet with rage.

“On the subject of gray areas,” Sanders said, “out here on the frontier I sometimes have to make a decision between observing the letter of the law and keeping the general peace. If the good Professor doesn’t care to step in, and considering I don’t fancy havin’ a shoot-out with you in particular… And since I’m also not excessively perturbed by crimes committed exclusively against Miss Locke, here, I might be amenable to lettin’ all this go.”

“You fucking WHAT?” Principia screamed.

“I always appreciate reasonable exceptions to silly laws,” McGraw said mildly, stepping around from behind the apoplectic elf. He held his arms wide, grinning disarmingly. “Course, I’m honor-bound to point out that if you did choose to make an issue of this, and I did defend myself, well… I’m pretty sure that’d cross the line drawn by the esteemed Professor, here. Might be small consolation for having half of Last Rock leveled, but you could go down in history as the man who helped bring down Longshot McGraw.”

Sanders strode forward, straight at him. McGraw didn’t back down by so much as an step, and the Sheriff didn’t pause until his nose was a bare inch from the other man’s. He kept his voice low, but in the sudden stillness, the mild wind of the prairie wasn’t enough to prevent his words from being clearly heard by everyone present.

“Get the hell out of my town, McGraw.”

They locked gazes for a long moment, utterly still. Then Longshot McGraw very deliberately stepped backward, nodding politely.

“Fair enough, Sheriff. D’you mind awfully if I loiter on the platform, there, till the next caravan arrives? It’s a long stretch of nothin’ between here and…well, anything at all. You get to be my age, and the thought of hiking through the prairie for weeks just ain’t as exciting as it once was.”

Sanders held his gaze for another long moment, then turned away. “Ox, me an’ the boys’ll take this lot down to the jail. Kindly stay here and make sure Mr. McGraw gets safely on the Rails. He so much as sneezes, blast him.”

“Sheriff,” Ox said, nodding grimly.

“Feh,” Tellwyrn said, making a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Half the morning, wasted. If I have to come deal with this again, everybody dies.” She vanished with a quiet pop of air rushing in to fill the space she had occupied.

“Least one good turn came outta this,” Sanders remarked loudly to Finchley as he and the soldiers began herding Shook and the adventurers down the street at wand point. “Membership in the Thieves’ Guild isn’t a crime, but it does constitute probable cause. So much as a butter knife goes missing in this town from here on an’ I get to search Prin’s rooms as a matter of course. Should make several things easier.”

“Well,” McGraw said ruefully, “this’ll be a blot on the record, I suppose. Guess I’ll have to go give back some money, soon as I get to Tiraas.” Turning to Principia, he tipped his hat politely. “Ma’am.”

She watched him stroll over to the Rail platform and lounge against one of the pillars holding up the awning there, taking out a cigarillo and lighting it with his staff.

For a heartbeat, all was quiet.

Then Principia Locke threw back her head and let out a long, wordless scream.

 

Admestus Rafe swam slowly up through the most delicious dreams. As reality began to coalesce around him, he found it just as agreeable, full of splendid warmth and softness. He opened his eyes, finally, just as gentle lips were withdrawn from his own. For a second, all he was conscious of were the big brown eyes inches from his, and the warm, curvy weight resting across his body.

“Hey, it worked!” Juniper said cheerfully.

“Waugh!” Suddenly lucid, Rafe scrambled backward in panic, throwing her off. “No! Bad! Student! Arachne will eat my liver!”

“Mornin’, sunshine!” Ruda said cheerfully from just above him.

He paused to take stock. They were in a covered wagon, trundling along; to judge by the light filtering through the openings, it was early afternoon. Fross flittered around the interior, Ruda sat on the driver’s seat just behind his head, Juniper was…well, right there. Toby and Shaeine were still laid out, unconscious.

“I wasn’t absolutely sure I could do it,” Juniper said, then yawned hugely. “I mean, basic healing, yeah, but drugs are so much more…complicated. But apparently I can sorta…take it on myself? Sort of. Not, like, the drug, but some of the…badness of it?”

“You can suck drugs out of people?” Fross chimed. “Neat!”

Ruda cackled. “Word around campus is she can suck the enchantment off a battlestaff.”

Juniper yawned again. “It’s not easy, though. Been a rough day… I’m gonna…” She listed over onto one side and curled up, asleep before she finished her sentence. For the first time Rafe realized there was a large hole in the side of her dress, its edges burned black, and the flesh underneath it appeared to be covered in some kind of bark.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“She got shot,” said Ruda.

Rafe bit back a curse. “Oh…hell. Who’s dead?”

“Just the fuckers that did it. All’s well that ends well an’ all that shit.”

“Whew… I guess Naiya was in an uncharacteristically reasonable mood. Last time I heard about somebody shooting a dryad, it was killer bees and wasps from one horizon to the other.”

“Let me get you caught up,” the pirate went on, still in that cheery tone. “The nice people who gave us dinner drugged us with magic cornbread. It was damn good cornbread, almost worth the drugs. Beans baked right in and a cinnamon glaze, I gotta remember that… Anyway, they were gonna steal our shit, dose us with memory-altering magic and leave us somewhere. Except Fross, who was being made into a lamp.”

“Excuse me, I’m an arcane sciences major! That bottle was only warded against fae magic. I would’ve gotten out eventually.”

“Yeah, but not before the rest of us were goners. I still saved all our asses.”

“That’s right, you did!” She buzzed down to hover in front of Rafe’s face. “She did! Ruda’s very smart.”

“Also good-looking and a goddamn terror in a fight,” Ruda said merrily. “So yeah, yadda yadda, yadda, they knocked us out, I’m awesome, and now here we are and I get to make fun of you, Professor Big Heap Alchemist, for getting drugged by cornbread.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly, “but I’m a genius, not a deity. Do you know how many tasteless, odorless and basically undetectable compounds can be cooked into food to knock people out? No, you don’t, and neither do I, because that’s just about the simplest thing there is to do.”

“Oh, please,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at him. “’Bella, get the special cornbread.’ They might as well have been twirling their fucking mustaches. Honestly, how the hell any of you so much as buy breakfast without getting swindled outta your goddamn pants is beyond me.”

“You ate it too,” he said irritably, getting up. It wasn’t easy with the lurching progress of the wagon, but he needed to check on Toby and Shaeine.

“I was hungry, and I don’t get drugged. Just one of the many benefits of being Punaji. It’s pretty much all benefits, for the record.”

“And how did you know they weren’t going to just feed us poison, if you’re so smart?”

“It’s called tactics, chucklenuts. Trissiny might be the military expert, but when it comes to knocking people down an’ taking their shit, we’re in my territory. They had staves, see? Practically pointed at us. If I’d made a stink about the cornbread, they’d’ve just shot us. Contrariwise, the fact they didn’t indicated they didn’t want us dead. So I played along until an opportunity came up to turn the tables. Which, inevitably, it did, and here we are. You’re fucking welcome, by the way.”

“What, you want a medal? I’ll see to it Tellwyrn passes you for the exercise, anyway.”

“Eh, that’ll do for a start,” she said airily. “I expect everyone to go on at length about the glory that is me, by the way.”

“You savor that, kiddo,” he said, grinning. “Now you have a taste of what it’s like to be Professor Rafe every day!”

Ruda’s smile faded; she glanced back again. Rafe was bent over Toby, holding a small vial under his nose.

“Ooh, is that smelling salts?” Fross asked, fluttering close. “Will that wake him up?”

“No, no, I don’t want to just pump drugs into them without knowing what we’re dealing with. I’m just working out what they got dosed with. Then I can apply the right counter-agent without risking a bad interaction. Actually, could you fly a little closer? I need to watch how this changes color and you’re the only light in here.”

“So,” said Ruda, turning back to face forward again. “What’s with you, anyway?”

“Me?” Fross asked.

“No, him.”

“Nothing’s with me,” Rafe replied, showing signs of his old bluster returning. “Merely the extravagant and vigorous splendor that is my stock in trade!”

“Cut the bullshit. You spent most of last night practically silent. Well, talking about like a normal person does, which for you is practically silent. Then you got your ass drugged, and you can make excuses all you want but we both know that’s a sign you fucked up. I bet you’d have seen the trap coming if you’d been paying attention. So, spill.”

They were quiet for a minute while he fiddled with his reagents. Fross buzzed around as if uncertain where she wanted to hover. Ruda didn’t prompt him again, and had just about decided he wasn’t going to answer when he finally did.

“We’ve lost students before, of course. C’mon, the kind of people Arachne recruits? You little bastards are one of the better-behaved years I’ve seen in a while. You just don’t throw the Empire’s most powerful weirdos onto a campus together and then send them out against real-world threats three times a semester without having fatalities. But… I’ve never lost someone before. Having a student I alone was personally responsible for get…” He broke off, stuffed a vial back into his belt pouch and took out another one, not looking at her or Fross. “It’s…something to deal with.”

Ruda nodded slowly. “I think I get you. Man… I didn’t even like her. But she was part of my crew, and…now we don’t even know if she’s gone or not. I’m still wondering if there’s even anything I need to deal with, never mind how the fuck I’m actually going to deal.”

“Yeah.”

“So, get the fuck over it.”

He twisted around to scowl at her. “Excuse me? Real sensitive, Punaji.”

Ruda kept her face forward toward the horizon, but spoke loudly enough to be clearly heard. “That’s what leadership means: everything is your fucking fault, and you don’t get to whine about it. You just keep at it and do the job. Instead, you got into your little funk and walked all our asses right into a trap.”

“If you’ll recall,” he said pointedly, “Professor Tellwyrn reminded everyone that I’m along on this little shindig in an observational capacity. I’m not the one giving orders.”

“Bullshit. That went over the side when you shouted Trissiny down for doing her fucking job and giving us advice on dealing with the centaurs. Which, by the fucking way, was good fucking advice and we probably wouldn’t be in all this shit if we’d just followed it. You took the job, so do the job.”

He scowled and turned back toward Toby, gently lifting the boy’s head and tipping a vial of thick fluid into his mouth. Seconds later, Toby coughed weakly, his eyelids beginning to flutter.

“Well, too late now,” Ruda said lightly. “No sign of the mountain yet, but the kidnapping assholes thought they were gonna get to the edge of the Sea by the end of today. Fuck if I know, I’m just figuring they understood how this place works.”

Rafe had no answer for her. He simply occupied himself tending to the others.

 

The mountain at Last Rock cast a long shadow. Unlike its sudden vanishing when they had first headed out into the Golden Sea, it appeared in a geographically normal fashion upon their return, giving the students hours to prepare themselves for their homecoming. It was hours spent mostly in conversation; even after everyone had been fully brought up to date on events, they found comfort—even Shaeine—in just talking.

Consequently, it was a tired and quiet group who drew their captured wagon to a stop at the foot of the mountain.

Professor Tellwyrn stood alone, waiting for them.

Toby had been handling the oxen; Ruda didn’t actually know anything about steering them, and had simply been sitting up front for the view, Juniper having given the beasts their instructions. He took time to stop and pat both animals as the others filed down from the wagon, Juniper still yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“Well?” Tellwyrn said simply when they had finally assembled in front of her.

“Teal,” Shaeine said, “and Gabriel?”

“Are fine. In their respective rooms, as far as I know, worrying about you lot.”

“We scored us a free wagon, and a small fortune in gemstones,” Ruda said.

“Actually, not such a small fortune,” Shaeine corrected.

“Whatever. It’s our plunder, won fair and square. The two demony types get a cut, too. Everybody, otherwise I wouldn’t feel right takin’ my share. And nobody who has any sense better come between a pirate and her booty.” She glared over at the others.

“Miss Punaji,” Tellwyrn said wearily, “three of your classmates—including you—are heirs to massive fortunes and don’t need gems. Two are paladins who have no attachment to worldly wealth, and two are fae who don’t even participate in the economy.”

“Everybody gets a share,” Ruda repeated stubbornly. “Sell ’em, donate ’em, chuck ’em down a well, fuck if I care.”

“Right. Anything else you’d like to report?”

“Professor,” Toby said quietly. “We…lost Trissiny.”

“Really,” she said dryly. “Have you checked your pockets?”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Ruda responded. “Is that a fucking joke to you?!”

“Pretty much,” Tellwyrn replied glibly. “I assure you, Trissiny’s fine and will be along presently.”

“How can you possibly know that?” Toby demanded.

“I keep forgetting you kids grew up in an era without paladins. Have you heard about the Stand at Stavulheim?”

“One Imperial legion held the city gates, alone, against an army of orcs for three days,” Shaeine replied. “Though the relevance of it to this situation escapes me.”

“The relevance is that that is the sanitized, politicized version taught by Imperial historians. I was around then, and I can hardly blame them for changing it up, as the truth is a lot less believable. It was two Hands of Avei who did that. Two. Against two thousand. And you think Trissiny was felled by a handful of centaurs? Please.

“Quite apart from that,” she went on, raising her voice over the comments that arose, “I am far from Avei’s favorite person; I assure you, if her brand new Hand had just gotten killed on one of my training exercises, we would be hearing about it. Also, she’s right behind you.”

They spun, Toby so quickly he nearly overbalanced, to look back at the Sea. Nobody was there.

“Are you just fucking with us now?” Ruda snarled, whirling back to glare at her, one hand falling to the hilt of her sword.

“A little,” Tellwyrn said with a smile. “’Right’ behind you may have been overstating it, but yes, she’s on her way, and making much better time than you did. Should be here in minutes. Trust me, you don’t argue with elven eyes.”

“You wear glasses!” Ruda shouted.

“Meanwhile,” Tellwyrn went on in a more grim tone, “we can discuss your performance, or lamentable lack thereof. To review: Upon being accosted by centaurs, your first move was to send your two most durable combatants away, hopelessly splitting your group and depriving the rest of their best defenders.”

“The centaurs’ war drums—”

“Miss Awarrion, do not interrupt me when I am chastising you. Then, you set out on a long, exhausting fighting retreat, with the inevitable result that your next most durable member—and also your best remaining counter to your opponents’ infernal magic—collapsed from fatigue. Honestly, how could you possibly have thought a tree nymph would fare well on a cross-country run? And finally, you apparently sacrificed your last magically-endowed fighter to the horde while the rest of you went blundering away to…” She trailed off, running her eyes over the wagon and oxen. “…all right, I have to admit I’m baffled how you got to a wagon full of plunder from fleeing for your lives from centaurs. It promises to be a good story, though. Probably not enough to redeem your grade for the exercise, but something.”

“Then how,” Shaeine asked quietly, “did you know we lost Trissiny to the centaurs?”

Tellwyrn tilted her head forward to stare them down over the rims of her spectacles. “Because, despite the fact that I specifically told you to follow Trissiny’s advice on combat matters, I know she didn’t tell you to enact this utterly hambrained plot. Which means you weren’t listening to her. You know what a paladin does when the idiot civilians she’s trying to protect refuse to see reason? She puts herself between them and whatever is out to get them. Ergo, here you are, sans paladin, and plus plunder. I doubt she’d have let you loot the corpses of whoever else you killed, either. Hello, Trissiny.”

They whirled around again; this time, Toby did overbalance, landing on his rump in the grass and staring up at the spectacle approaching them.

It was as if they’d appeared out of a fold in the ground—which was probably close to the literal truth, the Golden Sea being what it was. The horse was absolutely massive, an enormous, barrel-chested draft horse with a thick arched neck, blunt nose and feathered hooves the size of dinner plates. He wore silver armor over his neck, face and rump, and the golden eagle sigil of Avei was worked into his breast collar. Sitting in the saddle, dwarfed by the huge horse despite her height, was Trissiny. She was covered in grime and dried blood, but appeared as alert and unharmed as when they’d last seen her.

“Professor,” she said, nodding as she guided the steed to a halt next to them. For all his size, his hoofsteps were eerily quiet. “Is everyone all right? I passed these travelers’ other wagon a while back, and their bodies. It looked like they were eaten by wild animals.”

“No, that was me,” Juniper said brightly. “Hi, Triss! I’m glad you’re okay!”

“Hi,” the paladin said slowly. “…and you did that because…?”

“Oh, they drugged everybody and captured Fross and were going to rob and abandon us. And then they shot me.”

“Ah.” Trissiny nodded. “Very well, then. I’m just glad you all made it.”

“We made it?” Ruda said, gaping at her. “You’re glad we made it?! We—you were—we left you… How did… WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE A HORSE?”

“Paladins get mounts,” Tellwryn said serenely. “Avei usually doesn’t bequeath one until the Hand in question has proven herself in actual combat. I guess the centaurs were an adequate test.”

“Less trouble than I expected, honestly,” Trissiny said. “Once I killed their leader, the rest scattered.”

“Yes, for all their size and ferocity, they really aren’t militarily impressive. Which makes it all the sadder that you lot got yourselves routed by them. Honestly, if anybody important had been along to see that, it would go down in the annals of tactical incompetence. I can’t believe you let them do this,” she added directly to Trissiny.

The paladin raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so they have to listen to me, now? Splendid. I want everyone assembled on the main lawn at six AM for drill.”

“You joke,” Tellwyrn said grimly, “but after this debacle I’m half-tempted to authorize that.”

“You got,” Ruda said slowly, as though trying to convince herself of it, “a fucking horse.”

“His name’s Arjen,” Tellwyrn said helpfully.

“How do you know that?” Trissiny demanded.

“There’s a limited number of celestial steeds in Avei’s stable,” the Professor said cheerfully. “These creatures are truly immortal, not merely ageless like elves. If killed on this plane, they just return to their divine point of origin, ready to be summoned again. This fellow has served the Hands of Avei for millennia. We’ve met before,” she added, raising a hand as if to pat Arjen’s nose. He snorted disdainfully and twisted his head away. “See?” she said wryly.

“Arjen, is it,” Trissiny murmured, leaning forward to pat his neck. He whickered softly.

“You know what?” Ruda said flatly. “I fucking hate you.”

Trissiny sat bolt upright in her saddle, gaping at her in shock. “What?”

“Can you just for once not try to fucking show me up?” She clawed a bottle out of her coat and took a long swig. “But,” she added, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, “I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

Trissiny stared at her, open-mouthed, unable to formulate a reply.

“All right, it’s been great adventuring with you lot, but I’ve had enough,” said the pirate. “Tellwyrn can tell us all how much we suck another time, I’m done with this horseshit. Anybody needs me, too fucking bad. I’m gonna be in town, and I will not be back till I’ve drunk my weight in the dilute pisswater that passes for beer around here and screwed at least three local boys. Concurrently if I can find enough of these hicks without too many goddamn hangups. Have a good fucking night, all.”

Still drinking from her bottle, she stomped off in the direction of Last Rock.

“Don’t get pregnant!” Tellwyrn called after her.

“Fuck you!”

“So!” Rafe said brightly. “How’ve things been back here?”

“Eh.” Tellwyrn waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing ever happens in this town.”

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McGraw began to have a fatalistic feeling about the day when he wasn’t even allowed to finish breakfast. It wasn’t that the food at the A&W was particularly sumptuous, or even that he could afford to give it his undivided attention. He always kept an eye and ear on his surroundings when out on a mission, and in this particular town he also had his mental senses attuned to the wards that would notify him of his quarry attempting to flee via Rail. It was breakfast, though. There were some things to which a man was simply entitled, things he took it amiss when someone interrupted them.

He had, as usual, chosen a seat in the front corner of the room, which afforded him a view out the windows and one of the inn’s common room itself. After Tellwyrn’s surprise visit, he’d also taken to keeping a weather eye on the door. As such, he of course noted the five figures assembling in the square outside, but didn’t assign any particular attention to them until the one in the middle bellowed his name.

With a sigh, he glanced down at his plate of eggs, beans and hash browns, currently half-finished. The thought of just ignoring them crossed his mind, but with some regret he dismissed it. The sort of fool who stood outside a tavern yelling for someone to come out was the sort of fool who’d create an even more disruptive ruckus if they weren’t obliged. He brought the bite currently sitting on his fork to his mouth and stood, carefully wiping his face and beard with his napkin, and strolled across the room to the bar while chewing.

He swallowed just before reaching the waitress currently minding the tavern and tipped his hat politely to her. “Mornin’, miss. Just wanted to settle up here, in case I don’t get the chance later.” Smiling unthreateningly at her wary expression, he set a small stack of coins on the counter.

“That’s…uh, that’s well more than enough,” the girl said carefully.

“I’m aware. Listen, those kids outside yelling in the street? If they’re in a position to take advantage later, give ’em a round on me. They’re likely to need it.”

Nodding to her again, he turned and strode unhurriedly toward the door.

McGraw stepped outside and descended the short steps to the square, then came to a stop a couple of yards from the front of the tavern.

“Mornin’,” he said politely, tipping his hat. “It’s a mite early for it, don’t you think? I don’t suppose you kids would care to do this later.”

Two of the five—the women—he recognized from the tavern and around town; they were by far the more distinctive. The more absurd, if he was to be honest. The one in the center who’d been yelling was the attractive young lady in the dramatic black leather that showed a distracting amount of skin. He’d done his best not to be distracted, of course. McGraw’s policy was never to ogle a woman unless she specifically indicated that she wanted him to, and this one looked more the type to invite attention just so she could ream some poor fellow out for showing it. The other was a short, waifish, rather hollow-cheeked girl in sweltering black robes, clutching a staff of dark-stained hardwood. A magical staff, but not one that fired bolts of lightning at the press of a switch. No, it was a wizard’s staff in the tradition of his own, an aid to spellcasting. For all that, he didn’t perceive any arcane energies around her. A witch, then, or warlock? Either way, an amateur. People who meddled with either fairies or demons quickly learned to be serious and not waste time on such melodramatic touches as sweeping black robes and ornately-carved staves, or they came to a swift and sticky end.

The men were slightly more respectable-looking, with the exception of the mage, who was actually wearing hooded robes straight out of the last century. The man was middle-aged at least, with a slight paunch and as much gray as brown in his beard; of all people, he ought to know better. Beside him stood a fellow who wasn’t a cowboy but had dressed as one, his leather and denim attire brand-spanking new and embellished with needless embroidery, surmounted by a white ten-gallon hat. He also sported late-model wands holstered at his belt, over which his hands hovered menacingly. On the other side was a nervous-looking fellow in a plain suit, a bronze badge at his lapel marking him a cleric of Salyrene.

“Justice,” said the girl in leather self-importantly, “doesn’t wait till it’s convenient for you.”

“Now, I might be mistaken,” McGraw said mildly, “it wouldn’t be the first time. But I was under the impression that justice in this town was the province of a nice fellow with a badge, who has the actual authority of the Empire to hand it out.”

“Our weapons are all the authority we need,” sneered the “cowboy.”

“That’s no way to live, son,” McGraw told him gravely. “It makes for a world that ain’t fit for anybody to live in.”

“There are things more important than the law,” the girl in leather said sharply, clearly trying to steer the conversation back toward herself. “Especially when assassins hide behind the law to do their dirty work.”

“Was that directed at me?” he asked. “I didn’t realize I was hiding behind anything.”

“There are higher powers,” intoned the girl in the black robe. She had a thin, strained voice. “Higher concerns. A great doom is coming; it is whispered on the wind in every corner of the world. Those who care to stand against the darkness must do so, ere it is too late.”

“Kid,” he said wearily, “nobody talks like that.”

“Enough,” snapped Leather. “We’re not here to argue the point. Any point. We know what you’re here for, Longshot, and it’s not happening. I think you should leave town.”

“If there’s a problem with me minding my own business in this fair little burg, I believe I’ll wait till I hear about it from an official source. Just as a point of curiosity, though, are you kids aware the people you’re protecting are members of the Thieves’ Guild?”

That caused a stir in their ranks. The girl in the leather narrowed her eyes; the cleric actually twitched as if startled, looking over at the leader as if for direction.

“So,” said the mage with a smile, “you not only know who we’re discussing, but that they need protection. Sounds like an admission to me.”

“Well, it seems I’ll have to grant you that one,” McGraw said, chuckling ruefully. “Fairly caught. That’s what happens when I don’t get to finish my breakfast. What’s your story, friend? Forgive my pointin’ it out, but you don’t seem to quite fit in among these whippersnappers.”

“Rotscale,” the other wizard replied, holding up an arm and pulling back the sleeve of his robe to show a long streak of black, hardened skin. “I’ve been to every cleric in Tiraas; they can’t do a thing. The doctors say I’ve got two years, tops. Always wanted to be a hero, ever since I was a boy. Facing the prospect of actually dying in bed, well… A man reassesses what’s naïve and what’s true.”

“That, I can respect,” McGraw said, nodding gravely. The other man nodded in return, his expression still calm and faintly amused.

“So what’s it gonna be, McGraw?” asked the girl in the leather. “Are you gonna leave on your own terms? Or do we have to do this…the hard way?”

“Ideally,” he replied calmly, “the outcome here is that I go back inside and finish my meal, and y’all cut this foolishness out and go get a real job. Ain’t my policy to tell anybody how they oughta live, but I do wish you’d consider the consequences of your actions for people who aren’t you. This here’s an inhabited town,” he nodded to the side, where a dozen or so townfolk had gathered to watch the proceedings with great interest. “Anybody starts shootin’, there’s likely to be bystanders injured and sure to be property damage. Also, the way you’ve been carryin’ on out here, I expect the Sheriff to arrive any second, and as things stand it ain’t me who’s aimin’ to spend a night in the pokey.”

That brought them up short. Some of the bluster leaked out of the leader; she glanced uncertainly around at the buildings and people nearby, while the cleric and the robed girl looked to her for guidance. The cowboy only stared at McGraw, a faint grin hovering around his mouth. That one was going to be trouble, no matter how this played out.

“All of this,” McGraw went on, “is leaving aside that you poor saps have been suckered in by some authentically bad people to do their dirty work. So I’ll turn your question back around on you, miss. You wanna step inside, have a seat, talk this out like civilized folk? Or would you prefer to do something foolish and get buried under the consequences of it? What’s it gonna be?”

 

Watching from the shadows of a nearby alley, Thumper cursed softly to himself. Already it was all going wrong. All those damned kids had to do was be their stupid selves, and they couldn’t even do that right. Even as he watched, he could see their resolve faltering.

As usual, he had to do everything himself.

He pulled a small hinged case from the inside pocket of his coat and flipped it open; inside were several vials from his potion kit. He might be a fake salesman, but the props provided for his cover were quite real, and he had taken the precaution of bringing several along in case they came in handy for today’s work. Selecting one, he shut the case and tucked it back away, flicked the cork off the vial with his thumb, and drank it down, grimacing at the bitter taste. Would it interfere with the functioning of alchemy to add some damn flavor?

At least it worked. In seconds, his own arms faded from view. Clothes and all, luckily; he’d read horror stories of adventurers caught in sticky situations when their invisibility elixirs had only concealed flesh, but thankfully modern alchemy was more reliable.

Shook was no sneak-thief, but he’d grown up on the streets of Tiraas and knew how to move quietly. For all that sneaking out in the open in broad daylight set his nerves jangling, he circled around the little tableau unfolding in the square without being spotted by any of the participants. He’d half-expected McGraw to be able to see through the effects of the potion, but it seemed luck was with him.

He ghosted around behind the five would-be heroes, creeping up on the fool in the cowboy hat just as McGraw was finishing up his little speech. He was right about one thing: the sheriff would be here very soon. Thumper had singled out this guy when Tazlith had introduced him around to the posse she’d put together: he was aggressive, reckless, and exactly the sort of fellow who could be relied on to start trouble. Even if he didn’t actually start it, nobody would have a hard time believing that he had.

As the fives wannabes hesitated, glancing at each other, Thumper crouched, moved in closer, and then lunged. He grabbed one of the cowboy’s hands with one of his and his wand with the other. The man cried out in surprise and tried to pull away, but Thumper was faster, stronger and had the element of surprise. He mashed the wand against the man’s hand, twisted it in the general direction of McGraw, and squeezed the clicker.

The shot missed, of course, cracking one of the wooden supports holding up the A&W’s awning. That didn’t matter; what mattered was that to those watching, it looked like the man had performed a quick draw and fired from the waist.

It had been a gamble; it would have backfired had his targets shown any introspection or reserve, but human nature didn’t fail him. Once the shooting started, the thinking stopped.

McGraw hadn’t been in the path of the wandshot, but he nevertheless threw up a shield, a sparkling blue sphere around himself, which protected him from the blast of unfocused shadow magic hurled by the girl in the black robe. People screamed and ran in all directions. The cowboy had dropped his wand when Thumper let it go, and was looking around in confusion.

The Sheriff would be there in seconds, surely.

Thumper was already on his way back into the alley.

 

Principia had chosen a good spot once she heard the shouting begin. For all the trouble-making types who came through Last Rock, few bothered to make use of the town’s rooftops, which was almost a shame; the stone structures were extremely solid and their slate shingles kept in good repair. They also didn’t transmit sound well, so as long as she stepped lightly, nobody knew she was making her way over their house.

It helped that people never thought to look up.

The sloping roof of the general store had a conveniently-placed chimney from behind which she peeked down at the action in the square. She had marked the alley into which Shook had vanished prior to the action starting, and thus noted the faint disturbance of invisible footsteps in the dust heading toward the adventurers. It was, she had to acknowledge, a good effect. If not for elven eyes and the fact that she’d been watching specifically for something from that point of emergence, she would have missed it.

“You bastard,” she murmured with a faint smile. He was nothing if not predictable.

Prin ducked lower as the first shot went off, hiding herself completely and thus losing her view of the action. There followed two more wandshots and the less distinctive sounds of spells being cast, then a lull. She peeked out again a moment later, taking stock of the scene.

McGraw had vanished. Unless one of those fool casters had managed to disintegrate him—about as likely as a sudden revelation that she was in line for the Imperial throne—that meant he had moved to reclaim the advantage. The fact that she didn’t know where he was…well, that could be all kinds of bad.

Tazlith was trying to rally her troops, who were varying degrees of frightened, confused and pissed off. Principia decided none of this needed to be dealt with by her.

Moving lightly as a squirrel, she darted across the rooftops to the large house where she rented an attic, slipping neatly through her open window into her chambers. Even using her unconventional paths, nowhere in Last Rook took long to reach.

Prin shut the window behind herself, turned to her enchanting table…and froze. She darted over to the door—yes, it was open, the lock broken. Naturally Shook didn’t have the skill, and probably also not the inclination, to pick a lock like a professional. She looked back to the table, where her row of carefully enchanted rings were missing.

“Bastard,” she said with more feeling.

Right. Predictable.

Speaking of, at that moment her broken door pushed open and Longshot McGraw ducked inside.

“Ma’am,” he said courteously, tugging the brim of his hat to her. “Pardon my intrusion, but it seems I need to move up my timetable considerably.”

She stared at him for one silent moment before bolting.

Prin threw down a coin as she fled; its simple anti-magic charm wouldn’t have held against anything a wizard of McGraw’s caliber threw at it deliberately, but it disrupted the stasis spell he tossed after her enough that she only felt a brief tugging sensation before she managed to dive through the still-open window.

She somersaulted midair and landed on her feet in a slide, shooting straight down the sloping roof tiles. In the alley below, she kicked off the far wall to blunt her momentum and rolled as she reached the ground, sprinting for the mouth of the alley.

McGraw’s teleportation wasn’t as tidy or potent as Tellwyrn’s; his appearance was presaged by a split-second flash of blue light, giving Prin enough warning to skid to a stop rather than plow into him, and his reappearance came with a crack of energy and a static buzz that made her hair try to stand up.

“It seems,” he said conversationally as though nothing had just happened, “that your friend Mr. Shook has set a pack of ravenous puppies on me. I actually have to admire his cleverness; I’d feel quite bad if I brought harm to any of those silly kids, which hampers me more than a little. My feeling, though, is they’ll maybe be a bit less trigger-happy if I show up again with you in tow. They did turn up to protect you from my depredations, after all,” he added with a grin.

Principia backed up two careful steps. “Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged. “The money’s good.”

“That is what I meant. Why? You could have apprentices…wealth, a life of comfort. You’re ten times the mage any of those turkeys who go adventuring in the Sea are. Why this?”

McGraw tilted his head to one side, regarding her curiously for a moment before replying. “Short answer is, it’s something to do.”

“Seriously? That’s it?”

“Miss, when you get to my age—”

“I’m at least twice your age.”

“—you start to think about who you are and what you really want, whether you intend to or not. I stumbled into the adventuring life quite by accident and spent a couple decades moaning about it…but come time to retire, I found the thing I truly fear is… Well. Apprentices, wealth, comfort, and all the trappings of a staid life. Won’t say I crave adventure, as such, just…not to be bored. Things like this suit me fine.”

She crept back another step. “I could only wish I had your problems.”

“I imagine my situation looks a fair bit better’n yours at this moment. Not that I’m not enjoying this discussion, ma’am, but I also am not a fool. We can carry on chatting while we walk, if you are so inclined.” He leveled his staff at her and smiled politely. “This way, please.”

 

Shook made a point of breathing hard as he dashed up to the adventurers, who were huddled together in the square. Townspeople had fled; they had the place effectively to themselves for the moment. Where the hell was that Sheriff? It had been more than a couple of minutes already; Sanders had never been so slow to respond to a disturbance, at least not from what the locals had told him over the last few days. He’d had to wait for the counteragent to the invisibility elixir to take effect, and had been sure he’d come back to find his minions slugging it out with the law while their actual quarry slipped away. Well, odd as it was, he’d take it.

“Everybody all right?” he panted, doing his best to look concerned. “Damn, he moves fast. I didn’t even have a chance to get in behind him.”

“Jeremiah,” Tazlith said with obvious relief, turning to him. “Marks says he was grabbed; somebody got his wand and made him shoot at McGraw.”

“We are not of one mind on what to make of this story,” said Lorrie, the warlock. “It seems terribly convenient for him. Terribly inconvenient for us.”

“I didn’t detect any invisible presence,” the mage (whose name Shook hadn’t troubled to learn) intoned pompously. It was all Shook could do not to roll his eyes.

“Dammit, I should’ve expected that,” he said, putting on a rueful face.

“What?” said Tazlith. “What do you mean?”

“The whole point of this was to stand him down, prevent it coming to a fight, right? McGraw told me to my face he’d like nothing better than if I started the shooting so he could claim self-defense. If he realized we weren’t going to oblige him, obviously he made it seem you were starting the fight.”

“Can…can he do that?” Marks asked uncertainly.

“Man’s a famous battlemage. Who can say what he can do?”

“It’s an interesting theory.”

They all spun toward the speaker in unison, those who had weapons raising them. Sheriff Sanders was striding toward them, his stare promising murder. With him came Ox Whipporwill… And the three Imperial soldiers quartered at the University.

So that’s what had taken him so long.

“I cannot recommend strongly enough that you lower those wands,” Sanders said grimly. “Needless to say, a thorough investigation of everyone involved in this mess is forthcoming. If there’s been magical meddling, we’ll find out, one way or another. In the meantime, though, you are all coming down to the office with me. It’ll look much better for you if I don’t have to be assertive about it.”

“All we wanted to do was protect that girl McGraw is after,” Tazlith said stridently. “We’ll cooperate in any way we can, but right now he is still out there, and so is she. We aren’t the threat here. Do your job, Sheriff!”

Shook would have winced if her blustering didn’t so perfectly suit his aim of deflecting the trouble toward herself. That was one of the top ten things you absolutely did not say to law enforcement.

“This ain’t a conversation, miss,” Sanders shot back, placing a hand on his own wand. “I am gonna repeat myself one more time, and after that I’ll assume you’re resisting. We are going—”

“Excuse me,” said the robed mage, “but you should all see this.”

They turned to look where he pointed, Sanders a second after the others as if expecting to be attacked from behind if he averted his eyes. It was no trap, though, at least not for them. McGraw and Principia were entering the empty square from the street beyond. She walked in front, stiffly, her hands balled into fists at her side. The old wizard strolled behind her, staff resting over his shoulder, puffing idly on a cigarillo.

“Hello again,” he said. “Ah, ah, ah, let’s nobody go an’ do something rash. There’s been enough dust kicked up for one morning, I think. Seein’ as how Ms. Locke and myself seem to be the source of all this commotion, we’ve talked it over amongst ourselves and decided the most responsible course of action is for us to remove ourselves from town till everything has a chance to settle down again.”

“That true, Prin?” Sanders asked tersely.

She glared at him. “Of course it’s not fucking true, you half-wit, I’m being kidnapped! Do something!”

McGraw shook his head. “Nobody around here can ever let me do anything the easy way,” he said fatalistically. “Y’know, I believe I’m beginning to actively dislike this town.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Sanders said, drawing his wand. “Elias ‘Longshot’ McGraw, you’re under arrest.”

“If you consider the matter carefully,” McGraw replied calmly, smiling, “I think you will find that I am not. As I was saying, Ms. Locke and I will be leaving the town now. I leave it to you and these lovely people to decide how much needs to get broken in the process, Sheriff.”

“You are astronomically outnumbered, villain,” the warlock intoned. “Submission is your only wise course.” Around her, the others readied their weapons; wands and staves were aimed at him, and Tazlith drew a pair of throwing knives.

“It seems to me,” McGraw said evenly, stepping up behind Principia so that he addressed them over her shoulder, “a show of force isn’t appropriate in your situation. I’m assuming, of course, that you would rather Ms. Locke not get shot in the process. I might be wrong about that. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“We fan out, take him from all angles,” Shook said tersely. “He can’t hide behind her skirts if he’s encircled.”

“Thank you for your input,” Sanders said sarcastically.

“What?” Principia screeched, a note of hysteria entering her voice. “No shooting!”

“Do you wanna get hauled off into the prairie to be executed like a dog?” Shook replied. “Just keep your head down and try not to get shot.”

“No! Fuck you, Shook! No shooting!”

“Prin—”

“Go to hell!” She was shrieking now, eyes wide in panic. “Nobody’s taking shots in my direction just because you would rather I’m out of the picture! You stole my fucking enchanted rings and left me high and dry, you faked the shot at McGraw with that invisibility charm! This bullshit is entirely your fault!”

“Wait, you did what?” Tazlith said, whirling on him.

He glared at her. “This is not the time—”

“He’s wearing rings,” the robed man noted. “Rather a lot of them. I wondered about that.”

“Seems I’m gonna need a bigger cell,” Sanders said wearily. “Goddamn it, the middle of the street with weapons pointed in all directions is not the place for this. Everybody stop whatever the hell you’re doing and stand down!”

“Y’all clearly have matters to discuss amongst yourselves,” McGraw said cheerfully. “We’ll just be heading—”

“No, you don’t!” Sanders raised his arm, aiming his wand right for McGraw and disregarding Principia’s squeal of protest. “Nobody fucking moves!”

McGraw opened his mouth to reply, but cut off, his eyes widening as they shifted to look past the group. Immediately he and Principia were wreathed in a sparkling sphere of transparent blue light. Two wandshots splashed against it, causing it to flicker and dim—Marks and one of the soldiers had apparently been spooked by the sudden spell effect.

“Hold your fire!” Sanders roared, to no effect.

McGraw pointed his staff at the ground between them; light flashed along its length, and an elaborate circular glyph appeared on the paving stones. Everyone backed rapidly away from it, Rook and Moriarty swiveling to point their weapons at the shape that began forming out of mist above it.

“What the fuck?” Marks moved one hand to aim at the figure, keeping his other wand pointed at McGraw and Principia.

“He summons something,” said Lorrie, shifting her staff to rest in the crook of her arm and folding her hands together. “Two can play at this game.”

“No!” Tazlith shouted, whirling on her. “Dammit, we talked about this! Do not bring that damn thing out, this’ll all go to hell if you lose control of it!”

“An elemental!” exclaimed the mage as the missed coalesced into a figure. It wasn’t even vaguely humanoid, though it had two arm-like protrusions. “How does an arcane wizard have access to a water elemental?!”

“Oh, shit.” Sanders’s outburst wasn’t aimed at the elemental, however; he’d glanced over his shoulder, following McGraw’s eyes.

“Shoot it!”

“Don’t shoot it! Don’t make it mad!”

“Will somebody do something?!”

CRACK!

The bolt of power that roared across the square, making all their hair stand up and momentarily blinding everyone, was massive enough nearly to suit a magical artillery shot. It struck the creature dead center; half its mass evaporated on the spot, the rest splashing harmlessly to the ground, apparently now inert.

The weapon that had fired it was clearly antique. Shorter than modern battlestaves and at least twice as thick, it was a throwback to the age when such enchanted weapons were a new invention borrowing from older sensibilities; elaborately carved, decorated across its whole length with bands of silver and surmounted by a globe of glowing crystal, it looked like what an artist designing a cover for a penny dreadful might imagine an old-fashioned wizard’s staff to be.

The person carrying it had made that perfect shot with the cumbersome weapon one-handed, using the other to prop herself up on one of her canes. She glared coldly at McGraw.

“Shame on you,” said Mabel Cratchley.

With a burble and a huge gout of steam, the elemental rose up from the ground; it was smaller now, but clearly re-forming itself.

This time, Marks, Lorrie and the cleric dived away as Miz Cratchley blasted it again, Rook stumbling backward from the incredible force and falling on his rear. It made a smoking crater in the middle of the square where it struck.

The staff, too, was smoking now, though Miz Cratchley didn’t pay it any mind, shifting her aim to McGraw.

“Don’t do it!” Principia wailed, cowering back against him.

“Impressive shootin’, ma’am,” McGraw said, tipping his hat to her. At some point in the last minute he had dropped his cigarillo. “But there’s a reason those old thunderbuses were taken out of service. One more shot and the thing’s likely to blow up.”

“I’ve lived long enough,” she replied, staring him down. “I’m ready to account for myself to the gods. Are you?”

McGraw stared back at her, apparently lacking an answer to that.

Before anybody could act or come up with something to say, there came a soft pop from right between the two groups, the effect rather underwhelming after the recent show of firepower. The effect on the group of the figure who materialized was another matter entirely.

“All right,” Arachne Tellwyrn said flatly, “that’s enough.”

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Sanders knew his aversion to the campus was irrational. It was an intriguing and objectively beautiful place, the students were typically friendly toward him, or at least respectful, and he had Tellwyrn’s explicit permission to visit at need, or even socially. Nonetheless, climbing the mountain was like putting half a world between himself and his town, for all that he could see the entire thing from up here. He belonged down below, in the streets and humble structures of Last Rock, among its straightforward people. The University was a place for…someone else. A whole other kind of someone else.

Still, he navigated adroitly through the stairs and switchbacks leading up through the terraces, returning cheerful greetings from passing students with as much poise as he could muster. The passage through Helion Hall was similarly well-remembered, all because he had taken great pains to memorize the route. Getting lost in this place…well, once had been enough.

The door to Professor Tellwyrn’s office was open. Voices sounded within, but he approached anyway. The Professor was not one to act carelessly; if she wanted to be private, she would have been. He eased up to the doorway, making sure she could see him from behind the desk, and tugged the brim of his hat respectfully to her when her eyes cut to him from the student standing in the office.

“No one is restricting your right to practice your religion, November,” Tellwyrn was saying patiently. “In fact, I’m not requiring you to do anything. I am simply advising you in the strongest terms, for your own benefit, to take down that absurd shrine to the Hand of Avei you’ve put up in the campus chapel. She’s on the same freshman trek you participated in, not off crusading against the barbarians.”

“All I’m hearing is you telling me not to show support for the champion of my faith,” retorted the young woman stridently. Sanders winced; November Stark was one of the more annoying of the current crop of students. A tall young woman with her dark hair hacked boyishly short, she wore, as usual, a white shirt and trousers in an approximate imitation of the uniform of lay clerics of Avei. The best thing he could say about her was that she rarely visited the town.

“Be with you in a moment, Sam,” said Tellwyrn past the girl’s shoulder. “Stark, if you want to argue further, maybe you’d like to postpone it till you don’t have an audience?”

November glanced over her shoulder at Sanders, and a catlike smile appeared on her face. Turning back to face Tellwyrn, she folded her arms, adopting a smug posture. “What, you’re not comfortable discussing your stance on religious freedoms in front of an agent of the law? I don’t mind if he doesn’t.”

I mind a little, Sanders thought, but wisely kept his opinions out of it.

“Is that really what you want?” Tellwyrn asked in a very mild tone that really should have warned the girl off.

“Absolutely.” November set her jaw firmly, her expression proud and confident.

“Very well,” said Tellwyrn. “As I said, I’m not going to make you take it down. For the record I do have that authority, but despite what you like to tell yourself, I have absolutely no interest in anybody else’s religious practices on this campus unless they convert to the Black Wreath or something. I am suggesting that you remove it for your sake and Trissiny’s, Miss Stark.”

“That’s Ms—”

“No.” Tellwyrn’s voice cracked like a whip, and she leaned forward, planting an elbow on the desk to point a finger at Stark. “Don’t fucking start with me, you irritating little rash. I put up with that from Trissiny because she was raised in a Temple of Avei and actually has a deep understanding of feminist philosophy. You are a self-absorbed child who’s less than a year on from discovering how cloyingly righteous it feels to be oppressed by the patriarchy.

“That ridiculous shrine is not a religious expression, it’s an extension of your schoolgirl crush, which by the way, everyone has well and truly noticed. The only people who are not embarrassed on your behalf are yourself because you lack sense, Trissiny because she’s not here to see it, and Chase, who runs on pure schadenfreude and is probably glorying in the awkwardness. You can avoid at least one of those by getting rid of the damn thing before Trissiny comes back and has to share in the general humiliation.

“And for the gods’ sake, child, quit pussyfooting around. If you want her, ask her. The worst case scenario is that she’ll say ‘no,’ and you can avoid wasting the best years of your life pining after what you can’t have.

“Now,” Tellwyrn finished sweetly, folding her hands on the desktop, “is there anything else you would like to discuss in front of the Sheriff, while he’s here?”

“No,” said November in a strangled voice. Her posture was so rigid now that she practically quivered, her face flushed almost crimson. Sanders felt a rush of pure pity, which he very carefully kept from going anywhere near his expression. It would only have made it worse.

“Right, then. Run along.”

Sanders stepped aside to allow her room to exit, tugging his hat politely. November avoided his eye, stalking stiffly past and away down the hall.

“Sorry about that,” said Tellwyrn as he stepped into the room. She had removed her glasses and was scrubbing wearily at her eyes with one hand. “I don’t mind keeping discipline in an unruly classroom, but gods, how I hate it when they force me to act like their mom. What can I do for you, Sam?”

“I’m in a somewhat awkward position, Professor,” he said, stepping up to the desk. “Something’s moved into town which, if it becomes a problem, I have to frankly acknowledge I won’t have the capacity to deal with.”

“Do tell.” He managed not to flinch as she focused her attention fully on him. She had never been anything but polite, both to him and to his predecessor, but damn it, a man couldn’t stand in a room with a living, breathing legend without being keenly aware of his shortcomings, unless he was an enormous fool.

“A new fellow stepped off the Rail yesterday,” he said, keeping his tone as even as possible. “Name of McGraw. He didn’t identify himself as such, but others have. It’s Longshot McGraw, in the flesh.”

“Longshot, huh,” she mused. “I wonder what kind of pissing contest he had to win to get a moniker like that.”

Sanders blinked, taken aback. “You’re…not familiar with him?”

“Sam, it’s been more than twice your lifespan since I bothered to keep track of who’s who in adventuring. As my students love to keep reminding me, the whole concept of adventurers is a holdover from another time. Give me the basics?”

“Well, today’s frontier wandfighters aren’t exactly the same breed of adventurers you remember,” he said. “Longshot McGraw is a name mentioned alongside the likes of Tinker Billie and the Sarasio Kid. Which…I guess you might not be familiar with, either…ahem. He’s an actual wizard, not just some wandslinger. Popular imagination paints a somewhat contradictory picture, but he’s roamed around the frontier for decades, taking down any wandfighter who challenged him. A man like that doesn’t come to a town like this to just take in the sights.”

“Hm. What’s he done?”

“So far? Had a civil conversation with Ox, sat in on a poker game with several of your students, and then pulled aside Principia and that guy Shook for a brief conversation that left them both lookin’ spooked.”

“Principia.” She closed her eyes momentarily. “Why is it always Principia?”

“My thoughts exactly, ma’am.”

“Who the hell is this Shook?”

“New face in town. So far he ain’t done anything worthy of note, but he’s not somebody I enjoy having around. Oily-lookin’ fellow, which is suitable enough as he claims to be a salesman, but I can’t find a single person to whom he’s sold anything. Mostly loafs around in the A&W, drinkin’ and playin’ cards, when he’s not hanging out with Prin. He’s got a habit of looking at women in a way that makes ’em leave the room. I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”

“So that’s two undesirables rolling into town on Prin-related business,” she said grimly. “This verges on impacting my interests.”

“I thought that might be the case, Professor,” he said. “I don’t rightly know why Prin moved in but it stands to reason it’s University-related.”

“Oh, it is. She wants something she’s not going to get and hasn’t the sense to set herself more attainable goals.”

“Well…be that as it may, I can deal with Shook, and probably Principia, if it comes down to it. McGraw, though, is way outta my pay grade. If any serious trouble starts and he’s involved… This is the kind of thing that gets towns burned to the ground.”

“Mm. Where is this McGraw at the moment?”

“He’s stayin’ at the A&W. It’s only been one day, but he’s been a model guest so far. Probably’ll be sitting down to lunch along with everybody else here in a bit.”

“I do believe I’ll be sociable, head down and introduce myself.” She stood, straightening her glasses. “You can walk me down the mountain, if you’ll just give me a minute to grab my privates first.”

It took Sanders a moment to remember to say something, at which point he discovered that his mouth was conveniently already open. “…I’m sorry, what?”

 

“It’s pointless, is all I’m saying,” Rook groused, smoothing out his pillow. “Making beds adds nothing to their utility and little to their aesthetic. It’s just bullshit busy work to fill two minutes in the morning when I could still be asleep.”

“Are you done yet?” Moriarty asked woodenly. He and Finchley had finished theirs long since. It was well understood among the group that Rook’s bed would never be made if Moriarty didn’t chivvy him about it every morning, and it was something of a toss-up which of them had developed a bigger attitude on the subject.

“Yes, done, bed is made, for all the good it does anybody. It’s just gonna get unmade again the first time it gets used for its intended purpose.”

“It is no different from keeping your uniform neat! Cultivating a properly ordered environment is a boost to both morale and especially discipline in the service.”

“Moriarty, have you ever heard the fable of the boy who cried wolf?”

Moriarty rolled his eyes. “No, I don’t think I ever have. How does it go?”

“I’m just saying, it’d be a lot easier to take you seriously on the rare occasions when you have a point if you didn’t talk in that metered singsong like you were reading right out of your operations manual. Especially since that’s all you ever do.”

The door burst open before Moriarty could reply—fortunately—and Professor Tellwyrn stuck her head in.

“Ah! Excellent, everybody’s home. And dressed. Come along, boys, we’re going to take a little walk down to the town.”

She ducked back out, leaving the three soldiers to exchange wide-eyed looks. This was the first time Tellwyrn had expressed an interest in having them do anything since their arrival. Much as they had all bemoaned the lack of anything to relieve the tedium, they couldn’t help but see this as an alarming development.

“Morning, Sheriff,” said Finchley when they trooped out into the hall and found Sanders waiting for them.

“Boys,” he replied, nodding.

“So, uh…what’s up, Prof?” asked Rook.

“We are going to pay a little social call on a new resident of Last Rock,” said Tellwyrn, bounding up the stairs at a clip that forced the men to scramble after her. The dormitory housing this year’s freshman boys and the three Imperials was a subterranean gallery built right against the eastern edge of the mountain. Aside from its floor-to-ceiling windows, which afforded a beautiful and terrifying view of the open plain from high above, it appeared to be a long, naturally occurring cave, with a sanded-down floor and uneven walls sloping up to form an arched roof studded with runty stalactites. Reaching it involved a long staircase which terminated in what appeared to be a small storage shed out behind the music building.

Whoever had designed this campus had a weird sense of humor.

Tellwyrn didn’t seem inclined to wait for them, but they hustled up to rejoin her above, falling into step as they reached the main lawn.

“And how can we help with that?” asked Finchley once they were regathered.

“Just stand around looking uniformed,” she replied. “This McGraw character may not have a lot of regard for authority, but if he’s as sensible as he pretty much has to be, he’ll know that getting rough with Imperial soldiers will have far-reaching consequences.”

“Getting rough with you would have immediate and horrible consequences,” Rook pointed out.

“Yes,” she said, grinning, “but you have to understand the mentality of adventurers. The law is one thing; a fellow spellslinger is another. A rival who is unequivocally more powerful, well…some take that as an inherent challenge. I don’t expect him to start tossing fireballs right there in the tavern; I just want to remind him of the lay of the land should he get a notion to plan something more long-term.”

“Wait, McGraw?” said Finchley. “Old guy, long coat, well-spoken in a prairie drawl kinda way?”

“That’s him,” said Sanders.

“What’s he done? He seemed like a nice enough fellow.”

“He’s done nothing,” replied the Sheriff. “We’d all very much prefer to keep it that way. You boys didn’t realize you were talkin’ to Longshot McGraw?”

“Holy shit,” Rook muttered.

“That about sums it up,” said Sanders grimly.

“It’s…not such an uncommon name,” Moriarty protested. “I don’t know about you, but when I meet a scruffy old man my first thought isn’t ‘legendary wandfighter.’”

“So everyone’s heard of this guy but me?” Tellwyrn said with a touch of petulance.

“You’ve seriously never heard of Longshot McGraw?” exclaimed Rook. “What rock have you been living under?”

“The rock currently affording you free room and board, boy.”

“And an excellent rock it is,” he said hastily, “which I am very much enjoying, and by the way I’ve been meaning to ask if there’s anything I can do to be more helpful around here. Also your hair looks lovely today.”

“A little artless, but points for enthusiasm. Your backpedaling is accepted, Rook.” She glanced over her shoulder at them, one corner of her mouth turned up wryly. They passed under the wrought archway of the University’s main gate and she set a pace down the steep marble stairs that was just short of reckless. “Anyway, I had a secondary motive for bringing you lads along on this little outing. I’ve been informed of something by Lord Vex which concerns you.”

“Orders?” Moriarty perked up visibly at the prospect.

“Any orders would be sent directly to you, not through me. No, it seems Elilial is back on the mortal plane.”

They digested this in silence for a moment before Finchley replied. “That’s…good to know, I guess, but what’s it got to do with us?”

“Just that you not only saw her, she actually stopped to speak to you. It may mean nothing; a goddess of cunning is hard to predict, by definition. But historically, she’s been something of a…people person. She remembers those with whom she interacts, and sometimes visits them again when she needs something from a mortal.”

“What?” Rook squeaked. “She—you—that’s… She might come after us?!”

“Probably not,” Tellwyrn replied, calm as ever. “I’m reasonably sure your role in her plans was brief, obvious, and already fulfilled. However, as I said, it’s a mistake to make assumptions about someone like that; she thinks in very elaborate patterns. Anyhow, this campus is one of the most magically protected spots on the world, but I’m not sure how much good that’ll do in her case. It seems her purpose in returning to the mortal plane the way she did was to make a point about what she can and cannot do.”

“How so?” Finchley asked nervously.

“Just that she came through the hellgate itself without tripping it, without creating any impression that the thing had opened at all. We only know she had because she paused to make an impression on the scrying orbs set up on site. You may not have covered this in whatever theological education you received, gentlemen, but the reason the Pantheon chose the infernal plane as Elilial’s prison is the nature of passages between them. They can’t exactly keep her there by main force; it’s been effective for eight thousand years because even with all her stealth, it’s never been possible to slip through a hellgate without kicking up a cosmic ruckus. When anything comes through, it’s obvious; when she does, the gods immediately know where and when, and can move to do something about it. But not this time. This is a game-changer, boys; her options have just opened up considerably.”

“Well, fuck a duck,” Rook said eloquently.

“Professor,” Sanders said in the tone of a man clinging to his calm by sheer bloody stubbornness, “what, exactly, would you estimate are the odds of the Mother of Demons showing up in my town in the near future?”

Tellwyrn was silent for a moment, before finally shaking her head. “I wouldn’t lay odds, Sheriff. She may or may not—probably not—have some leftover business with these lads. She definitely has some with me, though I’m not yet sure if anything’ll come of it.” She glanced back at him, smiling faintly. “For what it’s worth, any business she’s likely to have should be of the civil and quiet variety. Anyway, Elilial coming to town is honestly a better prospect than some of the Pantheon gods doing the same. She, at least, is very careful about collateral damage. A few of the others have a tendency to…step on people, so to speak, the way you might a passing anthill.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s some kind of blasphemy,” Rook said.

Tellwyrn made a dismissive gesture. “If the gods were going to gripe at me about blasphemy, I think they’d have done so when I did it to their various faces.”

“With all due respect, Professor, I’m not sure I like going on field trips with you,” Finchley said weakly.

“What he means is, we’ll be only too happy to accommodate your needs, nice lady who can kill us with a thought,” Rook said, grinning.

“Actually, painless death spells are tricky to set up and require rather expensive reagents, and I used the last of mine a month ago. If I were going to kill you, I’d use cheaper elemental magic. Fire, lightning, something like that.”

Moriarty frowned. “Wait…who did you—” he broke off, getting elbowed in the sides by both Finchley and Rook.

Sanders heaved a sigh, and refused to ask.

 

One of the fringe benefits of being an old man in less than pristine garb was that he was commonly left to enjoy his meals in peace. The A&W was somewhat less rowdy during the midday meal than it had been the night before, but a hubbub of conversation still filled the room, and more tables were full than otherwise. McGraw had found a seat at an unoccupied circular table in the corner, and so far had been left to enjoy it alone. The waitress having just delivered his plate of sausages and potatoes, he was looking forward to a quiet meal, unless the wards he’d set warned of Principia or Shook making for the telescroll office.

She moved fast. Scarcely had the sudden hush of an attention-grabbing arrival fallen over the common room when Arachne Tellwyrn pulled out a chair and sat down across from him.

That, McGraw reflected wryly, was what he got for boasting of a perfect record. The very next day, there it went.

“Ma’am,” he said politely. “Pardon me for not standing; you kinda snuck up on me there. Can I offer you a bite to eat? My treat.”

“To be frank, I only bother to fence and dance about with pleasantries when my sparring partner exceeds a certain level of significance,” she said, folding her hands on the table and staring at him over the rims of her spectacles. “Don’t take offense; there are very few individuals who make the cut, and most of them refuse to have anything to do with me anyway. So I’ll come to the point, McGraw: what the hell are you doing in Last Rock?”

He chewed a bite of sausage carefully, weighing his options. The buzz of arcane energy around her was palpable, but also…less so than it should have been. Less than his own, even, which far from suggesting that she was a lesser mage, raised the disturbing prospect that she was simply able to consciously contain her aura to a degree that was beyond his abilities. It was Tellwyrn; he wasn’t about to underestimate her.

Her commentary suited her reputation: blunt, aggressive, and heavy-handed. McGraw didn’t much care for needless confrontation, himself, but he knew when trying to deflect would cause more harm than good.

“I’ve been employed by an outside party,” he said calmly after swallowing, “to remove Principia Locke from Last Rock.” Past her, he noted those three soldier boys making a brave but inept try at looking imposing. The Sheriff pulled it off much better, lounging against the wall by the door.

“Define ‘remove,’” Tellwyrn said flatly.

“The young lady is under the impression that I’m here to kill her. I’d take it as a professional courtesy if you didn’t correct her.”

The elf raised an eyebrow. “Then you’re not, in fact, after her head?”

“At this stage in my career, it’d be pretty hypocritical to balk at a little homicide,” he said, carefully maintaining his calm tone, despite the ratcheting tension in the room. Around them, other patrons were steadily finding excuses to cut short their lunches and go elsewhere. Nobody was obviously within earshot. “But no, killing is very seldom necessary, and certainly not my first choice of method in a civilized place like this. Ain’t like the old days,” he went on reminiscently, stirring potatoes around his plate with his fork. “Seems nowadays, nobody’s so inconsequential that a whole mess of paperwork doesn’t ensue when they turn up dead. I do hate dealing with lawyers.”

“But as long as Prin thinks you’ve got a contract on her life, she’s likely to go and do something rash… Which will make it that much easier to chase her out of Last Rock.” She nodded approvingly. “Elegant. I like it. Provided, of course, that you’re not lying to me.”

McGraw finished chewing a bite of potato and swallowed. “Granted, you’ve no reason to take me at my word. Let me assure you, ma’am, that if I am lying, I’m well aware I’d be gambling my life on the outcome. You can trust me to proceed with all due caution and restraint.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose. I will be frank, then: it would suit me admirably to have Principia out of this town and out of my hair. I can’t say I’d shed any tears if that involved her death, but I agree that cleaner methods are usually preferable.”

“Mm. I’m less inclined to be careful around her buddy, Mr. Shook,” he mused. “Been listening to the local scuttlebutt… Honestly, a man like that is better off removed from the mortal coil.”

“Which brings me to a point of concern,” she said flatly. “I neither run this town nor enforce the law in it. Generally speaking, the citizens of Last Rock do not need, nor would they appreciate, my help in seeing to their business. I do, however, have an ancillary interest in the doings of the town, for obvious reasons. So, let me establish my ground rules: if you cause such a degree of collateral damage that my help is requested to come down here and deal with it, I kill you. If any of your actions result in harm to my University or any of my students, I may or may not kill you, but I guarantee you will have ample time to repent your mistakes before that final judgment is made. Anything else you get up to is between you, the law, and whoever you do it to. Understood?”

McGraw calmly carried on eating, swallowing another bite as she finished speaking. Many years of practice kept his expression even as ever, despite the unaccustomed frisson of fear that passed through him. It wasn’t often he had been so baldly threatened by someone who could unquestionably back up their bluster. “Seems quite reasonable, ma’am. As I said, I don’t aim to do anything that’ll run afoul of your rules, but a little extra motivation never hurts.”

“Glad we understand each other,” she replied, standing up to leave.

“I was recently reminded,” McGraw said mildly, “that making threats of murder are, in fact, grounds for imprisonment under Imperial law.” He glanced over at Sheriff Sanders, who was still lounging by the door, too obviously not looking at them to be unaware of every detail of the conversation.

Tellwyrn gave him a condescending smile. “That’s adorable.”

Gathering up her uniformed entourage with a peremptory gesture, she swept out as suddenly as she’d arrived, leaving behind only Sanders, who calmly straightened up and wandered over toward the bar in search of a drink.

McGraw chuckled to himself, and tucked back into his lunch.

 

Tazlith made a show of frowning in contemplation as she examined the amulets behind the glass barrier of their display case, hoping the shopkeeper would interpret her expression as a sign she was carefully weighing the pros and cons of each enchantment as they were described on the accompanying notecards. In truth, she was weighing the pros and cons against what remained of her money purse.

She’d been sold on the idea that stocking up on equipment back home in Calderaas was foolish, when things were bound to be cheaper out on the frontier. Last Rock, however, did most of its commerce in the hopes and dreams of people like herself, and she was finding that the pendulum swung the opposite direction. Not by very much, but weaponry and enchanted gear was proving to be a touch pricier than she’d seen it advertized in the city. Foodstuffs, at least, were cheaper, whatever sense that made. Economics was over her head.

Occupied with her grim thoughts, her general disappointment with the way reality was sullying her excitement at setting off into the Golden Sea and her efforts to look as upstanding as possible—the shopkeeper’s patience with her browsing had visibly begun to fray—she didn’t realize she had been approached until the man cleared his throat softly.

Tazlith jumped, and immediately flushed with embarrassment. Great, very heroic. Luckily, he wasn’t laughing at her, though she was hardly delighted to meet the guy with the oily hair and cheap suit who she’d caught checking out her butt yesterday in the tavern.

“Can I help you?” she asked in her unfriendliest tone. Had she been interested in ending up as some jerk’s bedwarmer, the prospects had been better in Calderaas.

“Depends, ma’am,” he said. Well, at least he was polite, and seemed to have less trouble keeping eye contact than some men. “You’ll doubtless find this a presumptuous question, for which I apologize in advance.” Oh, great, here it was. “Are you one of those adventurers in it for the fortune and glory… Or more the storybook-inspired type? Looking to right wrongs and smite evil, that kinda thing?”

She frowned at him. This was a setup to an insult or a scam, she just knew it…and to her embarrassment, a flutter of hope stirred deep inside her. “What’s it to you?”

“I’m just hoping it’s the latter, is all. ‘Fraid I don’t have a lot of budget to hire on muscle, but there’s somethin’ bad about to unfold in this town. Someone who aims serious harm to a good friend of mine, and needs to be stopped. If you require fair payment for your time, I’ll have to leave you to your shopping…” Jeremiah Shook smiled, and maybe it was Tazlith’s own repressed dreams that did it, but suddenly he looked a lot less crooked. “But if you have plans to be a hero, it may be that only you can help.”

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He stepped calmly from the Rail caravan and looked around, resting the butt of his staff on the stone platform. Around him rose Last Rock, a collection of plain stone buildings that weren’t old but would not have looked out of place in a bygone era. Aside from the modern dress of the people passing by, and the scrolltower perched at one edge of the square, it could have been a painting of a medieval village.

To his right, another man weakly extracted himself from another caravan, clutching the edge of its door for support briefly before wobbling out onto the platform. Listing from a combination of dizziness and a limp—probably freshly acquired—he stumbled toward the tavern at one side of the square, its sign proclaiming it the Ale & Wenches.

He snorted. Pretentious. The kind of name designed to sucker in fools who went treasure hunting in the Golden Sea and called themselves “adventurers,” as though they were dungeon delvers of old.

“Made the trip all right?”

He looked to the left, finding himself approached by a towering, burly man with an impressive mustache in a faded old Imperial Army coat. His expression was solicitous, but stern.

“Well enough,” he said easily. Tucking his staff into the crook of one arm, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small cigar case, carefully selected a cigarillo, and lit it by tapping the end against the head of his staff, this whole display giving the big man time to look him over carefully. He knew the way of these small towns.

His appearance, as he was well aware, invited scrutiny. The tan leather duster he wore was old, scarred, and even burnt in places, as was his matching flat-brimmed hat. Around his neck was a sweat-stained bandana, and his boots, though of fine quality, had been with him long enough to bear their own scars, too deep to be healed with polish. Below all that, though, his suit, while also dusty and rumpled from travel, was presentable. Much as it galled him to admit it, his age was an asset. Nobody seemed to expect trouble from a well-lined face framed by steely gray whiskers.

“I think that other fellow came off it a bit worse than I,” he said mildly, jerking his head toward the man who was even now limping through the A&W’s doors.

The big man had fixed his eyes on the lighting of the cigarillo with a faint frown, but apparently decided he passed muster. “That’s Jethro, he comes through here every couple weeks. Works with some bank in Tiraas, has some business with the University. After a whiskey he’ll be good as new. I’m Ox. Welcome to Last Rock, stranger.”

“McGraw.” Clenching the cigarillo between his teeth, he took the proffered hand and shook it firmly. “Good to know you.”

The crack of the Rail re-igniting its transit matrix sounded; a static buzz washed over them and his arcane senses were momentarily blinded by the activation of complex, powerful enchantments so close. It passed quickly, though, as the caravan accelerated away and was soon lost to view.

“Damn fool contraption,” Ox grunted. “I dunno why the Empire lets people ride those things. They kill a couple dozen a year, as I understand it.”

“Control,” he said simply, puffing at his cigarillo. Ox raised an eyebrow. “I was around when the Rails were new, got to ride in some of the very first caravans. They had safety harnesses. The cargo cars still do—all kinds of straps and buckles to hold things steady. Despite what the Empire likes to say, those things were not meant to move troops. They were for moving adventurers, specifically to the frontier.”

“Never heard that,” said Ox, frowning.

“Suppose, friend, you’re in charge of running some rats through a maze. You want ’em to go a specific way, get ’em to the end where you want ’em. Now what’s a better use of your energies: trying to herd and heckle each one along, or move the walls such that they naturally lead where you want?” He glanced over at his new acquaintance; Ox was studying him more closely now, his eyes narrowed. He grinned, teeth clutching his cigarillo. “The world is run by a certain kind of men, my friend. Be it the crowned kings of old or the bureaucrats of today, they’re well-fed men in expensive suits, who have no idea what it means to risk your neck and bust your ass workin’ for a living. To governments, rats in a maze is all we are. The Empire was modernizing, moving from a chaotic loot-based economy to one of systems, structures and laws. Shunting off the well-armed loners to the last place guaranteed to grind ’em up en masse served two purposes: getting them out of society, and helping to push back the frontiers as far as they can be pushed, so society has room to expand. Thus, crazy rattletrap Rails, fit for those willing to risk their necks, but sure to discourage the saner, calmer breed who they want to stay in the cities and pay their taxes. It was…elegant, really.”

“That’s…an interesting theory,” Ox said noncommittally when he finished.

He shrugged. “And I may be wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time. A funny thing, though… There are hardly any adventurers or adventures left, these days. Lo and behold, the Rails are getting upgraded. The ones serving the interior provinces are downright comfy, now, safe as your mother’s arms. Last I heard, the schedule they’re on, even these frontier lines will have full safety features within two years.”

“Well, whatever the Empire’s motives, that I can get behind. All I know is, these Rail cars are insane. Sooner they get straightened out, the better.”

“On that we can agree.”

“What brings you to Last Rock?”

“Oh, I’m just stopping in on my way elsewhere,” he said easily. “I heard a friend of mine might be loitering in this town and thought I’d see if I could catch him. Name of Shook? Greasy-lookin’ fellow, cheap suit… Ostensibly a salesman but I’ll lay odds he’s not been seen trying to sell jack shit to anybody.”

“I know him,” Ox replied slowly. His increasingly serious expression told McGraw this was, indeed, the place. “He don’t cause any trouble, just hangs around the A&W, playing cards and drinkin’. Seems to be an acquaintance of Prin’s.”

“Prin? That wouldn’t be Principia Locke? Brunette wood elf?”

“You know Prin, too?” Now, Ox looked downright leery.

“Only by reputation. We have acquaintances in common, you might say.”

“You’re not reassurin’ me, McGraw. Shook’s not good for much that I can see, but like I said, he’s no trouble. Prin’s another matter. I’m not sure Last Rock needs any more of their ‘friends’ moving in.”

“Oh, don’t worry none about me,” McGraw said, grinning around his cigarillo. “Like I said, I don’t aim to be here long. Just to pay my respects, and then I’ll be on my way. You attached to the law in this town, by any chance?”

“There’s no budget for a paid deputy,” Ox rumbled, “but I help out Sheriff Sanders when help’s needed. I live on a pension; I’ve got the free time.”

“That’s good to hear, friend, good to hear. Do give the Sheriff my regards, won’t you?” He puffed smoke contentedly for a moment, jabbing his cigarillo in the direction of the A&W. “How’re the accommodations over yonder?”

“Clean. Food’s good, whiskey’s…plentiful. Ain’t a quiet place, though; that’s the common watering hole for the University kids and every wannabe hero who passes through on the way in or out of the Sea.”

“Perfect. I believe I’ll arrange a bed for the night. These old bones don’t look forward to another Rail ride any sooner than they have to.”

“I’ll let the Sheriff know you’re in town, then,” Ox said firmly. There was no mistaking the warning in his tone. McGraw just smiled at him.

“Do that, friend. Perhaps I’ll see you around.”

 

No one had ever accused the Ale & Wenches of false advertising.

There was ale, technically, though frontier tastes being as they were, the A&W did more business in whiskey, with beer coming in second. As for the other part, the serving girls did indeed dress in medieval-style attire, prominently featuring low-bodiced peasant dresses and blouses. That was as far as it went, however. There was invariably at least one burly man with a cudgel and a wand on duty, but they rarely had time to step in, even when the need arose. In a town the size of Last Rock, every one of those girls was the daughter of someone’s friend or neighbor. The University kids knew to treat them politely; out-of-towners seldom had to be told twice. Even had any of the young ladies in question been willing, there was absolutely no chance of a traveler slipping her a coin and taking her upstairs.

Despite the way expectations thus yielded to the reality of modern life, the A&W remained a perennial favorite of the students and the would-be heroes who passed through town, because it played perfectly to their fantasies. The fairy lamps illuminating the common room were of the flickery old style rather than steadier modern versions, and housed behind yellow-tinted glass that made their light resemble that of torches. Maps, hunting trophies and well-used old bladed weapons decorated the walls, and the room itself was of rough timber and plaster with fieldstone accents, just like the illustrations of taverns in modern books full of old stories.

It was an unspoken joke among the citizens of Last Rock that the illusion pitched by the A&W succeeded so well because those who bought into it were no more adventuring heroes than the tavern itself was a real adventurer’s bar, such as had formed a basic economic role throughout the frontiers five hundred years ago. The closest thing to real adventurers present were the University students, who were an odd, eclectic and often dangerous bunch, though they were ironically the better-behaved of the patrons. Those who were actually there for adventuring purposes rarely deserved to be taken seriously. People did, occasionally, still find treasure and glory in the Golden Sea. Most of those who went looking came staggering out weeks later, half-starved, traumatized, and hell and gone from wherever they’d entered…those who came out at all. It wasn’t something rational, well-adjusted people attempted.

Principia loved it here.

She didn’t push the swinging doors open and stand in them—aside form being mindful of the cliché, it wasn’t her habit to be the center of attention unless a specific con required it. Usually there was better hunting to be had in blending in. But she did, as usual, slip to one side of the doors and treat herself to a moment of soaking in the ambiance. This was just like old times. The Age of Adventures was already stumbling toward its slow end by the time she’d started her career, but she was still old enough to have been in a few adventurer bars—the real ones. Those were some of her happiest memories.

But that was then, this was now, and she was on a particularly unforgiving deadline. The reminder of her straits soured some of her nostalgic pleasure, and she narrowed her focus to the night’s business.

It was after sundown on a Friday and the A&W was predictably busy, but she had no trouble zeroing in on her targets; they were ensconced at the largest table in the place. The three privates stood out in their navy blue Army uniforms, and were keeping company with a couple of the more exotic University kids. Chase and Tanq blended in as they would in any group of miscellaneous humans, but Hildred, a honey-blonde dwarf girl, and especially Natchua made for a more distinctive sight. There was a card game in progress, as well as tankards and pitchers and platters of the A&W’s simple but good finger food.

Prin took a moment to consider her approach. She needed those boys’ interest, and first impressions were vitally important.

“Hey! PRIN!” Chase waved at her, grinning delightedly. “Perfect timing, get that perky butt over here!”

Her sly smile wasn’t entirely faked. Once in a while, fortune did favor her.

She threaded her way nimbly through the crowd, pulled out a chair between two of the soldiers and plopped down. “What’s this, then, you started without me? Now my feelings are hurt. Somebody better buy me something to compensate.”

“Something shiny or something alcoholic?” Tanq asked with a grin.

“That’ll do for a start!”

She received a smiling greeting from Hildred and a glare from Natchua, which she knew by now not to take personally. It wasn’t personal, and wasn’t even the usual hostility that drow often held toward surface elves and vice versa; Natchua was simply, as usual, trying for the “brooding badass” look, and as usual managing only to come off as surly. The three soldier boys all eyed her with interest.

“Well, hello,” she purred at them. “I don’t believe you’ve had the pleasure.”

“Not so far,” said the swarthy one to her right, grinning. “Am I going to?”

“I haven’t,” Chase complained. “Rumor has it that makes me the only one in town.”

“Funny thing is,” she said airily, setting a stack of copper coins on the table, “he keeps saying things like that to me, and yet appears to think he’s going to get somewhere. Deal me in.”

“I am very stupid,” Chase agreed, nodding solemnly. “This is known.”

It was a good group to work. Chase and Rook, the soldier with the olive complexion, were jokers and talkers, keeping conversation going. Finchley, Hildred and Tanq were quieter, but affable; Natchua and Moriarty were too sullen and stiff, respectively, to contribute much, but that was fine. A group that size would have been chaos with everybody talking over each other. Prin could apply her charm in chaos—she could apply it anywhere, but chaos was less than ideal.

A few hands and a pitcher of beer were enough for her to get the measure of her targets. Moriarty she dismissed as a prospect to leverage. Not that she couldn’t do it, but guys like him required a lot of effort and very particular tactics, which she had neither time nor inclination to pursue. Finchley and Rook were likelier prospects, though the personalities demanded such different approaches that she wouldn’t really be able to work both at one time. Luckily, she’d placed herself right between them at the table, and both kept giving her eyes of interest. Prin didn’t devote great time or attention to her looks; sometimes, in company like this, being an elf was all it took.

Half an hour after sitting down (it didn’t do to rush these things), she’d settled on Rook as her best prospect, as he was clearly the more careless of them. Getting useful intel on Tellwyrn out of him here, now, during a loud poker game, wasn’t really an option, but she had plenty of room to strike up a rapport to be leveraged later. This couldn’t all be done in one night.

Hopefully that would be enough to keep Thumper off her for a while longer.

She had just gotten down to a seriously, slowly escalating campaigns of subtle touches and flirtatious glances when a man stepped up to their table.

“Evenin’, folks,” he said, tipping his hat politely. “This a closed game or can an old wanderer join in? Ain’t had a good round of cards in far too long.”

Principia gave him a carefully calculated look—not overtly hostile, but not one he’d have mistaken for welcome. Such an addition would shift the dynamic of the group, and she’d have to take time to adjust her tactics. She needed to come out of this with, at minimum, plans to meet up with Rook later. Something concrete, as Thumper wasn’t the sort to understand subtler degrees of progress.

“Glad to have you, stranger!” Chase said cheerily without waiting to get anybody else’s opinion. “I don’t mind taking your money if you don’t mind donating.”

“Much obliged.” The old man pulled over an unoccupied chair from a nearby table and seated himself beside Hildred.

“Another hand like that last one, Chase, and you’ll be out of it for the night,” Tanq warned.

“Nonsense, I’ll just tap into my reserves.”

“You asked us not to let you do that. Remember?”

“Oh, I say lots of things. You should always listen to what I’m saying now. Past me was naïve and innocent, and future me will probably be drunk.”

Prin appraised the new arrival silently. He was clearly well along in years, and had the dark complexion of a westerner, though his skin was several shades lighter than Tanq’s. The ragged old coat and hat gave off a certain impression, but the staff gave another one entirely. That was no mass-produced soldier’s weapon, but an old and hand-crafted object polished to a dull glow, surmounted by a short obelisk of smoky quartz in an asymmetrical iron setting. There was no clicker, or any mechanism to activate it, meaning its owner did so mentally, which she could have guessed anyway; even from across the table she could feel the haze of arcane energy around the thing and its owner.

He caught her looking and nodded politely, giving her a small smile. She returned an equally stiff one.

Their game resumed mostly unchanged. The stranger, who gave his name simply as McGraw, was on the quieter side, or at least seemed so in comparison with some of the others at the table, though he wasn’t shy about joking along, and quickly endeared himself to the party by paying for his own drinks rather than partaking of what was already on hand. Principia let him be, pursuing her own game, which was also going well. Finchley seemed a bit put out at the lack of her attention, but Rook was clearly quite interested.

She felt a little wistful, in truth. It was a good night: food, drink, noise, and the company of friends and cheerful strangers. It would have been nice to simply enjoy it.

McGraw caught the elbow of a serving girl the next time his tankard was empty, beckoning her closer, and murmured a message into her ear along with his order. She smiled, nodded, and gave him a pat on the shoulder as she straightened, then trotted off. Prin seemed to be the only one paying attention to this exchange; again, he caught her looking, acknowledging her with that private little smile.

“What is it you do, McGraw?” Chase asked without looking up from his cards.

“For starters, I take coin from smug kids who try to distract me from considering my bets.”

Chase laughed in response to that. “Well, that must keep you busy. I was just curious—you’ve got sort of the look of an adventurer, but most of those around here are, ah…”

“Younger?” McGraw said dryly. “By a good thirty years’ minimum, I’d say, yeah. Heh, been a while since anybody accused me of having ‘the look.’ Guess it clings to a man.”

“So you were an adventurer, then?” Natchua asked giving him what she probably thought was a piercing look. It made her look nauseous. Not for the first time, Principia felt an urge to pull the girl aside and give her a few pointers on acting.

“One of the last,” McGraw mused, staring down at his cards without really focusing on them. “When I was your age, a body could still make an actual living roaming about, slaying monsters and looting ruins. Not as good of one as previous generations, of course…even then, the end had already begun, so to speak. The times sure are changin’… I had a couple of good scores, though, enough to set me up. Good thing, too, since there ain’t much room for my kind in the world of today.”

“I wish you’d explain that to Professor Tellwyrn,” Hildred commented, taking a sip of her beer. “I think she’s trying to train us up for a new Age of Adventures, sometimes.”

“With regrets, little lady, I’ll leave you to deal with that on your own,” McGraw said with a wry smile, tipping his hat to her. “I managed to have a full career without bein’ in a room with Arachne Tellwyrn or any of her ilk, and I’m long past being foolish enough to be disappointed by it. Anyhow, I fold, and I’ll have to wish you kids good night.” Grunting softly, he rose from his chair, leaning for a moment on his staff. “Get to be my age, you find yourself heading to bed at decent hours whether you want to or not. Enjoy my coin, kids, and thanks for the game.”

“Cheers!” Chase said, suiting the words with a lifted mug, which he then drained.

McGraw looked directly across the table at Principia. “Actually, if I could borrow you for a moment, Miss Keys? Won’t take long.”

She did not freeze like a startled rabbit, nor allow any emotion to show on her face except mild confusion. She was too old, too practiced and too good for that. “Wh—is that me?” she asked blankly. “I think you have me confused with somebody else.”

“I might, at that,” he said agreeably. “Wouldn’t be the first time. I’d be mighty grateful if you’d spare a moment to correct me, lest I waste an evening barkin’ up the wrong tree.”

“Eh…sure, I’ll sit this hand out.” She leaned over to Rook with a smile, placing a friendly hand on his arm. “I’ll be right back. Don’t let Chase steal my coins.”

“Shock! Outrage! I would never!”

“’Cos you can’t reach ’em from over there.”

“Precisely!”

She stepped smoothly around the table and wrapped herself around McGraw’s free arm, simpering up at him. Keep your enemies closer; that applied double to casters. Besides, she might ignite a spark of jealousy in Rook that she could make use of later. “So,” she said at a good volume as she led him away, mostly for the benefit of the group, “tell me about this clearly attractive and talented acquaintance of yours. You know, I believe I’ve been approached by friends of every dark-haired elf on the continent; we really do all look alike to some people! I wonder what she would say.”

“I’m curious to find that out myself,” he said more quietly, gently steering them toward the only remotely private spot in the common room, a relatively shady nook under the stairs to the second-floor balcony. He had clearly identified it in advance, and timed his approach for a moment when there was nobody in there having a quick grope. That, plus the fact that the arm coiled up in hers was corded with lean muscle belying his apparent age made her consider him a bit more carefully. This one was more than he appeared.

“If you will indulge me in wasting a bit of your time, ma’am, in the interest of not repeating myself I’d like to wait for—ah, nevermind! Speak of the devil.”

Rounding the bottom of the steps into their shadowy alcove stepped the last person she wanted to meet at that moment.

“Why, Jeremiah,” Prin said coolly, “I was specifically not expecting to see you this evening.”

“Always a pleasure, Miss Locke,” Shook replied dryly. “I was just informed by one of the girls that a patron was asking after me down here? You look to have found him.”

“Indeed, at least we’re all gathered,” McGraw said agreeably, gently disengaging himself from Principia. “My apologies for interrupting your respective evenings. It was a bit of bother to follow you all the way from Tiraas, Mr. Shook, and regretfully I didn’t manage in time to grab a word with you on the way. Regardless, and you may well call me a relic of an older age for this, which would be fair enough, but I feel if you’re going to kill somebody, you owe it to ’em to look ’em in the eyes first. Seems to me what little nobility there was in battle went out of it when we moved from blades and armor to magic bursts from a hundred yards away.”

They both stared at him blankly for a moment. Prin eased a step away from him. “…I’m sorry, I think I must’ve misheard you.”

“That’s one of the great peculiarities common to all sentient beings, I find,” McGraw said, reaching into his coat to pull out a thin cigar case. As he continued speaking, he withdrew a cigarillo, lit it by pressing the tip against the quartz head of his staff, and tucked the case away. “I had an acquaintance some years ago…well, a friend, really, as best as men like myself can reckon such things…with the given name of Bell. No matter how clearly he enunciated, upon introducing himself to just about anyone, he’d get back a ‘Nice to meet you, Bill!’” He puffed calmly at the cigarillo for a moment. “Now, nobody thought this over and decided to change his name for him… I reckon none even decided on a conscious level that they’d misheard and corrected it. It’s a thing that happens quicker than thought. Our fickle brains look for patterns, for the familiar. They see somethin’ outside their register of what makes sense, well, they just erase it and substitute something more comfortable. Thus, a man named Bell gets called Bill. Likewise, a man who states his intention to kill the other party in a civilized conversation must have been misheard. Why not? The way we’re accustomed to treating each other, well, it just doesn’t make a damn lick of sense. My apologies for the language, ma’am,” he added, tipping his hat to her.

“Oh, good,” Prin said sourly. “He’s a talker.”

McGraw laughed at that. “Apologies for that, too. Afraid at my age, I’ve already kicked the bad habits I’m going to and made peace with the rest.”

“Just to be clear,” Shook said softly, “you are talking about killing us?”

“Well, her, specifically. Things bein’ as they are, it’s likely to end up being you, too, ‘less you decide to keep well enough out of it.”

“Now why would you want to go and do a thing like that?” the enforcer asked, still in that mild tone. His hands, though, had curled in on themselves, obviously (to the trained eye) preparing to access the knives hidden up his sleeves.

“I don’t concern myself with the likes of ‘why,’” McGraw said, puffing away. “Ain’t a wise thing to ask about, nor a safe thing to know. Once the money’s paid, I proceed with the job. I will say, as I’ve been authorized to do so, that the Thieves’ Guild has stepped on toes that ought not to’ve been stepped on. A rival cult would very much like to see the end of whatever specific business you two are sniffing around after, in the most absolute manner possible. Hence, here I am.” He spread his hands in a gesture that was half-shrug, as though amused by the vagaries of life.

“What cult?” Shook asked tersely. McGraw just gave him a long look. “…right.”

“This is insane,” Principia protested, backing up again. “If you intend to murder someone, you don’t announce it to them ahead of time.”

“Indeed, assassination must come from the shadows, right?” He shook his head. “That’s just the way it’s done. I wonder how many people a year die from seein’ what they expect to, ‘stead of what’s right in front of ’em.”

“You’re in the middle of a crowded bar full of witnesses, most of whom would love nothing better than to jump into a fight and play hero. And threatening murder is itself a crime under Imperial law! All we have to do is go to the Sheriff and you’ll be in a cell faster than you can finish that foul-smelling cigar.”

“You make an awful lot of presumptions concerning what I do or don’t care about,” he replied calmly. “Yes, you could, indeed, go to the Sheriff, at which point the matter would be your word against mine. That can be a dicey thing, when one’s an outsider in these little towns. Folks are more inclined to believe what’s familiar and comfortable to them, as I think I’ve mentioned recently. Course, matters become different when the familiar faces are the town’s two shiftiest residents. My blank slate looks a lot more attractive in that situation, I think. And I happen to find the smell soothing.”

“You can’t just—”

“My apologies for cuttin’ you off, ma’am, but it’s been a long day and I really would prefer to move this along. There are a couple ways this can proceed. Best of all for me is that you try to get the jump on me. Thank the gods for self-defense laws; they’ve allowed me to put down more than a few targets in public without appearin’ so much as suspicious.”

“You’re assuming we can’t take you,” Shook snarled.

“Why, yes,” McGraw said mildly. “It appears I am assuming that. Slightly less advantageous to me is that you try to flee the town, get yourselves lost in the Golden Sea, or the more mundane prairie in the opposite direction. Killing you out of sight of civilization is similarly clean. Just as a word of warning, though, if either of you puts a foot near the scrolltower office or a Rail car, you’ll be dead before the second foot comes down.”

“You can’t watch us all the time, you know!”

“You think not, miss?” he asked in that same tone of calm. “Down the list to the less preferable alternatives, you could just sit on your hands and wait till I’ve got no choice but to act. I have a generous timetable, but I don’t aim to fool around in this town more than a few days. Or, you could attempt to enlist help. It’d have to be help of the illicit sort, since the law won’t be too kindly disposed toward a couple members of the Thieves’ Guild.”

“You can’t possibly prove—”

“That is actually a lot less challenging than you Eserites like to believe. Most people simply don’t bother.”

“That’s because being a member of the Guild is not against the law!”

“Just so, ma’am,” he said agreeably. “But it sure doesn’t make the law more favorably inclined toward you. And if you optimistically assume you’ll be around to continue your operations after I leave town, well, it’d complicate your life considerably to be outed. So, what’s it to be, then? Care to do me a favor and start this right now?”

He puffed placidly on his cigarillo, watching them. Principia glanced sidelong at Shook; she wasn’t armed, and wasn’t much use in a fight anyway. The enforcer was glaring pure fury at McGraw, every line of his frame rigid. He remained silent, though, and made no movement toward the other man. Whatever his prowess in hand-to-hand combat, it didn’t take much wit to see that they were dealing with a magic user of some kind. The way to attack one of those was not from the front, when they were expecting it.

“Pity,” McGraw mused after the silence had stretched out for a few moments. “But circumstances being as they are, I can hardly fault you for being less than accommodating. No offense is taken, I assure you. Well, in that case, I’ll bid you good night.”

He stepped forward twice, till his way was blocked by Shook, who still stood tensely, glaring at him.

“’Scuze me,” McGraw said politely. He received only a murderous stare in reply. After a moment, he grinned around his cigarillo and shifted sideways to slip around the enforcer. “Be seein’ you two real soon,” he said amiably as he turned to mount the stairs.

They stood in silence, listening to the sound of his footsteps above, until they grew too distant to be audible over the babble of cheerful noise in the tavern.

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