For Twenty-five Dollars and Pieces of Silver

Amazons * A not-so-chill-wind * The Ultimate Treasure * 'He makes ketchup look intelligent' * A Quest

Tam was buffing the last of the dings from his battleaxe when Sergeant Collins of the Miradorian Watch came through the door, dragging Muriel behind. If he had been anybody other than himself, Tam might have been able to say that this was an unusual occurrence. But having his peace disturbed by some Watch members dragging in one of his 'brave companions' had become so commonplace that if it didn't happen at least once a week Tam felt out of sorts and a bit disturbed.

"I believe this is yours." Sergeant Collins lifted Muriel off the ground, setting her chains clanking. Tam continued his work.

"Sorry officer. I've never seen her before in my life."

"Oh hardy har har." Muriel crossed her arms and glared at Tam, apparently perfectly at ease suspended aloft by the Watchman. "Just pay the soddin' bail bond to this nice gent before I lose my temper." A devilish glint brightened her grey eyes. "I'll clean," she threatened. "And cook."

Now to those who had never encountered Muriel Flintedge before, such threats might seem banal and very unthreat-like indeed. But for Tam, who was a survivor of the Boiling Water Incident (and there weren't very many of those), and who also knew that when Muriel cleaned things had a tendency to not only not be where last seen but, in fact, to be now located in any number of pawnshops scattered throughout the great city of Mirador, those were serious threats indeed.

Tam tightened his grip on his axe. "You wouldn't."

"You know I would." Muriel snorted. "Even Collins knows I would."

"'S true, Tam." Collins glanced around the somewhat cluttered flat that was this month's base of operations. It was as good a place as any that Tam and Muriel had lived in, being located equidistantly from both the headquarters of the Guild of Adventurers (Heroic Division) and the Our Lady of Pustules Hospital. "And I have to tell you, you could do with some spring cleaning." He put Muriel down and went to take a closer look at some of the statues that decorated the walls. "Oi. Muriel. I'll buy that statue of Het from you. The wife's birthday is coming up soon."

"Right," Tam said. "And nothing says love like a statue of the six-armed Lord of the Eternally Buggered that's made from the right pinkies of twenty-six people who made fun of His High Priest's robes."

"'S unique at any rate." Collins poked it and made a loud ooh of appreciation as dried bones rattled and managed to produce a noise like a thousand people getting buggered all at once. "Definitely better than the washing tub I got her last year."

"Threepence and the keys to these cuffs and it's yours." Muriel smiled winningly, which was really quite a sight to behold. There are certain things in the world that are made to smile: Death, for example, is a great one for flashing the pearly whites. Crocodiles are well known for their grinning natures. Clowns, of course, can do nothing but smile. Muriel was none of these things (despite certain striking similarities and the ability to scare small children with naught but a simple glance) and on her, a smile appeared only because her face had never encountered such a phenomenon before and was unsure as to how to proceed and so let the expression manifest itself unprotested.

For a long moment, Tam was sorely tempted to remind Muriel that even though she had 'liberated' the statue of Het, Tam had been the one being buggered and so, by all rights, it belonged to him and was therefore not to be used as a means of bribing the Watch. He had a big speech planned, with diagrams, and a copy of Muriel's sworn statement awarding him the statue as payment for 'actions above and beyond the call of duty'. If necessary, he would have used his axe to--politely, of course--beat some sense into her.

But the sight of Muriel smiling had unnerved men of similar staunch-heartedness and, at any rate, Tam could tell when enough was enough. So instead of adding some new dings to his axe, Tam unclipped his pouch and counted out the £3.6s.2d. which was the standard amount due for Disturbing The Watch's Tea Time.

"Pleasure doing business with you as always," Collins said as he unlocked Muriel's cuffs.

"So what was it this time?"

"Just got into a wee bit of a scrape with a Caravan master." Muriel rubbed her wrists and stretched.

"Hah!" Collins was smirking just a bit as he looped the cuffs back onto his belt. "'Wee bit of a scrape' she calls it. Took six men to pull her off the guy. She kept screaming that she'd chew his bloody knees off."

"Look," Muriel said, with just a hint of anger creeping into her voice. "The sign said 'Amazon Wanted: Inquire within'. So I did. Is it my fault that he can't recognize an Amazon when he sees one?"

Collins looked down at Muriel, which was normal; everybody looked down at Muriel¹. He thought, briefly, about making a comment somewhat along the lines that Amazons were, traditionally, rather tall and statuesque, with large tracts of land viz. the vicinity of their chests, whereas Muriel was not only of diminutive size but about as generously endowed as the Dowerdell plains. He also thought about adding that Amazons were known to wear very little, and usually of the chain-mail variety while Muriel subscribed to the school of 'as many layers as possible' method of armouring, and had boots that made horses wince when they stepped on her feet. Collins, being a sensible man, thought better about his thoughts and particularly about Muriel's boots² and responded simply with, "Must obviously be new to the city." He touched the bill of the Official Watch helmet that he always wore to disguise his receding hairline and exited as quickly as he could.

"He told me to stop bothering the grownups and run along home to my mother," Muriel grumbled. "And then when I told him I was an Amazon, he laughed. Laughed, Tam. Laughed! At me! And made disparaging remarks about my breasts. Doesn't anybody understand that women who spend their lives running and jumping and poking things with swords don't have big breasts?" She kicked an inoffensive table leg, which broke with a satisfying crunch that was quickly followed by several less satisfying tinks as the glassware that had been sitting innocently atop the now listing table fell to the floor.

"Well," Tam began, hoping to end the rant before more things were broken and they'd have to explain the damages to their landlord. But that was as far as he got before the door blew open with what might have been a dramatic bang if the day hadn't been cheerfully bright and 'chill-wind-of-doom' free. As it was, the Mysterious Stranger^TM (who wasn't very Mysterious at all, having decided that it was too hot for the hood of her cloak and a staunch believer that an eye-mask is all that's required to render one utterly unrecognizable) that had darkened their door had to flap her cloak about several times to make it billow properly, smacking her companion in the nose several times.

"Excuse me," the Mysterious Stranger^TM said in as deep a voice as she could manage. "Is this the home of Tam, son of Gorin Gorinssonsson? Hair the colour of copper, eyes green like new leaves? 'Silent in the night, strong as the yoked ox. Brave as the majestic Eagle, purer than heavily filtered water'?"

"Maybe." Tam eyed the Mysterious Stranger^TM with understandable suspicion. This was the third this week, although he had to admit that this one's cloak was of a better cut than the average Stranger possessed. ""Who's asking?"

The Mysterious Stranger^TM pulled out a rather ragged list, doggedly ignoring Tam's question. "Got a birthmark in the shape of a strawberry shortcake? Hangs out with a tiny Amazon? Tall? Good-looking? Has any number of prophecies written about him?" She smiled, almost apologetically. "Just making sure, you understand. You'd be surprised how many people meet most of the criteria."

"Well, Gorin Gorinssonsson is a popular name." Tam leaned down to scratch his ankle, his hand coincidently coming very close to his axe. It never hurt to be cautious and if this was a preemptive 'remove future thorns' act on the part of the Guild of Adventurers (Villainous Division) then he could claim all damages as a 'business' expense. "But I'm the Tam you're looking for. You'll pardon me if I don't show you my birthmark."

"Finally." The Mysterious Stranger straightened her mask and pulled herself up to a rather unimpressive height of 5'4". She tossed a heavy hank of curly blond hair over one shoulder and directed her most imperious gaze (and she was good at those) at the still seated Tam. "I am the Princess of Huma and I have come to you to beseech you to fulfill a prophecy. Only you can find the Ultimate Treasure, the Heart's Desire, which will save my country! Please, Tam, son of Gorin Gorinssonsson! You're my only hope."

"Oh bloody hell," Muriel groaned. "Not another one."

*

When Tam was born, Fate smiled down upon him. Which just goes to show just how cruel Fate is and that you should never trust a singing cricket.

It wasn't as if his parents hadn't tried to avert Fate's cruel gaze. But there was just too much narrative inevitability stacked up against Tam. He was, after all, the third son of a deposed king (though in this case his father was merely a King Under the Mountain who had failed to be reelected) and the wild and fey Eriun, last daughter of the Elves' Second Age. He'd had prophecies written about him. His coming had been foretold for Ages past, though apparently not to his parents as Tam had been something of a surprise, given Eriun's rather haphazard approach to counting and Gorin Gorinssonsson's persisting ignorance of all things feminine; like any good dwarf, Gorin truly believed that there was only one gender, despite all evidence to the contrary³. And so instead of praying to the dwarfish Gods--to Bian the Earth Mover and Snorri the Trickster and Eylfr Dark-sighted--to give them a second sober, stout-hearted, dwarfish son like their first-born Gorin Gorinssonssonsson, or to the Elven Gods--to Brynwyn the Hunter and Sidog the Warrior and Teth De Mannoac the Daughters of the Moon--to give them a wild son like Lliam, their second born, they ended up Tam who was neither overly wild nor particularly sober but generally as kind and simple a young lad as could be expected to grow up in the somber backwoods of Kern. He was tall and he was handsome and he could wield a battleaxe like nobody's business, and it all meant that the only thing he was good for was heroing.

"You do realize that this is from your side of the family," Gorin said to his wife. "We've never had heroes in my family. You don't see Dwarfs dashing about doing good deeds, forgoing the digging of diamonds like their Dads did."

"All right. Don't practice your alliteration with me. At any rate, Uncle Roland was just a friend of the family," Eriun said mildly.

"Still." Gorin frowned at his son. He handled himself like a pro in the forge, which should have made Gorin's heart swell with joy, but it was damn hard to be proud of his hero son. The boy didn't even look a little bit Dwarfish; he was too tall, for one, and his hair was fine and silken like his mother's--though it gleamed copper-red, for which Gorin let himself feel just a bit of pride--and though, by human standards, he was built like a brick outhouse he just looked thin and weak to the broad-shouldered Dwarf. "Look at him! He's useless for anything other than being a bloody icon of virility. Plus--and I love him, I do--he makes ketchup look intelligent. He's got 'pawn of Fate' just written all over him."

"Yes dear," Eriun said, and she took up her flaming lance and girded herself for war. It was her third this month. Contrary to popular belief, the elves would fight anything, anytime, anywhere for any cause, just or not. Personally, Gorin thought that Eriun didn't actually go off to battle, but went to a secluded glade somewhere and thought secret, peaceful thoughts about healing and love and fluffy bunnies. Which was all well and good, but it meant that he had to deal with their son; which was quite cruel to both parties since Gorin was a Dwarf, after all, and Tam was...not.

Gorin stroked his beard again and pulled his belt up. It slid down below his paunch almost immediately, but it was the action that was important, not the result. He could do this. It wasn't really like throwing your own son to the wolves just so the rest of the family could escape.

And it wasn't like they hadn't tried give their third son a place to belong, a career choice outside heoring. When he'd been young and still small enough to fit comfortably in the Mines, Tam had been sent to live with his Uncle Brynhildr. At the time it had seemed like a good idea--Tam was a strong child and he showed a certain Dwarfish delight in shiny things. But it wasn't long before he was sent back on the first mail coach, still covered in dirt and with a polite and very Dwarfish note pinned to his shirt explaining that while the Dwarfs Under the Mountain had nothing but the greatest respect for Gorin and thought very highly of his eldest son, Gorin, Tam was (pardon their language) a K'zzat⁴ and they would greatly appreciate it if he never shone his headlamp in their mines again. In slightly smaller runes, they explained that Tam had not only refused to sing any traditional Dwarfish songs--like that classic hit of the Year of the Discoing Elephant, "Gold", or the all-time favorite by the Shaft #9 Boys "Gold", or the good old standby, "Hi Ho"--he'd taken out the main supports for shaft 15c 'just to see what would happen'⁵. Worse, he'd given things away. For no particular reason. Plus he kept calling Gorin his 'sister', which was not only embarrassing but just poor manners.

The Elves didn't even bother with a note. Eriun, who still went to her family functions, said that reason was because Tam had insisted upon payment for participating in battles and gotten into very heated arguments concerning the nature of possession, and that this was not at all in line with the Elvish way.

Lliam who was more forthright and an older brother, said that it was because Tam was Dwarfish and had a truly unfair advantage in that he could use weapons containing iron. He could decimate an entire platoon of trained Elven warriors with a two-by-four and a handful of nails, which was far too silly, even for Elves. Plus, he couldn't sing. Or stalk. Or keep his hair from getting tangled in tree branches.

It was inevitable, Gorin supposed. After all, somebody had to be the hero.

"Uh. Son." Gorin looked at what Tam had been making and it was another battleaxe. Really, just how many of those did one man need? "We need to talk."

"Sure Dad." Tam swung the battleaxe off the anvil and plunged it into a tub of water.

"Son. Tam." Gorin chewed on his beard and, no, there really was no nice way to do this. "Son, it's time to face reality. You're the third son and we have nothing left to give you. I'm afraid that you'll have to leave."

"What?" Tam looked down at his father in distressing confusion--which wasn't too different from his default state of regular confusion. "No, Dad. Can't I stay here? You've always said I was good at the forge."

"And what would you do? Gorin will take over the forge and you know your mother's people don't believe in possessions." Gorin cleared his throat. "Besides, Tam. You're a terrible jeweler." He looked at the very sharp, very deadly, very heavy axe. "You were supposed to make little gold earrings with a heart and butterfly motif. What happened?"

"Dunno. I liked this better." Tam fiddled with his axe handle. "Can't I go live with Uncle Brynhildr? I liked Uncle Brynhildr."

"Son, have you forgotten the last time you saw Uncle Brynhildr?"

"Oh yeah. But it's not my fault! The mountain really did collapse on my head!"

"Well at least you won't be taking out the tunnel supports anymore." Gorin readjusted his belt again. "Listen. Tam. Son. Your mother and I. We've talked this over and. We're sending you to the City. You're going to be a hero. Now go say goodbye to your mother and brothers." Gorin looked at all the iron that Tam wore and thought about life with Eriun once she'd been in contact with it. "Only. Do it from a distance."

*

"So you've really been going door to door looking for me for the past week," Tam said over tea. He put the pot down carefully and offered up the tray of cookies.

"Yes," Princess Ceza said. She smiled and shook her head politely and passed the tray of cookies to Muriel, skipping right over her companion. Not that the man who was currently calling himself Absalom minded, really. He was quite used to people overlooking him. In his line of work it was actually an asset.

Absalom had had a surprisingly easy childhood; he'd learned early on that being as memorable as a tree was often advantageous, especially when he didn't have enough pocket money but desperately wanted some candy. It was almost as good as having an invisibility cloak. And if he couldn't discard his peculiar invisibility, well, what did that really matter in the grand scheme of life? So what if he never got a date? So what if he was never praised for his brilliance? So what if people sometimes tried to walk through him?

To say that he wasn't sometimes...annoyed with his bland looks and age-resistant face, or that he sometimes wished he was taller or shorter, or had hair that could be described as something other than hair-coloured and eyes that were an actual colour instead brownish, or that he was darker or lighter or had a scar or a large nose or, really, anything that distinguished him from the rest of humanity would have been a blatant lie. He was human, after all, and everybody wants to be recognized.

On the other hand, if he had been more memorable, he probably wouldn't have been quite as successful at assassination as he was. And since his job options were somewhat limited to Assassin or Con artist, a trade that he found entirely to immoral for his tastes⁶, and he really did enjoy his work, Absalom supposed that he would have to be content with his features.

Still. It would have been nice to have had a cookie. Especially one of the chocolate ones. Better still have received one from the hands of his Princess.

"Why didn't you just go to the Guild of Adventurers (Heroic Division)?" Muriel asked.

"There's a Guild?" Ceza pouted. "The Ancient Scrolls didn't say a single word about a Guild."

"You trusted Ancient Scrolls to tell you how to find me?" Tam carefully set his cup of very hot tea down, somehow managing to convey the impression that this wasn't at all what he wanted to do with it.

"They're surprisingly accurate." Ceza clasped her hands primly in her lap. "Look, will you help me save my kingdom from my idiot brother or not? And please bear in mind that this is at most a polite rhetorical question since the Ancient Scrolls say that you will."

"Could be interesting," Muriel said. She looked up at Tam, tilting her head slightly. "Plus, we haven't had an assignment in a while; this way we don't have to explain why the icon of Toste the Sun Queen is missing another limb."

"Maybe." Tam drummed his fingers on the heavy oaken table. "You say that this Ultimate Treasure is located in the Forbidden Castle of Thorkell the Not Very Nice At All?"

"Yes."

"And you have no idea what it does. Or looks like. Or if there's a curse associated with it."

"Right."

Tam grinned, suddenly, and it wasn't at all like the sun had dawned or his face had suddenly become more beautiful. Tam just smiled and it was a pleasant smile that fit him well, wide and honest and it made Absalom instantly wary. He was a good Assassin. A very good Assassin, and part of the reason that he was very good was that he was always aware of his surroundings. And right now he was very aware of Tam. Aware of the fact that Tam was a very handsome man indeed and Ceza was the type of Princess who fell for handsome men all the time.

The urge to wipe that smug smile off of Tam's face, possibly by removing the face entirely, swelled within Absalom. He counted up to 42 in base twelve to calm himself down. It wouldn't do to kill Tam now; the Heart's Desire was still out of his hands and without it he would never convince Ceza that he was just as good a man as the bloody heroes she swooned over.

"P.G. is going to be pleased," Tam said, entirely unaware of the murderous little plan that lay curled and waiting in Absalom's mind. "We're going to need, what? A thief and a mage? Are Wren and Spike free?"

"I think so." Muriel had pulled a piece of foolscap from somewhere and was busy jotting something down with the stub of a pencil. "That's two warriors, one mage--though we might need two, Thorkell was a wizard after all--and a thief, plus the Prophecy surcharge, and the Invasion of A Forbidden Keep costs." She nibbled on her thumbnail. "We should probably take an Assassin along, just in case."

"What about him." Tam stared directly at Absalom and it was a bit of a shock. He'd thought the others had forgotten him completely.

"Who, Absalom?" Princess Ceza tossed her hair and sat up straighter, her perfect, pert breasts thrust out. She smiled her best Princess smile and trotted out giggle number four. "He's just my bodyguard."

"And that's all," Absalom said. "I'm just here to keep the Princess from getting any inconvenient mortal injuries."

"Right. Sorry. My mistake." Tam's gaze lingered on Absalom for another moment before he turned back to the Princess. "Well. I don't think we'll need to kill anybody in the middle of the night, so we shouldn't need an Assassin. Besides, Spike will do in a pinch." He smiled again, and Absalom fingered the hilt of his knife under the cover of his cloak. "Princess, I really hope your country is rich. Because you've just hired yourself some heroes⁷."

"We just need to run this by P.G." Muriel pushed herself away from the table and tucked the foolscap into a pouch. "If you'll come with me, Princess, we'll get a formal contract. Tam, you'll round up Spike and Wren?"

"But of course." Tam stood as well and executed a low, elegant bow. "I live but to serve." He winked at Ceza, who giggled in response--a number seven giggle, if Absalom wasn't mistaken. Which meant that this wasn't just a game to her anymore. She was actually beginning to take this flirtation seriously, and the last time that happened the Kingdom of Huma almost wound up with a nice, if incredibly dim, stevedore as a Prince Consort.

Absalom took a deep breath and began counting again.

He was a patient man. He could wait.

A Scene Badly Written

Mirador, Citie of Chronic Insomnia * The Guild of Adventurers * Spike * Doom, Weapon Of * Wren

Mirador began its life like so many other small towns: entirely by accident. In the beginning, it had been nothing more than a wooden brothel and some huts built on a bit of marshland that nobody wanted; which was perfectly fine, this being all that was required by the pirates who took refuge in its sheltering cove. It burned down quite often, sometimes from the torches of the soldiers of whatever kingdom happened to lay claim to the land around it but more often than not from a drunken pirate who wanted to know what happened when a torch was thrown into tavern's cellar. Then some enterprising pirate who had gotten seasick once too often had the brilliant idea of using the white stone, which made the non-fen like bits of Mirador completely worthless for any sort of farming, as building material. And thus the great city was born, though the only major differences between the Mirador of now and the Mirador of old is that it burns down less frequently and the pirates now hold government positions.

This is Mirador, largest and loudest and the longest running of cities. Grubby and gleaming and dangerous, it sings a siren's song to all those who dream of a better life¹. Like a large, bulbous toad, it squats on the banks of the River Qua, and, like the aforementioned toad, consumes the smaller towns and villages in its expansion, waiting until said small towns are lulled into a sense of false security and then pouncing in the middle of the night, surrounding and engulfing and then enjoying a little after-dinner smoke. Which is really quite disconcerting for those who live in the consumed towns. How would you like to wake up one morning to find your house is suddenly part of the new borough?

This is Mirador, city of many towers, which don't dream so much as they hallucinate. On the far Eastern shore stands Whitehall, ancestral home of the Van Alran clan, the tolerated rulers of Mirador. Around the proud keep are the gleaming manses of the rich and powerful: aristocrats and guild leaders, slumlords and assassins². Here, on the Eastside, the streets are wide and lined with trees, the cobbles well maintained. Grand carriages go racing down the streets, mowing down pedestrians with unconcerned ease. The houses here are large and made of the same white stone as the castle; their inhabitants dress in many layers of stiff clothing and drink tea and play mind games of politics and intrigue, which is really just silly because it all ends up on the point of a knife anyway. It is a pretty city, full of fantastical buildings and well scrubbed statues and tinkling fountains for pretty and useless girls to sit by and trail their hands in the cool waters and wait for a rich man to come along for them to sink their claws into. The smart rich girls know that the only thing trailing ones fingers in water gets them is wet hands and thus generally spend their time sitting very quietly in their fathers' studies pretending to knit and taking very careful note of where all the bodies are buried. This is the Mirador on the cover of all the travel brochures, the Mirador of landmarks, the Mirador that is sold to the tourists, the Mirador of dreams.

And this is also Mirador. Dusty alleys, hungry faces, ragged children playing in narrow streets. Where a family of six lives in a tiny room, and the houses are so close together that the rooftops become another roadway. This is the Mirador of the poor, the Mirador of the destitute, the Mirador that promised to not shove a knife in your belly if you gave it all the money you've got, yes, even the notes stuffed into the band of your socks. It is the Mirador where the lawless are actually lawless and not merely good businessmen. It is the Mirador of the unwashed masses, the Mirador of the downtrodden, the Mirador that forms the living base for those pretty houses of white up on the hill. It shares the same time and space as the gleaming, clean Mirador and this always confuses the Wizards, even though this sort of magic goes on all the time in cities everywhere across the Multiverse. This is the Mirador where most people end up, the Mirador of those who are drawn by the allure of the gleaming manses; of those who are seeking only to lose their pasts and start a new future where they aren't wanted by the Watch for questioning in a quadruple homicide; and of those, like Tam, who have ended up here merely because to continue going would require the ability to walk on water.

To those unfamiliar with Mirador, the great city is often quite confusing. Besides the meandering roadways³ and the fact that many of the streets have several names, there is also the problem that Mirador is always changing. Many a young hero has come to Mirador, fully intending to lead a glorious life of hacking and slashing only to find, years later, that they've somehow become a Certified Public Accountant who worries about paying little Timmy's Boarding School tuition on time. This is not because heroes have a natural aptitude for numbers, but rather because most heroes assume that the large, marble building that takes up most of the block on Broad Way and 12B Street which has the words "Guild of Adventurers" carved above the doors actually is the headquarters of the Guild of Adventurers (Heroic Division) and thus apply there for Guild membership, completely ignorant of the fact that this rather grand building is now the home of the Guild of Accountants⁴.

The current Guild of Adventurers is located at 147B Canker Street in a small room above 'Ms. Palm's Happy Helpers Massage Parlor'. Perhaps it wasn't the most glamorous of locales, but P.G. Harrison, the current Guild president, wasn't one to complain.

P.G. Harrison was not the most obvious choice for the president of the Guild of Adventurers (Heroic Division). He had a sallow face, cold, calculating eyes that looked at the world over the thin frames of his spectacles and a truly unfortunate moustache that made him look like he was about to tie some unsuspecting damsel to a large rock outside a monster's lair⁵. His black hair (which was often darkened by the inadvertent application of ink) only served to make him seem paler and more cadaverous than he actually was. The large, baggy coat, black again to prevent ink stains from showing up, with its numerous pockets hung off of his bony frame like an old overcoat on a scarecrow. When he was amused, like now, he would smile just a little and, while pressing the tip of his tongue against one of his prominent canines, give a little laugh that could only be described as evil.

"Oh that Charlie Brown," he chuckled. "When will he ever learn?"

"Who?" Muriel said.

P.G. Harrison hid the contraband paper quickly and cleared his throat with a dry, rustling sound that was more than vaguely reminiscent of wind blowing through the mostly bare branches of a tree at the tail end of autumn. He stroked his moustache and cast a practiced gaze over the assembled company.

"New recruits?" P.G. didn't speak loudly but his voice still managed to convey the same authority as that of a school principal who knew precisely what you had done and with whom and was still going to torture you by offering a slim ray of hope by faking ignorance. He opened a drawer that was filled with haphazardly filed forms and began to root through the thin, cheap paper. "You know I can't give you a bonus for bringing these two in until they've successfully completed a mission. Where'd I put those bleedin' forms?" He slid off of his chair and looked in the cardboard box he kept beneath his desk. "Not here. Or did I put them in them in the filing cabinet?" P.G. sat up and banged the back of his head on the underside of his desk. "Aargh!"

"Actually, we just need a contract." Muriel pulled the scrap of foolscap from her pouch and held it out to the still cursing P.G. who staggered to a more-or-less upright position. She very wisely didn't put it down on the desk where it would probably have been eaten by multi-celled organism that had evolved from the remnants of a half-dozen meals and a vial of homemade 'restorative'. "Standard four-member artifact retrieval."

"He's a hero?" Ceza whispered, staring in fascination as P.G., while scanning Muriel's notes, used a spoon to casually fend off the organism he had inadvertently given life to.

"Not really. He's a bureaucrat. He was also the only person who was in any way qualified for this job."

"You forgot to include a surcharge for inclusion of non-Guild members, but it looks pretty good otherwise." P.G. looked over his glasses at Muriel and smiled. "Seems like those years at the Guild of Accountants really paid off."

"You were an accountant?" Ceza blinked rapidly, before giving up on trying to picture Muriel as anything other than a warrior.

Muriel nodded curtly, and pressed her lips tightly together as she unhappily remembered her time with the Accountants. "It was a very dark time. I was one of the lucky ones. I managed to escape."

"Ah ha!" P.G. pulled several sheets of paper out from beneath the organism. "I knew I had those forms here." He shook the spoon at the organism who managed to look vaguely contrite. "Bad Bob. How many times have I told you to not eat my paperwork?"

"Gloop," Bob replied, slowly expanding across the desk.

"Oh, how can I stay mad at you?" P.G. pulled out a relatively clean contract and produced a quill from one of his many pockets. He snagged a pot of ink that had been perfectly balanced on one point and offered all three to the Princess. "Just sign on the dotted line. I'll fill out the particulars later. You too, Mr. Lurky McLurkerson," he added, smiling at Absalom. "We like to have paper trails."

"Lurky McLurkerson?" Absalom was, quite frankly, too stunned to be mad at this point. He'd been called many things in his lifetime, usually because he changed his name with a greater frequency than the waxing of the moon, but this was a first. "Lurky McLurkerson?"

"You don't have to put that down on the contract," Muriel said, somehow managing to keep a straight face despite the less-than-genteel laughter of the Princess, who had dropped the inkpot and quill in her merriment and was now bent double, gasping for air, her body still shaking.

"It suits you, Absalom." Ceza wiped the tears from her eyes and picked up the contract and quill. "You are very...lurky."

"I don't lurk." Absalom scowled and would have thrust his hands into his pockets if he'd had pockets to begin with. He brushed his hair out of his eyes instead. "I skulk. There's a difference."

"Well, yes, but Skulkly McSkulkerson just doesn't sound as good." P.G. removed his glasses and pulled a miraculously clean handkerchief out of his pocket. He began to clean the lenses. "I'm assuming that you're going to use Wren as your mage? And, hmmm..." P.G. put his glasses back on and stroked his moustache. "Aleksei for your thief?"

"Aleksei doesn't do forests, remember?" Muriel examined the edge of the desk, trying to act nonchalant. "Tam and I were thinking we'd use Spike."

"Spike?" P.G. took his glasses off again. "Really? As a thief?"

"He's part of the packaged deal with Wren," Muriel said. "Besides, he's an orc. If he can't find a way to finagle the whatsit out of the hands of whoever currently owns it, he isn't worth his pointy little ears."

"An orc?" Absalom half-drew his sword and snarled. "You would ask the Princess of Huma to travel with an orc? Are you insane? It's not enough that you're charging us for fulfilling a prophecy, but you also have to send your orc along to make sure that we're well and truly bankrupt? I know how this works. First it's just a simple game of cards, and the next thing you know you're walking home, naked, trying to come up with the best way to tell your employer that not only have you lost the object you were sent to retrieve but that you're going to have to take an unscheduled leave of absence since you've just sold yourself into slavery to cover your enormous debt. " Absalom grabbed Ceza's arm. "We're leaving, Princess. I knew that this was a bad idea."

"Too late." P.G. smiled his evil little smile and laughed his evil little laugh. "You've already signed the contract. If you try to break it now, you will be cursed unto the seventh generation! And don't think you can weasel your way out of it; if you think regular orcs are bad, wait until you meet our orcish lawyers."

"Um." Ceza held up unsigned contract. "We haven't signed yet."

P.G. stared blankly and then sighed. He sat down, squishing Bob in the process. "Damn. I always forget to make sure people have signed before saying that." He waved a hand despondently. "I suppose you won't be signing that now."

"Damn straight. Come, Ceza. We can do this without a prophecy." Absalom tugged on Ceza's arm in an attempt to get her to move. The Princess squawked as she was pulled off her feet.

"Absalom! Take your hand off me right now!" Ceza tried to put her foot down, but stumbled instead, colliding with Absalom in a distinctly graceless fashion.

"But Ceza," Absalom began.

"Enough." Ceza straightened her rumpled clothes. "Do you want to see Perus take the throne? We have no choice."

"And Spike isn't really all that bad for an orc," Muriel said. "He's cursed."

*

It has been said before that Tam was a handsome man. Despite his time in the mines he had grown up tall and straight and with excellent posture. He wore his long hair in a neat braid tied with a piece of leather whose ends bounced and danced against his back as he walked; he was always clean shaven, having learned early on that any attempts at a full and beautiful dwarfen beard tended to make him look like a small dog suffering from a severe case of mange had attached itself to his chin. Upon first glace, Tam looked mostly human, lacking both the rather pointed features of the elves and the more bulbous aspects of the dwarfs. In truth, the only thing that looked non-human about him were his ears which rose, in the fashion of both dwarfs and elves, to delicate points that, had they been formed from hardened calcium and used to house large marine snails, might be likened to conch shells.

None of his features were perfect, and taken separately some of them were rather odd. But, somehow, when taken as a whole instead of as disembodied parts, Tam was not just a nice person to rest ones eyes upon but almost compellingly good-looking.

Spike⁶, on the other hand, was just beautiful. It wasn't his fault. He was an orc, after all, and all orcs are beautiful⁷. He was tall and slender, his clear blue eyes habitually hidden by glasses with darkened lenses, his golden hair coveted by dwarfs everywhere. He had tried to mitigate his attractiveness, first by taking up smoking cigarettes, an action that had completely failed to give him yellow teeth or ashtray breath or even a nasty smoker's cough (largely because one puff on a cigarette was enough to make Spike turn green and pass out) and then by attempting to get a horribly disfiguring scar--another plan he'd had to give that up when he realized that he wasn't a big fan of letting some large oaf smack him in the face with a broken bottle. He'd even tried to pick up some terrible disease that manifested itself, but was sadly stymied by his pathological fear of hospitals. Eventually, Spike just resigned himself to being beautiful and getting on his life and being the best gosh darn orc he could possibly be.

Which hadn't been a bad plan for a while. He'd been quite good at basic orcishness, foreclosing orphanages and toying with the emotions of unstable teenagers. He'd even managed to get a motion passed that prohibited the parking of four-horse carriages on the western side of Grope Lane between the hours of 9 and 2, 3 and 10, and 10:37 and 8:42 on the odd-numbered days of the month, except during rains of sardines and high feast days. It wasn't bad for an orc of only 73. But then he'd tried to foreclose the wrong farmhouse and was cursed and life hadn't been beer and skittles for a long time.

Now it was mostly tea and cricket.

*

The Briar Patch was not the best part of Mirador. It was, in point of fact, the part of Mirador that was left entirely out of the average guidebook or only mentioned briefly in passing, and always referred to as 'an area of no cultural or historical significance and thus not one that any tourist should ever want to go to'. Which was a blatant lie⁸, but since the only guidebook to deal with The Briar Patch in depth began with 'The Briar Patch is a much maligned section of Mirador, being unfairly associated with murderers and the lawless. But--' and ended with a large bloodstain, it was a lie that had to be lived with. It was foolish to go into The Briar Patch with nothing less than a full army at your back and expect to exit with both kidneys still contained within your body. And yet into The Briar Patch Tam strode, without fear and secure in the knowledge that not only would he be leaving The Briar Patch with all of the body parts that he entered with still in his possession, but he would also engage in cheerful conversation with the colourful inhabitants on his way to Spike's current residence and quite possibly receive a still warm piece of Mrs. Stapleton's apple bosom. News like Tam got around, even among the barely verbal.

Spike lived in an old, rambling house that had once been the home of Cyneut the Builder, first king of Mirador who was remembered only through an inscription carved into the keystone of King's Gate and a punch line to a joke now lost in the mists of the past. Many of the homes in The Briar Patch had similar histories, having been the homes of the nobility of Mirador before they realized that living on swampland was just stupid and moved to the Eastside which actually had a view and soil that was well suited to pleasure gardens and orchards, abandoning their ancestral homes to the dregs of society who were only too happy to move in. There were large holes in the roof that Spike always swore he would repair but never quite got around to it. Despite its flaws and the three missing steps (which made sleep-walking a much more interesting experience), and the one corridor that began in the basement and ended up in the attic (which was missing an egress entirely), Spike rather liked his house. Where Tam and Muriel were conveniently located between two of the three most important buildings in any hero's life, Spike was located right next door to a pub that allowed him to run a tab, the last important building in a hero's world view, and just down the block from the largest black market on the continent.

"But look!" Spike said flourishing the sword and making it dance through the columns of sunlight that poured through the jagged holes in the roof. It made a high pitched whistling noise as it swooshed through the air, a picture of clean, sharp death in silver steel. "It's shiny!"

"It's called the Sword of Doom." Wren said. "It's probably evil. You can't keep it."

"Aw come on! Look at it! How can something this shiny be evil?" Spike grinned and spun about, beginning to spar against an invisible opponent and conveniently forgetting the fact that he was just as shiny as his new sword and quite evil too. He danced through the pools of sunlight, thrusting and riposting and getting far too involved in his day-dream as was his wont, going so far as to be forced down upon one knee, arms trembling as he held fast against an invisible onslaught before pushing his opponent back with a loud shout. In the battle in his mind, steel clashed on steel and fought not in the foyer of his home where every swooshing slash brought him closer and closer to the door, but on a wind scoured bluff somewhere far, far away, against a sky filled with dark bruise-coloured clouds and the flash of lightening cast the epic struggle in strobe lighting.

Wren rolled her eyes and went back to darning her sock. "Don't put another hole in the wall, Spike," she said. "I really don't think the Ohms want to see you wandering about naked in the morning any more than I do."

"I have you now, you blackard!" Spike slashed at the air and laughed maniacally. "You killed my father! Prepared to die!" He lunged forward and rammed the sword into the space suddenly filled by Tam's chest.

"Doom!" the sword squeaked as it crumpled like the cheap tin that it was.

"Ow." Tam looked down at his chest and then at the piece of scrap metal in Spike's hand. "Sword of Doom?"

"Yeah." Spike tossed the sword aside, scowling. "There're some groats I'll never see again."

"I told you you couldn't have the sword." Wren frowned at the now useless weapon. "And what are you going to do with it now? Defend yourself against somebody who's attacking you with a handful of kumquats?"

"Hey don't joke about being attacked with fruit! My Aunt Emily died from a sudden rain of cantaloupes." Spike sniffled, somewhat overdramatically. "Poor Aunt Emily. And she wasn't even particularly fond of cantaloupes."

"Yes, but what was this about me killing your father?" Tam said. "I thought your father was still alive."

"He is." Spike waved the question away with a flick of his hand, trying to be suave and cool and ignore the fact that he'd let himself be conned into buying something as useless as the Sword of Doom. "It's not important. So." Spike hopped up onto a counter. "What brings you down to our part of the world?"

"Is this a social call? Should I go make some tea?" Wren put her darning aside and half rose. Her dark grey dress clung to her in ways that she hadn't intended when she purchased it, and she pulled at the cloth, smoothing it out. She wasn't pretty but that didn't mean that she was ugly. There are many things in life that are pleasing to look at that can't be described as pretty. In Wren's case, it was because the word 'pretty' was rather useless and only collected metaphorical dust, and Wren was far too practical to keep many useless things around. Pretty was wildflowers in a vase--nice enough to look at for the first few days but ultimately more hassle than they were worth and after the first rush of pleasure all you were ultimately left with was dead vegetation that would just be disposed of in a few days. In Wren's opinion it was much better to use the time spent picking wildflowers in a more constructive fashion, such as mending the fence of the cow pasture before the cows got free and wrecked havoc upon the vegetable garden and found their way up onto the roof.

Looking at her it was hard to believe that she was anything as fanciful as a witch. She looked exactly like what she was: a young girl from the country who could be counted on to do what was needed without complaint and who never shirked her work, a girl who would marry a solid farmer and get awards for her cheeses and never have to coax a cow off a ledge⁹. And while innocent was certainly not a word that could be used to describe her, there was a naïve quality to her that made it seem as if she honestly had no idea as to how she had ended up here and any moment now she would come to her senses and head right back to her farm and family¹⁰. It always came as a surprise when she would politely refuse any offers of transport out of the city and back to the farm, and then proceed to not only know what she wanted but manage to get it for exactly how much she thought she should.

"It's not a social visit, Wren," Spike said. He pulled out his glasses and slipped them on, pushing up until they hid his eyes entirely. He grinned, broadly and viciously. "It's a job. Right?"

"Yes," Tam said. He turned to Wren who had taken her seat once more. "We need a magic user. Want to tag along?"

"But what about--"

"Spike? He can come too. We're probably going to need him."

"Hello? Right here. Spike can hear everything you're saying." Spike snorted, genteelly of course, and began to kick the front of the counter he sat upon. "Honestly. This is why elves are still running through forests wearing skins and making war, instead of building a comfortable nest egg and inventing useful things, like indoor plumbing. No manners. And don't even get me started on dwarfs."

"We don't need you that badly," Tam warned.

"Will there be fighting? And killing?" The glasses slid down his nose and the light in Spike's eyes was a clear reminder that the only thing separating an orc from an elf was a nice suit and a bath. "Because I'm good at those."

"There's a very good chance that those things will occur." Tam looked at the discarded sword. "Please tell me that you have another weapon."

"Of course. What do you take me for? A complete idiot?"

"I'm not sure if we should even go." Wren looked up at the roof. "We finally have enough free time and money that Spike can fix the holes in the roof."

"There's a prophecy," Tam said. "And an artifact that's probably of great magical import."

"Well there we go, then." Spike hopped off the table. "It's a prophecy, Wren. That takes precedence over such trivial things as manual labor. Besides, what kind of friends would we be if we let Spike and Muriel go off on a Quest all by their lonesomes?" He pulled his glasses off and smiled his most beguiling smile, the one that still managed to work on Wren. When he saw that she was beginning to waver, he crossed to her quickly and squatted at her side, looking up beseechingly through his long eyelashes. "Please?"

"Fine," Wren said. "But you're fixing the roof when we get home."

"Of course, my lovely." Spike kissed Wren's cheek with a loud smack and rose like a spring, bouncing up and away. "I'll go pack."

"You shouldn't encourage him," Tam said, watching Spike dance out of the room, humming something inane under his breath. "I thought you were trying to break him of his bad habits."

"What's a little harmless flirtation when it gets him to fix the roof?" Wren said. She rose and went to the side cupboard where she kept some of the more innocuous ingredients she used in her potions, as well as the 20-foot long coil of rope. She pulled the rope out and started to undo the knot that kept it in a neat coil. "Snowmelt warps the boards, and it stops being amusing to see Spike slip on a bit of ice and slide into the door after about the fifth time."

"Really?" Tam looked at the solid door that nominally kept the rest of the Briar Patch outside. "I wouldn't think that Spike running into things could ever got boring."

"With cat-like tread, upon our prey we steal." Spike's voice was slightly muffled by the walls, but not nearly enough. "In silence dread, our cautious--Awk!" A loud thud a few seconds later punctuated Spike's startled exclamation. "Ow."

"Spike?" Tam cautiously made his way into the next room, one hand hovering near his axe. The threat of Wren might keep most of the inhabitants of The Briar Patch at bay, but there were always a few foolhardy souls just dying to commit suicide. He peered into the brightly lit corridor that was utterly absent one blond, singing orc. "Spike, where are you?"

"In the bleedin' basement." Spike's voice floated up from the vicinity of the stairs. "I forgot about the missing fourth step again."

Tam looked down the hole made by the missing stair at Spike, who stared petulantly back up. "Why is the basement directly under your staircase?"

"Because it is. Now look, are you going to throw me a rope and get me out of here, or are you just going to laugh and ask me stupid questions?"

"Well, if you're going be like that, I think I might just have to point and laugh at you." Tam tucked his thumbs into his belt and rocked on his hells, grinning.

"Oh by the slithy toves! You're a hero, Tam! Rescue me! It's your job!"

"Sorry. I'm off the clock." Tam climbed up the stairs, making sure to mind the gap. He sat down one step above where Spike had fallen and smirked to himself.

"You know," Wren said, as she came into the hallway, carrying the now untied coil of rope, "this wouldn't happen quite so often if you just fixed the steps in the first place."

"I'll fix them! I promise! Are you going to throw me a rope now?"

"Watch your head." Wren threw the coil down where it landed with a dull thud. She looked up at Tam, a long-suffering expression on her face. "I'm sorry about all of this, Tam, but. Well. Would you please help me pull him out? If you don't we're just going to be stuck here forever."

"Of course." Tam descended the stairs and grabbed the end of the rope. "I'm pulling now, Spike, so you'd better be ready."

Hand over hand, Tam hauled Spike up, his breathing even and face completely free of strain.

"So you help when she asks, but not when I do? I knew you were a speciesist."

"No, it's because Wren said please." Tam leaned down and stared down at Spike. He let the rope slide through his hands, dropping Spike back into the darkness, before grabbing hold once more, halting Spike's fall with a sudden, teeth-rattling jerk. "And you're an idiot for insulting the man who's holding pulling you out of the hole you got yourself into."

When people first met Spike, they often thought that he had been cursed with stupidity. Largely because of incidents like this one.

They're wrong, though.

Spike was cursed with morality. The stupidity was entirely his own.

The Sun Burns In The West

Horses, Trouble With * Migrath * The Importance of Names * Morality

One of the benefits of being the bodyguard to the Princess of Huma, Absalom had found, was that he didn't have to depend upon the somewhat dubious horses available at Mirador's livery stables and their even more dubious saddles. On the other hand, because he had his own horse, he was stuck with him.

Absalom knew that being given a horse by the king himself was considered quite an honor. For all his eccentricities, the King of Huma was considered by many to be quite the accomplished horse breeder. While the horses from the royal stables might not have been as highly sought after as some, the majority of them were still considered good steeds, intelligent and with a gentle temperament, and always a reliable choice for any of the myriad forms of Questing.

And then there was Ugo.

Ugo was less a horse and more a large, slobbering, shaggy rhino. He was ugly and he was smart and he was a stallion--not because the King of Huma had any particular urge to breed Ugo but because the one and only time they tried to geld him, he'd demonstrated quite handily that he understood the gelding process and was more than willing to show the nice man he had by the bits and pieces just how good at it he was.

He was distinctly unsuited to Absalom, being, well, distinctive.

"That's your horse?" Muriel said, when Absalom emerged from the stable he'd been quartering their horses in and led his less-than-noble steed to the hitching post where he began to tack up in a slow methodical manner, deftly avoiding Ugo's two half-hearted attempts to break some of his toes. "That? Is it even a horse?"

Ugo snorted and crowded up against Absalom, leaning all of his not-inconsiderable bulk against Absalom's back. He eyeballed Muriel, first stretching his neck out over Absalom's shoulder and then pulling back and turning his head from side to side. He absently nibbled on Absalom's hair, leaving a trail of slimy white foam in his wake.

"Of course Ugo is a horse," Ceza said, already on her palomino gelding¹. "He was a present from my father, to thank Absalom for his many years of loyal service."

"A present." Muriel eyeballed Ugo back, then looked down at Absalom from her saddle². "What'd you do? Sleep with the Queen?"

"It's an honor to receive any gift from the King, but especially a horse from his stables," Absalom said, his voice perfectly level, betraying nothing, as he pulled the girth tighter. Ugo bit him on the ass, bending around beautifully. His teeth closed on the extra layer of cloth Absalom had taken to wearing after the first time Ugo had tried this, and he snorted, shaking his head in disappointment. Absalom smacked him on side of his neck. "Quit it."

Ugo snorted and leaned down to casually chew on his knee.

Absalom took a deep breath and checked his saddle. He had found early on in his relationship with this horse that the best tactic for dealing with Ugo was to be as calm and patient as the statue of a saint. Getting angry at Ugo was more or less pointless, and generally lead to some form of reciprocation later on. Ugo was exactly the type of horse to hold a grudge.

"An honor." If Absalom had not been terribly preoccupied with trying to get the bit into Ugo's mouth, he might have noticed the hint of schadenfreudistic delight in Muriel's voice. "And I'm assuming that accompanying the Princess is another honor."

"Of course." Absalom put his foot in the stirrup and uncomfortably followed Ugo around as he circled around like a dog chasing its tail. He pulled himself into the saddle and forced Ugo to stand. "But I would have accompanied my princess even if my king had not asked me to."

Muriel rolled her eyes but was spared the task of pointing out to Absalom that his horse was anything but an honor by the clattering of slowly walking horses.

"Yo," Spike called out as they approached. "Are we ready to great JubJub's spittoon! What in the world is that?"

"A horse. In theory, at any rate." Muriel picked up her reins and nudged her horse into a walk, merging easily with the approaching threesome. "Spike, Wren, meet Absalom and Ceza."

"I'm sure we'll all be great friends," Ceza said, a bit impatiently, "but we've already wasted enough time in this city. I have a deadline, you know." She wheeled her horse about and trotted out of the stable yard, Absalom trailing her loyally.

"Oh great. A Princess." Spike sighed and shot an accusatory glare at Tam as they followed at the same sedate walk. "You never said anything about there being a Princess."

"It's a prophecy," Tam said. "Of course there's a Princess."

"And she's got a lovesick retainer," Muriel added. "We can't forget that." She sighed. "Could somebody remind me why we signed up to be heroes?"

"Oh you know. Honor, glory, going to far off lands, seeing interesting objects and removing them from obviously inferior cultures. Maintaining a karmic balance in the world. Oh and our innate sense to Do What Is Right," Wren said.

"And the money." Tam grinned. "Don't forget the money."

*

It would, perhaps, be amusing to now take the time to recount the trails and tribulations of our brave heroes as they struggled to leave the grasp of Mirador, to spew forth passages of purple prose about Tam's daring rescue of Ceza from the dreaded Half-Off Sale, or Muriel's ingenious plan of always turning right, even down one-way streets, or Absalom's ultimate brilliance in deciding to just stop and get directions, pride be damned. But it would just be very silly and there're enough silly scenes already. So we shall leave them for a moment, pulling up and up into the sky until they are nothing but a tiny dot and then, even that becomes lost amidst the snow and earth and green. And then further back until the total of the little globe upon which they walks can be seen, blue and green and white and brown and grey and it wobbles along the edge of the Multiverse, orbited by its sun and so close to the breaking of reality that sometimes things slip in that shouldn't.

This little planet is called Migrath, but is more universally known as the Broken World; which is not a metaphysical statement meant to illustrate the vast socio-political fractures of the many races of the world, but a literal truth, as the Supreme Creator, He who is Mother of all Worlds (and don't think that didn't cause some raised eyebrows), had not worn oven mitts when taking the Migrath out of that vast oven in which all worlds are made and, as an inevitable result, dropped the bloody thing and had to blow on his singed fingertips, cursing like a sailor on leave. However, as the Supreme Creator has laziness as an inherent property, he decided that it wasn't worth the effort to build a new world and thus the Broken World was put back together with the cosmic equivalents of Ductape and Krazy Glue and placed it on the furthermost reaches of dimensional reality (much like the misshapen pot relegated to the dusty upper shelf of the shop) to wobble its merry way through time, space, and the occasional dimensional rift, a blue-green-white-brown marble in a giant game of Nineholes.

This is not, however, a view that most of the planet's inhabitants have. Only those lucky (or, perhaps, unlucky) enough to be invited to heavenly Lokholm, the hall of the important Gods of Migrath, ever see their planet spread out before them, bereft of fleeting mortal boundaries. Of course, as only the dead are ever invited to Lokholm, their thoughts tend to run more along the lines of "Yeah, that's right, Troll. Your mother was a pebb-oh. Damn." Yet even from Lokholm, some mortal marks can still be seen: The Great Lighthouse of Arandae whose giant mirror, due to an understandable error made when reading the blueprints, points towards the city it was meant to defend and tends to light houses on fire on really sunny days; the pyramids of Gara, the ancient tombs built to house pharaohs who later decided they preferred the 'Eternal Slumber' plots which overlooked the river Pheate, thanks; and, of course, Mirador, "The Citie of Chronic Insomnia", which always twinkles brightly³ against the brown-green backdrop of the Dowerdell plains, that fertile land of silt and mud that runs up to the Very Tall Mountains⁴ the great stone backbone of the Broken World.

From this high up, the continents and oceans look rather like a very large obscene gesture.

It's really quite to bad that only the dead and the Gods see Mirador from up on high. They don't get the joke.

*

"We need a name," Spike said suddenly. "When the Bards write an epic ballad about this Quest they're going to need a name to call us as a group. They can't just refer to us as 'Them' or 'The Group' or 'The Heroes, The Princess and The Other Guy'. And that whole 'fellowship' thing has really been done to the death."

For a while there was only the sound of the horses plodding along the hard dirt road that neither curved nor twisted in its linear progression from Mirador to Ni Peng, and the faint noises of the countryside in the full swing of summer. And while the occasional trill of a distant bird and the low hum of cicadas was pretty enough, after the first hour it became just background noise. By the second when, numbed from staring at the unrelieved monotony of the Dowerdell plains, the mind began to anticipate that random birdsong, the summertime soundtrack was downright maddening. And so, despite the pure inanity of his comment, Spike knew that one of his companions would break down and answer him.

"How do you know bards are going to write an epic ballad about us?" Ceza said at last and with obvious reluctance.

"It's part of the standard Hero's Contract." Spike looped his reins over his saddle horn and slid his feet out of his stirrups, stretching his legs as much as he could, trusting that his very old gelding would continue to plod in a generally Western direction, contentedly following the butt of Tam's horse. He actually felt a bit sorry for his horse; if staring at the unending turnip fields was driving him batty, then staring at the same horse butt must be torture.

"Does it really matter what they call us? They're just going to get all the details wrong anyway." Muriel twisted slightly in her saddle, looking back at Spike. "Like this part. Do you really think that any bard is going to waste ink and paper describing our boring journey across the Dowerdell Plains? Just look at this place!" Muriel made a broad, sweeping gesture with her free hand. "The only way we could be ambushed by bandits is if they disguised themselves as turnips."

"Doesn't matter. We still need a name." Spike was determined to stick to his original topic of conversation. "It's important."

"What's more important," Tam said, "is to know why we're going after this thing, this Heart's Desire." Tam's expression was uncommonly serious and he looked very un-hero like indeed. He halted his horse, expertly turning it until it blocked the path and forced the others to stop, completely ignoring the fact that the road was more than wide enough to permit the others to ride around him if they so desired. "Now why don't you tell us exactly what's going on, Princess."

Ceza shifted uncomfortably, making her gelding prance. "I--" she began.

"She doesn't have to answer anything," Absalom said. He edged Ugo forward, ignoring the way Ugo's ears went back the closer he got to Tam's gelding. "The Princess has hired you to retrieve an object. That's all you need to know."

"If it was just a simple fetch job, I highly doubt that a prophecy would have been written for it. And you definitely wouldn't need a hero." Tam stared at Absalom, his eyes betraying nothing, and not even the knowledge that he could kill Tam as easily as draw a breath could make Absalom hold his gaze. "Now what aren't you telling us? You said this thing could save your kingdom. From what? And how? You don't even know what it looks like or what it does."

"Does it matter? The prophecy says that this is what will save Huma and that you're the one who will find it. End of story." Absalom looked Tam up and down. "Although how you are supposed to 'raise the child of Locke out of darkness absolute' is a mystery to me."

("Well, he is rather good at hauling people out of dark places," Wren said.

"Yes. I can attest to those skills first hand." Spike waited for a moment but there was no response.

"Forget it," Muriel said. "Those two wouldn't notice it if a sink fell out of the sky and landed between them. They're experiencing Conflict."

"Well frumious bandersnatch. I didn't think that was going to happen until we'd gotten a bit further." Spike slid off his horse. "Well I can see that we're going to be here for a while. I'm going to go fertilize some turnips." He handed his reins to Wren and headed into the fields, walking carefully between the neat rows.

"Oh for a bush or a tree," Wren muttered, and turned resolutely away from the sight of Spike searching for a place to relieve himself.

"I thought we had a deadline." Muriel muttered. She glanced over at Ceza who was nibbling on her lower lip. "Great. Now she's Conflicted. We're never going to get off this blasted road."

Wren eyed Ceza. "A fiver says she stops those two before they get to blows."

"You're on." Muriel leaned forward and her voice took on a wheedling quality. "Don't do it, Ceza. Be strong. Internalize this Conflict. Use it to grow as a person."

"Come on Ceza." Wren used the same tone of voice that had made her so good and wrangling cows down from roofs. "Let it out. You don't want to be the girl that makes two boys fight over her. When you're immortalized by the bards, you'll be hated by every female who can't get even one boy to fight over her. And there are a lot of them.")

"I'd like to see this prophecy. I think you're making it up." Tam and Absalom had gotten as close as two preoccupied people on horses with minds of their own could whilst this rather silly story became momentarily sillier, and stared challengingly into each other's eyes. Absalom's were beginning to water from maintaining his stare and his right hand was twitching near his dagger. Tension crackled between them; between their horses, however, there was merely confusion, largely on Ugo's part since he was unused to being flirted with by a gelding and wasn't quite sure how he should take the snuffling and nuzzling. Since his original plan had called for biting and a little bit of kicking thrown in for good measure--a plan that had been derailed by this sudden display of affection--he was at something of a loss. "And who, by Toutis' big toe, is Locke's kid?"

"If you were at all educated, you would know that Locke was the first King of Huma." Absalom was trembling and the only things he was sure of was that he didn't like it and Tam was somehow involved.

"My father wants it," Ceza said, cutting in so suddenly that the fevered tension, which had marked the earlier scene, drained away until all that remained was the normal tension that always existed in Tam and Absalom's interactions.

"Yes!" Wren's smirk changed to a slightly more embarrassed grin as she became the focus of three slightly confused stares and one annoyed one. "Sorry. Go on. You were saying something about your father?"

"Right." Ceza sighed and was suddenly just a girl embarrassed by her parents and not a Princess. "My father got these Ancient Scrolls a few years ago and they mentioned something about an Ultimate Treasure named the Heart's Desire. He became obsessed with it. He wanted to know everything about it; where it was, what it looked like, what it did. His curiosity consumed him. He'll do anything to get his hands on this Heart's Desire--including relinquishing his throne to whichever child brings it back to him. And, since my two older brothers have tried and failed, the only ones who can inherit the throne are me and my younger brother Perus. Fortunately, I have the advantage of the prophecy and you." She turned to Absalom. "This is the cataclysmic event that would lead to the dissolution of Huma and the 'suffering of all, yea even until Huma is naught but a kingdom of light and dust', right? I mean, since having Perus on the throne would more or less insure the destruction of Huma."

"Probably. We've had the requisite hundred years of peace and prosperity."

"I see. I'm assuming that Perus is a fat, greedy, evil, manipulative bastard who would sell your people into slavery to satisfy his gluttony?" Tam grinned. "Because if that's the case, then we don't really need to go fetch this treasure at all. We can just go kill him; we're very good at dealing with evil princes."

"No," Ceza said. "Perus isn't evil; and he isn't all that fat, either. He's just a bibbling idiot."

"Oh." Tam fiddled with his saddle horn in embarrassment. "I see." He looked around at the unchanging green of the turnip fields. "Where's Spike?"

"I've got it! We'll call ourselves 'The Six'!" Spike said, cinching his belt tighter as he approached the group.

"Oh not this again." Tam wheeled his horse around and started off again at a brisk walk. The other horses, being good, dependable Trail Horses, followed suit, instinctively forming a single-file, butt-to-nose line despite the available space.

"Oi!" Spike ran after them and scrambled onto his horse. "Tam! You bastard!"

"Why is what we're collectively called so important to you?" Absalom had fallen back, much to the disappointment of Tam's horse. Though he would never have said so, he was curious.

"Because names are important, Abby," Spike replied. He grinned cheekily in response to Absalom's threatening glare. "You don't like Abby? Well, what about Sal?"

"You can call me Absalom. And only Absalom."

"Fine. But this only illustrates my point. Names are incredibly important." Spike shifted into a more comfortable position. "Names aren't just what we're called, they're what we are. Or, rather, what we're seen to be by the world."

"You've lost me."

"Okay. Let's see if I can illustrate this better." Spike absently scratched his horse's neck, pulling free the few strands of mane that had been stuck underneath his saddle. "You don't trust me, right?"

"You're an orc," Absalom said. "Of course I don't trust you."

"Yeah, but I bet that when you learned that my name was Spike you automatically thought that I was a no good ruffian. Possibly with a scar. And I bet that you're thinking right now that I'm only pretending to be nice to gain your confidence and get you to drop your guard so that, at some crucial moment, I can stab you in the back and loot your corpse." Absalom shrugged noncommittally and Spike continued. "Of course you are. Now, would you trust a man named Percival D'Vaeant?"

"Maybe."

"Makes you think of a gentleman, right? Rich clothes, possibly a little effeminate, stickler for propriety? Would never even consider looting a corpse, much less creating one."

"I suppose," Absalom replied, even though the name Percy made him think of his Uncle, who had run the local brewery until he'd become a little too fond of his own product and was discovered floating in Vat #3 one morning, a pleased expression on his face.

Spike grinned. "I'm Percy D'Vaeant. Or I was. And Percy D'Vaeant wouldn't have hesitated to stab you in the back. Although, probably not for something as small as your purse."

"So, what, you changed your name and suddenly gained a conscience?" Absalom snorted. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Actually, I gained a conscience and changed my name. I mean, really. Who would believe in the Great Hero Percy? Sounds like a kid playing make-believe. Sort of like being the 'All Powerful Witch Abigail', eh Wren?" Spike raised his voice and then leaned conspiratorially over to Absalom. "She changed it to Wren because she thought Wren sounded more 'mystical'."

"Are you making fun of my name again, Spike?" Wren said. "Because I can always turn you back into a newt."

"She turned you into a newt?"

"I got better," Spike muttered. "But do you get what I'm trying to say? What we're called is very important to the world, even if it says absolutely nothing about ourselves. Back when I was Percy the world thought that I was a good guy, which made it very easy to do some truly rotten things."

"All right, I concede that our names do have some relationship to how the world treats us. But 'Spike'? Why 'Spike'? It just sounds...well, evil."

"I have to retain some of my orcishness. It's not like I want to be a good guy, after all. I have to. It's a compulsion." Spike sighed and slumped in his saddle. "I mean, it's embarrassing! And expensive. Do you know how many people drop their wallets in Mirador? Hundreds! And every time I see one, I have to go turn it in to the Watch. And I don't even get a reward! Plus, I'm not allowed to kill anybody, except when I'm on a Quest, which means that I have to be extra careful about getting into a street fight with some pompous ass. And the guilt! What kind of orc feels guilty about foreclosing an orphanage? Why kind of an orc feels bad about following his natural inclinations? And don't even talk to me about puppies." Spike spat to one side. "Damn things are everywhere. 'S an infestation. And I can't even kick them, it's terrible." He sighed again and looked up at the clear, blue sky. "My poor mother! Oh the shame of having such a son as me!"

Absalom rolled his eyes and tuned out the rest of Spike's self-pitying rant. He nudged Ugo up until he could ride alongside Wren. "Is he always like that?"

"It's his favorite subject." Wren had pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from her saddlebags and was writing a letter on it. "He's written an opera on it. How do you spell 'unrelieved'?"

"I don't." Absalom listened to Spike for a moment and then turned his attention back to Wren. "You're a witch. Can't you shut him up?"

"Don't I wish." She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. "How many esses are in the possessive of Princess?"

"Three, the two regular ones and the possessive. He's been cursed with morality, right? Whose?"

"What?" Wren looked up from her letter and blinked.

"Whose morality? Is it religious based? Societal? Absolute? What are the rules? What is the guiding principle?"

"I. I don't know." Wren looked back at Spike. "Nobody's ever asked that question before."

"How can you not know?" Absalom waved a hand. "Never mind. I'll worry about that later. Spike said that he's only allowed to kill people within the scope of a Quest--I'm assuming that he only meant people who attack him. But what else is he allowed to do while on a Quest? Is he allowed to preemptively kill a 'bad guy'? And what if he decides that one of us is a 'bad guy'? And how do we know that he's really cursed in the first place?" Absalom paused, knowing that he sounded more than slightly paranoid. "I just need to know. To keep the Princess safe, I mean."

"Ah ha! One I can answer." Wren grinned. "I know that Spike's been cursed because I cursed him. Which, in retrospect, was probably a bloody stupid thing to do because now I'm stuck with him. Price of the magic and all that." Wren wrinkled her nose. "I wished a conscience on him, and he got one. Me."

"So it's your morality that guides him."

"Nope!" Wren smiled cheerily. "I just know when he's about to do something that isn't allowed by the magic that binds us. Of course, sometimes I tell him to do things just because it's funny." She smirked. "Like petting puppies."

"You just...know." Absalom rubbed his forehead. "Great. That's comforting. Bloody mystical forces."

"Well, it's a better way of finding a moral code than some. At least all of the guesswork has been taken out of ours. We're either doing the right thing or we aren't, and we know it too. And speaking of a 'moral code', what is yours, pray tell?"

"I don't have one. I'm nothing but a tool in the service of my king." Absalom looked up ahead to where Ceza rode. As he watched, she urged her palomino up to Tam's side, where it promptly got into a fight with Tam's horse, biting and kicking and squealing until Ceza dropped back. Tam twisted in his seat and shrugged apologetically. "I'll do anything to keep the Princess safe."

"So, really, we should be the ones worrying about being killed in our sleep."

Wren had meant it mostly as a joke, but Absalom nodded, face calm, and moved up to Ceza effectively ending the conversation. He didn't speak a word, just rode beside her, but something about his presence obviously worried the Princess because her sharp "No" was very audible.

He didn't move.

"Scary," Wren muttered. She put the letter she was working on back into her saddlebag and dropped back to where Muriel was keeping a theoretical eye on their rear and the packhorses, but was mostly using this time to daydream about being taller. "He's just a bodyguard?"

"Hmm?" Muriel blinked. "Sorry?"

"Absalom. He's really just a bodyguard."

"'S what he said." Muriel snorted. "I'll be damned if I ever met a bodyguard like him, though."

"So what he really is, is a liar."

"Yup." Muriel closed her eyes again. "Y'know what'd be great? If we didn't have to do all of this blasted traveling to get from place to place."

"What, instantaneous transportation?" Wren shook her head. "Nah. I bet you you'd still get bored."

"I was actually wishing that we could travel like they do in the epic ballads." Muriel opened one eye. "Y'know, 'then set they forth from Mirador, 'crost the emerald fields of Dowerdell, traveling with relentless determination until they saw the lofty spires of Ni Peng'. One sentence and we're there. None of this plodding along, biding our time and getting saddle sores."

"Too bad this is life and not a badly written poem. On the other hand we don't have to say 'spake' unless we really want to. Or deal with bizarre capitalization rules."

"Hmph." Muriel tucked her head into her chest and put both hands atop her saddle horn, holding the reins loosely. Her breathing evened out and Wren hoped that she hadn't fallen asleep. Though Muriel was a warrior through and through and was generally sure of foot, she was still human and prone to human fallibility. In particular, she was prone to that unique sensation of falling that creeps upon those who are on the edge of sleep and causes them to jerk hurriedly awake, heart pounding and the body still convinced that the ground has dropped away--annoying enough when lying in a motionless bed, but downright dangerous atop a horse, even one as slow and even-tempered as Muriel's.

Ah well, Wren thought. It'll give me a chance to practice healing head wounds.

She looked forward at the backs of her companions and thought about the letter she was writing home.

The sun burned lower in the West.

Blankets and Bedclothes the Child of the Mountain

Of Orcs and Elves * Camp * Cooking, Muriel and Hazards of * Villains

It has often been said (though nobody is quite sure by whom) that the only difference between an orc and an elf is a bath and a nice suit. And while it is true that if one could convince an elf to wash away the dirt and grime and take off his silly leather and put on a suit, perhaps a pinstripe, he would greatly resemble your modern orc, the similarity would only be superficial.

Not that orcs and elves aren't, at a very basic level, astonishingly similar, particularly in their desire for control. This is because, once upon a time, the elves and the orcs were one species who lived in perfect harmony. And then the orcs took the Good China Teapot That Gran Promised Our Sheila She Could Have And The Will Doesn't Mean Anything, She Was Old And Senile When She Wrote It and the elves Insulted Our Neville and that was, more or less, the end of elvish and orcish co-habitation, the elves retreating further into the forest and the orcs moving into the cities.

The biggest difference between the two, of course, is Iron¹.

The second difference is that where elves prefer to get their hands dirty and bring a personal touch to the death of their enemies, orcs subscribe to the 'throw money at it until it goes away' problem-solving approach.

The third is that the orcs, never hesitate to vocalize their displeasure with the world. Elves, on the other hand, will take action and remove the displeasing presence.

By excessive force, for preference.

*

"Huwah!" Spike groaned as he slid off of his horse. He arched his back and twisted from side to side in an effort to relieve the ache of riding all day. "Man. I think I'm getting too old to be in the saddle for twelve hours straight." He bent down and touched his toes in an effort to relieve the ache of his knees and took a deep breath, wrinkling his nose as he caught a whiff of himself. "Plus, I stink like an elf."

"You smell like dust, sweat and horse," Tam said. He tied his horse to the picket line Muriel had erected and put his belongings in the sturdy lean-to that was found in every Wayfarer's station. "And iron," he added, pulling his saddlebags away from his rangy bay who'd been snuffling at them in hope of a carrot or possibly a bit of sugar. "Elves smell like earth and leather and blood."

"I stink either way." Spike pulled off his jerkin and shirt, folding them neatly and putting them on his saddlebags. His pale skin was given an healthy glow by the ruddy light of the setting sun. "I'm going to take a bath."

"Take the kettle with you," Muriel said. "Be useful for a change. And bathe downstream. Nobody wants to have Spike-flavored soup for dinner."

"Mm." Spike wandered off in the direction of the stream, swinging the kettle and singing an old orcish lullaby as he went. "Hoi Hoi Karou Karou Mada Mada Danjiroh²."

"I'll get the firewood." Tam stooped and pulled his hatchet out of one of the packhorse's saddlebag. He stuffed the bit of protective leather he'd wrapped around the head to preserve its edge into a pouch. He walked past the picketed horses and headed for the small glade²³ that had marked this as a Wayfarer's station⁴ as opposed to a bit of unplanted land.

The sun sank lower as the camp bustled with the usual camp activity: the unpacking every bag to find that one necessary item that's always at the bottom of the last bag; the repacking of all the items that are now strewn across the camp; the cursing and swearing and wondering why it seems like the amount of stuff one has brought has some how doubled, as this can be the only possible explanation as to why there's always something that can't fit back into the packs; the pondering of why one's companion decided to take up valuable space by packing what appears to be the entire contents of his wardrobe when, really, this is just a two week Quest and does he honestly think that they're going to run into an unexpected Ice Age?

"So," Wren said to Ceza at last, having managed to excavate the cutlery. "I don't suppose you know how to cook?"

"Why?" Ceza looked up from where she was feeding the horses.

"Because it's just you or me if we want edible food." Wren began to tick off the reasons why the others were never allowed to touch a frying pan for any purpose other than a humourous attack, ignoring the growing looks of incredulity from Ceza. "Tam likes his food rare; the bloodier the better. Which, for the likes of mere mortals such as ourselves, is a gilded invitation for salmonella. Spike tends to cook in what he calls 'cajun style', but what it really is is charred beyond recognition. And Muriel is Muriel."

"What kind of a reason is that?"

"A very good one," Spike said. He was dripping water all over his boots and his hair was in his eyes, but he was smiling with the pleased expression of the newly cleansed. "We all remember the Boiling Water Incident."

"Ooh, yes." Wren shuddered. "Those poor, poor people. They never had a chance."

"It started out innocently enough," Spike said, completely ignorant of the fact that he was being ignored. "And then there was the explosion..."

"Ah." Ceza looked over at Muriel, who was busy directing Tam in the proper way to build a fire, mostly through sitting on a convenient log and mocking his flint and tinder skills. "And you? What terrible thing do you do to food?"

"...and then a flaming church fell from the sky..."

"I don't do terrible things to food." Wren sniffed. "In fact, I'll have you know that my porridge is quite famous."

"...but what was really odd was that there weren't any worshipers of Tezuka for miles around, so we're not really sure where that church came from..."

"But I'm guessing that porridge is all you can make⁵." Ceza sighed. "Well, fortunately for us all, I can cook." She glared at Wren. "But I don't clean."

"...the bells were quite pretty too. Well, until they melted."

"What are you talking about?" Absalom asked. Spike yelped and jumped away in surprise. He panted and grabbed his chest.

"Don't do that!" He took a few deep breaths and composed himself. "We were discussing cooking."

"Ah. Well, I've caught dinner." He handed Wren the four rabbits he'd bagged and turned away. "I'm going to go check on Ugo. He was walking funny for that last mile."

Spike stared after him. "Useful fellow."

"Well," Ceza said with a smile. "We like him."

*

Muriel, perhaps because she wasn't allowed to touch anything cooking related, was absolutely fascinated by the process. And it wasn't just because cooks were given large, shiny knives and Muriel was a very big fan of large, shiny knives. She sat beside Ceza, staring with wide eyes as the raw materials were transformed from their plain and uninspiring states to things of beauty and edibility.

It was magic and the fact that ordinary people, who could perform these useful spells with such grace and ease, couldn't even see what was so miraculous and amazing about their feats of culinary chicanery made Muriel's head spin.

"Amazing," she said. "Where'd you learn to cook?"

"Back home." Ceza dipped the potato she held into the smaller pail of water that she'd boiled after Tam had brought it up from the stream and began to srcub it clean. "It was this or needlepoint. Besides, I've always heard that the way to a man's heart is through the stomach."

Muriel thought on that for a moment. "Well, yes, I suppose that from the front, it is. But don't forget to aim upwards and under the ribs, because other wise you're just giving him a gruesome belly wound."

"Oh," Ceza said. The fire popped and crackled as she digested this piece of information. Deciding that it would only be detrimental to her cooking to continue thinking about stomach wounds and internal organs in general, she decided to move on to an entirely different topic. "Are you and Tam, uh. Lovers?" She looked down at the potato she was scrubbing with unusual intensity, oozing casualness with every ounce of acting ability that she had.

"What, me and him?" Muriel began to laugh, her laughter eventually turning into a wheezing gasp as she bent double, body shaking from her merriment. "'Cor. That was a good one."

"I'll take that to mean no." Ceza put the cleaned potato into her lap and picked up another, repeating the process.

"Very much so." Muriel poked at the fire and watched with a little envy as Ceza tossed the washed potatoes into the kettle of boiling water. "Tam's a nice looking bloke and all. But." She looked out into the darkness that held, among other things, the man currently being discussed. "He's. Well, he's a little odd."

"Am not," Tam said as he approached the fire. He held the dressed rabbits away from his body to keep the blood from getting on his clothing. "I'm perfectly normal."

"Tam, compared to you, Spike is a shining ray of normality." Muriel took the rabbits and dismissed him with an imperious wave of her hand. "Now go wash that blood off before you start getting any elvish ideas and end up howling at the moon."

"One time," Tam grumbled as he headed back to the stream. "Once! And does she let me live it down? No, of course not."

Muriel gave the rabbits to Ceza, who'd spent the entire exchange looking at her paring knife and blushing, with a smile. "See? He's odd. Although I suppose that's par for course with being a dwelf."

"Have you met many?" Ceza asked, assuming in her ignorance of all things martial that dwelf was merely a term for a particular kind of warrior. Like Paladin. Or Corsair.

"Met many what?"

"Dwelfs."

Muriel opened her mouth, on the verge of setting Ceza right, and then thought better. "No, no. Just Tam. There's not really a big market for dwelfs."

"Ahh." Ceza looked in the general direction that Tam had taken, ignoring the rabbit's blood that dripped onto lap. "It must be lonely. Well. Odd is all right. It's better than boring. Pass me those sticks." Ceza skewered the rabbits and placed them on the makeshift spit they had rigged up. "You live with him, though. Aren't you afraid that it'll ruin your reputation?"

"I don't see how my living with Tam could possibly harm my standing as a warrior." Muriel leaned back on her hands and narrowed her eyes. "Besides, my living arrangements with Tam are really quite simple. I handle the finances and promise to not sell his things while he's sleeping and in return he cooks and cleans and pays my bail bonds."

"Oh." The fire crackled and hissed from the dripping fat of the rabbits. "But. Doesn't this." Ceza blushed. Though she was wise to the ways of the world and certainly no virgin, she was still a Princess and quite uncomfortable with actually saying what she meant. "Well. Don't you find it hard to bring a man home with Tam there?"

"Not really." Muriel pushed herself back up and flicked a small stick into the fire, which promptly expanded with a dramatic whoomph, turning a frightening green in color. It roared up into the sky, a column of pure occultic power that screamed their location for miles around and incinerated the pot of potatoes, the rabbits, and Ceza's eyebrows.

For one breathless moment, the world held its breath in pyrotechnic admiration of the spectacular light display Muriel had created. And then Ceza screamed and the stunned hush was shattered. From the picket line a choral reprise from the horses echoed Ceza's scream, as they kicked and reared in an effort to get away from the green pillar of flame. All over the camp, shouts erupted, making the four people not directly involved in the towering occultic sign post sound like, well, four confused and frightened people.

"Muriel!"

"It wasn't my fault!" Muriel scrambled away from the roaring pillar of green flame, pulling Ceza with her. "I just tossed a stick into the fire! I didn't even touch a pot this time, I swear! And besides, this could be a, a, a divine visitation. The Gods like columns of fire, right?"

"Does this look divine to you?" Spike gestured at the remnants of their fire, the flickering green light casting frightening shadows on his face. "I mean, true, it does have a certain resemblance to the pillar of fire that Myopic Eo is said to have appeared in once, but as I recall Eo's fire didn't try incinerate the prophet Dikoles⁶. And this," Spike stepped back as the column burned brighter, the heat causing the log Muriel had been resting on to burst into flames. "This is definitely trying to incinerate us. Besides, I don't hear any gnomic utterances."

"The rabbits." Tam smacked his forehead. "I gave her the rabbits."

Spike and Wren stared at Tam in utter bemusement for a moment.

"You idiot!" Spike smacked the back of Tam's head. "You should have known better."

"I'm sorry! She put her hand out and it was, y'know, instinctive."

Muriel glared, just on general principle. "I'll have you know that I just touched the rabbits."

"With you," Tam said, "that's really all that's needed⁷."

"It didn't go green and column-y until I threw a stick into the fire. It was a kind of odd stick too."

"Oh. Oh!" Wren suddenly flushed. "Was it very smooth? Felt slightly cool to the touch?" Muriel nodded. "Ah. Sorry. That was a potion component. I, ah, I guess I dropped it earlier."

"There!" Muriel said. "See? It's not my fault." She gestured just as the fire died, snuffing out almost as suddenly as it started, leaving the not-very-dark darkness of exurbia, a darkness lit by stars and moonlight. The after-image of the column of flame hung around a bit longer, not knowing that it had outstayed it's welcome.

"Great," Tam said in the dim light. "Well, you know what this means."

"Trail rations?"

"Muriel never being allowed anywhere near the campfire, ever?"

"I wait until you're all asleep and then do something terrible to you?"

"I'll never again doubt that Wren is telling the truth about Muriel's horrendous cooking skills?"

"Guard duty." Absalom's quiet words cut through the chatter like a pike through a school of whatever fish pike eat, killing the atmosphere of relieved joking in one toothy bite.

"We have a winner." Tam scraped some dirt over the cold remains of the fire, more for something to do than because it was needed. " Thanks to that little display of mystic pyrotechnics, we've given our location to every Villain within a hundred leagues. Me, Spike, Muriel and Absalom. Two hour shifts. We'll keep the Princess in the middle. Sorry, Wren, but I don't think we'll be needing any more magic tonight."

"I've got the first watch," Muriel said.

"Last," Spike called over his shoulder as he headed to the lean-to.

"I'll take second. That okay?" Tam raised his eyebrows, ignoring the fact that it was pretty useless gesture in dull light.

"Yeah." Absalom faded back into the darkness and even Tam had problems seeing him.

Tam stared up into the stars. Why me? he thought in the grand tradition of heroes across the multiverse. Why am I the one who has to deal with this? I just wanted to make battleaxes. Is that really too much to ask?

"It's because you're the one with all the prophecies written about him," Muriel said quietly, standing by his side and staring up into the vast celestial heaven with him, knowing him well enough to recognize when he slipped into the 'tortured martyr' mindset.

"Still. Sometimes, I wish..."

"What?"

"That you'd just learn to stay away from cooking." Tam clapped Muriel on the shoulder. "Well. Should be quiet tonight. Wake me in two hours." He moved over to the picket line, making soft, soothing noises as he began to convince the still wild-eyed horses that everything was all right and the very scary pillar of flame wasn't going to come back⁸.

Muriel grunted and made herself comfortable against a handy tree trunk. Adrenaline was still humming through her body and if she didn't calm down soon she'd given in to her natural curiosity and see what interesting bits and bobbles she could find in her companion's saddlebags⁹.

"Where's a good Evil Mastermind attack when you need one?" she muttered.

*

The Forbidden Castle of Thorkell was not the type of castles that are normally considered 'forbidden'. It had large, clean windows and high ceilings and soaring, fairy tale turrets, and was almost entirely bereft of looming gargoyles. The moat was almost never used as a privey, and on warm, sunny days the drawbridge was lowered and the portcullis raised and the local townsfolk would be free to wander in and out and have a gander at the famous Thorkell Grottos, ooh and aahing over the crystal formations which looked remarkably like funky bits of stone. The air was pure and clean, the setting was idyllic and the people were honest, hardworking and cheerful.

The Forbidden Castle of Thorkell was, all in all, a terrible place to be a Villain. It was a horrible assignment, given only to the top members of the Guild of Adventurer's (Villainous Division) or members who forgot to pay their dues on time. There was something about the air--or possibly the water--that made it nigh impossible to oppress the populace and the complete lack of thunderstorms made the creation of patchwork monsters nothing more than a fond memory. It also didn't help that many of the castle's chambers were done in soothing pastels and contained carved scrollwork of bunnies frolicking. All of the cheer and good-will that infected the land surrounding the Forbidden Castle found its egress here; it was quite common for Villains banished here to go stark raving mad in self-defense, picking up such quirks as refusing to eat anything but small chocolate candies coated by a hard sugar shell of varying colors (except for brown), or speaking only in iambic pentameter, or wearing their underpants on their heads¹⁰.

No Villain had ever lasted more than a year as the master of the Forbidden Castle, although the old men who spent their days sitting outside of the pub did think that this year's Poor Unfortunate might be of a slightly different caliber. It was his second month here and he was still wearing black--quite an accomplishment of mule-headed stupidity since the local bees were attracted to black, the color of their favorite flower which bloomed in weed-like quantities in the surrounding meadows. And thus far, the only side effect of living in the castle that this year's Villain had managed to pick up was being forced to sing bits of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas when he wished to communicate.

The current Master of The Forbidden Castle surveyed his cherry domain with a cold and passionless eye. "A British tar is a soaring soul, As free as a mountain bird," he sang in a profound bass^11/sup>. He did a little skip hop and bowed a courtly bow to an invisible dance partner. "His energetic fist should be ready to resist a dictatorial word. His nose should pant and his lips should curl, his cheeks should flame and his brow should furl." He cavorted down the carpeted hallway to the main staircase, his stern, cold face a picture of absolute seriousness. The servants of the Forbidden Castle scrambled to get out of his way, having seen far worse things in their time here to be fazed by something as banal as Gilbert and Sullivan. "His bosom should heave and his heart should glow, and his fist should be ever ready for a knock-down blow."

The Villain took a deep breath in preparation for the next verse, poised at the top of the stairs, and sneezed. It was a messy sneeze, full of snot and spittle and with the recoil of a mule's kick. He teetered at the top of the stairs, windmilling his arms desperately, one leg thrust out for balance. Slowly, slowly he regained his equilibrium.

And then he sneezed again.

Violently.

Explosively.

As he tumbled down the stairs, he sang, between the howls of pain, "His brow should flash with an inborn fire, his brow with scorn be wrung."

All of which is by way of illustrating that despite the fluffy bunny motif, the Forbidden Castle of Thorkell was, quite possibly, the evilest castle to be erected by mortal men. And that the forces of 'Good' should never be crossed because, though powerless to take any sort of substantive action against Villains, have no qualms about making minor changes that will adversely affect the opposition. And that the forces of 'Good' make five-year-olds look sophisticated.